Sacrifice, page 25
part #18 of Rogue Angel Series
Miki frowned. Eduardo. My poor old friend. Shot and killed by the American sniper. Well, this is for you, my dear pal.
Miki kept his legs moving.
Slowly but surely, he advanced toward the target.
“THE TRICK WILL BE positioning myself where I think I can get the best shot off without any collateral damage.”
“Collateral damage?”
Vic shrugged. “It’s unlikely. The ammunition I use has been specially modified to stop once it enters the brain. It won’t exit and cause another wound. It should just drop him like a bag of cement.”
“How?” Annja asked.
Vic tapped the back of his skull. “It enters here and demolishes the stem of the brain where all the life functions are controlled. Everything stops and the target literally drops into a puddle of nothing.”
Annja shook her head. “He seems so young.”
Vic shook his head. “We can’t think about that, Annja. That kid has a nuke strapped to his back. And besides, he’s twenty-one years old according to the intelligence we’ve got on him.”
Annja glanced at the data sheet that had just come over the car’s fax. Miki Felemenana had been born on Cebu and graduated from high school just before his recruitment into Agamemnon’s gang. He had a large family left behind.
“They might be counting on him,” Annja said.
“For what?”
“Money?”
Vic frowned. “Annja, you’re letting this get to you on a personal level. You have to shut it off and concentrate on the mission. Right now, that mission is making sure we stop the bomb. I’m sorry this kid is so young, but he knows what he’s doing. “
Annja sighed. “I know it. I just wish there was another way.”
MIKI CROSSED THE STREET with the throng of people, blending into the crowds. A police motorcycle flew past him with its siren on.
Miki gasped.
A girl nearby glanced at him with a strange look on her face. Miki smiled. “Sorry, I thought that guy was going to hit me,” he mumbled.
“Well, get off the street, then,” she said. She frowned at him and walked away.
Miki made it to the sidewalk. Ahead of him, he could see the taller buildings that were the gateway to Makati. Beyond, the heart of Philippines wealth lay ready for him to destroy it. He saw the innumerable banks and high-priced condominium complexes. A number of embassies were housed there, as well.
Miki grinned. Soon enough, they would be no more.
“THERE.”
Vic pointed at an area on the map. Annja peered closer.
“You’re going to position there?” she asked.
Vic leaned forward and showed the driver the map. “Yeah. It will give me the largest field of fire.”
“Are you sure that’s how he’ll come into the area?”
Vic shrugged. “We don’t have a lot of choice, do we? If he’s trying to get there in the shortest amount of time, then the route we drew is the one he’ll take. We’ve got to get to him before that bomb goes off.”
THE BOMB FELT HEAVIER. In the distance, Miki heard more sirens.
He frowned. The police activity seemed more than it was normally. Granted, he’d been in the jungle for the past week, but he’d been here enough to know what was normal and what was not.
The number of sirens he heard was definitely not normal.
He paused. They might know about him.
The timer would detonate the bomb in just twenty minutes. But twenty minutes was a lot of time. And if the cops knew about him, they could grab him and then defuse the bomb. Then the entire mission would be a bust.
He glanced around. To his left, a small bus station offered rest rooms.
Miki headed for it.
VIC FIT THE EARPIECE into his ear. “Radio check.”
Annja nodded. “Good.”
She heard the command center at the Embassy come back and announce they had him loud and clear.
Vic grabbed his rifle. “You ready?”
Annja nodded.
Vic opened the door and they slid out. Two Filipino cops waited for them. Vic introduced himself, and together they rushed into the large building in front of them.
“You’re sure this is the best location?” Annja asked.
“It’ll give me the angle I need,” Vic said. “You coming?”
Annja sighed. “Yeah.”
MIKI REEMERGED from the bathroom and pocketed the remote detonator. He felt much better now. He’d turned off the bomb’s timer and would use the remote-control switch to set it off instead.
That way, if the cops did know he was coming, he could simply blow it up right before they grabbed him.
And the mission would succeed.
He smiled and turned left, continuing to head toward Makati.
He had a quarter of a mile left to travel. Already, the number of people swirling around him had grown exponentially. Ahead of him, thousands more entered the buildings that ringed this portion of the city.
So many people, he thought. So many who would die instantly.
He felt almost godlike.
