The Long Shot (Stephen Leather Thrillers) Read online

  Howard looked over at Bob Sanger, who was still talking into his walkie-talkie. He turned to Don Clutesi, who was staring open-mouthed at the diamond, where the Prime Minister was being engulfed by bodyguards. One of the Secret Service agents, a gun in his hand, knelt over Joker and opened his shirt collar. Howard gripped Clutesi’s arm. “I’m going down,” Howard said urgently. “Tell Sanger to get a chopper to pick me up.”

  “A chopper?” said Clutesi. “Why?”

  “Just do it, Don,” said Howard. He ran to the door, throwing his binoculars to the ground.

  Rich Lovell had the back of a head in his sights, but he had no way of knowing whether or not it was the Prime Minister. Carlos had told him to keep firing, but Lovell knew it was useless. His target was four seconds away, and running from him. Even if the Prime Minister hadn’t been surrounded by bodyguards, there was no way he could predict where anyone would be four seconds into the future.

  “What’s happening?” screamed Matthew Bailey as he squatted by the laser sight.

  “I missed,” said Lovell. “I don’t know how, but I missed.”

  “What do you mean, you missed?”

  Lovell looked up. “I had him in my sights, and I fired, and then at the last moment someone got in the way.”

  “You mean one of his bodyguards walked into the bullet?”

  Lovell shook his head. “No, some guy threw himself at the Prime Minister. The bullet got him in the chest, dead centre. Now everyone’s running off the field. I can’t get a clear shot.” He put his rifle back to his shoulder. The bodyguards had disappeared into the safety of the tunnel.

  “Can you fire again?” Bailey asked.

  “No,” said Lovell.

  “What about Carlos and Schoelen? Have they fired?”

  “I don’t know,” said Lovell.

  Patrick Farrell looked anxiously over at Bailey. “What do we do?”

  “We keep calm for a start,” said Bailey. “No one will know the shot came from the airship. Just take us back to the airfield.” He got to his feet and headed back to the co-pilot’s seat. “Keep talking to air-traffic control, tell them we’ve a problem with the camera and that we’re heading back.”

  As Farrell put the blimp in a slow left turn, Bailey spoke into his radio microphone, a worried frown on his face. “M-M-Mary, are you there? M-M-Mary?” There was no reply.

  The words came out slowly and Kelly had to strain to hear. “Did we get him?” asked Mary, her grip tightening on Kelly’s arm.

  Kelly looked down at the baseball diamond. The First Lady was being ushered to the tunnel, surrounded by armed Secret Service agents. A helicopter thundered overhead, its rotor wash tugging at their suits. More agents were pushing the Prime Minister into the darkness of the tunnel, out of danger.

  Kelly cradled Mary’s head in her lap. The blood had stopped bubbling from her chest, replaced with a pink froth. “Yes,” Kelly whispered.

  “You’re sure?” gasped Mary, her eyelids fluttering.

  Kelly saw the Prime Minister disappear into the safety of the tunnel. “Yes,” she lied, “I’m sure.”

  Kelly felt Mary shiver and then relax. Blood dribbled from the corner of Mary’s mouth and down her neck.

  Cole Howard ran out of the sky box, past the President and his entourage of Secret Service agents amid a forest of Uzis and Heckler & Koch submachine guns.

  He took the escalator, jumping the stairs four at a time. On the ground level he saw the Prime Minister and his security team heading in his direction and Howard unclipped his FBI badge from the breast pocket of his suit and held it aloft. “FBI!” he yelled, to make sure that there would be no confusion. The American and British bodyguards were all edgy, with their fingers inside the trigger guards of their weapons, and the Prime Minister appeared to be in a state of shock. An older Secret Service agent, a Uzi held aloft, was screaming at them to move faster and looking over his shoulder as if he expected to see pursuers.

