Gabriel: Only one gets out alive.

by mike Evans

  He checked his watch out of habit, knowing that he wasn’t running late, but he didn’t have time to waste. He left the van running, got out, slid the large door open, and grabbed the long toolbox that held the “masterpiece to his Picasso”. He peered around the lot, pretending to be fumbling with items in his van. He knew his outs if he wasn’t able to take the van with him and hated the idea of leaving on foot. Having a federal building across the street just means it would be like flies on shit in a matter of moments; that made being up so many flights an unappealing thing.

  He grabbed the heavy toolbox and walked up to the two rear doors and punched the buzzer. He painted an expression over his face that said he couldn’t give two shits if he did this job or not since there would be a long list of them yet to follow. A young man, probably no more than twenty-one, opened the door holding a clipboard filled with the day’s expected appointments. It was not going to have Gabriel’s repair on it. He stared at Gabriel, trying to remember the practiced line that he was in charge of saying. By the look on the young man’s face, Gabriel thought there was a good chance he was not operating at a full mental capacity right now. The young man finally stammered, “What are you here to fix today?”

  Gabriel tapped on his chest with one finger, putting on the thick accent. “Elevator.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  Gabriel rolled his eyes and shrugged. He laid on the accent pretty thick and said, “Look, my English is no great. My boss said to come to the Taylor Hotel. This is Taylor Hotel, yes?”

  The kid nodded. “Yes, you have the right hotel.”

  “My boss say ‘stop, fix real quick… in and out, then you go home’. I cannot go home until you let me in so I can fix what needs fixed.”

  The kid looked up and down the list. “I don’t see you anywhere on this, like at all.”

  Gabriel shrugged, really laying down how little he cared. “When did you print list?”

  The kid looked at it and said out loud without meaning to, “Oh hell. Well, this damn thing was printed at six in the fucking morning. How the hell do they expect us to keep track of you guys coming and going all damn day if we don’t even know that you're coming? I mean, how hard is it to print it more than once, or to update it? They want to keep the place safe, but they don’t want to put any effort into it.”

  Gabriel nodded, acting like he didn’t know it was a rhetorical question. “I do not know this answer? Maybe not hard to do? I am not so good with computer. It is why I fix elevator.”

  The kid nodded slowly and then laughed, realizing that the man didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to actually answer. Gabriel looked at his watch and then back up, smiling. “Seems like you work for a urod.”

  The kid snapped his head up. “A what?”

  Gabriel held up his hand in apology, waving it up and down. “I slipped, sorry, uh… how do you say… moron…? Yes. You work for a moron… a real, uh, dipping shit.”

  The kid got a momentary look of anger on his face and then laughed, realizing how exactly right the foreign man was. “Yeah, you know, that is a pretty accurate description.”

  The kid pushed the door fully open for Gabriel, motioning him in and looking around the parking lot. When Gabriel didn’t move, he motioned him through with his hand. “There is a maintenance stairwell you can use. I assume if the elevators are acting up, you don't want to take them, right?”

  Gabriel nodded his head. “Well, it wouldn’t get fixed anytime soon if I got stuck in the elevator, would it?”

  The kid held out a clipboard and a visitor badge. Gabriel set the toolbox down on a table and took the clipboard, scribbling a messy signature on the board that said John F Kennedy. He left grease stains on it when handing it back to the man. Later when they tried to look at the clipboard to get prints, they would pull perfect ones that had been bought in the best shop in Tokyo to a man that no one knew, because he didn’t exist. Gabriel confirmed the direction that the man had pointed in and headed that way after seeing him nod. He could hear the kid repeating urod in the background and was confident someone was going to be hearing that from him someday without being be privy to the meaning.

  He squeezed past other workers as he made his way to the back where the kid had pointed. He thought about the spacious entryways that all hotels had and the lavish rooms with vaulted ceilings and how it was all elegance and beauty until you were forced to go to the back of the hotel, where everything that was in there had a purpose and a duty. He knew that if it didn’t belong there, it wouldn’t have been put in place because they needed to be as efficient as possible.

