The Housewife Assassin's Horrorscope

by Josie Brown

  It’s for the best. On the worst occasions, I’m a sloppy drunk. Should my husband get fired, I doubt I’ll be able to hold my liquor—or in this case, my bubbly.

  The gun vault is located on the top floor, next to the master bedroom suite and down the hall from Charles’ study. It also doubles as a panic room which, Charles tells me, can only be accessed with his thumbprint.

  The term “vault” is relative only in the case of access. When its steel-plated curtain is recessed, like the rest of the rooms in this house, it has an incomparable view of Vandenberg and the ocean beyond.

  Charles’ vault holds one heck of a private arsenal. One wall is filled with antiques: everything from 17th-century muskets to Korean War-era arms. A bolt-action Mauser is mounted next to a 1904 Springfield Rifle, which is next to a Gatling gun. A prized possession: a Thompson sub-machine gun once owned by Al Capone.

  Another wall showcases today’s most sophisticated military weaponry. An M4, a TAC-50, and a Tango 51 are displayed on floor stands.

  “Are you expecting World War III?” I ask.

  Charles grins. “Better safe than sorry.”

  I guess now is not the time to point out that he’s not an octopus.

  “Are you an enthusiast?” he asks.

  “I wouldn’t say that. I’ve never viewed guns as toys. But yes, I consider them necessary evils.” I’m standing in front of the TAC-50. “May I?”

  “Be my guest.”

  I position it against my shoulder before putting my right hand on the pistol grip with my finger hovering outside the trigger guard. To support the heavy weight of the rifle, I hold it under the front stock with my left hand.

  As I sight down its fancy Swarovski scope, I casually ask, “How exactly will Universal Peace be seen from space with the naked eye?”

  “It’s one of the twenty-two satellites in Ascendant’s payload. The others are the last of a constellation of telecommunications satellites—one hundred and one of them, to be exact. Each satellite weighs 850 pounds. However, they are fairly compact: only about forty-three inches long, with a depth and width of twenty-seven inches square. It also has two wings made up of solar panels that are twenty-six feet long and six and a half feet wide.”

  “Impressive,” I murmur.

  “You bet it is!” He beams proudly. “Unlike the others, though, Jacob’s satellite is equipped with a laser beam. The message it emits will be short and sweet: just for a few seconds, in fact. But the whole world will see it.”

  “You’re very generous to allow an artist such a grand platform,” I say.

  “It’s got great public relations value for Ascendant, no doubt about it. Still, it wouldn’t have happened if Jacob hadn’t come through with a benefactor to foot the bill for the ride.”

  “What do you know about The Horoscope Foundation?”

  Charles shrugs. “Nothing, really. But Horoscope Foundation’s director is supposed to be here tonight. His name is Arthur Yates.”

  I’m glad my face is obscured behind the rifle scope. Otherwise, Charles might notice my shock.

  “He should be arriving soon,” Charles adds. “I’ll be sure to introduce you.”

  I’m certainly not going to be the one to break the bad news to him: Arthur will be a no-show.

  “But without Ascendant, none of this is possible! You truly are a great friend to Jacob,” I point out. “And considering the amount of champagne flowing tonight, why not toast the man whose investment in Ascendant made Jacob’s dream possible—you?”

  Charles chuckles. “Sure, why not?” He reaches for the champagne glasses and hands me the one in his left hand. As we sip, he proclaims, “Here’s to Universal Peace.”

  My eyes scan the room. Suddenly, I squeal with delight. “Is that plaque for real? You have the machine gun that once belonged to Al Capone?”

  “The one and only,” he says proudly.

  “Would you mind if I held it? ” I flutter my eyelids in anticipation.

  My excitement is contagious. To fetch it, he puts down his glass. By the time he’s walked over and unlocked the gun’s glass case, I’ve switched our flutes.

  He strides back over, tommy gun in hand. Taking it, I hold it at a jaunty angle like a moll. “Do you mind if we take our picture with it?”

  He laughs. When he’s by my side, I hand him my phone, holding it out so that the angle is horizontal. “Your arms are longer, so you snap it,” I explain.

