He was still conflicted with the choice though. She was like a daughter to him.
He didn’t have kids. It was his one mistake.
But his loyalty was to GHOST Protocol. He was allowed to live a cushy life, retired in a way, but calling the shots behind the doors; assigning murders instead of doing them.
How should I go about this? he asked himself.
He was ready to make it clean and painless for Cristal. She would come inside, in the dark, he would then take her out from the shadows, a bullet to the back of her head, and she wouldn’t even see it coming. He had done it plenty of times before. He wouldn’t have to worry about the body or the blood. He could dispose of it himself or call a cleaner to handle it.
As he waited for Cristal’s arrival, he was flooded with memories of her. She was someone to talk to, someone he had grown close to. She loved his paintings, and she was one of the best killers he’d ever seen. Her mistake was her literature. Writing about what they had done and how they’d done it was a death wish. He had one of her books with him but chose not to read it.
He was against her writing about hit men, political corruption, and secret agencies, almost like a Tom Clancy novel. But it was understandable to him. He had his artwork and she had her writing.
The Bishop, seated in complete silence, waited for over three hours and then he heard the cab pulling up to his place. He stood up and walked toward the window, peeping through his blinds. He saw Cristal get out of the cab and pay the driver before coming his way.
A deep breath came out of him.
He could hear her coming up the short steps and looming closer to the front door. Gun still in his hand, he waited calmly. The front door opened up, and she walked inside. He had her dead in sight—one bullet and it was over with.
Cristal turned around and locked eyes with The Bishop. She saw the gun and didn’t flinch. “They sent you, huh?” she said calmly.
He didn’t say anything, the Desert Eagle aimed at her head.
Cristal stared at him and simply waited for the bang! But it never came.
He lowered the gun. He couldn’t find it in his cold heart to kill her.
“They green-lit your murder. You have less than a week to disappear,” he told her.
She wasn’t shocked to hear it.
The Bishop walked farther into the living room and reached for her novel placed in the chair. He tossed it at her and said, “No more stories.”
She didn’t say anything.
“The Commission met with GHOST Protocol, and they will hunt you down and kill you. It was an unfortunate tragedy, what happened to your family. That was an unsanctioned hit. The man responsible for is dead. But they still want you dead.”
“And go where?”
“Far from here, Cristal. It is no longer safe for you, probably, nowhere in this country.”
“But Daniel—”
“The contract is for your life only, not his. He’ll be fine.”
“But what about you, Bishop, when your agency finds out that you didn’t fulfill the contract?”
“Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. It’s my decision. I can live with it. But you need to leave right now.”
The Bishop went into another room, and Cristal followed behind him. He pulled open a dresser drawer in the bedroom and removed a small bag. Now was the beginning of her vanishing point.
“You’ll need a new passport. Destroy every passport the agency gave you. You won’t be able to use them.”
He handed her a disposable cell phone and a phone number. “I have an outside connect for you that you can trust. Everything and everyone else will be compromised. You do not trust anyone. Understand? No one! Assume that everyone is a threat to you.”
Cristal nodded.
The Bishop went on to counsel her on what to do.
“When you leave town, don’t go to any place you’ve talked about or stated a desire to visit. Don’t run to any place predictable. Don’t hide in a city or town you’ve been to, or where you’re known to have family. The agencies are smart; they’re trained to track people anywhere, and they have access to surveillance cameras, people, things, law enforcement. Don’t underestimate these people.”
The Bishop moved around his cottage hastily, gathering more items for her.
“And most important, stay away from Mexico,” he stated. “They have informants and agents scattered all through Mexico. It’s easy to drive into that country, and everyone heads there if they have a bounty on their heads. Drop your old habits, change up your diet, alter your buying habits. Throw away your old self. If you’re a smoker, stop. If you don’t smoke, start. If you enjoy meat and hot and spicy foods, stop purchasing those items and change to vegan. If you frequent bars, stop. Patterns are predictable. Break them.
“When you get the chance, clip someone’s wallet that looks like you. Don’t kill them, or take the identity of someone who’s already dead. GHOST Protocol looks for those algorithms in their complex computer programs. If someone is murdered and years later their information hits the system again applying for a job or renting an apartment, maybe take out a mortgage, they flag the name. And never get too comfortable in one place for too long. No small towns, you’ll stand out too much and the people are too nosey and ask too many questions.”
Cristal was grateful for his help. She found herself standing at the front door and hesitant to leave his place.
The Bishop stood closely by her and looked in her eyes. “You’re smart, and you’re a strong girl. Leave tonight. Don’t come back.”
She knew once she walked out that door she would never see him again. Cristal and The Bishop weren’t ones to get emotional, but their look at each other said it all. There was a bizarre love and understanding between them.
He handed Cristal his car keys to the Wrangler.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Just stay alive,” were his last words to her.
She turned around and left. No looking back.
Thirty-Two
Sharon stood in her black dress a few feet from the open grave close to the lane that ran the length of the cemetery. The dark brown casket, covered with flowers and wreaths, was ready to be lowered into the ground. The preacher stood by the casket, Bible in hand, clad in a black suit, and presided over the burial.
