and the awkward circumstances ensured that his supporters could not transfigure his death into martyrdom.
The Architect. An international assassin of the first order.
Targeting Hartman.
She tried to make sense of it: Hartman's on a vendetta, she thought. And the other man?
Oh, my God. Now what do I do? Try to apprehend the killer?
She held the transmitter to her lips, depressed the Talk button.
"I know this guy," she told Heisler. "He's a professional assassin. I'm going to try to take him out. You cover Hartman."
"Pardon me," the man called out to Ben, striding quickly toward him.
Something seems wrong with this guy, Ben thought. Somethings off.
The coat folded over his right arm.
The rapid pace at which he was approaching.
The face-a face he had seen before. A face he would never forget.
Ben slipped his right hand under his left jacket lapel, reached for the cold hard steel of the gun and was afraid.
She needed Hartman alive; Hartman dead did her no good.
The assassin was about to take out Hartman, she was certain. Everything was suddenly one complex calculation. As far as she was concerned, it was better for Hartman, her suspect, to flee than to be killed. In any case, she'd have to leave the pursuit of Hartman to the others.
She raised Heisler's Clock.
The assassin seemed unaware of her. He was focused only on Hartman. She knew from her training that he had fallen victim to the professional's greatest weakness: target fixation. He'd lost a sense of situational awareness. Big cats are most vulnerable to hunters precisely when they're tensing to pounce.
Maybe that would give her the advantage she needed.
Now she had to suddenly break his concentration, distract his attention.
"Freeze!" she shouted. "Halt, goddammit!"
She saw Hartman turn and look at her.
The assassin jerked his head slightly to the left but didn't turn to see where the shout had come from, didn't shift his catlike gaze away from Hartman.
Anna aimed directly at the middle of the assassin's chest, at the center of his mass. It was a reflexive gesture for her; she had been trained to shoot to kill, not to wound.
But what was he doing now? The hit man had turned back toward Hartman, who, she suddenly saw, had his own gun out.
The Architect had his target in his sights; he assumed that whoever had just shouted wasn't an immediate threat, but in any case he had made his own calculation. To turn around and engage her-whoever she was-was to lose his target, and he was unwilling to do that.
Suddenly the assassin began to turn She figured him wrong.
His movements were as preternaturally smooth as a ballet dancer's. Pivoting on the balls of his feet, he turned one hundred and eighty degrees, his gun extended and firing all the while, in precise intervals of a fraction of a second. The gun scarcely bucked in his powerful grip. Only when she turned to look did she realize what he had accomplished. Good God! A moment before, there were four armed Vienna policemen who had drawn a bead on him. Every one of them had now been shot! Each one of his shots had hit its target. The four policemen were down!
It was a breathtaking execution, displaying a level of skill she had never encountered in her life. She was filled with sheer terror.
Now she heard panicked noises, the gasping and lowing of the incapacitated gunshot victims.
The man was a professional; he had determined to eliminate all impediments before turning back to his target-and she was his final impediment.
But as he spun toward her, Anna had already aimed. She heard Hartman shout. Now it was her turn to focus single-mindedly, and she squeezed the trigger.
Bull's-eye!
The hit man tumbled to the ground, his gun clattering off to one side.
She'd dropped him.
Was he dead?
Everything was chaos. The suspect, Hartman, was tearing away down the street.
But she knew the street was blockaded in both directions by the police. She ran toward the downed man, scooped up his gun, and continued running after Hartman.
Amid the screams of the surviving gunshot victims, she heard shouts in German, but they meant nothing to her.
"Er steht aufl"
"Er lebt, er steht!"
"Nem, nimm den Verdachtigen!"
Down the block, Hartman had run directly into the clustered team of surveillance experts, all of whom had their weapons out and aimed at him, and she heard more shouting' Halt Keinen Schritt welter!"
"Polizei! She sind verhaftet!"
But a noise coming from behind her, from where the assassin lay, attracted her attention, and she turned around just in time to see the