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Chapter 2 Vacation Fit For A Hitman
The all too familiar sound of a gunshot exploded next to my head. I sat up instantly in bed, simultaneously pulling my Colt M1911 out from under the right side of the bed’s pillow. I managed to make a scan of half the room with the weapon drawn, sights aimed, arms stiff, before my consciousness caught up with my brain. Just a dream, a dream that I could not fully remember, but one ending with a gunshot ringing in my ears. Very few nights went by without me waking up suddenly, going through the motions like tonight. I suppose you can only be shot at so many times before your subconscious begins to replay your near death experiences for you like some kind of demented highlight reel. I took a deep breath, calming myself down. I was drenched in sweat and my paranoia was at an alltime high. Again almost every night this same story played out. I had it down to a routine at this point. Five deep breaths in and back out. I return the gun to its original position next to me and lie back down. Then one of two things would happen. I either fall asleep again within a minute or as tonight I stay wide awake. Plan B would be enacted then. I climbed out of bed, right hand gripped tightly around my pistol again. I opened the door to the bathroom, a bathroom in which the light I leave permanently on. I set my firearm down on the toilet tank lid. In this motel 6 it was within reach from the shower. Pulling the curtains back I was relieved to see a relatively nice looking shower tub. One thing I cannot stand is a disgusting one, even this old looking one was pushing it. Sometimes I get to stay in nice hotels for different jobs of mine, others I’m in one of these. It’ll have to do though if I plan on sleeping tonight at all. I turned the water on hot. I took cold showers in the morning, but nights were hot and nights like these were very hot. I pulled off my boxer briefs, honestly if I had it my way I’d sleep naked, but if something did happen, where this gun of mine would come in handy, I’d rather not have my package hanging in the wind. The water felt nice and so did my stress and anxiety slowly fading away. I reached out to grab my gun just to make sure it was in reach and then dragged the shower curtains mostly closed, making sure I could still see a corner of the door.
Back in bed, I returned my lifeline under the pillow. I couldn’t help but think back to the last time I had a woman next to me instead of the cold steel. At this point I had to think back a long time, too long. This thought rewarded me with a slight tingly feeling coming from that package I had recovered. Fuck me, come on now I need to sleep, the next thought of her dying in my arms quickly killed the previous feeling and I was able to pass back out into the tranquil limbo of sleep.
The sound of my burner phone awoke me from my peaceful slumber. My watch read 0700, well at least I got five hours of solid rest. I opened the phone expecting to see directions on where and when to dispose of the 38, but instead it was, vacation over, be ready by 0800. What the hell was this? Sudden meets like this were rare, and usually never good. Copy that, Snowman out. I dressed in black tactical boots and pants, with a grey long sleeve T-shirt covered by a darker grey wool sweater. I figured whatever this was, dress shoes would not suffice. Like clockwork at 0800 I got a patterned knock at the door. Though it’s something a twelve year old with a tree house would require for entry, it did the trick, keeping us all feeling secure. Trying to hold onto that feeling I opened the door, gun in hand. There he was, my handler of sorts. I had only met him once before in person. The rest of our interactions had been done through our coded texts. Besides the familiarity of his appearance, classic G-man trying not to look like one, average American male height, making him around three inches shorter than myself, he might as well have been a stranger. This stranger slipped into the motel room and I quickly shut and locked the door, turning to face him.
“Snow, how have you been?” He asked, barely trying to display concern he obviously didn’t have.
“Not bad, V.” A nice way of saying not good. “How about yourself?” I returned with equal concern. He liked to go by The Vulture as he watched over all the death, we dealt out on his request. Of course, these weren’t on his personal hit list either. The targets were given to him by many other parties. Mostly government people in the black hole of black holes, that would make other black op groups look like the boy scouts. At least that’s what they liked to believe. Truthfully, I have no idea, nor do I really give a shit. We were all promised one thing, that the people we killed were in one way or another a threat to national security and that is good enough for me. In the art of dark humor that everyone in a field like this one relies on for a short laugh at the misery, we all liked to call him, The Voyeur. For obvious reasons this didn’t sit well with the man, so I just called him V.
“Just fine.” Another nice way of saying just the contrary. “Still have the party favor from the other night?”
“No. I gave it to a kid on the street.” I smiled when a panicked look spread across his otherwise emotionless face for a split second. A great second it was though. “Of course I have it.”
“Good, I’ll take that from you now.”
“Don’t tell me you came out here just to pick up a party favor in person?” I asked as I handed over the 38. It would either be evaporated, in a sense. Or they would set it up to be used to incriminate another person or group.
“I also wanted to say hi. I missed you.”
“Hey, I’m just asking.” I smirked
“Fuck off, Snow.” He responded, apparently not in the mood for my sarcasm. Pity. “No, I’ve got another project for you; this one’s a little outside your comfort zone.”
I immediately began shuffling through everything that would be outside that zone,
“Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, that’s a very short list V.”
“Yeah I know.” He paused briefly, “It involves a woman.” Another pause.
I raised my eyebrows, “You want me to kill a woman?” I asked bluntly, leaving our usual coding behind. In the couple years I had been doing this all the targets were men. I’m sure someone would call us sexist, but I think in this case the women of the world wouldn’t mind being excluded.
Now his expression was inquizitive, “Would that be a problem?”
Well now would that be? I asked myself. I had never killed a woman, at least not in this way. Over seas, there were a few suicide bombers, that I had taken out or gotten out of the way of them trying to take us out. Either way, my answer would be no. A problem with an operative for these people, would become a much bigger problem, for the operative.
“Not at all.” I responded confidently.
“Good to know, but you’ll actually be saving this one.”
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