After receiving the phone call, Yuri put in a panic call to Jason from his house. He talked for five minutes with Jason, who said he could be in the Washington area by 3:00 p.m. and in place at the meeting site by 4:00 p.m. They worked out their plan. Yuri had eaten at the restaurant several times and was able to give Jason a detailed description of the meeting site. Yuri told Jason he believed he could handle the problem himself, but if things got out of hand he would take off his hat as a signal for Jason to kill the man. Yuri would then put the body in the man’s car and walk to his car parked some twenty meters away and drive off. Jason would travel through the bush back to his hidden van and drive back to Tilghman’s Island on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay and wait for further instructions.

Jason switched off his cell phone, looked over at his son and said, “I don’t like this. No time to do a proper look around for escape routes, shooting lanes and sun angles. We don’t have a good cover story for being in the area, too much of a scramble. I also didn’t tell our control you were with me. I figured that’s my business and I could really use your help on this one. You shoot better than I do.”

“Dad, let me do the shooting, you cover me and our escape route.”

“Okay, Billy, let’s do it your way.”

By the time Jason and Billy went over as many details and options as they could without knowing the scene, they were within a few hundred yards of the restaurant.

It was now 3:45. Anita and Kathy had been in place for 25 minutes. Anita selected both shooting positions. There had been plenty of time to assemble the rifles they carried in black gym bags. Anita took a position higher on the hill with a clear view of the terrain below her down to the parking lot, but probably would not be able to cover Jack’s car from her position. Kathy’s lower position, much nearer the parking lot, allowed her to backup Jack in case he needed help with Yuri or a second Yuri backup car actually pulled into the parking lot. Jack had to be careful not to let his car or his body screen the line of fire to Yuri. Their camouflaged hunting gear and the high dead grass made Anita and Kathy almost invisible in their shooting positions. Only the camouflaged rifle barrels protruded slightly from the sniper nests. Anita thought, it is a real luxury to work with another trained sniper. Jack would set up the target for them. Using the micro communications system Frank had left them, Anita checked with Kathy to make sure they were both ready. Anita trusted the sight alignment of both rifles because she had tested them before she put them in the storage unit Frank set up. Their longest shot would be less than fifty meters.

About the time Jason and Billy, taking advantage of some deep gullies, were slowly making their way from the high ground to the north down the ridge behind Fisherman’s Inn, Jack left for the meeting. With a 4:30 meeting time, Jack and Anita knew any backup for Yuri would have to be in place at least 30 minutes early or come with Yuri in a separate car and box Jack in between their cars. Both Jack and Anita agreed the most likely backup would take a shooting position on the high ground overlooking the parking lot. The other scenario had too many downsides to take place in daylight in a public place, even one as remote as this one.

Kathy told Anita she was settled into her shooting position. The distance, light and wind factors for several shooting lanes had all been fed into her mental shooting solution. The natural noises of the woods had begun after being disturbed by her arrival. The clucking of squirrels and the sound of passing cars were the only sounds apparent to her heightened senses. Behind her and higher on the ridge she heard and then saw a flock of woodland doves take to the air. At the same time she saw and heard Jack’s car pull into the parking lot below her.

Kathy hit her squelch button to get Jack’s and Anita’s attention and then whispered, “I have movement approximately forty meters to the northwest of my position!”

“Copy. Take no chances. Take the shot as soon as you have one.”

Higher on the ridge Anita was so focused on the possibility of danger behind her, she almost missed the slight counter wind movement in the branches of a small pine tree in front and left of her. A ten mph wind was moving steadily up the hillside. Slowly sighting in on the suspected area, she saw more movement in the pine grove. A closer look revealed part of a boot.

Anita pressed her push-to-talk button and whispered, “I have a possible shooter in my sights 30 meters directly in front of me. Can’t see any weapon. I think there may be more than one shooter. These people are good. Very good. I’m going to take him now. I’ll wait until the traffic noise can mask the shot.”

Anita waited until a truck passed by on the two-lane road below her, and tracing the shooter’s leg up to his body mass, she fired twice. The truck’s engine noise covered the coughing sound of her weapon. The leg twitched and was still. She knew the target was finished but made sure before moving on. She immediately blocked the kill from her mind and began to search the hillside below her. Anita reasoned if there was another shooter, he or she had to be lower on the hill. She began moving fast but quietly toward a dry stream bed with shallow banks she had marked on her way in. Once in the dry stream bed she made good time. Reaching the half way point, and judging the second shooter would be below her and facing downhill, Anita paused for a moment, then moved slowly toward the area where she believed the sniper was hidden. The wind helped cover her movement.