  Howard sprinted down the tunnel, shouting all the way that he was with the FBI. He had to squeeze by the First Lady and her bodyguards before he burst out of the confined space and into the huge stadium. He heard a public announcement reverberating around the arena, calling for everyone to remain calm. Howard could see spectators streaming towards the exits while others were standing in shock. Howard looked up. In the distance he could see the airship turning and heading away from the city. A deafening beating sound filled his ears and he tilted back his head. Directly overhead was a National Guard Huey helicopter, coming in to land. The downbeat of the rotors sent dust and sand whirling around Howard, stinging his eyes and making it hard to breathe. He ducked his head and put a hand over his mouth as the helicopter went by and landed about fifty yards away.

  When he looked up the Huey was on the ground, its rotors still turning. Howard jogged towards it, bent double at the waist. Hands grabbed for him and half pulled, half dragged him inside and almost immediately the rotors speeded up and the Huey leapt back into the air.

  Carlos pushed the maid’s trolley to one side and checked himself in the bathroom mirror. Satisfied that there was no blood on his face or clothes, he picked up his briefcase, stepped over the body of the dead Secret Service agent, and let himself out of the room. In the elevator a pretty brunette with a name badge identifying her as an assistant manager smiled and asked if he was enjoying his stay.

  Carlos returned her smile and nodded. “It’s a fine hotel,” he said. When the elevator arrived at the ground floor she held the door open for him and allowed him out first, wishing him a good day. They were always so polite, the Americans, thought Carlos as he left the hotel, swinging the briefcase. Overhead, a National Guard helicopter was climbing into the air.

  Cole Howard yelled at the pilot to head for the airship, but his voice was lost in the roar of the turbine. A crewman in an olive flightsuit handed him a headset and showed him how to operate the microphone switch. Through the intercom system Howard explained that there was a sniper on board the airship.

  In the back of the Huey with Howard were the National Guard crewman, a hard-faced Secret Service agent in a dark grey suit and ubiquitous sunglasses and a SWAT sniper in black overalls.

  “What’s the plan, can we shoot the blimp down?” asked the agent.

  “Wouldn’t it explode?” the crewman cut in. “Aren’t they full of inflammable gas or something?”

  “You’re thinking of the Hindenberg; back then they were full of hydrogen,” said the pilot. “These days they use other gases that don’t burn.”

  “So we can shoot holes in it?” asked the sniper.

  “I guess so,” said Howard. The Huey was climbing rapidly and his stomach turned over. He took deep breaths, trying to quell his unease.

  “I dunno about that,” said the pilot. “Look at the size of it, it’s as big as a whale. You could put a hundred holes in it and it’d still stay up for hours.”

  The Secret Service agent had his fingers pressed to his earpiece. “They tried to shoot the President,” he yelled.

  “He’s okay, I saw him,” shouted Howard.

  “You sure?” said the agent.

  “Really,” said Howard. “Your guys got him out safely. He’s okay.” The agent looked relieved. Howard turned to the SWAT sniper. “What about the engines? Could you put a bullet in the engines?”

  “I could try, but this isn’t the steadiest of shooting platforms,” said the sniper. “We’d have to get really close. And the closer we get the better a target we are for the guy on board. You’ve got to remember he isn’t being shaken around as much as we are.”

  Howard nodded. He patted the pilot on the back. “Can you call up the other helicopters, get them to hover nearby?” he asked.

  “Sure,” said the pilot.

  “Tell them there’s a sniper on board, so they’ll have to stay above it.”

  “Okay,” said the pilot. Over the headset, Howard heard him giving instructions to the other helicopter pilots.

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bsp; Howard looked around the cargo compartment. Behind the crew member was a winch and a bright orange harness. Howard pointed at the weapon hanging from a sling under the Secret Service agent’s jacket. “What are you carrying?” he asked.

  “Uzi,” said the agent.

  Howard nodded. “I think I’ve got an idea,” he said, slipping off his jacket.

  “There’s a helicopter heading this way,” shouted Rich Lovell, pulling the barrel of his rifle inside the gondola and squatting on the floor.

  “They can’t know we’re involved,” said Bailey. “Just stay down out of sight. We’ll be okay.”

  Lovell’s right foot was sticking into the neck of the bearded cameraman and he pulled it away with a look of disgust on his face.

  “What do we do?” asked Farrell.

