Stephen Leather - The Long shot

Carlos pushed the maid’s trolley to one side and checked himself in the bathroom mirror. Satisfied that there was no blood on his face or clothes, he picked up his briefcase, stepped over the body of the dead Secret Service agent, and let himself out of the room. In the elevator a pretty brunette with a name badge identifying her as an assistant manager smiled and asked if he was enjoying his stay.

Carlos returned her smile and nodded. “It’s a fine hotel,” he said. When the elevator arrived at the ground floor she held the door open for him and allowed him out first, wishing him a good day. They were always so polite, the Americans, thought Carlos as he left the hotel, swinging the briefcase. Overhead, a National Guard helicopter was climbing into the air.

Cole Howard yelled at the pilot to head for the airship, but his voice was lost in the roar of the turbine. A crewman in an olive flightsuit handed him a headset and showed him how to operate the microphone switch. Through the intercom system Howard explained that there was a sniper on board the airship.

In the back of the Huey with Howard were the National Guard crewman, a hard-faced Secret Service agent in a dark grey suit and ubiquitous sunglasses and a SWAT sniper in black overalls.

“What’s the plan, can we shoot the blimp down?” asked the agent.

“Wouldn’t it explode?” the crewman cut in. “Aren’t they full of inflammable gas or something?”

“You’re thinking of the Hindenberg; back then they were full of hydrogen,” said the pilot. “These days they use other gases that don’t burn.”

“So we can shoot holes in it?” asked the sniper.

“I guess so,” said Howard. The Huey was climbing rapidly and his stomach turned over. He took deep breaths, trying to quell his unease.

“I dunno about that,” said the pilot. “Look at the size of it, it’s as big as a whale. You could put a hundred holes in it and it’d still stay up for hours.”

The Secret Service agent had his fingers pressed to his earpiece. “They tried to shoot the President,” he yelled.

“He’s okay, I saw him,” shouted Howard.

“You sure?” said the agent.

“Really,” said Howard. “Your guys got him out safely. He’s okay.” The agent looked relieved. Howard turned to the SWAT sniper. “What about the engines? Could you put a bullet in the engines?”

“I could try, but this isn’t the steadiest of shooting platforms,” said the sniper. “We’d have to get really close. And the closer we get the better a target we are for the guy on board. You’ve got to remember he isn’t being shaken around as much as we are.”

Howard nodded. He patted the pilot on the back. “Can you call up the other helicopters, get them to hover nearby?” he asked.

“Sure,” said the pilot.

“Tell them there’s a sniper on board, so they’ll have to stay above it.”

“Okay,” said the pilot. Over the headset, Howard heard him giving instructions to the other helicopter pilots.

Howard looked around the cargo compartment. Behind the crew member was a winch and a bright orange harness. Howard pointed at the weapon hanging from a sling under the Secret Service agent’s jacket. “What are you carrying?” he asked.

“Uzi,” said the agent.

Howard nodded. “I think I’ve got an idea,” he said, slipping off his jacket.

“There’s a helicopter heading this way,” shouted Rich Lovell, pulling the barrel of his rifle inside the gondola and squatting on the floor.

“They can’t know we’re involved,” said Bailey. “Just stay down out of sight. We’ll be okay.”

Lovell’s right foot was sticking into the neck of the bearded cameraman and he pulled it away with a look of disgust on his face.

“What do we do?” asked Farrell.

“We keep on our present course all the way back to the airfield,” said Bailey. “We land this thing, we tie you up, Rich and I drive to Bay Bridge. You tell them we hijacked the blimp and killed the camera crew because they put up a struggle. We fly off into the sunset.”

“Maybe I should come with you; I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this.”

“Whatever you want,” said Bailey. With Dina Rashid dead, there would be an extra seat on the Centurion. “But they’ve nothing on you. All you have to do is to stick to your story. Tell them there was a gun on you every step of the way.”

Farrell shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“There’s another chopper coming our way,” said Lovell. From where he was squatting he saw a two-seater Robinson R-22 police helicopter through the opposite window. “It’s only a spotter but it’s definitely after us.”

“What do we do now?” asked Farrell, his voice unsteady in Bailey’s headset.

Bailey wracked his brains. What would Mary do? “A spotter chopper isn’t going to do us any harm,” he said.

“But it can follow us until we land,” said Farrell.

Lovell sneaked a look through the window above his head. “Shit, now there’s another one. Another Huey.”

Bailey looked over to his left. About half a mile away were two green National Guard helicopters. They were quite clearly heading towards the blimp. In the open cargo door of one of the Hueys Bailey could see a SWAT sniper, one leg resting on the skid, a rifle slung across his chest.

“Rich, can you stop them?” Bailey looked at the former Navy SEAL. He knew that the question wasn’t if Lovell could, but whether or not he was prepared to.

Lovell stared at Bailey. He reached up and slowly scratched his beard as he looked down his long, hooked nose at Bailey. He nodded, once, and got up on his knees, sticking the barrel of the Barrett out of the open window. He sighted through the scope and tightened his finger on the trigger. Just as it seemed he was about to fire, he took his eye away. “What the fuck?” he exclaimed. “Would you take a look at that!”

Bailey and Farrell looked to the left. A man in an olive green flightsuit was sitting on the edge of the cargo hold, a bright orange harness looped under his arms. As the men in the blimp watched, the figure slipped off the side of the helicopter, kicked away from the skids, and dropped as the line paid out.

“What the hell’s he doing?” asked Lovell.

The helicopter began to climb as the winch paid out its line and the figure swung from side to side like a hypnotist’s pendulum.

“Who cares?” said Bailey. “Just shoot the fucker.”

The wind buffeted Cole Howard as the Huey picked up speed. It rippled the arms and legs of the flightsuit with the sound of whips cracking and threatened to spin him in circles. Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes and he narrowed them to almost slits to cut down on the discomfort. He experimented with his limbs, seeing what position would minimise the spinning. He opened his legs and extended his arms and adopted the position he’d seen skydivers use on television. It appeared to work, the spinning motion stopped, though the air pushed against his arms and legs like a living thing. The Uzi swung on its sling and banged against his chest as it was tossed around but he ignored it and concentrated on maintaining a stable position.

He looked down and immediately regretted it. The city was falling away beneath his feet and his stomach lurched, the bitter taste of bile rising in his throat. He tilted his head back and swallowed and felt the acrid liquid slide back down to his stomach. Above him he saw the crewman, shivering in the doorway in pale green thermal underwear, one hand gripping the winch, the other in a thumbs-up. Howard made a thumbs-up sign with his left hand but immediately began to spin to the right, so he thrust out both hands to the side to stabilise his position.