  To do so, he’ll have to tap the digital circle next to his right thumb.

  “Say, ‘Peace’!” he declares.

  I vow, “Peace!”

  With a thumb press, he’s memorialized this momentous occasion.

  At least I hope it’ll be memorable: as the night the death star’s launch was stopped.

  The door is open, but someone knocks anyway, to get Charles’s attention. Jacob is standing in the threshold. “President Edmonton is here now, in your office,” he says tersely. “The guests are moving to the roof. He’ll join us there in fifteen minutes.” Jacob tents his fingers to signal his appreciation. The sleeves of his loose-fitting shirt rise, revealing a tattoo:

  It’s the sun sign, Virgo.

  Like Talon, Jacob was in Jonathan’s astrology class too.

  “Yeah, okay, thanks.” Charles sounds annoyed. He turns to me. “I guess we head up to the roof.”

  I nod.

  As we walk out of the vault, the door slides silently behind us, locking into place.

  We are almost at the elevator when I say, “I have to powder my nose. I’ll be up in a moment.”

  “You’ll find a bathroom that way.” Distractedly, Charles points down the hallway to the left.

  As I walk away, I wave my champagne flute to show my thanks.

  Really it’s his flute.

  Further down, on the right, two of POTUS’s Secret Service detail are standing guard in front of a closed double door.

  It must be Charles’ office, where POTUS is meeting with Jack.

  How can I stop the launch?

  This is a living nightmare.

  “Horoscope launches tonight!” This is how I tell Ryan, Emma, and Arnie that I’m having less than a great time at POTUS’s invitation.

  “How? Where?” Ryan asks.

  “From Vandenberg! In, like, ten minutes! It’s part of a commercial satellite payload going up on an Ascendant rocket! We’ve got to stop it!” My mind seems to be running at warp speed. “I think I know how.”

  “As long as it doesn’t involve hacking Vandenberg’s control center,” Ryan warns. “That would be considered treason—even for a black ops contractor such as Acme.”

  “It won’t—but still, it’s a long shot,” I warn them. “And I’ll need some technical help.”

  “We’re listening,” Arnie assures me.

  I explain: “Okay, so: a while back there was a pretty bad mishap on a commercial missile launch—”

  “I remember!” Emma interjects. “It was a SpaceX launch. It was carrying eleven satellites that were going to provide better telecommunications coverage over Africa.”

  “Yes, exactly! Only it blew up on the launch pad. Somehow, three helium containers within the second-stage oxygen tank blew. The investigation team’s first theory was an act of sabotage—that a sniper shot up the tanks from a neighboring building.”

  “I remember that,” Arnie replies. “Instead, it turned out the launch team used oxygen that was forty degrees cooler than what was typically used, which made it heavier than it should have been. Everything—200 million dollars’ worth of a missile and the eleven satellites—went up like a Roman candle!”

  “Donna, there’s something else you should know,” Emma adds. “The notebooks you retrieved from Vera Gantry’s house did, in fact, belong to Tommy. One contains the code change Lilith requested. Horoscope’s laser will be aimed at London!”

  One shot could do it: save London—and our alliance with the UK.

  “I could do it from here.” The words are
out before I know it.

  “How?” Ryan asks. “You’d need a sniper rifle!”

  “I know—and I’ve got one.”

  “The things you women can stuff in those tiny purses always amazes me,” Arnie murmurs in awe.

  “What I mean to say is, I have access to a TAC-50. Or I will just as soon as Arnie helps me hack into the surveillance system here.” I wince. “And the gun vault.”

  “Donna, a hit like that—it’s quite literally a long shot!” Ryan acknowledges. “The farthest recorded sniper shot was just a little over two miles!”

  “I would guess we’re that close,” I reply. “Arnie, can you pull the GPS from my cell?”

  “Give me a sec…Okay, I’m locked in on you now.”

  “Now, put in the coordinates to Ascendant’s launch pad.”

  “Doing it now…” A moment later, he sighs. “It’s just barely two miles.”

