Raymond Benson

by Hitman: Damnation

  As soon as I reached the top, one of Greenhill’s guards rushed past. I swiftly pointed my gun at him, but he kept on running to the south. He was probably intent on finding Wilkins and missed seeing me altogether. I figured he was headed in the right direction, so I followed him. I darted to the corner and looked west. About eight feet away, the same guard was aiming a Browning 9mm at me! He must have heard me after all.

  I dropped to the floor as he fired. The bullet sliced the dusty air above me. In less than a second, I aimed the Silverballer at him with both hands by supporting my elbows on the floor. My two rounds struck the chest and head. Double tap.

  On my feet again, I navigated toward the T-intersection to see if Wilkins was in what was left of his office. The air was the worst that close to the blast point. The long corridor was full of even thicker smoke and dust. All that expensive artwork that lined the hallway—ruined. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t much left of the south wall of the mansion, and Wilkins’s office was completely destroyed. There was absolutely no way a human being could have survived there.

  I turned back, reached the T-intersection, and ran into—

  Helen and Wilkins. Together.

  They appeared frightened. In shock. They seemed disoriented and were coughing a lot but were otherwise unharmed.

  I should have raised the Silverballer and fired right then and there. But Helen was standing next to him and was staring at me as if she were looking at a monster. I have to admit that seeing her threw me. I hesitated.

  Wilkins pointed at me and shouted, “There he is, Helen! The one I told you about! He’s responsible for this! Agent 47! He’s a hired assassin from the government!”

  I held out my left hand. “Come with me, Helen, I’ll get you out of here.”

  Tears were in her eyes.

  “Is it true?” she asked.

  “Come on, Helen, there isn’t time. You have to get out of here.”

  She shook her head. “The inspector in Cyprus just confirmed who you are. The bellhop you left tied up in a room identified you from photos. Stan, is it true?”

  I saw two guards, way in back of her at the end of the hallway, running toward us. Guns drawn. With my left hand, I instinctually moved in and grabbed her by the wrist—one she had once taken a razor blade to—and pulled her toward me. I raised the Silverballer while forcing her down at my side. Two shots. The guards fell.

  I guess that answered her question.

  She cried out as if I’d stabbed her in the heart.

  Actually, I guess I had done that.

  Never mind. Wilkins had already taken off down the hall to the east. Helen wriggled out of my grip and ran west. Both directions led to exits on those sides of the house. Confident that Helen would make it to safety on her own, I chose to run after Wilkins.

  The atmosphere was so different outside it was like strapping on an oxygen mask and breathing sweet, fresh air from a tank. Still, I didn’t rush out the door without stopping first to see what was waiting for me out there. Sure enough, two more guards were headed my way. I went down on one knee, held the grip with both hands, and fired twice. The guards fell.

  I ran out onto the grass.

  Wilkins had already made it down to the gate. Helen had crossed from the east side of the mansion to the front and would reach the gate in a few seconds. But I was forced to abort the mission. There was no way I could follow them into the compound. It seemed that the entire population of Greenhill was on the other side of the fence. And a couple of dozen armed men were charging out of the barn. But I knew who they really were.

  The New Model Army. And Cromwell was there, commanding them to kill me.

  So I ran toward the lake. I’d survived in cold water before.

  I could do it again.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  When he jumped into the frigid water, Agent 47 quickly tucked the Silverballer into the waist of his trousers and swam. He swam, knowing his life depended on it. The men on the shore were looking for him, but it was too dark on the water for them to see the escaping figure. He figured they didn’t have a spotlight on hand to shine on the surface, or they would have.

  It took nearly a half hour to reach a small island in the eastern half of the lake. It was uninhabited. Nothing but trees and rocks. By then the police and fire-department personnel were swarming over Greenhill. 47 could see the lights and hear the sirens, so he still felt too close to the compound for comfort. It wouldn’t be long before they sent out boats to look for him. The roads around the shore would be monitored. He was a wanted man. He had tried to kill a presidential candidate.

