The gate to the target's condo opened and the target came out, hauling a single compacted recyclable paper bag. Right on schedule. On the evenings before trash pickup, he came home, changed clothes and carried out the garbage first thing.
She arrived in front of the target's condo just as he dropped the sack.
He smiled at her. 'Hi,' he said.
'Good evening, young man,' the Selkie said in her Markham voice. 'A nice night for a walk.'
'Yes, ma'am.' He squatted, offered the back of his hand to the dog, who sniffed and then wagged his tail. The target scratched the dog behind the ears. 'Good pup.'
The Selkie smiled. She could drop him right here with one swing of the cane — he'd never know what hit him. Crack open his skull as he squatted there petting the dog, bend down, cut his carotids with the nail scissors in her purse. He'd bleed out in a couple of minutes.
Or she could ask if he'd mind giving her a glass of water, and of course he would invite her into his condo. He was too nice a guy to cause an old lady to finish her walk thirsty. She could do him inside without anybody ever being the wiser. It was too easy.
She smiled at the target. Now? Should she take him inside?
The moment stretched. She held the man's life in her hands. This was power. This was control.
No. Not tonight. It didn't feel quite right. Maybe tomorrow.
'Come along, Scout. The nice man doesn't want to fool with you.'
The target stood, and the woman who would soon kill him limped away.
'Take care, ma'am,' he said.
'Thank you, young man. I surely will. You, too.'
The drone of the 747's big engines was a steady, hypnotic thrum, and most of the passengers slumped in the dark, sleeping. John Howard's reading light was on, but the report on his flatscreen hadn't been scrolled for so long that the Screensaver had kicked in and blanked the screen.
'You need some warm milk and melatonin, Colonel?' Fernandez said.
Howard glanced up at Sarge, on his way back from the head. 'Just working on a report, Sergeant.'
'Yes, sir, I can see that. A detailed study on the zen of the blank screen?'
Howard grinned, waved Fernandez to the seat across the aisle.
'It wasn't much of an operation, was it, Julio?'
'Begging the colonel's pardon, but what the hell is he talking about? We located a terrorist cell, took down a score of armed, bomb-throwing radicals while they were shooting at us, and did it without an injury to ours. That's batting a thousand where I come from.'
'You know what I mean.'
Fernandez looked around. Nobody was close to them, and the nearest passengers were asleep. He dropped the NCO-to-officer rap. 'Look, John, if you mean it wasn't the beach at Iwo Jima, yeah, you're right. But the assignment was find the bad guys and stop them. We did it, protected our embassy, didn't cause a stink with the locals, and we're hauling all our boys back to base without having to peel a Band-Aid. That's as good as it gets.'
Howard nodded. Fernandez was right, of course. Go, do the job, come home, all asses-and-elbows. He had carried out his mission by the numbers. That was what a soldier was supposed to do. They were thrilled with him back at Net Force. A couple of his old military buddies in the know had already sent him coded e-mail congratulating him. It was a win, all the way around.
So why didn't he feel better about it?
Because it had been too easy. Yeah, Rule 6P had worked — proper planning prevents piss-poor performance — but when it got right down to it, he'd never had any doubt they'd win. His troops were the best of the best, ex- SEALs, Green Berets, Rangers. Drop them in a jungle behind the lines with nothing but pen knives, and they'd build a castle out of enemy bones. The terrorists had been a bunch of out-of-shape gutter-scum with big ideas and almost no strategic or tactical experience. How could they have possibly lost to rabble like that?
He said as much to Fernandez.
Fernandez laughed.
'What?'
'Oh, I was just imagining what the commander of the British armies must have said to his field officers toward the end of the Revolutionary War: ‘What? A bunch of out-of-shape gutter-scum with big ideas and almost no strategic or tactical experience just kicked the shit out of His Majesty's finest? How could we have possibly lost to rabble like that?' '
Howard chuckled. Fernandez had a way of putting a spin on things you wouldn't expect from a noncom who'd earned his rockers the hard way. And the posh British accent just added to it. And he had a point. The terrorists could have been more adept. The blood on the warehouse floor could have been that of
'Thing is, John, the glory might be a bit thin on this one, but a win is a win. That's why we went, ain't it?'
'Yeah. You're right.'
'Damn, and me without a tape recorder? Can I wake up some witnesses for the colonel to repeat that, sir? The me-being-right part?'
'To what are you are referring, Sergeant? I don't recall saying any such thing.'
'That's what I thought, sir.' He grinned. 'Guess I'll see if I can catch a few winks.'
'Good night, Julio. Thanks.'
'Sir. And if it is any consolation, I got a feeling this won't be the last episode in this particular war. Next time might be different.'
Howard watched his best man amble toward a row of empty seats. Yes. There was always that. A small battle did not a war make.
Ruzhyo watched the front door of McCormick's Restaurant. The place was away from the main section of town, toward one of the bedroom communities to the west. It specialized in fish. The food was supposedly excellent, and it looked to be so from his brief visit to reconnoiter earlier. It was the best restaurant near the company that produced one of the fastest computer chips for home use, a company just up the road in Beaverton, a town named after the dam-building aquatic mammal.
Ruzhyo sat in the rental car across the street, parked in the shadows of a sign in front of a Korean travel agency. Sixty-two meters away from the door, according to the Ranging optical tape, an easy distance. The car was a full-sized one with a large engine, though he did not think he would need the power for his escape. With both eyes open, he looked through the large aperture of the Bushnell HOLOsight. What he saw was an unmagnified image of the door with a glowing red crosshair superimposed upon it. The scope was a state-of-the-art gunsight; unlike a laser, it emitted no light to the front, and thus did not reveal the user. The scope had cost more than the weapon upon which it rode, a 30–06 bolt-action Winchester deer rifle, itself an excellent piece of equipment. He had bought the sight at a gun store in San Diego; the rifle he'd purchased in Sacramento, second-hand, from an advertisement in a newspaper. He had assembled the rifle and scope, and sighted the weapon in at a rock quarry along an old logging road west of Forest Grove, Oregon.
With the sighted-in rifle, Ruzhyo could shoot consistently into a circle made with his thumb and forefinger out to a hundred meters. More than sufficient.
He had considered using a suppressor on the rifle, but the projectile would break the sound barrier and make a loud crack after it left the barrel anyway, so there was really no point in trying to damp the noise. Besides, in these conditions, the shot would echo, seeming to come from everywhere. And even if they knew exactly where he was, it would mean little. Executives of the local computer company did not go forth armed, nor with bodyguards. There had never been any need. Nor would there likely be a need after this night, though it was unlikely they would believe it to be so.
By the time police arrived, Ruzhyo would be miles away. He had three escape routes mapped out in his mind, and all included quick stops where he would not be seen, where he could lose the rifle. He wore waterproof thinskin synsilk gloves — there would be no prints or fluids left on the scope, rifle or bullets inside the weapon.
