Raymond Benson - 2012 - Hitman: Damnation (42 page)

 
          
The
plan had been for Cromwell and his men to shoot a few of the Church
members,
disappear into the crowd to mingle with the real
National Guard, and eventually get away to safety. But Cromwell got carried
away. The man who was once an American hero—he had attempted to save lives in
Iraq—had become a monster willing to massacre his own countrymen. He had
ordered the New Model Army to slaughter everyone in sight. Just as Darren
Shipley had lost any semblance of humanity, Wilkins, too, had fallen into
depravity.

 
          
And
it had become … this.

 
          
“Charlie!
Get down!”

 
          
Wilkins
thought he heard a voice calling him, but he wasn’t sure. He kept staring at
the carnage that spread across the mall in front of him. And then there were
the two school buses. One crashed; who was driving it? The other one—it was
speeding straight at him, on a collision course with the stage.

 
          
“Reverend!”

 
          
Wilkins
looked down. Mitch Carson was on the ground, his hands out.

 
          
“Jump, damn it!
Jump! We can take the limo!”

 
          
For
the first time in his life, the Church leader couldn’t speak. He was immobile.
Wilkins reached into his soul to find the Will, but it wasn’t there. Everything
he had learned, all he had taught, was nothing but a void.

 
          
The
Will had failed him.

 
          
Finally,
Carson grabbed Wilkins’s ankles and jerked. The reverend fell on his back,
which jolted him to his senses. Carson continued to pull the man’s legs until
he had the reverend on the stage apron.

 
          
“Come
on, Charlie!”

 
          
Wilkins,
dazed and in shock, nodded and whispered, “Show me
where to go.”

 
          
Carson
helped him to the ground and led him by the arm around the side of the stage.
They ran to the limousine, the doors of which were already open. Wilkins ducked
into the back while Carson got in the driver’s seat. The doors slammed shut,
and they were off. Carson turned the car around and drove south toward the edge
of the mall and Independence Avenue.

 
          
 
 
*

 
          
Agent
47 lost sight of the reverend, but he also knew the man’s limousine was behind
the stage. There was no time to steer around the flimsy structure. The bus was
sturdy enough. He hoped.

 
          
Fifty feet until impact.

 
          
The
hitman
glanced in the right side mirror. Police vehicles
were hot on his tail, lights flashing.

 
          
Thirty feet.

 
          
He
glanced in the left side mirror.

 
          
The
Faceless One stared back.
Death.

 
          
47
averted his eyes and stared straight ahead.

 
          
Ten feet.

 
          
Two feet.

 
          
The
bus tore into the stage, ripping right through it as if it were made of paper.
The sides collapsed and the WILKINS–BAINES!
banner
floated down and crumpled limply on top of the wreckage. The police cars were
forced to swerve to the right and left to avoid hitting the ruins.

 
          
And
the chase continued, with the limousine in front and 47’s bus trailing closely
behind.

 
         
THIRTY-EIGHT

 
          
The
limo shot south, jumped the sidewalk, and tore onto Independence Avenue, on the
westbound-only side. Luckily, traffic had been halted there due to the rally,
but police cars and other emergency vehicles lined the road. Instead of turning
the limo and following the avenue west, though, Carson navigated between a fire
truck and an ambulance, dissected the street, and continued south, jumping onto
the grass again.

 
          
“What
the hell are you doing?” shouted Wilkins from the backseat.

 
          
“I
know a way out!” the driver yelled.

 
          
The
limo cut between trees and then slammed hard onto westbound Maine Avenue SW.

 
          
“You’re
going to kill us!” the reverend screamed.

 
          
“Shut
the fuck up, Charlie!”

 
          
The
car was back on the grass, still pointed south. A wide-open patch of grass and
trees lay between them and eastbound Independence Avenue, which had not been
closed to traffic.

 
          
Behind
them, Agent 47 tightly gripped the bus’s steering wheel as the heavy vehicle
bounced and bumped across westbound Independence Avenue, over the grass, and
dissected Maine Avenue. Despite the siren-shrieking police cars behind him, he
was intent on staying with his prey.

 
          
For
a moment he imagined ending his days on earth in a hail of bullets from
law-enforcement personnel. Even if he did catch up to Wilkins and manage to
kill the man, how would he get away from the police? Hundreds were after him.
If this was to be the day he died, then so be it. He would shuffle off this
mortal coil with the knowledge that he had done his duty, completed the
assignment, and rid the world of a nasty and dangerous criminal. What more
could he ask for?

 
          
The love of a woman?

