by Slaton Smith
She shook her head. She could and would kill him if she had too. He would never see her coming. That was her advantage.
★★★
Back in Boston, Waters’ private line was ringing. He knew who it was.
“Yes,” he answered.
“I just had a call from MI6,” Price said, digging for confirmation.
“Really?”
“Apparently, Lars Orlick was assassinated several hours ago. While shopping at Harrods, no less,” Price explained
“That’s a shame,” Waters said, looking at his fingernails as he spoke. He had a smile on his face.
“Yes. They said two of his bodyguards were also killed,” Price explained.
“Hmmm.”
“Orlick died in a particularly nasty way.”
“And how was that?” Waters asked, enjoying the repartee.
“A knife. A particularly nasty knife, known as a Garm was jammed through his temple, into his brain, but not before he was shot in the back of both legs. MI6 assumes he was trying to flee when the assassin shot him to bring him down,” Price said, reading off of a report.
“Dealing in weapons is a dangerous business,” Waters replied.
“Indeed.”
Neither man spoke for a moment.
“Strange thing. There is no record on the store’s security cameras of the man who killed Orlick. Same with the city of London’s street cameras. MI6 is scratching their heads on this one.”
“Sounds like the Mossad. There’s no love lost between Orlick and Jerusalem,” Waters offered.
“Possibly,” Price answered.
“Well, I will certainly keep you posted if I hear something.”
“That’s all I ask,” Price said and hung up. He knew that Waters’ program was up and running and had scored its first win. He would let MI6 know that the CIA was not behind this. They would not spend much time on it. They hated Orlick as much as the Americans did.
Waters clapped his hands several times when he hung up the phone. He was elated. He was ready to get Sean into place for his next assignment. He wanted to get another assassination under Sean’s belt before his expiration date.
★★★
Sean put a towel over his head and emerged from the gym after three hours. It was dinnertime and he was famished. He passed through the pool area, but did not notice Sandy. He still had his earphones in and the towel eliminated his peripheral vision.
Back in his room, Sean got undressed and jumped into the shower. His feet had healed and the blisters were gone. However, the weight lifting was now taking a toll on his hands, where thick calluses were developing.
After showering, he went down to the lobby and had dinner. He was tired of eating out. On the way up to his room, he bought three large bottles of water.
He watched TV for a bit while doing crunches and went to bed. Sandy ordered room service. Sean’s tracker was silent.
Unfortunately, Sean missed the London local news. Apparently, there was some sort of hubbub at Harrods today.
XX
Abject Failure and Brilliant Success
Same Week
Sao Paulo, Brazil:
Steve Frisco had jumped at the chance to take a job writing for a travel magazine. His newspaper gig with the Sacramento Bee was getting to be quite a drag. He drew endless assignments that dealt with agriculture. Soybeans were his favorite. So he was naturally interested when a recruiter contacted him with a job that nearly doubled his current salary and offered extensive travel, something he yearned for and that the soybean reports did not offer.
He was flown to Boston for training, but had fallen ill and had never fully recovered. He had massive headaches. He was blacking out. He felt like bugs were crawling on him and he was constantly scratching himself. He now had to wear long sleeves to cover up the scabs that had developed on his arms. His legs were no better.
His first assignment was in Sao Paulo. He was staying in a nice hotel, which he appreciated, but the scratching would not subside. He was now waking up to sheets covered in blood. He told himself he would see a doctor when he returned to California.
He would not make that trip.
Frisco was activated by Waters and sent to kill Jean Paul Dubois, a man who once served in the French Navy as a Commandos Marine. He was now a mercenary that specialized in African conflicts and revolutions. Warlords loved him. He participated in some of the most gruesome atrocities of the 21st century. He was a serious man, a man that had lived through some of the toughest training among NATO Special Operations Forces. Of course, Africa for a white mercenary is no picnic. Jean Paul Dubois, was not an easy target. He was in Brazil to relax a little and perhaps pick up some new business.
When Steve Frisco approached him in an open-air café in Sao Paulo, acting erratically and slowly pulling a gun, Dubois quickly pulled his Beretta and shot him where he stood. Dubois’ dining companion started screaming. He was always prepared for someone to try and take his life. He never traveled with bodyguards. He felt he didn’t need them. So far, he had been right.
Steve Frisco was dead before he hit the stone floor of the café. His body was positioned awkwardly between two tables and next to an overturned chair.
Dubois tossed $150 U.S. dollars on the table and walked out of the café. He left his date screaming in her seat. He could always find another prostitute.
Frisco’s handler delivered the news to Waters who was less than pleased. Killing Dubois would now be twice as hard. He recalled the entire team to the U.S.
