The Long Shot (Stephen Leather Thrillers) Page 44

  “Maybe,” said Bailey.

  “I don’t think so,” said Lovell. “I don’t think it’ll make any difference at all.” He grinned. “But what the hell, I get paid anyway, right?”

  “Right,” said Bailey.

  The men drove the rest of the way in silence, other than when Bailey gave Lovell directions. Eventually they saw the hangar. “Wow, it looks huge close up,” said Lovell. “Like a giant white whale or something.” He was looking at an airship which was to the left of the hangar, tethered to the ground with ropes. The blimp was more than a hundred feet long and emblazoned with the logo of a Japanese electronics company. Below the gas-filled envelope was a white gondola with windows all around it and two fan-shaped engines at the rear.

  Lovell parked the car next to the hangar and took his bag out of the trunk while Bailey stretched. Patrick Farrell came over to meet them. He was wearing the same short-sleeved white shirt as they were, with black slacks. He shook Bailey’s hand and the Irishman introduced him to Lovell. Farrell cast a predatory eye over Lovell’s body as he shook hands and Bailey threw him a warning look.

  “Are we ready to go?” asked Bailey.

  “Yup,” said Farrell. “The laser sight is under my seat in a bag. There are two personnel, a cameraman and his assistant. The cameraman’s a big brute, I can tell you. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

  The three men went over to the base of the blimp. Four ground-crew in blue overalls were preparing to help with the launch. There were two doors to the gondola, one on each side, and each bore the aviation company’s logo. A set of aluminium steps had been placed next to one of the doors and Farrell stood to one side to allow Bailey and Lovell to climb aboard. Lovell stowed his bag behind the pilot’s seat and nodded a greeting to the cameraman and his assistant. As Farrell had said, the cameraman was massive, a big bear of a man with a wild ginger beard and hairy forearms. He was the last choice he would have expected for an assignment in an airship. As if to compensate for the man’s bulk, his assistant was much younger and slighter, barely five feet six inches tall and with the lithe figure of a ballet dancer. They were both fussing over their equipment.

  Bailey climbed into the co-pilot’s seat and scanned the instrument panel. It was very similar to the standard aeroplane panel: attitude indicator, heading indicator, compass, airspeed indicator, vertical speed indicator, altimeter, slip and turn indicator, power indicators for the two engines, and magnetic compass. The airship was also fitted with DME and VOR navigation equipment, and an expensive Trimble TNL-GPS system which used twenty-seven navigation satellites orbiting the earth to fix its position to within fifteen feet. There was an extra dial which would allow them to read the speed and direction of the wind once they were stationary in the air, connected to a meter suspended under the gondola.

  The controls were also similar to those of a fixed-wing aircraft, despite the difference in the propulsion system, with rudder pedals on the floor, power throttles in between the two seats and control wheels in front of the pilot and co-pilot.

  A soft hand squeezed his shoulder and Farrell slipped into the pilot’s seat. Lovell sat in a third seat at right angles to theirs and groped around for the seat harness. Farrell looked over his shoulder and asked the cameraman and his assistant to take their seats and strap themselves in for takeoff. He put on his headset and motioned for Bailey to do the same.

  He handed Bailey a plastic-coated checklist which the Irishman read through as Farrell expertly went over the controls and instruments, started the two rear engines and checked that his instruments were functioning correctly. Satisfied, he gave a thumbs-up to the groundcrew and they released the tethering ropes. The airship rose slowly and almost vertically with a surprising amount of vibration. It wasn’t like a helicopter, Bailey thought, it was more like a speedboat, growling and making his chest shudder.

  Farrell increased power to the engines and pulled on the control wheel. The airship glided upwards, and Bailey felt the seat press into his back. Farrell’s voice came over the headset. “Okay?” he asked.

  “Terrific,” answered Bailey.

  “How about you take the controls while I speak to Baltimore Approach,” he said. “Take her up to about five hundred feet and then level her off.”

  Behind Bailey, Lovell sat with his hands linked in his lap. He saw the cameraman’s assistant looking at him and he smiled and winked.

