BRAND NEW
THRILLER
FROM BLAIR
BABYLON!
The Angel of
Death
(Police
Snipers and Hostage Negotiators
#1)
An Angel Day
Novel
ON SALE NOW
FOR JUST 99c!
To protect and
to serve, or to save her own
brother?
Angel Day, the
lead sniper for the Phoenix Police Department, got her nickname “The Angel of
Death” the old-fashioned way: she earned it for her ruthless efficiency at
stopping crimes with one well-placed bullet. When a massive call-out down by
the Mexican Border reveals a terrorist cell and turns into a standoff, Angel’s
youngest brother, the lost soul of her family, texts her that he is inside that
barricaded house, and her orders are to shoot anything that
moves.
See
The Angel of Death
at:
CHAPTER ONE:
THE STASH
HOUSE
Angel Day focused the black
tunnel of her gun sight and crosshairs on the man holding the shotgun, ready to
shoot him.
In the magnified circle of
the telescopic sight, under the thin black cross, spring sunlight poured as if
from a hot bucket down on the suspect’s head, shining in a white circle on the
top of his black hair, which hung loose and past his shoulders. His hair
obscured the small sweet-spot where his skull met the rolls of fat on his neck,
but she knew right where it was.
Angel pressed the stock of
her sniper rifle against her shoulder, raising the crosshairs to touch the
suspect’s neck. She was coiled around her gun and ready for the shot, dead
calm.
A bullet to the brainstem,
where the spinal cord connects to the brain, will drop a man without a twitch
or a whimper, which was imperative because that blubbery walrus of a suspect
had wrapped a bulbous wad of duct tape around his hand and the stock and
trigger of the shotgun, and he had duct-taped the barrel of the gun to the back
of a small woman’s neck.
Angel had wedged herself
into an improvised sniper hide under a jacked-up pick-up truck. Her thick
muscles cushioned her bones from the hot, pebbled asphalt. She felt like a
hunting snake down there, perfectly still and ready to stab and kill the
suspect.
The suspect yelled something
to the police negotiators, who were taking cover behind their cars and trying
to negotiate through bullhorns.
Angel could hear the hostage
crying and begging, the slow beat of her own heart, and the grating growl of
the police vehicles’ diesel engines in the street ringing the target, waiting
for the suspect’s next move.
Her field of fire was across
three large suburban lawns and a neighborhood street, over two hundred yards.
She was lying prone behind a monster-truck tire, aiming around the hot rubber.
Her body—her arms, her chest, her shoulder—interlocked around the rifle. The
desert sun beat all around her, reflecting off the cement to bake even the
undersides of her arms that held the gun. Her helmet was getting hot, and her
sweaty hair stuck to her scalp. At least there was shade under the truck, even
though the smell of dirty oil stung her nose.
If this were a long shot,
like a mile or more, the sun warming the ammunition might make a difference in
how fast the propellant in the rounds burned, and she would have to adjust her
point of aim accordingly.
Angel waited, just as
methodically she had waited during the last four hours of this stand-off. She
had been aiming at the affluent house for most of that time, rotating her gun
sight over the closed windows and doors until eight minutes ago,when this
suspect had exited the McMansion with his hostage. She was always ready to
squeeze the trigger and was always relaxed as she didn’t.
Even though the suspect was
209 yards away, through her scope, Angel saw the target as close as if the end
of her rifle was resting on his fat neck.
The suspect yanked his
shotgun and wheeled his hostage around in front of him like a spaniel on a
choke chain. Angel followed him with her gun. The woman’s hands were duct-taped
behind her, so she couldn’t catch herself when she tumbled to the sidewalk. Her
knees bled through her ripped, pink pants.
Angel inhaled smoothly, then
held her breath, and then exhaled smoothly, and held it again, always ready to
take the shot. Her finger was taut on the trigger, but not jittery. Her body
was trained to not squirt hot adrenaline into her blood.
