Read Raymond Benson - 2012 - Hitman: Damnation Online
Authors: Raymond Benson
He
nodded and placed the pear-sized object in his jacket pocket. “I’ll take it.”
“All right.”
47
continued to browse, paused at the knives, picked up a few, replaced them, and
moved on. He found a bookshelf filled with Chinese fireworks.
“Why
do you have these?” he asked.
“Fireworks
are illegal to sell in the city,” Cherry explained. “In most states you have to
go out of city limits to buy them.” She shrugged. “I make it easier for New
Yorkers when they want to celebrate the Fourth of July or New Year’s Eve.
They’re not really dangerous.”
“But
they make a big noise, right?”
“Sure.
Some of them do.”
“Show
me.”
She
picked out a selection and gave them to him.
“On the house.
And I won’t even ask what you need ’
em
for.”
“Thanks.”
“So what about drugs?
I got amphetamines, crystal meth,
cocaine, heroin,
OxyContin
, marijuana.” She pointed
to a cabinet where dozens of bottles and cans were stored. “Oh, wait, I forgot.
You don’t do any of that stuff.”
47
stared at her for a moment, and then he said, “Let’s boot up your computer.”
“That’s
all you wanted?”
“Yes.”
“You’re
a funny dude, 47.” She walked over to a desk, sat, and switched on a high-end
Mac. The
hitman
stood behind her. “So what do you
want to know?”
“Everything
the Bureau has on Cromwell and the New Model Army. I’d also like to look at
material on Charlie Wilkins. See if there’s any evidence of a connection
between them.”
Cherry
laughed. “Charlie Wilkins? Are you kidding?”
“No.”
“He’s
a preacher! What’s that religion he runs, the Church of Something …?”
“The Church of Will.”
“Right.
People love him! Hell, I watch his program on TV
every now and then. It’s good entertainment. It beats the reality shows that
swarm the networks. You’re out of your mind, 47. That’s like saying Gandhi was
a terrorist.”
“Just
bring up the documents, Cherry.”
“Fine.”
She
went to work on the keyboard, hacked into the Bureau’s secure network with a
password, and did a search for New Model Army. More than a hundred links popped
up.
“Jeez,
47, where do you want to start?”
He
scanned the subjects and pointed. “Click that one.”
It
was everything the FBI knew about Cromwell.
Several pages of
text.
Cherry
stood. “Have a seat and knock yourself out. Looks like that’ll keep you busy
for an hour or two. I’m going back upstairs.
You hungry?
Can I make you something to eat?”
“No.
Thanks.”
“Try
not to stay too long on one link. They track stuff like that. You have to be
done by noon. That’s when I pick up Sally from kindergarten.”
“What
happens if you don’t show up?” he asked.
She
shot him a look. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.
This might take a while.”
“My
ex-husband is on the call list. But he’d have to come in from Manhattan. I’d
rather not do that, 47; he’s a total asshole. He liked to take it out on me
when he got drunk. You didn’t know about the two teeth he knocked out a few
years back. It was a nasty divorce. He was very greedy and he had a better
lawyer. Bill has visitation rights, but I don’t have to like it. The kids don’t
like him much either. And, frankly, I don’t want Sally or Billy seeing you
here.
All right?”
She
left him alone but kept the door to her inner sanctum open.
A
good assassin always did his homework. 47 made it a point to study his targets,
get to know them personally, even if he never met them during the course of the
operation. He had already researched Dana Linder. She was easy. No skeletons in
her closet that 47 could see, other than that she was a member of the Church of
Will, for what that was worth. She and her brother, Darren—twins—had lost their
father in a hunting accident in Maryland just before their twelfth birthday.
Their mother, 47 learned, was associated with Charlie Wilkins from the
beginning. She and her husband were members of Wilkins’s “modern” house of
worship, a forerunner to the Church of Will. In the 1970s, Wilkins’s Church was
run out of evangelical touring tent productions. After her husband’s death,
Mrs. Shipley traveled with Wilkins, dragging the twins along wherever he and
his entourage went. She died of cancer when the children were still in high
school. Wilkins kept them with his organization and raised them both with the
help of other Church followers, even fronting much of the cash for Dana’s
education.
Interesting,
the
hitman
thought.
By
scrutinizing footage of Dana Linder’s campaign speeches and appearances, the
assassin knew how he would accomplish the hit. A public execution was always
difficult, but it was not beyond his ability. He already had a plan in place.
Of more interest to him was the background of the second target, should the
orders go forward. Wilkins was a fascinating objective; 47
wasn’t
sure if he’d ever killed someone so famous.
