Part 2

I was in an abandoned building scheduled for remodeling and I was looking through the scope of a Barrett M82. It was a beautiful rifle and it could hit a mark one thousand five hundred yards away. I was lying on a wooden work table and my target was Phillip Young, an investment trader from New York, who made his money skimming from his clients. 

On the side, Phillip liked young boys and cocaine. 

I received an encrypted file with all the relevant information and images of my target. The rest was up to me, the where and how, unless the how was specifically requested. I confirmed death immediately after and got paid.

Phillip Young stepped out onto the balcony of the high-rise apartment building where he was attending a party, hosted by the generous benefactor paying for his death. I adjusted the scope slightly and looked at him through it. He lit a cigarette and seemed to look directly at me. He couldn’t see me though. I exhaled and squeezed the trigger.

I saw the cloud of blood as the bullet tore through his skull and he fell backwards onto the balcony. I got off the table and started disassembling the rifle. I put it back in the carry case and picked up the shell casing. I pulled the plastic sheet back over the table and did a quick sweep of my immediate surroundings. Everything was as I had found it.

I sent a message to Lynda, confirming the kill as I walked toward the elevator and pressed the button to go back down to the basement. The recall message came through and I smiled.

Lynda: Target eliminated. Return to HQ.

I exited the building at the back that opened into an alleyway, dark and foul smelling. I walked to my bike and slung the rifle case over my back. The alleyway was dark and quiet, the way I preferred it, but just around the corner, the city was alive and vibrant.

The organization I worked for didn’t exist and we did the dirty work nobody wanted or needed to know about. We handled contracts from government organizations that also didn’t exist. We killed targets that needed to be silenced, foreign and domestic.

The other side of the organization was Peter’s brainchild. Assassins for hire. We were a small number of men and women that worked for both sides of the organization and tonight’s hit was a paid job, but also a team competition.

HQ sent us a name, an area of approximately two hundred yards where the target could be and we had two hours to eliminate him or her. The first operative to confirm the kill won and the prize was usually a very lucrative contract.

Sometimes we worked as a team to eliminate a group of targets, and we trained together a lot. We could enter a building in darkness and complete whatever mission was given to us, all without uttering a single word. We took out cartels, mafia groups, politicians, terrorists, whistleblowers, state witnesses, whatever we were ordered and paid to do.

I preferred the other side of the organization, because killing came naturally to me and I never suffered guilt or regret afterward. I could mix with the A-listers and I could also make you believe that I lived on the wrong side of town. I was good at blending in. Sometimes though, the contracts I did on the side were normal people that someone just wanted dead. I still didn’t mind pulling the trigger and the pay was damn good.

I parked my bike in the basement lot of HQ and took my helmet off. I surveyed the parking area, scanning it for the rest of my team’s vehicles. Inside the elevator, I inserted my ID card into the slot and the elevator doors closed and started to move. The doors opened on the 20th floor of the building and I walked to the ammunition room. I handed the rifle back to Ross, who was in charge of allocating weapons.

“Hey, Jericho,” Ross said as I put the case down on the counter. “Back so soon?”

“Took longer than I thought it would.” Ross grinned and it turned into a chuckle.

“I have no idea how the hell you do it,” he said and shook his head. “You’re the first one back.” I nodded my head as Ross booked the rifle back in and scanned my ID card.

I headed up to the 29th floor to Lynda la Marr’s office, where she made it her mission to stare at you until you felt guilty, even if you hadn’t done anything wrong. She rarely praised you and there was no room for error if you wanted to remain under her command.

I knocked on her door and walked inside, not waiting for permission to enter. I sat down in front of her desk and she sighed. “Already?”

“No rest for the wicked,” I said.

I slid the video card over to her and she inserted it into her laptop. She looked at the footage that I had seen through the scope. “There was a slight tremble in your hand right before your shot.”

I smiled. “No there wasn’t.” She smiled back at me as I stood up from the seat.

“Debrief in ten,” Lynda said and that was my cue to leave her alone. I went to the boardroom and got a bottle of water from the bar fridge as I waited for the rest of the team.

Nine minutes later, the team arrived and we all took our seats. Lynda stepped into the boardroom and clicked a button on the remote. The screen in front of us lit up and showed Phillip Young lighting his cigarette. A few seconds later we heard the gunshot and Phillip Young was alive no more.

“Kill confirmed by Jericho,” Lynda said and Joshua started to chuckle.

“Can’t you reassign him to Asia or somewhere?” Nick asked. We discussed the shoot for a bit and finally Lynda cleared her throat.

“Enjoy your time off. I’ll see all of you back here on Friday,” she said. We stood up and headed out of the boardroom, walking toward the elevators.

“Where are you headed, Jericho?” Joshua Green was thirty-three, six foot and one hundred and ninety pounds, an easy smile and a born soldier. “We never see you anymore.”

“Home. A week of peace and quiet,” I answered him. I was the only member of the team that didn’t live in the city permanently. I had chosen Epworth because it was small and quiet.