Blackwell Ops: Sam Thurston
1: Waiting for Slim Jim
A little after midnight, in the haze-dimmed light of a three-quarter moon, James “Slim Jim” Steffano is making his way along the side of a warehouse. He’s tall and skinny and hunched over in his coat against the wind at his back. The coat’s black and belted, probably wool. His hands are buried in its pockets.
And the dummy’s wearing a fedora. One of those snap-brim things, also black. He probably sees it as a status symbol.
Twice already, the wind tugged at the brim, threatening to send the hat flying. Each time, he brought his hands out, tugged it lower on his head, then shoved his hands back into his coat pockets.
His goal is a white door some thirty yards away. It’s lit up by a bulb under an aluminum cone above it. There’s a heavy chrome padlock on the door. Intel says he has a bunch of women locked up inside. Maybe even some kids.
I shook my head. Women and kids? C’mon, man.
Anyway, he’s walking pretty fast, and he’s puffing out a cloud of white breath with every step. Otherwise, he stands out against the lead-colored steel siding like a dark blotch on an x-ray. For him, the news will be just as bad. Only he’ll die a lot sooner and without nearly as much suffering.
*
From everything I read about him, Slim Jim thinks he’s a big deal in the underworld. Since he was about 12 he was into everything from being a bag boy to running numbers to stealing cars to dealing drugs. And he did time for a lot of that. So the guy isn’t all that smart.
He tried gun-running for a few months, but the Canadians shut that down toot sweet. Yeah, the genius was smuggling guns into Canada. Apparently for the big revolution he thought was gonna happen up there. The guy’s got a terrible sense of direction.
The next thing anyone knew, he was into people smuggling, and here we are. Things like that bring way too much attention. The guy just doesn’t know when enough is too much.
*
Which is why I’m here. Slim Jim’s boss doesn’t want any association with any of this, so he called my boss, TJ Blackwell. And TJ gave me the assignment.
I could have passed, but the assignment was marked “eyes only.” So he tagged me specifically.
I’ve skipped a couple of assignments in my time, but never one marked “eyes only.” You skip one of those, you risk becoming a target yourself. That’s a risk I won’t take.
*
From what I understand, Slim Jim’s boss has a press conference scheduled for 9 a.m. tomorrow right there in front of Steffano’s warehouse. That’ll give him time to “discover” the body and call the meat wagon to drive it off before the press gets there. As a bonus, he can release all the poor unfortunates himself while the cameras roll.
So Slim Jim Steffano’s about to get some very bad news. Though he won’t know it.
He won’t even hear the shot.
*
The wind’s coming straight out of the north, and it might as well be blowing off a block of ice. It doesn’t bother me much though.
Back in the motel I put on a lightweight but well-insulated black jacket over a long john top and a heavy flannel shirt, and then black pants with the long john bottoms under them. And thick wool socks and combat boots. So the skin on my right shoulder and arm and right thigh are a little cool, that’s all.
Oh, and a black wool watch cap pulled down to my eyebrows. The bottom half of that’s a balaclava, but I’m not using it.
I can’t feel the cold on the right side of my face anyway. A sniper’s bullet fixed that problem for me several years ago when it missed. It grazed my right cheek, but it nicked my cheekbone. So it took a chip off the bone, but it also took a whole bundle of nerves with it. Numbed the right side of my face. On nights like this, I’m grateful.
Well, I would be if Slim Jim didn’t leave the key for that stupid padlock in his car.
I don’t want him to have to go back, but not because of the cold.
It’s already almost 1 a.m., and I still have a long drive ahead of me.
*
When Slim Jim was five or six yards away from the door, I brought my carbine up into my shoulder. I used to be able to shoulder a weapon, aim, and fire pretty fast. But since that guy took that chunk out of my face it takes a little time to get a good cheek weld. And a good cheek weld’s essential for good aim, even with a scope.
But I’m working without a scope. I’m only about forty yards away, steadied by the corner of a warehouse of my own.
