Raymond Benson

by Hitman: Damnation

  When his eyes fluttered open, the first thing he noticed was the cold. Then, almost immediately, he felt the excruciating pain in his back. He didn’t know if it was broken or not. He couldn’t move, although he knew his legs dangled freely. He was stuck in the crevice, his torso pinned in place by the tapered walls of ice.

  Trapped. Like a cork in a bottle.

  The only thing that brought him any comfort was that the sun shone above him through the opening. He could climb out if he made the effort. The agony in his back was the biggest obstacle to doing so.

  47 couldn’t see his legs, since the rock walls squeezed tightly against his chest and waist, but he could kick them. He wasn’t paralyzed, which meant his back was miraculously unbroken. It just hurt like the devil. He had most likely ruptured a disc or two. The cleft in the mountain had saved his life, but it had brutally wrenched his torso as if it were made of clay.

  It was also difficult to breathe. The pressure of the stone against his chest prevented him from inhaling deeply. That realization was enough for 47 to attempt the escape. He’d known pain in his lifetime, but this was going to be severe. Luckily, his arms were caught above his shoulder line, allowing him to gain some leverage. The mere act of pressing down with his forearms and hands brought intense jolts of misery to his muscles.

  Take it a little at a time.

  Push down, wiggle up. Push down, wiggle up.

  Agent 47 felt like a worm struggling to slip through a hole lined with sharp spikes.

  His clothing ripped as the rocks dug into the skin on his chest and belly. The bullet wound was minor compared to what his back was going through.

  The assassin nearly blacked out from the pain and effort, but he willed himself to keep at it. If he didn’t get out of that hole now, he’d never do it. He would die there, a fly caught in a web of ice and stone.

  Push down, wiggle up.

  He didn’t know how long it took, but once his hip bones cleared the craggy bottleneck, he was home free. It was then only partially painful to use his legs and boots to support his weight. Five minutes later, he was standing on top, looking down at the abyss that might have been his grave.

  There was snow everywhere—so much bright whiteness that it was difficult to discern where the edge of the cliff dropped off.

  47 took stock of what he had on him.

  His beloved briefcase was gone. The Silverballer he’d had in his hand—vanished. The backpack containing his supplies—obliterated and buried somewhere thousands of feet below. He had no climbing equipment. All he could account for was a wad of currency in his pocket and a fake passport.

  Except for the ripped clothing and his boots, he was unprotected from the elements. He pulled off one of the shreds of his jacket, lifted his shirt, and tied it around his waist to hopefully stop the bleeding from the gunshot wound.

  Perhaps he would die on Kangchenjunga after all.

  There didn’t seem to be an easy path down, but the mountain face going upward appeared to be climbable with only hands and feet. Agent 47 thought he could make out a level rim some fifty feet above his head. Perhaps that led to another, more agreeable route that he could traverse without climbing equipment. He knew it was unlikely, since reaching any sort of altitude on the Kanch required gear and more expertise than he possessed. But he had to try.

  The icy wind grew stronger as he scaled the rocky face. His gloves helped with handholds, and at least the boots were still strong and sturdy. Every few inches he ascended were painful. He felt as if he had been tortured on a medieval rack, his vertebrae pulled apart or crushed together and permanently fixed in that position.

  When he reached the level ledge, 47 collapsed and lay on his stomach. He rarely cursed, but for once he allowed a few epithets to spill from his mouth.

  It was then that he thought angrily about Diana.

  What had happened? Where had she gone? Why had she left him stranded? The mission was a success—he was certain that Nam Vo was dead—but who else might have perished in the avalanche? The boomer had obviously caused a very destructive landslide, but, without Diana’s exact pinpoint on the cliff, it turned out sloppily.

  He must have fallen asleep from the exertion and the pain, for the next thing he knew, the sun was low on the horizon, the temperature was dozens of degrees colder, and the wind was biting. 47 had lost his bivouac tent with his backpack. Could he survive a night on the mountain? Perhaps he’d been better off stuck in that crevice after all!

