Deep Black

70

Dean craned his head upward, not so much looking at the buildings as absorbing them into his brain. If he were the sniper, where would he be?

He was a sniper a million years ago under completely different circumstances, called on to do completely different things.

If he were the sniper, where would he be?

The buildings had about equal views, if the simulation on Lia’s handheld computer was accurate. So Dean would opt for the apartment building — there’d be less coming and going during the middle of the day.

Three, possibly four rows of windows would have a shot. Which would he take?

Dean would go to either the most obvious place, which would be dead center in the top row, or a considerably more obscure spot at the left side of the building, where the window offered a narrower view but probably just as good an angle.

His position would depend on all sorts of things, starting simply with access.

If he were the sniper, he’d think about how he was going to get away. One of his instructors had pointed out, aeons ago, probably on the first day they met, that you weren’t really successful unless you lived.

“How do we get in?” Dean asked Lia when she returned from casing the block. There was nothing suspicious.

“We just go in,” she told him. “Why this one?”

“Because it’s an apartment building,” said Dean. “Less people to run into.”

“No, it’s crammed with people,” she said. “These especially — they get four or five families to an apartment. You could have six people in a room. He couldn’t chance someone coming in, even if he took the others hostage.”

Dean shrugged. Lia played with her handheld for a few seconds. “That building is mostly vacant.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s on our inventory of government buildings.”

She turned the screen toward him, but Dean didn’t bother looking at it; he’d already turned to examine the building.

A little higher than the apartment building, different angles but essentially the same choices.

Lia nudged him toward it. “We only have time for one. Austin says Kurakin’s on his way.” She began to trot; Dean fell in alongside.

Was this the ultimate irony: two Americans — hell, the entire NSA, CIA, and God knew who else — working to save the life and government of a Russian president?

In Dean’s day, the Americans would have applauded if there was a coup; they might even have engineered it.

This was Dean’s day. Still. He was in it as deeply as he’d ever been.

The door was carded. Lia took a card with a set of wires on it from her pocketbook. She inserted the card into the reader, the wires hanging down, then attached what looked like a small, thin travel clock to the wires. There was a loud buzz; the lock popped on the door.

“Which floor?” she asked, trotting toward the steps.

“Top,” said Dean. “There’s no elevator?”

“I doubt it works,” she said. “Come on.”

Dean was huffing by the third floor, and there were twenty-something to go. On the fifth landing he stopped for a breath and looked through the doorway. There was an elevator about halfway down.

“Hey!” he shouted to Lia. “Let’s check the elevator.”

“Go ahead!” she yelled, still running.

He walked out into the foyer, still huffing. As he punched the button, someone emerged from an office a few doors down. Dean tried to turn his grimace into a smile as the man approached, praying the man wouldn’t say anything that he’d have to respond to. As he reached to punch the button again the elevator door opened. Dean stepped in and jabbed the button for the top floor.

As the doors started to close, the man began to shout and run toward the car. Dean hit the close-doors button, pretending at the same time to put his hand out as if to stop the car. The man jammed his hand against one of the doors but failed to hold it; he jerked his hand away and they traded puzzled looks as the car began to move even before the doors had fully closed.

While it sounded more like a garbage disposal than an elevator, the car actually moved swiftly toward the top floor. As it rose, Dean took out the small pistol Lia had given him in the car and made sure it was loaded and ready. The doors opened and he walked into the corridor calmly, trying to orient himself and calm the adrenaline that charged around his skull.

There were a dozen doors nearly on top of each other lining the hall. Dean counted off five and stood outside the sixth. He put his hand on the knob gingerly, expecting, knowing, it would be locked.

Except that it wasn’t. And now that it was moving, now that he had the knob in his hand, the door seemed to ease inward on its own — he was committed; there was no way to wait for Lia, no way not to jump inside the room gun-first, left hand coming up to steady his aim.

Nothing.

Dean’s heart pounded in his mouth as he slid along the wall, angling to keep the open doorway on the left in view. He could see a window, something moving — he dived forward into the space, hitting the floor and just barely keeping himself from shooting a shade.

Dust lay thick on the faded floor linoleum. Dean rolled up, started back to the hall — and walked right into Lia’s pistol.

“Fuck,” he said.

“Fuck yourself,” she said. “Shit.”

They looked at each other, catching the same breath, catching something besides fear and surprise and anger in each other’s eyes.

“Shit,” repeated Lia.

“Shit.” Dean pushed away, back into the hall to the next door. “This one.”

“No, there’s no one up here. I’ve seen the scan. You’re it.”

“Shit.”

He stood over her, peering down at the screen. “The building’s clean?”

“No — we can only get this floor from the satellite. We’re going to have to look at the others. And listen, don’t go springing open any more doors. They may be booby-trapped.”

“Let me see that 3-D again,” he said. He took the handheld from her as the view flashed up. “This office — let’s look at that,” he said, pointing to a window on the seventeenth floor at the far end of building. There’s an air shaft right next to it — see the roof?”

Lia didn’t answer. Her hand was once more at her ear. “Car’s about three minutes away, maybe less,” she said, loping for the stairs.