windows and he would have been none the wiser.
Konstantin hopped over the metal barrier and walked down the center of the road. He intended to walk the parade three times before the Popemobile drove the Pope to the steps of St. Florin’s.
Contrary to what he had told Lethe there was almost nowhere along the entire riverside part of the parade that would make for a good, clean shot. He walked over to the wall and looked across the water up at the citadel. If the shooter was up there, he didn’t have a prayer. It made sense from a tactical standpoint. The Popemobile was a specially adapted Mercedes Benz M class SUV. There was a special glass-enclosed “room” built onto the rear of the vehicle. The glass would be bulletproof, of course, and the roof reinforced with armor plating. To pierce the glass, the shooter would need to be good enough to fire a fatal triangle-three shots in a triangle so tight they literally joined the dots. An experienced sniper would be capable of making the shot in the right conditions, but then it came down to trajectory, distance, wind, whether it was a moving target, reaction times of the security detail and all of these other intangibles the shooter couldn’t know before he lined up the shot.
Taking the shot either as the principal entered or exited the protection of the bulletproof cage made more sense but lacked the spectacle. In an intense moment of paranoia he wondered if someone couldn’t have tampered with one of the windows, prepping it for the shot? The agents riding along would be expecting the glass to protect the Pope. They wouldn’t expect it to betray them.
He reached for his cell and called Lethe. “Two things,” he said before Lethe finished saying hello. “One, get the security detail to triple check the integrity of the glass on the parade car. Two, run the utility bills on every address in a mile radius of the route. I’m thinking the shooter will have found himself a spot two weeks, ten days ago. He could be the kind of cold pro used to privation, but the guys in Berlin were a joke. Which means it is unlikely-but it’s possible-that this guy might have turned the water on. No phone, the cell coverage is fine. Three, look for buildings that are supposed to be empty, leases out, that kind of thing.”
Lethe didn’t point out that he was only supposed to say two things, not three. “Will do.”
The more he thought about it, the less likely it felt that he was looking for a shooter.
The window of opportunity was so small, and certainly this waterside route didn’t offer more than one or two possible vantage points, which in itself discounted them because any shooter good enough to hit a fatal triangle on a moving target from the kind of distance they were talking about would be good enough to know that statistically only one or two possible vantage points meant, barring miracles, a zero chance of getting away from the scene. It was uncommon that really good shooters went on suicide missions.
Fanatics went on suicide missions.
This brought him back to thinking about Mabus and Miles Devere.
“Four things,” he said, calling Lethe back up.
“Fire away.”
“You’ve got Devere’s cell, can you trace it?”
“As long as the battery is connected I can run GPS tracking, sure. Wonders of modern technology. There’s no such thing as off the grid.”
“Don’t tell me you can do it, tell me where he is,” Konstantin said. He turned the cigarette over and over again in his fingers. He could understand why nervous people smoked: it gave them something to do with their hands.
Lethe gave him an address in Jesuit Square, part of the Old Town.
Thirty minutes later Konstantin was staring up at one of the curtained windows, sure that the shadow looking back down at him through it was Miles Devere. There was a beautiful symmetry to it. Hunter and hunted locking eyes without either man quite knowing his role in the play of violence. Who was the hunter? Who was the hunted? It appealed to Konstantin’s overdeveloped sense of the theatrical. He was the first to break eye contact, walking toward the building. He wondered if Devere even knew who he was. But of course he did, the Russian reasoned. A man like Devere had to be a control freak. This was his game. He wouldn’t have been able to bear not knowing all of the pieces that were in play.
But how much did he know?
The answer, of course, depended upon how good Devere’s people were. Konstantin Khavin’s service record was sealed, as was everything Her Majesty knew about him, right up until the moment his feet landed on the western side of the Wall. But someone like Lethe would have been able to tell Devere what he’d had for breakfast the day before, the color of his boxers that morning, the last time he’d taken a dump and everything in between. And knowing Lethe, it would have taken him less than five minutes to gather those little gems of personal hygiene. So Konstantin had to assume Miles Devere knew everything two governments held on him and a fair bit beside. He had no idea how that would affect the way things played out, but a good strategist knew what he was going up against and planned accordingly. So again, Konstantin must assume les Deverere would be building his plays around a detailed knowledge of who he was up against.
Was it hubris on Konstantin’s part to think that Devere would give a rat’s ass about who he was and what he’d done during his forty-something years on the planet? If this was Moscow, the answer would have been obvious-even in the microcosm of Nonesuch it was obvious-but out here where people played by money’s rules? Devere had proven he could do whatever he wanted, and not even within reason. He wasn’t averse to buying the guns that killed the men who built the house that Jack built, then he’d sold the mortars that razed the house, meaning someone else had to come along and rebuild it. It was all good business so long as you didn’t care about poor old Jack. Devere had proven he could buy people as easily as he could buy places and things, and that he cared just as little about them. The oligarchs in his country were no different. Perhaps it was the gift of money that did this to people?
Konstantin walked up to the door. The small silver plaque beside it read Devere Holdings was on the third floor. Two of the other businesses in the house belonged to Devere as well. Only the restaurant downstairs wasn’t part of his property portfolio. He pressed the buzzer and, when the voice crackled back unintelligibly through the small speaker, he leaned in and spoke into a concealed microphone: “Konstantin Khavin to see Miles Devere.”
He counted to five, listening to the silence, when the door buzzed open.
Konstantin went in.
He hadn’t intended to confront Devere and had no idea what he would say now he was inside the building. He walked up the narrow marble staircase rather than take the caged elevator, using the two minutes it took to ascend to formulate a plan. The next few minutes were going to be interesting, if nothing else, especially with the opening gambit he had in mind.
pretty young thing stood in the open doorway waiting for him. She looked him up and down, then held out her hand as he stepped onto the landing. “Konstantin, Mister Devere is expecting you. Is there anything I can get you? Tea? Coffee? Something a little stronger?”
She had a disarming smile. He could easily imagine that smile making otherwise sensible, rational men moon about like love-struck fools.
“Water is fine, thank you,” he said.
“Not a problem. Sparkling or plain?”
“Straight out of the tap is fine.”
“Of course. Please, take a seat.” She showed him through to a small reception area that was in complete contrast to the Old World charm of the rest of the building. It was all glass, steel and sharp angles. There were two black leather couches, one beneath the window, the other against the side wall. On the circular steel-framed coffee table lay the usual clutter of well-thumbed magazines. Other than the magazines there was nothing in the small room to suggest that business was ever actually conducted there. The pretty young thing came back through with his water, a bottle of Perrier along with a tall glass and a slice of lime. He’d had worse service in hotels.
Devere made him wait for nine more minutes. It was nothing more than cheap psychology, Devere attempting to establish dominance before they even met. Konstantin uncapped the screw cap on the water and poured himself a small glass. He sipped at it, then walked across to the window. He looked down into Jesuit Square, reconstructing the view in his head and reversing it. This was the window he’d seen Devere looking out of a few minutes earlier. Taking another swallow, Konstantin shifted his attention from the square to the waterside. Even given the relative elevation he couldn’t see more than a few feet of the parade route at a time between the rooftops. For a sniper to take a shot from up here he’d need someone down on the ground giving him a countdown so he knew when to expect the converted white Mercedes to come into view and didn’t end up snatching his shot. Even then, creating a fatal triangle to blow out the bulletproof glass was going to be virtually impossible in the
