The Wrong Man

43

The truck pulled up in the dirt at a red flag and stopped. “Number One at Rovner Street. Stand by for the five-minute.”

Randall Manning watched through binoculars and listened through his earpiece.

“Green light at Rovner, that’s the five-minute,” the voice crackled through the earpiece.

The truck started moving again. Manning followed along with his binoculars. Good so far. Wait for the green light.

“Number Two at Rovner Street.”

Good. Just about right. Manning’s pulse was steady. This wasn’t the first time they’d run through it. It was, in fact, the twentieth.

“Number One at Dodd Street, stand by for the two-minute.”

Manning moved his binoculars to the second red flag, four hundred yards to the south, coming toward him. It was an approximation in terms of timing. It wasn’t intended to be precise. It didn’t need to be precise. They weren’t in the city’s downtown, and they were nowhere near Rovner Street or Dodd Street. They were out in the country-the “boonies,” to most people. They were in unincorporated Fordham County, surrounded on all sides by farmland purchased by Summerset Farms following its acquisition by Global Harvest International.

“Green light at Dodd. That’s the two-minute.”

Manning had driven the real route dozens of times. Dodd Street was actually far less than two minutes from the target, but Manning had built in an extra time cushion to account for unpredictable traffic.

The truck continued south, coming toward Manning. He was inside a dome he’d constructed more than a year ago for this purpose. A few hours ago, this dome had housed all sorts of farm equipment-tractors and plows and backhoes-all of which had been emptied out for this exercise.

He watched out the window from his position on the second-level balcony as the truck drove through the open double doors into the vast dome. He turned to face inside the dome and watched as the truck picked up speed and drove toward the makeshift building, consisting of only a front facade and door.

“Red light at Dayton, doesn’t fucking mat-ter!”

The truck stayed at a speed of twenty miles an hour and pulled up just short of the front door of the building.

The rear door of the truck burst open, and Patrick Cahill jumped out. The driver, Ernie Dwyer, also jumped out. Each of them was wearing state-of-the-art body armor and a helmet with a face shield. They raised their black AKM assault rifles and backed away from the faux building.

“Pop the targets,” said Manning.

Standard tactical training, about which Manning knew absolutely nothing eighteen months ago. But he’d learned a thing or two since then.

Targets popped up like characters in a children’s picture book, the shapes of humans, in various spots around the faux building. From the distance he’d created, Cahill and Dwyer unloaded their assault rifles on the targets, knocking them flat. To the extent they missed the targets-though Manning doubted that the two of them had missed even once-their bullets hit a bulletproof tarp that had been placed floor-to-ceiling behind the building facade.

Randall Manning looked at his stopwatch.

“Good,” he announced. “Well done. Now clean up. Then we eat, and then target practice.”

The ammo would be the first phase of the cleanup. Every shell casing would be collected. The bulletproof tarp would be lowered and scrapped. The roof would be opened to air out the place of the smell of gunfire. Then the tractors and other farming equipment would be brought back in.

Within an hour, tops, this dome would look like nothing more than a warehouse for farming equipment again.

Manning looked over at Bruce McCabe, who was standing next to him, looking a bit flushed.

“What’s bothering you, Bruce?” he asked.