Blood Rites
Page 17
Perfect.
Campbell was finished for the afternoon and ready to go home. He buzzed his secretary, had her call his driver with instructions to be waiting down in the garage. Five minutes. Don’t be late. He knew the car would be ready and waiting, bulletproof and air-conditioned for the ride back to his home in Forest Hills.
He cleared his desktop, locked the drawers and left his office, knowing his secretary would be gone within the next few minutes. It was getting late, still light outside, but barely. They had suffered through a hectic day, but all the dirty work—or most of it, at any rate—was done. He feared no repercussions, since a threat to him would also threaten others higher up the food chain, and that could not be allowed.
His car was waiting, as expected, with the sergeant who drove him back and forth to work, to midday meetings, and wherever else Campbell might be required to go during his working hours. Perfectly correct in every move, and wearing a full uniform, his driver held the door for Campbell, then closed it behind him and took his seat up front. They were on their way. Campbell ignored the city scenery he’d seen a thousand times before, much of it squalid and depressing. All so far beneath him that he only gave it thought in terms of personal security.
He traveled with the doors locked, safe within the bulletproof car, behind bulletproof glass. It would take a rocket to kill him in transit, and who cared enough about one bureaucrat to do that?
Arriving at Campbell’s home, a large one with a swimming pool in back, his driver stopped the car, walked around and opened the door again. “Tomorrow at the normal time,” Campbell remarked, in place of thanks.
“Yes, sir.”
The car was off and rolling by the time he reached his doorstep, key in hand, dusk darkening the front porch and its climbing blue dawn flower vines. His key was in the dead bolt before Campbell caught a hint of movement from the corner of his left eye. Turning swiftly, he was startled at the sight of a white man he’d never seen before, aiming a pistol at him, muzzle bulked out by a sound suppressor.
“Perry Campbell?”
“Who are you?” Campbell asked, hating the sudden tremor in his voice.
“What matters is who you are.”
“What?”
“You’re not a cop,” the stranger said.
And shot him.
* * * * *
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First edition June 2015
ISBN-13: 9781460382042
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Mike Newton for his contribution to this work.
Blood Rites
Copyright © 2015 by Worldwide Library
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereinafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.
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