Read Online The Janson Option by Paul Garrison - Free Book Online Page B

hundred meters out on the river, and they both hit the deck. A slug twanged off the railing.
    â€œHelms, don’t move!” Janson shouted. To Kincaid, he said, “Strollers behind us.”
    Janson sprinted toward the south corner of the pier shed, keeping below the partial shelter of the railing. Kincaid raced for the north corner.
    The “strollers”—the sniper’s finish team—rounded the corners with Glocks in hand and Bluetooth clips on their ears. They were wearing suits, masquerading as fit, young traders up at Chelsea Piers for a spinning class—except that traders didn’t leave their floor at nine in the morning, and traders’ tailors did not forget to remove the manufacturer’s label from the sleeves of new suits, a curious lapse by a professional kill team.
    The Bluetooths meant that the sniper was directing them via cell phone.
    Both took deliberate aim at Kingsman Helms, who was sprawled on the pavement equidistant between them. Neither saw an immediate threat in a small woman wearing yoga gear and an older man in a corduroy jacket. Kill the target, then the witnesses.
    Kincaid slid a carbon-fiber blade from the bottom of her bag.
    Janson was farther from his man. He went straight at him. The assassin noticed the rush and wheeled his weapon. Janson went airborne, low as a base runner sliding into second, boots-first into the stroller’s leading leg, and shattered his ankle.
    Few men could have kept his grip on his weapon, but this one did, even as he crumbled to the pavement with a gasp of pain. Janson closed both hands on his wrist and smashed the hand holding the gun against the building. The stroller’s fingers splayed open. Janson caught the Glock, banged it twice against the man’s temple, and swept the walkway for his backup.
    Thunder on the Hudson River behind him told him that the cigarette boat was racing to the rescue, closing fast on the pier. Janson braced the Glock on the railing, waited until the boat was within thirty meters, and fired repeatedly, aiming for the silhouette of the driver behind the windshield. The bullets starred the glass but didn’t penetrate. The sniper stood up, aiming his rifle. Janson fired again.
    The boat jinked sharply left. Janson’s shot missed, but came close enough to make the sniper duck. The boat had to slew away before it struck the pier. The turn exposed the driver and the sniper. Janson fired again. The driver clutched his arm. The sniper grabbed the wheel and the boat turned tail toward the middle of the river.
    A shout behind Janson whipped his head toward Kincaid. Blood was gushing from the second stroller’s face, and blood was streaming from his hand. He too had dropped his gun, but despite his pain and shock had thrown the much lighter Kincaid fifteen feet to the edge of the pier and halfway over the railing. Before she could untangle herself, he bolted around the corner. By the time Janson got there, he was racing down the walkway and headed for the nearest door to the parking garage.
    Kincaid scooped up the gun and started after him.
    The sniper on the river fired again, covering the stroller’s retreat.
    â€œDown!” said Janson, and he and Kincaid hit the deck, again. Chasing the stroller would get civilians killed. They slithered toward the center of the pier, where Helms was flat on the paved deck watching in wide-eyed disbelief.
    â€œWere they trying to shoot me?”
    â€œWho were they?”
    â€œHow would I know?”
    Paul Janson dialed 911.
    â€œPier Sixty,” he told the dispatcher. “Chelsea Piers. Sniper on a cigarette boat bearing south at fifty knots. One gunman in the parking garage, bleeding from the face. One gunman secured at the river end of the pier with a broken leg.”
    Jessica Kincaid dropped her carbon-fiber blade into the river and dialed a former close-combat student who was a captain in the New York Police Department.
    A roving NYPD