The Intercept Read Online Free PDF Page B

distractedly. He looked ill.
    “Hi!” she said brightly. “Do you have any hazelnut decaf?”
    He appeared puzzled. Then he checked the labels on his own carafes.
    “No decaf.”
    “Okay, I’ll take the caffeine, I guess. I’m on vacation, right? Probably need it anyway.”
    He did not respond or acknowledge. She didn’t believe he even heard her. He lifted a thick paper cup from the tower on the cart spike and filled it.
    “Black, please, with two Splendas,” said Gersten, once he finished the pour. She watched him tear open the yellow packets of artificial sweetener. “Sorry to intrude, but . . . are you okay? You don’t look so hot right now.”
    Shah looked at her briefly, hard. Part of it was an ethnic predisposition against independent women, perhaps. But part of it was certainly suspicion.
    He did not answer, swishing a thin wooden stirrer through her coffee.
    “I didn’t mean anything,” she said. “Just concerned. Hey, can I take . . . ?”
    She went around the side of the cart, trying to get a full view of it. She was reaching for a coffee lid, but Shah quickly stepped in her way, blocking her with his body.
    “I get!” he said. “I get!”
    “Okay, jeez. Sorry.”
    He handed her the coffee. Gersten juggled her maps and travel guide, taking out a few dollars, which she straightened out and handed to him.
    “Thanks,” she said. “Have a great one.”
    She walked back toward the TKTS ticket booth, her map tucked beneath her arm. The coffee cup was not warm in her hand. She sipped it immediately and found it tepid—and horrid. The worst cup of coffee she had ever had.
    “I think it’s happening,” she said.
    P eavy, the sniper, lay atop the third-story theater marquee and watched the coffee vendor through his scope. They had set up overnight, erecting a low, tented roof for cover, draped in the same obscuring fabric as the advertising material that covers transit bus windows. Peavy and his spotter could see out, but no one could see in.
    Times Square was a great spot for a high hide. If people looked up, they looked way up. Probably no more distracting location in the world.
    Wally, his spotter, had trained in from D.C. the day before, no questions asked. Wally’s talent had been forged in urban situations overseas. The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team—Fisk said they were possibly perched nearby—was very good at range shooting, famous for their vaunted “aspirin” test, the ability to hit a baby aspirin at one thousand meters. Not so much in urban landscapes.
    HRT used .308 sniper rifles. Peavy’s weapon was a Barrett M82A .50 caliber semiautomatic. Fifty-seven inches long, weighing thirty pounds when empty.
    It was not empty now. Peavy was loaded and locked over Times Square.
    No question Fisk was a dedicated mofo, borderline insane, Peavy thought. But not as insane as posting up for a kill shot in the middle of Manhattan, going up against the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Which made it fun.
    He had a nice 240-degree angle. The coffee vendor was far right. Wally kept him updated on wind changes. Buildings made it tough. The BORS ballistic computer on top of his Leupold scope eased the level of difficulty. This computer, the size of a pack of cigarettes, factored distance, trajectory, and barometric pressure automatically, rendering an accurate firing solution in seconds. He had already zeroed for elevation.
    Right now the target was out at six hundred yards. Peavy relaxed his shoulders, waiting for Wally to relay Fisk’s order.
    S hah unhooked the canvas covering from its grommet on the roof of the cart, draping it over the service side. He eyed Lady Liberty walking past, then the Naked Cowboy on the corner, posing. A person dressed like a 1950s Puerto Rican gang member in skinny jeans and a T-shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled under one sleeve was trying to interest tourists in a revival of West Side Story .
    They all looked suspicious to him. And every customer that morning