Murdergram, Part 2

by Nisa Santiago

  “I’ll find her. I always do.”

  E.P. stepped closer, the gun still in his hand. It wasn’t a threat to her yet, being by his side, the muzzle pointed toward the floor. His eyes focused intently on her. “You’ve had this murdergram for a while now, and still no results. The Commission is becoming very uneasy with your performance.”

  “The Commission has no need to worry about anything. My earlier performances precede me. Haven’t I always fulfilled a contract?”

  “Reminder, you’re only as good as your last job. And you can always be replaced.”

  Tamar didn’t like what she was hearing from him.

  E.P. gazed at the body before him. Mitchell’s blood was soaking into the sheets, little by little dripping onto the parquet floor like a leaky faucet. It wouldn’t be long before the body went into rigor mortis. The man meant nothing to him; it was as easy to him as squashing a fly.

  For a moment, he veered off the subject. “Does he fuck you better than me?”

  Tamar smiled. “Nobody fucks me better than you.”

  He slowly turned his attention away from the body like he was some machine and looked at Tamar coldly. “I don’t want this happening again,” he said to her in a low monotone.

  “You serious? You don’t want me, but I can’t fuck anybody else?”

  “It interferes with your perception.”

  “Perception? I’m still a flesh-and-blood woman with needs.”

  “Needs? If this hit doesn’t get carried out, your needs are going to be the least of your problems.”

  She frowned. “You’re no fun anymore,” she said. E.P. was making her feel as if her life was in danger if she didn’t complete her murdergram.

  “Read the book, and kill this bitch.”

  E.P. pivoted on his clean-looking shoes and made his exit, leaving Tamar holding the bag. Now she had a body to dispose of, and she hadn’t even come yet.

  Seven

  Cristal sat at the famous Boston Cafe having a mocha latte and reading The New York Times. As usual, she had on huge dark shades and a black seaside sunhat with a flower pinned to its side pulled low over her brow to cover her features. She was discreet and quiet, enjoying the sunny day and cool moment.

  Boston was so different from New York. It felt like a town full of businesspeople during the day and college kids at night. One of the oldest and most historic cities in North America, it had a very European feel and tried to preserve all its history. Like New York, it was very densely packed and visitor-friendly, with great public transportation. The streets were winding with many dead ends and one-ways, not to mention hyper-aggressive drivers and reckless jaywalkers.

  The café was thin with customers and foot traffic in the late morning, it being a working day. Traffic on I-90 was flowing like a river stream.

  Sitting at the sidewalk café with its wrought-iron chairs and glass-top table, Cristal reflected on Daisy for a moment, retracing her steps in her head. She wanted to make sure she didn’t make any mistakes.

  ...

  After burying Daisy, she went back to the SoHo apartment and wiped it clean during the middle of the night. The Farm had taught her how to clean up a crime scene, leaving no prints or DNA. Plus, the fact that Daisy wasn’t murdered there meant no body, no crime.

  She had swept away any trace evidence, packed everything Daisy owned—clothes, shoes, and her identification and so on—and threw it into the trunk of her car. While going through the apartment, Cristal had stumbled upon a couple of credit cards and a loan application that Daisy had applied for in Melissa Chin’s name.

  Stupid bitch! Cristal said to herself.

  She wasn’t the brightest. Melissa Chin was denied because the renowned author didn’t actually exist. It was a pseudonym.

  Cristal shook her head at Daisy’s ignorance. She had become greedy. And if she wanted to spare Daisy’s life, it was possible—make her go back home to the Midwest maybe. But she had to kill her.

  Cristal knew that sooner or later, it would get back to the Commission that someone was exposing all their secrets via books, telling about the intense training on the Farm, the church, the individuals responsible for taking nobodies off the streets and converting them into trained assassins. Writing those books was one of many bad decisions that could cost Cristal her life yet again, but somehow writing those three novels helped her heal and deal with the tragedy.

