Brute Force

Chapter 65

The IDTF sniper seated on top of Key Bank Arena panned his scope across the top of the Cornish Playhouse and caught a glimpse of movement. He called out the target over the radio.

“Hercules CP, this is Nest 4. I have a visual on the Playhouse roof. Asian female, dressed in black. We have anyone up there?”

The command post asked him to stand by and there was a long pause on the radio — as he expected there would be. The entire campus below him had erupted into a frenzied circus with the flashing lights of emergency vehicles running in every conceivable direction, providing cover over the escape of the fleeing black snake that was the VP’s motorcade.

The sniper had memorized the position of every Secret Service countersniper and lookout unit and had been given orders to dump anyone not on that list — but he wasn’t about to get jammed up by shooting some Secret Service darling who wandered into the wrong spot.

After what seemed like forever, he got the answer he was looking for. “Nest 4, Hercules CP. She’s not ours. Green light on the target. Repeat. Nest 4, you are green to go.”

Verbal orders, logged and heard by many over the radio, relieved him of that worry — giving him the CYA he needed to pull the trigger. The playhouse was supposed to be clear of anyone, and yet there she was, a dark female, possibly Asian, peering through a set of binoculars from the shadows behind an air-conditioning unit.

Using the laser on the side of his night vision scope he ranged the target at 211 meters. He chuckled to himself, careful not to lose sight of the woman. Anything under 300 meters was point-blank range for his. 300 Winchester Magnum. One of the handful of consummate professionals in the IDTF, the sniper didn’t rely solely on the laser. He knew a normal air-conditioning unit was approximately five feet tall. This one filled up eight mil-dots on the crosshairs of his scope. He did the math in his head and confirmed that the laser rangefinder was correct. At that range, no adjustment to his scope was necessary. He was high enough off the ground that the suppressed shot was not likely to even be noticed by any of the agents below, especially when scrambling around in code black on the VP. Pulling the stock in tight against his shoulder with his off hand, the sniper slipped the pad of his finger over the trigger and let the crosshairs of his scope settle on the Asian woman’s ear. He took a deep breath and slowly began to release it, settling his body into the shot. This was almost too easy. A whisper of wind shattered his concentration, like the flutter of a bird on the roof behind him.

Ran Kimura buried her blade in the sniper’s neck. She flicked it back and forth as she shoved the rifle sideways in the event of any involuntary convulsions of his trigger finger. He collapsed facedown without ever even knowing she was there.

Ran shoved his body sideways, taking up a position behind the scope. She made it her habit to carry a cloned Secret Service radio and had heard him call out the target and description. It had taken her precious seconds to make it to the top of the Key Bank roof and she’d had to kill two agents on the way up.

Settling in, she slid her finger over the trigger and took a deep breath. “Hello, Mother,” she whispered as the crosshairs settled over Emiko Miyagi’s face. “How nice of you to drop by.” She swung the rifle a hair to the left and pulled the trigger, sending a 180-grain bullet singing off the brick a scant foot in front of Miyagi. “That is much better,” Ran said to herself, watching her mother duck behind the air conditioner. “How will we ever get to know one another if you get yourself shot?”

Ran moved quickly, sliding along the slanted roof to disappear into the darkness behind the glowing red sign of the Key Arena. She had no doubt that she would see her mother again, or that she would be the one to kill her. It would not be soon — but when it happened, she would not hide behind a riflescope from a great distance away. It would eye to eye and heart to heart.