No Contest

The contact parked his car outside the Invercargill City Frog ’n’ Firkin Café. The foreman was inside munching a quick lunch, wondering why New Zealanders put fried eggs on burgers. The contact never looked at the foreman, but he scratched the sides of his nose in the correct sequence: left once, right twice, left once, right three times.

The foreman chucked the rest of his meal and strolled to the car. The keys were in it. He drove away.

A half an hour outside Manapouri he pulled onto the shoulder of the deserted highway and inventoried the trunk. The rifle was there. The ammunition was there.

The foreman knew it would be. His contacts were professionals. He was a professional. But double-checking was the professional thing to do.

He went back to chewing on his problem. The Russian was dead. Killed by a snakebite, apparently. Lots of snakebites going on in Jaiboru Junction—a bunch of King Brown snakes had swarmed the campground and caused a riot. Several bites, but only one death—Petyr the Russian.

There were a lot of advantages to Petyr being dead right now. He’d provided the foreman with all the microwave technology at his disposal, and the foreman really had no more use for him. Petyr being out of the picture meant one less salary to pay and one less security concern.

But Petyr being dead made no sense. Petyr was a professional, too. He worked with venomous snakes. He had been a sort of snake wrangler of the underworld. To have been killed by a snake was unthinkable. Still, Petyr was dead. Found in his tent at Jaiboru, puncture marks in his forehead, of all places, and a King Brown lounging on the cot.

“I think somebody’s hot on our trail,” the foreman told his employer on the secure phone when he was on the island hopper from Auckland to Christchurch. “I think we’d all be dead or captured if we hadn’t left there an hour ahead of schedule.”

“You’re making too much of this,” his employer said.

“I’m changing our strategy anyway. I dismissed the team. There’s nothing for them to do in New Zealand, anyway. It’s all done except for the shooting.”

“Sure. Fine. Just make sure your shots are good.”

The foreman curled his lip. “I’m a professional. My shots will be perfect.”

The foreman didn’t share his employer’s lack of security concerns. Somebody was closing in on him—maybe. Usually, whenever he was in danger of being apprehended, his instincts kicked in like police sirens going off. It was a gift. Some said it was ESP or precognition or some sort of bullshit, but the foreman didn’t go for that crap. He just knew somehow when somebody was closing in on him.

Right now his instincts were giving him mixed signals, and he didn’t know what they meant. What he did know was that he was one step ahead of his pursuers, and he was going to stay there. That meant he had to get into the mountains, perform his sniping duties and get out.

He joined the crowds at the hotel at Lake Te Amau, then melted away unseen into the mountain trails. By midnight he had skirted the guarded posts where Extreme Sports Network’s expensive long-range cameras were stationed for viewing the big event. More guards were on duty on the trail to keep unauthorized personnel from hiking up the mountain to set up their own cameras. This was an ESN event and they intended to keep it that way.

The foreman had no trouble with the guards, and he kept climbing up. The snow grew deeper and the trail was unimproved. Warning signs told him so. He didn’t give it a second thought as he trudged the narrow, icy shelf that skirted a half-mile drop-off.

He found a good site, almost a thousand feet above the nearest camera station, with an unobstructed view of the vast ice wall on the adjoining mountain. The foreman began to roll snowballs.

The foreman’s snowballs became a wall, and then another wall, and then a three-sided, roofless structure. He sat inside and opened his case, assembling the cannon-like sniper rifle and tripod. There was a sound suppressor in the case, but the foreman never touched it. His target was a mile away, and he wanted every ounce of energy the weapon provided. The suppressor would decrease the force of the rounds. Besides, the walls of snow would channel the noise up and out from the mountain.

He peered through the scope until he found the little red flags jutting out of the ice wall. He had the luxury of time to line up the targets, then he fired the weapon.

Chapter 28

Remo felt the plane land, but he didn’t bother opening his eyes until pain shot through his elbow.

“What was that for?”

Chiun was standing in the aisle with his hands in the sleeves of his kimono. “We have landed.”

“So?”

“We debark.”

Remo sat up. “This is Auckland.”

“Yes.”

“You know, New Zealand? Australia’s ugly cousin? Wisconsin down under?”

“I know where we are.”