Hitman Damnation

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.