Upton kept walking staring in confusion at her phone.
“Thirty seconds,” said Max over the earpiece, now only speaking to Trent and Renee. He was driving the car into the hotel parking lot.
Trent was several paces behind Upton, having followed her out the door. He tapped his earpiece twice to acknowledge Max, the noise transmitting two consecutive thumping sounds. Trent pretended to be reading something on his cell phone while he walked a path parallel on the other side of the parking lot, following his target.
Max’s car inched up behind Jennifer Upton’s parked vehicle. Trent’s pace sped up. Upton had put her phone back in her purse and was now in the process of collapsing the sliding handle of her suitcase. She glanced at the car now stopped just behind her.
Max rolled down the passenger window. His car was only a few feet away from her.
“Ma’am, Senator Becker sent us to pick you up. Could you come with us, please?”
“Excuse me?” She stared at Max, looking confused and worried. Her head jerked, seeing Trent approach from behind her.
Shit. She was going to be noncompliant. Max could see it in her eyes.
In one quick movement, Trent opened the rear door of their rental car, grabbed Jennifer Upton around the waist, and moved her into the rear seat. He climbed in after her, then reached for her bag, pulled it inside and shut the door as Max drove away, trying to calm her down.
“We’re here to help you, ma’am,” said Max, quickly making eye contact with her in the mirror.
Trent sat close, and leaned toward her, his finger over his mouth, signaling her to be quiet.
Jennifer Upton looked with wide eyes at Trent, the chiseled ex — Special Forces man, all muscle and clenched jaw, a menacing figure hovering over her tiny frame. She kept quiet long enough for them to give her an explanation.
“Ma’am, we’re with US law enforcement, and we’re here to protect you from an imminent threat. Senator Becker should have given you a call letting you know we were on the way.” Not technically truthful, but it helped hold down her urge to scream.
Hearing Max say this, Renee shut down her laptop and headed out the door of the coffee shop. She walked quickly around the corner, and down the back alley. One block away, Max’s car stopped abruptly just in front of the curb. Renee stepped out of the alleyway and hopped in the passenger seat, and the vehicle sped away.
Hugo’s plan had been simple.
He was going to wait for the woman to enter her hotel, then pay a visit to her room and kill her. Her death would be swift and quiet. Made to look like a fall in the shower, or a tragic choking. Perhaps a suicide? It really just depended on the situation. Hugo considered himself to be a creative — like an artist or a musician. He had learned from a career of contract killings that sometimes good art just comes to you in the moment. One can’t plan for all the materials available or all the external influences that might affect an operation.
Like just now.
Hugo hadn’t entered her hotel. Instead, he had stayed put. Watching an unexpected team tail the unsuspecting Jennifer Upton, apprehend her, and depart. This would cost him money and time. It would also anger Syed.
Hugo had been scouting out Jennifer’s hotel from an empty apartment across the street for five hours. From Hugo’s years of experience, he knew a fellow professional when he saw one. He had seen the first man casing the block an hour before Upton’s arrival. Hugo had taken several snapshots, which he would later show to Syed.
Not long after the first man had gone out of sight, a second man had appeared. This second man was tall and walked with a military swagger. Hugo had observed all the comings and goings within two blocks of his position. This second man had entered the coffee shop across the street from the hotel and remained inside for several hours. The fact that he had emerged just as Jennifer Upton arrived on scene could not have been a coincidence.
That left several questions in Hugo’s mind. Chief among them, who was this team of operators? Their moves were quick and professional. He guessed that they were Americans, which alarmed him.
Hugo had watched most of the activity through his rifle scope. If he had wanted to, he could have executed a perfect headshot against his target while she was strolling through the parking lot. For a brief moment, he’d toyed with the idea of taking all three of them out, but that course of action would pose several problems. For one, he didn’t have a clear shot of the driver, and he didn’t want to risk missing one of them. Secondly, the two unknown men weren’t part of the assassin’s assignment. It was always possible they were allies to Syed, and that the ISI had communicated poorly. Or perhaps Williams had sent them. Unlikely, but possible. Yet the most important reason Hugo stayed still was that a triple homicide with a sniper rifle would have attracted a tremendous amount of attention. It would have required him to go into hiding, and it would have made it nearly impossible to achieve the larger objective here at Oshkosh.
So Hugo had taken several pictures with his long-zoom lens as the team drove away. Then he’d taken several more as the woman emerged from the coffee shop. A strange feeling of recognition hit him afterwards, when he reviewed the pictures of the woman on his digital camera.
Where did he know her from? Dark shoulder-length hair. Skinny and toned. Very pale complexion. The beginnings of a tattoo visible on one of her legs. Hugo couldn’t place her. But these images might be useful to Syed.
Hugo packed up his rifle kit and camera, then walked out the back of the building. Within minutes, he was driving a ten-year-old Ford Focus south along I-41. Along the way he used a burner cell phone to send a text message. In code, the text message informed Syed that the mission to kill Upton had been aborted. An immediate response provided Hugo with a coded meeting location. Hugo deleted the message and powered off the phone, then threw it out the window while he was taking the highway exit.
An hour later, the assassin was safe in his hotel room. He would have more driving to do when he headed to Oshkosh to meet his handler later that evening, but for now he would rest.
Hugo kicked off his shoes and flipped on the news.
“Authorities have not ruled out whether the violent attack on a federal interrogation team in Texas several days ago, which left six dead, is related to terrorism. From the steps of the Capitol Building earlier today, Senator Becker of Wisconsin, said this: ‘Whether it was terrorism, narcoterrorism, or just some thuggish drug kingpin, the people who did this will be hunted down and prosecuted. The American people will not stand for it.’ Senator Becker, whose chief of staff’s death has now been ruled a homicide, has himself reportedly been the target of death threats due to his strong stance against the opioid industry. While no one has claimed responsibility for these death threats, authorities believe they are tied to international criminal organizations intent on influencing Senator Becker’s controversial Opioid Epidemic Bill. Experts believe that this bill could drastically affect both the legal and illegal markets for opioid pills. Senator Becker had no comment on these death threats before he left for his home state of Wisconsin earlier today.”
Hugo listened carefully, changing the channel to different news outlets, still on the lookout for any sign that authorities might be tracking him after the hits in Virginia. This trip to the United States would end with quite the body count. Some of them very well known. Hugo worried that the Pakistani intelligence service was getting too careless, working with this Englishman, Williams. Hugo had met the man before. An odd cat. But very efficient at his work. And while Hugo respected that, he didn’t like taking unnecessary risks. He would have to be careful there. Perhaps Hugo would take a long vacation after this weekend.