This standoff was at a stash
house, a domicile where human traffickers change the rules of the game. Most
illegal immigrants cross the Mexican border into the US with the help of
traffickers, called coyotes, who know the better routes. A few, like this
woman, end up in the hands of truly evil men, who kidnap them and hold them for
ransom, often sending small body parts to their families in Mexico or raping
the women and children while their parents listen on the phone to hurry
payment.
The evacuated neighbors had
been shocked to discover such a travesty in their own neighborhood in North
Scottsdale. Sure, this type of atrocity occurred in the Alhambra district, but
North Scottsdale was a nice part of
town.
Angel hadn’t been surprised.
The best neighborhoods harbored the worst crime. There was more money to be
made, and the police had to be more circumspect about busts and careful about
bystanders. Criminals love that.
The gunman roared something
to the encircling police cars and crouching officers. The wind corrupted his
voice over the two hundred yards of lawns and asphalt, and Angel could only
hear a harsh bellow as his whole body bowed back like he was belting out a high
note. The woman cowered, bending forward as far as the shotgun attached to her
neck would let her.
Above Angel, flags snapped
on another house’s flagpole. The wind had freshened, so she turned the
calibration wheel on the turret of her sniper scope. At two hundred yards, a
ten mile per hour wind will cause a bullet to drift six and a half
inches.
The sniper rifle’s stock was
hot against her cheek. “Bravo One to command post,” Angel muttered into her
microphone. “I have a bead on the suspect. I can take the shot, cold
zero.”
“Hold your fire. Repeat,
hold your fire.” Tony’s voice was calm on the radio in her ear. Tony was her
cousin and the Phoenix Police Chief. “The rules of engagement are still at
compromised authority. The risk is too great for the hostage outside and the
hostages still in the house. Let the negotiators do their
job.”
Compromised authority rules
mean that, if an authority team member is compromised, which means injured,
grabbed, or shot at, then everyone—the snipers, the entry team, and the inner
perimeter officers—has the authority to take any immediately necessary action
to protect the team member, including sniping the bastard.
Angel had to wait until the
gunman down there killed the hostage or shot at a police
officer.
The hostage negotiators had
been doing their job for four hours. When the suspect had been inside the
house, he had been allowed to talk to his girlfriend on the negotiator’s phone,
and he had told her that he was going to kill a hostage out front where the
television cameras would record the splatter. A conservative radio station had
interviewed him via another hostage’s cell phone because authorities cannot use
cell phone jammers in any situation. Federal laws protect the nationally
controlled airwaves. The hostage-taker had told the radio station that he was
going to kill a hostage in plain sight and to keep the cameras rolling,
evidently not understanding the video limitations of
radio.
Since then, the television
cameras had arrived and, despite the police’s best efforts, had set up their
cameras at the end of the block where their telephoto lenses could capture
every shot.
Now, that bastard was going
to do it.
Angel’s calloused finger
tightened on the trigger to two pounds of pull. At four pounds, the sniper
rifle would fire. Angel had fired a thousand rounds a week through her rifle
for six years, over three hundred thousand rounds. She knew the feel of her
Remington .308 Police DM rifle far better than most people know the feel of
their car’s accelerator.
She whispered into her mic,
“I can make this shot.”
Through her earpiece, her
boss Tony said, “Hold your fire. Rules of engagement are not, repeat
not, at shot of opportunity.”
Shot of opportunity rules of
engagement are a license to kill the suspect at the first chance, any
chance.
“Come on, Tony. I can make
this shot with a handgun,” she muttered into her mic.
“Hold your
fire.”
The hot wind blew the
target’s voice to Angel’s hide under the truck. His voice was tinny and too
high. Through her scope, Angel watched the target roar,
“Ten!”
Over the radio in her ear,
Angel heard police near the scene confirm that the suspect was counting,
beginning at ten.
The suspect was counting
down. At one, the gunman would fire that shotgun and tear that terrified
woman’s head off her neck. He was not negotiating his way out of a bad
situation; he was a psychopath performing terror theater.