  Cristal had lived in anonymity for a long while, being extra careful with the name Melissa Chin. As far as the world knew, Cristal was dead. She knew it would only be a matter of time before the Commission found Daisy. Thankfully, Daisy was dead.

  ...

  While Cristal sat in front of the commercial establishment, a FedEx truck pulled up on the block and parked. The driver, a tall, chubby black male, filled out his uniform completely. He whistled while carrying packages in and out of the businesses, his tan skin dripping with sweat as he lifted heavy boxes in the summer heat.

  Soon after his job delivering to everyone else was done, he casually walked Cristal’s way. “Excuse me,” he said softly. “Ms. Centaur?”

  Cristal looked up at the man and smiled weakly at him. Centaur, which meant half man, half horse in Greek mythology, was her code name from her new agency. She’d chosen that name because she felt like a hybrid—a cross between the woman she wanted to be—a wife and mother—and the woman she was—an assassin.

  “Yes?”

  “I have a package for you that I need you to sign for.”

  He passed her the envelope, and she quickly signed for it.

  He smiled. “Have a nice day.” He turned and went to his truck, leaving Cristal with her new murdergram.

  She didn’t open it in public. Instead, she shoved it down into her bag, mixing it with the other contents inside, and quietly finished drinking her latte. She headed home a half-hour later.

  ...

  Back in the comforts of her cozy apartment, Cristal closed her blinds and went into her bedroom. Before kicking off her heels and getting really comfortable, she tore open the package and tilted it over her bed. A 128-GB flash drive dropped from it. She pulled out her Mac computer, placed the flash drive into her USB port, and uploaded the information.

  With the stroke of the “Enter” key, a videogram came up. Cristal sat at the foot of her bed waiting for her information to come up. At first the video was represented with different-sized key frames packed in a visually pleasing form, reminiscent of a comic book. And then gradually the key frames came together into one image across her computer screen. The clip was scaled to fill the screen exactly. A man appeared on her 15-inch screen. His face and voice was distorted, but everything else around him was clear as day.

  In her videograms, there was always a man, an imposing figure seated behind a massive desk in a room decorated with deep, rich, solid wood, high-end artwork, and a lit pipe in a nearby ashtray in what appeared to be in a somewhat stylized environment. She had never seen his full face. She’d never met anyone from the agency she had joined. It was all indirect—her instructions, contracts, and missions. She felt like a character from Charlie’s Angels, but instead of being part of a private investigation firm, she was with an agency of some of the best contract killers around.

  “Hello, Centaur,” the distorted voice and warped image greeted. “Your assignment is Chinese diplomat, Chow Ling Tao.”

  Two clear split-screen images of Chow Ling Tao came up on her screen. The image on the left had Chow Ling Tao, dressed sharply in a dark, three-piece suit decorated with medals and military insignias, associating with some high officials at a formal event in the United States. The image on the right showed him fully clad in a ceremonial uniform—an open-neck coat with picked lapel and square laps, two lower insert pockets with flap, tooth-edges at collar edge, sleeve cuffs, and outseams on his trousers.

  Cristal listened carefully and seared the man’s image into her memory. The man continued informing Cristal about her target, who allegedly had bee
n stealing U.S. secrets for years. He was from a small town on the outskirts of Beijing. He had always been protected because of his rank, influence, and power. But he’d until he stopped selling his intel to the Chinese government and struck a deal with the Russians. Now China had hired Cristal’s agency to dispose of the problem.

  “You have one week to complete this task,” was all the man said.

  When the videogram footage ran out, it was programmed to automatically erase itself. Cristal had already memorized everything. The information she received was adequate. He would be in New York in a few days to attend a charity event at the Lincoln Center, where she planned on taking him out.

  With a new target to assassinate, Cristal immediately started making arrangements to travel back to New York. It was always a risk being so close to her old home, knowing that old foes still existed and that there were places in the city that could trigger her crippling panic attacks.

  But she never failed to fulfill a contract. She was considered one of the best, and with no life, no family, she was dedicated to completing each job.

