One more, I kill you.”
She lowered her head. “Can’t blame a girl for trying,” she said under her
breath.
“Got anyone stationed by Park Road?”
A beat. She knew he knew; prevarication would be pointless. “Ehrenhalt’s on the
minaret,” she admitted.
He nodded. “And who’s enfilading to your left?”
“Take my range finder,” she said. “You don’t trust me, you can see for yourself.
Marksman B is in position three hundred yards northwest.” It was a low brick
structure that housed telecom equipment. “He’s on top. The height’s not optimal:
that’s why he hasn’t been able to get any good shots yet. But if you had tried
to leave via the Jubilee Gate, you’d be a dead man. There are men on foot on
Baker Street, Gloucester Street, and York Terrace Way. Strollers with Clocks.
Two sharpshooters have a complete review of Regent’s Canal. And there’s a man on
the roof of Regent’s College. We were hoping you’d try to use it as shelter.
Within two hundred yards, all of us are X-circle accurate—head-shot accurate.”
We were hoping you’d try to use it as shelter. He almost had.
Janson mapped out in his head the vertices she had specified: they made sense.
It was how he would have designed the operation.
Keeping the gun securely in one hand, he looked through her Swarovski 12×50 dual
range finder scope. The concrete bunker she’d mentioned was exactly the sort of
structure that dotted the urban landscape, that people saw without seeing. A
good position. Was there really someone there? It was mostly obscured through
the leafy canopies, but a few centimeters of concrete were visible. A sniper? He
dialed up the magnification until he saw—something. A glove? Part of a boot? It
was impossible to say.
“You’re coming with me,” Janson announced abruptly, grabbing the sniper’s wrist.
With every lingering moment, the team of marksmen would begin to reevaluate
probabilities: if they decided that he had left the purview of their axial sight
lines, they would reposition, and that would change the ground rules altogether.
“I get it,” she said. “It’s just like at the Hamas encampment in Syria, near
Qael-Gita. You took one of the sentries hostage, forced him to divulge the
location of another one, repeated the process, had the perimeter defenses peeled
off in less than twenty minutes.”
“Who the hell have you been talking to?” Janson said, taken aback.
Those operational details were not widely known, even within the organization.
“Oh, you’d be surprised the things I know about you,” she said.
He strode down the greenway, dragging her along with him. Her footsteps were
noisy, deliberately so. “Soundlessly,” he said. “Or I’ll start to think you’re
not cooperating.”
Immediately, her footfalls grew careful, picking out landing spots, avoiding
leaves and twigs; she had been trained in how to move quietly: every member of
her team would have received such training.
As they grew nearer to the boundary of Regent’s Park, the noise of traffic and
the smell of exhaust drifted toward them. They were in the heart of London, a
greensward established almost two centuries before and preserved, lovingly,
every year since. Would the carefully trimmed grass end up soaked with his
blood?
They approached the concrete bunker, and Janson placed a finger on his lips.
“Not a sound,” he said. The Beretta remained loosely gripped in his hand.
Now he stooped down, and signaled her to do the same. Atop the low brick
structure, the marksman was, he could now see, in prone position, the fore end
of his rifle supported by his left hand. No sniper ever let the barrel rest on
anything; it distorted the resonance, affecting the shot. He was a picture of
complete concentration, peering through the scope, using his left elbow as a
pivot as he moved the field of view slightly. His shoulders were level, the
rifle butt close to his shoulder pocket. The rifle itself rested in the V of his
left thumb and forefinger, its weight resting on the palm. Perfect position.
“Victor!” the woman called out suddenly.
The gunman jerked at the sound, swiveled his rifle around, and squeezed off a
shot, wildly. Janson leaped to one side, lifting the woman with him. Then he
somersaulted toward the bunker and, with a lightning-fast motion, seized the gun
by the barrel and jerked it out of the marksman’s grasp. As the man hurriedly
reached for his side arm, Janson swung the scoped rifle like a bat, connecting
with the man’s head. He slumped forward, prone as before but now unconscious.
The woman propelled herself with all her coiled force toward Janson’s gun hand.
She wanted the Beretta—it would change everything. At the last fraction of a
second, Janson dodged her outstretched arms. She seized his wet jacket instead,
and hammered her knee toward his groin. As he torqued his pelvis back
defensively, she flexed her wrist into a slap block, and sent the Beretta flying
through the air. Both took a few steps back.
The woman assumed the classic military stance: her left arm was out and
perpendicular to her body, a barrier to a rush. A blade struck at the arm would
hit only skin and glance off bone; the major muscles, arteries, and tendons were
on the side facing inward, protected from attack. Her right arm was extended
straight down, and held a small knife; it had been boot-holstered, and he had
not even seen her draw it. She was good, faster and more agile than he was.
If he lunged forward, her posture made it clear, she would peel his arm with her
blade: an effective counter. And straight from the manual.
She was well trained, which, oddly, reassured him. He choreographed the next ten
seconds in his head, preparing a counter-response to her probable actions. The
fact that she was well trained was her weakness. He knew what she would do
because he knew what she had been taught. He had taught enough people those very
maneuvers. But after twenty-five years in the field, he had a far richer
repertory of moves, of experiences, of reflexes. It would make all the
difference.
“My poppa used to tell me, ‘Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight,'” she said.
“Don’t know about that. I was never the worse for having a backup blade.” She
gripped the knife handle like a fiddle bow, loosely but firmly; she was
obviously somebody who knew how to wield it with slashing force.
Suddenly, he fell forward, grabbing her extended arm; she raised her knife hand,
as he had predicted, and he delivered a crushing blow to its wrist. The median
nerve was vulnerable about an inch from the heel of her hand; his precisely
directed blow caused her knife hand to open involuntarily.
Now he grabbed the weapon she had released—yet at the same moment, her other
hand shot out toward his shoulder. She dug her thumb deep into his trapezius
muscle, jolting the nerves that ran beneath and temporarily paralyzing his arm
and shoulder. A bolt of agony shot through the area. Her fighting stance was
awesome, the triumph of training over instinct. Now he swept his foot toward her
right knee, causing intense pain and destabilizing her footing. She toppled
backward, but his own leg sweep wrong-footed him, and he ended up falling on top
of her.
He could feel the heat of her sweaty body beneath him, feel her muscles tense as
she squirmed and thrashed like a practiced wrestler. With his powerful thighs,
he pinned her legs down, but her arms were capable of doing him serious damage.
He could feel her striking at his brachial plexus, the bundle of nerves that
reached from the top of his shoulder to the vertebrae of his neck. He hammered
his elbows outward, and pinned her arms to the ground, relying on his greater
weight and brute strength.
Her face, inches from his, was contorted in rage and, so it seemed, disgust with
herself for having allowed him to gain the stronger position.
He saw the muscles of her neck flex, saw she intended to break his nose by
butting with her forehead, and pressed his forehead to her own, immobilizing it.
Her breath was warm against his face.
“You really want to kill me, don’t you,” Janson said, almost with amusement. It
was not a question.
“Shit, no,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “This is just foreplay as far as I’m
concerned.” Struggling mightily, she thrashed beneath him, and he only barely
maintained his position.
“So what did they tell you? About me?”
She inhaled and exhaled heavily for a few moments, catching her breath. “You’re
a rogue,” she said. “Somebody who’s betrayed everything that ever mattered in
his life, somebody who murdered for money. Lowest kind of dirtbag there is.”
“Bullshit.”
“Bullshit’s what you are. Double-crossed everything and everybody you could.
Sold out the agency, sold out your country. Good agents are dead because of
you.”
“That right? They say why I went bad?”