FORTY NINE.

    David had practiced the routine precisely eight times. He looked like just any other New Yorker as he walked up Park Avenue, his shoulders set with determination and the collar of his black trench coat turned up both to conceal his face and to ward off the bite of the cool March evening air. The pedestrian traffic had died down from its post-workday peak, but at a quarter past seven David was far from alone.

    Unlike in Jerusalem, however, David did not feel as though he were being watched. There was an outside chance that the FBI was trailing him, or an even slimmer chance that Mossad had somehow followed him to America, but David was confident in his ability to both elude and detect surveillance. No, he was alone. He'd seen the footage of the massacre in Hebron. Ben Freidman would think he had killed his Palestinian informant. The destruction in Hebron was so complete it would be some time before all the bodies were accounted for.

    And as far as the Americans were concerned, they had their hands full chasing Arab students on expired visas. David had already changed identities twice since leaving Hebron and was now traveling with a French passport. His first-class ticket from Nice to Paris to New York had been purchased with an American Express card that matched the name on his passport. He was now Charles Utrillo, a mergers and acquisitions specialist in town to meet with J. P. Morgan. The cover was not deep. If he was arrested, and the FBI looked into his credentials, they would quickly discover it was a sham. The passport and credit card were merely there to ensure entrance into America without raising any suspicion.

    This portion of his plan had been relatively easy to put together.

    The West Bank was rife with arms merchants, and for the right amount of cash almost anything was obtainable. David's purchases were never very large or exotic. Mostly small arms, silencers, ammunition and one very expensive rifle. He preferred dealing with the Russians. They were hungry for cash and despite their recent cooperation with the West, they were still capable of keeping their mouths shut and records closed.

    Getting the weapons to the United States had been a little more difficult, but not much. The import-export business, worldwide, was known for not asking too many questions. David had shipped a crate of rugs to a warehouse in Philadelphia and picked it up back in January.

    Broken down and rolled up within the various rugs were two handguns and a Russian-made VAL Silent Sniper rifle. The weapon fired a 9mm subsonic heavy bullet and was capable of defeating standard body armor at distances up to 400 yards. According to David's information his target wouldn't be wearing anything so cumbersome.

    The man had reason to celebrate this evening and he wasn't about to put on a bullet-proof vest to dine at his favorite restaurant.

    As David crossed 65th Street he glanced to his right. Halfway down the block stood an old brownstone with bars and steel mesh over all the windows. In front of the house, on the sidewalk, the New York City Police Department had erected a blue and white guardhouse large enough for only one person. A police officer manned the post twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, just to make sure no one tried anything.

    David knew this was more to deter protestors and pranksters.

    The real security was inside the house.

    David had been invited there as a guest on many occasions. The brownstone was home to the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations. The Palestinian Ambassador was a friend of David's or, more precisely, a business acquaintance. Ambassador Hamed Ali was a childhood friend of Yasser Arafat's. The posting had been given to Ali as a reward for a lifetime of commitment and loyalty to Arafat. Ali was seventy-five and had a smoker's hack that made it abundantly clear to anyone who cared to listen that he was not long for this world. That helped to ease David's conscience a bit. That and the fact that in his younger days, Ali had sown plenty of death and destruction.

    The Palestinian Authority, due to its inability to raise money through taxes or tariffs, depended greatly on foreign aid and charity.

    David had proved his worth by personally delivering to Ambassador Ali a quarter of a million dollars in the first three months of the year alone.

    Ali often complained to David that being an Ambassador was a very expensive job. Diplomacy was almost always conducted under the pretense of a meal and never a cheap one.

    David responded by opening an account for the Ambassador at his favorite restaurant, La Goulue. The French restaurant, one of New York's finest, was only two blocks from the Ambassador's residence.

    David just so happened to know that Ali would be dining there this evening. He had spoken with the Ambassador earlier in the day, congratulating him on his address to the UN David had intimated that a celebration was in order. Ali agreed and invited David to join him and several friends at La Goulue. David noted the time, but turned down the invitation. He told the Ambassador he needed to catch a flight to the West Coast.

