Stephen Leather - The Long shot

She knocked on the stall door twice and heard Kelly say that the coast was clear. Mary slipped out of the stall and pushed the bag into the bottom of the trash bag by the sinks. She gave herself a final check in the grimy washroom mirror and walked by Kelly to mingle with the crowds. As she went she heard the FBI agent whisper “Good luck.”

Lou Schoelen opened the office window and stood to the side as he looked at the ballpark in the distance. Four floors below, traffic was bumper to bumper as office workers headed out to the suburbs. Beyond the roads were the harbour-side shopping malls, and beyond them was the harbour, littered with small boats. Schoelen inserted the earpiece of his transceiver into his ear and switched it on. He clipped the radio to the rear of his belt, picked up his Horstkamp and knelt down by the side of the desk. He had put a large commercial directory on the desk and he rested the barrel of the rifle on it while he put his eye to the scope. He centred the pitcher’s mound in the scope, then swung the rifle slightly to the left so that the crosshairs were centred on the chest of a man wearing a grey suit and sunglasses.

He tested the pull on the trigger, then slipped his finger out of the trigger guard and laid the rifle on its side. He looked at the large stainless-steel diving watch on his wrist and rocked back on his heels. The excitement was almost sexual and he took several deep breaths. High in the air above the ballpark he saw a large green helicopter, Marine One. He picked up the rifle and focused on the helicopter as it circled over the stadium, then aimed at where he knew the fuel tanks were. One shot and Marine One would go down in flames, taking with it the most important man in America. Schoelen smiled. It would almost be worth it, but that wasn’t what he was being paid five million dollars for. He put the rifle back on the desk and watched the helicopter flare for landing.

“Incredible, isn’t it?” said Cole Howard, the binoculars pressed to his eyes as he watched the door of Marine One open and fold outwards to form a set of steps.

“I’m amazed that something that ungainly can fly,” said Clutesi.

The two FBI agents had left the main stand and gone down to the baseball diamond with Joker so that they could be closer to the President when he disembarked. Joker stood with his back to the helicopter, scanning the crowd for any faces he recognised.

As Howard watched Marine One, two Secret Service agents came down the steps, resulting in a wave of tumultuous applause from the spectators. Secret Service agents ran out and surrounded the helicopter, their heads swivelling from side to side, their hands never far from their concealed weapons. The radio crackled in Howard’s ear and he recognised Sanger’s voice, asking for situation reports from the men in the tunnel leading to the stand through which the President would be walking. Marine One had landed close to the tunnel entrance and effectively shielded the President from the buildings which overlooked the ballpark.

In his earpiece, Howard heard a voice say that Pied Piper was moving to the door of Marine One. The President appeared at the top of the steps and waved to the crowd. Howard heard an agent say that he’d seen a man reaching inside his jacket and there was a flurry of activity close to the tunnel with a trio of black-suited agents surrounding the man. It turned out to be a camera the man was reaching for. If the President was aware of the disturbance, he showed no sign of it. He walked down the steps, waving with his right hand and keeping a careful grip on the safety rail with his left. As soon as his feet touched the ground he was surrounded by half a dozen of the Secret Service’s bulkier agents and they moved together to the tunnel like some strange fourteen-legged sea creature. Only when the President and his security team were safely in the tunnel did the First Lady appear, followed by several more Secret Service agents. The First Lady followed her husband’s example and waved to the crowds before she descended. A second group of agents surrounded her and ushered her into the tunnel.

The crowd yelled and the rotor blades of Marine One began to spin, accompanied by the roaring whistle of its massive turbine. The huge helicopter lifted off, turned slowly in the air, and then flew up into the sky. It lifted up beyond the stands and the ranks of powerful spotlights which had been switched on, even though there was still plenty of daylight left.

“Come on,” said Howard, and he led Clutesi and Joker towards the tunnel entrance. Joker jogged to keep up with the fast-walking FBI agent. “Sanger says we’ll be allowed into the sky box, but he’d like us to keep our distance,” said Howard.

“The box is enclosed, so it’s unlikely that a sniper would try to shoot him through glass, isn’t it?” asked Joker. “The glass would deflect any bullet.”

Two Secret Service agents barred the way of the three men, their hands moving inside their jackets, until they saw their identification. They moved apart, their faces displaying no emotion.

“Yeah, that’d be the case if there was just one sniper,” said Howard. “But we’re talking about three. It could be that the first shot is to smash the glass, and it’s the second and third which will be the killing shots.”

They reached the sky box just in time to see the President shaking the hand of the Prime Minister. The two men were talking and smiling, though it seemed to Howard that the President was bored and only going through the motions. The First Lady joined them and began talking earnestly to the Prime Minister. A discreet distance behind the VIPs stood Sanger, his head turning slowly from side to side.

“Does your Prime Minister go in for sports?” Howard asked Joker, his voice little more than a whisper.

“Cricket, mainly,” said Joker. “And he goes to the odd soccer match.”

“I don’t see his wife here,” said Howard.

“She doesn’t get too involved in affairs of state,” said Joker. “Not like your First Lady.”

Howard grinned good-naturedly. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Seems to me that we voted in a two-man team without realising it.”

Secret Service agents were constantly moving around the President and his guests, and they were still on edge even though there were no members of the public within fifty feet. There were other security personnel around, members of the Prime Minister’s bodyguard unit. They seemed smaller and less fit than the American agents, and not as well groomed. The Secret Service agents wore expensive, immaculate suits, brilliant white shirts and perfectly knotted ties which wouldn’t be out of place in a bank’s boardroom. The Brits wore suits, but they clearly weren’t made-to-measure and their shoes were dull and scuffed. They did have one thing in common with their American counterparts, however — cold, watchful eyes, But while the Secret Service hid their eyes behind dark glasses, the Brits kept theirs unshielded and Howard had eye-contact with several of them as he stood by the door with Clutesi and Joker.

“Are these guys SAS?” Clutesi asked Joker.

Joker looked at the men standing guard on the Prime Minister and grinned. “No way,” he said. “They’re cops, not soldiers.”

Through his earpiece Howard heard an agent he assumed was Dave Steadman calling for situation reports from his men around the stadium. The President pointed down to the pitcher’s mound and said something and the Prime Minister smiled wryly. The First Lady said something to him and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. They all laughed.

“He doesn’t seem the happiest of campers,” Howard whispered.

Joker shrugged. “He’s got a lot of problems at home,” he said quietly. “How are they leaving? By helicopter?”