  Badly needing a rest but refusing one, the hitman walked to the eastern side of the island. The opposite shore appeared to be approximately three hundred feet away. He could swim that, no problem, so he did. The assassin hated getting back in the cold water, but what was he going to do when he emerged?

  It wasn’t as difficult as the first lap. He made it to the bank in five minutes and climbed up. Nothing but dense woods all around. 47 knew that County Road 658 was a couple of miles to the east, through the forest. If he just headed in a straight line, eventually he would hit it. He would worry about what to do next when he got there.

  The woods were dark and thick with rough terrain. Several times he thought he heard animals. There were bears and other predators in the forest, and he didn’t particularly want to meet any of them. The Silverballer was wet and most likely useless until he had the time to take it apart, dry it out, and clean it. He had faced dangers in his career worse than bears, but it wasn’t something he wanted on his résumé.

  47 had a good sense of direction. Others would have easily become lost. Whenever trees blocked his path, he went around them but was careful to return to the line he’d been following. After a while he felt an extreme chill. His clothes hadn’t dried yet. What he wouldn’t give for a cup of hot coffee at that moment.

  He trudged on. It wasn’t easy but necessary to avoid hypothermia.

  It was nearly morning when he finally reached the road. His watch told him it was 5:22. He felt as if three days had gone by since he sat across the dinner table from Helen. Hard to believe that was only the previous evening.

  County Road 658, also called Brent Point Road, was a lonely north–south two-laner that wound through the forest, up and down slopes, and connected nothing to nowhere. 47 chose to walk north. At least the going was painless. He was hungry and thirsty but he was in one piece.

  The sun rose and the temperature increased slightly. His clothes finally dried, but they were stiff and felt like sheets of ice on his skin. He had been walking for more than an hour when he reached a fork in the road. County Road 658 continued north. Quarry Road jutted off southwest, toward Greenhill. Best not go that way. 47 stayed on 658.

  There were a few houses along the highway there. Nice, expensive homes. The hitman considered picking one, knocking on the door, and forcing the occupants to feed him and give him an automobile. But that was something a desperate man would do. A hardened criminal. 47 wasn’t a criminal.

  Yeah, right.

  Brent Point Road dead-ended at east–west Decatur Road, and it was there that a Virginia State Police car slowly rounded the T-intersection. A silver Dodge Charger. The driver noticed 47 across the street on 658 and slowed even more.

  This didn’t worry the hitman. He saw it as an opportunity.

  The vehicle stopped. The red and blue lights flashed and twirled. The patrolman got out of his car, drew his weapon, and leaned over the hood.

  “Stop right there! Hands up where I can see them!”

  Agent 47 did as he was told.

  “Now cross the street. Slowly. Keep your hands in the air!”

  The hitman walked across the road and stood on the other side of the car.

  “Hands on top. Now!”

  Agent 47 looked around the intersection. No pedestrians. No other cars. No witnesses. He put his hands on the patrol car as instructed.

  The state t
rooper moved around the front of the vehicle, his gun still pointed at the killer. “Where’s your ID, sir? What pocket do you keep it in?”

  “Right front,” 47 answered. He could tell the guy was nervous. Good.

  “I’m going to frisk you. Then I’m going to reach into your pocket and get your ID. Don’t move. Backup is on the way.”

  The hitman knew that was a lie. He had watched the officer from the road. The man never picked up his radio. He hadn’t had time to call for backup.

  The trooper stepped behind 47 and then found himself in a predicament. In order to frisk the suspect, he’d need both hands. If he holstered his weapon, he’d be vulnerable.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered again.

  47 found it incomprehensible that the patrolman actually believed his suspect would obey the command. He could have easily disarmed the cop, but the assassin decided to make it simple. The officer did indeed holster the handgun and reach under the hitman’s armpits to begin the search. 47 swiftly removed his hands from the car, snatched the man’s wrists, and simultaneously delivered a back kick to the officer’s right kneecap.

