Chapter 25
Katniss versus the Sniper, Part 1
The next morning: May 8th, 2715 (Katniss's seventeenth birthday)
Party Room No. 2, the Presidential Mansion
At the party were Peeta and Katniss, and the District Twelve people who had hovercrafted to the Capitol with them; Minerva Snow and five of her friends from school; Effie, Cinna, and Portia; Minerva's bodyguards; and the Victor-bodyguards. President Snow had popped in briefly, to cordially welcome the Twelves to the Mansion, before leaving again; "Alas, duty calls."
Katniss had watched Snow's "cordial" act with amazement, because ten months ago he had told her how he truly felt about district people.
But while Snow was actor enough to now seem the gracious host, he could not fake healthy lungs. The five minutes that he had spent in the party room, he had spent coughing.
Two of Minerva's invited guests still had not shown up: Finnick Odair and Plutarch Heavensbee. Katniss really hoped that Heavensbee would get a flat tire, or the flu, or amnesia, and so would miss her party.
Meanwhile in Mile-High Apartments, a high-rise Capitol apartment building
Plutarch was looking at the clothes in his closet, trying to decide what to wear to Katniss Mellark's birthday party.
There were many pairs of pants, and many shirts, that together sent the message of I'm an important man in this city. Unfortunately, Plutarch was not an important man in this city anymore. Not since Katniss Mellark and President Snow had ended the Hunger Games.
Which left only one easy explanation why Plutarch would spend a day with a teenage girl: molester. How did molesters dress? Plutarch did not want to be mistaken for a molester.
Sheesh, how did dressing up for one girl Victor's birthday party suddenly get so complicated?
Plutarch's thoughts were interrupted when someone knocked on his apartment's front door. Plutarch idly wondered why his visitor did not ring the perfectly good doorbell.
Then Plutarch realized what he was hearing: four knocks (pause), five knocks (pause), then four knocks.
Someone was knocking on Plutarch's door thirteen times.
Plutarch hurriedly put on a random pair of pants and rushed to the door. Whoever was on the other side of the door, Plutarch did not want him or her standing in the hallway, for Plutarch's neighbors to see, one second longer than necessary.
Once the door was open, Plutarch recognized his visitor: a District Thirteen soldier whose last name began with M, and who usually never spoke. But after the man entered the apartment, he began to definitely speak—
"I need the access code to get into the Games Center building. Then I need the access code to get into your office."
"Why? What for?" Plutarch demanded.
Soldier M. said nothing, but his look said Those are stupid questions in District Thirteen.
Plutarch could "play spy" too: He handed Soldier M. a piece of paper and a pen, saying, "I'll tell you the codes, but I'm not writing them down, you write them down. This way, I can claim I don't know how you got the codes."
Plutarch recited the two codes, Soldier M. wrote them down, then the Thirteen man left without even saying Thank you.
Two minutes later
Curbside, outside Mile-High Apartments
Soldier Mitchell climbed into the back seat of the taxi that Col. Boggs was driving. Once the door was shut, Mitchell said, "Mission successful. Now please take me to the Games Center building. Once you drop me off, disappear. But don't go too far away—when I'll need you outside, I'll need you fast. Sir."
"Yes, sir," Boggs said sarcastically.
As Boggs drove, he wondered who lived in Mile-High Apartments, and the only name that Boggs could come up with was Plutarch Heavensbee. Who until recently had an office on the top floor of the Games Center—an office with a window that faced east and a window that faced north.
On the seat next to Soldier Mitchell was the satchel that contained the sniper rifle that Boggs had not been briefed about. So, Boggs figured out, Mitchell was about to go into Heavensbee's office, then sooner or later he would sniper someone.
But who? Boggs wondered. The windows in the Presidential Mansion, on the west side of City Circle, all were bulletproof; and the Training Center that was on the north side of City Circle (and directly across the Circle from the Games Center) was empty. This left as possible targets, only people walking the sidewalks, and people driving or riding in cars, on both Games Street and Avenue of the Tributes. Was Mitchell's mission to sniper someone driving an ordinary car? (Because in the Capitol, most limousines had bulletproof windows.)
But what worried Boggs most of all: Why was President Coin holding back crucial information about this assassination mission from himself, Peter Boggs, who commanded Coin's army?
A half-hour later
Party Room No. 2, the Presidential Mansion
Plutarch Heavensbee had just arrived at Katniss's birthday party. For Katniss, who found talking to people to be hard at the best of times, talking to Plutarch was impossible. Was she supposed to tell him I'm sorry you're out of a job when she was not one bit sorry?
Poor baby, now he isn't drawing a paycheck. But from now on, twenty-three district kids who would have died every year, won't. Guess who gets my sympathies, Plutarch.
Needing an excuse to end the talk with Plutarch, Katniss looked around the room. That's when she found her excuse—
Gamma Churchill and Yeast Mellark were standing by a window, looking out. Gamma was saying, "I've never thought about what the Avenue of the Tributes looked like when it didn't carry tributes in chariots. But look, Avenue of the Tributes is just an ordinary street now, with cars on it."
Yeast nodded. "Prim told me that the rest of the year, the lines on the street weren't paint, they were tape. For the Tribute Parade, the tape got pulled up and poof, the street was unmarked."
Now Katniss stood up, saying to Plutarch, "Now I need to keep a promise. Nice talking to you."
Katniss walked into the center of the room and raised her voice. "Folks from District Twelve, I promised you a walking tour of the Avenue of the Tributes, and now seems like a good time to do it."