The Brazilian police arrived on the scene and identified Steve Frisco as an American tourist. After checking with the American Embassy, they found that he had no criminal record. The embassy was unable to get in touch with his family. He apparently had no living relatives. They could not explain his actions.
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg:
Oscar Pasco was becoming very bored. In short order, he had completed what he called the “bullshit” assignment that Hass had given him. He had spent the last two days, chain-smoking in cafés. Since his orientation in Boston, his personal hygiene, which was never good, truly deteriorated. He stopped bathing regularly and his already nasty smoking habit had really taken off. His attire had not changed from when he interviewed in Detroit. He still looked like a low level thug.
His handler, Todd Klein, kept the reports flowing to Waters. Todd was worried that Pasco would just bolt, return to Detroit, or any place with a casino. He urged Waters to make the call on the hit.
Waters was close to turning Pasco loose on Klaus Schneider. Schneider was a banker who had very different clients. He moved money for people that sought to harm U.S. troops. He was aware of the unsavory nature of his clients’ business objectives, but had learned to live with it. He traveled in a lightly armored Mercedes with two bodyguards and a driver. Waters knew that Schneider had to be killed on his way into the bank, just after he exited the car. The bank was a fortress. So was his home.
It was show time for Oscar Pasco.
Waters activated Oscar with a special set of triggers. At the same time, Waters’ team hacked into city traffic cameras and fed them a loop of the morning’s hustle and bustle outside the bank on Prince Herni Boulevard.
All of the bank’s street-side cameras were disabled as well and fed the same loop, save one. Waters wanted to watch.
No one would see Oscar Pasco. Unless he failed.
He didn’t.
Oscar was positioned on the steps to the bank wearing the clothing that was provided by Waters’ support team. He looked like he belonged. He wore a light gray suit, a light blue shirt and a pink tie. The rank clothes Oscar had worn from Detroit were in a nearby apartment. Despite the new threads, he still reeked of smoke.
The bank Schneider worked for was housed, as it had for over 150 years, in an imposing stone building on Prince Henri Boulevard. There was a small set of twelve steps that lead to the entrance. There was approximately twenty feet between the street and
the first step.
The sidewalk was busy as people were hustling to work. A cool breeze blew down the boulevard.
Oscar pretended to be engrossed in a newspaper, when he saw Schneider’s Mercedes approach. He dropped the paper in a street side trashcan and walked towards the Mercedes as it was coming to a halt.
Two men immediately exited the car, the first bodyguard from the front passenger side and a second from the back of the car. The door was opened for Schneider, who was dwarfed by the bodyguards.
They did not notice Oscar. No one did. Not until he drew a silenced .22 from his jacket and shot all three men before they even knew what happened. All head shots. They collapsed on the sidewalk. He opened the passenger side door and shot the driver, who was fumbling for his weapon. Oscar tossed the gun on the front seat of the car and kept walking down the street.
He had moved so fast and so smoothly, even realizing he had shot Schneider was difficult to process.
“Holy Shit!” Waters said from his office in Boston as he watched the scene unfold. Across from him McFarland nodded.
“Surgical. Just as I predicted,” McFarland gloated, getting up from his seat and leaving Waters office.
The screams from people on the sidewalk disrupted the otherwise calm morning.
To everyone, Oscar looked like a normal guy heading to work. Of course, he was not normal. He rounded the corner and got into a light blue Mercedes and left the area.
Todd Klein had been watching the whole scene and couldn’t believe the speed. Oscar had killed four people in seconds like they were bugs. Todd became very nervous. He knew there was no way he could stop Oscar.
Waters was also concerned, but only with Oscar’s shelf life. He immediately began looking for Oscar’s next assignment.
Like Sean, he was too good to waste.
XXI
Cream of the Crop
Summer 2011
After twenty-eight days, McFarland realized that the serum injected into Sean Garrison and Oscar Pasco was not shutting down their systems as it had in his field tests on detainees. In fact, the serum’s effect on their bodies seemed to be permanent. It was not to say that a year from now, one or both men could just suddenly drop dead. In an effort to isolate what kept Sean and Oscar going, where other men had died, he had blood work done on them again. He had Dr. Baum contact them for a second physical as a follow-up to the tests they had in Boston. Sean Garrison did not complain and came right in for the follow-up with a doctor in Pittsburgh. Oscar Pasco was less than cooperative but finally gave in when the threat of his money being withheld was mentioned.
McFarland was certain he could refine the serum and he knew who would pay for the science. McFarland was taking his show to Asia as soon as he could. He failed to share this little detail with Robert Waters.