    Ali had spoken to a rapt General Assembly, proclaiming that for a real and lasting peace in the Middle East the UN must intercede. He decried the unprovoked attack of innocent Palestinians by the Israeli aggressor over the weekend and demanded that the UN make a full investigation. In response to Israeli claims that the number of casualties had been grossly exaggerated, Ali read off a list of independent journalists and aid workers who were all reporting a death toll in excess of one hundred people.

    As soon as Ali was finished, the Israeli Ambassador took the floor and assured the assembly that, as a sovereign nation, Israel was more than capable of conducting their own investigation into the matter. In a parting shot the Israeli Ambassador recommended to Ali that in the future they should locate their bomb-making factories in less populated areas so as to avoid so much bloodshed. The Ambassador's quip was met with jeers and catcalls by the various Arab delegations.

    Right on cue Ambassador Joussard of France took to the floor pleading for civility and decorum. In the end, he promised the truth would be known. With the eyes of the international community focused on Hebron, France would work with the other permanent members of the Security Council to get to the bottom of what had happened. When David was finished tonight the UN would be that much closer to intervening. And once an international force was on the ground, a Palestinian state would be that much closer to a reality.

    David crossed 66th Street and looked up at the towering behemoth before him. The Seventh Regiment Armory was a colossal architectural throwback. Planted between Park and Lexington Avenues and 66th and 67th Streets, the nineteenth-century building was built to house New York's first regiment sent to fight in the Civil War.

    The massive building was no longer home to just the National Guard. It housed a women's shelter, various local and state social services, a restaurant, several nonprofits and a catering business that could handle groups of up to several thousand people.

    David turned up the front steps behind a man roughly his age. Taking the steps one at a time he was very conscious of what was under his trench coat. When he entered the building the first thing he noticed was the roar of a crowd coming from the drill hall straight ahead.

    He didn't bother stopping to investigate. Earlier in the day he'd read the marquee announcing a class reunion for Brooklyn Prep.

    David kept moving, turning to his left and going to the end of the hall, past the torn and battled-scarred regimental flags, past the elevator and into the stairwell. In all of his previous visits he had yet to run into someone on the staircase, which was a bit of a surprise considering the condition of the elevator, and the fact that there was a good chance you'd have to share the small metal cage with someone who either suffered from a mental illness or an addiction to crack.

    He reached the top floor and then continued up another half flight where he was confronted with the locked door that led out onto the roof. David paused, turning on the two-way radio in his pocket and donning a flesh-colored earpiece. The digitally encrypted device was already programmed to monitor the same channel that the Ambassador's security detail was using. David listened for a moment. There was no chatter so he checked his watch. It was 7:21. Ali's reservation was for 7:30, but the man almost always ran five to ten minutes late.

    David retrieved a lock pick from his jacket and went to work. He worked the tumblers to perfection. Having done it before, he knew where each one would fall. With the door opened he stepped out of the dim stairwell and into the dark night. After placing a strip of duct tape over the metal frame, he allowed the heavy fire door to close.

    Standing in the glow of the city lights David casually lit a cigarette.

    Several apartment buildings looked down on the Armory. If any of the occupants cared to look out their windows, all they would see was just another desperate smoker trying to enjoy his vice. Slowly, David moved over toward the turret jutting out from the southwest corner.

    He puffed on the cigarette and looked around, scanning the adjacent buildings for anyone who might be watching him. So far so good.

    He had it down to a science. It took Ali anywhere from eighty-three seconds to three minutes and forty-eight seconds to walk from his residence to the restaurant, depending on whether or not he made the lights at Lexington, Park and Madison. David had time. It took him just twenty seconds to assemble the rifle, fifteen if he was really pressed.

    He would wait until they were on the move before he did that. If by chance someone was watching him, he didn't need them to call the cops.

    At 7:29, David heard the familiar voice of one of Ali's bodyguards come over the earpiece. The man was going out to check the street.

