John Lutz - Fear the Night

“Are there that many abandoned or temporarily closed subway tunnels?” Melbourne asked.

“Miles of them.”

“And all we’ve got suggesting the Sniper’s using them is that match with the mud.”

“All we’ve got so far. Are any of the names on the disgruntled employee list transit workers?”

“Some. But they’ve been ruled out. And the list goes back ten years.” Melbourne rooted through a file on his desk and leaned forward to hand a copy of the list of names to Repetto.

Repetto’s gaze played down the column of thirty-seven names, complete with last-known addresses. Thirty of them had been lined out. The name Joel Vanya did not appear.

“Why only ten years back?” Repetto asked.

Melbourne made a dismissive motion with both hands, as if flicking away something that was closing in on him from all directions. “Long time to hold a grudge. You gotta figure, more than ten years, the Sniper would’ve struck back at the city a long time ago.”

Repetto didn’t answer. He saw that Alex Reyals’s name hadn’t been lined out. The former cop. Meg had been assigned to that one; Repetto would have to ask her about him.

“Here’s something else both of you should see,” Melbourne said. “An anonymous letter written to the Times . A journalist there with sharp eyes and a curious mind saw that the note was typed rather than done on a computer printer. The newspaper doesn’t get many of those these days. He also noticed the similarity in the typeface with the previous Sniper notes. The lab confirmed the same typewriter was used. Times doesn’t know that yet.”

“Our killer’s actually urging the mayor to speak at the rally,” Murchison said disbelievingly, handing the note back to Melbourne. “The bastard has some gall.”

“Either that or he’s a great admirer of the mayor,” Repetto said.

Melbourne looked at him, doing the tent thing again with his stubby, powerful fingers. “What do you think?”

“I think he’s gonna be there tomorrow,” Repetto said. “He might even have wanted us to figure out this letter’s from him. And if he didn’t want it, he sure as hell doesn’t care about it, or he wouldn’t have sent it.”

“He could be daring us,” Murchison said.

“Oh, with every breath.”

“We gonna be ready for him?” Melbourne asked, looking from one man to the other, and sounding too much like a desperate football coach exhorting his team to overcome a lopsided score.

Murchison nodded and held up crossed fingers on each hand.

Repetto said, “If he shows, we act. He won’t get away via the subway system.”

“And how we gonna know if he shows?” Melbourne asked.

Repetto and Murchison exchanged glances. It was Murchison who said it:

“The only plan with a reasonable chance of getting our man is one that concentrates on what happens after the mayor is shot.”

Not what the coach wanted to hear.

At the plush Marimont Hotel on West Forty-eighth Street, a block south of Rockefeller Plaza, a handsome man wearing sunglasses and with a slight foreign accent paid cash for a requested suite on a high floor. He was carrying a large gray Louis Vuitton duffel bag and politely refused a bellhop’s offer to take it to his room.

The hotel was too far from the Plaza to provide opportunity for an accurate rifle shot, made even more difficult because the shooter would have to aim over shorter buildings between rifle and target. This apparent impossibility was exactly why the Night Sniper had chosen the Marimont. That and the fact that a serial killer would be highly unlikely to check into such an exclusive hotel. The mayor’s security wouldn’t consider the site a threat.

Upon entering the spacious and tastefully furnished suite, the Night Sniper placed his bag on the bed and unzipped it. He seemed to know exactly where everything was in the bag and didn’t unpack completely, only removed a pair of jeans, a dark T-shirt, and worn jogging shoes. From his pocket he withdrew a pair of flesh-colored latex gloves and slipped them on. From now on he would be extremely careful about what he touched in the suite, or he would be wearing gloves.

After changing clothes and hanging his tailored suit in the closet, he went to a window, opened it, and looked out at the tar and gravel roof of the setback in the building’s construction. There was a drop of about three feet from the window ledge to the roof. The Night Sniper sat on the ledge, swiveled his body, and stepped down onto the firm, rough surface.

He’d scouted the location carefully. It would do, but barely-which was exactly why it was ideal. After tomorrow night, his reputation as a marksman would become legendary, and fear would know no bounds. The roofs of surrounding buildings were all much lower than the outcropping on which he stood, and behind him the Marimont rose another five stories of blank brick wall. No one could peer up at him, or down. The Sniper was invisible to anyone earthbound, but there was always the possibility of a police helicopter spotting him, some observer being alert for anything suspicious even this far from Rockefeller Plaza.

He glanced at the sky uneasily, then went back to the window and hoisted himself back up into his suite.

He returned to the bag he was carrying when he checked in. He felt around in it carefully, then removed a light aluminum frame and a small tool kit. Carrying frame and tool kit, he went back out onto the outcropping roof.

It took him only a few minutes to screw four steel brackets into the roof, then fit the legs of the metal frame into them. On the frame’s top cross braces, he attached with thumbscrews two small but sturdy vises, then returned to his suite and assembled the custom target rifle.

On the roof again, he checked the sky to make sure there were no helicopters about, then went to the edge of the roof, where he’d bolted down the frame and vises. Making sure the telescoping aluminum frames were tight in their brackets, he adjusted the frame so it was slightly higher than the parapet, then fitted the rifle firmly in the vises.

With another glance at the sky, he crouched low and peered through the rifle’s telescopic sight to the corner of a distant building, adjusted the sight, and could see the plaza where the podium was being constructed for tomorrow night’s TBTC rally. He knew his bullet would have to barely miss the distant building’s corner that was almost in line with where the lectern would be, and where the mayor would stand to speak. The Night Sniper thought again that any skilled marksman would assess this as an impossible shot, and would be correct, which was why the Marimont wasn’t being factored into rally security plans.

He waited patiently, sighting through the scope, an ear attuned to any sound in the sky.

The sounds below were from Con Ed continuing lengthy repairs that entailed tearing up the sidewalk near the hotel with jackhammers. Con Ed, the city, his unknowing accomplice. He was amused by the notion.

The Sniper waited for the pounding of the jackhammers to cover the report of the rifle, then squeezed the trigger.

Carefully maintaining the position of the rifle in the vises, he unlocked the legs of the framework from its brackets affixed to the roof. Carrying rifle and framework as one inflexible piece back to the window, he returned to his suite.

Now for perhaps his biggest risk. He placed frame and rifle on the closet floor, then left the suite. The DONOTDISTURB sign was still on the door, but there was always the off chance that a maid or maintenance crew member would for some reason enter the suite and look in the closet. A slim possibility, but the Sniper knew it was such possibilities that posed the most danger. Enough of them, and the odds tilted.