  Carlos smiled at the girl behind the reception desk, and signed his credit-card slip with a flourish. “Thank you, Mr Sharrard,” said the girl, handing him a key. “Your room is on the seventh floor. I hope you enjoy your stay at the Holiday Inn.”

  “I’m sure I will,” said Carlos, picking up his suitcase and bag.

  “Do you need help with those?” she asked.

  “Oh no, my wife and I can manage just fine,” he said. He walked over to the elevator where Mary Hennessy was waiting, her newly-red hair tied back in a ponytail, a wide-brimmed hat on her head. “The seventh floor,” he said. They went up together and found their room at the far end of the building. Mary looked out through the window at a fire station and multi-storey car park while Carlos slid his suitcase into the wardrobe.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Mary turned and nodded and they left the room and went back to the elevator. Mary was carrying a sports bag over her shoulder and she tapped it nervously as she waited for the elevator doors to open. There was no-one in the elevator when it arrived and they went down to the fourth floor. A trolley piled high with clean sheets, towels and bathroom supplies stood halfway along the corridor and as they walked by they saw a black maid making a bed. Mary stopped outside one of the doors and checked the number. “This is it,” she said. She knocked on the door, but there was no answer. Carlos nodded and walked back along the corridor to the room where the maid was working. He knocked quietly on the open door and heard a tap being turned off in the bathroom. The maid appeared at the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “I’m really sorry to bother you, but my wife and I have just stepped out of our room without our key,” he said politely. “Do you think you could let us in with your pass key?”

  “Of course, hon,” she said, giving him a beaming smile which showed a gold tooth at the front. She waddled down the corridor, swinging a pass key on a chain. She saw Mary waiting outside the door, and smiled.

  “I’m sorry about this,” she said. “I feel so stupid.”

  “Oh, it happens all the time, hon,” the maid said. She looked at the number of the room, then frowned. “Are you sure you have the right room?” she said. “I didn’t think there was anyone . . .”

  Her words were cut off as Carlos clapped his hand across her mouth. He dropped his briefcase on the floor and used his left hand to stop her thrashing about. She was a big woman but Carlos was strong and he leant backwards and tightened his grip on her mouth. Mary stepped forward and grabbed the key, ripping it off the chain. She inserted it into the lock, opened the door and then went to pick up the briefcase as Carlos half pushed, half carried, the struggling maid into the room.

  Carlos pulled the maid down onto the bed like a cowboy wrestling a steer to the ground as Mary closed the door. The maid’s legs were flailing around and Carlos was trying to get his left arm around the woman’s throat, but he was finding it difficult. The maid’s breath was coming in short gasps and her eyes were wide with fright, but she wasn’t losing consciousness.

  Mary grinned. “Come on Ilich, finish her off.”

  The maid thrashed her head from side to side as Carlos struggled to get his arm around her neck.

  Mary shook her head in amusement and reached into her bag. Her hand reappeared with the P228 and its silencer and she aimed, almost casually, at the maid’s chest, manoeuvring the weapon so that there was no chance of hitting Carlos. The gun coughed once and the maid’s legs both kicked out together and a red stain appeared on her apron. Mary fired once more, to make certain, and Carlos released his grip on the woman’s mo
uth.

  “Get rid of the trolley,” he said as he began wrapping the body in the bedcover.

  Mary went out into the corridor and pushed in the laden trolley. Carlos swung the body of the maid over his shoulder and dumped her in the bathtub, then put the trolley into the bathroom and closed the door. He walked over to the window and looked out. Less than half a mile away was the baseball park, and he had a perfect view of the pitcher’s mound and the spectator stands behind it.

  “Help me with the table, please,” he asked, and he and Mary moved the dressing table until it was in front of the window.

  Mary looked at her wristwatch. “I’ll have to be going, Ilich,” she said. She wasn’t sure how to say goodbye. She knew that he wouldn’t want her to wish him luck, and it seemed trite to just say that she’d see him later at the airfield. What they were about to do was of such enormity that it merited some words to mark the occasion, but nothing came to mind. She realised that he was looking at her with an amused smile on his face and for the first time she was flustered in his presence.

