Stephen Leather - The Long shot

“You were followed,” said Dina, contemptuously.

“I was what?” he said, shocked.

Lovell clattered down the stairs to the den. Carlos turned to Bailey. “Go back outside, walk up and down as if you’re waiting for something.”

Bailey dropped the duffel bag on the floor. “Where’s Mary?” he asked.

“She’s out,” snapped Carlos. “Now get outside.” Lovell and Schoelen came upstairs from the den and rushed out of the rear door, towards the water. “Dina, you should go out with Matthew. Give whoever it is something else to look at.”

Dina nodded and went out. “What’s happening, Carlos?” Schoelen asked.

“We’ll soon find out,” he said, his voice flat and hard.

Joker tapped the steering wheel and chewed his gum. He had watched Matthew Bailey take his bag out of the car and go inside the house and he’d checked out as much of the building as he could see with the binoculars. Now he wasn’t sure what to do. One thing was certain, he couldn’t stay in the road for too long, not during broad daylight. He put the binoculars to his eyes again. Bailey walked out of the front door and onto the lawn. He looked at his wristwatch and walked slowly back to where he’d parked his car.

“Now, my boy, what are you up to?” Joker murmured to himself. A woman, dark haired and thin, came out of the house and Bailey turned round to look at her. Through the binoculars he saw Bailey frown and his lips move. Joker trained the binoculars on the woman, moving up from her waist, past boyish breasts to her tanned face, framed by long, dark hair. He took the binoculars away from his eyes and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. It came away wet. He had switched off the car engine while he watched the house and with the air-conditioner off the temperature had soon mounted. The car windows were closed and he opened them. In the distance he saw the woman and Bailey standing together, her hand on his shoulder, and he put the binoculars back to his eyes. The woman was saying something but he couldn’t read her lips. Joker wished he had one of the microphone amplifiers he’d used on surveillance assignments with the SAS. They could amplify a whisper from more than two hundred yards away.

Bailey answered her, and his concern was evident. Something was worrying him. He tried to read the man’s lips but it was beyond him. He was so busy concentrating on Bailey’s lips that the first he knew of the gun by his neck was when the cold metal pressed up against his flesh. “Don’t even think about moving,” said a soft American voice.

Joker kept the binoculars pressed to his eyes, his mind racing. A second man appeared at the passenger window. He reached through and pulled out the ignition key. “Drop the binoculars,” said the first man, “and put both hands on the steering wheel.”

Joker did as he was told. “What’s up?” he asked.

“You’re British?” asked the man with his key.

Joker seized the opening. “I’m a tourist, I’m lost,” he said.

The gun was rammed hard against his throat. “With binoculars?” said the man to his right. “Don’t screw us around.”

From what Joker could see there was only one weapon, and that was pressed against his neck. If he was outside that would have been a major mistake, he could have twisted away from the gun and the man would have been close enough to hurt, with a slash to the throat or a backfist to the nose, but there was no room to move in the car so he had to sit where he was and wait. If the man kept as close when Joker climbed out of the car he’d be reasonably sure of overpowering him.

“Okay,” said the man to his right. “Keep your hands on the wheel while I open the door. You move your hands, you’re dead.”

“Hey, I’m not doing anything, I’m just sitting here,” said Joker. He chewed his gum and tried to look unconcerned.

The car door clicked and swung open. The gun was still against his neck and Joker weighed up the odds of pushing the door, slamming it into the man and grabbing for the gun. He decided against it. He felt the gun move away as the man stood to the side to open the door all the way. Joker’s gun was under the passenger seat but he knew he hadn’t the slightest chance of reaching it. He would make his move as soon as he got out of the vehicle. Two men but only one gun. He’d been up against worse odds before and triumphed.

The man on the right side of the car opened the passenger door. He bent down and Joker turned to see what he was doing. As he moved he realised his mistake, but he was too late, the butt of the gun smashed into Joker’s temple and everything went red and then black.

Cole Howard became progressively more impressed with Helen as the day wore on. Brand new desks and filing cabinets were delivered before ten o’clock and late in the morning white-overalled technicians arrived to install enough telephones for a small army, and a digital switchboard which they put on her desk. Calls could be put through the board or go direct to the extensions. Half a dozen FBI agents had arrived from Washington headquarters and they had been briefed by Hank O’Donnell before hitting the phones, contacting FBI offices throughout the country and wiring over photographs of the assassination team.

A light lit up on Helen’s switchboard and she took the call, while Howard and Ed Mulholland stood in front of a white board, drawing up the President’s schedule as a series of boxes, using different colours according to the level of risk: black for inside meetings where no sniper could reach him, green for places where he was moving and an unlikely target, and red for those venues where he was exposed and potentially vulnerable.

“Ed, there’s a call for you,” Helen called over.

“I’ll take it here, Helen,” he called, gesturing at the nearest extension. It warbled once and Mulholland picked it up. He listened, grinned, said a few words and then hung up. He beamed at Howard, wide creases forming in his craggy face. “Report from our Baltimore office. Mary Hennessy stayed at a hotel there two days ago. Positive ID, and we’re getting credit card details now.”

Howard made a fist and shook it. “Yes!” he hissed.

“We’re on the right track, Cole, no doubt about it,” said Mulholland, eagerly. “And we’re getting closer.”

Consciousness returned to Joker like waves breaking over a beach, but each time his mind cleared an undertow of blackness would pull him back and he’d return to nightmares where guns fired, knives slashed and men died screaming. The pain was there whether he was conscious or not, a dull ache behind his right ear and a burning soreness in his wrists as if his hands were being sawn off with a blunt hacksaw.

During periods of consciousness his eyes would flicker open and he could see the tips of his shoes resting on the floor, limp as if they belonged to a dead man. He was somewhere dark and hot with metal pipes above his head and wooden panels on the wall. The pain in his wrists became sharper as if hot needles were being forced between the bones. His shoulders were aching and he could feel his arms being pulled from their sockets, then he surrendered to the dark undercurrent again and he dreamed of a dark woman, a long, sharp knife in her hand and evil in her eyes, laughing as she cut and sliced. Some time later his eyes flickered open and she was there, her face only inches from his, a cruel smile on her face, saying something, but he couldn’t hear her because of the ringing in his ears. He fainted again and when his eyes opened next she was gone and he was alone with the pain.

His arms had become tubes of meat, numb in the middle with intense, searing pain at either end. He lifted his head, a movement which sent waves of nausea rippling through his stomach, and fought to focus on his arms which were stretched out above him. His wrists were shackled by a shiny steel chain flecked with blood, and the chain was looped over a metal pipe which ran across the ceiling. The chain was supporting all his weight, and it was biting deeply into his wrists. He tried to push himself up with his feet but he could barely reach and he teetered on his toes. He was still groggy and the effort of balancing was too much — he slumped forward and the pain made him grunt.