Raymond Benson

by Hitman: Damnation

  Travis told me they were closing in on Diana. The Agency might have found her. It appeared that would be my next assignment. But I had to finish this one first. Travis told me to go ahead and complete the hit on Wilkins, because the guy knew too much about the Agency. I didn’t care. It was a matter of principle. For me, it was personal. Charlie Wilkins tried to trick me and then kill me. Normally I was not someone who went after a target simply for revenge or because I held some kind of grudge. That wasn’t me. But this time, it was different. I couldn’t explain why, and I didn’t think there was a psychiatrist in the world who could. Maybe it had something to do with Helen. During the course of the mission, I came close to being a “normal” person. At least, closer than I ever had before. Whatever that meant. For the first time in my life I entered the personal sphere of another human being—a woman, no less—and became part of her existence. And she did the same thing to me. I wanted to keep my promise that I’d do my best to make sure no harm came to her.

  And as long as she was around Charlie Wilkins, she was in danger.

  I also believed the so-called reverend was a threat not only to the United States but to the rest of the world. If he gained control of America, there would be a domino effect across the globe. Alliances would change. The international economy would splinter and collapse. Wars would be fought.

  That was unacceptable.

  It had happened too many times throughout history. Mankind never learned from its mistakes, but I did.

  Wilkins had to be stopped.

  The National Mall was an impressive site, even for a jaded and nonpolitical person such as myself. All those magnificent sculptures and statues and plaques and buildings built to honor the dead. I often wondered why nothing was ever erected to honor the living. Wasn’t it more important and more meaningful to be alive?

  This, coming from a man whose hands would always have blood on them.

  Thousands of people turned out for Wilkins’s afternoon campaign rally. The mall was packed. Police were all over the place. The National Guard lined the streets. The authorities attempted to keep the supporters separated from the protesters, but they weren’t doing a very good job. Even before I arrived on the scene, there had been several arrests; people had gotten into arguments and started brawling. I felt the tension as the taxi I was in approached the site. The driver couldn’t get near, so I had to get out and walk from the Smithsonian area. All traffic had been halted for blocks around the mall. The masses spilled out onto the avenues and spread in all directions. I’d never seen anything like it. This place was a powder keg ready for the spark.

  I didn’t bother with a disguise. I wore my black suit. White shirt. Red tie. Armed with both Silverballers. Briefcase in hand.

  Agent 47, the hitman, was back.

  I walked right past the police line. No one paid any attention to me. The officers were all focused on the crowd, looking for troublemakers. I guess I must have been just another businessman to them.

  The action was set to take place on a portable stage that had been built southwest of the Washington Memorial Driveway, a circular road surrounding the monument. A large east–west sidewalk was directly in front of the stage, which faced north so that Wilkins’s throng of admirers could have enough room—barely—to see and hear him speak. A huge banner spread across the top of the proscenium shouted: WILKINS–BAINES! The reverend had chosen an America First Party senator named Marshall Baines to be his running mate. The stage appeared to be pretty flimsy. Made of wood, canvas, and some curtains. A limousine was parked behind it. I was sure the reverend was inside, waiting for his big moment.

  The naysayers were relegated to the side of the mall east of the monument. Police sawhorses created a north–south line dissecting the mall. There was no question that the supporters outnumbered the protesters by the thousands. It was almost comical that there were also food and drink vendors stationed around the mall. Heaven forbid that the maniacs became thirsty or hungry.

  Lots of people held signs and banners. They read: AMERICA FIRST PARTY! WILKINS FOR PRESIDENT! DOWN WITH BURDETT! THE CIA ARE TERRORISTS! IMPEACH BURDETT! REVOLUTION NOW! THE REBELLION IS HERE! WILKINS/BAINES! And, my favorite, WILKINS IS A SURVIVOR! We’d see about that. A lot of his campaign propaganda capitalized on the fact that he had endured more than one assassination attempt and therefore was somehow divine.