    David took a deep breath and reminded himself of his cause. To make peace, one often had to make war. He repeated the phrase over and over. Men like Ali and Arafat and Freidman would never agree to a real peace. It would take huge pressure from the international community, and America had to be a part of that. They were the only country that could force Israel to sit down and grant the Palestinian people a state, and after tonight the tide would continue to swell.

    More chatter came over the radio. The second bodyguard announced that the Ambassador was coming out. David had no idea who or how many people would be with him, or if he was meeting his guests at the restaurant. This was the part that he needed to be flexible about. It was out of his control. He started the stopwatch mode on his wristwatch, took one last drag from his cigarette and then stabbed it against the wall of the turret. Well versed in American investigative techniques, David placed the butt in a plastic bag and put it in his pocket, as he had done with each cigarette he had smoked while on the roof. He would leave as little behind for the FBI as possible. From one of his pockets he grabbed a sock filled with rice and placed it in the base of the notch in the wall. It would help to balance the weapon and prevent leaving metal residue from the barrel.

    David opened his trench coat, grabbed a thick black barrel and undid the Velcro that held it in place. He slid the barrel into the receiver and twisted it ninety degrees until it clicked into place. Next came the 10-power Leupold scope and a twenty-round magazine.

    David extended the stock into the locked position, pulled back on the cocking handle and then released it, chambering one of the special 9mm bullets.

    Casually, he checked his watch. He was at twenty-nine seconds and counting. David took one last look around and then placed the heavy rifle inside one of the notches in the stonework. Like a medieval archer perched atop a castle wall he prepared himself to take out the enemy.

    David looked through the scope to make sure everything was as he wished. The range had been checked for the southwest corner of Park and 65th. He'd zeroed the rifle in himself at a state park two hours north of the city. David was extremely accurate with the weapon up to 300 yards. A better marksman could probably take it up to five hundred yards, but David had no kind of need for that distance. Tonight his target would be roughly 145 yards from him.

    It was an easy shot with one exception; Ali would be moving and there would be people around him. David checked his watch again.

    They were coming up on a minute and a half. They must have missed the light at Lexington. David eased his grip on the rifle and scanned the street without the aid of the scope. He would see the bodyguard first, walking several paces ahead, clearing the way.

    As expected, the man appeared and stopped at the red light. David eased his eye in behind the scope and put the bodyguard in the center of the crosshairs. Then he moved the weapon to the east and soon found what he was looking for. The Ambassador stopped just behind the man and David let out a curse. Ali was with a woman. She had her arm hooked in his and she was standing between David and his target.

    The light turned green and group began walking across Park Avenue.

    One bodyguard in front, the other behind, and Ali and the woman in the middle. David kept breathing in a steady manner and kept his hand relaxed as he followed the group, looking for a shot that wasn't there. When they stepped onto the curb on the other side of Park he made his decision. He hadn't come this far to not take the shot, but neither was he going to kill a woman he did not know. He did not like it, but it was a contingency he'd planned for. He quickly maneuvered the rifle, bringing the crosshairs to bear on the head of the trailing bodyguard.

    David squeezed the trigger and the rifle bucked just slightly as the heavy bullet spat from the end of the thick black barrel. He instantly chambered a fresh round and a split second later David had found his next target. The man ahead of Ali was still walking, oblivious to the fact that his friend had suffered a mortal wound and was at this moment falling to the ground. Again, David squeezed the trigger, sending another round on its way.

    The rifle settled as another round clicked into the chamber and David steadied the scope on his next and last target. Ali took two more steps before he realized something was wrong. The woman took two and a half steps before she noticed the man falling in front of her. That extra half step that she took was all David needed.

    David watched as Ali turned, looking behind him for help from his other guard. The expression on the Ambassador's face turned from one of shock to horror as he discovered that he was without protection.

    Before Ali could react further, David pulled the trigger for a third time and sent a final silent bullet into the head of his intended target.