  “We keep on our present course all the way back to the airfield,” said Bailey. “We land this thing, we tie you up, Rich and I drive to Bay Bridge. You tell them we hijacked the blimp and killed the camera crew because they put up a struggle. We fly off into the sunset.”

  “Maybe I should come with you; I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this.”

  “Whatever you want,” said Bailey. With Dina Rashid dead, there would be an extra seat on the Centurion. “But they’ve nothing on you. All you have to do is to stick to your story. Tell them there was a gun on you every step of the way.”

  Farrell shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “There’s another chopper coming our way,” said Lovell. From where he was squatting he saw a two-seater Robinson R-22 police helicopter through the opposite window. “It’s only a spotter but it’s definitely after us.”

  “What do we do now?” asked Farrell, his voice unsteady in Bailey’s headset.

  Bailey wracked his brains. What would Mary do? “A spotter chopper isn’t going to do us any harm,” he said.

  “But it can follow us until we land,” said Farrell.

  Lovell sneaked a look through the window above his head. “Shit, now there’s another one. Another Huey.”

  Bailey looked over to his left. About half a mile away were two green National Guard helicopters. They were quite clearly heading towards the blimp. In the open cargo door of one of the Hueys Bailey could see a SWAT sniper, one leg resting on the skid, a rifle slung across his chest.

  “Rich, can you stop them?” Bailey looked at the former Navy SEAL. He knew that the question wasn’t if Lovell could, but whether or not he was prepared to.

  Lovell stared at Bailey. He reached up and slowly scratched his beard as he looked down his long, hooked nose at Bailey. He nodded, once, and got up on his knees, sticking the barrel of the Barrett out of the open window. He sighted through the scope and tightened his finger on the trigger. Just as it seemed he was about to fire, he took his eye away. “What the fuck?” he exclaimed. “Would you take a look at that!”

  Bailey and Farrell looked to the left. A man in an olive green flightsuit was sitting on the edge of the cargo hold, a bright orange harness looped under his arms. As the men in the blimp watched, the figure slipped off the side of the helicopter, kicked away from the skids, and dropped as the line paid out.

  “What the hell’s he doing?” asked Lovell.

  The helicopter began to climb as the winch paid out its line and the figure swung from side to side like a hypnotist’s pendulum.

  “Who cares?” said Bailey. “Just shoot the fucker.”

  The wind buffeted Cole Howard as the Huey picked up speed. It rippled the arms and legs of the flightsuit with the sound of whips cracking and threatened to spin him in circles. Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes and he narrowed them to almost slits to cut down on the discomfort. He experimented with his limbs, seeing what position would minimise the spinning. He opened his legs and extended his arms and adopted the position he’d seen skydivers use on television. It appeared to work, the spinning motion stopped, though the air pushed against his arms and legs like a living thing. The Uzi swung on its sling and banged against his chest as it was tossed around but he ignored it and concentrated on maintaining a stable position.

  He looked down and immediately regretted it. The city was falling away beneath his feet and his stomach lurched, the bitter taste of bile rising in his throat. He tilted his head back and swallowed and felt the acrid liquid slide back down to his stomach. Above him he saw the crewman, shivering in the doorway in pale green thermal underwear, one hand gripping the winch, the other in a thumbs-up. Howard made a thumbs-up sign with his left hand but immediately began to spin to the right, so he thrust out both hands to the side to stabilise his position.

  The winch continued to pay out. Howard had asked for the maximum length so that he could be as far away from the helicopter as possible, but the more the line extended, the more isolated he felt. He knew that the steel line was virtually unbreakable but he was all too well aware of how thin it was and that it was the only thing keeping him from falling to his death hundreds of feet below. Through his narrowed eyes he saw the blimp, side on and level with the helicopter. Howard began to experiment, he moved his arms in at the same time as he pushed his legs out, trying to hold the Uzi and at the same time remain stable. It seemed to work, though the new position had the effect of thrusting his head forward into the wind and he had to hold his head up higher to see ahead.

