The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,109

noticed. For everyone but him, it was a perfect day in the park.

A small burst of wooden splinters erupted at waist level, as another shot flicked off the rail of the wooden bridge and into the water. The quality of the shooting was remarkable: it was only a matter of time before one reached the X-ring.

He'd made a mistake when he'd charged toward York Bridge: the two shots they'd just taken was proof of it. It meant, from the vantage of his assailants, that the movement had changed his distance but not his angle, which was harder to correct for. That was another piece of information: he would have to make use of it if he wanted to survive another minute.

Now he made his way around two sides of the tennis courts, which were set off with mesh fencing. Ahead of him was an octagonal gazebo, made of pressure-treated lumber decked out to look rustic and old. It was an opportunity, but a risk as well: if he were a sniper, he would anticipate that his subject would seek temporary refuge there, and cluster his shots in its direction. He could not approach it directly. He ran at an angle, veering away from it altogether; then, when he was some distance past it, he ran jaggedly, bobbing and weaving, to its shadow. He could walk behind it for a bit, because it would serve as a barrier between him and the tree stand where the team of marksmen was based.

An explosion of turf, a yard from his left foot. Impossible!

No, it was all too possible. He had been guilty of wishful thinking - assuming that the snipers had restricted themselves to the tall trees behind the boating lake. It made sense that they would station themselves there; professional snipers liked to keep the sun to their backs, partly for viewing purposes, but even more to prevent a visible glare from flashing off their scopes. The spray of dirt suggested that the bullet had arrived from the same approximate direction as the others. Yet the tall gazebo would have shielded him from a tree-mounted marksman. He surveyed the horizon with a sinking feeling.

Farther away, much farther away: the steel lattice of a twenty- or thirty-story crane, from a construction site on Rossmore Road. Distance: about three-quarters of a mile.

Christ! Was it possible?

The sight line was direct: with proper optics and perfect zeroing, it would be possible, just, for a top-of-the-league marksman.

He scurried back to the gazebo but knew that it was only a very temporary place of refuge. Now an entire team would know his precise location. The more time he spent there, the better coordinated and more effective the sniper fire would be once he tried to leave. They could wait him out. Not that they needed to. They would be able to radio backup - summon a stroller, as pedestrian adjuvants were known in the trade. A stroller in a tweed jacket with an ordinary silenced pistol would be able to pick him off, conceal the weapon, and resume his walk, with nobody alerted. No, the seeming safety of his position was spurious. Every moment increased the risks he would face. Every moment made escape less likely.

Think! He had to act. Something like annoyance was welling up in him: he was tired of being used for target practice, dammit! To maximize his safety at this second would be to minimize his safety five minutes from now. Immobility was death. He would not die cowering behind a gazebo, waiting to be picked off from the air or the ground.

The hunted would become the hunter; the quarry would turn predator, or die in the attempt: this was the only option he had left.

Facts: these were marksmen of extraordinary expertise. But they had been deployed in such a way as to put those skills to the test. All the shots were long-range ones, and however extraordinary the shooter, there were dozens of uncontrollable variables - small breezes, an interceding twig - that could put the bullet off its intended trajectory. At great distances, even tiny factors became enormously significant. Nor was the shooting heedless: there clearly was a concern to avoid bystanders. Berman was doubtless seen as an accomplice of his, his possible death of no account, perhaps even beneficial to the mission.

Question: Why was the team stationed at such a remove? What made the pursuit so unnerving was the fact that he could not see his pursuers. They stayed well out