  Carlos stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her in a fierce embrace, more like a wrestler’s bear hug than a friendly squeeze. He kissed her on both cheeks, then pushed her away, his big hands on her shoulders. “We will succeed,” he said. “We will both get what we want. What we need.” His dark eyes bored into hers and she tilted her head down, feeling like a small child in the grip of her father. He put a finger under her chin and lifted her head up. “Go,” he commanded softly. “And take care.”

  As she left the room, Carlos opened his briefcase and began assembling Dina’s rifle. In the car park below, youngsters with bright orange flags were guiding drivers into parking spaces, while the sidewalks were thronged with baseball fans, chattering and laughing as they headed towards the ballpark.

  Patrick Farrell switched on the Global Positioning System and read his position on the display as Matthew Bailey turned the airship to the north, over the Chesapeake Bay. At an altitude of only five hundred feet they could clearly see the waves curling on the water below. Bailey watched a yacht carve through the sea, an elderly man in a white crew-neck sweater holding the wheel with one arm and drinking a can of beer with the other.

  Farrell had spoken to Baltimore Approach and had received permission to enter the Terminal Control Area around the main international airport. “Fly a heading of Three Five Five,” Farrell told Bailey, “that’ll take us over the city. You’ll have to climb, take us up to about nine hundred feet to make sure we’re well clear of any obstructions.”

  Bailey nodded and made the course correction and began to gain altitude. Down to his left, several miles away, he could see the burnt hulk of the house they’d stayed at, reduced to blackened timbers and fallen masonry, the grass around it rutted by the wheels of the fire engines and emergency vehicles which had long since departed. To his right were the twin spans of the Bay Bridge, ferrying traffic across the bay.

  Bailey took a quick look over his shoulder. The cameraman and his assistant were preparing their equipment. The assistant had lifted a hatch in the floor of the gondola in which there was a mounting for the camera which would allow it to film directly downwards.

  “We’re right on schedule,” said Farrell. “According to ATIS, the wind is below five knots.”

  “Perfect,” said Bailey. Ahead he saw the tower blocks of the city centre, sparkling in the light of the late afternoon sun as it headed inexorably for the horizon.

  Cole Howard found Bob Sanger on the second level of the main stand, checking security arrangements at the entrance to the sky boxes, where corporations paid huge amounts of money for the privilege of entertaining their executives and clients. Because the President and an entourage of VIPs were to be in one of the main boxes, the corporations had been required to submit a list of their guests in advance, and each visitor had to show the requisite pass and be checked off against a list held by the Secret Service agents. The managing director of a leading oil company and a woman who was not his wife had been turned away for not having the correct pass, and the oil company’s public relations executive was trying to persuade Sanger to be more flexible. Sanger refused to budge. He explained patiently that the security arrangements could not be altered under any circumstances, and that if the PR man continued to make a scene he would be removed from the ballpark and would spend the next twenty-four hours in a cell.

  Howard watched with great amusement as the man stormed off, threatening to take the matter up with Sanger’s boss.

  “What an asshole,” said Sanger, as he walked over to Howard, Joker and Clutesi. “I don’t think he realises that my boss is the President of the United States. What does he think? That I’d put his catering arrangements before the President’s security?” He was wearing the regulation dark glasses, and Howard realised it was the first time he’d seen the Secret Service man without his pince-nez spectacles. The dark glasses made him look slightly sinister until he smiled. “So, how are the vests?” Sanger asked.

  “The vests are just great,” said Howard. “What time does the President arrive?”

  Sanger looked at his wristwatch. “Ten minutes,” he said. “Marine One will land in the ballpark, over there.” He pointed and Howard saw that he had an earpiece in his right ear. “Our men will escort him and the First Lady directly into the stand. He’ll greet the Prime Minister inside the sky box. After the anthem the Prime Minister will go down to the mound and throw the first pitch, then he’ll be escorted back to the sky box. His own security team will be with him, and we’ll have our own agents around them.”