  47 rolled over on his side and winced. There was no position that was comfortable. No matter what he did, the nerves in his back screamed bloody murder.

  And then he heard voices.

  Was he hallucinating?

  The assassin reached for a flare that he had in his jacket pocket—but it was gone. If only he could attract some attention. Would anyone see him?

  The voices grew louder.

  Someone was near!

  He tried to call out, but his voice cracked. 47 couldn’t seem to make his vocal cords operate.

  Then two shadows appeared on the rim. People.

  The hitman was unable to determine how far away they were. He was delirious from the pain. He did, though, manage to raise an arm and wave it back and forth. In the dim light, the fading sun cast a glint off his wristwatch and acted as a beacon.

  The two travelers saw him and rushed forward.

  When he awoke, Agent 47 saw a flickering light dancing across a stony ceiling. Icy stalactites hung like daggers but were in no danger of falling on him.

  He was in a cave of some sort.

  The assassin turned his head.

  A campfire. A man and a woman, bundled up, sitting close to the warmth. They weren’t Caucasian. Nepalese, most likely. Maybe Tibetan.

  The woman glanced at him and muttered something. They both got up and moved closer to him. They spoke a language 47 didn’t understand.

  He tried to raise himself, but the pain shot through his back and he nearly cried out. The woman spoke comforting words and gently pushed him down. He was lying on a fur blanket. She said something else, crawled away, and then returned with a bowl of hot liquid.

  Yak butter soup with grain barley on the side.

  Although it tasted absolutely horrible, Agent 47 consumed it voraciously, as if it was his final meal on earth.

  * * *

  The Nepalese nomads sewed up the bullet wound and nursed the assassin for two weeks in their private ice cave on the side of Kangchenjunga. From what Agent 47 could fathom, the couple had left civilization quite some time ago. Perhaps they were hiding from the Chinese in Tibet. The husband made monthly trips down to one of the villages to stock up on food and supplies. Their home was well furnished and comfortable—for a cavern. Agent 47 thought the couple might be a little crazy from the seclusion, but at least they knew how to care for him.

  At last, 47 was well enough to leave. The Nepalese man accompanied the hitman down Kangchenjunga. Using the couple’s climbing equipment, a seven-hour trip took twice as long due to 47’s discomfort. At the end, though, Agent 47 found himself on solid, flat ground. He paid the man from the money he had in his pocket. At first the hermit refused, but the assassin insisted. They parted ways with a handshake.

  The pain was still severe. Simply walking was a chore.

  He checked in to a hospital in Kathmandu and discovered that he was suffering from a spinal disc herniation. His sciatic nerve was under constant bombardment from the pressure. The doctor told him that anti-inflammatory drugs and painkillers were the best approach but that 47 should get plenty of bed rest for about six weeks. The hitman took the man’s advice, checked into a fleabag hotel, and dosed himself with oxycodone and naproxen sodium tablets.

  After two weeks, he limped like a cripple to an Internet café and tried to contact Diana. Every line of communication to her was broken. He checked the secure server where he picked up messages from the Agency. There were several for him, asking him to contact ICA if he received them. Th
ey most likely assumed he was dead. Tellingly, there was no mention of Diana.

  It took fourteen weeks before Agent 47 was finally pain free. He thanked the doctor and left Nepal with a three-month supply of the painkillers. The hitman had found that he liked the effects, which had nothing to do with managing discomfort. He had begun to have strange dreams, even nightmares, and the oxycodone tended to control them. For some reason, the pills didn’t dope him up but rather made him clearheaded and confident. It was only if he tapered down the dosage or stopped altogether that he experienced a nervous, anxiety-producing reaction. Best to continue taking them.

  Agent 47 made his way to Mexico and holed up in Guadalajara. He knew an arms dealer there who replaced his ATM Hardballers, complete with the pearl handles, just like his long-lost Silverballers. It took a month to re-create the leather briefcase with the fleur-de-lis insignia on it.

