Plan

Beta's steak knife scraped futilely at the tough steak twice. "John, you really need to work on your cooking."

He tossed the knife aside and picked up the tire-sized steak, giving it a shake.

John nodded.

Beta tossed the steak back onto his plate and leisurely wiped the sauce from his fingers with a napkin. "I'll be going away for a few days. Leon, you're welcome to stay here if you want."

"I'll take Matilda back to the apartment," Leon said hoarsely.

John merely gave a brief reply. "It's up to you."

Night had grown as dark as ink outside the window.

Beta leaned against the headboard, the cold light of his laptop reflected on his face. He plugged in the USB Drive and began planning his trip to France.

As he flipped through the pages, his gaze settled on the last few, which detailed the crimes of his target, an Indian businessman: bribery, money laundering, smuggling, and violent crimes. Yet thanks to the privileges of his high caste and a corrupt justice system, he had always managed to escape punishment.

The files showed that the man was traveling to France ostensibly to purchase fixed-wing aircraft.

Beta's fingers tapped lightly on the touchpad. What could a businessman with no airline buy in France besides Airbus passenger planes?

The answer was obvious: Dassault fighter jets.

Clearly, the client didn't want the Indian businessman to successfully complete his arms deal in France.

According to the itinerary, the Indian businessman would arrive at Charles de Gaulle Airport on the 25th, the moment he officially set foot on French soil.

Beta opened an underground trading platform and carefully searched its virtual storefronts for blueprints of Charles de Gaulle Airport or plans for the surrounding buildings. Such intelligence circulated through the underworld like an ordinary commodity. Anyone with the right connections could get their hands on it and resell it for a profit.

Beta slowly scrolled down the list. A file labeled "Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport and Surrounding Buildings: Development Plans" caught his eye.

He opened the seller's profile. The account had been registered for fifteen years, had eight thousand trade likes, and a perfect five-star rating.

In the chat box, Beta typed two words in white: "Your price?"

The other party seemed to be in a daytime time zone. Their reply appeared instantly: "20,000."

Beta countered: "5,000."

The other party took a moment, then replied: "Deal."

Beta chuckled. "Heh!"

He completed the payment. A moment later, a document and its accompanying CAD files appeared in his inbox. Files that had changed hands countless times had long since lost any value from encryption.

He clicked the print option and sent the files to the large-format plotter in the basement, then got up and headed downstairs.

The kitchen on the first floor was still lit.

Following the light, Beta found John sitting alone in the circle cast by a spotlight, with a half-empty bottle of whiskey beside him. The amber liquor gleamed coldly under the light.

Beta pulled out the chair beside John and turned an empty glass upright. Amber liquor poured into it. "Can't sleep?"

John tapped a knuckle against the side of his glass. "Yeah."

"'Yeah'?" Beta said. "Maybe I should call you Mr. Yeah."

John drained his glass. "Not great."

Beta set the empty glass down on the table. "If you can't sleep, come help me in the basement."

The bottom of the glass clinked sharply against the marble countertop.

John got up and followed Beta downstairs.

The large-format plotter hummed as it ran, and an A2-sized sheet unfurled like a waterfall. Beta tore off the completed print and fixed it to the whiteboard with magnetic pins.

John lounged on a sofa in the corner, watching Beta sort and pin various documents around the blueprint.

Beta asked, "If we're going to snipe the target as he gets off the plane, how do we make sure he stands still for six seconds?"

"Fire a warning shot first," John replied. "The bodyguards will immediately pin him in place."

Beta shook his head. "The bodyguards will pull him into an armored car or drag him back into the cabin. Then we won't be able to see the target."

John tried again. "Have the people meeting him present flowers. The ceremony will keep him still for at least five or six seconds."

Beta nodded. "That's a good idea. Dassault won't begrudge them a bouquet."

He took a magnetic pin and stuck it beside Runway 3, at the location of the VIP terminal. Beta measured out a red string and tied one end to the pin, then wrapped the other around a red marker. Centering the string on the terminal, he drew a circle with a strict five-kilometer radius on the map, precisely to scale.

Beta first needed to eliminate every building within the red circle that might obstruct the view of the VIP terminal, as well as any blind spots from which the terminal couldn't be observed directly. Then he would use the data to build a miniature terrain model and determine the viable sniper positions.

Beta opened his computer and connected it to the 3D printer. Using the building heights and dimensions listed in the plans within the red circle, along with images from street-view maps, he set about recreating the exact shapes of various high-rise buildings.

Once he had checked everything, he clicked the start button. The 3D printer began to hum, its filament spool turning slowly as the nozzle buzzed while printing the simple building models.

Beta also operated the plotter to print another A2-sized sheet. He spread the tabletop-sized print across the drafting table in the middle of the basement and carefully secured all four corners with metal clips.

"John," Beta said without looking up, "if you don't mind, help me print the building models to the scale shown on this map."

John sat down at the computer and clumsily operated the modeling software. This kind of assassination planning, with its need for precise calculations, clearly wasn't his forte. Instead of running data simulations at a computer, he was more used to putting on a bulletproof suit, storming the target's building with a gun, and finishing the job with two shots to the chest and one to the head.

Beta took the sheet of printed building models from the 3D printer, cut them out along their outlines with scissors, then glued them one by one onto the corresponding coordinates on the map. Every so often, he checked the satellite and street-view maps to make sure each miniature building was positioned with absolute precision.

The basement echoed with the 3D printer's steady hum. Its filament spool kept turning as plastic strands melted with a hiss beneath the heated nozzle.

John awkwardly helped, gluing the gray-and-white miniature buildings onto the map within the five-kilometer-radius red circle.

When the last building model was in place, the flat map had been transformed into a miniature three-dimensional city.

Every building within the five-kilometer radius, from the towering terminal to the low-lying auxiliary structures, now had its own corresponding coordinates on the map. Together, they formed a precise three-dimensional model.

Beta placed a miniature Airbus A380 on the tarmac beside the VIP terminal.

He took a brass thumbtack and pressed it firmly into the airplane model. Then he pulled out more than a dozen bright red lines. Red nylon threads radiated from the tack, stretched taut to connect with every nearby building model that offered a viable sniper position.