Джеймс Паттерсон - Target - Alex Cross

“Green,” he said.

They went back into that sequence again, both of them in sync: breathe, relax, aim, sight picture...

“Squeeze,” Potter said.

Their triggers broke crisply. Their bullets made thudding noises leaving the suppressors at the same instant the wife sat forward. Seeing the vapor trails of both their projectiles rip over the fields and the treetops, Potter knew even before impact that Mary’s shot was true, and that he had screwed up big-time.

The 127-grain bullet smashed into his target’s wife’s lower right cheek. Her head and torso whipped around left and seized up. Beyond her, Potter’s target was half on, half off the chair. There was blood on his right chest wall, but he was very much alive and looking dumbly around.

People were screaming and shouting. Their voices carried to the assassins.

But Potter paid them no mind. He cycled the bolt on his rifle, thinking that the bullet must have gone through the wife’s mouth, ricocheted, exited, and slammed into her husband’s chest.

Those thoughts vanished when he found his target’s sternum in his crosshairs, skipped shooting protocol, and tapped the trigger. The Creedmoor cracked. He stayed on the scope, watching the vapor trail all the way to the center of his target’s chest.

“Dead man,” Mary said.

Potter came off the gun, took his spent cartridge, pocketed it, then grabbed the gun, pack, and camo netting. He scooted backward, still hearing faint shouts, dragging his rifle, pack, and netting with him. Mary was already out of sight of the hacienda and pulling a spray bottle full of bleach from her pack.

After stuffing the camo net in the pack, she took the bottle, crouched, and duck-walked forward right in her tracks. She got to where she’d lain for the shots and sprayed pure bleach on the Ozonics device, which she left running in place to keep destroying scent after they left. Then she retreated, spraying the whole time.

Potter took his Ozonics but left the signal jammer to keep all communications with the ranch cut off as long as possible. He sprayed the jammer and where he’d lain and all along his exit path, sweeping his gloved hand back and forth through the loose dirt, mixing it with the bleach.

Back over the side of the mesa, they shouldered their packs and guns before scrambling down and to the arroyo. They swept their way up the dry riverbed, jumped on the horses, and kicked them up hard.

They rode northeast toward the truck and trailer as fast as they could go, their jobs done, and already thinking of home.

It was 7:32 a.m. mountain time.

At 9:40 A.M. eastern time, Martin Franks whistled as he glanced at his reflection in the window of a car on South End Avenue in Battery Park, Manhattan. Franks looked nothing like the man who’d checked out of the Mandarin Oriental the morning before and taken an afternoon Amtrak train to Penn Station.

Franks’s hair was cut military-short now. His dark blue suit, white shirt, and tie fitted him well, but not impeccably. Aviator sunglasses and the bud in his ear screamed law enforcement. On a chain around his neck, he carried the badges and identity cards of a U.S. Treasury Department special agent.

He had makeup on to tone down the bruising he’d received when the trooper had punched him, and a story to explain that bruising.

Carrying a cardboard tray with three Starbucks coffees and a stack of napkins beneath, Franks walked to the Gateway Plaza Garage and entered just as it started to rain. He took an elevator to the third floor and got out with every bit of badass, walking-boss bravado he could muster.

To his right, he saw a custom black Chevy Suburban parked sideways across three spaces. Two men dressed in dark suits and wearing earbuds stood outside and immediately fixed their attention on Franks, who balanced the coffee with one hand and held up his agent’s badge with the other.

“You Penny and Cox?” he said in a soft Southern drawl.

“Cox,” said the redhead.

“Penny,” said the thick-necked guy.

“Kevin Stoddard,” Franks said, dropping the badge and holding out his free hand. “On temporary assignment to the New York office. My boss said I should come out to spell you if you need to take a leak and at least get you some coffee.”

Penny shook his hand, took a cup, looked Franks in the eye. “Who’s your SAC?”

“Warner,” Franks said. “I’m on the assignment sheet.”

Cox pulled out his phone, started typing with his thumbs. Franks acted serene but inside he was praying the hacker had done his work the right way. Otherwise, Franks was going the wrong way and fast.

Cox looked up and nodded. “Where you based usually, Stoddard?”

“Big Easy,” Franks said. “Past nine years.”

“Counterfeiting?” Penny asked.

“Mostly,” Franks said. “But you get threats now and then you have to investigate. Some of those backwoods-bayou boys got tempers and go spouting off about killing the Fed chairman. That kind of thing.”

Penny laughed. “I’ve heard a few of those. What’re you doing up here?”

“There’s a flood of well-crafted bogus fifties down our way,” Franks said. “Two months ago, the same quality bills started showing up in Queens. We’re trying to trace the common denominator.”

Cox took a coffee, said, “Those guys are getting damn good with the digital stuff.”

Penny said, “What happened to your cheek?”

Franks made a show of looking disgusted and amused. “My eleven-year-old nephew, my sister’s kid, he’s been taking tae kwon do? He asked me if he could show me some moves the other night. I wasn’t expecting a spinning roundhouse to the side of my head. Almost knocked me cold!”

Penny and Cox started laughing.

Franks did too, said, “So much for my badassery.”

He set the cardboard tray and napkins on the hood of the Suburban, took the third cup of coffee for himself. “What time are you boys in the air?”

Penny looked at Cox, said, “Wheels off the ground at eleven.”

Franks said, “Helps when you have a motorcycle escort clearing the way to JFK.”

Cox shook his head. “No escort. Bowman doesn’t like them, prefers to blend in.”

Penny said, “I think she’s right. Once she’s in and we’re rolling, we’re just another mobile master of the universe heading toward the corporate jet.”

Franks drank from his coffee. He liked these guys. Salt of the earth, as his mother used to say. Ex-military. Wife. Kids.

Deep down, however, he felt no pity, just building anticipation and thrill.

At four minutes to ten, the agents put their hands to their earbuds.

Cox said, “Roger that.”

Penny headed toward the passenger door. “Thanks for the designer mud, Stoddard.”

“Glad to be of service,” Franks said. He picked up the empty coffee carrier and stripped off a.25-caliber Ruger pistol taped to the bottom.

He shot Penny through the skull from three feet away, then turned the gun on Cox and said, “Don’t.”

Cox’s hand froze in mid-reach for his weapon.

“Both guns on the hood,” Franks said. “Don’t screw around. I can do this with you living or dying. Doesn’t matter to me.”

Cox reached in, got out his service weapon, then took a backup from his ankle. He put them on the hood.

“Steady,” Franks said, still aiming across the hood as he took the smaller weapon and put it in his pocket, then squatted and tore Penny’s earbud and radio off his corpse.

“Get in,” Franks said, opening the passenger-side door. “You’re driving.”

Cox said, “Whatever you’re planning—”

“Save it for someone who cares.”

Cox hesitated but then climbed behind the wheel.