  When a few employees tried to speak to Gabriel, he mumbled sentences in Russian, knowing that there was a slim chance anyone was going to be replying back to him. He could tell from their own accents that they probably spoke a tongue that was not native to this land as well. But from his time abroad, he was knew they were speaking Bosnian. Most employees didn't try very hard to speak to him because the only thing that the employees hated worse than the guests that stayed here were the workers from outside companies that came into their building and didn’t know their language.

  Gabriel thought about the steps and realized that sometimes the elevator gig was not the greatest idea, knowing that he was going to be climbing up fifteen flights of stairs, which wasn’t something that excited him. He took the steps two at a time, his long legs making short work of them. He knew that he could run the damn things with the heavy toolbox and still not be out of breath by the time he made it up the steps. But he also knew that if someone saw a man over six feet tall, dirty and greasy, and running with a toolbox and an elevator repair sign on his back, it might make guests and employees more than just a little nervous. He did enjoy jobs where people would ask him if he thought that it was safe to ride it up and down. He would smile and say, “Well, yes, you can, but I think you’ll live longer if you take the stairs or take elevator on other side of building.”

  Gabriel enjoyed using that line the most. The awkward smiles of nervousness that he got back were the best, almost priceless. He made it to the flight that he required to complete his job. He put his ear to the door, listening for a moment, trying to make sure there was no one in the hallway. The more people that he was able to avoid the better. Gabriel opened the door slowly, looking both ways. He knew there would be no intelligent reason why an elevator repairman would be walking up and down the halls of the hotel.

  Gabriel made it to the room he wanted to use. He had a total of five that he knew would work if this one ended up being occupied. He kept an eye on the hall, and when he was sure no one was coming, he slid in a key card that had a ribbon coming out of it. This was connected to a smart phone that started a software program and went through millions of algorithms in an extremely short amount of time. The red light on the door stayed red for a moment until it switched to green and the door’s lock clicked, allowing Gabriel into the room.

  Gabriel quickly put the toolbox down and, from his overall’s pocket, pulled a plastic zip tie like officers and DEA agents used to secure people instead of metal handcuffs. He stretched as far as he could, putting it around the door’s mechanism that kept it from slamming. He pulled the zip tie shut tight, ensuring no one would be able to open the door unless they removed it with a battering ram or a bomb to completely remove it from its frame.

  Gabriel tried the handle to make sure it wasn’t able to budge. He nodded, reassured that he would have all the privacy he required until he removed it. Gabriel moved through the suite, making sure there was no cleaning lady bent over a toilet with an iPod, missing all of the excitement and oblivious to the fact that he was there. After clearing the place, he was reassured that no one else was in the room with him and he returned to his toolbox. He opened the rusty lid and pulled out a long shelf of tools to reveal a much deeper, longer space beneath. He looked inside, admiring a rifle broken down into three pieces, as well as a high-powered scope. They were all fit into a perfectly cut, molded foam
piece.

  Gabriel checked his watch, thinking of the man and knowing that he was going to be needing that smoke in a half hour or less. He removed a suction cup from the toolbox and attached it to the south window in the room. He screwed a metal diamond-edged glasscutter to the center of the suction cup’s handle. Gabriel took it around the edge of the glass. The only thing currently able to break his concentration was the sound of glass on glass being cut. He was not a fan of the sound and couldn’t think for the life of him who would be. When he made his way all the way around, he was rewarded with not having to hear the noise anymore. He set the glass, still attached to the suction cup, on the bed.

  Gabriel pulled the three pieces of the rifle out, connecting the barrel to the upper and lower and connected the stock of the rifle to the receiver. He slid the scope into place and locked it. He then slid the last two things that he needed into place: a bi-pod and a full magazine. He pulled back the charging handle and set it down on the ground. He opened the blinds a little more than a foot, leaving the room almost completely engulfed in black. He used the two books, which were guaranteed to be in the room, on each side to keep the blinds from flapping in the wind from the freshly cut hole. He placed the Bible on one and the phone book on the other. Gabriel walked to the other end of the room and lay down in a practiced shooter’s position. He adjusted the rifle until it was a part of him and got into a position that he knew, come hell or high water, he would not move from until he had accomplished his job.

