Parallax View (30 page)

When he reached
the platform, Reagan climbed the stairs, moving well for a man in his
seventies. He stopped short of the podium, waiting to be introduced. In his
hand he held a sheaf of papers, undoubtedly the notes for his remarks.

At the podium, a
youngish man, hair slicked back, glasses perched on his nose, was speaking into
a microphone. The air was clear and Nikolai could hear every word. “And now,
please join me in welcoming the man responsible for the resurgence of our
economy, and of the United States in general, President Ronald Reagan!”

The people behind
the podium stood and clapped, the crowd cheered, and Reagan stepped to the
podium, pausing to shake the hand of the man who had introduced him. He smiled
easily, waiting for the applause to die down so he could begin.

Nikolai leaned
onto the top of the retaining wall, bracing himself with his elbows, holding
the Dragunov loosely in his hands. He peered through the scope and after a
quick adjustment, Reagan’s face filled the viewfinder, his teeth white and
straight and his smile perfect. It was as if he was standing directly in front
of Nikolai, no more than a few feet away.

Nikolai centered
the crosshairs on Reagan’s forehead and prepared to change history.

48

June 2, 1987

9:57 a.m.

Minuteman Mutual Insurance
Building, Washington, D.C.

Tracie raced to the roof access
door, glancing at her watch as she did. Nearly ten. She was out of time.

She reached the
door and skidded to a stop, hyper-aware of the need for speed but knowing her
only chance for success was in not alerting the assassin to her presence. She
knelt and examined the space at doorknob height between the door and the metal
jamb. The KGB operative had forced the latch back with duct tape.

Tracie opened the
door slowly and stepped through, then eased the door closed. Turned and started
up the concrete steps and then pulled up suddenly, squinting as she bent down
to look at the steps. A trail of fresh-looking blood meandered up them.

She hurried up the
steps and in seconds had arrived on the roof. The front of the building and
Columbia Road were to her right, obscured by the rusting metal bulkhead. That
was where the assassin would be stationed, with President Reagan scheduled to
begin speaking any second now. For all she knew, the president was at the
podium already.

She glanced left
and saw a pair of shoes, black and heavy, attached to legs in uniform pants.
They weren’t moving. The murdered security guard.

She took a deep
breath and turned her attention away from the body. She eased her eyes around
the bulkhead, using the metal structure for cover, and her pulse quickened. At
the far end of the roof, sighting through a sniper scope, rifle angled down and
toward the platform where the president would soon speak, was the KGB assassin.
She prayed Reagan had not yet reached the podium.

The man was
dressed in what looked like a janitor’s uniform. A dark ball cap covered his
head, and he appeared calm and collected, the rifle held steady.

Tracie drew her
weapon and stepped clear of the bulkhead. The assassin’s attention was focused
completely on Reagan as he peered through his scope. He would never know what
hit him.

But there was a
problem. She wouldn’t be
able
to hit him. She was aiming at a target at
least forty feet away with a handgun after running up eight flights of stairs,
her hands shaking from exertion and adrenaline.

She sighted down
the barrel, holding her Beretta in a two-handed shooter’s grip, and swore to
herself, frustrated. There was no way. If she fired now, she would almost
certainly miss, and the advantage of surprise would be gone. The assassin would
still have time to shoot Reagan before turning to defend his position against
Tracie.

She stepped left
and then forward, moving away from the bulkhead, hoping he wouldn’t sense her
in his peripheral vision.

Still too far. She
needed to get closer.

Another step left.
Two more forward.

Better, but not
good enough.

She continued
moving, knowing the president had to be on the platform by now, maybe even
behind the podium, so she likely had just seconds left. But her odds of hitting
the Russian were still no better than fifty-fifty. She had to get closer.

Through the warm
air Tracie could hear President Reagan as he began to speak. “Good afternoon,
Washington,” he said. “Thank you for joining me as we celebrate the continued
revitalization of a neighborhood that is quickly becoming a model for what can
be achieved when government gets out of the way and allows its citizens to take
charge.”

