Page 14 of Crosshairs
The captain chuckled. “That won’t change. The one thing I could count on was Rob Trilling doing the right thing.”
“How do you mean?”
From the firing station, Trilling yelled out, “Eyes and ears, the range is hot!”
The captain handed me a tiny packet with earplugs inside. Then he also handed me heavy plastic goggles.
Trilling looked over his shoulder at us to make sure he could fire. Then he looked through the scope and paused.
The captain said, “We have a paper target set up at two hundred yards. He’s going to zero in the scope on a metal target about a hundred yards downrange.”
Trilling fired once. Then he turned the knobs on the scope. He fired a second time and then sat up. “I need a minute to tighten a few things.”
The captain nodded, then turned to me. “He’s meticulous. That’s an example of doing the right thing. You won’t ever accuse Trilling of being sloppy. But more importantly, he follows the mission. For instance, when we were in Afghanistan, the fighting was being done mostly by Afghans with our support. One day Trilling was security on a medical call for an IED victim. Not far from the Pakistani border near FOB Fenty in Jalal-Abad. Turns out it was an ambush. A medic and a Black Hawk crew member were hit immediately. They were grounded with insurgents firing from several nearby buildings. Trilling didn’t wait for orders or reinforcements that would be too late to help. Instead, heslipped off to a side street, flanked the shooters, killed two and captured three more.
“He was standing with the prisoners near the building when a squad of Afghan soldiers rolled up in an old deuce and a half. The leader of the squad marched up, gave a short bow of appreciation to Trilling, then kicked the closest prisoner. Trilling knocked the Afghan squad leader off his feet, stood between him and the prisoners, knocked out two other soldiers with some kind of martial arts moves, then held the rest at gunpoint until US troops arrived and flew everyone out.
“Once Trilling knows his mission, nothing will stop him.”
I was almost in shock at the story. Then Trilling yelled again. “Line is hot!”
He fired once more. I could hear the ping of the bullet hitting a metal target downrange. Then he shifted slightly in his prone position and fired a steady stream of a dozen shots.
He stood up, showed the captain that he’d removed the magazine from the rifle and that the chamber was empty. He said, “Let’s take a look.”
As we strolled downrange, the captain explained that the range wasn’t in official use so there was no one on hand to run the target back.
Trilling said, “Remember, this was just a scoped rifle, not a true sniper rifle.”
It didn’t matter. All the bullet holes were basically in the center printed on the paper target.
I got the idea and looked at Trilling in a new light.
CHAPTER 18
I FELT I might understand my new partner a little better now. It took some serious concentration to have the sort of shooting skills Rob Trilling possessed. I had to look past his reserved nature and quiet demeanor. It was almost unsettling. But on the ride back from West Point, he was a little more animated and interested in talking. Maybe it’s because I’d let him take me into the world he knew so well.
Before we were even halfway back to the city, Walter Jackson called with a new tip that had come in, one he thought was pretty good. Walter had done the background himself. It was for a Marine veteran named Anton Hobbs, who’d had several violent outbursts and been referred to mental health officials three different times by NYPD officers responding to his apartment in Harlem. The tipster said the guy was sullen and surly.
I had a feeling that one of Anton’s nervous neighbors hadmade the call. Of course, that was just a guess, but a guess backed up by years of experience dealing with this kind of thing.
Walter had retrieved a fitness report on Anton from his contact at the Department of Defense. The report said that the former Marine had excellent rifle skills even if he wasn’t officially a sniper. I wasn’t sure what that meant in relation to my criminal investigation, but Anton was someone we could talk to. It was also another chance to evaluate how Rob Trilling dealt with the general public, one of the single most important skills a New York police officer could develop. He’d certainly impressed me so far, but I knew firsthand that not everyone had those skills.
We went to the address Walter had given us, an apartment in a six-story building. Anton’s mother answered the door and told us he’d moved out a few months ago to his own apartment a few blocks away. She said her son visited her frequently at this address. That narrowed down who had called in the tip on the former Marine.
The middle-aged woman held me by the forearm and said, “My baby’s not in trouble, is he? He gave so much to this country, and he’s not gotten a lot back.”
That was a lot of pressure. Anton’s mother was the sort of sincere, hardworking person who could keep a whole neighborhood from spiraling down the drain. Young people would usually listen to a woman like this, and her tone and manner told me she’d been putting out a lot of fires in this neighborhood for many years.
I said, “We just need to ask him a few questions. I don’t think you have a lot to worry about. And I promise we’ll be careful and respectful.”
The woman said, “You have kind eyes. I believe you. Don’t let me down.”
We drove two blocks east to an apartment building almost identical to the one we’d just left. Maybe it was a little more run-down. As we stepped out of the car, I had an uneasy feeling. This really could bethe guy. It’s easy to get complacent in this job, but I’ve learned to listen to my gut feelings.
I took a good look at the building and this time I noticed several apartments with plywood instead of windows. There were some broken bottles along the sidewalk. No one was looking out for kids around here. There was nowhere to play safely.
Walking up to the third-floor apartment, I saw that the floor of the stairwell was covered with trash. Empty Gatorade bottles; ice cream wrappers; old, soggy magazines; and fast-food containers from every possible chain.