The
hitman
studied the file and photos. The FBI had no
idea who Cromwell really was, but reliable intelligence suggested that he had
military training and was of the age to have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. The
face he revealed on television was not the one he was born with. Plastic
surgery had changed his features considerably. He also had a prosthetic arm, so
it was conceivable that the man had seen serious combat. Whoever had performed
the plastic surgery had done a remarkable job. Cromwell now had rugged,
chiseled features that gave him the appearance of a Roman god. The skin was a
bit too shiny and obviously grafted, but he didn’t look bad.
A
bit like an action figure.
The
New Model Army had been operative for two years and was supposedly once based
in the Pacific Northwest, most likely Oregon or Washington State. It consisted
of a battery ranging between fifty and a hundred men, all of whom were either
onetime professional soldiers or homegrown military enthusiasts. The FBI and
the Pentagon were investigating possible black-market weapons sales between the
NMA and the real army and marines.
Just as the government had
lately become corrupt, so had its military branches.
While
everything the NMA was doing was criminal, many of the American people
considered Cromwell a folk hero. Whenever the FBI raided a suspected NMA camp,
the group had somehow got wind of the impending attack and left in a hurry. It
was no longer believed that Cromwell and his men had a permanent base of
operations. They moved from town to town, working with local militias and
rebels to house and feed them.
And
their attacks were moving eastward across the country.
47
scanned the rest of the document and went to another. Titled “The New Model
Army and the Church of Will,” the folder contained several files. He spent the
next half hour going through each one, but they were inconclusive. The only
suspicious activity in evidence was that
cellphone
calls had been made to and from suspected NMA camps and the Church of Will main
headquarters in Virginia. The FBI had attempted to legally tap landlines in
Wilkins’s compound, but more than one judge had denied permission. 47 was
surprised that the Bureau hadn’t gone ahead and done it anyway. Apparently
Wilkins held more power and influence than the
hitman
had imagined, but there was no substantiation that the reverend himself was
involved with the NMA.
One
file contained a satellite image and corresponding map of Greenhill, the Church
of Will’s compound in Virginia. Blueprints revealed the layout of Wilkins’s
mansion. 47 found it interesting that the man’s home was so well protected.
A bulletproof wall-sized picture window facing a lake?
Surely the man wasn’t afraid of being attacked by an amphibious landing force.
Nevertheless, the
hitman
thought the file might come
in handy, especially if he had to go through with an undercover operation. A
spindle of blank CD-Rs sat on the desk, so he took one, inserted it into the
computer, and copied the ground plan onto the disk.
“Are
you done yet?” Cherry called from the top of the stairs.
He
ejected the disk and took it. “Yes.”
She
came down and looked at the screen. “Get what you needed?”
“I
suppose.”
She
took over the mouse and keyboard and closed the software.
“Cherry,
you down there?” a male voice called from the top of the stairs. They both
heard footsteps descending.
“Shit!”
Cherry whispered.
“My ex!
We have to—”
Before
she or 47 could move, a man appeared, wide-eyed and mouth gaping. He was a
little older than Cherry and was dressed in a suit.
“What
the hell is this? Since when did we have this extra room in our house?” Then he
saw the guns and other weapons. “What the—” He turned to 47. “Who the hell are
you?”
Back to Cherry.
“You will tell me what the fuck
is going on here now.”
“Bill,
calm down; it’s my house now, and this is not what you think,” Cherry said, but
47 noted she was obviously distressed. She had also left the Smith & Wesson
upstairs. “And how the hell did you get in? The judge said you weren’t allowed
to have a key.”
“Yes,
let’s call the judge!” the man said, moving toward his ex-wife. “You’ve got my
kids living in a house with goddamned weapons? Wait until my lawyer hears this!
You’ll never see those brats again.”
Agent
47 did have the presence of mind, despite the commotion, to slip to the foot of
the stairs and stand there, blocking Bill’s exit.
The
former couple continued to yell at each other. Clearly, the man couldn’t leave
the house with knowledge of Cherry’s extracurricular activities. Too many
people would be hurt, and the assassin would lose a valuable asset. And didn’t
she say the man used to beat her? Sure, the kids might miss having a father,
but there was no question that the husband was going the wrong direction on a
one-way street.
Over
Bill’s shoulder, 47 saw Cherry give him a barely perceptible nod. It was a
signal, a green light.
Agent
47 spoke. “Bill.”
The
man whirled around, furious. “What?”
The
killer grabbed the man’s head in his gloved hands, wrenching it sharply to the
right. With a sickening pop, the third cervical vertebra snapped and a shard
was driven through Bill’s spinal cord.