Well, not my own, but one across the way from his and a row back. I wanted to be level with him. I don’t like shooting downhill in the dark. With shadows and everything, it’s too easy to overshoot and screw things up.
I pressed my right cheek and jawline against the stock until I felt the pressure of the bone underneath. As he stopped next to the door, I drew a bead just above his left ear.
He reached with his left hand and turned the bottom of the padlock toward him. Probably didn’t want to let the wind get at the right side of his face until he could block it with the door and duck inside. I don’t blame him.
He brought his right hand out of his coat pocket and into the light and moved his fingers a little. Probably moving the key up from his palm. The light glinted off the key as he pinched it and aimed it at the bottom of the lock.
As I slipped my right index finger across the trigger, streaks of sleet started slanting through the outer edge of the pool of light from the aluminum cone. Slim Jim was feeling none of it. The building was blocking it from him.
But it was all over me. It stung a little on the knuckles of my right hand and around my left eye.
I blinked and wished I had a bill on my watch cap.
One more second. That’s all I need.
He pushed the key in, turned it, and tugged on the lock.
At first it didn’t move. Probably frozen.
Then he tugged again and the hook on top of the lock snapped free of the body. It sounded like a .22 caliber pistol going off.
And he lifted the lock straight up and free of the hasp.
I squeezed the trigger.
The explosion and the solid thud of the bullet on the wall of the warehouse blanked-out the sound of sleet pinging the warehouse roofs. I could almost make out the hole in the middle of the dark blotch on the wall and the edge of the door. Steffano was close enough to the door. I think the bullet probably plowed into a stud.
I hope so. I didn’t want to scare the people inside any worse than they already were.
He stared at his hands for an instant, then dropped to his knees.
The padlock skittered away out of the pool of light as he fell forward onto his face.
Well, good. If there was a cold-air leak under the door, maybe he’d absorb some of that for the folks inside. He was even kind enough to land on his left cheek so I didn’t have to look at his ugly mug. A .45 caliber slug to the temple can make your eyes bulge. Or pop out. Nobody wants to see that.
I couldn’t imagine he was still alive. But cold as it was, I didn’t want to go check him either. So I took aim again and put another bullet into the back of his head.
I grabbed my spent brass and put it in my pocket. Then I turned away from the corner and walked about twenty feet to the back of my Jag. I put my Tavor 7 carbine into its case in the trunk, then got in and drove away.
I hoped when the sleet calmed down the clouds would dump a foot or so of snow to cover my tracks.
But either way, there was no downside to this deal.
I was anxious to get back to warmer weather, and as soon as I could find a road marked “south” I took it.
2: On the Road Again. And Again.
Sometimes TJ’s timing leaves a lot to be desired. I’d been living in Charleston, South Cackalacky for almost two years. I even had an apartment only a block off the beach. Of course, they have more beach there than a lot of other places do, but mine was on the actual ocean. That was nice, and Charleston was plenty big enough to provide everything I wanted in the way of food and entertainment and even anonymity.
But I never quite felt at home there. I was a little uprooted. Or maybe misplanted. I’m originally from west Texas. A little place outside of Lubbock called Wolforth. It’s only about 6000 people if you don’t count Lubbock, and we never did. But then the war happened along with a bunch of other stuff and here I am.
Don’t get me wrong. The people in Charleston are fine, but they’re different from the folks in Texas, and I think that’s what I was missing. So I told the building manager I wouldn’t be renewing my lease for a third year.
I put my Jag in the covered part of the long-term lot at the airport. Then I took a taxi to the U-Haul place and rented a small box truck. It was still bigger than I needed since the apartment was furnished. And I drove it home and put everything I owned inside the box. My stuff didn’t fill a third of it.
I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I’m glad I can travel light, but it seems like a man should have more to show for 31 years on the planet than a third of a small box truck full of stuff and a cool car. But I guess some would count me lucky.
I planned to drive the U-Haul west until I found a place that felt good. Then I’d rent a place, move my stuff in, turn in the truck, and fly back to get my car.
Only it didn’t work out that way.