Waters had proclaimed his program a success. However, only Garrison and Pasco made it through the first mission. The rest of Waters’ “Disposable Patriots,” as he called them, died before even getting close to their targets. Bodyguards or security personnel dispatched some of the men while they were trying to execute their programming. One spectacularly fell to his death while trying to scale a balcony of a twenty-story building. As Waters predicted, each of the men was seen as a tourist that had gone a little nuts. INTERPOL and U.S. authorities could not find a motive for their actions and there were not any family members to contact.
Of the thousands of candidates Waters and McFarland combed through, they ended up with two perfect assassins. Men who showed no fear. Men whose speed and skill were unmatched. Men who did not fail. One killed with precision in a cold and calculating way, the other, in a bloody, personal manner that chilled even Waters to the bone.
Moving forward, Waters would carefully manage Oscar and Sean as if they were prized quarter horses.
Killers like this did not grow on trees. Now, they were made in the lab.
BOOK IV
Don’t think. Believe. Trust your heart, not your brain.
Don’t think. Feel. Believe.
- Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
I
1%
I-79 – West Virginia
September 2012 - Sunday
Robert Waters’ surviving agents on the ground in Pittsburgh had dumped their Crown Vic in a mall parking lot and now were driving a tan Chevy Impala and were nearly to Charleston. They were told to drive south, so that’s what they did. The agents finally stopped at an IHOP a little north of the city and checked in with Waters. They were instructed to stay put and await further instructions. This seemed like a good time to enjoy a full breakfast. Inside the restaurant, they got a couple of curious looks as they were dressed like federal officers, but it was their eyes, dark empty orbs, that made people look away.
The rain was really coming down as Sandy and Sean made their way down I-79. South of a small, unremarkable town called Wellford, Sean saw a motorcycle in the distance and a figure working on the bike. Sean slowed.
“What are you doing?” Sandy asked impatiently.
“I am going to see if I can help this guy.”
“No, you are not! Speed up and keep going!” she said, reaching into her backpack. Sean was now three hundred feet behind the bike and its rider. Sean pulled onto the shoulder. The rider checked out the approaching truck.
“I am going to see if we can help him,” Sean declared, with a little more intensity as he stopped the truck and put it into park. He started to open the door when Sandy’s hand reached out and grabbed his hand to stop him. It was then he noticed the gun on her lap.
“I am the one who makes the decisions here. I am in charge,” she said slowly. He then reached over, pulled her hand up to his mouth and gently kissed the back of it.
“Of course you are,” he said softly and winked at her, while opening the door and stepping out into the rain.
“What just happened?” she asked herself. She watched him walk up to the biker and she soon realized that this was not an ordinary biker. The man was wearing a “Brother’s Grimm” cut. She could see the “1%” patch, which signified that he radically rejected authority and basically everything else.
“Hey! Can we help you man?” Sean asked, approaching the biker. The man stood up and Sean saw that the biker was a good deal taller and heavier than he. Wearing jeans, well-worn black boots and a denim jacket with the Brother’s Grimm MC cut over it, the biker looked warily at Sean.
“I don’t think so.”
Sean kept walking towards him. Sean stopped in front of him and stuck his hand out.
“I’m Sean.” The biker looked at him figuring Sean was some sort of nut, but shook his hand anyway.
“I’m Otis.” Otis had long stringy black hair with a touch of grey to it. His long beard looked the same. Otis was nearly 6’4” and easily over 290 pounds, with tattoos of flames, circling and climbing out of his shirt, up his neck towards his head.
“What’s the problem?” Sean asked, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes. While it was no longer raining hard, the weather had transitioned to that constant wet mist that tends to come out of low lying mountain clouds that now covered the interstate.
“It just stopped. I don’t know. I had some work done on it last week and it hasn’t been the same. Plus, I don’t have the tools to get it running. I am basically stuck,” Otis said looking at Sean. Sean looked back at the truck. He could see Sandy in the passenger seat simmering. The wipers were going back and forth slowly.
“Where do you need to go?” Sean asked.
“Nitro.”
“If you think we could get this in the bed of that truck, I can give you a ride,” Sean said, sizing up the bike and the size of the truck bed.
“What? You would do that for me?” Otis was now very skeptical. Was this kid going to kill him? Was he a nut? Was he ATF?
“Sure, just be nice to the lady in the truck. She’s a bit on edge,” Sean helped Otis push the bike to the back of the pick-up. Sandy got out of the passenger side, sliding t
he gun into her waistband.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked, with one hand on the gun behind her back.
“Just lending Otis here a hand. We’re going to give him a lift. He’s south of Charleston. Not far.”
“You sure this is OK buddy?” Otis said to Sean, as he watched Sandy open the rear driver’s side door of the extended cab truck and climb in.
“Yeah. No problem. Let’s figure out how to get this baby into the bed.” Sean looked at the bike and at the tailgate.