At this time of day you cannot tell the planes on the approach to JFK from distant birds. The horizon is white, bright with morning and a sense of freshness, richening at the top of the bowl of the sky to a pale blue. The air is pretty cool, and at the top of the Cadey Building on the corner of Duane Street and West Broadway, a gentle breeze is blowing through the humming air conditioning units and the vents.
A man sitting on a collapsible stool looks up over the parapet of the building and feels the air in his face for a few seconds before bowing his head to his work again. On his lap he holds a notepad and a calculator. The notepad is covered with neat mathematics and hand-drawn geometrical sketches. The man reaches into his bag and pulls out a small handheld device with three small cups mounted on the top, and he holds it, spinning in the changing breeze for a moment. He makes a note, and then puts his calculator and papers back into his bag. Rubbing his hands together, he nods, looking down at the street which, on this early morning, streams with free-flowing traffic. The man stands up. From the corner of the Cadey Building the man can see a long way down the expanse of West Broadway and all the way to the palm-treed pick-up zone of the Tribeca Grand Hotel. The man lays down flat on the uneven black and grey roof.
This is Mark. Mark enjoys travel and learning foreign languages, and when not travelling, he is an active member of his local archery club in Winchester, England.
Mark opens his bag and begins to unpack things in a regular, organised way. He is building a rifle out of separate components, and he is doing it very quickly. Once finished he spends ten minutes looking down the scope at the opposite parapet of the Cadey Building, making small adjustments to the alignment of the laser sight. When he is finished with this Mark lays down the weapon and checks his watch before reaching into his bag and pulling out a book.
Mark rolls onto his back and pulls his bag under his head, and holds the book above himself, framed by the darkening blue sky of the September morning. Mark isn't one for books, but in the past month he has flown from London to New York seven times, and the movies didn't change on the last two flights. The CD language course he brought with him is facile, too easy, and after ten minutes of mimicking phrases in Japanese while waiting for his flight at Heathrow he gave in, bored, and uncharacteristically started browsing the bookstalls in Terminal Four. Mark bought something he'd heard of, something which was meant to be good, and surprised at himself, he found that the seven hour flight went quickly while he was reading, and he enjoyed himself. In a quiet moment like this, reading was an ideal activity. Why hadn't he thought of it before? In fact last night Mark forwent the luxury of his hotel room on the Upper West Side and sat in the lobby, ordering coffee after coffee from the night porter, just...reading.
Mark is very near the end of the book now, and he is having trouble. He is finding it difficult to limit his eyes to a pace of scanning the words which his mind can keep up with. So eager is he to find out what happens, to seek out the climax of the book, that he is tripping over the words, scanning ahead and then forcing himself to go back and read it properly.
The final page turns and Mark lets his arm drop to his chest.
"Wow," he says, closes his eyes, and silently vows never to be on a job, ever, without a book again.
The helicopter is not close, but the chopping sound is enough to wake Mark, who has his hand on his rifle before his eyes are focussed. The sound of the traffic below is thicker, heavier. Mark stands up and looks down the street, which is choked with vehicles; garbage trucks, taxis, a bus, a police car, an inter-state coach, town cars, and bicycles picking their way through the mess of what is now West Broadway.
It is one o'clock in the afternoon, and Mark's target is in the air on her way to Florida.