  I spotted the three yellow school buses on the north side of the mall. My instincts told me that, whatever Wilkins had planned, it would involve those Church members who’d traveled from Greenhill to Washington. I wondered if I would see Helen. I wondered how I would react. I wondered if she would see me and how she would respond.

  So I pushed and shoved and wormed my way through the crowd. Since it was chilly—it was November 1, after all—everyone wore coats. At one point, I passed a guy wearing a black robe and hood. He turned to me, and I would have sworn he was Death, standing right there in front of me. The Faceless One. My old nemesis. It startled me and I felt a rush of adrenaline. But I blinked and it turned out it was just some guy who had painted his face white and was “acting” the part of the stereotypical persona of Death. He held a fake scythe, to which a sign was attached. It read: AMERICA IS DEAD! LONG LIVE AMERICA! Whatever that meant.

  I made it to the area where the buses were parked, right there on the grass. Standing among a horde of people, I scanned the scene. I recognized several members from Greenhill, all holding protest signs and singing Church songs. Helen was with them. She was unavoidable. She wore a bright blouse. I felt a twinge of pain in my chest when I saw her.

  She looked beautiful. But she also appeared nervous and frightened.

  I made sure she didn’t see me.

  Just north of the school buses, on Constitution Avenue, there were several National Guard trucks parked at the curb. Four of them. I couldn’t tell if anyone was inside.

  The angry shouts of an anti-Wilkins group were disturbing. They were clustered nearby, although a few policemen kept them behind a line of barricades. They taunted the Church members, almost as if they were looking for a fight. Not surprisingly, TV crews from all the major stations had cameras pointed at them and everywhere else.

  So far, though, I hadn’t seen anything that might be a harbinger of Wilkins’s plan. Not knowing what he was going to do was a disadvantage, of course, but I could usually spot telltale signs of mischief. Everything seemed to be exactly what he’d advertised. He’d brought along a small group of his most ardent followers to be a visual aide to his propaganda, and there was nothing else sinister about it. I didn’t think I was wrong about the guy, but I almost felt disappointed.

  Music began, blasted throughout the mall by large speakers mounted near the stage. It was then I thought it odd that Wilkins had placed his Church people so far away, at the very back of the crowd. From there the stage was probably a thousand feet or more to the south. Why the separation?

  It was some high school band on the stage, playing American patriotic songs, similar to the ones played at Dana Linder’s rally. Déjà vu.

  After a ten-minute overture, the vice presidential candidate, Baines, took the stage and addressed the audience. He was met with an enthusiastic ovation.

  “I’m not going to spend too much time up here,” he said. He was a squirrelly type, what you’d expect a bookworm nerd to look like. Clark Kent without the Superman persona to back him up. A ninety-eight-pound weakling. A real nobody. “I know you all are anxious to get to the main event. When I was young and went to rock concerts, I always hated when there was an opening act before the band I paid money to see. So, without further ado, let me introduce to you the next President of the United States, the one and only Reverend Charlie Wilkins!”

  The entire mall erupted in a tumultuous roar. It was deafening. I could have sworn the ground shook. The attendees from the other side were completely crushed by the enthusiasm. The excitement was impossible to ignore. I didn’t care one whit about the election, and yet the thrill
was contagious. I craned my neck to get a better view of the stage.

  My target stepped into view. He was a tiny dot of a figure from where I was standing, but he still exuded a massive aura. His charisma could be felt even at the north end of the mall. It was uncanny. It was no wonder some people thought he was the Second Coming.

  It took nearly another ten minutes for the crowd to be quiet. Wilkins kept pleading for people to settle down, but his voice was drowned out by the cacophony. Eventually, though, he was able to talk. His smooth, musical voice floated over the mall and spread an unexpected tranquillity over the place. It was as if the very act of his speaking did something magical to the audience. I didn’t buy it for one second, but I understood why he was well loved by the sheep that lived in America.

  “Greetings, my fellow Americans!”

  Cheers.

  “Welcome to the beginning of the New Age!”

  Roars.