The young Twelves looked eager. Smirking Haymitch murmured something to Effie. Aloe Everdeen looked torn.
Peeta stepped up beside Katniss. "Now for all us Twelves to truly redo what Katniss and I shared during the Tribute Parade, we'd need to get some mutt-horses, and a chariot big enough for all of us, then ride the big chariot down the middle of the street as a crowd cheers. Alas, I see a lot of problems with this idea, the biggest one being: I don't think Capitol drivers would let us take up the whole street."
Cashmere said, "They'd move away in a hurry if Cinna set all the Twelves' backs on fire!"
Everyone laughed, including Cinna; who then said, "Sorry, no fire."
Peeta said, "So y'all from Twelve, it looks like you'll just have to settle for walking on the sidewalk."
Hammerhead said, "While a bulletproof limousine moseys alongside Katniss and Peeta, just in case."
Five minutes later
In Plutarch's office in the Games Center
Mitchell did not get excited when the presidential limousine, with a luxury car following, turned off Games Street onto Avenue of the Tributes eastbound. One government limousine or another had turned onto the Avenue of the Tributes about once every ten minutes; Mitchell figured at first he was seeing more of the same.
Mitchell started to feel excitement when both the presidential limousine and the big car that was following, slowed down and turned on flashing lights halfway between the Games Center and the Remake Center.
When the limousine reached the end of the street by the Remake Center and, instead of turning left onto Remake Street, did a 180-degree turn onto the Avenue of the Tributes westbound, Mitchell's heart beat faster.
The presidential limousine drove only a short distance before it pulled over and stopped. Six people got out. Even without his scope, Mitchell recognized Katniss Mellark by her dark skin and her black hair braid.
While Mitchell was rummaging around in his satchel for his glass-cutter tool and suction cup, he noticed the luxury car pull over behind the limousine; seven people get out. The luxury car then drove away. Mitchell idly noted that one of the people who had emerged from the second car was a teen girl with her hair in one blond braid.
Mitchell, using the glass-cutting tool and the suction cup, cut a 25-centimeter-diameter circle of glass out of the east-facing window, where the glass was in front of his face.
When Mitchell's attention returned to his target, he saw that the group from the presidential limousine, and the group from the luxury car, all had merged into one big group.
This group now was on the sidewalk, walking in Mitchell's direction. Peeta Mellark was waving his arms around, clearly telling a story; Katniss Mellark walked and seldom spoke.
In the street, the presidential limousine matched the speed of the Co-Victors on the sidewalk.
Mitchell contacted Boggs by encrypted radio with a brief message: "Target sighted. Things will get hot now."
Then with well-practiced moves, Mitchell assembled the sniper rifle with full ammo clip. This took only seconds.
The one and only time that Mitchell wondered why President Coin had marked Katniss Mellark for termination, was as he was easing the barrel of the sniper rifle through the hole in the glass.
Even as Mitchell was pulling the trigger, the six people who had come from the limousine, all dropped to the sidewalk—including Katniss Mellark, Mitchell's target.
So Mitchell's first shot at Katniss Mellark missed her. How did she know I was about to shoot at her? he angrily wondered.
A few minutes earlier, on Games Street
A particularly selfish Capitol "client" had caused Finnick Odair to be late for Katniss's birthday party. This annoyed Finnick, and threw him off his game.
Finnick was in a taxi that was almost to the Presidential Mansion when he realized that he had left Katniss's birthday present back at his apartment. Rather than go back and fetch the present (and become even later to the birthday party than he already was), Finnick told the taxi driver to stop at a seafood shop on Games Street that was a block away from the Presidential Mansion.
Finnick walked out of the seafood shop with a shrimp ring on a paper platter, again feeling annoyed.
Finnick knew to the centidollar, how much District Four shrimp fishermen had been paid to harvest these fifty-two shrimp; he knew to the centidollar, how many PDs that other Fours had been paid to peel the shrimps and to lay them out to create this shrimp ring; and he knew to the centidollar, what he had just paid for this party treat. Finnick thought, Somebody is making a fine profit off this shrimp ring, and it sure isn't District Four!
So Finnick was again in a fuck-the-Capitol mood as he walked south on Games Street. Soon Finnick was on the corner where Games Street met the western half of City Circle, about to turn right and to walk to the Presidential Mansion. At this moment, Finnick saw someone moving around in the Head Gamemaker's office in the Games Center building, which was on the other side of City Circle.
Finnick knew the building was supposed to be empty. Briefly he thought that it was Plutarch Heavensbee in that office—undoubtedly updating his résumé. But then Finnick noticed that the man in the office was spending lots of time peering to the left, out the east-facing window.
Finnick also noticed that the man in the office was slim—which Plutarch Heavensbee most certainly was not.
Finnick wondered what the intruder-man was watching so attentively. Finnick looked off to his left—and choked.
Katniss and Peeta, the Victor-bodyguards, Haymitch, Katniss's blond sister Primrose, and five other people were climbing out of two vehicles. They were who the intruder-man in Plutarch's office was watching.
Finnick dropped down to place the shrimp ring on the sidewalk, then he yanked out his pocket-picturephone and speed-dialed Johanna Mason. "Johanna," Finnick blurted, "somebody is in Heavensbee's office and he's watching you guys."
"Describe him."
"C'mon, Jo, I'm on the other side of City Circle, which is thirty meters big. I can't see him well—"
Then Finnick saw the barrel of a rifle slowly move out through the east-side window.
"JO, HE'S ABOUT TO SHOOT! GET EVERYONE DOWN!"
One second later, bang! The intruder's rifle fired.