Collateral Damage - Marc Cerasini [90]
"No! Dubic must have forgotten. He was very injured. He could hardly speak..."
"You are a fraud. An impostor," roared Noor. "Take her."
Strong hands seized her arms. Judith struggled, then yelled out the panic phrase: "Semper fi! Semper fi!"
Someone punched her in the face, and the lab's bright lights faded.
* * *
4:38:43 A.M. EDT
Schenley Park
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
From his position among the branches of a century-old oak, Detective Mike Gorman shifted the sniper rifle in his grip, then aimed his night vision binoculars at the trailer truck three hundred feet away.
The vehicle sat in the middle of Schenley Plaza, once the grand entrance to the 456-acre conservancy, now used as a parking area for county rangers and concession employees. The truck had arrived sometime between midnight and four A.M., when a sharp-eyed Allegheny County Parks Department ranger recognized the vehicle from a Federal government alert sent out to local authorities.
Two men slept in the cab. The driver's window was open, his arm hanging out. The guy in the passenger seat slouched so low, only the top of his New York Mets ball cap showed above the dashboard.
He's the tougher shot, and I got him, Gorman mused.
For thirty minutes, Gorman and his partner, Chuck Romeo, had observed the sleeping targets, fearing they would awaken and drive away at any moment. So far they'd been lucky, but luck never lasted long — just one lesson Gorman had taken away from the McKee's Rocks mess.
I should have fired, Gorman thought, flashing back to the hostage standoff. A young mother had been held at gunpoint by an escaped convict. I should never have waited for authorization. If I'd have pulled the trigger, that poor woman would be alive today and her murderer dead, instead of the other way around.
"What are we waiting for?" Gorman said into his headset.
"A biohazard team with a tent," his boss, Captain Kelly, advised. "Once it's in place, we can move."
Gorman glanced across a grassy clearing at his partner, perched in a tall maple tree. He was sure Chuck was staring back at him. Then Romeo's voice crackled in his headset.
"A biohazard team? Is there something you're not telling us, Captain?"
"Relax, boys," Kelly said. "Just do your job and the Feds will do the rest."
More baffled than alarmed, Gorman lowered his binoculars and shifted the fourteen-pound M24 sniper rifle into position. The composite stock against his armored shoulder, he peered through the infrared scope.
Placing the ball cap in the center of his crosshairs, Gorman once again adjusted the instrument for wind speed, temperature, humidity, and distance. Gorman knew he had only one shot. It had to be on the money. He wasn't going to mess up again.
Minutes passed. Then Gorman heard the sound of an engine. He watched in disbelief as two white panel trucks rolled into the plaza and halted just inside the gate.
"I thought the road had been cordoned off to traffic," Gorman hissed.
"It's the biohazard team. They'll be ready to go in two minutes."
Gorman glanced through his scope again. His target was still snoozing, but the driver had shifted position.
Had he heard the vans, too?
"I think my mark's awake," Chuck Romeo warned.
"Do not fire," Captain Kelly commanded. "I repeat. Do not fire until I give the command."
"Son of a..." Gorman stifled his curse, remembering that everything he and the others said was being taped — just like McKee's Rocks.
Unbidden, the memory returned. Two A.M., outside a strip joint on the main drag of that scummy little suburb. The drunk convict, using the dancer for a shield, gun to her head. Gorman had a clear shot, begged Captain Kelly for authorization to pull the trigger, but it never came. The only shot fired that night went into the dancer's skull. The single mother from Wheeling, West Virginia, died because he'd hesitated.
Through his scope, Gorman saw the driver wake up the man beside