  The policeman screamed in agony.

  The hitman turned and slugged the trooper hard in the jaw, shutting up his temporarily disabled victim. He then quickly went around the car to the driver’s side and opened the latch to the trunk. 47 sprinted back to the unconscious man, picked him up, laid him inside, and shut the lid.

  It was a long drive ahead. 47 didn’t want any interruptions.

  He got in the driver’s seat, turned off the flashing lights, and took off north on Decatur. The cop’s radio sputtered with bulletins from headquarters. Every few minutes, the operator said, “Be on the lookout for a white male, between six and seven feet tall, bald head, good physical shape. Armed and dangerous. Wanted in connection with terrorist attack at Greenhill Church of Will compound.” Along the way, several cars passed him going the opposite way. 47 looked over and saw the officer’s hat on the passenger seat. He grabbed it and put it on. It was a fortuitous act, for a minute later another state police car passed him on the road. The driver waved as he went by. 47 returned the greeting.

  He took a left on County Road 611, eventually hit Jefferson Davis Highway 1, and then merged onto the interstate toward Washington.

  Agent 47 lay in bed in a hotel room at the River Inn on 25th Street NW in Washington, D.C. The room-service meal of a medium-rare steak, potatoes, and steamed vegetables wasn’t as good as he’d hoped, but it was satisfying.

  It had been a grueling twenty-four hours. He had driven to the Baltimore/Washington Airport to pick up his briefcase from the locker and fresh clothes from an Agency drop point. He ditched the Virginia State Police cruiser in the long-term parking lot and then rented another car. By the time he’d checked into the hotel, it was the evening of the day following his dinner date with Helen.

  47 wondered what she was doing. He was certain that she hated him.

  He was happy that she was alive, but it didn’t matter. The job came first.

  He switched on the television to watch the news.

  His handiwork was on every channel. The attack on the Greenhill mansion had made international news. Charlie Wilkins had escaped injury. Nine deaths were reported, apparently all security men. The FBI was called in to investigate. Wilkins held a press conference that afternoon and accused President Burdett’s government of sending an assassin to Greenhill to kill the one presidential candidate who would “lead the country to greater glory.” He blamed the failed attempt on the CIA. A fairly accurate police sketch of 47 circulated around the globe. Protests by masses of ordinary citizens occurred across the country. Cries for civil war were louder than President Burdett’s appeals for calm and denials of involvement.

  It was a volatile situation.

  There had been no mention in the news reports about the dozens of armed men that had emerged from the barn. 47 suspected that they had left the premises before the police and FBI arrived. Cromwell was most likely in hiding or traveling with his men. And yet the New Model Army struck in retaliation just hours before the hitman checked in to the hotel. The group had attacked CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, in a bold maneuver that left eleven federal agents dead. The NMA lost three men, then retreated into the forest and vanished before government reinforcements could arrive.

  Agent 47 was now wise to Wilkins. It was all very clear now.

  The reverend was obviously in cahoots with Cromwell, the man who was once Darren Shipley. Wilkins had known both Darren and Dana when the Shipleys were young and had forged an unbreakable bond with them. Considering that the children had grown up in the communelike atmosphere of the early Church of Will, they would have been extremely susceptible to his influence. If it was true that their mother had been involved with the man, then that relationship would have been potent. 47 wouldn’t have been surprised if Wilkins was the twins’ real father. Whatever the case, Wilkins had definitely used the twins for his own means.

  By her own admission, Dana had been pushed by the reverend to run for public office, to advance the America First Party and put forward a public face besides his own to indoctrinate the people.

  The New Model Army was also Wilkins’s tool. Although he claimed not to have any connection to it, it was he who was really commander-in-chief. Darren Shipley—Cromwell—simply followed orders and was fueled by a mad desire to get back at the America he thought betrayed him.