  “Ascendant launches in eleven minutes! Ryan, it’s the only chance we have.”

  I try not to count the seconds. Finally, Ryan says: “Do it!”

  18

  Virgo

  If you were born between August 22nd and September 23rd, your sun sign is Virgo.

  On the upside, you are analytical as well as intelligent; practical as well as reliable.

  On the downside, you can be a tad fussy. In friendships, you can be harsh or judgmental.

  Simply put, others find you to be a great co-worker. But don’t expect to be asked out for drinks after work. Since it’s already in your nature to tell it like it is, your criticism won’t be appreciated any better if you’re two sheets to the wind.

  First things first.

  “Arnie, put Riley’s surveillance system on a loop that shows the hall outside this bathroom as empty.”

  “On it,” he says.

  “Ryan, I’ll need to know how long a fifty-caliber bullet will take to reach the target at two miles with all the shot calculations. I also need Emma to call the shot set-up quickly, so get on those calculations: distance, air density, wind speed and direction, bullet velocity, and the earth’s curvature—you know the drill.”

  “Got it,” Ryan replies.

  “Heads up: Riley mentioned that Ascendant is one hundred and twenty feet long. Emma, you’ll have to check that statistic,” I add. “You’ll also have to add in the height of its platform. By the way, I’m on a hill that looks down onto the launch pad. You can use my GPS coordinates to figure out how much higher I am than Ascendant so that we can account for the drop in altitude over the distance. We won’t have time for a second shot. This is going to be full cold bore.”

  “On it!” Emma shouts.

  Like me, Emma knows the round will drop, but it is markedly easier to fire in a descending direction than ascending. The toughest calculations are windage because it can change direction multiple times over that kind of distance.

  “Now, Arnie, I’ll need your help to get back into the gun vault. To do so, Charles Riley’s thumbprint has to be scanned. I have his wine glass. Hopefully, the print will appear on it.”

  “That might work,” Arnie replies, “if we can pull a full print.”

  “I also had him tap my cell phone’s power button.”

  “Also doable, except for the fact that your prints are on there too,” he says. “Let’s start with the wine glass. We’ll need to dust it with a powder, preferably one with color. The darker, the better.”

  “Will an eyeshadow do?”

  “It’s worth a try.”

  I hold the glass up to the light. “I see a print. It’s large enough to be a thumb, but I can’t tell if it’s all there.”

  “Great! Now, what you’ll need to do is crush the eyeshadow into a powder. Then sprinkle it over the fingerprint. The powder should cling to the skin’s oils on the print.”

  “Okay, doing it now,” I mutter. Well, there goes sixty dollars’ worth of midnight blue in my Yves St. Laurent Couture Palette.

  First, I take off my shoes and place them side by side, heels out, on the lavatory’s marble counter, leaving room between them just wide enough to cradle the flute. I place the flute on its side but leave the thumbprint exposed.

  Next, using the pointed tip of my eyeliner, I crush the pan of eyeshadow until it’s a loose powder. Next, very gently, I dip the shadow brush into the colored dust. I then rub the brush’s bristles between my right hand’s thumb and index finger so that I sprinkle the right location on the glass.

  “How dark do you need the print?”

  “As dark as you can make it without covering up the grooves completely,” Arnie explains.

  “Got it,” I mutter.

  I’m almost done when I hear footsteps. Someone is coming my way.

  Quickly, I leap to the door and turn the lock.

  Not a moment too soon. Someone is working over the handle. “Hello? Is someone in there?” It’s a woman’s voice. “Hello?” Exasperation punctuates the question.

  I stay silent.

  The footsteps walking away are barely drowned out by the expletives coming out of the woman’s mouth.

  I breathe a sigh of relief—

  Until I see that, by accident, I moved one of the shoes. Slowly, the flute rolls toward the edge of the counter—

  And falls off.

  I grab for it—

  And catch it.

  I close my eyes, relieved.

  Then I remember the thumbprint. Did I smear it?

  Slowly I open an eye…

  The thumbprint is pristine.

  Ryan thunders through the phone, “Watch the clock, folks!”