  What would be her ruse while in New York? What name would she go by? Would she fly or take the train?

  She immediately disposed of anything connecting her to the agency the proper way—burning it.

  Afterwards, she undressed and donned a long, comfortable T-shirt, popped a few small pills into her mouth, and made herself a quick cocktail to relax her as the hot day progressively moved into a balmy evening.

  She pushed opened the French doors from the master bedroom suite to a balcony. Barefoot, Cristal stepped onto the balcony and took in a picturesque view of a sprawling Boston from her eighth-floor apartment. There was a large billboard situated on a slant to the east of her home, soaring into the sky, perfectly placed to block the sun’s rays. The newest advertisement pictured a kindly old woman, enthusiastically spreading honey on her new fat-free pancakes. Deep-slit wrinkles marked the corner of her mouth down to her chin, and she looked like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Past the billboard was a stunning view of Charles River Basin and the beautiful skyline of Boston.

  She took a seat in the three-piece loveseat cushion set. The sky was a vast blue, clear and looked so peaceful.

  Her new agency, GHOST Protocol (Gather Humans Only to Slaughter Them) was a rival to her old one, the Commission. It was an eerie acronym, but the company had been very beneficial to her. She had gotten rich off other people’s miseries, and murders. However, money wasn’t everything; revenge was sweeter.

  GHOST Protocol had a lot of similarities with the Commission, but there were differences. She was allowed to have a family, but at her own risk. If a husband, kids, mother, sister, uncle, or whoever found out what she did for a living, and if the agency’s cover was exposed, then it was instant death for them. No matter who it was.

  Another benefit of being with GHOST Protocol was the money. Her services didn’t come cheap. It was a good feeling that she was actually able to spend her blood money without any restrictions, unlike working for the Commission. It was directly deposited into a secured account twenty-four hours after the hit. There was no more waiting until she was twenty-five years old to age out. Aging out didn’t exist in her new agency. She was able to retire whenever, so they said, with no strings attached.

  Nine months after she was left for dead in New York, GHOST Protocol found her. She had been tucked away in witness protection while the government built a phantom case against drug kingpins connected to the dead hit men Tamar killed right after slaughtering her entire family.

  Cristal was just biding her time under the government’s protection. She was deemed important. She was a miracle, lucky to survive the gruesome hit on her and her family. She needed rehabilitation and a safe haven to get her mind right.

  Via the Internet, she was able to locate a hub in D.C. for GHOST Protocol disguised as a mom-and-pop shop type of organization that sold office supplies. She was vetted, recruited, and given a low-key identity, and had been working for them ever since.

  Her new home didn’t share her existence with any competing agencies, and as far as the Commission was concerned, she had died on her grandmother’s floor a few years back with two bullets in her head.

  Eight

  Suspect running north on Commonwealth Avenue,” Sharon shouted into her police radio as she chased a dangerous robbery suspect through the Bronx in the peak of the late-evening rush hour.

  She ran at full speed, her eyes fixed on the man’s tattooed back. He was clad in a wife-beater and cargo shorts. He was tall and thin, but fast. Her arms rapidly went up and down, and her legs moved like a track star’s as she breathed hard and sweated profusely in the hot sun, swiftly moving and dodging the people in her way on the sidewalk. She was determined to catch the suspect, Richard Jefferson, who had a warrant out for his arrest for robbery, attempted murder, and assault. He had been a menace to society since he was a young teen, and now, in his late twenties, he showed no signs of slowing down.

  The NYPD wanted Richard Jefferson badly. His picture had been posted on the walls and shown during roll call in the local NYPD precincts. His latest crime was robbing a seventy-year-old grandmother at gunpoint as she entered the lobby of her building after 10 p.m. He brutally pistol-whipped her and stole a measly thirty dollars from her purse, and she was now in critical condition at Jacobi Medical Center.