About the time I slipped in behind the wheel of the U-Haul, my VaporStream device went off.
The VaporStream is a strange little thing. It’s about a third the size of those old flip-type cell phones. It has a little screen about two inches wide by three inches tall, but that’s where the similarity ends.
It has three buttons on the side: one is a small button marked On. You have to press that one just to see the message. And then two others are marked R for Reject and A for Accept. So you read the message, and then you press either R or A. That’s pretty much it.
So when the thing went off, I pulled it out of my shirt pocket and pressed the On button.
The first line of the message read Eyes only.
“Aw, TJ. Not now, man.”
But I’d already pushed the On button—if I hadn’t, that annoying tone would repeat every fifteen seconds for a full three minutes—so I read the rest.
It gave me the target name and location, right down to the address of the warehouse and even what they bad guy was doing. TJ doesn’t always tell you that.
The last line gave me what looked like a two-day date range until I read it again. It was actually only three hours, from the opening date to the closing date: 11 p.m. on one day to 2 a.m. on the next.
Well, I could make it in my Jag, and I was sure TJ knew that too.
And the message did start with “eyes only.”
So I pressed the Accept button.
Then I drove the U-Haul truck to a storage facility and parked it inside. I called the U-Haul place back and told them I’d been called out of town so I might need the truck a couple days longer.
Of course, they were only too happy to oblige for an additional fee, which they request right then over the phone.
I gave it to them, then grabbed a cab back to the airport, located my car, and headed north.
And here we are.
So I was anxious to finish my move. Plus I’d have to hope I could find a motel where the No Vacancy sign was on. I’d already moved out of my apartment and given up my keys.
*
When I got back to Charleston, I found a motel and took that day and night to relax.
Then I reversed the previous process. I took my car to long-term parking, grabbed a cab to the storage facility, paid the fee and drove out through the gate. Westbound and down, that’s me.
To shorten the story a little, over the next four days I took the southern route, and I drove all over the place. I stopped only when nature called. Otherwise I slowed down only when I saw a place that interested me or when the governor on the truck forced me to.
I felt good in Louisiana, better when I passed into Texas, and worse when I crossed into New Mexico. So I turned around. I already knew the panhandle wasn’t for me. I like the beach too much, so I kept heading south.
Eventually I ended up in Brownsville. It’s only around 200,000 people, but it has an international airport. I could at least make flight connections from there if necessary for my job. And it has all the great Mexican food you can handle.
There were also a lot of rentals available. I found a small, minimally furnished one-bedroom house in no time. I paid the man, unloaded and turned-in my U-Haul, and called the airport. I was surprised to find a direct flight, so no connections or layovers, and it was leaving for Charleston the next morning.
*
The flight took less than three hours, and a half-hour after that I was westbound again, this time in my little Jaguar. I didn’t take my time. I stopped late for the night at Slidell, Louisiana. But I left soon after sunrise, and I made it past Kingsville before the VaporStream device went off again.
I was in the men’s room at that little rest area about 20 miles south of Kingsville. Fortunately I’d just zipped up and moved to the sink. But unfortunately I’d just soaped-up my hands and had them under the running water.
The restrooms in those place have great acoustics. When that annoying tone went off, a guy still busy with his business at a urinal looked around and frowned. Unlike the old joke, he didn’t bring his business around with him. He said, “What the hell is that?” At the same time, another guy in another stall said, “What’s the noise, dude?” and a third guy in another stall said, “Qué es eso?” Same thing, only in Mexican.
I flung soapy water off my hands into the sink. “It’s me. I’ll get it.”
I used the heel of my hand to turn off the water, then crossed the room to the paper towel dispenser.
It had one of those little grey oval sensor windows in it, and it spat out two thin sheets of brown paper as I approached.
I tore those off, then waved the back of my right hand past the window so it’d give me two more. I dried my hands, balled up the towels and made a back-rim shot on the black plastic liner of a slot-in-the-wall trash can. Then I snatched the device out of my shirt pocket, pressed the On button and headed for the door.
