He was ready, surgeon’s gloves snug on his hands. His trusty Thompson/Center was beside him on the plywood decking, silencer in place, the laser rangefinder beside it. He’d smuggled them in five nights earlier, along with the foam pad. The team had been on a road trip, and Luther hadn’t known when Millennium Security and the Sheriff’s department would install special procedures. So far as he knew, Stadium Security hadn’t been party to their plans; certainly peasants like himself hadn’t.
The shadow would soon capture the speakers’ platform. The stadium seats were nearly full, and people were still coming in. There had to be more than ten thousand already.
The crowd sound grew, swelled to cheering, and he felt his own surge of energy. There they were, a short file of people marching past third base toward the platform, convoyed by deputies. From the panel he watched through, it was 247 feet—82 yards—to what Luther thought of as the pulpit, with its microphone. He’d already set the range on his scope. From where he was, he could detect no breeze. The target wouldn’t be in direct sunlight, but ordinary skylight would be more than adequate. Or the field lights if it came to that.
He could easily have shot Ngunda then, but it might not be fatal. He’d wait till the man was standing still, with the crowd looking out at the flagpole. And the organ playing, covering the muffled sound of his “silenced” rifle.
There were ten people on the platform, one a priest, Luther realized. Somehow the man raised Luther’s hackles. A heavy-set man stepped out to the microphone and announced the singing of the national anthem, then handed the mike to the singer. All of them turned toward the outfield. Luther positioned his rifle, heard the first organ notes, put his eye to the scope, moved the muzzle toward Ngunda—
And in passing saw the priest’s hand holding a gun, as if newly drawn from his jacket! Without thinking, Luther paused the cross hairs on the priest’s head and squeezed the trigger, felt the recoil against his shoulder, saw the priest fall. And felt a surge of exultation! The sharp gunshot Luther heard was not his own.
On the platform, people scrambled, some jumping from it onto the outfield grass. There were screams from the crowd, though the organist kept playing. Someone had thrown Ngunda down and was lying on him, but whether either had been shot, Luther had no idea. He watched for only a moment. Then leaving rifle, rangefinder and pad in the crawl space, he slipped out through the overhead access, took off his snug plastic gloves, put them in his pocket, lowered himself to the walkway behind the press box, and hurried down the short stairway to an aisle. In his security uniform, no one thought anything of it, if indeed anyone noticed him at all.
* * *
Thomas Corkery never knew another thing in his life, simply collapsed onto the platform. The bullet from his pistol slammed into the right buttock of the man to his left. The bodyguard on his right ignored the splatter of Corkery’s brains on his own face and neck. Charging over the corpse and brushing the wounded man aside, he rode the unwounded Ngunda to the deck, shielding him. His partner and the sheriff’s people would handle anything else.
* * *
After the stadium had been cleared, Art Knowles met with Sheriff Edwards. The very preliminary assessment was that the “priest” had been a would-be assassin, and judging by the angle of his wound, had been shot by someone on the grandstand roof. By someone with tour security, the sheriff was sure, though Art Knowles insisted he’d had no one up there. The sheriff pointed out that his own snipers had not been equipped with silencers, yet the shot had not been heard. And none of his own snipers admitted having seen the priest draw his weapon, or firing their own. It seemed to him Millennium’s security chief was lying.
Meanwhile, Edwards needed to account for the killing. It would be a damned legal nuisance, and cost the county money, but there was no way around it, even though the priest had almost surely intended to kill Ngunda Aran. But on the other hand, whoever the murderer was, he’d saved Spokane a lot of terrible publicity.