He’d done this preparation in the capital, on the roof of the six-storey building from which the furious blast of fire was planned to emanate. The blast would leave the roof of the building, arc over a second, higher building, and descend perfectly on the target.
The building was well away from the centre of the city. If he wondered why it was all to happen from this obscure building so far from the main action, and why it was on the date of the new president’s inauguration, so many miles away—way beyond the range of his weapon—he didn’t ask, even to himself. At any rate, it was nothing to do with the president himself.
Out on the hillock by the lake, he set up the barrel, bolting it to the solid platform just as it would be on the roof for the shot itself.
With each day, the pattern improved, but it was still not good enough even after two weeks, still too widespread, and he gave himself the extra days he needed. The testing was exhaustive, but eventually it came into the tight circle he knew he required.
He changed the barrel on the gun twice when it became shot out with practice, and finally, when he had the pattern that worked, he set up the barrel he would use, inserted some of the green spot ammunition in a belt, and fired off a few rounds, just enough to see the pattern and not to damage the barrel. It was the perfect circle.
And now, sitting in this bar in the northern Washington, D.C., suburb of Bethesda and watching the preliminary preparations for the inauguration, all he needed was an order. The gun was bolted to the roof, the theodolite was bolted to the gun instead of a normal gun sight, and a solenoid was fixed in place, between the trigger and the guard, with a cell phone attached beside it.
All it would take now was for him to dial the number, and a thousand rounds of ammunition would be discharged automatically, with their instant and inevitably destructive force that would destroy the target and everyone within twenty-five yards—and finally destroy even the barrel itself.
Even now, sitting in the bar, minutes perhaps before the action, he didn’t question who the target was. The target was apparently unconnected to the inauguration itself. Maybe it was a figure who had come to Washington just for that day, like so many other big hitters; some businessman who wished to be near the action. The inauguration was, perhaps, simply cover his controllers were using for their own reasons.
On the television, the anchorman was rambling about some minor aspect of the presidential procession later that afternoon, and so it would go on as the day unravelled. He sipped his beer carefully, and waited.
When the call came, it was not what he’d expected. He was told to wait. It was not the order to fire. His contact would be with him shortly, the voice said.
Lars clicked the phone shut. The shot might be postponed, or it might be cancelled. Not unusual. Sometimes a target didn’t follow the agenda he’d planned to follow. The accuracy of the timing for the shot was absolute, and there might be new arrangements.
He didn’t like it, however. He’d done his work with impeccable care; why couldn’t others do the same? He didn’t like it either that here, in America, his controllers were always hovering nearby, ever-present in the background. He preferred to work alone and far from interference.
But it was their commission, and theirs to proceed with or not. Either way, he’d pick up payment. That’s what they always told him. So he sat tight and drank now more freely from the bottle.
In a little under five minutes—a very short time, he thought dimly—two men entered the bar, one of whom he recognised as his contact, a tall, thin-faced man with a loose flapping coat and big shoes. Lars had met the American three times before, twice in Europe and once over here.
The other man he barely noticed.
They approached his table, sat down, and ordered a beer for each of them and a second one for him.
His contact took the phone from which the trigger call was to be made away from him. “Just to be safe,” the man said. “If we have to abort, we’ll have to dismantle the whole thing fast.”
Lars agreed, without knowing exactly what he was agreeing to. But he knew better than to allow his frustration to distort his mood. There were setbacks, even on a job as precise as this one.
“We’ll drink the beers and then go see the boss,” the thin man said. “Further instructions,” he explained.
Lars finished the first bottle and caught up with them on his second. The TV droned on without release. He was hearing what he’d already heard for the second or third time.
They left the bar after half an hour and headed away from the centre of the capital, into the suburbs, and then joined the Beltway towards the west. There were just the three of them, in a black Mercedes truck that Lars observed was bulletproofed, a special and expensive order. His controllers were, he knew, rich. They’d paid him a million and a half already.
They left the Beltway just before it crossed the Potomac and turned to the right along the riverbank. The waters swirled around a wide bend ahead of them. They pulled off the road again and down a paved road that turned to a track. There was another car parked ahead of them, black also but more like a limousine. Lars saw two figures sitting in the back seat, a chauffeur upfront.
“We may have to get you out of the country,” the thin man said reassuringly. “That’s what we’ll find out.”
But Lars didn’t feel reassured.
They stopped the Mercedes thirty yards from the other car, and the three of them got out and began to walk the intervening distance.
Lars saw the thin man and his colleague walk some way to either side of him, and he began to realise his vulnerability as the space around him widened. By the time the misgivings that had dipped in and out of his consciousness since the job was interrupted had finally surged to the front of his mind, he felt the sharp, stabbing pain below his left shoulder and saw himself, as if separated from his body, falling sideways into the mud at the side of the track.
Maybe he heard the small fizz of air from the silenced gun, or maybe it was his last breath escaping from his lungs, but that was the last thought he may or may not have had.
The thin man bent down and tested Lars’s pulse.
“That’s it,” he said to the two figures approaching from the limousine.
Then he and his colleague turned the body over, searched the pockets, and, finding nothing incriminating, slipped an identity card into Lars’s wallet. It had a Russian name and Russian embassy clearance.
The thin man took the phone he had earlier taken from Lars and slipped that too back into the pocket of Lars’s brown leather jacket.
As he did so, one of the men from the limousine made a call on his cell phone.
“We’ve found him,” he said. “And just in time, by the look of it. It seems he had another terrorist attack planned. We got him at last.”
The man receiving the call sat alone in an office at Langley. The agency was unusually depleted of staff today.
“Good work,” he said. “The nation will be grateful to you and your company.”
There was a pause as he listened to the directions the caller gave him to find the location by the river.
“Is he alive?” he said.
“No,” the caller said. “Terminated. He pulled on my guys. They didn’t have a choice.”
“Pity.”
“We’ve searched him,” the caller said. “The evidence seems clear. It looks like it was the Russians behind him after all.”
“Then it’s a great feather in your cap, and your company will no doubt see the benefits.”
Chapter 35
MIKHAIL GOT UP FROM his seat at the next picnic table and crossed the few feet to where Anna was sitting. He sat opposite her and looked into her eyes.
“Icarus was disinformation,” he said. “What the CIA calls a canary trap.”
“How can you be sure?” she said, and felt her pulse quickening as the implications began to flood in.