I don’t know why they didn’t just make the device the size of a cell phone. It would avert a lot of questions. I’ve answered those before a few times, usually with, “Oh, it’s kind’a like a cell phone” and then moved away.
But nobody followed me out of the restroom.
I didn’t want to go back to the Jag right then, so I backed into a space between a You Are Here map and the black cage around a Coke machine and a candy-and-chip machine and eyed the message:
Eyes only
OKC, Caitlin Towers, 502
TWP Dowdy Martin
11 a.m. to 12 is best
[date range]
Eyes only again.
The opening date was tomorrow, which happened to be a Thursday. The closing date was the next day.
And the message said the focused location was room 502, but it didn’t say in which tower.
Also, when TJ wants you to fly, he provides a plane ticket and a contact you can use to get a weapon for the hit. But he didn’t offer either one, so I’d be driving.
But all I had with me was the Tavor 7, still in its case in the trunk of the Jag. And I didn’t know anyone in Oklahoma City, much less anyone I could get a pistol from on short notice. I’d have to drive on down to Brownsville, unpack my stuff, then drive the length of Texas and half of Oklahoma. So another ten-hour drive. Well, plus the three-hour turnaround to Brownsville and back to here.
I shook my head, memorized the name of the building, the office number and the target’s name, then pressed Accept and headed to the car.
The sun was close to the west horizon as I slipped in behind the wheel. It would be dark when I got home.
As I exited the median—the rest area was in the middle of the road—I mumbled, “Okay, I’ll get home, unpack enough to find what I need, then get some sleep. And whenever I wake up, I’ll head north again. Easy peasy. I’ll get a motel room, see if I can figure out who the hell Dowdy Martin is, then get some more sleep. Then I’ll get up on Friday, make the hit, and head back south.” I shook my head again.
If he wants me to make a hit in an office building, I can do that. Even in the middle of the day. But why couldn’t he have held off until Monday? Then he could give me a five-day window instead of two.
Whatever. If you take a man’s money, you do the job he’s paying you to do.
Besides, it isn’t like TJ is big on letting people walk away.
3: Oklahoma City
In Brownsville I went through boxes until I found what I needed for the trip—a small duffel, a change of clothing, and the weapon I’d use in Oklahoma—then slept on the floor that night. Like I said, the place was only partly furnished, and the couch wasn’t long enough even for my 5’11” frame.
I dreamed about Marlene Westlake and Charlie Penn, my best friend from seven years ago. They’re the biggest reason I don’t want anything to do with Wolforth or Lubbock or west Texas anymore. They both live up there somewhere. That was the first time I’d thought about either of them in forever. Much less the two of them.
Well, I’d thought a lot about Charlie Penn off and on and what I’d like to do to him. Especially the first month or two after I got Marlene’s letter. It was brief. It started with “Hey you,” a goofy greeting we used to share, and it left off with “I will always care about you. Take care now.”
The middle was brief too. It read like a town council resolution or something.
What with me being wounded and the mental problems Charlie said that would probably cause me—he watches the TV news so he knows all about PTSD—and what with me “obviously,” Charlie said, being dedicated to a violent kind of life in the military, she agreed with Charlie (be it therefore resolved) that she should break things off with me cleanly so she could “marry Charlie Penn with a clean conscience.”
That Charlie’s a great advisor, isn’t he? And wasn’t it sweet of him to help her think things through?
Ol’ Charlie Penn. My best bud. My right-hand guy.
Only my right hand had been doing things my left hand had no idea were going on.
As for Marlene, I never quite figured out how her conscience could be all that clean since she was my fiancé one day and his the next. Seems to me there was a little overlap there, during which ol’ Charlie had talked her into doing the horizontal tango.
But that was mostly my own curiosity. I never thought anything bad about Marlene, bless her heart.
Besides, I couldn’t really blame her. She had made what was essentially a business decision. While I was off doing what I thought was right, ol’ Charlie, like most other guys, went to school and became the world’s greatest accountant or something.
