Raymond Benson - 2012 - Hitman: Damnation (13 page)

 
          
Bill’s
mouth gaped as he fell. He died before he hit the
floor,
his body slumped in an unnatural position.

 
          
A
moment of silence passed.

 
          
“Thanks,
47,” Cherry said, exhaling deeply. “If he had gotten out of here alive, I’d be
in deep shit.”

 
          
“What
about the body? Won’t the police suspect you?”

 
          
“I
know an excellent cleanup crew. They’ll destroy every bit of evidence. He was
never here.”

 
          
47
gazed at the corpse.

 
          
“You
did me a favor, 47,” she said. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long
time. He was a sick bastard.”

 
          
“I
didn’t do it because of your domestic situation,” 47 replied. “I did it because
I had no choice. He knew too much.”

 
          
Cherry
eventually nodded. “Is there anything else you want?
Anything?”

 
          
The
assassin considered her words for a moment and then gestured to the “medicine
cabinet.” She snickered a bit, went over, and unlocked it. “Help
yourself
,” she said.

 
          
He
found several bottles of
oxycodone
and stuffed them
in his jacket pocket.

 
          
Back
upstairs, he asked to use the washroom while Cherry made the call to her crew.
He popped a pill and swallowed it with water in a cupped hand. Then he simply
and quietly left the townhouse without saying goodbye and grabbed a taxi on 7th
Avenue.

 
          
Next stop, the airport.

 
          
TEN

 
          
I’d
just landed at O’Hare. Chicago. Dana Linder’s next campaign stop was a rally at
the Jay
Pritzker
Pavilion in Millennium Park.
Facing the Great Lawn.
Tomorrow.

 
          
I’d
be there.

 
          
I
rented a car and drove to Des Plaines, not far from the airport. The storage
facility was easy to find. I already had the key; I didn’t even have to check
in at the front desk. Just parked at the storage building, climbed the stairs
to the second floor, and unlocked door 210. My briefcase and other equipment,
including a custom-made U.S. military M40A3 sniper rifle with a removable
stock, were waiting there for me. The drop-off had worked like a charm.

 
          
I
drove in to the city and parked in one of the garages in the Loop. The weather
was turning cooler. Chicago was the Windy City, so the temperature was lower
than in New York.

 
          
Millennium
Park was packed with people no matter what time of day. They expected a few
thousand people at Linder’s rally tomorrow. Police had already put up those
wooden sawhorse blockades around the area for crowd control. Volunteers were at
work putting up banners and signs. The pavilion was a beehive.

 
          
Time to get to work.

 
          
Planning
an operation usually consisted of three things.

 
          
One, research.
You had to get to know your target. I’d
studied everything I could about Linder. I knew she was married and had two
teenage boys. I knew she was smart and employed even smarter people to be
around her. She’d be well protected.

 
          
Two,
know the scene. If possible, you had to visit the place where the hit was going
to take place. That’s what I was doing today. I wanted to get a sense of the
light during the day, the location of various man-made and natural obstacles,
and the possible escape routes. Where were the danger spots? What was the
safest spot from which to operate?

 
          
Three,
plan the hit. I had to know what weapon I was going to use and how I’d use it.
Ideally, it was always good to make a kill appear as if it were accidental.
This time, however, the client wanted a public assassination. Why, I didn’t
know. I didn’t care. A job was a job. If the client was really the U.S.
government, as the Agency suspected, then killing a politician in front of TV
cameras seemed very odd to me. You’d think they’d want to do it
surreptitiously, make it look like an accident. I was supplied the M40A3 sniper
rifle by the client. It was a fine weapon. I’d test it tonight. The ammunition
looked sound. I was supposed to leave the rifle behind after the kill. Maybe it
could be traced to someone else. Maybe they were trying to frame another
killer, which could be done by identifying the serial number. Fine with me; I’d
be long gone before the police realized what had happened.

 
          
I
did sometimes get special requests from a client. For example, I’ve had to show
the client’s photograph to the target right before he died. So he’d know who
ordered the hit. His last dying thought.
Made sense.
It was some kind of justice for the client. There was no right or wrong when it
came to what I did for a living, no matter who was doing it. I couldn’t feel
bad for Dana Linder. Sure, her family would be upset. Her death would make
international news. I didn’t know if she was a good person or a bad person. I
didn’t care. I suppose in some way it helped me when I knew the target was a
bad person, but it usually didn’t make much difference to me.

 
          
I
just did the job as professionally and perfectly as I could.

 
          
For
the next hour, I walked around the park and found the best spot from which to
shoot Dana Linder. The rifle had a range of a thousand yards. That was plenty.
The big, curvy silver-steel bridge at the southeastern edge of the park was
promising. I spent a half hour pacing the distance from the highest point of
the bridge to the stage. I then checked my calculation with a handheld laser
the size of a pen. My pacing was off by only three yards. It would do. The
items I picked up at Cherry’s place would also play big parts in the
undertaking. I found a suitable container for one of them in the middle of the
expansive lawn in front of the pavilion. I examined the sky and noted the cloud
formations. I’m pretty good at predicting the weather. At any rate, I’d monitor
the local meteorologists’ reports. It was definitely windy that close to Lake
Michigan, so I would have to adjust my aim. There were flagpoles on the west
side of the park. The flags would give me a good indication of wind velocity
before I took the shot. Perfect.

