He was the stupid bitch, to come at me like this. To assume a real sniper would ever, ever enter a duel unarmed.
I found a big lightning-forked beech tree on the bank—plenty of foliage, perfect vantage point. I’d never mounted a stakeout in a satin evening dress before, but at least the bright yellow turned to gray in these deep shadows. I wriggled up into the tree, feet wedging painfully against the bark, and then I nested into a fork in the branches and turned myself to stone.
CURSING, LIMPING, AND increasingly cold, the marksman reminded himself that all she could do was hide. It was a smart trick with the matches—he’d gotten turned around in the dark, losing his night vision and arrowing off a good quarter mile in the wrong direction before getting his bearings—but he was back on her trail now, heading toward Boulder Bridge. Two months ago he’d stood on the bank of Rock Creek covertly watching the Russian woman argue with her husband on that bridge . . . Following her at the time, he’d noted how she wore no perfume that would linger in the air and make her trail easier to follow. She still wasn’t wearing any, and he cursed, wishing she were.
He’d ceased enjoying himself. He wanted a beer and a painkiller for this leg; he wanted to telephone Pocket Square and tell him the job was off. He just wanted this duel done.
I WATCHED THE moon slide behind a cloud, plunging the world into midnight. The bridge was a dusky arch against the black silk rush of the water, and the cold sang a high freezing note, moving into my body like ice fronds creeping across the surface of a lake. An October night in Washington wasn’t cold the way a Crimean January was cold, but without the lynx coat my bare flesh was marbling. I had to keep shaking out my hands, rubbing them together to keep them from trembling. My side burned. My throat ached. My legs cramped. My skin froze. I wished I had my Three Line rifle, not this unfamiliar pistol braced rock-steady in the crook of a tree branch. The last time I’d fought a duel I’d been padded in camouflage and wool with Kostia at my back, idly talking in the lulls about whether a face-off between two snipers constituted a fair fight. I yearned for a pinch of dry tea and a lump of sugar to chew; for a heel of black bread with strips of fatback and salt. I yearned for Kostia.
I held my position. I’d hold it all night if I had to.
A rumble of thunder sounded overhead in the rushing black clouds. Even as I prayed for rain not to fall, I adjusted my Colt against the branch and took aim at the central bridge stone. I got three shots off in the masking roll of the next crack of thunder—three shots weren’t going to teach me enough about this weapon, her unique variations to the song they all sang in my hands, but it would have to be sufficient. My shots landed high; I was bracing my wrist up. I could compensate for that, but how much? A pistol was so unforgiving compared to a rifle; the tiniest movement could throw my shot off. For a sure hit, I would have to let him get close. Very close. Calculations split and slid through my mind as I shivered under the rising snap of the wind and thunder continued to peal.
And then I saw a limping shadow moving down the far side of the bank, and I went utterly still as the countdown began. Lady Midnight’s countdown, the one I’d sung softly to myself from the days I’d been shooting at wooden targets to the day I killed my first enemies outside Odessa, all the way through 309 officially tallied kills and who knew how many unofficial ones, to here, to now, to this black, ghost-filled night on the far side of the world.
One . . . the first cool, measuring glance at the target, the moment the soul falls silent and the eye takes over.
Two . . . measuring the horizontal sight line; I didn’t have telescopic sights tonight, but I could imagine the lines framing the marksman’s shoulders as he stepped out of the trees.
Three . . . using that benchmark to calculate distance. Hardly any distance at all here, but still not close enough. My heavy .45-caliber bullet would drop fast as soon as it left the barrel, but I hadn’t put in thousands of rounds of practice with this weapon to learn how fast.
Four . . . checking the bullet in the chamber.
Five . . . nestling the barrel forward a hair through the foliage as he stepped onto the bridge with his rifle leveled.