The crowd cheered
and Tracie tuned out the president’s voice.

She took another
step forward, her attention entirely on the assassin. Another step, and then
she felt a tug of resistance above her ankle and lost her balance, toppling to
the roof, crashing down in a spray of gravel.

She thrust her
hands out reflexively and her weapon skittered away. She hit the surface and
rolled, feeling pain in both palms as the gravel bit into her skin. She knew
immediately what had happened, knew she had just condemned the president of the
United States to death by her own stupidity and lack of awareness.

The assassin had
strung fishing line across the roof, maybe a foot above its surface. A
tripwire. In the sunshine, with her attention wrapped up in the shooter, Tracie
had never seen it. She knew all this in the half-second it took to hit the
roof.

She rolled once
and rose to a crouch, scanning desperately for her gun. A slug struck the
gravel no more than an inch from her left leg and she dived to the surface
again, rolled again. The assassin had missed her once, probably due to
surprise, but he would not likely miss a second time.

One desperate
lunge, her feet scrabbling for purchase, and Tracie reached the cover of the
air conditioning unit. She was safe, but only for a moment. Her weapon lay
eight feet to her right, tantalizingly close, but directly in the shooter’s
line of fire.

She risked a quick
look around the corner of the air conditioner, and heard the
ping
of a
shot ricocheting off the sheet metal. She drew back instinctively.

The shooter was
walking slowly toward Tracie, firing with a silenced pistol, likely a Makarov
PB, a favorite of the KGB. As soon as Tracie fell, he’d dropped his sniper
rifle and drawn the Makarov. That slight delay in changing weapons had probably
saved her life—for a few seconds, at least—allowing her to reach the safety of
the air conditioning unit.

But he was
approaching fast, which meant two things:

One, no one on the
ground eight stories below would hear a thing. The silenced weapon would allow
the Russian to kill Tracie and then return to his previous position without
missing a beat. No one below would even be aware of his presence. He would
still be able to complete his mission.

Two, she was
almost out of time. He would round the corner of the air conditioning unit in
seconds and put a bullet in her head. He would not miss again.

Her brain
processed all of the information in an instant and she knew she was out of
options. Without any further conscious thought, she dived for her gun, unable
to see the assassin behind her, wondering if she would feel the impact of the
bullet that would end her life or if consciousness would simply disappear like
a light bulb being switched off.

But there was no
slug.

She slid across
the gravel-covered rooftop like a baseball player diving into second base and
was amazed when she reached her weapon still breathing. She wrapped both hands
around the grip and rolled onto her back, looked up and saw the Russian
approaching quickly, eyes sharp, gun raised, taking his time.

She rolled
instinctively as he fired and she felt a searing pain in her right shoulder,
the impact of the bullet driving the right side of her body into the surface of
the roof. She felt the gravel pellets digging into her back with a clarity
unlike anything she had ever experienced.

She returned fire,
squeezing off a shot as the nerves in her arm went dead and she lost all
feeling in her hand. The gun slipped out of her hand and clattered once again
onto the roof. She knew immediately she had missed, the Russian’s shot causing
her shoulder to dip and her body to lurch to the right.
Should have
compensated. Dammit!

The Russian
continued moving forward.

Tracie stared into
the gun barrel, suddenly as big as a cannon, and prepared to die.

49

June 2, 1987

10:00 a.m.

Minuteman Mutual Building,
Washington, D.C.

Ronald Reagan’s forehead was
nestled squarely in the crosshairs of Nikolai’s scope. The magnification was
perfect, and so were the conditions. Clear. No wind. Nothing to disrupt the
trajectory of the bullet he was about to fire, killing the U.S. president and
accomplishing his mission.

