A Hit, and an Egress

or Training a New Operative

Sorry everyone. Somehow I scheduled this for 10 PM instead of 10 AM. Here is is.

1: The Prelude

When my new girlfriend, Delilah Schiff, decided to take a step back from serving as a weapons contact for Blackwell Ops and becoming a field operative—a fancy term for a professional assassin—I tried hard to talk her out of it.

TJ Blackwell himself tried to talk her out of it too, but all to no avail. The woman was determined.

So TJ decided I would be her training officer, a new concept in the Blackwell Ops organization. To that end, he decided she would accompany me on every assignment for the next three months. If she didn’t drop out during that time, she would be a full, independent operative in her own right.

I was both pleased and annoyed with that turn of events. I was pleased that I would be there to watch over her and to give her the benefit of my experience. But I was annoyed that I might have to watch her die.

So when our first joint assignment—a hit on multiple targets, multiple bad guys—came in, I prepped her as thoroughly as I could. Nervous, I paced in our suite as I told her what to expect, how I expected the principals to be arranged in the house, and how I expected the sequence to unfold.

I only hoped I had alleviated her apprehension to some degree. I hadn’t alleviated my own at all.

But then, I know how quickly plans can go awry and how quickly a ragged cloth can come unraveled.

2: The Situation

When we arrived on site in the darkness of the late evening, there was only one car in the driveway. It probably belonged to the primary target, Darryl Lands.

Just in case anyone was looking out the window, I parked our rental along the curb out front but nearer the neighbor’s property than Lands’.

When we stepped out of the car, we initially walked toward the neighbor’s house. As we got closer and out of sight of the windows, we angled sharply to the concrete stoop in front of Lands’ front door.

On the stoop, I turned my left shoulder toward the door, looked at Deli, and took a long breath to relax and to pull myself back a little from the immediate future to the present.

Then I leaned back slightly to build momentum and hit the door with my left shoulder.

3: The Hit

As the door frame splintered and the door flew inward—

The living room. Nobody.

As I swept my gaze and the Kimber to the left, I caught a shadow straight ahead.

A man in the kitchen, just turning away from the sink at the far end.

I brought the Kimber up as he completed his turn, and fired.

The bullet took him in the forehead.

As he was falling, I completed my pivot to the left and took a half-step with my right foot, following the Kimber past the open edge of the door.

At the table: Lands at the far end, facing me, looking at me.

To his right, two men.

To his left, one.

I fired, fired, and fired.

Even as Lands’ eyes went wide, the first bullet struck him in the forehead. The second struck the nearest man in the right temple, and the third took the next man on that side above his right eye as he turned his head.

The man to Lands’ left was rising.

I swept the Kimber back to the right and—

Deli’s Glock fired twice.

Two nine millimeter slugs slapped the last man in his surprised, furrowed forehead and he went down.

I crouched. “Okay, gather up the brass.”

I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. The whole thing had gone down almost exactly the way I’d laid it out for Deli.

Deli crouched too, but too late.

That’s all right. I’ve been doing this a lot longer than she has.

I straightened and reached down to grab her left arm. “I’ve got ‘em. Six casings, right? Let’s go.” I moved her through the door, then shoved the empties into my pocket and pulled the door closed as I stepped out.

Deli was a few feet away, facing me, waiting.

I gestured. “Get to the car. We’re outta here.”

She turned and walked to the car.

As she tugged open the passenger side door, I was slipping into the driver’s seat.

I started the car and pulled away from the curb.

As I turned the corner two blocks down, she looked over at me. “My god! That was so fast!”

I only nodded.

4: The Initial Egress and the Cleanup

Back in the room, I looked around and spotted the small duffel on the couch. She picked it up, put her Glock inside, and brought it to me, the top open between her hands.

I put the Kimber inside, then fished the empties out and counted them again—four .45 caliber casings and two 9mm casings—and dropped them into the bag.

She zipped it shut, then started for the bedroom.

I followed her. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” She went around the bed and slipped the bag under the head on the far side.

As she straightened, I said, “Okay, so what’d you think?”

She came around the bed and into my arms. As I held her, she was trembling slightly. “I’ll never be that fast.”

“Sure you will. It just takes a little time and a little fine tuning. And a little fear.”

She leaned back a little and frowned up at me. “Fear?”

“Once you’re in, if you don’t move fast enough they might get you first. You never know whether they’re carrying. That’s why I said point and shoot. Don’t think or aim. Just point and shoot.”