Angel said, “This is not a
hostage situation. This suspect is an active shooter. He will kill
her.”
Tony whispered into her ear,
“Keep your position. Rules of engagement remain at compromised authority. Hold
your fire.”
Angel settled herself and
watched the target through her scope.
She breathed in, held it,
and out, and held it. Her finger was tensed and strong on the trigger, ready to
move it a fraction of an inch more and release the shot.
People think that sniping is
sanitary, that the sniper doesn’t feel like a murderer because they’re hundreds
of yards away.
Through the scope, Angel
could see black hairs waving over the suspect’s neck, as close as if she were
sitting on his shoulder with a revolver plugged into his ear, so close that he
should be able to feel her breath whispering down his neck like the robe of the
Angel of Death was blowing around him.
The gunman grinned, enjoying
the spectacle he was making. All those cops were scampering around at his
nutcase bidding.
Her own lack of authority to
stop this evil act disgusted her. They should shoot him now and end this crime.
She could do it. She wanted to.
The target threw back his
head and hollered, “Nine!”
From her other radio
channel, Jack Jordan’s deep bass voice whispered, “Bravo Three has an
unobstructed shot with a stucco wall backstop behind the target. Do we have authorization
to take the shot?” Jordan was her side two sniper, meaning he was the
third-ranking sniper on her team. As the primary sniper, Angel covered the
front of the building. Her number two sniper, Luke Johnson, covered the
back.
“Negative,” Angel whispered
to Jordan over the radio. “We do not have authorization. Rules of engagement
remain at compromised authority. Maintain position.” Jack Jordan was a good
sniper who probably wanted to tag this asshole as much as Angel
did.
To Tony on her other
channel, Angel said, “Bravo three has an unobstructed shot with a stucco wall
backstop. If I shoot and have a through-and-through wound, the round will
strike the house’s front wall. Other hostages are not in danger. We can take a
sync’d shot that will stop him.”
Snipers don’t shoot to kill.
Snipers shoot to stop, an important distinction. Police
snipers aren’t killers, just highly effective at
stopping a crime in progress.
“Negative,” Tony said. “No
authorization. Remain at compromised authority.”
Down at street level, the police
negotiators squatted behind their cars and held their bullhorns, talking,
demanding, and pleading in English and Spanish for the suspect to respond. The
long cable of a throw-phone snaked from their van to where the suspect had
kicked it away from him.
“Eight!”
the target yelled. He jerked the shotgun, and the hostage
stumbled aside.
This was the kind of situation
Angel had trained for: to save an innocent life by stopping the crime in
progress. She thought of herself as a guardian angel for
hostages.
She coiled tighter around
her rifle, ready to strike. “Bravo One to command post. Bravo Three and One
will drop him flat.”
“We can’t risk it,” Tony
said.
“Request to elevate the
level of engagement to shot of opportunity.” Her sight was dialed in so tight
that she squeezed her stock to raise and lower her aim in rhythm with the
suspect’s breathing.
“Negative,” Tony
said.
Across the clean, green yards,
the gunman yelled, “Seven!”
Through her scope, Angel
could see the target sweating greasy streaks in the heat. His meaty hands were
probably slippery, but the duct-taped one couldn’t slip off the shotgun. No
chance of him dropping it.
“Six!”
“Let me put him down, Cuz,”
she said to Tony.
Tony whispered through their
radio, “There are more people behind him, watching from inside the house. The
round might ricochet and hit one of them.”
Angel knew that. She knew it
better than her cousin Tony because she was far better trained, but she didn’t
wave that red flag in his face.
She also knew she could kill
this target and save that woman.
Through her earpiece,
another of her snipers, Hunter, said, “This is Bravo Eight, I have an
unobstructed line of fire. I can take the shot.”
“Negative,” Angel said. “We
are at compromised authority.”
“Goddamn,” Hunter said, and
Angel wanted to agree with him but held her aim.
Through the radio, she
heard, “Bravo Two, no clear line of fire.” Luke Johnson didn’t have a clear
shot from the back of the house.