  All that time, the hitman periodically attempted to find Diana. There was still no trace of his former handler. He ignored all messages from the Agency. He had no desire to go back to them. He’d had enough of the ICA. Six months after the avalanche, the Agency stopped sending him missives.

  Although damaged and not up to the high standard Agent 47 liked to maintain, he was free to do what he wanted.

  NINETEEN

  Benjamin Travis drummed his fingertips on the desk in his office and once again played the message from the Agency’s client.

  “Stand by.”

  That was it. No further instruction, no explanation, or no indication that the second hit—the one on Charlie Wilkins—would still be ordered.

  Travis had come to the conclusion that it wasn’t the U.S. government that had ordered the hit on Dana Linder. If that were true, why would they purposefully instruct the assassin to leave a weapon at the scene that incriminated the American military? The gun’s serial number had been traced to a soldier in Texas who had reported the rifle stolen. Television and newspapers were full of accusations that President Burdett and the CIA were behind the murder. Wilkins himself had been quick to point a finger. The most vocal proponent of the current administration’s involvement in the tragedy was the man known as Cromwell. “It’s time for a new revolution in America,” the mercenary announced on national television. Since the Linder killing, the New Model Army had stepped up the frequency of strikes at various targets and delivering the message to the public: Rebel.

  Sitting safely aboard the Jean Danjou II, back in the waters of the Mediterranean near the Costa del Sol, Travis wasn’t too concerned about the fate of his home country. He had turned his back on the United States long ago. He’d been watching the political developments in America with detached amusement until Jade reminded him that, should America fall, so would the world economy. And if that happened, there would be fewer clients for the Agency. Travis didn’t think that would be the case—perhaps there would be even more clients—but a global financial meltdown would be bad for everyone. Nevertheless, he fully expected Cromwell and the NMA to succeed. The state of the union was a powder keg. Most recently, the National Guard and U.S. Army were called out to control militia attacks. A full-out firefight had erupted in Virginia at the Civil War battlefield site of Manassas. Seven civilians were killed. More than half of the population staged protests all over the country, and twelve thousand people marched on Washington. Just one or two more incendiary events allegedly perpetrated by the government would be all it would take to bring the crisis to a head. The assassination of Charlie Wilkins, if orchestrated by the CIA, would certainly push the country over the edge into civil war.

  So if the current administration wasn’t the client, then who was?

  Travis had ordered Jade to utilize every intelligence apparatus the Agency possessed to uncover the speaker’s identity. When he communicated, it was always by phone. An electronic scrambler disguised his voice. The number from which he called was never traceable. It didn’t help that the Agency’s own encryption process for accepting email and phone calls was extremely complicated and unshakable. Satellites bounced signals between several countries before a client could deal with the ICA. This was also true for reverse traffic.

  From the analysis that he, Jade, and the team had performed thus far, Travis suspected the client might be Cromwell himself. Who else wanted to see a rebellion, and what more could cause that rebellion than the assassinations of Dana Linder and Charlie Wilkins?

  Travis considered the state of the operation. Agent 47 was now ensconced at Greenhill, supposedly infiltrating the community to get closer to the proposed target. The client promised that the orders for the second hit would come within a couple of weeks. Travis didn’t think the client would renege; he had thus far acted in good faith. The money for the Linder killing came through, and the Agency had received a nonrefundable down payment for the Wilkins part of the job. Travis fully expected to go through with the second phase of the mission.

  But the manager wasn’t sure what to make of Agent 47. The hitman had a sparkling reputation, to be sure, but he was unpredictable. Given the fact that the assassin was a clone and a warrior constructed from various DNA strains and bloodlines, 47 was no doubt a machine of a man—and machines could break down or malfunction. Travis had never met Agent 47 prior to their face-to-face encounter aboard the yacht a week earlier, but Travis knew everything about him. He had thoroughly studied the assassin’s history, and the hitman was completely unaware he had been used.

