Page 53 of Dangerous Passion

He drifted down the corridor of the 30thfloor, head down, big-billed cap hiding his features. The lock took only a few seconds more than if he’d had a key. A few movements hidden by his back and he was in.

It was a studio apartment, some forty square meters, with a sofa bed and modern kitchenette in the corner.

Carpeting, which was nice. He’d spent more hours of his life than he could count lying on the hard, stony ground, waiting for a shot.

Working quickly while there was still daylight, Rutskoi pulled on latex gloves, then opened his case and took out the pieces of the broken-down Barrett from their foam cutouts.Snap snap snap.His hands assembled the pieces without any conscious thought, performing the task automatically, perfectly, the fruit of thousands and thousands of repetitions. The tripod was next. Several efficient twists and snaps and there it was—the stable platform for his rifle.

A plastic tarp was carefully placed over the carpet and smoothed down. A wrinkle could feel like a mountain after a couple of days. That three meter by two meter tarp was going to be his home for however long it took.

He was going to get one chance at this,one. He had to do it right. He had to wait until the opportunity arrived, then use it. He couldn’t afford the least distraction.

This was like any military op, he reminded himself, only better paid. He had an enemy to observe and then take out. All the military rules for urban sniping held here, too. In Manhattan, like in Grozny, the principles were the same, only this time he wasn’t holing up in the rubble of a building destroyed by tanks, or behind an abandoned vehicle or on the rooftop of the tallest building around, but in a comfortable studio apartment with heating.

Everything else was the same. The sniper’s cool ability to wait out the prey. Planned routes in and out. A stable platform. And—above all—the right equipment.

He lay it all out beside him on the tarp on the floor.

Thermography infrared scope and night vision scope withgermanium lenses. Plenty of ammo. Once he had Drake in his sights, he would lay down withering fire. Two weeks’ worth of energy bars, bottles of Evian he’d found in the pantry and four empty water bottles for when it came back out again. iPhone.

He looked around and dragged the sofa cushion seats onto the tarp, blessing the decorator who’d opted for the cheapest solution. Down-filled cushions would have been impossible to use as a platform—too soft. The hard, flat foam rubber rectangles covered with fabric were perfect.

The distance to the window was crucial. The outside windows were lightly reflective. Not as much as Drake’s windows—which were basically mirrors and showed absolutely nothing of what was inside—but enough so that he didn’t have to position himself at the back of the room in trapped shadow, as he had in Chechnya. In one ruin of a building in Grozny with a southern exposure, he’d had to position himself a room away from the window and bore an aperture through the internal wall for the rifle muzzle. It wouldn’t be necessary here. Even looking straight out, Drake wouldn’t see anything. He would also be used to seeing the drapes of this apartment open, since it was rarely inhabited.

Shooting through glass was always a problem. It was best to shoot in a straight line. The glass in this apartment was only laminated. The powerful bullets would sail through without deflection. Drake’s windows would be a bitch to shoot through, but with the thermal imager to give away position and his .50 cal bullets, there was no doubt in Rutskoi’s mind that one of his bullets would catch Drake.

One bullet was enough.

He had boxes of ammo, including incendiary rounds,enough to fucking blow up the room if he had to. Once he started, he wasn’t going to let Drake out of the room and he wasn’t going to stop until Drake was dead.

Rutskoi settled onto the tarp, slightly to the left of his line of fire, bracing himself over the tripod, letting bone, not muscle, take the weight of his body. His cheek found the familiar position against the exact same point on the stock weld, as always. He was prepared to wait in this position for as long as it took.

As he assumed the position that would give him maximum comfort over what might be a long period of time, while at the same time assuring maximum accuracy, he felt himself disappear, sinking and floating at the same time, cut off from the world, his entire being narrowed down to his finger on the trigger and eye on the scope.

It was the closest thing he knew to happiness.

This is where he belonged, he realized in a sudden rush of insight. This is what he was born for—the hunt. And what greater, more exciting hunt, than that of man?

How wrong he had been to want to go into business with Drake. Rutskoi wasn’t a businessman, not even close. Drake knew his guns but his real genius was in money-making. Drake would have made a fortune out of whatever it was he decided to sell. Cars, real estate, stocks. It had just happened that he’d started business in a god-forsaken part of the world where weapons were the main commodity.

What the hell had Rutskoi been thinking? He’d been so eager to get out of the Russian Army and out of Russia, he’d somehow convinced himself he was a businessman. Wrong. He was a hunter. That was his nature.

And—he finally understood—that was his future.

A ten million dollar contract would never come again because there would never again be a target like Drake, not in this lifetime. Drake was an outlier, a black swan. Like Tamerlane or Alexander or Napoleon. His like would not come again for another hundred years.

But the world was full of targets. Thousands of them. Millions. Men standing in your way, blocking the path upward, men with knowledge that could hurt you, men who betrayed you, men who’d killed and needed killing in turn. The world was full of them and full of their enemies.

The world wasnotfull of men with Rutskoi’s skill set. He was a genius with a rifle, and was one of the few military snipers who could take his skills out of the armed forces and not go insane. Hired killers were often unbalanced, a step shy of madness, highly unreliable, blunt tools.

Not Rutskoi. He was as sane as could be. Not a cold-hearted killer, but a technician with a highly prized skill, which he was going to start selling very dearly to the highest bidder.

Once he took Drake down, Rutskoi would invest part of his ten million dollars in a new identity in a luxurious home base, far from prying eyes, and send out the word that he was available, for a fee. Success and discretion guaranteed.

As his body settled on the tarp, his entire being settled into this new plan. It felt utterly right, as right as the rifle in his hands, his cheek at the spot weld, his eye on the scope. This was his destiny, he just hadn’t realized it before.

His sights settled on the mirrored surface of the floor to ceiling window of Drake’s living room, where they would remain until the end.

Once Drake stepped foot into his living room, he wasn’t leaving it alive.

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