In the left, John Smith raised a pistol and shot the senator in the head.
In the right, a hole just appeared in the man’s head, as if fired from elsewhere in the restaurant.
In both monitors, the three bodyguards shrugged out of their coats, revealing cross-slung Heckler & Koch tactical submachine guns. Each took the time to extend the retractable metal stock and brace the weapon against his shoulder. The red light of an exit sign fell like blood against their backs.
The video froze, and scrubbed backward.
Cooper had the sudden sense he was being watched, whirled, gun up. Nothing. Turned back to the monitor in time to see the action again.
To watch the three shrug out of their coats, the red light of an exit sign falling like blood across their backs. Their weapons rising.
Pause. Scrub back.
The three shrug out of their coats, the red light of an exit sign falling like blood—
There’s something wrong.
Not just that John Smith isn’t in one of these.
Something else.
You were meant to see this. He knows you’re here. This is for you.
But there’s something else wrong.
—across their backs.
Pause. Scrub back.
The three shrug out of their coats, the red light of an exit sign falling like blood across their backs.
Pause. Scrub back.
The three shrug out of their coats, the red light of an exit sign falling like blood across their backs.
It was the same. The red light was the same in both videos.
But in the one on the left, the one he knew, John Smith was between them and the exit sign. His body should have blocked some of the light. Not enough to throw an obvious shadow, but still, the red shouldn’t have reached them. Certainly not the one nearest him.
But if that was true…
Cooper stared, feeling as if the ground had slipped away beneath him, as if he had turned to fog and could slip insubstantial through all that he thought solid.
Then he heard the door open behind him.
He spun, reflexes taking over, the gun coming up, right arm straight, left cradling the butt of the gun, both eyes open and staring down the barrel at the man who stood in the doorway. His features were balanced and even, strong jaw, good eyelashes. The kind of face a woman might find handsome rather than hot, the kind that belonged to a golf pro or a trial lawyer.
“Hello, Cooper,” John Smith said. “I’m not John Smith.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Cooper stared down the barrel. Instinct had framed the sights square on the man’s chest. John Smith stared back at him, one hand on the doorknob, the knuckles white. His pupils were wide and his pulse throbbed in his throat.
Pull the trigger.
From behind and to one side, Cooper heard an unmistakable sound. What his old partner Quinn had once described as the best sound in the world, provided you were the one who made it.
The racking of a shotgun.
Smith made the tiniest head nod. Without lowering the pistol, Cooper risked a fast glance.
Somehow, Shannon stood in the corner of the room. She looked small behind the pump-action, but had it braced perfectly, the butt against one delicate shoulder. The barrel had been cut down to almost nothing; it was more scattergun than shotgun. Even at this distance, with the right load—and it would be, he had no doubt—there was nothing he could do to avoid it. Shannon’s gaze was steady and her finger had pressure on the trigger.
How did she do that?
“I don’t have your gift,” Smith said. “But I’m pretty sure what you’re thinking. You’re figuring that there is no way she can fire before you do. And you’re right. You can probably get at least one. Odds are decent you kill me. Of course, if you do, it’s certain that she’ll kill you.”