 
          
Knowing
my escape route in detail had saved me several times; it was often the key to
making the hit appear to be magic. So I spent another hour walking the streets
around the park. Although it was getting colder, I took the time to mentally
map out the best spots for cover. If a firefight broke out, I needed to know
what offered adequate protection—for me or an opponent. I knew I could rely on
being faster and more precise than a normal person, but nothing really beat
being smart and planning ahead.

 
          
There
was one more thing to do—I just had to pick up a couple of items I’d need. That
included a disguise.

 
          
As
I left the park, a double-decker bus drove by on Michigan Avenue. It was full
of tourists, both on the top level and inside. They waved at people on the
street. For a second, I could swear I saw that shadowy figure sitting up top.
Death.
Faceless and cold.
Looking right at me.

 
          
I
felt that edge of anxiety again, and I realized I hadn’t taken a painkiller in
a while. Was I hallucinating?
Possibly.

 
          
The
moment passed and the bus was gone.

 
          
I
could quit those pills anytime. I knew I could.

 
          
I
just didn’t want to. Not right now.

 
          
ELEVEN

 
          
Police
estimated that nine thousand people attended the noon rally for Dana Linder in
Chicago’s Millennium Park. Located between Michigan Avenue and Columbus Drive
and sitting just north of the famed Art Institute, the park was the city’s star
attraction.

 
          
Architect
Frank
Gehry’s
Jay
Pritzker
Pavilion was the focal point. Linder was due to deliver her campaign speech
from its stage. The 120-foot-high pavilion sported an unusual flowerlike,
billowing crown made of brushed stainless-steel ribbons that framed the stage’s
proscenium arch, all connecting to an overhead trellis of crisscrossing steel
pipes that extended over the four thousand fixed seats. The Great Lawn, which
faced the stage, could hold another seven thousand people. For the rally, two
giant TV screens were erected on either side of the proscenium so that the
audience could get up close and personal with Dana Linder.

 
          
Another
Gehry
creation, the 925-foot BP Bridge, spanned
Columbus Drive by connecting the park with Daley Bicentennial Plaza, situated
east of the park and bordering Lake Michigan. The long, winding bridge, adorned
with brushed stainless-steel panels, complemented the pavilion in function as
well as design by creating an acoustic barrier from the traffic noise below.
The structure was used by walkers and runners alike. From atop the bridge,
pedestrians could view the impressive Chicago skyline and overlook the entire
park. The bridge was crowded, of course, not only with the usual patrons who
used the structure for exercise but also with rally attendees.

 
          
From
the bridge’s southern tip, one had an excellent view of the pavilion stage,
albeit from some distance.

 
          
It
was close enough, though.

 
          
Political
rallies could be peaceful events that were pulled off without a hitch. On the
other hand, they might be tinderboxes ignited by an inadvertent, unanticipated
spark. When a gathering of that size assembled in the city, it was best to have
a strong police presence; thus, the men and women in blue were out in droves.
Most of them were on the lawn and around the pavilion, but one officer stood on
the bridge’s apex, his eyes on the multitude to the south. Another three
patrolmen were positioned at the southern end, where the bridge emptied onto
the lawn. Their backs were to the bridge as they also faced the throng.

 
          
The
woman pushing the baby stroller onto the BP Bridge from the Daley Plaza side
was tall and thin, but not so much that she attracted undue attention. She wore
a gray and blue pantsuit that was otherwise nondescript. A full head of gray
hair topped by a Chicago Cubs baseball cap and the pair of sunglasses hid her
facial features well enough from anyone who happened to afford her a second
glance. Otherwise, she appeared to be a grandmother out for a stroll with her
grandchild on a beautiful early October day.

 
          
At
the highest point of the curving bridge, the woman surveyed the park and the
mass of humanity that spread across the Great Lawn. All eyes were focused on
the pavilion stage, where the festivities had begun with a local high school
band performing patriotic tunes such as “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “Stars and
Stripes Forever” as a prelude to the presidential candidate’s appearance.

 
          
When
the music finished, the woman bent over the stroller, cooed, and held a bottle
of formula to the bundle inside. No one paid any attention to her.

 
          
One
of the America First Party’s House representatives from Illinois took the stage
and warmed up the audience. He spoke about national values and their importance
in the grand scheme of democracy. He pointed out various goals of the party.
And then he announced a surprise satellite telecast from someone the people all
knew and loved.

 
          
Charlie
Wilkins.

 
          
The
woman with the baby stroller finished feeding the bottle to the package of joy
inside the carriage, stood, and focused her attention on the big TV screens.