But with women, pretty much every time, stability trumps making yourself a target for snipers. And who can blame them?
Then again, I’m not a woman, and I’m definitely not ol’ Charlie. I don’t even watch the TV news, so what do I know?
Well, I know one thing. I know I’d be tickled pink to pay ol’ Charlie a visit in my professional capacity sometime. I would too. You know, if it wouldn’t rip Marlene’s heart out and fling it to the pigs.
Anyway, that’s when I figured I wasn’t woman material.
Don’t get me wrong. I like them fine. Almost as much as I like a Sonic double cheeseburger or hot biscuits and scrambled eggs and bacon covered with white gravy.
But I won’t ever trust another one.
*
Anyway, I didn’t mean to get off into that can of worms.
The following morning I got a shower, then drove to a mattress store and bought a bed. I like to spread out, so I bought a queen-size. I don’t fit right on a single or double. And like the man said they would when I told him I had a trip scheduled, his guys delivered it a little less than an hour later.
They even asked if they could set it up for me, but I said no.
So after they left, it was just me and the bed. The mattress was standing on end, wrapped in heavy plastic, and the frame was in a long, narrow cardboard box with the square little ends taped shut.
I tipped the mattress so it would drop on the floor in the corner of the bedroom and tore the plastic off the top of it. Then I stretched a sheet over it corner to corner, then fluffed another one on top of that, then fluffed a blanket on top of all that. Then I tossed the two pillows I’d brought from Charleston on top of the whole thing toward the head, grabbed my bag and headed north.
So I left about three hours later than I planned to leave, but once I reached the motel in OKC, everything would be back on schedule.
*
The drive was long but mostly uneventful, and most of the cops in Texas and Oklahoma live in the real world, so the tires on the Jag only touched the high spots in the road.
I didn’t get pulled over until I was just north of the state line.
The cop, a serious-looking young kid of about 23 or 24 with only skin showing below his hat and above the earpieces of his shades, walked up grinning.
I remember thinking, “Oh crap, I got a rookie.”
Turned out he wasn’t. As he walked up to my open window, he said, “Sweet car.”
I nodded and smiled. “Thanks.”
He took my license and registration and called in for wants and warrants on those and my license plate, which was still marked South Carolina, right there on a little radio on his shoulder. When all of that came back clean, he opened his little book and took out a pen.
After he wrote out the ticket, he tore it out of the book and handed it to me. “Now sir, this is only a warning, but it’s still official, understand?”
“Yes officer.”
He grinned. “So I don’t want to see you goin’ more than ten, fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit again. Think you can do that?”
I didn’t grin. They don’t like that. “I’m sure I can, officer.”
He laughed. “All right, sir, you have a good day.” He laughed again as he turned away and said, “I’ll just bet.”
I didn’t want to disappoint him, and if he could’ve seen me for more than about a half-mile, I’m sure I wouldn’t have.
*
I got to OKC fine a couple of hours after dark. My motel room was small, but it seemed clean. It had a flat surface I could sleep on and a shower and Wi-Fi, which is about all I need.
Within minutes I’d opened my laptop, signed in, and looked up Caitlin Towers.
The search engine asked Did you mean Caitlin Tower? Beside it a small link read Search for Caitlin Towers instead.
I ignored that and scrolled down.
With the S on the end, I thought it would be more than one building, but it wasn’t. TJ must’ve had a senior moment. And to my surprise, it wasn’t located downtown. Well, not in downtown Oklahoma City.
It was actually in a suburb of the city. It had only five stories, and with those it was the tallest building in town, though it didn’t beat out some of the grain silos by much. All it actually “towers” over are pole barns and dress shops and the like. As a bonus, it was only about a ten-minute drive from my motel, and I don’t think it was five full minutes from the freeway.
Then I turned to seeing what I could learn about Dowdy Martin. Other than that his or her office was on the top floor of the building.
First, based on the first name, I thought maybe the target was a woman. Maybe a retired barrel racer or something. But the name belonged to a man.
