Chapter 16

"Ma'am ... you can't go over there," said the man in black. "He's dead."

"I know that, I'm not blind." Andrea was pissed, "I need to get in that closet."

"You're upset."

"You have no idea," she said. "I still need to get to that closet."

"I can't let you do that."

"You have to let me do that, I need to finish this."

"Ok ... what's in the closet?"

"My armory. I have a rifle in that closet that I can use to get him."

"That's impossible ... you don't even know where he is."

"Sure I do ... he's on top of the watertower ... it's the only place that matches the holes."

A second dormer window exploded and one of the black suited men fell back screaming. His left arm was blown off. In the sudden shock, Andrea wrenched herself from her captor and raced to the closet. Bill's body jerked as a second round struck it.

Up on the top of the new watertower, John Ferenc chambered another round. "Bitch!" he screamed. "Fucking bitch ... Fuck with me? I'll show you!" An elbow showed in his scope. He squeezed off a round. At over three thousand feet per second it took the 200 grain copper jacketed lead bullet a little under a two and a half seconds to smash another window and miss ... by a fraction ... a hair ... but still a miss. "Fuck!!!" John had anchored himself to a huge lightning rod. A very good idea as the recoil of the Holland and Holland was immense.

Johnny Adams was actually more closely related to the Duke than people knew. The bastard son of a bastard son of an illegitimate daughter, he had the genes but he was missing the wedding ... and he was just a little crazy ... not much ... there were hundreds of skinned rabbits and hung cats ... and maybe a little boy here and there ... raped and dropped over the side. Lake Huron is deep and cold. Just a little crazy.

Johnny had insinuated himself in to the good graces of the Duke's attorney ... Oh, he had the necessary documents, all right. Possibly the best forger in southeast Europe had produced a set of masterpieces ... and no one could fault John's looks. He was the image of the Duke as a young man ... even the ears were right ... and distinctive.

Years of servitude to the old man ... or so John thought it ... had produced a bitter young man. "Trifles ... all I ever got from him were trifles" ... and naturally he spent the trifles like pouring water from a bucket.

A wiser, less volatile man could have invested those trifles and been comfortably well off. John spent them 'impressing' wealthy young men and a few young girls ... who weren't impressed ... but it was always nice to be the one getting instead of the one giving.

John safaried in Africa and hunted in Alaska, flew expensive planes, boated in expensive runabouts, drove fast cars and never knew that every excess ... every foolish wager ... every penny wasted ... was documented by the men his 'uncle' hired.

Now there was a true and legitimate Rákóczi. A Rákóczi-Hapsburg ... not a Ferenc ... a Hapsburg, from the distaff side ... a well mannered and educated heir ... who removed him from the wealth that was rightfully his ... and he wasn't taking the loss of all those years of toiling well ... not at all. That house ... that money ... was HIS. Years of successful evasion and more than a little bribery convinced him that he could ... and would ... get away with murder.

"What the fuck?" The lights in the apartment went out.

Almost in sync with John, the man in black asked, "What the fuck is that?"

Andrea smiled a smile that had him looking over his shoulder. "I'm an Historian ... I have a Doctorate in Military History. The American Revolution was won by snipers ... the War of 1812 was won by snipers. During the Civil War both sides used snipers ... back then, while the troops used mass produced smoothbore muskets of .69 caliber, the sniper used hand crafted and extremely accurate rifled bore rifles of smaller calibers. The farm boy who could hit a deer or a rabbit at extreme distances had no problem killing officers or artillerymen at those same absurd distances.

"Then the politicians got into it. Americans have always armed their troops with the weapons of the last war. After the war, the REMF's ... you do know what that means? Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers ... the officers who fought the war from behind desks ... decided that it wasn't fair to put their lilly white bodies at risk ... Sniper became a bad word. Gentlemen do not shoot at gentlemen ... it's just not done. Soldiers stood in massed groups and fired in volleys at each other. As long as both sides had wildly inaccurate smooth bore muskets that was sporting. Officers sat on horses out of range and led from the rear.