Cold Barrel Zero by Matthew Quirk

Author:Matthew Quirk
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Suspense, Adult, Thriller
ISBN: 9780316259217
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Published: 2016-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

HAYES ACCELERATED ONTO the freeway. I was in the backseat, leaning forward so I could talk with him over the engine’s hum.

“What are you going to use with Nazar?” I asked. “Sniper?”

“It’s the least dangerous, but it’s kind of Hollywood for an assassination,” Hayes said. “No one’s travel is that predictable. Scouting lines of sight takes weeks, and a kill with one round from a cold barrel is harder than you think. Poison’s out. That leaves us guns or explosives. You always get the target in transport. It doesn’t matter if it’s an old woman or a prime minister—they’re most vulnerable when they’re on the move.

“The state of the art with this stuff is the Kidon. It’s part of Mossad, the assassination squads. They like to use a small shaped charge on the door or a few grams of explosive in a cell phone or headrest. If they’re using guns on the fly, they’ll take motorcycles and a four-man team: a spotter, a man to guide the bike to the target, the bike driver, and the shooter on the back. You steal the motorcycles and use a container against the cartridge port to collect your brass. Totally untraceable.”

“Hollywood is what we’re going for here. We’re not actually killing her.”

“Sure,” Hayes said. “Force of habit.”

Our plan was to try to kill Nazar and fail. Riggs had just threatened Nazar, so we would pose as Riggs’s men, make an attempt on her life, and miss. We had spoofed Riggs’s BlackBerry and sent a message to Nazar to meet. She had just responded. She would be at the meeting site, a hilltop park, ten minutes from now. It was six miles away. We were speeding west in a Suburban.

The dome light had been pried open and disabled, to avoid any chance of our being detected at night, I gathered. A small module hung down from the diagnostic port under the dashboard. The truck was stolen. We used to scrounge for medical supplies downrange. In the military, the polite term to describe hot goods is skillfully acquired. In the navy they’re referred to as cumshaw.

Hayes scanned the map again. “She’s going to be meeting us here,” he said, and pointed to an out-of-the-way section of the park. “I can put Moret here. Though if it’s a sniper shot that misses, Nazar might not even notice.”

“I have the high-explosive rounds,” Moret said. “One in the car and one in the ground, and she’s definitely going to pay attention. It’d be all the payoff of a bombing with none of the prep.”

“I like it,” Hayes said. “Byrne, we’ll wait on you to ID her. You stay with Moret.”

“Rog.”

We drove along an access road up the foothills, then stopped on a knoll in a grove of pepper trees.

I stepped out. Hayes and Moret took wind and distance readings and set up cover for the SR-25.

Kelly and I were alone. “Are you sure about this?” she asked. “There’s a big difference between running away from a threat and being party to an execution.

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