Perfect killer

CHAPTER 46

By the time Jasmine and I reached my hotel, the night had filled up with rain, thunder, and lightning. An opaque downpour splashed like milk beyond the headlights. The radio announced that tornadoes had hit near Black Bayou. "Try next to the stairwell." I pointed.

Lightning continued its wicked barrage, followed closely by deep, rolling thunder that stirred memories of night combat. Then came hail the size of cottonseeds, drumming a high-pitched fusillade on the roof as Jasmine backed the Mercedes into a parking space and turned out the headlights.

"Okay, keep the engine on and your eyes open," I said. "I'll be quick." You're sure you don't need help?"

"Positive."

Jasmine's face glowed beautiful and strong in the instrument panel's soft light. "If the police show up, pull out nice and slow like you were just leaving anyway." "But-"

"No sense both of us getting nailed."

With Lashonna's Ruger in one hand, I started to open the door, then froze as a white Ford Excursion drove into the lot, then continued on to the back corner and parked near the white fiber-optic contractor vans. Moments later the lights flickered off. We waited. Jasmine held her own Ruger in her lap.*****

From an inside pocket of her big handbag, Jael St. Clair retrieved a thin, papersealed packet the size of a large commemorative postage stamp the General's company kept sending her since the head wound in Afghanistan. She peeled off the protective plastic-lined paper wrapper, pulled out a patch resembling a Band-Aid, removed the strips covering the adhesive, and pressed it on the bare skin below her left collarbone.

Then she pressed the electric release for the SUV's rear door and climbed across the backseat into a cargo area half-filled with luggage. Her heart rate steadied and slowed as the warm surge of confidence radiated from the patch, focused her thoughts, and sharpened her senses. Jael located the duffel she had requested with the car. Fumbling in the dark, her practiced hands soon found the familiar shape of a night-vision monocular. Jael smiled when she pulled it out, held it close to her face, and in the dim illumination from the parking lot lights recognized the Night Quest PVS-14. One of the best thirdgeneration devices, weather resistant and highly versatile.

She turned on the Night Quest, held it up to her right eye, and adjusted the gain to accommodate the lights from the parking lot and those illuminating the walkways.

Despite the downpour the scene around her took on an eerie green clarity, allowing her to see the lawyer sitting in her car talking with Stone.

She put down the Night Quest, located two long, hard-sided gun cases. The first contained an M21 7.62mm NATO sniper's rifle with a Raptor 4x night-vision optical sight nestled in the custom-fitting gray foam.

The second case housed another M21. Jael had specified the M25 and hated to compromise. But having to shoot with someone else's zero bothered her most.

"Play the hand." she said to herself, then pulled a Sionics suppressor from its case and attached it to the muzzle. St. Clair took a moment to check on the red Mercedes with the Night Quest monocular and saw Stone still talking with the lawyer.

She grabbed a twenty-round magazine from the duffel and a box of ammunition, noting the rounds were standard M118 Special Ball 173-grain, full-metal-jacket, boattailed slugs. She preferred hollow-points for maximum damage over these shorter distances, but she knew the M118 well and had thirty-seven kills with it. She filled the magazine, slid it in, and chambered a round. The overhead light of the Mercedes went on. Jael picked up the Night Quest monocular and followed Brad Stone as he disappeared up the stairwell.

"Showtime," Jael said softly as she leaned back and pushed the SUV's rear window open. It swung up, and the storm came in. She retreated to the area right behind the rear seat, where she was sheltered from the windblown rain, and could still get a clear shot at the door of Brad Stone's room. She placed her large, folding luggage bag on top of the duffel, pressed everything down into a stable platform for the M21, and finally arranged herself behind it. Not ideal, but she had less than fifty yards for this shot. A piece of cake considering that with an M21 and this ammunition she had never missed a kill at less than eleven hundred yards.*****

"If anything strange happens, call my cell. It's on vibrate. Make sure yours is too."

I kept my eyes on the SUV.

"Already did," Jasmine said.

I looked over toward the white SUV. "Watch that one. Something about it bothers me." I put the Ruger back in its holster and clipped it as best I could to the drawstring waist of my scrubs pants.

"Why?"

"It's way across the lot; they'll get wet heading for their room." I paused. "On the other hand maybe the fiber-optic people all have to park there."

I got out then and dived through the solid sheets of rain, sprinting up the steps two by two through the driving sleet and rain. When I got to my room, light was leaking around the curtain edges from the lamp I had left on so my alarm warning would be visible.

"Shit." The light would make me a perfectly silhouetted target going in.

Jael tracked Stone with the Night Quest monocular as he exited the stairwell. Next, she set down the monocular, picked up the M21, turned on the Raptor, and rested the rifle on the makeshift stand and trained the crosshairs in the middle of Stone's door right where she figured he'd stand when he put his key card in the slot.

Right on cue the big man appeared in her scope and stopped by the door. But instead of standing in front of the door to put in the key as she expected, he stood to one side and extended his left hand with the card.

Smart, she thought. Avoid being silhouetted by the room lights. Not smart enough for me, she thought as she moved the crosshairs to the right. Then she took a regular breath and exhaled normally, stopping at her usual respiratory pause. She made sure the crosshairs were where she wanted them, then squeezed the trigger ever so gently to take up the free play in the trigger.

Jael St. Clair held her breath, and the trigger steady, focusing on the crosshairs and spotting the pockmark in the wood siding right where Brad Stone's heart would have been had it not been for the lightning. Never rush a round, she thought as she slowly released her breath and her trigger finger. An indicator light blinked on the motel room door lock.

She trained the crosshairs on Stone again and visualized the slug entering the left side of his rib cage. She was glad then for the full metal jacket because it would penetrate even if it hit a rib. The bone fragments would make more shrapnel.

Jael St. Clair inhaled, breathed out, and held it. She began to squeeze the trigger.

Then the night exploded like a bomb.