  While riding with her partner, Brian Mauldin, they came across Richard as he was exiting a corner bodega. Sharon instantly recognized him from the photos posted of him. Brian pulled their unmarked car to the curb. She quickly opened the passenger door with her eyes fixed on their suspect. She was about twenty feet from him when she asked for identification. Richard abruptly turned and ran north on Commonwealth Avenue, and she didn’t hesitate to chase after him, her partner trying to pursue in the car.

  Sharon was right behind him, not giving up. It was her second foot pursuit since joining the force.

  Richard made a hard left on the next corner, rounding the corner perfectly and sprinting like he was Usain Bolt. He didn’t falter once. He didn’t anticipate Sharon being just as fast. She yelled multiple times for him to stop as he crossed Randall Avenue. He ran into traffic and barely missed getting hit by a box truck.

  He continued running. He rolled under a four-foot chain-link fence between two parking lots, and then went across another busy street, doing jumps and zigzagging in his bid to escape.

  Sharon was in great shape, though. Where he went, she chased with conviction. Backup hadn’t arrived yet, leaving her alone with a dangerous, and possibly armed, suspect. Her adrenaline was running. Dodging traffic with her sidearm in hand, she was ready for a quick takedown. She put a little more pep into her long strides.

  Looming ahead of them both was Soundview Houses. Soundview was a decent-size area, lots of apartments, lots of places for Richard to run and hide. She knew that once her suspect entered into the projects, there was no telling where he could hide.

  “Stop!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.

  He refused to stop.

  It would have been easy to shoot, disabling him, but the outcome of another black male being shot, especially in the back, and unarmed, would create a big outcry from the public, and the incident wouldn’t look good going into her jacket. So she was about to do things the hard way.

  Richard leaped over the small wrought-iron fence leading into the projects. He cut right, and as he did so, he stumbled a little, but never lost his footing. Sharon followed him, leaping too and not stumbling. She was shortening the distance between them. The chase caught attention, and people stood by, transfixed at the action.

  Richard sprinted across an open grassy field, and when he looked over his shoulder, he saw Sharon gaining on him. He bolted through a small playground, and without looking, smashed into a parent and small child in a head-on collision, tumbling over them and falling face-first into the sand.

  The mother and son shrieked.

  For
a second, Richard was dazed, but he quickly came to. Seeing his arrest becoming imminent, out came the four-inch folding knife, the handle gripped in his hand. The wild look in his eyes told Sharon he was about to do something really stupid.

  She hurried their way. The child and mother were within his hazardous reach. “Don’t do it!” she shouted.

  Richard lunged for the boy, ready to take him hostage. His mother was ten feet away, her eyes wide with fear for her three-year-old son.

  “No! No! Leave my son alone!” she screamed.

  As Richard charged for the young boy, Sharon raised her sidearm and aimed. It was all happening too fast. She saw the boy’s life in danger. Richard was a known felon, violent, unpredictable, and once he had that little boy gripped in his arms, there was no telling what he might do.

  Police sirens could be heard blaring in the distance. Help was coming fast. But there was no time to wait for help. She had to make a choice. So before Richard fully could grasp the young boy, she planted her feet in the dirt with her arms outstretched, her sidearm steady in her grip and fired.

  Boom!

  Richard jerked backwards and spun, the bullet ripping through the right side of his chest. He fell over and landed on his side.

  Was he dead or alive? She didn’t know. She ran over, her gun still drawn and glared at the suspect. Quickly, the mother ran to her child and snatched him up into her comforting arms, her face awash with tears and relief at the same time.

  Richard Jefferson was dead.

  It was Sharon’s first police shooting. Her heart was beating so fast, it felt like it was about to jump out of her chest.

  Seconds later half a dozen uniformed police officers converged on the projects with their guns drawn. Sharon was standing over the suspect, knowing this incident had thrust her into a whirlwind of craziness.

  There was an on-scene investigation.

  The most critical investigation in any law enforcement agency is that of an officer-involved shooting. Shootings like the one Sharon had experienced brought media attention, citizen inquiries, liability issues, and, if handled incorrectly, irreparable damage to the department’s reputation.