Kathy, alerted by Anita, began checking the ground behind her. Searching foot by foot she noted a dark shadow in a stand of low scrub pines and then saw a wrapped rifle barrel. She whispered to Anita the location of the second shooter. Anita said she was coming and to take the shot as soon as Kathy had a good target.

Jack’s was the only car in the area. A few cars, probably belonging to the restaurant staff, were parked on the upper level near the restaurant. He heard the muted sound of Anita’s rifle and thought they would now be searching for a possible second shooter. Jack adjusted his mirrors so he could cover the lot. He saw himself in the mirror. The image made him catch his breath. The shadows around his eyes from the makeup, the graying of his hair and the rimless glasses had aged him thirty years.

Again he agonized over leaving the house to interview Kathy. His father would have had a chance to live and so would the Nguyens if he had been there.

Yuri hadn’t heard from Jason since his call hours ago. He could only assume Jason was in position to protect him. As Yuri approached the meeting place, he slowed and pulled into a Great Falls Park parking area just below and across the road from the entrance to the restaurant. Locking his car and adjusting the snub nose .38 in the small of his back, Yuri walked up the driveway. The hillside behind the parking lot was covered with scattered clumps of pines, high dead grass and dormant winter scrub. As he approached the driveway entrance to the Park, he could see a white Cherokee across the road in the restaurant’s lower lot. It looked as if a single male was sitting behind the wheel.

Anita and Kathy heard Yuri’s car arrive and knew they had to hurry. Jack was a sitting duck for a hillside sniper.

Checking his mirrors, Jack saw Yuri walking up the parking lot driveway. He walked like a man well into his sixties but very smartly dressed, including a snap brim fedora. When he was about 20 feet away, Jack opened his door and swung his cane out to support himself as he got out. Jack straightened up and noticed Yuri had stopped.

Jack walked a few steps forward and said, “Hello, Yuri.”

Yuri walked another step and stopped dead. His face had turned white. He put his hand to his face and said, “Is that you, Kalin? No, you’re dead! It can’t be! I killed you! You’re the only one who could have recognized me and figured out what I was doing!”

While Jack was moving toward Yuri, he heard a popping noise. Yuri took his hat off in a quick snatching movement. Instead of watching his opponent go down after Jason shot him, nothing happened. Looking more closely he could see movement in the dense thicket on the hillside. Sensing something had gone wrong, he realized he had underestimated his opponent. Yuri turned and, for a man his age, moved quickly down the parking lot. Jack caught up with him in three steps. As Jack was reaching for him, Yuri turned and pulled a .38 revolver from under his coat. Jack knocked the gun out of his hand with a swing of his cane. Before the gun hit the ground, Jack struck Yuri on the right side of his neck with his cane, and trapping his neck with the cane and his left arm, pivoted quickly breaking Yuri’s neck.

Anita came running up and told Jack there were two shooters. Kathy had just killed the second one. She helped Jack drag Yuri deep into the hillside brush. Jack checked Yuri’s pockets and took his keys, glasses, money, watch and wallet. While he was searching Yuri, Anita ran back to help Kathy clean up the killing ground and pack their camouflaged suits and rifles. Anita radioed Jack to say she was sure the shooters’ transportation had to be nearby. She was going to look for it. She had the shooters’ keys. If she failed to find it, she would call for Jack or Kathy to pick her up.

He told her to fire the shooters’ weapons and leave them with the bodies. Jack told Kathy to pick up Yuri’s BMW and drive it back to the apartment. He would leave the keys to the BMW on the ground near where his car was now parked. Jack was not surprised no one had shown up to check out the parking lot. No one was close enough to see anything or recognize the popping or coughing of a sound-suppressed weapon. He thought the press will have a field day with this against the backdrop of the sniper spree in the area several years ago. So be it. Nothing here could be traced back to them. The parking lot had no video monitors. The rifles, blood spotted clothes and boots would be destroyed before morning. Their brass was picked up. Their commo gear was low-powered and too sophisticated to worry about anyone intercepting and decrypting their transmissions. Now the question is how long the bodies will remain undiscovered.

Kathy came walking up the driveway just as Jack got back to the Cherokee. Jack gave her Yuri’s keys and told her to take Yuri’s car back to the apartment and wait for him and Anita there.