  It was vitally important that 47 never find out. Hence, finding Diana was a top priority. Jade had a lead in the midwestern United States. Perhaps that would prove to be fruitful. The Agency’s operatives just might be successful in locating the traitorous woman. And once that was done, Travis would send Agent 47 to be her assassin.

  Luring the hitman back into the fold had not been easy. After a year of searching for the killer, the Agency’s operative Roget reported that he had employed “freelancer” Agent 47 in Jamaica. So Travis set the plan in motion. They paid Roget a substantial fee to deliver the wayward killer to them via the remote-controlled plane. It wasn’t Travis’s fault that 47 shot up the remote so the Agency couldn’t land the aircraft safely. At least the hitman’s ordeal in the Caribbean was a good test to see if he was up to snuff.

  The assassin’s performance had impressed Travis and upper management enough to decide that 47 could be reinstated. The masquerade aboard the yacht—allowing 47 to wander freely into restricted areas under the pretext of the “new honesty and trustworthiness” of the Agency—was icing on the cake. Jade wasn’t convinced 47 had fallen for it, but apparently something worked. The hitman had agreed to rejoin. The current job—the Linder hit and the possible Wilkins one—was to be a further assessment of 47’s loyalty and present skill level. Travis had no doubt that, if 47 succeeded in this very difficult assignment, he could cope with going after his former handler. The hitman was the only one who could kill Diana.

  If only she hadn’t managed to escape that hotel in Paris before Travis’s team burst into her room, guns blazing. She should be in a grave. Instead, the woman got away with too much of Travis’s classified material. She had threatened to expose the project to the world, and he believed she could—and would—do it. So why hadn’t she? That was a year ago. What was she waiting for?

  Travis figured that she still needed some sort of physical evidence. All she had at the moment was the knowledge in her head. It would take more than that to convince the world that Travis and the Agency were up to no good. Diana was a dead woman as soon as she was found.

  Now Travis had to convince Agent 47 that his former handler had betrayed him on that fateful day in the Himalayas. He had to plant the seeds of doubt and mistrust in the assassin’s already suspicious mind.

  And it was working.

  TWENTY

  The days passed into mid-October.

  Agent 47 dutifully worked as groundskeeper and maintenance man, although most of his jobs had nothing to do with that description. His supervisor was a y
oung man named Stuart Chambers. The hitman developed an immediate dislike for him. Chambers took his managerial role much too seriously. For the first few days on the job, “Stan” was given the most menial and disgusting tasks, such as scrubbing out the men’s and women’s toilets in all the restroom facilities at Greenhill. When that was done, Chambers ordered 47 to clean out the grease trap in the cafeteria kitchen. It was a revolting, dirty job that put the assassin in a foul mood. After a week, 47 had still not been given any tasks within the restricted area.

  The only positive things about being at Greenhill, he decided, were the evenings he spent with Helen. Since his cover required him to flirt with a more “human” identity, he made the effort to talk more and be more personable. The shyness act played well, for it encouraged Helen to “draw him out,” bringing them closer to a kind of friendship that, surprisingly, 47 enjoyed. He was uncommonly comfortable with the platonic relationship they had built in the short time they’d known each other. He sensed, however, that she wanted to take their friendship to another level. Sometimes she referred to their get-togethers as “dates,” and one night he was certain that she wanted him to kiss her good night after he’d walked her to her building. But 47 couldn’t do it. Something prevented him from crossing that line with her.

  One evening after dinner, they took a walk outside the compound along the two-lane road toward Coal Landing. The sun was rapidly sinking and the weather had turned autumn-cool, so Helen bundled up in a sweater and light jacket. Agent 47 simply wore his work shirt and overalls with a windbreaker. At one point, she shivered and complained of being chilled. 47 recognized the hint, so he placed his arm around her and held her closer. It was all part of acting the role, even though it felt completely foreign to him.