Blood Orchid

50

Holly sat on a folding chair in the steeple of the church of Santa Maria, next to an FBI marksman with a sniper’s rifle. It was a quarter to ten, and they had an excellent view of the churchyard and part of the square.

“I hope to God they don’t ring the bells,” the marksman said.

Holly handed him a pair of earplugs; she had already inserted hers.

“How many more people have we got, besides you and me?” the agent asked.

“Close to thirty,” she said. “Between the Bureau and the Lauderdale department, we’ve got a dozen guns in the square, and all the approach streets are being watched.”

“Shit,” the man said, “I hope somebody else doesn’t get the shot.”

Holly reflected on how she had felt when she had shot Trini Rodriguez’s brother, and compared it to this agent’s eagerness to get a kill. No comparison. This guy wanted another notch on his rifle stock. She looked at the weapon, but there were no notches.

“How many people have you taken out?” she asked.

“Over twelve years, nine,” he replied. “FBI and police snipers don’t get shots as often as you would think. More often than not, it’s a hostage situation, and the suspect surrenders or shoots himself.” He took aim at something in the churchyard and made a minute adjustment to his gunsight. His weapon was mounted on a tripod, so that the barrel would not protrude from the steeple, making it visible to an opponent.

“What do you shoot for?”

“The head,” he replied. “In most of these situations, you’ve got a suspect who’s trying to kill cops or threatening to kill a hostage. You don’t want to gut-shoot him, because he might still be able to empty his weapon, and a chest shot won’t incapacitate him every time, either. What you want to see through your scope is an exploding head.”

Holly gave a little shudder.

“Position one, this is position three.”

Holly picked up her handheld radio. She was position one, and position three was a soft-drink delivery truck on a corner of the square. “Three, this is one.”

“We’ve got a couple of funeral-home limos approaching from the northwest.”

“Those will contain family and friends,” Holly said. “Don’t bother watching them; look for any threat to them.”

“Roger,” the cop said.

Holly saw the two limos now, driving slowly. The hearse had already delivered the two coffins to the church, and now the two long, black cars parked next to the hearse near the front entrance. This was the first real opportunity for a shooter to get a shot at Marina.

“Condition red,” a commander said over the radio. That meant maximum readiness.

The sniper next to Holly swung his weapon slowly back and forth through his assigned target area, looking for a gun barrel or a vehicle that seemed suspect.

Seven or eight people, Marina among them, got out of the two cars and walked slowly up the front walk and into the church. Forty or fifty other people were already inside, having arrived earlier.

“Condition blue,” the commander said. That meant that the snipers could relax; the onus was now on the officers inside the church. Organ music wafted up into the steeple: Bach, Holly thought. The choir joined in.

“That’s nice,” the sniper said, leaning back in his chair and taking out his earplugs. “I don’t often get a job that has musical accompaniment.”

Holly removed her earplugs, too, to better hear the music. It was comforting, somehow, fulfilling the composer’s intention. The piece ended, and the priest began to chant something; the words were unintelligible up in the steeple, but Holly thought it sounded like Latin. Then he seemed to change to English, but she could still pick up only a word or two, here and there.

“You’re up the coast at Orchid Beach?” the sniper asked.

“That’s right.”

“The wife and I have driven through there; seems like a nice spot.”

“It is; it’s the way Florida should have turned out, but didn’t,” Holly said. “No high-rises on the beach, very green.”

“Might be a good place to retire,” the agent said. “Fairly crime-free?”

“I recommend it,” Holly replied. “It’s normally free of major crime, except lately; we’ve had a couple of killings.”

“I heard.”

The two chatted sporadically as they waited, then the music got louder, meaning the front doors of the church had opened.

“Condition red,” the commander said over the radio.

Soon a procession, led by the priest and two coffins, made its way from the church into the churchyard, toward two open graves, side by side.

“I want a maximum effort now,” the commander said. “These people are at their most vulnerable.”

Holly’s companion had shifted his position and brought his sights to bear on his assigned portion of the churchyard perimeter. Traffic had been stopped on all the streets leading into the square for the duration of the brief graveside service, and, somewhere in the distance, an occasional driver made his impatience known with his horn. Apart from that sound, the square had become extremely quiet, unusual for an urban area.

Holly, having no assigned quadrant, swept as much of the area as she could see with her binoculars, looking for any kind of suspicious activity.

The priest spoke for a minute or two in English, then reverted to Latin.

“Position one, this is position five.” Harry.

“Five, this is one.”

“Nobody has seen a damned thing,” Harry said, “not a whit of threatening activity.”

“He wants her, and this is his best chance,” Holly replied.

“I hope to God he makes an attempt,” Harry said. “I want this to be over.”

“Nobody more than I,” Holly replied. She was glad she was not standing, exposed, in the churchyard by the two coffins and the two open graves. Maybe five minutes to go, and they’d be clear; Marina would be back in the limo, headed home.

The priest concluded his ceremony, and one or two people came forward and picked up handfuls of dirt to sprinkle as the coffins descended into their graves. But first, there was another small ceremony.

Marina Santos, dressed in funereal black, stepped forward to the heads of the coffins, bearing two red roses. She kissed one coffin and placed a rose upon it.

Holly watched with sadness through her binoculars.

Then, as Marina kissed the second coffin, both caskets exploded.

The shock wave set the bells in the steeple to ringing. Holly and the FBI sniper, knocked off their seats, writhed on the wooden floor, clutching their ears.