  Rich Lovell refocused his telescopic sight on the man on the winch-line. He saw the Uzi across his chest and smiled thinly. The submachine gun was a fearsome weapon, one which was often used by the Navy SEALs, but it was only effective close up. At more than fifty feet, it was as useful as a peashooter. Lovell estimated the distance to be about seven hundred yards and he ran the calculations through the memorised charts in his head, figuring out how much the bullet would drop and by how much he’d have to compensate bearing in mind that his scope was set for a two thousand yard hit. The calculations were complex but he’d done them thousands of times before and it took him less than three seconds. He aimed low, took a breath, let half of it out, and squeezed the trigger.

  As the bullet exploded from the muzzle, Lovell saw the man jerk upwards, out of harm’s way, like a marionette in the hands of an inexperienced puppeteer. The sniper took his eye from the scope to see what had happened. He could see that all the line had been payed out and that the man in the flightsuit was now ascending at the same rate as the Huey. He put his eye back to the telescopic sight and tried to take aim again, but he was too late, the helicopter had climbed above the blimp and the huge gas-filled envelope blocked his field of vision. He looked around for the other National Guard Huey, but realised that it too had flown above the airship.

  Lovell twisted around. On the other side of the blimp he could see the black and white police helicopter, hovering about a mile away. Lovell smiled. They clearly figured they were out of range, but the sniper knew better. He knelt down, took aim, and fired. He kept his eye to the scope as he mentally counted off the four seconds it took the bullet to arc through the air, and then saw the tail rotor disintegrate. The small helicopter immediately began to spin out of control as black smoke poured from its shattered tail gearbox. It lost height quickly, spinning faster and faster, and Lovell leant forward to watch it spiral down. It took almost twenty seconds for it to reach the ground where it smashed into a truck and burst into flames. Cars swerved to avoid the inferno, crashing into each other and mounting the sidewalks.

  Lovell pulled the rifle back inside the gondola. He peered up, hoping for a glimpse of one of the Hueys that he knew were hovering overhead, but all he saw was the blimp envelope and the darkening sky. “Can you see them?” he asked Bailey.

  “No,” said Bailey through the headset.

  “They know we’re here,” said Farrell. “What do we do now?”

  “Just fly the fucking thing and let me think,” said Bailey.

  Lovell caressed the barrel of his rifle. Bailey wasn’t holding up well and Lovell had a growing sense of impending doom. He’d have b
een a lot happier if Carlos or Mary had been in control. He looked down at the smoking wreckage of the helicopter. A parachute would have been nice, just step out of the door, pull the ripcord and float away. But he didn’t have a parachute and until the blimp got a lot closer to the ground, he was in the hands of Bailey and Farrell. And they didn’t inspire confidence. Lovell turned around again to look out of the window. A figure was hanging outside, about twenty feet away from the gondola, with a Uzi in his hands and his legs wide apart. Lovell swung his rifle around but he knew he wouldn’t have time to get off a shot. His reaction was instinctive and had little to do with his chance of succeeding. The windows of the gondola exploded at the same time as he felt four quick punches to his chest. Lovell looked down and saw four small black holes in a neat line across his shirt, red holes with black centres like poppies. He tried to breathe but there was something liquid in his throat that bubbled and wouldn’t let in the air and then he began to cough, heaving spasms that brought up mouthfuls of sweet, sticky blood that dribbled down his chin. The poppies grew and merged together into one red mass.

  Lovell looked up. The figure jerked upwards again and disappeared. A cold numbness spread out from Lovell’s chest and his vision blurred. He sat back on the floor, his rifle between his legs. In his headset he could hear Farrell and Bailey shouting at the same time. Lovell tried to tell them that he’d been hit but his mouth was full of blood and he couldn’t think of the words, they seemed to skip at the edge of his conscious mind like wild horses that didn’t want to be corralled.

  Lovell fell to the side. His head thudded down next to the cameraman and he found himself staring into the dead man’s eyes. Lovell tried to push himself up but he had no feeling in his arms or legs. He heard Bailey shouting, but his voice was faraway as if at the end of a long tunnel. Lovell felt tired and he closed his eyes.

  When the Huey lurched back above the airship, Cole Howard almost threw up. He began to spin and he let the Uzi fall back on its sling as he flung his arms out, trying to stop the dizzying movement. When he was stable again he signalled to the crewman to begin hauling in the line.