  “The Rebellion is now!”

  Frenzy.

  Then—it happened. Almost as if it were on cue, and I suppose it was.

  As soon as Wilkins had started to talk, dozens of men dressed in National Guard uniforms piled out of the back of the trucks parked behind the school buses. They immediately organized into ranks and stood at attention.

  There was something familiar about them.

  My heart started to pound. I recognized some of the faces. Men from Greenhill. The ones that stormed out of the barn. They were wearing the uniforms I’d seen on the racks. These were not really National Guardsmen.

  They were the New Model Army.

  And then their leader appeared. Limping. He shouted a command I couldn’t understand, but it was obvious to me who he was.

  Cromwell.

  Before I could move, before I could do a single, solitary thing, the NMA attacked the civilians. They drew weapons and started firing at the unarmed, innocent, but misguided followers of Charlie Wilkins. When the people realized what was happening, many of them screamed and ran. The “Guard” started picking them off, one by one. Some of the militant soldiers drew clubs and, Gestapo-style, beat the supporters who had tripped or cowered before being shot.

  It was horrific.

  Within moments the throng caught on to what was happening. Even the real police and National Guard were slow to react.

  Then it was mass chaos. Gunshots everywhere. Panic. A stampede.

  In sixty seconds, the National Mall had become a death trap for thousands of human beings, and I was caught in the middle.

  One could barely hear Wilkins, calling from the stage for everyone to keep calm. It was certainly too late for that. The place had erupted in mass hysteria.

  It was all so clear now. The headlines would read: NATIONAL GUARD FIRES ON CHURCH OF WILL MEMBERS AT RALLY! The man was sacrificing his own people in the name of gaining sympathy and support for the election.

  Unbelievable.

  I drew both Silverballers, one in each hand, and started picking off New Model Army soldiers. But there were so many civilians running about that it was difficult to get clear shots at the correct targets.

  Then I saw her on the ground. Helen. She had fallen and was attempting to crawl to safety. She was about to be trampled. Killed. Right in front of my eyes.

  I holstered one weapon and ran to her, shoving and punching anyone who was an obstacle. Before I reached her, I was forced to blow away an NMA guy who blocked my path. The man fell on top of her, so I roughly grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him off. I then crouched beside her and took her hand.

  “Helen.”

  She looked at me with confused, terrified eyes. She didn’t know who I was, probably because she hadn’t expected to see me there. I was a face that didn’t belong.

  “It’s me, Helen. I need to get you to safety. Can you stand?”

  Then her expression changed. Naked fury boiled to the surface.

  “YOU!” she cried.

  The ferocity shocked me.

  “This is all your doing!” she spat.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Helen jerked her hand out of 47’s grasp and leaped to her feet. “Get away from me!”

  The hitman clasped her by the waist to keep her from running. “Stay with me! It’s not safe to—”

  He pointed the Silverballer over her shoulder and fired at three New Model Army men headed in their direction. Two militants dropped, but one was still alive; although wounded, he crouched and took aim at 47 with an assault rifle that would have mowed down Helen and the assassin. 47 shoved Helen away, spun, and blasted a hole through the man’s head. By then the immediate space around 47 was crowded with people running and dodging bullets. He turned to take Helen’s hand again, but she had fled into the multitude.

  “Helen!”

  She slipped through a clump of Church members who were rushing toward him with terrified, panicked expressions on their faces. NMA soldiers behind them fired, and several victims fell to the grass. Enraged, 47 drew his second Silverballer and fought two-handed. He was forced to dart about to avoid being hit, but he managed to wound or kill six men in the space of three seconds. Then he looked back but couldn’t see Helen anywhere.

  Sirens blasted throughout the mall. The D.C. police had bolted into action, but it was unclear to them what the hell was going on. If the National Guard was shooting at civilians, then their targets must have done something terribly wrong. They began to chase down the Church members too, without realizing the phony Guardsmen were the enemy. Meanwhile, the real National Guard was busy all over the mall, attempting to control the mad dash of humanity trying to escape the mêlée. Confusion and pandemonium reigned, producing a fog of misinterpretation of every single action. The result was that many more rally attendees besides the Greenhill volunteers were being attacked, wounded, or killed.

