Net Force

19

In her guise as Phyllis Markham, the Selkie gimped her way toward the target's house, the little poodle doing his imitation of a watering can on every other bush or tree along the way.

The guards in the surveillance cars were gone. She had been disappointed to see them leave. There were times when she'd been set upon a mobster or gunrunner or politico with a dozen guards crawling all around, and that had made the job more difficult. But one guy, who didn't have a clue he was a target, no protection except maybe a house alarm? It took some of the fun out of it.

At her level, she mostly made her own challenges.

She'd been on this more than a week, and she was ready. She knew the target's habits. When he ordered Chinese food delivered, she knew he liked the hot and spicy chicken with noodles. When he went for his morning run, she could have run half a block in front of him and stayed with him all the way. She knew when he went to a fund-raiser, where he tried to sit if he wasn't assigned a table, and what time he would make his excuses and leave. She knew about his ex-wife and kid in Idaho, the car he played with in his garage, and that his assistant had the hots for him, to judge from how she looked at him. And that he didn't have a clue about that. She knew how tall he was, how much he weighed, where he got his hair cut and that he hadn't really wanted his current job. She knew much about the target — just not why he had been chosen.

Scout heard something in one of the bushes to the left. He yapped at it. Probably a cat. She let him bark a couple of times, then told him to hush. He did, but he trembled to go after the thing in the bushes. The dog didn't know he was a toy; he thought he was the son of a wolf and he wanted that prey. She smiled.

The worst dog bite she'd ever gotten hadn't been from a big beast like a shepherd, but from a dachshund who must have thought he was White Fang, too. Maybe the little ones had something to prove.

The target seemed like a decent enough guy. He was fairly attractive, had a nice smile and did a good job. As bureaucrats went, he was better than most. He loved his little girl out there in flyover country, and hadn't been active much sexually since his divorce, so he was probably still carrying a torch for his ex. He was a more useful member of society than most, an ethical, moral, reliable man.

That she was going to kill him didn't bother her at all.

Some professionals didn't let themselves know anything about their targets, didn't get involved any more than necessary to make the deletion. They stayed cool, didn't interact, didn't let themselves see the targets as people. She'd always thought that was chickenshit. If you're going to take somebody out deliberately, you ought to get to know him. It seemed only fair, and so much better than being killed by a stranger. Her way, at least she had some respect for people who deserved respect. There was a kind of honoring of the target involved.

She knew more than enough now. He wasn't a bad guy, but he wasn't that interesting, and there wouldn't be any surprises.

"Move along, boy. Go."

Reluctantly, the dog proceeded, looking back for the thing in the bushes as he walked, just in case it tried to break from cover and run for it.

Little Scout there, hearing the call of the wild, that was funny.

When would she hit the target? When you could choose any time, when you had all your bets covered, then you did it when it felt right. Not before. Not if you wanted it to be perfect. This guy's death would unleash an army of feds on her trail. It needed to be perfect.

She was approaching the target's condo. She glanced at her watch, an analog, battery-powered Lady Bulova, one Phyllis Markham would wear, since it had supposedly belonged to her dearly departed mother. She slowed a hair, letting the dog sniff a little longer at some other male's territory marking.

Tomorrow was trash pickup day — the collection mini-trucks came around twice a week here — and the houses and condos on this street did not have an alleyway in back.

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 his troops. There was always that possibility.

"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.

He glanced at his watch. Just after eleven, local time. The party had been in the restaurant nearly two hours. Their vehicles were parked in the front. The diners would be in sight for plenty of time.

He lowered the weapon.

Eight minutes later, the door to the restaurant opened.

Ruzhyo put the silicone earplugs into his ears. The sound of a high-powered rifle shot inside an automobile could easily destroy unprotected eardrums.

Six men emerged, talking, laughing, taking their time.

Ruzhyo raised the rifle. He took a deep breath, let half of it out, held the rest. He clicked the safety off, lined the glowing crosshairs up on the second man in the group, put the sight picture on the man's forehead, right between the eyes…

He squeezed off the shot.

With a rifle, you don't hear the one that kills you.

The man was dead before the sound of the bullet reached him.

Ruzhyo put the rifle down on the floor of the car and started the engine. He pulled out of the travel agency's parking lot and drove away. Traffic was light this time of the evening. He was half a mile away, at the entrance to the elevated freeway, when the first police car flew past, lights flashing, siren wailing, going toward the restaurant.

He did not look back. There was no need. Nobody was following him.