Джеймс Паттерсон - Target - Alex Cross

Franks got in, nudged aside a closed umbrella on the floor, and shut the door.

“Drive.”

“Where?” Cox said.

“Don’t be cute,” Franks said. “I know the plan. Follow it.”

The Treasury agent made a show of putting the Suburban in gear and then tried to backhand Franks.

The assassin anticipated the move and swatted the blow away, then put the Ruger against Cox’s temple. “I’m so far ahead of you, Agent Cox. Do what I say, and you get to live to see the wife and kids. One more dumb move like that, you won’t.”

The agent was furious but put both hands on the wheel. He drove. His service weapon slid off the hood and clattered onto the parking-garage floor.

They exited the garage into drizzle that had turned to steady rain by the time Cox turned on Broadway, heading south into the financial district.

In Franks’s earbud, a man said, “This is Thomas. Shamrock wants to move.”

“Roger that,” Cox said.

“Minute out,” Franks said.

“Copy.”

Franks said, “When you get there, pull over smooth, put it in park.”

“What the hell are you going to do?”

The assassin said nothing as they rolled to a stop in front of Trinity Episcopal Church. The second Cox put the SUV in park, Franks put his finger in the agent’s free ear, aimed behind Cox’s jaw, and shot him through the top of his spine, killing him instantly.

The shot sounded loud to Franks, but it was buffered by the bulletproof glass; people on the sidewalk, rushing to get out of the rain, didn’t seem to notice. He grabbed the umbrella, stepped out, shut the door, and put the umbrella up just before the front door to the church opened.

A big black man in a suit and trench coat came out, carrying an umbrella above a short, dark-haired Caucasian female in her fifties wearing a long blue rain jacket and pumps. The muscle was taking pelting rain to his eyes.

Franks kept his umbrella tilted to block his face. As the pair crossed the sidewalk, he reached as if to open the rear door and then swung toward the woman and shot her in the face at point-blank range.

The agent exploded toward Franks, slashing the umbrella at him and then getting his shoulder into the assassin, driving him back against the SUV. Franks went ragdoll, as if he’d been stunned.

The second he felt the agent go for the submission, he aimed through the umbrella and fired. He heard a grunt before the man fell at his feet, wounded but not dead and going for his weapon.

Franks aimed at the middle of the agent’s forehead.

He pulled the trigger.

Click .

Franks whipped the empty gun at the wounded man’s face, hitting him. He pivoted, raced around the SUV to the driver’s side, pulled Cox’s corpse out, and left him there sprawled in the bus lane.

He threw the car in drive, put on his blinker, and started to pull out into traffic just as the agent started firing. The first round punctured the rear window, blew through both seats, and shattered the radio display.

The second shot...

As nobody lost in nowhere in no time, three hours passed like minutes for Pablo Cruz. His watch beeped at 8:00 a.m.

He woke feeling deeply rested and ready for the task at hand.

Cruz got up, dusted off his pants, put the cleric’s collar on, and then put on the excellent toupee. Then he exited the darkened storage facility into the basement hallway.

He put on a pair of conservative black-framed glasses fitted with photochromic lenses that adapted to changes in light, darker in sunlight, almost clear inside. Walking quicker now, Cruz left the subbasement and climbed the staircase. Beyond the door, he heard the din of a gathering crowd.

Cruz crisply opened the door and eased out into a stream of earnest youth from all over the world and their adult leaders and chaperones. He smiled at a young woman guiding a group of Asian teens, and she grinned back.

He got nods and smiles for the next five minutes as he circled the arena, taking note of all law enforcement before heading inside. Cruz entered from the rear, farthest from a stage set in a rainbow of bunting.

Many of the seats off the floor were already taken. To get on the floor, Cruz showed badges identifying him as the Reverend Nicholas Flint of the First Baptist Church of Nebraska, part of a church group that included a choir from Omaha that was set to sing as part of the congress’s opening ceremony.

He showed his badges three more times, moving past television cameras, and soon found himself at the back of a throng of people, young and old, who were pressed up against barriers set well back from the stage. His glasses kept lightening in tint until they showed just a hint of gray.

Cruz reached up to adjust his collar and withdrew a sliver of translucent graphite as sharp as a sewing needle.

The assassin fitted it between his right index and middle finger, waited until more people filled in tightly behind him, then used it to prick the rear end of a young woman in front of him. She yelped, grabbed her butt, and spun around. Cruz looked at her through the glasses.

“I just got bit too,” he said. “Someone told me the place is infested.”

That made her frown. “Really?”

“Just heard it,” he said. “Can I get by? I’m supposed to get pictures of the choir. They’re in my group.”

She brightened. “Sure, Reverend.”

“Bless you, child,” he said, and he slipped past her.

Forty minutes later, the arena was packed, and Cruz was where he needed to be, one row of bodies off the front and to the far right of the stage behind a contingent of teenagers rallying around a sign that said FLORIDA. There were signs from fifty states and one hundred countries all over the arena.

Cruz kept looking around in wonder and awe, as if he couldn’t believe how lucky he was to be there. The stage began to crowd with dignitaries. The small church choir from Kansas filled the risers to stage left, almost directly in front of the assassin.

At 9:57 a.m., a silver-haired woman with a big smile on her face walked to the dais and tapped the microphone.

“Welcome to this year’s meeting of the World Youth Congress!” she cried, and the arena erupted in applause.

Cruz clapped his approval, keeping his eyes fixed on her, not glancing at any of the eight burly men wearing suits and earbuds with their backs to the stage who were scanning the audience.

When the clapping died down, the woman said, “My good young friends, I am Nancy Farrell, chairman of this year’s congress. Today, I have the distinct honor of introducing a new friend who will open your congress with an exciting announcement. Young ladies and gentlemen of the world and of the future, it is with great pleasure that I introduce the president of the United States, James B. Hobbs.”

The U.S. marine corps band came onto the stage playing “Hail to the Chief.”

Secret Service agents came out from behind curtains at floor level, followed by President Hobbs, in office now less than two weeks. The president strode out, waving and smiling the way any good politician will when the crowd is sure to be on his side.

Tall, silver-haired, and lanky, Hobbs had grown up on a cattle ranch in Wyoming. He had weathered good looks and a reputation in the U.S. Senate as a man of integrity and geniality, traits that had attracted the late president Catherine Grant.

On paper, you couldn’t ask for a better guy to lead the country, Cruz thought.

But as the president began to work the barricade, shaking hands with kids and adults, Cruz could see Hobbs was showing signs of being uncomfortable with the job, or at least with the way the Secret Service men moved in a tight protective phalanx around him on three sides.