She put her head against my chest again. “Right. Right.”

I kissed her on the forehead and glanced at the bedside clock. It was 11:34. “You’ll get it.” I stepped back. “C’mon. Step three of the egress. We have time to change clothes. Go into the bathroom and wash your hands and forearms thorougly, then change at least your shirt. Your jeans too if you want, but quickly. I’ll do the same, but only my t-shirt.”

She looked up at me.

I touched her on one elbow. “Go.”

We both went into the bathroom to wash our hands and arms.

Back in the bedroom, we unzipped our bags. As I swapped out my t-shirt, rolled the one I’d worn tnto a ball and shoved it into one end, she changed into her white shorts, her white leather thong sandals, and her red peasant blouse.

When we were both ready, I said, “Okay, let’s call Delta.” Delta Taina had been our contact for this op.

I picked up my bag and walked to the phone in the living room.

Deli followed me.

I set the bag on the couch, picked up the receiver and punched in the number, then handed the receiver to Deli and grinned. “Just say ‘we’re done’ or ‘we’re finished’ or something and hang up.

A second later, she covered the receiver with her hand. “It’s a stupid answering machine!”

“That’s okay. Same thing.”

She said, “We’re finished.” Then she put the reeiver in the cradle. “Okay, now what?”

I grinned. “Like you said, we’re finished. Now we go downstairs and drive our rental to the airport.”

5: Stage Two of the Egress

On the way to the airport, Deli said, “How long were we in there, anyway?”

I shrugged. “Including walking from the car to the door, the hit, and getting back into the car, a little under two minutes.” I paused. “But that’s good, that you’re thinking that way. In terms of time. I always check the clock in the room as I’m leaving and in the car when I get out and when I get back in. Or my watch if I’m wearing one.

“So for example, for this one I said it would take us seven to ten minutes to get there, remember?”

“Yeah?”

“It took eight minutes. We left the room at 11:10. When I started the car, it was 11:12. As I parked along the curb, the clock in the dash flopped over to 11:20. When we got back into the car and I started it, it was 11:22. And we pulled up at the hotel at 11:29.”

“So only seven minutes on the way back?”

I wagged a hand side to side. “More or less. And when I followed you into the bedroom, the bedside clock read 11:31. That’s how I knew we had time to wash up and change clothes. And we’ll be at the airport and have the car turned in before midnight.”

“And our flight leaves at 2:18, right? That’s perfect.”

“It doesn’t always work out that way. You just have to play it by ear.”

6: The Final Egress

After we turned in the rental, we stopped at a kiosk for a cup of coffee for me and hot chocolate for Deli. We sat in the terminal along one wall. A few minutes later, the security screening station opened and we watched as sleepy-eyed passenger began to queue up.

Deli glanced over at me. “Should we go?”

I smiled. “It’s okay. Relax. Enjoy your hot chocolate. Notice there’s nothing unusual going on? No cops or extra security agents looking around?”

“Yeah?”

I nodded. “We’re practically home free.”

The only thing I was worried about was my VaporStream device. I usually leave it at home when I leave for an assignment, but in the message TJ had specifically directed me to bring it with me, and I had. I only hoped he wasn’t going to give me another raft of rapid-fire assignments like he’d done in Belize.

But even that was only a secondary consideration. Primarily I hoped it wouldn’t go off until we were at least in the plane, in our seats, and airborne.

*******

Author Note:

“A Hit, and an Egress” is based on the characters Jack Temple and Delilah Schiff and is derived, in part, from the novel Blackwell Ops 37: Temple's Justice.

About the Author

Harvey Stanbrough was born in New Mexico, seasoned in Texas and baked in Arizona. For a time, he wrote under five personas and several pseudonyms, but he takes a pill for that now and writes only under his own name. Mostly.

Harvey is an award-winning writer who follows Heinlein’s Rules avidly. He has written and published over 100 novels, 10 novellas, and over 270 short stories. He has also written 18 nonfiction books on writing, 8 of which are free to other writers. And he’s compiled and published 27 collections of short fiction and 5 critically acclaimed poetry collections.

These days, the vendors through which Harvey licenses his works do not allow URLs in the back matter. To see his other works, please key “StoneThread Publishing” or “Harvey Stanbrough” into your favorite search engine.

Finally, for his best advice on writing, look for “The New Daily Journal | Harvey Stanbrough | Substack.”