Second, he was the owner and CEO of Martin Group, a farming supplies and investment business.
Third, there wasn’t a lot to him. He looked quite a bit like TJ. Short, not a lot of meat on his bones, and a little twisted. Physically, I mean. He looked maybe in his mid-80s, but that was being generous. Whoever wanted to take him out, why didn’t they just wait a week or a month?
But a job is a job.
I checked the little .25 caliber pistol I’d brought with me, then tucked it under the pillow on the bed, climbed in and got some sleep.
*
The next morning I was up with the sun, as usual, but I had time to kill.
After I dressed in boots, jeans, and a white shirt, I slipped on my lightweight black leather jacket. Even without a tie, it would make me look minimally more professional and harmless.
Then I chilled for awhile. I watched a morning farm-report program and a few old cartoon reruns from the 1960s or something. Mighty Mouse and Porky Pig and that bunch. I was surprised to see that Mighty Mouse was still available even in reruns. They killed the original show because ten people in California or somewhere said it was “too violent.” I couldn’t help but wonder whether some ancestor of Charlie Penn had something to do with that.
After a couple of hours of that I went outside. I spotted a Denny’s sign a few blocks away and walked down there for some breakfast.
The hostess seated me in the front room, and the main event other than my breakfast was an upset farmer-looking guy in a corner booth by himself. He was dressed in a dirty Kansas City Chiefs ball cap and a dusty blue-plaid cotton shirt with pearl-looking snaps and bits of hay on it here and there. Under the table he wore dusty jeans and dusty, round-toed lace-up boots.
Apparently he was jealous of his wife, a trim, cute, red-headed waitress who was working the back room.
Whenever she wasn’t busy, she went to his corner booth, leaned on the table and tried to explain that she had no idea why the hostess had seated him in the front room. And no, she wasn’t “visiting” in the back room with her boyfriend.
One time, as he frowned up at her with that helpless look on his face, she straightened. Then she raised her hands, a damp white towel in one of them, and let them flop to her hips. “I don’t have a boyfriend, Troy! I’m working!” She gestured behind her with the rag and her left hand. “Don’t you see me carrying different meals and drinks on different trays when I go back there?”
I felt bad for both of them. But the spat was more pointless than entertaining, so I ate a little faster than usual and went back to the motel.
After another hour or so of TV, I slipped the .25 into my jeans pocket. It fit fine even with the sound suppressor attached. Then I checked around the room, put my bag in the car, and drove down to Caitlin Towers.
I parked maybe a block away, got out, and walked to the building.
What I found in there was a whole other ball of ugly.
4: The “Hit” on Dowdy Martin
As I’d seen in pictures online, the front half of the side of the building was glass all the way up. The back half and probably the back of the building was yellow brick.
The whole front wall was glass too, including two wide glass doors set in aluminum frames.
The glass in the three walls wasn’t angled quite right. The reflection off the lower panes was almost blinding even in the late-morning sun, but in the higher panes the clouds looked nice drifting past the blue sky.
I pressed the thumb plate, pulled on the right door handle and stepped inside.
The lobby was wide, with three different food-court type places along the left wall in little rectangular boxes. Chinese food, Mexican, and a two-person McDonalds. A few people were queued up at each.
On the right side were two seating areas, each with a few plush-looking chairs around a low, round, central table covered with magazines. Two mandatory rubber trees grew in pots, one in the front corner and one between the two seating areas.
Across the back of the lobby was a long, light-blue counter with little partitions on top like in a bank. A wide sign on the wall above that area read Martin Financial Investments. Two elevators were settled to the right of that. Both sets of doors were open.
I glanced at my watch as I headed for the elevators. It was 11:07. I stepped into the first elevator car and reached for the number pad.
But the top button was marked 4.
I stepped out and went into the other elevator. In that one, all five floors were available. Weird.
I pressed 5.
The elevator doors popped quietly, then closed, and the car started upward. As it ascended, I wondered again why whoever bought the contract didn’t just wait-out old Dowdy. He couldn’t have too many years left. Even his 100th birthday was no more than ten or fifteen years away, max, and nobody lives much longer than that.
