Bullseye (Michael Bennett 9)

I looked down at the city below, the red and blue bubbling police lights of the presidential motorcade already starting to form over by the Waldorf.

I just hoped it wasn’t too little too late.

Chapter 87

After Matthew Leroux finished the final touches of the gyroscopic rig, he stood and checked both of our safety harnesses.

Wow, was this guy a pro, I thought as I watched him triple-check everything. A truly topflight operator. Whatever else he was, Leroux was a good guy to have in a foxhole, I thought. Especially one that was hovering at five hundred feet.

Then I realized why he had checked our safety harnesses.

“Opening the doors,” Leroux called over the intercom headset.

Holy moly. Is that such a great idea? I wanted to ask as my eyes went wide.

I didn’t get a chance. The bass hum of the craft’s turboshaft engine suddenly became molar-loosening as Leroux rolled open the doors on both sides of the Black Hawk’s cabin. My stomach did a little rolling as well as I suddenly looked out at the sharp edges of stone and glass buildings down there in the open air below my shoe tips.

With the brisk wind ripping in through the now open door, I could see we were at a low hover over Bryant Park, where the famous NYC library was. On the ground way down below, I could see lucky people safely and obliviously walking to and fro in front of the marble lions.

It’s hard to describe how peculiar it felt to be sitting there with the aircraft’s doors open. The enclosed cabin, which a second before had felt sort of safe, like being inside a car or something, now made me feel like we were sitting in a kid’s hastily built clubhouse, precariously perched on the tip of the Empire State Building.

“Give us a three sixty, Cap,” Leroux called smoothly up to the pilot as he hunkered down on his little hunter’s chair beside the other open door and placed an eye to the CheyTac’s scope.

There was a subtle change in the whine of the rotors, and we started slowly rotating counterclockwise. Manhattan began to pan across my spotting scope, the east side replaced by Central Park replaced by the bright—even in the daytime—glow of Times Square off the high-rise hotels.

When it had just about done a full turn, the chopper suddenly did a heart attack–inducing tilt sideways, to the left, snapping my harness line taut.

“Whoa, Nelly,” the pilot said calmly as he tilted us back level. “Those darn wind gusts. Thank goodness this baby has good drink holders.”

When I looked over at Leroux to see if he had maybe fallen out, I saw that he was sitting as before, completely still and relaxed. Th

e calm, slightly concerned expression on his face as he sat at the door’s edge, above the tips of the skyscrapers, was that of a mailman sorting letters or a carpenter screwing up some Sheetrock. What did this guy have for blood? I wondered. Freon?

He turned and looked at me and grinned.

“Feel that wind, Mike? Don’t you love it? That’s game temperature, baby.”

“Oh, yeah. Nothing like it in the world,” I lied as my saliva evaporated.

To take my mind off my terror, I glanced at my phone and saw that it was eleven thirty.

I glanced down, over the building tops, at the bubbling roof lights by the Waldorf again.

We were thirty minutes away from President Buckland’s ride to the United Nations.

Thirty minutes away from seeing what in the loving green world of God would happen next.

Chapter 88

In the middle of blocked-off Park Avenue, in front of the Waldorf Astoria, the assassin’s wife held up her phone, snapping pictures along with the rest of the fifty or so looky-loos.

She could already see, past the pedestrian barrier set up along the median, a large portion of the motorcade formed and waiting along blocked-off East 50th. She could actually see the rear of one of the two presidential limousines between two SUVs.

In front of the limo, there was a thick, white cloth tent stretched from the Waldorf’s 50th Street side entrance awning halfway into the street. The tent was to conceal President Buckland’s entry into the vehicle, she knew.

As she watched, several business-suited men—undercover cops, or maybe Secret Service agents—came out from around the tent and began milling about. There were more than usual, which was saying something. She’d heard on the radio that they’d even brought in some military-style MRAPs to bolster this visit.

She stifled a laugh. What would be next? An M1 Abrams tank? An aircraft carrier? All because they were afraid of one measly little man.