  Howard frowned and reached into his pocket for the sheets of paper Kelly had given him. He flicked to the itinerary for the visit to the ballpark. There was no mention of the Prime Minister throwing the first pitch. It was a bad slip.

  Sanger turned to look at the three men. “You’ve got your radios on, right?” All three nodded. “Okay, we use code-names over the air so that there’s no mix-up. You’ll hear the President referred to as Pied Piper.”

  “Pied Piper?” said Joker. “You’re not serious?”

  Sanger smiled. “That’s his code-name. We started using it during the election and I guess no-one saw fit to change it.”

  “The President knows, right?” said Howard.

  “Sure,” said Sanger. “He’s got a sense of humour. You know what George and Barbara Bush were? Timber Wolf and Tranquillity. Bit pretentious, huh?”

  “I guess so,” said Howard.

  “Yeah, well, you’ll hear the Prime Minister referred to as Parliament. The Fantasy Factory must have been working through ‘p’ code-names.” He grinned ruefully at the jargon. “That’s what the guys call the Service’s Intelligence Division,” he explained. “The top agent here will be Dave Steadman, he’ll be arriving on Marine One with the presidential team. Once the helicopter lands, Steadman will be in charge and it’ll be his voice you’ll hear directing operations. Where do you guys plan to be?”

  “We’ll be down on the diamond when the helicopter lands,” said Howard. “Then we’ll follow you up to the sky box. I guess he’ll be most vulnerable walking from the helicopter to the stand?”

  “Actually, no. He’ll be shielded from the tall buildings by the helicopter,” said Sanger. “He’ll be most vulnerable in the sky box.” He gestured over at the buildings looking down on the ballpark. “We’ve got men on all the floors which Andy Kim says are potential trouble spots. Ed Mulholland has arranged for a hundred rookies from the Academy to help. We’ve got sixty around the ballpark and we’re using them to monitor the buildings, too.” Overhead they heard the thud of helicopter rotors and they looked up at a Maryland National Guard Huey, circling over the ballpark. “There are two National Guard Hueys up there, and a Police spotter helicopter. We’ve got snipers from the Baltimore SWAT unit in the Hueys, and on top of some of the taller buildings.” He gestured around the stand. “We’ve brought in almost a hundred extra agents in plain clothes and they’re s
cattered among the spectators.”

  He pointed to a long, brick building to the right of the stadium, many of whose windows looked directly down into the ballpark. “We’ve got snipers in there, too.”

  Joker looked over at the building. It was so close that he could see the faces of the people looking out. If they were offices, he could imagine a lot of people offering to work overtime on game nights. They had a perfect view of the ballpark, almost as close as some of the spectators who’d paid to get in.

  “I can’t stress enough how important it is that you keep the identification we’ve given you in full view at all times,” continued Sanger. “I’d like you to also keep your FBI badges visible, too. And don’t make any movement that could in any way be interpreted as being hostile to the President. Everyone’s a little jittery today.”

  The three men nodded. “Okay,” said Sanger, “I’ll leave you to it. I’ve got a few more checks to make before Marine One touches down.” He turned to go, and then stopped short as if he’d just remembered something. “Oh yeah,” he said, “we picked up Patrick Farrell this morning. He denies all knowledge of Matthew Bailey, but we’re putting the squeeze on him right now. If he knows anything, we’ll get him to talk.”

  He smiled and walked off. “What is it with the dark glasses?” asked Joker. “How come all Secret Service agents have them?”

  “Gives them an air of mystery,” said Clutesi. “Makes them seem more than human. Sorta like your jacket.” He grinned and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. It was in the high eighties and humid.

  Howard smiled. “It’s more than image,” he said. Through the earpiece he heard Sanger calling in for situation reports from agents on top of a bank building. “They can look over a crowd, and no one knows who or what they’re looking at. Without the glasses they’d only have eye contact with a few individuals – with them, they can stare out a whole crowd. And if a psychopath thinks he’s been stared at, he’s not going to do anything stupid. That’s the theory anyway.” He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a pair of Ray-Bans. He put them on, and grinned. “And if you can’t beat ‘em . . .”