  The tear gas came next. Grenades sailed through the sky in arcs, landing amid clusters of civilians.

  The disaster was completely out of control.

  Agent 47 frantically searched for Helen while simultaneously defending himself and aggressively attacking the enemy. It was ultimately terribly difficult to pinpoint which Guardsmen were NMA men. Washington city police now mixed with them, firing blindly at uncertain targets. One D.C. policeman spotted 47 wielding two weapons, took aim, and fired, clipping the outside of 47’s right thigh. The assassin fell and rolled to his stomach, placed his elbows on the ground, and instinctively blasted the patrolman with both barrels. He hadn’t wanted to waste bullets, but the situation had become so perverse that it was impossible to keep anything straight. The blanket of cloudy gas made visibility even worse.

  While on the ground, the assassin took a few seconds to examine his leg. The wound was superficial but would most likely need a few stitches. 47 got to his feet, winced at the pain, and rejoined the mayhem. Then, out of the corner of his eye, a moving blue blur flashed through the smoke.

  Helen’s blouse. Twenty-five feet away.

  “Helen!”

  She turned to him. He held out his hand, but she hesitated.

  “It’s all right, Helen!”

  Terrified, she knew of nothing else to do. Helen ran to him.

  But gunshots echoed through the murky air and bullets littered the ground between the couple. Helen’s body jerked and she faltered. Her eyes grew wide in shock.

  “No!”

  She fell forward and collapsed on the grass.

  Agent 47 fired both Silverballers at the two New Model Army men who were responsible for the barrage. Bulletproof vests protected their torsos but not their faces—47 hit the targets dead-on.

  Helen rolled and lay on her back. 47 crouched beside her, laid his guns on the ground, and took her hands. Her blouse was covered in crimson wetness, and her eyes were glazed over, focused on the sky. Her breathing was labored. The hitman saw that she had been shot through the lungs, and he knew she wouldn’t survive.

  “Helen,” he whispered.

  She choked as blood gushed from her mouth. 4
7 rolled her to the side, but the maneuver was useless. She had maybe a minute of agony left before she was gone. The hitman chose to spare her that torment. He picked up one Silverballer and held the barrel to her chest, exactly in position over her heart.

  “Helen, I’m sorry.”

  For once, Agent 47 squeezed the trigger as an act of compassion.

  He wasn’t sure how long he stayed at her side. It might have been a few seconds, or it could have been ten minutes. The turmoil raged around him, but he shut it out for those precious moments. Then he reached out with a bloody hand and closed her eyelids.

  The hitman retrieved the other weapon and stood.

  Now he was really angry.

  It didn’t matter if they were authentic National Guardsmen or the New Model Army in disguise. 47 started blasting at anyone wearing the uniform. He carried extra magazines in his jacket pocket, and within the next five minutes the hitman went through six of them. Ejecting a used magazine and inserting a new one took all of 1.6 seconds, a feat he’d learned when he was only twelve years old.

  47 knew the best strategy was to keep moving; thus, in the heat of battle, he found himself moving backward, heading north toward the school buses. It was there that he encountered Cromwell. The man saw him and aimed an M16, the standard issue for the U.S. Marines, directly at 47. The assassin leaped sideways as the militant spray-fired, hitting several innocent people who were cowering near the buses. He completely missed the hitman. 47 rolled onto his back and pointed his weapons backward over his head for a rapid-fire assault at Cromwell, but the man had already jumped into the open door of one of the buses and shut it. The vehicle pulled out of its space just as 47 got to his feet. Cromwell drove the bus like a maniac, turned south, and mowed over anyone in his way.

  There was only one thing to do. Agent 47 bolted into one of the other buses. Gratified to find the keys in the ignition, he used the manual handle to close the door, revved the engine, and took off after the first bus.