The Equalizer (60 page)

The Company might even have had intel about an abandoned oil pumping station a few miles from the chateau. There were probably other landmarks in the area, either operating or abandoned, none of which would have been of any interest to Control. He could not have known that a series of fractured and empty oil pipes led from that disused pumping station, burrowed in the ground, toward the chateau—and that
one of them
came out on the property's west side, providing a potential assassin access to a fortified area without tripping any alarms or having to move past any security. But Alexei Berezovsky had known. No wonder he'd had Elena killed to get back that flash drive with the pumping station pipes highlighted on it—although without the map on the pumping station wall, the intel on that flash drive was virtually useless to Control.

Far below, McCall could see limos heading up to the magnificent old chateau. Troops and
Policie
Č
eské Republiky
lined the entire driveway route. He looked up onto the roofs of the mansion. He couldn't see them, but he knew Company snipers were on those roofs with high-powered rifles with nightscopes on them. Constantly surveying the scene around the arriving dignitaries.

But
not
looking west up to the side of a mountain.

McCall looked above him. He could not see Diablo in the trees, but he didn't expect to. He only could calculate what sniper position
he
would use if he was going to assassinate a target at the front of the chateau. He found one—a copse of thick trees where a stone wall meandered in and out. The angle would be right.

McCall started to climb up the hill directly above him, through the trees, his breathing labored from the journey through the pipes. He had started out the night with two guns, a Beretta 9 mm and a Ruger .357 Magnum. Now he had
no
guns.

Shit happens.

So he had to get right behind the assassin, very close.

*   *   *

Control watched the arrivals from a small parlor off the main hallway of the chateau, on six different monitors from cameras set up around the mansion. The Secret Service were in charge of the security for the Summit Conference; Control and his Company agents were there for added manpower, experience, and to appease Congress in the wake of recent terrorist attacks. Control had already sent ten agents out on four sweeps of the extensive grounds. The east and west sides of the chateau grounds were impassable, but he'd sent agents up those hills anyway. All clear. The north side of the chateau was very heavily wooded with no way in from behind a ten-foot stone fence that had more surveillance cameras on it than the Pentagon. The only egress into the chateau was from the south, where the big iron gates stood announcing Letenské Chateau. The driveway wound through the extensive grounds from a narrow country road. There were video cameras on the ornate gates and Control had fitted six more of them along the driveway up to the chateau. He'd scanned tapes on the traffic in and out of the chateau for the last sixteen hours. Sixty percent of it had been the press and media. All of their IDs had been run and verified. No unauthorized personnel had been allowed onto the grounds. His men were patrolling behind the perimeter set up by the Secret Service. There were practically more Czech troops and
Policie
Č
eské Republiky
here than press and dignitaries.

There had been no intel about any terrorist attack on the Summit Conference. The usual chatter and saber rattling, but nothing that had sent up any red flags at The Company. But because of the eleventh-hour amendment to the guest list, security had been ratcheted up even higher. The vice president had come down with a tummy bug. He'd been throwing up for twelve hours and did not make the trip to Prague, with regrets.

So the President of the United States had changed his schedule and decided to attend the summit.

It had been a very last minute decision, the president barely expected to arrive in time for the start of the conference. Intel that he was coming had been restricted to very few people. It had not been reported on any of the major worldwide news outlets or local news broadcasts. He could not be a target of any assassination attempt that had been months in the planning. But Control could feel his stomach muscles tied in knots. His instinct told him something was wrong. It was based on no intel whatsoever. It was just a vague feeling of apprehension.

But staring at the various monitor screens, there was nothing at all to warrant the foreboding. Everything was going like clockwork. The secretary of state was about to arrive. Five minutes after him the President of the United States would be stepping out of a limo in front of the chateau and Control would be in the background, watching as he shook hands with their chateau hosts and was escorted inside, with a phalanx of Secret Service agents around him. No one in the crowd outside the chateau could get to the president or any of the other world leaders. Control's gut feeling was a sniper's shot. But from where? The grounds of the chateau were protected and had been searched four times. This was the safest place in the Czech Republic.

Control wondered if the ulcer in his stomach had started to bleed again.

*   *   *

The stone wall was four feet high. Jovan Durković knelt at it, trees crowding in on both sides. Below the wall was a precipitous drop twenty feet down the steep slope to a flat plateau in the trees. There were landscaped gardens there around a white gazebo, but the gazebo was falling into disrepair. Many of the slats were missing and a section of the gazebo itself had fallen in at the back. There was a rusting black wrought-iron table in the wooden shell and four wrought-iron chairs. The gardens around it were choked with weeds. No one had lounged here for a pleasant afternoon of tea or lemonade in a long time. There was a much gentler incline two hundred yards to Durković's left, even a path, although that was also overgrown with weeds. He figured you would need an army of gardeners to keep the grounds of this chateau flowering and blooming. Obviously the owners were only interested in what was a few hundred yards around their magnificent house. Which suited Durković just fine. They would not be sending Secret Service agents up here to look for potential assassins. Perhaps there had been a sweep of the entire grounds, but that would have been hours ago, as soon as the Secret Service and the
Policie
Č
eské Republiky
had arrived.

Durković had put together the AWC M91 breakdown rifle. It was a new one he had bought in Berlin, having had to leave his prior weapon in the back of the Volga at the Disaster Park outside Moscow. It was the same model and year. He liked the feel of it. It was like an old friend in his hands. He knelt at the stone wall, noting that it was crumbling in places. No maintenance was being carried out on this mountainside. Whatever was there was being left to rust and rot. He'd been careful to find a position on top of the wall that was solid. His right leg was folded beneath him. His left foot was flat on the hard ground. His left elbow was propped on his left knee. He made a minor adjustment to the MARS6-WPT night-vision scope and looked through it.

