Authors: Stephen Coonts
Liberty (56 page)
“The target is the base of the torch, above the fingers. The thing is on the outside balcony, south side.”
“Roger that.”
“Repeat it to me.”
“The base of the torch.”
“Out.”
At the next desk over, another FBI technician was monitoring a tactical communications network. Jake asked him, “Is the sniper doing okay?”
“Yes, sir. He reported a moment ago that he saw both men. One's on the balcony, one's inside. He can just see the head of the man on the balcony.”
“What's the range?”
“Sixty-seven yards. Like shooting a fish in a barrel.”
The sniper had climbed the crane during the hours before dawn. Just now he was in the operator's cab, sitting so that he could see the torch. He was actually about twenty feet above the top of the torch, sixty-seven yards away, so he was actually looking a bit down at the balcony. He was sitting on the floor of the cab looking
through one of the operator's lower windows.
through one of the operator's lower windows.
The sniper's name was Brendan McDonald. Jake had talked to him before he climbed the crane. “You ever shoot anyone with that rig?” Jake asked, nodding at the scoped bolt-action .308 rifle McDonald carried.
“No, sir. Never had to.”
“If you have to shoot, I want your target really dead really quick. I don't know where the trigger for the weapon is, maybe on the weapon, maybe somewhere else. We need a one-shot kill.”
“Yes, sir.”
McDonald thought about that conversation as he sat in the cab on top of the crane. What a trip it had been climbing up here in the dark, carrying rifle and radio and a backpack full of water, crackers, and an empty bottle to pee in, plus ammo and laser range finder and binoculars.
The crane actually sat slightly east of north of the torch. McDonald could see into the balcony, but the weapon on the south side was out of sight. Nothing could be done about that. The crane could not be moved until it was disassembled.
Climbing up here had been an exercise in terror. At least it had been dark, so he wasn't tempted to look down. Now that the day had come McDonald couldn't believe he had done it.
He tried to put the view from the perch out of his mind and concentrate on the problem, which was that he didn't have a shooting position. He was inside the cab. Where he really needed to be was on top of it.
It wasn't a large structure, maybe six feet long by four feet wide. He could use carabiner rings to fasten his safety harness to the structure, so he wouldn't fall off. He hoped. Still, the risk was high. If he did slip and ended up dangling off this crane, one of the Trans would surely see him.
Regardless, he had to get to a place where he could aim the rifle for that one-shot kill that Grafton demanded,
or he was going to have to hide here useless until the show was over or the world ended.
or he was going to have to hide here useless until the show was over or the world ended.
Brendan McDonald grew up in Cleveland, went to school in Michigan, and had worked out of the FBI's New York office for years. He had dozens of friends in New York, hundreds of acquaintances, a girlfriend and an ex-wife. He thought of those people as he adjusted his gear, slung his rifle over his shoulder, hooked a carabiner ring on one end of the ten-foot safety strap to a piece of structural steel inside the cab and hooked the other onto his safety harness. The earpiece and throat mike that allowed him to communicate on the tactical net were taped in place, so they wouldn't fall off. He inspected the run of the safety strap, trying to decide if the line might be cut by something if he fell and put a strain on it. Looks okay, he thought.
Still no one in sight on the torch balcony.
The ladder came up to the door in the back of the cab. He would have to get out on the ladder and scramble on up.
He tried not to look down. Holy Mother â¦
Brendan McDonald grasped the ladder, stepped out, and forced his muscles to move.
Last night before they knocked off, the scaffolding crew had torn the scaffold down to just one course above the observation balcony on top of the pedestal. Tommy Carmellini scrambled up onto the scaffolding and examined the small pile of gear that the two FBI agents had helped him carry up here. He was on the north side of the statue, out of view of anyone on the torch balcony. This was the side of the statue he was going to have to climb.
He looked up, trying to see how it was going to go.
He would have to traverse under Liberty's chin, then gain her right arm and climb up to the torch. If he could get that far, he could shoot through the air and water vents in the balcony floor. Or try to climb up on it.
The skin of the statue was composed of copper sheeting, which was riveted to the frame of the statue. That frame was now steel, though originally it had been iron.
He was wearing a safety harness and had a rope coiled over his shoulder, but this was a free climbâif he fell, he was dead.
He was going to have to climb quietly, and that meant suction cups. The FBI had spent most of the night acquiring the equipment Carmellini had asked for. He assumed they had gotten it from climb shops in New York, but he didn't ask.
That Grafton! Nuclear weapons, terrorists, and he was Joe Cool. Toad said that when the admiral was young his squadron mates called him “Cool Hand,” after the Paul Newman character in the movie.
Grafton hadn't turned a hair when the FBI dude said no FBI agents had come for Anna. Well, someone did. Carmellini thought about that as he checked his gear, cinched his backpack straps tight, made sure the laces on his climbing shoes were properly tied.
Grafton was right, of course: she was alive or she was dead. That was the reality. And there was nothing on God's green earth he could do about it.
As the morning breeze tugged at him in the gray light, he installed the first suction cup, pumped the handle to force the air out and create a seal, then tested it with his weight. It held. He did another one about waist high. It didn't hold, so he had to reset it. Standing on the first one, he placed the third one about shoulder height. Now he moved up to the second, using arm and leg strength, and broke the seal of the lowest cup using a string. He hauled it up, then straightened and installed it higher.
The statue was 151 feet tall. Call it 150. If he installed a cup every thirty seconds two feet above the last, he would need fifteen minutes to climb this thing. If he did a cup a minute he would need a half hour. Forty-five minutes to an hour was more likelyâthis was damned
strenuous exerciseâso that was the estimate he gave to Grafton.
strenuous exerciseâso that was the estimate he gave to Grafton.
