by Shane Kuhn
I am unstoppable. I owe much of that to experience. So, in order to truly prepare you for what you’re getting yourself into, this handbook will chronicle, in great detail, my final assignment. Within this account, you will see the job as it really is, not as it is in Bob’s theoretical world of “typical scenarios.” I’m sorry, but there are no typical fucking scenarios when you’re planning and executing the murder of a high-profile, heavily guarded individual. Bob will train you and then train you to rely on your training. This is a military approach, and it works well in military operations—for the most part. I will teach you to think like a predator and master the improvisational tracking skills predators use to execute a clean kill and survive. There’s a big difference between these approaches, and the only times I’ve really come close to death were in the beginning, when I was drinking Bob’s Kool-Aid by the gallon.
In addition to providing a play-by-play of my final assignment, this handbook will also be a field reference manual with some simple, memorable rules to follow, backed up by real-world examples. In my nearly eight years of active assignment—yes I started wasting people at seventeen—I have thirty-four kills. I may not have seen it all, but pretty goddamned close.
2
* * *
“WE’RE ALL GOING TO MISS YOU, JOHN.”
Today I’m going to get my final assignment from Bob. It’s a little weird, thinking this is the last one. I’ve been working here since I hit puberty, and in a few weeks, it’s all over. I’ll receive my final wire payment and they’ll burn everything that ties me to this place—ID cards, weapons, clothing—everything. I won’t even be able to go back to my apartment. I’ll be given a new identity, some traveling money, and clothes. The only evidence I’ll have of my former life with HR, Inc. will be my bank account numbers, aka my best friends. I’ll have all of the money I’ve saved over the years, along with a seven-figure retirement bonus. This will be more than enough for me to disappear and completely reinvent myself for what I hope is the last time.
The few of us that make it to retirement almost always continue with the same work, just as freelancers. Not me. This may be the only type of work I’ve ever known, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to stay in it just because I’m too much of a pussy to learn something new. It’s like that old convict in The Shawshank Redemption that finally gets out of prison after being in there for fifty years and hangs himself because he doesn’t know how to tie his own shoes without some bull poking him with a stick. The writer should hang himself with his own heartstring. Only household pets think that way. I’ve had to convince some of the smartest people in New York City that I was qualified to perform menial tasks at law firms, hedge funds, military tech companies, security firms, commercial real estate companies, multinational oil and energy conglomerates, and the list goes on. I can bullshit my way into a lot of different fields, so I’m going to choose one and go kick as much ass there as I did here.
The difference is I’ll be a normal working stiff, eating bad microwave food, bitching about taxes, and sucking at golf. And I’ll love every minute of it. No more living in constant paranoia about being caught or whacked. I won’t have to wash the stink of gunpowder and blood out of my clothes. I can have actual friends that I won’t have to kill if they find out what I do. And the best part? I’ll never have to look at the shark eyes of another “early retiree” whose severance package just blew his brains out on a filthy bathroom wall.
* * *
“We’re all going to miss you, John.”
That’s Bob, and that’s the first thing he says to me when I sit down to be briefed on my final assignment. It catches me slightly off guard. Bob likes catching people off guard, especially if it’s an attempt to show them that he’s just another guy who considers the feelings of others, which I can assure you he does not. For a split second, I feel a wave of nostalgia pass over me.
Maybe Bob will miss me. Maybe I’m the son he never had, I think.
Then he deploys the cynical grin I’ve come to loathe over the years, and my wave of nostalgia turns to nausea. What he meant was it’s going to be hard as hell to find someone as merciless and bulletproof as me. He’s right. He’s going to miss having a human button he can push that will rain down Old Testament destruction without leaving so much as a carpet fiber for the cops to sniff.
“I’ll miss you too, Bob,” I lie.
“How many law firms have you worked?” he says, ignoring my equally false parting sentiment.
“Off the top of my head . . . seventeen.”
“Still feel comfortable and well versed in that space?”
“I’ve passed the bar exam four times in the last five years . . .”
“I don’t take anything for granted, John. You know that.”
“I know, Bob. What’s the gig?”
“Anxious to get out of here?”
“Anxious to get to work.”
“Good. Because this one is not going to be easy.”
“Are they ever?”
“Why the attitude?”
“Senioritis I guess.”
“You should avoid telling jokes. You’re not funny.”
He hands me a thick file. I glance through it, finding what I like to call my bullet points—target profile, location layout, target’s known enemies, vulnerabilities, etc. I raise an eyebrow because Bob is sending me to Bendini, Lambert & Locke, possibly the most famous law firm in New York City. They are notorious for representing elite clients and peddling an enormous amount of political influence. Now it’s getting kind of interesting. I keep scanning and everything seems to be in order except for one small detail.
“Who’s the target? Not seeing that in here, Bob.”
“That’s because it’s not in there.”
I look at him, expecting the grin. Instead his face is slightly apologetic. This is as close to embarrassment as Bob can get.