“When God saw you getting tired, and your life becoming fatigued, He reached out to you and placed His arms around you, and He said come to Me,” the preacher said.
About thirty people showed up for Tamar’s closed-casket funeral. Sharon hardly recognized any of them. She was mostly familiar with Tamar’s siblings. Jada, Jason, and Lena were crying their eyes out, grieving over the loss of their sister. Black Earth didn’t come to her own daughter’s funeral.
Sharon stood there for a moment, under the gloomy clouds.
Soon, it began sprinkling. Little droplets of water came down during the service and began growing larger and falling more frequently. Raindrops dripped on Sharon as she stood frozen with her gaze fixed on the casket, saddened by the loss of Tamar. Though they hadn’t been friends in years, it was still a tragedy to lose someone she grew up with.
She’d heard about the shooting on the ferry on the news. The media dubbed it “Woman Killed By Stray Bullet From Off-shore.”
As the rain came crashing down and people put up their umbrellas, Sharon turned and walked away. She didn’t want to stay for the end and see her friend lowered into the ground.
Walking toward her car, in the distance, she saw a figure that caught her attention. The person seemed transfixed from afar by Tamar’s burial. From what Sharon could make out, it was a woman dressed in ordinary clothing and standing in the rain like it didn’t bother her at all.
Cristal? Sharon questioned herself.
It had to be her.
Suddenly Sharon went running her way, calling out, “Cristal?”
The woman standing in the distance turned at hearing the name, gazed brief
ly at Sharon and steadily walked away. She disappeared down a small grade. When Sharon made it to where she saw the woman standing, it seemed like she had vanished into thin air. She stood there looking dumbfounded, her head swiveling in every direction.
The downpour made it harder to see. If it was Cristal, she made it clear that she didn’t want to be seen.
Sharon felt like she was alone, all her friends dead and gone. She wasn’t about to give up on finding Cristal, though. Whatever her friends were into, it had gotten them killed and had Cristal running for her life.
“I know you’re alive and I know you’re out there,” Sharon exclaimed while standing in the heavy rain. “I’m still a friend, Cristal. I am. I miss you. Come home!”
She hurried to her car with a gut feeling she would never see her friend again.
Thirty-Three
So many people were dead because of her. Her whole family had been wiped out, all her friends—Mona, Lisa, Tamar, Pike—dead. It wouldn’t be long until they came after The Bishop for allowing her to live.
Why didn’t he just do it? Cristal asked herself.
She hurried back to her Boston apartment and either destroyed everything or cleared it out. She packed money, guns, and essentials tightly into a duffel bag.
She had met with The Bishop’s connect, the one he said she could trust, and for ten thousand dollars, she received a new passport, a social security card, and a new identity. Her new name was Jennifer Harris. It was basic, and didn’t stand out. Jennifer meant “white enchantress” or “the fair one.” Though her life was far from fair and she was no white enchantress, it would do for now.
Everything she was, she wasn’t anymore, and with the Commission and GHOST Protocol gunning for her at once, she knew it would be only a matter of time before they found her. She couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. And she couldn’t risk going back to Boston, New York, or North Carolina.
She thought about Daniel a lot. She was going to miss him so much. It was going to break his heart when she didn’t return. She was saving his life too. He would have to go on with his life, become a brain surgeon. He would be better off without her.
Thinking about him, a few tears trickled from her eyes. As she continued cleaning up her past, she sat down by her laptop and opened it up to the chapters to her fourth book, a few dozen pages.
“No more stories,” she remembered The Bishop saying to her.
It was going to be hard. Writing was therapeutic for her. It was her way of getting back at everyone and destroying the Commission. But she would no longer be able to publish her writing. She would have to give it up, maybe write into a journal, but no more computers. No more writing under a pseudonym. Melissa Chin was finally dead.
It was hard for her to do, but she pressed the delete button and eliminated everything she had written for her fourth book. Cristal let out a deep sigh and then picked up her laptop with both hands, lifted it over her head, and smashed it against the desk repeatedly. Pieces went flying everywhere. It was a hard thing to do, but it had to be done.
The apartment, everything had been wiped down clean, thrown away, or destroyed. There was nothing left to remind anyone that she ever lived there. No pictures, no trinkets or any clothing of her, all burned or tossed into the trash.
The only thing she had left was memories.
Cristal didn’t know where she was going. She had no family, and even if she did, she couldn’t run to them and compromise their safety too.
She walked out her apartment door for the final time, with no intention of coming back. She had the keys to The Bishop’s Wrangler, but she couldn’t take advantage of the Jeep for too long. It would be like leaving bread crumbs behind.
She took off in it, heading west on I-90, and then when she reached Jamestown, a small town in upstate New York, she sold the Jeep for cash and hopped on the Greyhound bus toward Seattle, Washington.
Lots of rain and bad weather. Lots of people staying indoors.