  Wilkins wanted to change the United States to fit his own ideals. Being a beloved celebrity, television personality, fast-food restaurateur, and leader of the Church of Will wasn’t enough. He had to be president and saturate Congress with the America First Party, and the election was only six days away. If he succeeded, then a true revolution could take place in the United States. Laws the party didn’t like would be changed or overturned, and new legislation would be enacted. It was an all-too-familiar scenario, one that had taken place over and over around the world throughout history. Although the American population didn’t realize it, they were about to elect a Fascist to office. All it would take was one more incendiary incident to assure Wilkins’s victory.

  Agent 47 was pretty sure he knew when that event would take place. In two days, Wilkins was holding a massive rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.; he wanted volunteers from the Church to ride there on school buses and protest the current administration. Helen would be attending.

  The bigger question was: What would that incident be?

  The hitman checked his messages and saw that the Agency had tried several times to reach him. He figured he should return the call and get it over with. It wasn’t going to be pretty.

  It took an unusually long time to be patched through to Jade, for codes had been changed and security firewalls had been strengthened. Only operatives at 47’s level knew how to bypass them—it was just more complicated.

  “It’s nice to hear that you’re alive,” she said. “Where are you?”

  “D.C.”

  “Benjamin wants to speak to you. Hold on.”

  After a few seconds, Travis got on the line. “What the hell happened, 47? What the hell did you do?”

  “I blew up part of the target’s mansion. Unfortunately, the target wasn’t in the right place at the time.”

  “You do realize the mission is a disaster? The client has walked away. He hasn’t paid the next installment and I doubt we’ll hear from him. We’ll probably be forced to give back most of the fee to prevent him from exposing the ICA. And it’s your fucking fault! Hell, we could have found out who he is if you hadn’t blown it.”

  Agent 47 bristled but kept his temper under control. “What do you mean?”

  “Our encryption experts finally traced his last call to the Agency. It came from Greenhill. The client was at Greenhill all along.”

  That’s when it made perfect sense to the hitman. The pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

  “Travis. I know who the client is.”
/>   “You do? Who?”

  “The good reverend himself, Charlie Wilkins.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “He’s the only person at Greenhill who had the clout and means to reach the Agency. He ordered the hit on Dana Linder to advance his own position and put him in place to be president. Then he ordered the hit on himself.”

  “On himself? Are you crazy?”

  “Listen. His plan was to catch me in the act before the hit was carried out. That was why we had to wait for the green light. He wanted to kill me before I killed him, and then he could blame the current administration and the CIA for the assassination attempt too, right on the heels of killing Linder. It would give him even more sympathy and support from the American public and increase his chances of becoming president. Calling the hit on himself would also clear him of suspicion for the assassination of Linder, in case it was ever traced back to us. That phony colonel, Bruce Ashton, tried to kill me first against Wilkins’s orders. When that didn’t work, Wilkins gave you the go-ahead for me to hit him, and Cromwell and his New Model Army were supposed to stop me. They failed. Now he’s running scared and is planning some kind of catastrophe four days before the election. At a campaign rally in D.C.”

  Travis was silent on the other end.

  “Well, Travis?”

  “This is completely mad, 47.”

  “Charlie Wilkins is mad. And I intend to carry out the hit. I’m going to finish the job I started.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  A day passed.

  I rested. I trained. I returned to the land of the living. Or maybe it’s the land of the dead, considering what I do for a “living.”

  I cleaned and oiled the Silverballer that took a bath in Aquia Lake. I took both weapons to a shooting range in D.C. and made sure they were up to snuff.

  All remnants of the drug addiction were gone. No more bad dreams. I hadn’t seen Death or felt his icy-cold breath on my neck. I still hadn’t figured out who he was. It was like when something was on the tip of your tongue. I felt like I knew his identity, somewhere in the recesses of my mind—and that disturbed me. Nevertheless, I hadn’t felt this good since before the incident in Nepal, just over a year ago.