 
          
No.
That was impossible. He’d almost had that and he intentionally rejected it. The
flirtation with a normal relationship had been a learning experience and one
that he would treasure for the rest of his life, but it wasn’t for him. Not for
a man who constantly remained one step ahead of Death, the Faceless One whose
identity 47 still had to expose.

 
          
The
bus approached eastbound Independence Avenue, closing the distance between it
and the limo, which was now fifty yards ahead. The
hitman
noted the heavy traffic on the road and realized they’d never get across
without a major collision. He figured the driver planned to merge into traffic
and drive east with the flow. It would be a difficult maneuver, but the limo
could do it.

 
          
The
bus would not be so accommodating. It was too big and cumbersome. 47 would be
forced to slow considerably in order to do so, and by then the police would be
on top of him and the limo would be long gone.

 
          
Whatever.

 
          
The
assassin kept his foot on the pedal and stayed the course.

 
          
 
 
*

 
          
“Are
you mad? You’re going to kill us!” Wilkins shouted again.

 
          
“Seriously,
shut the fuck up, Charlie!” Carson screamed.

 
          
The
Greenhill employee knew it would be a do-or-die maneuver. The oncoming traffic
on Independence Avenue was heavy and fast, with no breaks in the lines of cars
and trucks. Carson’s only hope was that the other drivers would see the
limousine ripping through the grass, followed by a huge yellow school bus and
dozens of police cars with sirens blaring. Surely they would stop!

 
          
The
car approached the road at a speed of seventy miles per hour.

 
          
“Hold
on, Charlie!” Carson commanded. The reverend braced
himself
.

 
          
And
then they were there.

 
          
The
limousine hopped the curb and dropped onto the avenue as Carson spun the wheel
to change directions—

 
          
—and
a U-Haul truck slammed ferociously into the vehicle.

 
          
Then
an SUV plowed into the truck.

 
          
Three
passenger cars collided with one another while attempting to avoid the
catastrophe.

 
          
The
pileup
dominoed
down the line as horns blasted, tires
screeched, and an ugly, crunching, crashing cacophony topped the police sirens
in decibels.

 
          
The
limousine flipped and rolled once, twice, three times—before it slid, upside
down, a hundred feet along the road and came to a stop.

 
          
Charlie
Wilkins, secure in a seat belt, had hit his head on the window. At first he
thought he was dead, for the world was topsy-turvy. It took him a moment to
realize that the limo was upside down. He took stock of his body. There was a
lot of blood, but he could move his arms and legs.

 
          
He
was alive.

 
          
“Mitch?”
he called.

 
          
The
same could not be said for Carson. The driver slumped in his seat at an obscene
angle. The man’s face was completely crimson.

 
          
Then
Wilkins remembered what was happening. He heard the sirens, looked toward the
National Mall, and saw the yellow bus about to jump the curb and come crashing
down on the road.

 
          
The
Agency’s
hitman
was almost upon him.

 
          
Wilkins
struggled to unbuckle his seat belt, kicked the door open, and crawled out of
the wreckage. As he stood, the earth spun and he almost collapsed. But the
sight of the bus, now plowing through other wrecked vehicles and heading toward
the limo, motivated him to move.

 
          
He
ran south toward the Tidal Basin.

 
          
Agent
47 witnessed the horrific pileup but didn’t slow down. The bus entered the
foray at full speed, barely dodging the ruined vehicles and adding insult to
injury.

 
          
Stay
on target.

 
          
The
hitman
turned the steering wheel sharply toward the
east, almost overturning the bus. Two wheels lifted off the ground but then
slammed heavily back on the asphalt. The overturned limousine lay a hundred
yards ahead on the highway. 47 saw a man emerge from the wreckage and stagger.

 
          
Wilkins.
Still alive.

 
          
But not for long.

 
          
The
man saw the bus bearing down on him, and he ran south off the road and onto the
grass. He was headed for a group of trees that stood between the avenue and the
water. 47 couldn’t allow him to get that far, for the trees would act as
obstacles and prevent the bus from following the reverend. The assassin had to
head him off; luckily, the bus was faster than a running man.

 
          
47
pulled the bus in a curve, around and in front of Wilkins, so that the man’s
route was blocked. The
hitman
continued the pursuit,
this time chasing the reverend straight for the basin.

 
          
Wilkins
was out of breath and in pain.

 
          
But
the Supreme One would stop this attack! Charlie Wilkins was not destined to end
his time on earth like this!

 
          
Find
the Will! You can do it!

 
          
But
the Will had deserted him.