be there right at four. And it was too late for her to change any of it.
Too damned late for anything.
But she was doing the right thing, despite the guilt she was feeling,
despite breaking down like that after calling the detective. She angrily
squeezed her hands together. She was about to hand her father over to
the police, and he deserved it. She was through debating it. She now
just wanted it to be over.
MCCARTY DID NOT Luce rr. NOT AT ALL. His usuAL RouTtNE was to follow his
target, sometimes for weeks, until the assassin understood the victim’s
patterns of behavior better than the victim did. It made the killing so
much easier. The additional time also allowed McCarty to plan his
escape, to allow for worst-case scenarios. He had none of those luxuries
on this job. Sullivan’s message had been terse. The man had already paid
him an enormous sum on his per them, with another two million to follow
upon completion. Under any yardstick he had been compensated-now he had
to deliver.
Except for his first hit many years ago, McCarty could not remember
being this nervous. It didn’t help matters that the place was crawling
with copg.
But he kept telling himself things would be okay. In the time he had he
had planned well. He had reconnoitered the area right after Sullivan’s
phone call. The row house idea had hit him immediately. It was really
the only logical place.
He had been here since four in the morning. The back door to the house
opened into an alleyway. His rental car was parked at the curb. It would
take him exactly fifteen seconds ftorn the moment the shot was fired to
drop his rifle, make his way down the stairs, out the door and into his
car. He would be two miles away before the police even fully understood
what had happened. A plane was leaving in forty-five minutes from a
private airstrip ten miles north of Washington. Its destination was New
York City. It would carry one passenger, and in a little over five hours
McCarty would be a pampered passenger on board the Concorde as it
descended into London.
He checked his rifle and scope for the tenth time, automatically
flicking away a grain of dust on the barrel. A suppressor would have
been nice, but he had yet to find one that worked on a rifle, especially
one that was chambered with supersonic ammo as his weapon was. He would
count on the confusion to mask the shot and his subsequent departure. He
looked across the street and checked his watch. Almost time.
McCarty, while being a very accomplished killer, could not have possibly
known that another rifle would be trained on his target’s head. And
behind that rifle would be a pair of eyes as sharp if not sharper than
his own.
T)M COLLIN HAD QUALIFIED AS AN EXPERT MARKSMAN IN THE Marine Corps, and
his master sergeant had written in his evaluation that he had never seen
a better shot. The focus of that accolade was now sighting through his
scope; then he relaxed. Collin looked around the confines of the van he
was in. Parked down the street on the curb opposite from the cars, he
had a straight shot to the target. He sighted through his rifle again,
Kate Whitney appearing fleetingly in the crosshairs. Collin slid open
the side window of the van. He was under shadow of the buildings behind
him. No one could notice what he was doing. He also had the added
advantage of knowing that Seth Frank and a contingent of county police
were stationed to the right of the cafd while others were in the office
building lobby where the cafe was located. Unmarked cars were stationed
at various locations up and down the street. If Whitney ran he wouldn’t
get far.
But then Collin knew the man wasn’t going to run anywhere.
After the shot Collin would quickly disassemble the rifle and secrete it
in the van, emerge with his sidearm and badge and join the other
authorities in pondering what the hell had happened. No one would think