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“In any order. You’re green to go.”
The apprentice checked the wind speed, made a minute adjustment. Then with a clear mind, with cool blood, began.
The girl in the red skin suit circled in back crossovers, building speed for an axel jump. She began the rotation forward, the move from right skate to left, arms lifting.
The lethal stream struck the center of her back, with her own momentum propelling her forward. Her body, already dying, struck the family with the little boy. Like a projectile, that already dying body propelled them back, down.
The screaming began.
In the chaos that followed, a man gliding along on the other side of the rink slowed, glanced over.
The stream hit him center mass. As he crumpled, two skaters coming up behind him swerved around, kept going.
The couple, holding hands, still tripping along, skated awkwardly to the rail. The man gestured toward the jumble of bodies ahead of them.
“Hey. I think they’re—”
The stream punched between his eyes.
In the hotel room, in the silence, the apprentice continued to watch through the scope, imagined the sounds, the screams. It would have been easy to take out a fourth, a fifth. A dozen.
Easy, satisfying. Powerful.
But the mentor lowered his field glasses.
“Three clean hits. Target’s down.” A hand laid on the apprentice’s shoulder signaled approval. Signaled the end of the moment.
“Well done.”
Quickly, efficiently, the apprentice broke down the rifle, stored it in its case as the mentor retracted the bipod.
Though no words were exchanged, the joy, the pride in the act, in the approval spoke clearly. And seeing it, the mentor smiled, just a little.
“We need to secure the gear, then we’ll celebrate. You earned it. We can debrief after that. Tomorrow’s soon enough to move on to the next.”
As they left the hotel room—wiped clean before they’d begun and after they’d finished—the apprentice thought the next couldn’t come soon enough.
1
When Lieutenant Eve Dallas strode into the bullpen of Homicide after an annoying appearance in court, she wanted coffee. But Detective Jenkinson had obviously been lying in wait. He popped up from his desk, started toward her, leading with his obnoxious tie of the day.
“Are those frogs?” she demanded. “Why would you wear a tie with piss-yellow frogs jumping around on—Christ—puke-green lily pads?”
“Frogs are good luck. It’s feng shui or some shit. Anyways, the fresh meat you brought in took a pop in the eye from some chemi-head down on Avenue B. She and Uniform Carmichael hauled him and the dealer in. They’re in the tank. New girl’s in the break room with an ice patch. Figured you’d want to know.”
Fresh meat equaled the newly transferred Officer Shelby. “How’d she handle it?”
“Like a cop. She’s all right, LT.”
“Good to know.”
She really wanted coffee—and not crap break-room coffee, but the real coffee in her office AutoChef. But she’d brought Officer Shelby on board, and on her first full day she’d taken a fist in the eye.
So Eve, tall and lanky in her black leather coat, walked to the break room.
Inside, Shelby sat drinking crap coffee, squinting at her PPC while wearing a cold patch over her right eye. She started to get to her feet, but Eve gestured her down.
“How’s the eye, Officer?”