“That’s . . . irregular,” I offer.
Side note: never openly protest any aspect of any assignment in front of Bob. He was a first platoon Marine, and whiners of any stripe make him physically ill. You may comment on “irregularities” so that (a) he knows you’re paying attention and (b) you can get the intel you need to cover your ass. However, you must only seem to be casually inquiring because he needs to believe that if he asked you to whack someone blindfolded with one hand tied behind your back, your only question would be “Which hand?”
“My apologies, John. This is a complex case, more than usual. The target is one of the three partners. He’s gone out of his way to keep his identity hidden . . . for obvious reasons.”
I read some more of the profile.
“I see what you mean, Bob.”
Another side note: try to say Bob’s name as often as you can without going over the top. Men like Bob are in love with themselves, and the mention of a lover’s name floods their cerebral G-spot with endorphins.
“Selling the FBI’s witness protection list to the highest bidders. Definitely something you’d want to keep on the down low.”
“His ‘clients’ are what you might expect,” Bob adds. “Mafia families, gangbangers, foreign drug cartels.”
“All the best people.”
“Your cynicism concerns me, John.”
“How so?”
“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
“Oscar Wilde. You’re waxing poetic, Bob.”
“At least we’ve given you culture here, if not sophistication.”
“How does he get the names?”
“The same way anyone gets anything they want. Money, privilege, and the right golf partners.”
“That sounds a bit cynical to me, Bob.”
“You start Monday. Address and contact names are in the file, along with your cover dossier.”
“Hmm. Who am I this time?”
I read a bit, pretending to give a shit.
“Michigan Law School. Top ten in the country but not very fla
shy. Nice touch.”
“You’ll be surrounded by Ivies. They know their own kind.”
“They all had ‘fathers’ but instead I had a ‘dad.’ ” I sigh.
“Interesting quote. Twain?”
“Kurt Cobain.”
“Get out, John.”
3
* * *
THE FIRM
I’m going over my identity dossier, spending the weekend with my new self. They gave me a new surname, but as always, I get to go by “John.” Quite frankly, there is no other name that’s more perfectly anonymous, and I’m always glad I don’t have to learn how to answer to some new name like a fucking rescue dog or Chinese exchange student. My new self went to public high school (self-starter), college at Notre Dame (salt of the earth), and then Michigan Law (smart but not connected). I was the perfect equal opportunity quota candidate without being ethnic—a white Catholic without a drop of blue blood. Firms like Bendini, Lambert & Locke want to appear progressive, but let’s not get carried away.
Thanks to Bob, my soda cracker profile is the perfect cover. I’ll be ignored and considered socially irrelevant by my wealthy Ivy League peers but not despised. I’ll be tolerated by my superiors, who will wait for me to make some obscure error that they make regularly, at great peril to their clients, so they can summarily shit-can me and, in their words, “Send me back to Peoria with the rest of the hicks.” This will enable them to maintain their bullshit PR front without having to worry about me being around long enough to kick the Lilly Pulitzer out of all these paunchy drips on the squash court. But they don’t have to worry. I’ll be gone soon enough.
After studying the file and burning it, I quietly thank Bob as I watch my final assignment go down in flames. Killing a guy that wears tasseled loafers and eats Steak Diane for lunch is a cupcake of a gig, and I might actually have some fun for a change. Sure it might have been nice of him to give me a bit of a challenge as a proper send-off, but that’s Bob for you. He’s already written me off and put me on some low-priority rodent hunt so he doesn’t tie up any of the new talent. Fine with me. I’ll put this pin-striped bass on my stringer and be eating a cheeseburger in paradise by the end of the month.
The only rock in my flip-flop is that I don’t even know who the fucking target is. I’m not a detective. I don’t sit on stakeouts in beige sedans with empty coffee cups and burger wrappers on the dash. And I sure as shit don’t stick my nose where it doesn’t belong. In other words, I’m not a dog, trotting around sniffing crotches, trying to separate good guys from bad guys. I see ALL people as threats, even the ones that become assets and help me, unwittingly mind you, to accomplish my objective. It’s just cleaner that way. And growing up in foster homes, as I’m sure most of you have, you learn to think that way in order to survive. Everyone is guilty until proven innocent but still perfectly capable of being guilty at any given moment.
None of that matters though. The job is the job, and I have no choice but to get it done. Bitching about it will only distract me, and let’s be honest, has bitching about anything ever helped anybody? This job is about action without judgment, and I advise you to remain focused on that at all times. Failure is not an option. I’ve seen recruits walk away from jobs for a number of reasons, many of them very good, only to end up taking a bullet before cocktail hour. It sounds harsh, but I have actually learned to like this kind of clarity. Until I started working at HR, Inc., everything about my life had been maddeningly uncertain. Now it’s very clear. I have to either kill the target or die trying. Clarity equals victory. Look at successful people. Do you really think they have seven effective habits? Fuck no. Who’s got time for that? They have one effective habit: DOING. When you are a “doer” you lap the rest of the rats in the race.
