Robert Bidinotto - Hunter

“So-you approached the Russians, not the other way around?”

Muller looked at Garrett and nodded. He tilted his cup to his lips and drained the last of the coffee.

“How long ago?” she asked.

“Three years, January.”

“Where? In D.C.?”

Muller nodded, put down his cup. “Okay, I’ll get into all of that. But look, I haven’t had a smoke for over twenty-four hours. I was so goddamn jittery last night I couldn’t even sleep.”

“You can’t smoke in here.”

“Come on, man, give me a break. Can’t we go outside?”

Garrett looked at Annie. “I could use one myself. Okay. Out on the porch.”

*

They went through the kitchen and out the back door, led by the security officer, who slipped on mirrored sunglasses and stepped down into the yard. Two more members of the detail followed, then fanned out to flank them. Annie donned her own sunglasses-a spare pair she kept in her car-before stepping out into the dazzling morning sun.

Garrett fished a pack of cigarettes from his suit jacket, flipped it open. Thumbed one out and between his lips. Then offered the pack to Muller.

The traitor held it up, displaying the familiar red bulls-eye label.

“Ha. Look at that. Luckies. Ironic, isn’t it?”

He shook out a cigarette and returned the pack.

The spy chief drew out a silver lighter. Fired up the other’s cigarette, then his own.

Muller stepped to the porch rail. She and Garrett moved to either side of him. She watched the prisoner take a deep drag. Hold it. Slowly release a white cloud from between his lips. It coiled and drifted off, then was torn away by a sudden gust. He leaned forward to catch the sun on his face. Braced his arms on the rail, the butt dangling from his lips.

“Damn, that’s good… Thanks. I was dying for a smoke.”

He squinted, looking up at the forested hillside rising before them.

“Pretty out here. I-”

A bee sound and hollow smackkk- an explosion of red mist and his face gone and warm spray hitting her face and hands-his body jerking back, legs buckling-a distant echoing crack-

“Down!”

Garrett diving over Muller’s collapsing body, slamming into her, knocking her down, sprawling across her-gasping, crushed under his weight-muffled shouts-pounding steps vibrating through floorboards pressed painfully against her skull-twisting her face under Garrett’s shielding arm-

Muller’s body. A few feet away. On its back. Face toward her, what was left of it, barely half of it, one wide pale blue eye staring at her, the other somewhere inside a ragged crater of crimson pulp.

Blood streaming from his mouth around the smoking cigarette, still clinging to his lower lip…

CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

Wednesday, March 19, 4:30 p.m.

They gathered again around the table in the director’s conference room, at the end of a painfully long day that had begun the night before. Their purpose: to assess the magnitude of the national-security catastrophe.

Annie, arms crossed, shifted in one of the chairs against the wall. Feeling like hell, despite all the ibuprofen. Pulsing pain behind her right eye. Ribs aching when she breathed. Stiff left knee. Sore purple bruises on her right shoulder, forearm, both legs. She reflected that in the past two days, she’d tackled a guy, been slammed into by another, then knocked down by a third.

Most action I’ve had with men in almost a year.

She wished she felt like laughing about it.

Nobody in the room knew how the Kremlin had found out about the safe house.

“Maybe Muller learned about it somehow, then told them during the past year or so,” the FBI director ventured.

At the head of the table, the CIA boss rocked back in his gray leather chair. “Or maybe they trailed the transport team out to the site. We can’t be sure about anything right now.” He took off his rimless glasses, rubbed his eyes. “What have your people found out about the sniper or snipers?”

“I’ll let our special agent in charge, Steve Sully, fill you in on what we know so far.”

The red-haired, middle-aged man seated next to the FBI director took a sip from his water bottle, then spoke.

“Our investigators talked to the CIA’s protective sniper team, situated on the opposite hillside. Those guys never saw the shooter. He had set up to the southeast, almost directly into the morning sun from their position. The rest of the detail at the house couldn’t tell the precise direction of the sniper either. Not that it would have mattered. Our people triangulated from the witness reports, then did a grid search to determine his exact location. It was behind a fallen log up in the trees near the ridge line, over twelve hundred yards from the house. That’s over two-thirds of a mile.”

Somebody whistled. Sully nodded.

“Yes. And the shooter didn’t even take the safer shot and go for center-mass. I don’t know why, but he went for the head. You don’t have to be a marksman to know that a head shot at that range is one hell of a shot. There was some wind gusting around out there, and the bullet hit Muller’s face off-center, on its right, blowing away half his skull. If it had hit dead center, it would’ve probably exploded the whole head. Decapitated him.”

Annie stared at a pattern on her sleeve to block the image in her memory. She heard people stirring uncomfortably.

“Ballistics retrieved a piece of the bullet from inside the house. Way inside. After going through Muller’s skull, it passed through the outside wall, a kitchen cabinet, a coffee pot on the table, a hallway door, a sofa back, and another interior wall before lodging near the bottom of a bedroom wall. We were lucky to get a big fragment. We figured it had to be a. 50 caliber. But the lab determined it came from a Barrett. 416 cartridge. That particular cartridge propels a high-velocity, 400-grain, solid-brass, boattail spitzer bullet.” He noticed blank looks and smiled sheepishly. “Okay, sorry, that’s a sniper round, fairly new and relatively rare. It was designed by the Barrett Firearms Company in 2005. Currently, the only sniper rifle chambered to handle it is the Barrett Model 99.”

This was all Greek to her, but she noticed that Grant Garrett leaned forward.

The SAC flipped through the papers spread on the table before him. “Forensics found no shell casing. Obviously, he took it with him. No footprints worth a damn, either. It looks like he had some kind of covering, maybe canvas or plastic, over his shoes or boots. And no hairs or fibers. Probably wore a coverall, probably camo. From his stride and foot impressions, we guess medium-to-tallish-six feet, maybe a little more-weight not more than one-ninety, max. But those are just rough guesses, given the terrain. In sum, about as clean a crime scene as you could find-unfortunately.”

The CIA director shook his head slowly. “Great.”

Sully nodded and glanced down at his papers again. “Reconstructing the sequence of events, it appears he left his vehicle a short way down the far side of that hill. There’s a paved road up there, running in from Route 55. It leads south to some summer homes a couple of miles back in the hills. They’re vacant this time of year, so no traffic. Being a pro, our shooter no doubt reconned the area and knew that. He probably left his car or truck right on the pavement, knowing it wouldn’t be bothered by anybody. In any case, we found no tire tracks. So we have nothing to go on for a vehicle, either.”

He took another sip of water. “From where he set up, we figure that after taking the shot, he trotted down the slope to his vehicle. We clocked it and estimate he could’ve made it in less than three minutes-then be back on 55, or more likely 66, within another minute or two.”