Out of the Blue

Prologue


There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible, as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man.

Polybius

It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.

Mary Wollstonecraft


The moon over New Orleans was a thin silver sickle, the dense night air scented with salt and the musk from the surrounding swamps; Lucas McCloud lay prone on the roof of the building, the familiar weight of a Remington rifle pressed hard against the hollow of his shoulder. His cheek rested against the wooden stock. Lucas didn't know how long he'd been in the same spot, in the same pose. He'd learned to be silent, still, and patient. And disinterested in anything but the target that kept moving in and out of the night scope's crosshairs.

The French Quarter had glowed with red twilight when the hostage team had arrived at the small shotgun house. Now the only light came from the neon flash of the strip joint across the street. There should have been streetlights, but they'd probably been shot out by criminals who preferred no audience for the indecencies human beings could perpetrate against one another. Lucas didn't mind the dark; the night scope didn't need much light. He didn't mind the waiting. Nor did he have any interest in the conversation taking place between the team negotiator and Lucas's target, who, on a murderous spree, had already killed four people, including a Louisiana state trooper, and had now taken a nineteen-year-old college student from Baton Rouge hostage.

If Lucas heard the conversation, he might make the mistake of getting emotionally involved, which would only complicate what he was paid to do. It was important to keep his work in the abstract, to not allow the slightest tinge of doubt to creep into his mind. And brooding about the results afterward was only asking for trouble.

The rifle was an old friend. When he'd first arrived on the roof, he'd loaded a total of five rounds to satisfy the Bureau's desk jockeys: four in the magazine, one in the chamber. He had no intention of using the four in the magazine. One shot, one kill. It was the marine sniper motto, one Lucas had lived by during the Desert Storm war.

Focused as he was, he was aware only on the most distant level of the others involved in this Code Red situation. The Containment Team had secured the outer perimeter, restricting the target area. The Rescue Team, whose specialties were firing on the move, room entries, and evacuating hostages, waited inside the perimeter along with the Arrest Team.

As members of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, Lucas and his spotter provided observation and intelligence at the crime scene, along with their more obvious duty of precision suspect neutralization. A damn stupid euphemism for taking the life of another human being, he'd always thought.