He breathed in and
out slowly, through his half-open mouth, perfectly calm. Focused. He took one
last breath. Paused. Began to squeeze the trigger, a steady, constant increase
in pressure—

—and recoiled at
the sound of gravel spraying as a body crashed to the rooftop. The noise came
from behind him, to his left, in the direction of the bulkhead covering the
access stairs from the seventh floor.

Nikolai understood
instantly what had happened. Someone was here, and that someone had just fallen
over the tripwire he had strung across the rooftop, a precaution he hadn’t
thought he’d need. Someone was stalking him.

Nikolai reacted
with a skill born of training and years of experience. He placed the Dragunov
carefully along the retaining wall while at the same time pivoting his head to
gauge the threat. Near the air conditioning unit his attacker sprawled
face-first on the roof. He lifted his silenced Makarov—he had placed it between
his feet for easy access—and as the attacker rolled and began to rise, Nikolai
turned in a crouch and squeezed off a shot.

Missed.

Nikolai hesitated.
The attacker was a woman. He couldn’t believe the United States government
would send a woman to stop him if they had somehow learned of the assassination
plot.

And where was
everyone else? There should be dozens of agents, all armed to the teeth,
wearing flak jackets and shouting through bullhorns. There should be attack
helicopters and sirens and shouting and chaos. But there was none of that—just
one lone woman who had scrambled out of sight behind the safety of the big air
conditioning unit.

He glanced around
and saw her weapon lying on the roof where it had fallen when she tumbled over
the tripwire. Probably she had a backup weapon, but Nikolai wasn’t worried.
Before she could shoot him she would have to aim, and to do that would require
exposing herself to peer around the edge of the air conditioning unit. The
moment she did he would put a hole in her head.

He sighted down
the barrel of the Makarov and began walking slowly toward the air conditioner.
He believed in aggressive action.

As he approached,
his attacker poked a head around the edge of the unit as he had known she
would. But it was the wrong edge. He had been covering the right side of the
unit, so when he spotted the face peering out at him, he had to pull the gun
hard to the left before squeezing the trigger. Again he missed. He cursed
softly.

He kept moving,
surprised the attacker had not yet returned fire. That could only mean one
thing: she had no backup weapon. That meant she’d have to make a move for the
gun lying out in the open.

He adjusted course
slightly, turning toward the attacker’s weapon just as she appeared from behind
the air conditioning unit. Her dive was perfect and as she landed on the
gravel, her hands wrapped around the gun and she turned in one smooth motion
and aimed it at him.
She’s good,
Nikolai thought with grudging
professional respect.

And he fired.

She dodged and he
caught her in the right shoulder. She squeezed off a wild shot and then the gun
fell from her hand onto the roof. Just like that, she was helpless.

He took another
step, centering the gun on her chest. He would put one slug center-mass, then
finish with a double-tap to the head. Textbook. The entire exchange had taken
no more than a minute, and down on Columbia Road eight stories below, Ronald Reagan
was still droning on about the American Dream. There was still time to
accomplish his mission.

He began to
squeeze the trigger and vaguely registered a blur of motion coming fast from
his left. Then he was hit by what felt like a guided missile and driven to the
roof.

50

June 2, 1987

10:01 a.m.

Minuteman Insurance Building,
Washington, D.C.

Shane reached the seventh-floor
entrance just as Tracie was disappearing through the roof access door. He
staggered down the hallway, pain blasting through his head. His vision ebbed
and waned, roiling black clouds forming at the edges of his sight. His mouth
tasted dry and sour and he felt like he was going to puke. He wondered if the
tumor was going to take him right now. The doctors had said he had weeks left, maybe
even a couple of months, but what the hell did they really know?

He reached the
roof access door and pulled it open slowly. His hands were shaking and not from
nerves. From above, a soft
Phht
sound floated down the stairwell. A
silenced gunshot. Tracie wasn’t carrying a silenced weapon, which meant the
Russian had fired the shot. He prayed he wasn’t too late.