A Bomb Built in Hell

Wesley smiled. “Can you get me onto Welfare Island after dark?”

The old man nodded and got up to leave. Wesley climbed up to the fourth floor and took the .219 Zipper from the gun rack. The cartridge had been originally designed for a Marlin rifle, but its lever action was too sloppy and inaccurate. Good enough for a varmint gun, but not for Wesley’s work. He had spent hours fitting the barrel into a rechambered format and attaching it to a better stock. Now it was single-action, and magnificently accurate. But he still couldn’t make it hold a silencer, and he had more practicing to do.

Wesley squeezed off another round—as he fired, he noticed the orange light glowing just past his range of vision. Smoothly and calmly, he pulled the massive Colt Trooper .357 magnum from his shoulder holster and spun to face the door. It opened and Pet stepped inside, a wide grin on his face. Wesley put the gun down and waited.

“Wes, I got a present for you,” Pet said, displaying another rifle.

“What’s that? I already got a good piece.”

“You got nothing compared to this. This here’s a Remington .220, the latest thing. It’s got twice the muzzle velocity of that Zipper and it’s more accurate, every time. And that’s not the best part. I know a guy who works for the bullet people—he’s a ballistics engineer. You know what he told me? He said that the engineers test fire some slugs from every batch that the factory manufactures, just to see if they’re building the slugs up to the specs. Well, every once in a while they come across some that’re just perfect, you know? They call these bullets ‘freaks,’ okay? And the engineers always take the whole batch and fire them themselves to see if they can figure out why these bullets work so good. Anyway, I got fifty rounds of those ‘freaks,’ for this piece.”

“I can make a five-inch group at three hundred yards with the Zipper,” Wesley said, doubtfully.

“The man told me you could double that distance and still group the same with this piece. And he’s no marksman.”

“Let me see it.”

“Okay, kid. But remember, I only got fifty rounds.”

“I’ll test fire it with some over-the-counter stuff first.”

Pet left Wesley alone. Four hours later, Wesley came down to the garage.

“Is it as accurate as the man said?” Pet asked.

“Better. But it’s the loudest damn thing I ever heard.”

“So what? No point in silencing it anyway from the Island—the chumps on the shore’ll think it was a backfire. We hit a guy like that once, years ago, me and Carmine. I set the car up so’s it would backfire like a sonofabitch, right? So we’re driving down the street with the car backfiring and the creep ducks behind his bodyguards ... but then they get wise it’s only the car and he starts laughing like a fool. He was still laughing when Carmine sent him a message and the bodyguards couldn’t figure out what happened until we were around the corner.”

“The engineer was sure right about this piece,” Wesley said. “Any chance of getting some more slugs from him?”

“No. It was in the papers yesterday. Somebody must have wired his car. It blew up when he turned on the ignition.”

34/

Wesley and Pet replaced the stock of the new rifle. With a new cheek-piece, hand-sanded to micro- tolerances, it fit Wesley’s face perfectly. Wesley had the latest nightscope: U.S. Army issue, and only to jungle- sniper teams. Pet built a long, black anodized-aluminum cone to hide the flash. Wesley mounted the piece on a tripod and sat comfortably behind it for a while. Then he disassembled the unit and climbed to the roof.

It was shadowy black on the waterfront as Wesley sighted in. He picked up a man and a woman in the scope, lying on the grass just off the river. The range was almost a mile and Wesley carefully dialed in the right magnification until he could see the man clearly. The nightscope worked to perfection; the man looked like he was in a spotlight against a dark background. The crosshairs focused on the man’s upper chest, then on his face, and then on to his left eye. Yes ... there. With such a high-speed, low-density bullet, a chest shot wasn’t a sure kill.

Wesley thought about the books he had read on triangulation and he concluded that it would be possible for the cops to learn where the bullets had been fired from. He came to another conclusion: so what?

Pet was waiting in the garage.

“I got a kid—a good, standup kid. A State kid, you know? He’ll bring a launch alongside the FDR. I’ll be in the Caddy, pulled over like I got engine trouble. You can be into the launch in thirty seconds, and he’ll bring you back about a mile upriver from there ... and I’ll be waiting again.”

“He’ll see my face.”

“You trust me?”

“Yes.”

“He won’t remember you.”

“Him, too?”

“No. We’ll need him again—he’s one of us, I think. But I got something for him anyway.”

“Can you find out which night he’ll be on the Bridge? Can you find out where I can shoot from?”

“I already got the last information. But you got to go over every single night until he shows. Even trying to get more information would tip him.”

“When do we start?”

“You ready tonight?”

“Yes.”