He had it sighted on the top of the chateau. There were three roofs, the main one and the two roofs over the east and west wings. He saw black-suited snipers on all three of the roofs. There were six men to a roof, two of them facing north, south, east, and west. Durković knew the ones on the east and west sides would be the least diligent. The likelihood of a threat coming from either side was minimal. The Secret Service snipers, or Special Forces soldiers, or
whoever
were on those roofs, would be concentrating their attention on the approaches from the north and south. But even through the nightscopes of the snipers looking west, there was no way Durković could be seen in his position in the dense copse of trees shrouding the crumbling stone wall.

He was invisible.

They would not know where the shot had come from. And by the time they figured it out, impossibly on the
west
slope of the grounds, he'd be inside the pipe and headed back to the oil pumping station.

He moved the scope down to the front of the chateau. There must have been a hundred people along the driveway and on the immaculate front lawns, most of them media and press, lots of Secret Service and some other personnel he didn't recognize. They were searching the crowd for potential threats. He had nothing to worry about from them.

Limos were pulling in. The President of China, Xi Jinping, had just disembarked from the back of his limo. Some delegate from the White House was greeting him. Durković loved the leader's titles. Xi Jinping was the general secretary of the Communist Party of China
and
president of the People's Republic of China. A dictator and a president—also head of the military, Durković was certain.

Behind the Chinese leader's limo another one was pulling up. A Secret Service agent opened the back door.

The United States Secretary of State climbed out.

He was a little stooped over and stiff from riding in the car. He'd probably just got off a plane from Washington, D.C., several hours in the air. He stretched and shook hands with a young man in a dark suit waiting by the side of the driveway. Durković knew it would be there, but he rode the scope up the young man's face to his left ear to a close-up of the listening aid, just for the hell of it.

Durković could afford to take his time. He would kill the secretary of state just before he walked through the main doors of the chateau. If it looked as if people were going to be in his line of fire, he would shoot him down earlier. But he liked to savor the knowledge of the kill until the last possible moment. The sniper's true omnipotence. He was above the crowd, above the importance of individual lives. He was over a mile away, and yet, through the scope, as close and personal as a man could get. The targets never saw it coming. Never had a split second of realization their meaningless lives were about to end.

But when he wounded them first,
then
they knew. Then the awful truth clawed at their throats and churned in their stomachs. Then they screamed in their heads for mercy, for more life, so many things they still had to accomplish, so many loved ones they wanted to see again, even if it was only for a few seconds.

Too late
.

Durković noticed there was some excitement in the crowd.

It would not be over the American secretary of state. Yes, an important world figure, vital to American relationships abroad, but hardly a man to rouse the press out of their ennui. Although he was very important to Durković, as he represented a twenty-million-dollar payday.

A limo was pulling up behind the one that had just disgorged the secretary of state. Secret Service men, and one woman, Durković noted with interest, were trotting along with the limo on both sides. The vehicle came to a halt. The back door was opened. The crowd of media reporters surged forward, held back by the
Policie
Č
eské Republiky
and a perimeter line of more Secret Service agents along both sides.

The unmistakable figure of the President of the United States stepped out of the back of the limo.

Durković was astounded. His intel from Berezovsky had not included the most powerful human being in the free world. Yet there he was, larger than life in the nightscope of his MARS sight. Durković would carry out his assignment. He would kill the United States Secretary of State.

But right in front of him was a fifty-million-dollar bonus.

That was the price some terrorists had put on the world leader's head.

Durković kept his scope on the President of the United States.

*   *   *

It had taken McCall twenty precious minutes to climb up the steep slope of the hill. Some of it had paved stairs that had helped him, but they petered out and he was climbing up a path overgrown with foliage. He was east of the dense copse of trees where the stone wall meandered in and out. It was the best place for a sniper to set up. It was protected by trees, the stone wall would steady the barrel of a sniper's rifle, and if any eyes were on this side of the hill from the roofs of the chateau—which McCall thought unlikely—they would never see the assassin.

McCall circled on around until he was directly behind the copse of trees. He watched where he walked. The ground was strewn with small, loose rocks and tripping over them, or even kicking one of them, could be fatal.

He moved into the trees.

He stopped and looked directly ahead, then scanned to the left and right. He didn't see Diablo. But he knew he was there. McCall walked forward, quickening his pace, the clock in his head counting down to zero. Far below he saw movement in front of the chateau. Limos arriving and people moving back and forth and the media with their cameras and video teams and the Secret Service and Control's agents trying to cover everyone at once. It was a madhouse, one McCall didn't have to be close to to see in his mind.

He had no idea who Diablo's target was. It could be the President of the People's Republic of China, or the Prime Minister of India, or someone in the American contingent, the secretary of state or the vice president. It didn't matter who it was.

McCall wasn't going to let the assassin carry out his mission.

And then he saw him.

The man was compact, dressed in black. His hair was dark and long. He was virtually invisible in the darkness. He knelt at the stone wall with a sniper's rifle resting on it. It looked to McCall like an AWC M91. He could see the shape of the MARS nightscope at the top of it.

McCall knelt and untaped the Circus Faka throwing knife from his calf. He threw off the taped ends and held the knife tightly in his right hand.

He straightened and moved silently through the trees toward Diablo's motionless figure.