  “Quick, Donna, Take a photo of the print and send it to me,” Arnie exclaims.

  I do as instructed.

  “Perfect!” Arnie crows. “I see all the little whorlie-gigs: loops, whorls, arches…Oooh, the dude has a radial loop! Do you know how rare that is?”

  “Arnie—focus!” Ryan growls. “From the chatter we’re picking up at Vandenberg, Ascendant launches in ninety-eight seconds.”

  “Sure, Boss! Okay, Donna, so go ahead and open the jpeg on your phone’s screen. When you get to the scanner, lay it directly on it—and pray.”

  “Thanks for your words of encouragement,” I retort. “Emma, is the hall empty?”

  “Affirmative,” she reassures me. “POTUS and his security detail are with everyone else: on the roof.”

  In a flash, I’m out the door.

  The scanner’s screen is on the right side of the door, flat against the wall. A tiny green light above it blinks benignly.

  I say a prayer.

  Then I lay the phone face down on the screen.

  Silently, the metal door swings open.

  I close it behind me.

  “Seventy-two seconds,” Ryan mutters.

  The TAC-50 is just as I left it: facing out the window.

  Two miles west, the launch pad is lit up like your craziest neighbor’s house at Christmas: too bright, too loud, and too gaudy for words, leaving all who see it mesmerized.

  There are a few drawers on the bottom half of the vault’s display wall. As I’d hoped, they hold ammo and gear. After I put on ear muffs, gloves, and safety glasses, I grab the box mag and a suppressor.

  One shot. One kill. That’s the sniper’s motto.

  A second round would be iffy anyway. Although it will take three to five seconds for the missile to fully clear the launch pad, by the time I settle the weapon, cycle the bolt and chamber another round, sight, and shoot, the rocket will be miles away.

  The window’s shield is solid steel. Even if it recesses into the wall, can the single pane of glass be opened? Frantically, I look around for some sort of buttons…

  I find some on the window’s far right side.

  Pushing one, the metal plate falls seamlessly into the wall below it. I push another and the bullet-proof glass slides to one side.

  “Sixty-seven seconds,” Ryan cautions.

  The window’s ledge is deep—three feet thick—and
chest high: Good, because I’ll need all this space and more for the fifty-seven inch-long rifle.

  The MacMillan TAC-50 is already fitted with a bipod and a night scope. I unscrew it from its tripod stand and carry the twenty-six-pound weapon to the window, where I position it. I then position myself behind the rifle. I crouch slightly, to sight Ascendant. My left hand cradles the rifle on the front stock that hugs the barrel. My right hand hovers over the trigger: slowly, gently taking up the slack.

  “I’ve got some stats for you, Donna,” Emma exclaims.

  “Perfect timing. Go for it.”

  Emma takes a deep breath: “We’re in luck. There’s very little wind tonight. Also, the Ascendant’s height is confirmed at one hundred and twenty feet. Its platform puts it an additional fifty feet off the ground. From your height and distance—in this case, 3,540 meters—you can figure the bullet will take 8.5 seconds to reach the target.”

  “We’re now at forty seconds.” Ryan’s warning is terse and guttural. “At that velocity, you’ll need to fire nineteen seconds before lift-off.”

  “Count it down for me, from twenty-eight,” I reply.

  “Will do,” he vows.

  With the window open, I can hear the crowd above my head. Their excited murmur punctuates someone’s speech—

  I recognize Jacob’s voice: “Technology has been man’s salvation. It has become the fabric of our very lives. But it has also created atrocity. War depends on technology too. Tonight, when Ascendant launches carrying the Universal Peace satellite, humankind will be encouraged to communicate in new and different ways. Through art, we will share not only the awe of the cosmos. We’ll be inspired to create similar peace here on Planet Earth! That should be everyone’s goal, should it not?”

  The crowd shows its agreement with enthusiastic applause.

  “Donna: we’re at twenty-eight seconds,” Ryan says sternly.

  I take a deep breath.

  Seven…six…five…four…three…two…

  “We’re at nineteen!” Ryan declares.