So, I fully accept the gig without reservation or judgment and go about the tedious business of navigating the Internet circus to read up on the partners. Let’s start with Bendini. His grandfather was a wealthy Sicilian that built most of Bensonhurst. His father went to Princeton and carried on with the family business until he got into some bad spec housing deals with the mob and blew his own brains out. Bendini’s grandfather sent him to prep school and he went on to Yale and Harvard Law. The rest of it is about his legal career, which would put you to sleep faster than a bottle of Ambien. I do like Bendini for his dad’s mob connection, but it’s thin at best.
If you thought Bendini was boring, Lambert makes him look like P. T. Barnum. Lambert moved to the United States from Germany with his parents when he was an infant. Evidently he’s quite the supernerd because MIT accepted him after middle school. He went on to get a PhD, an MD, and a JD. After working as house counsel for a big pharma company, Bendini poached him and made him the youngest partner in the history of the firm. He brings them millions in revenue from drug companies and biotech. It’s unlikely he’s the target, but that’s what makes me like him so much. Getting your hands on witness protection program data is the kind of caper a smart bastard like Lambert could pull off. Unlike his partners, he flies way below the public radar, which means he could make a lot of moves without drawing attention to himself. It’s always the quiet ones that invite you in for an iced tea and end up stacking your body parts like cordwood in the crawl space.
Finally, I do a rundown on Locke. Ex-military, two tours in Vietnam, awarded the Purple Heart, honorably discharged in 1975. Went on to Penn, like his father, and then Harvard Law, like his mother. Became one of the most successful defense attorneys in New York history. Definitely the firm’s biggest PR hook but almost never grants interviews. The press calls him “the man in black.” I leaf through all of the clippings from his cases—movie stars, pro athletes, rock stars. Seems weird that he would take the time to rat out informers hiding out in Iowa, but I like the defense attorney angle. Witnesses for the prosecution are like cockroaches to a defense attorney. They can’t get them under their heels fast enough.
What’s fucked-up is that these guys are all wildly rich and powerful and definitely knocking on the door of a sweet retirement. I can’t believe any of them would be so terminally stupid as to get involved in such a dirty business. Whoever it may be is risking generations of future wealth, his life, and the lives of his family when you think about the vermin he has to get in bed with to make these sales. But greed and power could turn Gandhi into a Kardashian, and we’re talking about lawyers here, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
4
* * *
THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER
In some ways, getting into character is the most difficult part of the process. Your whole life, you have been one person. In this life, you will have to be many people. If that sounds fun to you, then you’ll do just fine. The secret is to immerse yourself so well into your new persona that even you believe you are this person. If you believe it, then you will never feel like you are lying and you will never exhibit any “tells.”
The Look is one of your greatest weapons and it’s critical that you nail it. You might be thinking, How hard can it be to look like an office nerd? Answer: really fucking hard. And you can’t be perceived as a nerd anyway. Nerds are noticeable. They are the subjects of ridicule, despite the fact that Hollywood and TV Land try to tell you otherwise. I remember the faces of each and every nerd I beat to a pulp in my three glorious years of public school because I was angry about my shitty life and wanted to take it out on someone I knew would not fight back. The point is that you have to be more of a wallflower than anything else. You have to blend into your surroundings and be ultimately forgettable.
To quote Bob: “Interns do not have a face. They may occupy the same space with you for years, but for the life of you, you can never remember their names.”
If you want proof, go to any high school reunion. The popular people will be approached multiple times by wallflowers. These inconsequential nobodies actually believe they might, as an adult, have the equal opportunity to become friends with someone who still can’t pick them out of a lin
eup. “What was your name again?”
There is a simple reason for this approach. Wallflowers have zero traits that stimulate the brains of other people and string together enough synapses to make memories. You always remember the things that rub you the right way or the wrong way. The positive and negative are both powerful memory reinforcement tools. Negative is more powerful than positive, which is based on your survival instincts. But you can’t remember something that doesn’t touch you in a positive or negative way. And this is our ultimate goal. We must learn from the wallflowers, life’s most perfect unintentional losers.
* * *
Rule #1: Act neutral.
My fifth job was one of my hardest. It was a big fashion house, and you can imagine how everyone dressed. I asked Bob for a sizable clothing allowance so I could fit in once I started my internship, and he flat out refused. He said that no matter how hard I tried to be on the same level as my coworkers, they would still never see me as one of their own. In fact, I would become subject to the circle of brutal judgment that goes on every day as employees whisper evil shit about their so-called friends. In short, I would no longer be invisible.
So I watched the employees whose names the fashion insects could never remember, and Bob’s advice started to click. Eventually I discovered the most invisible guy in the place—the one that everyone in the office would see and interact with every day, but whose name they could not recall even if they had a gun to their heads: The UPS guy.