VIC SPREAD THE BLANKET on the roof of the building and then unzipped his rifle case. As he slid the rifle out, Annja could see his face switching to game mode. Vic was now starting to enter the zone.
“You okay?” she asked.
He glanced at her. “Just running it down. I’ve got a checklist in my head I have to go through.”
“Anything I can do?”
He nodded. “Take the binocs and start scoping out the scene below. Let me know if you see our boy. I’ve got to adjust for windage and elevation before I can shoot.”
Annja took the binoculars and looked down from the roof. The scene below was chaos. People swarmed everywhere.
How in the world were they ever going to find a single man carrying a bomb?
41
Annja scanned the crowd. How would Miki carry the bomb?
“He’ll have a backpack,” Vic said as if reading her mind. “It’s the only way he can carry it in. Look for a backpack and you’ll find him.”
Annja kept her eyes on the binoculars even as she heard Vic sliding a magazine into the underside of the sniper rifle. “Are you almost ready?” she asked.
“Almost.”
Annja’s eyes continued to search the crowd. He had to be out there somewhere. But where? All she could see were thousands of people crushing into the streets and sidewalks. Buses whipped past. Small motorcycles zipped down the streets. She heard car horns blaring, almost communicating in some unspoken language.
How was she going to find him before it was too late?
MIKI FELT RELIEF as he spotted the wide, gently sloping entrance to the main concourse at the Galleria Mall. On either side of the steps leading into the ritzy shopping area, fountains arced gracefully through the air, spraying water into a receptacle on the other side. Pink rosebushes lined the steps, and the marble columns at the top perfectly framed the entire picture.
There was something inherently beautiful about it.
Miki looked at the mall and hefted the backpack again. That was where he would die.
He and everyone else.
“I’M SET.”
Annja slid out of Vic’s way. He settled himself with the barrel of the sniper rifle eased over the edge of the roof. His fingers found the scope sitting atop the barrel and slowly clicked off a few settings on two of the dials. “I’ve got a good picture.”
Annja continued peering through her binoculars. Miki had to be down there somewhere. He had to be.
But where?
“There.”
She heard Vic’s voice and her heart jumped. “Where? You see him? Where is he?”
“Dammit. False alarm,” Vic said.
Annja breathed again. She glanced right. Was that a backpack? She turned back and refocused her eyes.
“Oh, my God.”
MIKI TOOK THE STEPS SLOWLY, savoring his last conscious decisions. Who would have thought that his life would boil down to these last few minutes? That everything he had worked so hard to accomplish would become this distilled?
He breathed deep and tasted the smog-laced air tinged with the delicate scent of rose petals. The combination simultaneously repulsed and attracted him. Was this what his life had become—a synergy of diametrically opposite sensations?
He missed his family. The thought washed over him.
Could he really kill these people? Could he really detonate this bomb? He’d be responsible for thousands of deaths, and lingering sickness would infect thousands more.
Was this what God had planned for him?
“I SEE HIM.”
Vic’s voice floated out on the wind. He made another correction to the scope. “Yeah, I’ve got a good picture here. His angle’s wrong. I need to wait until he turns around.”
He could see Miki standing there on the steps.
Once he turned around, Vic could fire and take him out.
One shot.
One kill.
“Good eyes, Annja.”
He frowned.
“Annja?”
He looked up from his scope.
She was gone.
IT WAS WEIRD that doubt would creep into his mind at this moment. Miki frowned. Certainly, this was a natural thing. Probably all suicide bombers experienced this self-same realization right before they blew themselves up.
Still, it would be nice if he could have seen his family one last time.
He wasn’t even supposed to be doing this. Eduardo was the chosen one. He was the one who was supposed to carry this bomb into the hearts of wealthy Filipinos. He was the one who was supposed to bring them to their knees and subject them to the horror of what their money had wrought.
But now he was here.
He took a breath. It was time.
“Miki.”
He turned. And saw a woman.
ANNJA COULD SEE THE FEAR in his eyes. He doesn’t want to do this, she thought. He’s scared.
“Annja, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Vic’s voice was like a harsh whisper in her ear.
“Get out of the way so I can take the shot.”
“Not yet,” she said.
Miki frowned. “What did you say?”
Annja spread her arms. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“We’ve never even met,” Miki said.
“I know, but I was in the jungle camp.”