Probably some greedy relative. A quick look at the will would be interesting and probably revealing. But all that’s for the cops to sort out.
I was shaking my head and looking at the floor when the elevator car stopped, then settled.
As the doors opened with a quiet squeal, I looked up and started to step out, and—
There stood Dowdy Martin.
He looked up, his eyes wide. His lips sloped up, left to right, and he angled a smile at me. “Ah, there you are!”
I frowned. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
“No, but if you’re who I think you are, you know of me.” He turned away and started down the hall to the right. “Come along.”
What?
I stepped out of the elevator and turned to follow him. “I’m sorry. I was looking for Mr. Dowdy Martin?”
Without turning around, he said, “That’s me, young man, and I suspect you well know it. What is your name?”
“Uh, Thurston. Sam Thurston.”
“And why did you want to see me, mmm?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. What could I say? One of your greedy, ungrateful relatives contracted with my boss to kill you?
“Come, Mr. Thurston. It’s only business after all.”
I opened my mouth again, but he stopped at a door on the left. “Ah, here we are.” He faced the door. “The other doors are all blanks, you know.” He gestured farther along the hallway. “You open any of those,” and then he gestured to the left, “or any of those three and all you’ll see is wallboard.” He cackled, reached under his chin inside his red, long-sleeved shirt and pulled out a narrow plastic card on a black lanyard. “Nifty, eh? Security, you know.”
He inserted the card into a slot in a grey metal box mounted next to the door. When he withdrew it, something clicked.
He dropped the card and lanyard back behind his shirt and turned the doorknob. Still without looking back, he started across the room. “So where do you want me, Mr. Thurston? I’d much prefer to be seated at my desk, but I’ll leave that up to you.”
He gestured with his right hand toward the glass wall behind his desk. For a moment he sounded nostalgic. “There’s a really great view through that window.” He hesitated, and his voice returned to normal. “I understand it’s easiest to face away, but I would hate for the glass to be broken. My survivors would have to replace it, you know. And panes that large aren’t cheap.”
My mind was reeling. I said, “Please, sir, have a seat at your desk.”
That sounded strange, inviting a man to sit at his own desk.
“Oh. All right, thank you. I do love that chair.” He walked past the left side of his desk and turned. Just before he sat down, I noticed there was a thick lumbar support cushion against the lower back of it.
I stopped a few feet in front of the desk.
As Mr. Martin leaned back in the chair and subconsciously caressed the ends of the armrests, he looked up at me. “All right, Mr. Thurston, so how do we do this?”
“I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Do you know why I’m here, Mr. Martin?”
He grinned broadly and his eyebrows arched. “What? Oh my heavens yes! You’re here because I called a dear friend and—” He stopped. Still grinning, he canted his head slightly and frowned. “But I suppose coincidences can happen. Tell me, why do you think you’re here?”
For a moment I only looked at him. But what’s the worst that could happen? He’d be shocked and try to escape his fate and I’d shoot him anyway? “Actually, sir, I received a contract.”
Still grinning, he said, “A contract? To do what?”
“To kill you, sir.”
He slapped both armrests and cackled again. “My god, you’re so very polite! I like that. TJ certainly sent me a good one.”
I frowned. “Sir?”
“As I was saying, yes, I know why you’re here. You work for TJ Blackwell, yes?”
“Yes sir, but—”
“But what? You are an operative for Blackwell Ops, right?”
“Yes sir.”
He spread his arms. “All right. You’re the operative and I’m your mark.” He frowned. “No, that isn’t right.” He looked down and thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers, looked up again and pointed at me. “Target, that’s it. You’re the operative and I am your target. So again, how do we do this?”
I was still processing all the new information.
He rapped his knuckles on the desk, then pointed past me. “We really should get on with it.”
I looked over my shoulder. There was a clock on the wall. It read 11:34. I’d been in the building almost a half-hour.
I looked at him again. “Yes sir. So this is a suicide?”
