She was in her middle thirties, five feet nine, more than thirty pounds overweight from her last pregnancy and no time to do anything about it. She had a pair of kids, ages three and less than a year. She was in the process of getting a divorce. She and her soon to be ex-husband currently had joint custody of the kids. One week on and one week off. She wanted full custody, but that was difficult to manage with the work she did.
There had been a change of schedule tonight. She had one stop to make before heading home. She drove off, her mind swirling with thoughts of work issues mixed with the demands of two active children. There was no room in there for her. But that just came with motherhood, she supposed.
Robie stared up at the five-story apartment building. It looked like his place. Old, decrepit. But he lived in a nice part of the nation’s capital. This was a part of D.C. that suffered from a lot of violent crime. However, this particular neighborhood was becoming safer. You could raise a family here without worrying too much about your kid dying while walking home from school because he was caught in the crossfire of drug crews battling for street supremacy.
There was no doorman here. The outer entrance was locked and one needed a pass card to get in. He had that. There were no surveillance cameras. They cost money. The folks who lived here couldn’t afford that. Or a doorman.
Robie had gone from cartel bosses to Saudi princes to this. The dossier on tonight’s target was particularly light. Black woman, age thirty-five. He had her picture and her address. He had not been told the specific reason why she must die tonight other than she had ties to a terrorist organization. If Robie had to label her, he would probably put her in the “problem” box his employer sometimes used to justify death. He couldn’t visualize anyone living here as being a global menace. They tended to matriculate to fancier addresses or else hid out from the law in some country that did not extradite to the United States. But terrorist cell members were trained to blend in. She apparently was one of them. In any event, the reason why she had to die was above his pay grade.
He looked at his watch. The building was all condo but less than half occupied. After the financial meltdown fifty percent of the folks here had suffered foreclosure. Another ten percent had lost their jobs and been evicted. The woman lived on the fourth floor. She was a renter and could never afford the mortgage on this place, foreclosed or not. There were only two other people living on that floor, an old woman who couldn’t see or hear, and a security guard who worked the night shift and was currently fifteen miles away. The apartments above and below the woman were also empty.
He toggled his neck, felt the pop. He pulled up his hoodie.
The plan was set. There was no stand-down button to push. The rocket was fueled and the launch was commencing.
He looked at his watch. His spotter had seen her go into the building alone hours ago, grocery bag in one hand, briefcase in the other. She had looked tired, the spotter had reported to Robie. That would be a good look, compared to what was coming.
It was moments like this that made Robie wonder what he would do with the rest of his life. He had no problem killing cartel trash or rich, megalomaniac desert sheikhs. But tonight Robie had a problem. He reached a gloved hand inside his pocket and felt the gun there. Usually it was reassuring for him to touch his weapon.
Tonight it was not.
She would be in bed. Her apartment was dark. At this hour she would be sleeping.
At least she would feel nothing. He would make certain his strike caused instant death. Life would go on without her. Rich or poor, important or not, life just did. He would leave by the fire escape. It emptied out to an alley, as many of these buildings did. He would be back at his house by three a.m. Just in time to go to sleep.
To forget tonight ever happened.
As if I can do that.
CHAPTER 11
Robie swiped the card through the reader and the door clicked open. He pulled his hoodie tighter around his head. The hallways were poorly lighted. Fluorescent tubes popped and flickered. The carpet was soiled and pulled up in certain spots. The paint on the walls was peeling.
He opened the door to the stairwell and headed up. The air was filled with the smells of cooked food. Mingled together in the air, they did not make a pleasant aroma. He counted the floors. On the fourth one he exited the stairwell and closed the door behind him.
This hall looked just like the one on the first floor.
Number 404 was the one he wanted.
The blind and deaf lady lived at the end of the hall on the left. The security guard in absentia resided at 411. The lock on 404 was a deadbolt, probably engaged by his target tonight. Robie had noted that most of the other exterior condo doors had simple locks. The deadbolt meant she was security-minded. Yet it took him all of thirty seconds to defeat the lock using two slender pieces of metal in concert.
He closed the door behind him and put on his night-vision goggles. His gaze swept the small living room. There was a night-light inserted into an outlet, providing a bit of illumination. It didn’t matter. Robie had been given the plans of the apartment and had memorized all relevant details.
His fingers closed around the gun in his pocket; the suppressor can was already spun on the muzzle. No wasted time.
In one corner of the room was a round particleboard table. On it were a laptop and stacks of paper. The lady had brought her work home, it seemed. There were books on a small shelf. There was no carpet, only worn area rugs.
In one corner was a collapsible playpen. On two walls were pieces of construction paper taped up. There were stick-figure kids and a stick-figure woman with messy hair. In childish script were the word “I” and the word “mom” separated by a crude drawing of a heart. There were also toys piled in one corner.
All this gave Robie pause.
I’m here to kill a young mother. The flash drive said nothing about kids.
Then in his headset came the voice.
“You should already be in the bedroom.”
This was also what was different about tonight. He wore a pinhole camera that conveyed live video feedback, and an earwig through which his handler could prompt him to do his job more efficiently.
Robie moved through the room, stopping at the closed door to the bedroom.
He listened at the cheap wood for a few moments and heard what he expected: low breathing, soft snores.
He gripped the knob with his gloved hand, pushed the door open, and stepped through.
The bed was set against the window. Directly outside was the fire escape. In many respects this was far too easy, like a movie set properly lighted and waiting for the actors to execute a pivotal scene.
It was dark in here, but he could still see her lying in the twin bed. Her heavy body made a substantial hump under the covers. Much of her weight was carried in her hips and buttocks. Robie knew it would take some effort to lift her corpse onto the gurney after she’d been pronounced dead. The cops would look for clues, but there would be none. Ordinarily Robie would police his brass. But he was chambering dum-dum rounds tonight, so most likely they would stay inside her. And if so, the medical examiner would find them during the post. But what he would never have was a gun to match them to.
He lifted the Glock out from his pocket and moved forward. When you wanted to make sure that one shot would do the trick, there were any number of places where this could be accomplished.
To avoid the blowback of blood and tissue on his person that inevitably came with a contact shot, Robie had opted tonight to make the kill shot from a few feet away. He would fire once into the heart, and then for insurance he would place a second shot into the aorta, which was the width of a garden hose and ran vertically up to the heart. There were things in front of the aorta, but if one knew where to shoot and the angle was right, the shot would sever the hose ten times out of ten. The bleedout would be lightning fast. And if the bullets somehow passed through her, the mattress would probably collect them.