  Gabriel adjusted his scope until he could read the words on the building a half-mile away that read “Dispose of your butts”. He checked his watch one last time, knowing he had only minutes before the job would be completed. He sat patiently until his alarm went off; when it did, he pressed it, set it aside, and watched his mark come out onto the stone patio a few minutes later. The man was in a polo shirt that looked like he’d been wearing it for a few days and a pair of jeans. He was handed a cigarette from one of the two guards accompanying him, both dressed in identical black suits. The man lit the much-needed smoke, pulled hard on it, and let out a long, steady stream of smoke.

  Gabriel smiled, knowing it would be the last drag he took unless heaven allowed it. He zeroed in, seeing his shot, and sent his bullet the half-mile between the hotel and the federal building down the street. It took the bullet just over a second from the time the report echoed to make its way to where Gabriel had it aimed. The .308 round punched into the man standing on the balcony. Gabriel never lifted his eye from the scope.

  He stared at the man, knowing that he didn’t miss. But then he didn’t ever miss. Gabriel shot true and straight and he never questioned his aim. He expected to paint the wall behind the man red with his own insides. He thought he would see the concrete behind him explode as the bullet tore through the mark. Instead of this happening, he simply stumbled backwards against the wall.

  Gabriel smiled, thinking of the price he’d charged, and felt even less bad now about the fact that he’d raised it so high. He was thinking of letting the person know that this had officially become a huge pain in his ass. He blamed the FBI but wasn’t sure why. He couldn’t blame someone if they knew they had a price on their head and did nothing to at least try and keep the inevitable from happening. The fact that the bullet did not go through the man’s body armor did little about the force that it came at him with. It had nowhere to go with the vest in the way, and the power with which it punched him was incredible. It didn’t knock the man on his ass, but it was close.

  Gabriel thought of the rifle in his hands and wished it were a fifty-caliber rifle instead. If that were the case, the kinetic energy from the gun would have still torn the man in half. Unfortunately, a fifty-caliber rifle would never have fit into the rusty metal toolbox. He knew if he carried anything much bigger than that, he was going to look ridiculous and start to draw attention that he didn’t need.

  The two FBI agents that were standing on the balcony with him immediately drew their pistols, which at a half of a mile, could have been slingshots for all the good they would have done them. Gabriel looked through the concrete railing that made up the balcony. The man he’d shot lay on the ground and, while not dying, he was most definitely writhing in pain. He had his hands clutched to his chest, holding the spot where the bullet had collided with him. He shifted his focus to the two men dressed in black suits. They were listening and screaming into their wrists. Gabriel focused on the man, and when he tried to sit up, one of the two men jumped on top of him, knocking him back to the ground.

  Gabriel got the man’s head in his cross hairs, thinking it unfortunate that the agent protecting his assignment wouldn’t be returning home. Gabriel did not like to take out those that he wasn’t being paid to kill, but if someone was in the way, then it was a risk that person took by taking the job. He squeezed the rifle’s trigger, knowing there would already be men in the area looking for the shooter.

  He was confident that pulling the trigger a second time was as good as calling them and giving them directions to where he was. The second bullet cut through the air above the unsuspecting onlookers twenty floors below. They were staring around in confusion at the gunfire taking place. The bullet sped with an unforgiving force towards its destination. When the bullet got near the end of its path, it tore through the side of the mark’s skull. The unfortunate agent was even worse. He was at such an angle that it went through his jaw and out of the top of his skull. The man’s face exploded; his teeth, looking like small white mints glimmering in the midday sun, flew everywhere. His skull was mangled and the two men’s blood and brain matter painted the last man standing, leaving a silhouette of blood and gore on the back of the wall.