“I’m very ill, young man. Terminally so. And frankly I’m bone weary of relatives coming around, pretending to care as they hover.” He tapped the arms of the chair with his palms. “I have lived a very full life. TJ and I even worked together before Blackwell Ops. We did very much the same sort of job you’re about to do. Though I must say we were considerably more efficient at it.”
He quickly lifted one arm and wagged that hand. “Sorry. I’m sure you’re normally much more efficient. Anyway, I did consider taking my own life, but then the insurance would be invalidated.”
“I didn’t know.”
“No, that doesn’t surprise me.” He chuckled. “TJ probably did something else to throw you off track too. He always was a great kidder.”
I smiled. “He added an S to Caitlin Tower.”
He laughed and slapped the armrests again. “Yes! Back in the day I told him I would build at least two buildings while I was alive. Every time I’ve spoken with him over the years, he asks how the ‘towers’ are coming along. It was a great joke between us.” The grin faded and he sighed. “But time is short.” He paused. “I’m glad we were able to chat for a bit.”
I only nodded.
He said, “So what would you like me to do? The medulla oblongata probably would be best.”
“Yes sir. And I won’t break the glass. I promise.” I paused. The bullets from the .25 were low-velocity. They wouldn’t exit the cranial cavity. “Sir, why don’t you turn your chair around? Then stand and admire that view for a moment while I prepare?”
He nodded. Quietly, he said, “Thank you, Mr. Thurston. You are a professional. I’m glad you’re the one TJ sent.”
“I am too, sir.”
He took a breath, nodded again, then swung his chair around.
I had racked the slide when I first loaded the gun, so there was a round in the chamber. I pulled the weapon out of my pocked, stuck it between my side and my jacket, and cocked it.
As he stood, Mr. Martin’s head, shoulders and upper back appeared above the back of his chair. “My god,” he said, “it is such a beautiful v—”
I squeezed the trigger three times in quick succession. Each shot was quieter than a bee going past.
He slumped straight back into his chair.
I gathered the casings, put the pistol back into my jeans pocket, then walked past the desk. His head had lolled forward. Blood trickled in two lines down the back of his neck.
I tipped his head back, then reached with my thumb and little finger to close his eyelids. I thought about turning his chair around, but I decided to leave him facing east. The rising sun and all that.
And the view he loved so much.
*
The egress wasn’t a problem.
As I turned for the door, the clock read 11:37.
I let myself out of the office, went to the elevator and descended.
A few of the people who had been queued at the food stands were seated in the seating areas, chatting and laughing as they ate.
None of them even glanced my way as I walked past them and exited.
Outside, not quite a block away, I started the car and headed for I-35 South.
5: Vacation
Two days after I got back, my bed was put together and I had unpacked all my boxes. There were only seventeen of them. My whole stupid life in seventeen boxes.
But I needed to snap myself out of grouch mode. I decided to head over to Port Isabel and get a little beach time. At least I could see what’s there. I’d never been before. When I’d lived in Texas before, we had plenty of beach and rocks, but not much water.
But just as I stepped over the threshold, my VaporStream device sounded again.
I frowned as I pulled it out of my pocket, then stepped back into the house. I slammed the door. “Damn it, TJ. Give me just a little break, will you?” Then I pressed the On button. That tone really is annoying. Until you’ve heard it, you can’t know how annoying it is.
I looked at the screen.
Thank You.
He was a friend.
You’re on vacation.
Well I’ll be damned. TJ had never sent me any kind of personal message before, except those two words I always hate to see: eyes only.
I shook my head. “You’re welcome, TJ.”
Then I pressed Accept, locked up the house and drove to Port Isabel.
The next assignment would come soon enough.
* * *
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 80 novels, 9 novellas, and over 230 short stories. He has also written 16 nonfiction books on writing. and he’s compiled and published 30 collections of short fiction and 5 critically acclaimed poetry collections.
To see his other works, please visit HarveyStanbrough.com.
For his best advice on writing, see his Daily Journal at HEStanbrough.com.