“That’s great, thank you.”
I make my way over to the elevators and get in the first one that arrives on the ground floor. I press the relevant button and the doors close. Josh was able to find out that Jackson is staying in the Summer suite, which is roughly in the center of the sixteenth floor. Conveniently, this is directly above my room.
Anyone would think I’ve done this sort of thing before…
I ride the elevator to my floor and step out into the hallway as the doors ding open. The carpet is a neutral color and looks expensive, with the walls complimenting the look by being much the same. There’s artwork hanging on both sides of the corridor. Nothing I recognize — probably local artists keen for some cheap advertising, or someone dead who is so obscure, it’s now deemed fashionable to have their work up on display.
I check the brass plaques to see which direction my room is before turning right and heading down the corridor.
There’s no sign of life anywhere. It’s too late in the day for the maids to still be clearing out the rooms of the people who left earlier this morning. I imagine most rooms on the floor will be empty during the day… although, I say that, two people are having uncomfortably loud sex in the room on my left that I’m passing right now. The woman’s putting too much effort into the vocals, if you ask me, so I suspect she’s faking it. But judging by the occasional grunt that I can hear from the guy, I don’t think he cares all that much. Possibly a couple having a torrid affair or something.
I smile to myself and walk on, soon drawing level with my door on the right. I take a deep breath, calming myself for what lies ahead. I press my keycard against the lock pad just above the handle. It beeps once and I hear the lock slide back. I open the door and step inside, closing it gently behind me.
I walk through the room and place my briefcase on the bed. I remove my tie and roll my shirtsleeves up. After all these years, I still get a buzz of adrenaline when I’m on a job. It’s weird to admit, I know, but I love what I do for a living. In a perfectly normal, non-psychopathic kind of way, obviously.
I don’t pay much attention to the room itself — to me, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. I just walk over to the TV, turn it on, and scroll through the channels until I find some music. I find VH1, which is in the middle of showing a classic rock Top 100 show. Thin Lizzy are belting out The Boys Are Back In Town, which is a fantastic song! I turn the volume up, smile to myself for a moment and then move back over to the bed and open my briefcase.
I take out my Bluetooth headset and place it on my ear. I then dial Josh, who answers as I’m singing.
“The jukebox in the corner blasting out my favorite song… The nights are gettin’ warmer it, won’t be long…”
To his credit, he responds immediately. “Won’t be long ‘til summer comes… Now that the boys are here again…”
All together now…
“The boys are back in town, the boys are back in town!”
We laugh.
Nothing ruins a job more than tension and hesitation. The best bit of advice I can give any budding assassin is to relax, clear your head and just do it. Not methodically, but instinctively. Let your hands and your mind and your eyes just do what they know they need to. Go with the flow, as the saying goes.
“I see preparations are going well,” Josh says, still laughing.
“As always,” I reply. “Jackson’s directly above me now. Is everything in place with the hotel?”
“Sure is. If you ring room service in… four minutes, their afternoon shift will have started. The guy who brings you your food will be roughly your height and build.”
“Excellent. And the drill?”
“Should be under your bed, near the window.”
“Josh, for all of your annoying habits, you are an absolute genius. How do you do it?”
“C’mon, Adrian, you know a magician never reveals how he does his tricks.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not paying a magician, I’m paying you. Take the compliment and spill.”
He sighs. “Fine. Well, you know the guy on the front desk?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re also paying him.”
“Am I?”
“Yeah.”
“How many more people do I pay that I don’t know about?”
“Now that would be telling,” he says, with a knowing smile that I can feel down the phone.
“I think I need to hire an independent accountant — it seems you're spending my fortune on all kinds of things…”
“Adrian, if I was going to screw you out of any money, I’d have done it and gone a long time ago.”
“Very true. Right, I’m gonna go do my thing. Ring you when it’s done.”
“Take it easy, Boss.”
I hang up and use the phone next to the bed to ring down to the front desk and order some room service. Then I move round to the other side, get on my hands and knees, and look underneath the bed. Sure enough, there’s a small, industrial drill lying there. I smile to myself.
“Josh, you’re a good man,” I mutter.
The drill bit in the end is a quarter-inch wide and close to a foot and a half long. I pick it up, pressing the trigger quickly to check it works. It does and it’s surprisingly quiet, which is perfect. I stand up and drag the chair from under the desk near the TV over against the wall nearest the windows. I climb on it and reach up, steadying myself for a moment before drilling a hole right through the ceiling. This is likely to be the riskiest part of the job, but the quiet drill coupled with the loud music on my TV should mask most of the noise in the room above. Unless I’m desperately unlucky and Jackson’s standing directly on or near where I’m drilling, he shouldn’t notice anything.
I break through the ceiling and the floor above. I retract it quickly and wait a moment to see if there’s any reaction. I hear nothing. Satisfied I’ve remained undiscovered, I step back down and retrieve a surveillance camera and monitoring unit from my briefcase. The camera is a long, thin, flexible cord about three feet long. Attached to it is a small notebook-style computer. The seven-inch monitor showed the live feed from the camera. Where the keyboard would’ve been normally are two joysticks, which control both the camera cord and the lens. I fire it up and step back on the chair, feeding the camera slowly through the hole I’ve just drilled. The feed transmits to the computer in my left hand. I work the joysticks with my right to look around with the camera.
His suite is huge, which poses a slight issue for me. Jackson is sitting at a desk, resting his head in his right hand as he concentrates on whatever it is he’s looking at. To his left are the double doors that lead out to the hall and three doors leading off from the main room which are all closed.
He certainly looks alone…
There’s a knock on my door which distracts me. A voice outside announces itself as room service. I quickly retract the camera and climb down off the chair. I pack the equipment back inside my briefcase and take out one of my guns instead. The weight of my Beretta is always a welcome comfort in my hand. I know that I have complete control of any situation when I have a gun in my hand.
I move over to the door and quickly glance through the peep hole. It’s room service. I open it, stepping behind it as I do. A guy walks into the room holding a tray with both hands. I push the door shut and step toward him. He turns his head, caught by surprise, and before he can say anything, I slam the butt of my gun into his right temple. He slumps to the floor, unconscious before the tray crashes down next to him.
Goodnight sweetheart.
7