stretched almost to each side of the ship. Uniformed waiters attended to several slim topless girls and fat topless men. The target himself was nowhere to be seen.
Lars checked his watch: 12:20 p.m. The target’s visitor was late.
Then he checked the scene again through the rifle scope, which was more powerful, and read the distance: 2,401 yards—a greater distance than before, but still not the record.
He noted, however, that if he made this shot, he would have the two longest shots for a single sniper. Nobody would ever know it except him. But to Lars, this was like owning a stolen Picasso, kept hidden in the secret room of a collector’s home. His knowledge of his own achievement alone would be enough for him.
He saw two members of the crew, wearing white uniforms with white caps, begin to descend the ladder to the starboard side of the ship and step onto a wooden motor launch that gleamed with bright varnish. They started the engines and immediately cast off, heading towards the beach.
Lars picked up the scope and trained it on the town. The road along the front, above the beach, was crowded with cars and buses as before. But there was a dark blue custom Bentley parked at the top of an old stone causeway now. He saw a short man wearing a cream seersucker jacket step out of the back seat of the Bentley, the door held open by a uniformed chauffeur. It was the American.
A few onlookers tried to get a closer look at who was in the car, but they were kept at bay. Nearly a dozen bodyguards were in evidence, as far as Lars could count. Someone tried to take a picture of the Bentley. They had their camera snatched by a bodyguard, smashed on the ground, and then returned with a wad of cash wrapped around it.
The short American put on a wide straw hat and pulled it over his eyes. In his attempt to dress in the understated fashion of the rich, he looked immediately noticeable.
Then the American walked down the causeway, flanked by four bodyguards, and onto some old stone steps, green with dried seaweed, at the bottom of which the launch had tied up. Two of the bodyguards came with the short man onto the launch; the rest returned to a pair of Hummers that were parked, Lars now saw, on the far side of the street from the Bentley. How these Russians flaunted their wealth in front of the American!
Turning his scope back to the launch, he watched it as it cut across the glassy bay to the yacht at a more sedate pace now that it had the visitor on board.
The five figures walked up the steps and onto the yacht. The short American was met by two other men who wore dark glasses and matching khaki shorts.
One of them shook the American’s hand, the other guided him to a colourful striped armchair; there was a small debate on whether he wished to be in the sun or shade, and he chose the shade.
When the American took his hat off, Lars recognised the face. He had seen it before in pictures, a necessary part of his preparation, and he already knew the identity of the American visitor; Richard Rivera, PR guru, general fixer, and networker, with clearance from the CIA. He was one of three senior advisers to the Republican candidate in the American elections in just under three months’ time.
The target didn’t seem to be on deck.
Lars waited. The sun began its slow descent from the meridian. It was nearly an hour before the target appeared.
When he finally emerged and walked out into the sun, Slava the Russian, as he liked to be known, was dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a white T-shirt. Barefoot and unshaven, he stood on the deck, stretched, looked at the sky, then finally glanced down at his guest. It seemed to Lars that he wanted to demonstrate that he’d been sleeping. It bordered on disrespectful.
Rivera stood and shook hands with the Russian. Lars saw the words of greeting pass between them and then a joke, followed by a short laugh from Slava.
Levelling the rifle, Lars squatted with his back hard against the rear balustrade. It was uncomfortable, and he didn’t want to hold the position for long. But by the time he had gotten comfortable and squinted down the rifle scope again, he saw that a party of bodyguards and crew were descending the steps again towards the launch. The target and Rivera were still on deck, but walking away into the door from which the target had just emerged.
Lars watched the launch take off. It did a couple of sweeps of the yacht and then seemed to be widening its area of observation. Two of the guards were training binoculars on the beach, on other boats, and towards the monastery itself. Lars pulled the inch or two of barrel that might be visible back inside the balustrade, making the shot impossible now. He was too cramped with the trigger up this close.
He withdrew the rifle completely and screwed on the silencer.
The launch widened its circle and finally came to rest a hundred yards away from the island, only a hundred and fifty yards from the bell tower. It sat there, rolling gently from its own motion rather than any great movement in the water.
Lars dared not use the scope while it was there. Its antireflective lens was no guarantee, and the sun was coming at more of an angle every twenty minutes or so.
Then the launch started its engine and made its way in loops back towards the yacht.
Lars turned the scope onto the deck of the yacht. The target and Rivera were standing at the top of the steps now. Two more launches had been lowered, or withdrawn from some internal dock at the stern. The deck seemed to be teeming with men in dark glasses, phones wired to their ears. There was activity all around Rivera and Slava the Russian, who stood there, apparently oblivious to the commotion around him, a man accustomed to being waited on by dozens of acolytes. Slava lit a cigar from a proffered humidor. Rivera declined his offer of another.
The three launches were gathered now at the foot of the steps. Slava ushered Rivera down the steps first, and then followed himself. They stepped into the first launch, which waited with idling engines for the guards to fill the other two. When all were aboard, the three launches set off.
Lars assumed they’d be going to the town—for a late lunch perhaps; a restaurant reserved outright by Slava, as was his custom. But then he saw they were coming right towards him, straight at the island, directly into the sights of the rifle. Slava the target was dead ahead. Lars’s heart thumped against his chest. They were coming to the monastery.
He broke into a sweat. He could stay where he was, wait and see. Or he could pack up and join the others down below for the return trip across the isthmus. If the Russians came, there was a risk that they would insist on opening up the bell tower, no matter that it was closed for repairs. They would donate some huge sum of money to the monastery, just for the pleasure of going to the forbidden. That was how these Russians were. Show them a forbidden entrance, and that was the only place they wanted to go.
He could disappear in the tourist bus. Or he could shoot now.
Gently, he pushed the rifle through the gap in the stone balustrade and picked up the first launch through the scope. It was rising and falling as the engines cut deeply into the water. It was a straight shot, with the movement up and down only. He didn’t think long. He didn’t have time. He zeroed again for the reducing distance and fired.
Through the rifle scope, he saw the first launch suddenly fall from its rearing advance down onto its bow, pushing the water ahead of it as it lost way. The other two launches shot ahead, then saw what had happened and swerved in towards each other in tight circles, returning fast to the first launch. Lars saw Slava the Russian, Slava the target. He seemed to have been punched in the chest, hit squarely by the .50-calibre shell and knocked over the seat and into the stern.
Lars levelled the rifle again. He had the zero this time. Same distance. One boat was stopped in front of Slava’s launch, idling its engine. Lars fired his second shot. It entered the engine of the boat, shattering it.
The skipper of the third boat now jammed its throttle into forward gear. Its engine raced, and its prop churned the water. Lars’s third shot hit the upper pins that clamped the outboard engine to the top of the transom. Held only by the pins at its lower edge, the wildly racing engine snapped back from its fixture; the propeller rammed upwards, screaming through the water and up into the wooden hull. Gouging easily through the hull, it shot up into the crowded boat.
There was chaos, blood flying, screams. The boat flew out of control.
He had two more shots left in the magazine. He fired one towards the engine of the target’s launch, but it was still face on, the engine sheltered by the rest of the boat from where Lars was crouched. He decided to aim the last shot at the engine a second time, and prayed a second time.
The last of the scene he witnessed in the bay was a wild, scrambled pandemonium of bodies and arms.