Miki’s eyes widened. “Agamemnon told me all about you.”
“Did he? Did he tell you how he kidnapped me by accident and how he was going to cut my head off?” she asked.
Miki nodded. “Some sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.”
“Is that what you’re doing here?”
“Yes.”
“Is it? By killing so many innocent people, you think that will help you achieve anything?”
“We will achieve much with my action,” he said.
Annja shook her head. “No. It will mean only the deaths of many people who don’t deserve to die. Not even you,” she pleaded.
Miki frowned. “Agamemnon told me he would look after my family in Cebu. That he would give them a lot of money. They will be free of the poverty that enslaved me.”
“He told you that?”
Miki nodded. “Yes. And that is why I must die.”
“DAMMIT!”
Vic slid along the roof, trying to get a better angle on Miki. What the hell was Annja trying to do? She was blocking his shot.
“Control to Sierra One, do you have the target in sight?”
“Stand by, Control,” Vic said.
Vic shifted again. He could just make out he side of Miki’s head beyond Annja’s shoulder.
“Get out of the damned way!” he shouted.
“Control to Sierra One?”
“Stand by, Control, stand by!”
Vic moved again. He had to get the right angle to make the shot.
“YOU DON’T have to do this.”
Miki shook his head. “There’s no other way. This is my destiny. I’m supposed to do this for the greater good.”
“No greater good comes from an act like this. Only the devastation and misery that you’ll bring to all these people and families across the world.”
Miki sighed. “You don’t understand.”
“Make me understand,” she said.
Miki shook his head. “There’s no time left.”
Annja started to speak. Then she heard something off in the distance. Police sirens.
Miki heard it, too. He looked at her. “My time is at hand.”
He reached into his pocket.
Annja jumped toward him.
She saw Miki’s hand start to pull something out of his pocket.
And then she saw his entire body shudder as an invisible hand seemed to reach out of nowhere and slap him hard.
She heard the bullet report a second later.
“SIERRA ONE to Control,” Vic said.
“Go ahead, Sierra One.”
Vic swallowed. “Target eliminated. Repeat—target eliminated.”
“Control to Sierra One…we copy. Good shooting.”
ANNJA KNELT next to Miki’s body. His eyes were open but bloody. Vic was right; the bullet hadn’t exited his skull, but stayed there and caused massive damage inside.
He was dead before he even hit the ground.
Annja looked at the detonator that he’d barely managed to pull free. He would have detonated it, she thought. He would have.
Behind her, she heard the sirens wailing and tires screeching as the cars and trucks drew to a halt. And then she felt a tangle of arms lift her back away from Miki’s corpse as the soldiers, agents and scientists rushed to make sure the device would not explode.
It was over.
42
“That was some stunt you pulled back there in Manila.”
Annja looked at Vic. He looked a thousand percent better now that he was clean and face-paint free. The close shave did him justice, as well, showing his strong jawline and the laugh lines she’d suspected were there, but hadn’t yet seen much evidence of.
“He was too young to die,” Annja said. “He was just a boy.”
“A boy who knew exactly what he was doing,” Vic said. “He would have detonated the device—you know that.”
Annja nodded. “I didn’t want to believe it, but yes, he would have. I saw it in his eyes and the final act of trying to get the detonator out of his pocket. I think in that split second, I realized I’d made a mistake.”
“Luckily, as soon as you started to jump forward, you cleared out of my way and enabled the shot,” Vic said.
Annja sighed. “I wish I could be happy about that.”
Vic laid a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t need to be happy. You don’t need to be upset with yourself about not being happy. This kind of thing—it comes with the job.”
“It’s not exactly a job I want,” Annja said. “I was happier doing other things.”
Vic nodded. “Yeah, well, hopefully soon you’ll be back to doing what you love.”
“And what about you?”
Vic smiled. “Me? I’ll be back to doing what I do, too, I suppose.”
“Traipsing through jungles?”
“Living out of a backpack and humping a rifle all over the place. Yep.” Vic shrugged. “It’s a living.”
“If you say so.”
He looked at her. “Are we going to argue about whose existence is more meaningful now?”
“I hope not.”
Vic took a deep breath. “I heard there was quite a shake-up in Beijing after the Philippines government confronted them about their involvement in the averted nuclear terrorist act.”
