Hitman Damnation

NINETEEN



Benjamin Travis drummed his fingertips on the desk in his office and once again played the message from the Agency’s client.

“Stand by.”

That was it. No further instruction, no explanation, or no indication that the second hit—the one on Charlie Wilkins—would still be ordered.

Travis had come to the conclusion that it wasn’t the U.S. government that had ordered the hit on Dana Linder. If that were true, why would they purposefully instruct the assassin to leave a weapon at the scene that incriminated the American military? The gun’s serial number had been traced to a soldier in Texas who had reported the rifle stolen. Television and newspapers were full of accusations that President Burdett and the CIA were behind the murder. Wilkins himself had been quick to point a finger. The most vocal proponent of the current administration’s involvement in the tragedy was the man known as Cromwell. “It’s time for a new revolution in America,” the mercenary announced on national television. Since the Linder killing, the New Model Army had stepped up the frequency of strikes at various targets and delivering the message to the public: Rebel.

Sitting safely aboard the Jean Danjou II, back in the waters of the Mediterranean near the Costa del Sol, Travis wasn’t too concerned about the fate of his home country. He had turned his back on the United States long ago. He’d been watching the political developments in America with detached amusement until Jade reminded him that, should America fall, so would the world economy. And if that happened, there would be fewer clients for the Agency. Travis didn’t think that would be the case—perhaps there would be even more clients—but a global financial meltdown would be bad for everyone. Nevertheless, he fully expected Cromwell and the NMA to succeed. The state of the union was a powder keg. Most recently, the National Guard and U.S. Army were called out to control militia attacks. A full-out firefight had erupted in Virginia at the Civil War battlefield site of Manassas. Seven civilians were killed. More than half of the population staged protests all over the country, and twelve thousand people marched on Washington. Just one or two more incendiary events allegedly perpetrated by the government would be all it would take to bring the crisis to a head. The assassination of Charlie Wilkins, if orchestrated by the CIA, would certainly push the country over the edge into civil war.

So if the current administration wasn’t the client, then who was?

Travis had ordered Jade to utilize every intelligence apparatus the Agency possessed to uncover the speaker’s identity. When he communicated, it was always by phone. An electronic scrambler disguised his voice. The number from which he called was never traceable. It didn’t help that the Agency’s own encryption process for accepting email and phone calls was extremely complicated and unshakable. Satellites bounced signals between several countries before a client could deal with the ICA. This was also true for reverse traffic.

From the analysis that he, Jade, and the team had performed thus far, Travis suspected the client might be Cromwell himself. Who else wanted to see a rebellion, and what more could cause that rebellion than the assassinations of Dana Linder and Charlie Wilkins?

Travis considered the state of the operation. Agent 47 was now ensconced at Greenhill, supposedly infiltrating the community to get closer to the proposed target. The client promised that the orders for the second hit would come within a couple of weeks. Travis didn’t think the client would renege; he had thus far acted in good faith. The money for the Linder killing came through, and the Agency had received a nonrefundable down payment for the Wilkins part of the job. Travis fully expected to go through with the second phase of the mission.

But the manager wasn’t sure what to make of Agent 47. The hitman had a sparkling reputation, to be sure, but he was unpredictable. Given the fact that the assassin was a clone and a warrior constructed from various DNA strains and bloodlines, 47 was no doubt a machine of a man—and machines could break down or malfunction. Travis had never met Agent 47 prior to their face-to-face encounter aboard the yacht a week earlier, but Travis knew everything about him. He had thoroughly studied the assassin’s history, and the hitman was completely unaware he had been used.

It was vitally important that 47 never find out. Hence, finding Diana was a top priority. Jade had a lead in the midwestern United States. Perhaps that would prove to be fruitful. The Agency’s operatives just might be successful in locating the traitorous woman. And once that was done, Travis would send Agent 47 to be her assassin.

Luring the hitman back into the fold had not been easy. After a year of searching for the killer, the Agency’s operative Roget reported that he had employed “freelancer” Agent 47 in Jamaica. So Travis set the plan in motion. They paid Roget a substantial fee to deliver the wayward killer to them via the remote-controlled plane. It wasn’t Travis’s fault that 47 shot up the remote so the Agency couldn’t land the aircraft safely. At least the hitman’s ordeal in the Caribbean was a good test to see if he was up to snuff.

The assassin’s performance had impressed Travis and upper management enough to decide that 47 could be reinstated. The masquerade aboard the yacht—allowing 47 to wander freely into restricted areas under the pretext of the “new honesty and trustworthiness” of the Agency—was icing on the cake. Jade wasn’t convinced 47 had fallen for it, but apparently something worked. The hitman had agreed to rejoin. The current job—the Linder hit and the possible Wilkins one—was to be a further assessment of 47’s loyalty and present skill level. Travis had no doubt that, if 47 succeeded in this very difficult assignment, he could cope with going after his former handler. The hitman was the only one who could kill Diana.

If only she hadn’t managed to escape that hotel in Paris before Travis’s team burst into her room, guns blazing. She should be in a grave. Instead, the woman got away with too much of Travis’s classified material. She had threatened to expose the project to the world, and he believed she could—and would—do it. So why hadn’t she? That was a year ago. What was she waiting for?

Travis figured that she still needed some sort of physical evidence. All she had at the moment was the knowledge in her head. It would take more than that to convince the world that Travis and the Agency were up to no good. Diana was a dead woman as soon as she was found.

Now Travis had to convince Agent 47 that his former handler had betrayed him on that fateful day in the Himalayas. He had to plant the seeds of doubt and mistrust in the assassin’s already suspicious mind.

And it was working.