  After the second shot, the remaining protection agent was stunned, staring in shock for a moment as he looked at his assignment and partner sprawled across the ground in a bloody entanglement. He grabbed a pair of binoculars from a case left on the roof and immediately began scanning across the street from behind a pillar that he thought was sufficient cover. Within a moment, he was staring directly at Gabriel’s hole in the window. He adjusted the optics until the focus was crystal clear and he was sure about what he was seeing. The agent reached his wrist up to his mouth, and as he was about to speak, the left binocular shattered; the third and final bullet blasted through his eye, into his skull, and this time decimated the brick wall behind him. The man’s head snapped backwards and his knees and the rest of his body went limp beneath him.

  Gabriel scanned the rest of the buildings top and front, guaranteeing there were no riflescopes being trained on him. He did not check the mark a last time because he knew without question that the man would be attending no courtrooms. The chances of him testifying anytime soon were nonexistent. Gabriel never felt bad for the marks, because it wasn’t the way he operated. He knew in this case that if the mark would have just kept his mouth shut the now-deceased William Belyeu could have had a lucrative and long career as a talented CPA for one of the largest independently owned corporations in America.

  Gabriel had done his normal investigating, taking a quick look to see who actually hired him. Gabriel was told that his website that had jobs listed was impenetrable, but that was only true for the average computer user. In Gabriel's line of work, the intel was almost as important as the hit itself. He found that the man who had hired out the job was Ted Nulty, one of the most powerful men in America. He owned the company and was its president. There was no board; he did not want or need help running his own company. Nulty was in his seventies and still going strong. He had been avoiding the FBI for years, as no one on the inside was stupid enough to give up federal incriminating evidence on him and his company.

  From what his reports said about the man, Ted Nulty was a ruthless man who took nothing for granted. He had grown up with nothing, making his fortune the old-fashioned way. When he had heard about a CPA that was about to turn evidence on him, Gabriel figured that was when he put out a hit on Mr. William Belyeu. Gabriel knew t
hat Ted hadn’t worked seventy hours a week for decades just to lose his empire and have nothing to pass on to his family when he was gone.

  Worried what might happen to him if his recorded deposition was on file, William remained tight lipped about what he knew until his trial. Unfortunately for William, Ted knew this as well. Ted also knew that he was the only man that had anything on him and therefore was the only one that could do any harm to himself or his business. This left little question as to what it was worth to the billionaire to get rid of the man. Gabriel had wiretapped Ted’s phones as well as William’s, he always did to gain the insider information he needed. On the first day of getting intel, what did Ted do? He called William and advised him that he was going to kill him; he promised the CPA he would be dead by his hand or the hand of a professional. The FBI poured into the man’s home, scooped him up, and took him into protective custody.

  Gabriel cursed Ted Nulty, again, for how things had played out… just because he couldn't keep his mouth shut for a few weeks. No, he needed to put the fear of God in the mark. Gabriel, of course, because of this blatant disrespect was now staring through a riflescope, seeing a plethora of blood painting the once beautiful building. Agents were lying dead and he saw something he didn’t see very often: a dead man whose face had been blown off and smoke from his cigarette finally finding its way back out of the body.

  Gabriel was very well aware that time was of the utmost importance. He would waste no more of it worrying about the men on the other side and if any were reporting his shooter’s nest location. He pushed up to his knees and crouched over his rifle. Gabriel broke it back down to its original four pieces. He had practiced this act so many times, he could do it in his sleep. The muscle memory took over and he sat back, watching everything work. Gabriel smiled at the speed with which he worked when put in a life and death situation such as this. If he didn't leave, he was no longer going to have a life. He rearranged everything quickly in the toolbox. He had a voice in the back of his head, motivating him to move at the fastest speed he could—the voice screaming, If you do not get out of here, you are going to be shot. If you do not get out of here, they are going to catch you, torture you, and peel your skin back until you finally die.