Angel and Jack could pick
this guy off. Four snipers surrounded the house, but only one needed a clear
line to stop this guy. They had three with clear lines. That was an heir and
two spares.
In the heat of battle, her
body didn’t respond with hyped-up adrenaline. She watched the suspect sweat.
She might have been meditating, but for her steady stare down the telescopic
sight on the rifle.
“Five!” the gunman
screamed.
She whispered into the
microphone, “Bravo Three has a bead with a stucco wall behind the target. I can
make a brainstem shot from here. He won’t twitch. Give us the
reins.”
Tony said, “Let the
negotiators do their jobs. If you shoot him and that shotgun goes off and she
dies, we’re liable.”
“The negotiators aren’t
doing shit.”
The suspect screamed,
“Four!”
They had been at the siege
for over four hours. Angel’s head ached from the sun glaring on the cement and
asphalt around her, and her eyes throbbed from peering through the scope. She
whispered into her mic, “When are we going to shoot him?”
“We’re not,” Tony said.
“Unless he fires at authority personnel, we can’t shoot.”
“Three!”
The bedlam of the
negotiators’ voices hollering at the criminal from all sides escalated. Angel
kept the crosshairs on the gunman’s neck and steady pressure on the trigger
because, after he shot that poor woman, he would doubtlessly open fire on the
police officers and then, finally, she could shoot
him.
Light glinted off the
sidewalk from the overhead sun. “Two!”
The woman hostage wrenched
her head to the side, black hair flying in the wind.
The duct tape around her
neck tore.
The shotgun blasted,
spraying lead shot at the police cars, shattering glass and slamming on
steel.
Angel squeezed her trigger
the last fraction of an inch, sending the bullet through the rifle and into the
gunman’s brainstem.
He dropped straight down as
if through a trapdoor and lay in a glutinous heap on the sidewalk in front of
the Desert Victorian house.
The woman hostage’s scream
wailed high and tinny off the stucco houses and ascended into the clear, blue
sky as she ran away. Her hair was a mess of blood, but Angel could see that the
shotgun blast had only lightly scalped her. She would be fine.
Other captives, around fifty
women and children, ran out of the house and grabbed the woman, crying over
her. A small boy clung to her neck and sobbed.
Angel worked the action on
the rifle to chamber another round and kept her sights on the gunman, in case
the mound of blood and blubber moved.
Angel murmured into her
radio, “That counted as firing at authorities,
right?”
See
The Angel of Death
at:
Praise
for Blair C. Babylon’s other books:
“This is why
[Blair C. Babylon] is an author to watch!” ~ Booklist (starred
review)
"I
stumbled upon this series a few months ago while searching through e-books for
the kindle. Out of all of the books I've read, this is by far the best. I have
never been the type to read things in installments, but this is the first time
I've faithfully awaited each new episode release. The story … is great, the
characters are believable, and I can never really guess what is going to happen
next. What more could you want in a series?" ~Amazon
Review
“This series
just takes my breath away. Breathless!!!! That's how this book made me feel
from beginning to end. It was one of those books I just couldn't put down until
some of my questions were answered. I was constantly on the edge of my seat
anxiously hoping it would turn out the way I hoped. I had this same sense of
anxious excitement from the very first book of this series and it has not left
me yet. This is not your typical cliched novel, where you can tell practically
from the first page what is going to happen. Oh no! This book has you waiting
with bated breath to see what happens next. I cannot wait for the next book.
Ms. Babylon is a genius, who proves every skeptic who says all novels are alike,
wrong!” ~Amazon
Review
USA Today
Bestselling Author Blair C. Babylon is the nom de
plume of an award-winning author who used to publish literary fiction under
another name. Because professional reviews of her literary fiction usually
included the caveat that there was too much plot, too many interesting twists,
and too much sex, she decided to abandon all literary pretensions, let her
freak flag fly, and write intense thrillers and naughty romantic
suspense.