Thirty-Four
A swarm of assassins clad in black and carrying high-powered rifles quickly descended on the cottage in the middle of the night. First, they took out the lights and then rushed toward the place carefully. They were fully aware of The Bishop’s frightful résumé. He was one of the best assassins in the country, so the team of killers couldn’t take any chances. They came in heavy and ready, fully expecting that The Bishop wouldn’t go down easily.
The killers in black, looking like trained Navy SEALs, carefully crouched low near the cottage, camouflaged by the night and thick shrubberies, their guns gripped and their attention on every detail of the dark, still cottage, the doors closed, the windows black, and his vehicle gone.
But it all could be deception. The Bishop was known to set booby traps, or catch an individual off guard, and they would soon find a knife thrust into their windpipe or spine. He was a crack shot from any distance, and when it came to hand-to-hand combat, the man was nothing to play with. He had been known to take out a group of men with lightning speed, breaking necks and snapping limbs apart.
The four assassins working for GHOST Protocol moved forward with caution, assuming The Bishop was gearing up for war.
“We wait for the signal,” the leader said.
Each one nodded.
...
Inside the cottage, The Bishop sat on his small stool in front of his white canvas on the easel. He was bringing to life his own portrait—his stark white hair, matching goatee, and his muscular build. In the portrait he was wearing a blue suit. He painted himself in a tranquil place, a colorful garden filled with flowers and trees. It was his personal paradise.
The music playing in the background this time was Les Misérables, the French musical. It was his favorite, set in early nineteenth-century France, telling the story of a French peasant named Jean Valjean and his quest for redemption after serving nineteen years in jail for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister’s starving child.
The Bishop listened to the story being told and appreciated the quality of the orchestra and singers playing through his speakers.
He was dressed in a suit as he painted. He looked sharp and handsome in a dark gray suit, dark blue tie, and alligator shoes. He was dressed to kill, for a night out on the town. He held the paintbrush with finesse, bringing the multicolored garden alive with every stroke against the canvas. He remained focused and determined to complete it.
He was aware of the killers lingering outside the cottage, yet he kept cool and unperturbed, as if he was the only one there, as if waiting for a date to show up. The painting kept his mind occupied. It was turning out to be his finest masterpiece.
He smiled at it.
He heard a slight disturbance near the window. They were coming for him soon. He still had the skills to take out as many operatives as were swarming his property. He could have easily plucked them away one by one, given them all a rude awakening. Yet he continued to sit and paint.
The Bishop was no longer the man he used to be—a coldblooded killer who could shoot the wings off a fly. He was done with murders. He was done with this life. He was enjoying his retirement. He was taking pleasure with his pastime.
They were waiting for something. He knew it.
A few moments went by, and his artwork was finally finished. It looked like it belonged in an art museum—the Smithsonian or the Metropolitan. What he had finished painting was priceless. It was his legacy.
He felt a presence behind him. He didn’t turn to face it, but continued gazing at his painting.
“It’s beautiful,” the voice behind him said.
“Thank you,” The Bishop returned, looking impassive.
The Glock 17 with the suppressor at the end was raised to the back of his head. He never turned around to face his killer. He simply kept gazing at his painting, it being the last thing he wanted to see.
Poot! Poot! Poot!
Three shots slammed into the back of The Bishop’s skull, and he collapsed face down in fron
t of his artwork.
His killer walked toward the body and gazed down at him, expressionless. She was in all black, a long ponytail dangling from the back of her head, the smoking gun still in her hand. It would become a piece of history, the weapon that took out a heartless and skilled killer. The assassin who held it was very familiar with the man she had just killed.
“You should have killed that bitch,” she whispered. “I will always love you.”
It was Natalia, his girlfriend. She was a secret agent assigned to look after and keep tabs on The Bishop. When he failed to kill Cristal, Natalia made the phone call to her superiors, and they gave her the contract. She wouldn’t make the same mistakes he made. She loved him, but her life and career came first.
Natalia pivoted on her shoes and walked away from the body. Murdergram fulfilled.
Thirty-Five
Daniel was excited. Beatrice was supposed to be returning home to him from Africa. He missed her more than ever. It had been five weeks since he had last seen her, and he couldn’t wait to wrap his arms around his lovely woman and hold her forever. Not hearing from her, their only communication letters via snail mail, was a struggle. The wait was no more. Today was the day.
He ran around his small shotgun home cleaning up. He washed dishes, swept every inch of the house, did laundry, and spruced the place up a little by painting the walls. He placed a bouquet of store-bought flowers in a homemade coffee-can vase and cooked a meal of catfish, rice and peas, and cornbread for her. She would be hungry returning from her long trip.
It was almost 7 p.m., and her bus would arrive in less than a half hour. In the last letter he had received from Beatrice, she informed him that she would be home a week before the Christmas holidays.
Daniel took one last look at his place, and everything looked orderly. He wasn’t exactly a neat freak, which drove Beatrice crazy, but he’d managed to do his best. He knew she would be happy with how it turned out.
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