Bullseye (Michael Bennett 9)

“I remember. Nicholson played him in the depressing movie.”

“Yeah, he did. What’s the name of it?”

“Ironweed,” I said. “Now how about our friend here. If our Russian buddy were a depressing novel, which one would he be, you think? War and Peace? Crime and Punishment?”

Paul looked at me pensively, then snapped his fingers.

“The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” he said.

“You’re good,” I said. “So what does this mean, Paul? Levkov was the link to the Brit. The middleman. And now he’s dead.”

“He’s the cutout, so they cut him out.”

“Meaning?”

“The Brit doesn’t need him. Or, I should say, the people who hired him to hire the Brit. Even if we catch the Brit, he can only lead us back to this gentleman, and the dead tell no tales.”

“Everything is set, then,” I said. “This thing really is going down.”

“The fuse is lit, Mike. We need to find the bomb.”

“How many hours till touchdown?”

Paul checked his watch.

“Ten,” he said.

I shook my head as the crows came back, their caws skipping out over the gray water.

“It’s official,” I said. “We’re going to have to make our own luck now.”

Chapter 80

The bright white light gradually grew larger in the dark predawn sky until suddenly Air Force One materialized above the JFK runway lights, its big jets screaming.

I held my breath as it came in right over the Port Authority airport command center beside me. I actually didn’t let the breath out until the plane touched down safely on the tarmac.

This was going to be one long day.

The idling vehicle in whose front passenger seat I was sitting was a military personnel carrier called a BAE Caiman MRAP. Behind me, in the bank vault–like rear of the truck, Paul Ernenwein and a half dozen members of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team were doing last-minute coordination over the radio with the Secret Service’s tactical CAT agents.

The massive presidential motorcade was beside us, on the left. But because our bulky composite armored vehicle looked like something fresh off the battlefield, it wasn’t going to be in the motorcade itself, but always nearby. There were actually going to be two of them present for the entirety of the president’s stay in New York.

As I glanced out at the taxiing plane through the bullet- and blast-proof windshield, I remembered what CIA sniper Matthew Leroux had said about the battlefield being everywhere now.

He was actually with us, there in the back, dressed in the same black body armor and gear as the Hostage Rescue guys. It was a last-second thing. His wife, Sophie, was in stable condition now, thank God, and he had pulled some strings to get put onto the protection detail as a special adviser. Though obviously emotionally involved, Leroux was actually considered one of the top five snipers in the country, so the New York FBI SAC had finally reluctantly agreed.

“Poor son of a bitch,” said Paul Ernenwein, pointing a chin to where Leroux knelt in the back, doing a meticulous equipment check. “You see the look in his eyes? Jeez.”

“Mike!” Leroux called up to the front of the truck.

“What is it?” I said as I arrived beside him.

“I was wondering if you could do me a favor,” he said.

“What’s up?”

He stared at me intently with his blue eyes.