Up the side of the statue he went, being careful to avoid thinking of Anna. Anything but that! Fortunately Tommy Carmellini had always had a good head for heights. He didn't bother to look down, but if he had it wouldn't have bothered him much. Climbing was great sport with him and good practice for burglary.
Standing on the observation balcony level in the top of the pedestal, Rita Moravia placed a stethoscope she had borrowed that morning from the construction first-aid of fice against the door to the crown stairs and listened.
Toad Tarkington was there with a submachine gun, one with a short barrel decorated with a long, sausage-shaped silencer. The weapon had no sights. He wore it on a strap over his shoulder.
Rita went out on the observation balcony and looked up, trying to see how Carmellini was doing. The scaffolding obscured her view. She returned to the door, applied the stethoscope, and stood listening.
Toad took the elevator down to the base of the pedestal. When he got into the position he wanted, he too checked in with Jake Grafton on the tac net.
“Toad's in position.”
“Rita's in position.”
“Tommy's halfway up. Another fifteen minutes, at least.”
“McDonald's ready.” The sniper's voice was distorted somewhat, barely recognizable.
“Estep's ready.” Harry Estep and a squad of heavily armed FBI agents were inside a construction trailer near the main entrance to the statue. They wore body armor and were armed with submachine guns and satchel charges. If necessary, they were to blow the doors and fight their way to the torch.
In the admin building, Jake closed his eyes, concentrating on the situation. He was betting that the warhead was armed, the two men were in radio contact with each other, and they probably had some kind of alarm on the staircase. Then there was the door to the torch, three-quarters of the way upâit was probably alarmed and locked, too.
The safest course was to wait until one of them came down. They would eventually, but when? How long could he wait? What if Sonny or Nguyen saw the sniper or Tommy climbing the statue?
What if they pushed the button? What if a shell from
Whidbey Island
detonated the warhead?
Whidbey Island
detonated the warhead?
Unable to stand still, he paced behind Salmeron and the other radio operator. Over in the corner, Sal Molina sipped coffee. Jake wondered how in the world he could keep it down.
Nguyen had spent the night on the balcony. He had one blanket under him and one on top, so he had slept reasonably well. He slept on the east side of the torch, sheltered slightly from the wind.
Now he sat on the blankets and played with the Glock. He took the magazine out of the pistol, emptied the shell from the chamber, and dry-fired it at this and that while he thought about wasting the drug dealers in Kansas and the Arabs in Florida.
He enjoyed killing people. Came to that realization a little late in life, he thought, and chuckled. He leaned forward and looked to his right. Sonny had a blanket draped over the weapon.
He reloaded the Glock and jacked a shell into the chamber, then engaged the safety.
“I need to take a piss,” Nguyen called to Sonny, who was curled up under the light machinery.
“Drink the rest of the water in one of your bottles and
pee in it. That's what we brought them for.”
pee in it. That's what we brought them for.”
“I want to stretch my legs. I'm tired of sitting here.”
“Lie down then.”
“Sonnyâ”
“And when you do go, leave the fucking pistol, man. You look like you're itching to shoot someone.”
“Anyone,” Nguyen agreed.
“Pee in the bottle, then get busy with the binoculars. Crawl around the balcony and take a squint in all directions. Keep alert.”
“Right.” Nguyen reached for his backpack and hauled out the submachine gun. He cradled it in his lap, lit a cigarette, and studied the mechanism. Even a cup of coffee would be good.
Petty Officer Second Class Joe Shack wiped the morning dew and sea spray from his Bushmaster for the fifteenth time. He was wearing a sound-powered headset and listening to the skipper on the bridge. The old manâColeridgeâhad just given him the range again, 940 yards.
A nuclear warhead! God in heaven! Who in hell would have believed it? Joe Shack, standing here ready to cut loose with a 25-mm cannon at a nuke?
He was nervous. He had tried to get some food down this morning before dawn and promptly vomited it back up.
Shoot at the base of the torch, the old man said, right above her fingertips. Saw that thing clean off the statue.
A good breeze was blowing and the cutter was taut on her mooring lines. Still, she was moving a little in the swell, and that worried him. With an unstabilized gun, every shell didn't go where the gunner wanted itâthat's a fact. The new Bushmasters were stabilized, of course, but the friggin' Congress hadn't given the friggin' Coast Guard the money to buy the new mounts. Low priority, he had heard. Nobody cared about the problems of shooting
back at drug runners or pirates who were shooting at Coasties.
back at drug runners or pirates who were shooting at Coasties.
He stopped thinking about money and what he didn't have, and eyed the statue again. Ooh boy! Used the clean end of the rag to carefully wipe the moisture from the lens of the optical sight. Didn't want that puppy fogged up if and when.
Well, if that thing exploded he and all the guys on this tub were going to be radioactive ash. No two ways about it.
Hell, everyone in the harbor would probably go together.
He was thinking about that when he eyed the statue again, and saw something moving up the side of it. He had a good set of young eyes, but at a half mile in this light â¦
“Skipper, guns. What's that on the north side of the statue, there by the tablet?” The skipper had binoculars.
“It's a man. Climbing the thing, looks like.”
“Holy ⦠!”
“Just stay cool, Shack. You can do this if you have to.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The admiral won't ask you to shoot unless it's absolutely necessary. If it is and he gives the order, just do the best you can.”
Fuckin' A, man. Talk about balls, Coleridge had a set! He was going to sit up there on the bridge and watch ol' Joe Shack terminate life as we know it in the Big Apple. Goddamn steel
cojones.
cojones.
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