Breach of Protocol

AN OCCUPIED ROOFTOP

3

AN OCCUPIED ROOFTOP

Across from the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, Midtown Manhattan, New York

Rafael pulled a piece of plastic sheeting over his body and that of his weapon, a custom-tuned Middleton model 415SS crossbow. The weapon was capable of delivering a carbon-fiber crossbow bolt tipped with a razor-sharp 100-grain broadhead at over five hundred feet per second. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and the last thing he wanted was to acquire his target through wet optics.

He’d never been tasked to carry out a hit using such a weapon, and had spent lots of time training with it. In the past, his typical weapon of choice was a Zastava sniper rifle. Zastavas are Serbian built, and he had used his favorite, chambered in 7.62x51 mm, to assassinate several dozen high-ranking officers in the war with Croatia.

When his new employer contracted him to carry out today’s mission, very little had been said of his assigned target. At that time, all he’d been told was to proceed to the Northeastern United States and wait for further instructions. Before details were made clear, he’d even shipped the sniper rifle, which itself had made quite a journey. He had broken the rifle into parts and placed it inside a steel drum while he was still in Oman. The drum was one of about a thousand which were about to board a freighter bound for New York. When it reached the United States, the ship docked at the Columbia Street Waterfront, within sight of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Rafael had discarded the rifle scope that was originally attached to the Zastava, an old ZRAK ON-M76. He replaced it with something he was more comfortable with, a $2,700 Leupold model that had a much wider field of view and illuminated crosshairs. Once sighted in, the rifle had become capable of driving a tack into a target at five hundred meters.

But when his employer, Waseem Jarrah, had provided more details about the assignment, the instructions were very clear—the weapon for this particular hit was to be a crossbow. The instructions further stated that failure to use a crossbow would result in his not being paid. Thus, his archery training had begun.

Locating a suitable crossbow had not been difficult. He was able to locate it at a gun show in West Virginia and the purchase was untraceable. It would never have occurred to the man sitting behind the table that it would be used for any purpose other than hunting whitetail deer.

Rafael then took the crossbow to have it tuned. The archery specialist replaced the factory limbs on the weapon with those made of customized tungsten alloy. The man said it was the most powerful crossbow he’d ever constructed. Once the Leupold rifle scope was mounted, Rafael’s ability to place an arrow into the center of his target became an act of simplicity.

The early afternoon sky was a dreadful mix of grays dappled with the black of the storm. The rain droned on, but sitting atop a building just across from the main entrance to New York’s sprawling Jacob Javits Conference Center provided the perfect vantage point. His target would emerge, and once the one-hundred-grain broadhead bolt struck, the man would die before he hit the ground.

As time ticked by, Rafael became bored and his focus drifted. He raised the weapon and looked through the scope at an apartment building behind him and peered into the windows. In the darkness of the storm, Rafael could see into the brightly lit units. His eyes wandered from one apartment to the next, seeking out what pleased him. In a third floor unit, a young woman entered her front door and dropped a soft-sided leather brief case onto the couch, then made her way to the bedroom. “My, my, what do we have here?” he said to himself with a grin. His grin widened as the woman flipped off a raincoat and ran fingers through her long wet hair. “Oh, we are soaked, aren’t we? Wouldn’t we be more comfortable in dry clothes?” His laughter started low, but became almost maniacal as the woman pulled her black, skin-tight dress over her head and let it fall to the floor. “How very nice. Little black dress, black bra, black panties. Yes, well, I should think you would like me to visit. And how skinny we are. I do love a flat stomach.” The woman reached behind herself and unhooked her bra, letting it, too, fall. Rafael’s eyes flared at the sight of her bare breasts. She turned and disappeared into the bathroom. “Perhaps I should pay you a visit. Yes, I think a visit is in order. There will be time later, and we will get to know one another.”

With the temporary distraction gone, Rafael turned his attention back to his assignment. Initially, he hadn’t known who had hired him, and hadn’t cared. The first p*****t had been transferred into his Cayman Island bank account and that was all that mattered. That and the fact that this job was the heaviest hit he’d ever been hired to carry out. This one would bring down a lot of heat. In the past, he’d hit high-priority targets, but this was on a whole new scale. The response to this assassination would be swift, and he could not falter in his escape.

He would leave no trace of his presence, with one exception: a piece of evidence he would deliberately leave behind. Once he had fired the weapon, he would have to move, and move quickly. His mind swirled with questions. Why a crossbow? If silence is what is required, I could easily outfit my sniper rifle with a suppressor. And why deliberately leave this strange piece of evidence behind so that authorities would find it? But questions such as these became mere afterthoughts. Even if he knew the answers, he would have accepted the assignment anyway. His line of work required one thing: complete loyalty to his employers. It was as simple as that.

A gust of wind pushed a wet blanket of rain in a sheetlike motion across the bustling Eleventh Avenue traffic below. He checked his watch. It would only be another minute or two before his quarry emerged from the glass double doors. Wind and rain would provide the perfect cover—it would be impossible for anyone to hear the muffled thumping of the crossbow as it discharged, much less determine the direction the shot came from. He would be off the rooftop and onto the streets below, mingling in the throngs of humanity, within moments.

He slipped further underneath the plastic tarp and brought the cold stock of the crossbow to his cheek. The view through the high-quality optics cut the dark rain and revealed a clear field of fire. He twisted the scope ring to zoom the view closer and began a slow series of exhales, preparing his body to make the shot.

Any moment and he’ll be walking through that glass door. Any moment now . . .

His finger found the edge of the familiar trigger, and held.

The double doors of the convention center swung open and his target walked straight into the crosshairs.