Chapter Thirty-eight: No safety for murderers

No one is safe forever. Every lock has a key. Every wall has a crack. Every security system is vulnerable to attack. If you know who installed the system, you know all the ways in.

Even the best assassination plans will have soft spots that require improvisation. Circumstances change. The target can crack a tooth at lunch, his driver might be delayed by accidents on each of his three primary alternate routes, or a tweeker desperate for his next fix might try to rob the bank in which the target keeps a safety deposit box. The world of crime doesn’t work on factory time.

The insurance is in the prep work. It takes time to set up a human mark. Proper surveillance – a Figure Eight – entails following a target day and night until his or her routine and common variations thereon are known. This can takes weeks or months. I only had a few days.

There was also the matter of my fugitive-assassin-father. He was bound to be near enough for me to trip over. I couldn’t be sure that he would let me execute my plan and I wasn’t going to get close enough to ask for permission. From my perspective, he shouldn’t have any objection. It was time to put theory into practice – see if I can walk the walk, pull the trigger, throw the knife, and crush a man’s jugular with my bare hand.

But the little voice in my head, that sounded a lot like the Pater, kept saying: a good doctor doesn’t operate on family members or herself. This target is too close to you. He killed the only person you have ever loved.

I stopped priming the sniper rife and put it down carefully. I inhaled deeply and exhaled to the count of ten.

It was that or scream loud, long and repeatedly as I tore my hair out. That’s what thinking of Logan’s death made me want to do every second of every day. The only moments that seem bearable happened last year.

After a few more deep breaths, I turned up the volume on my music and took more pictures of the target’s home with a telephoto lens.

The man was handsome. He had the kind of face that Vanity Fair was built for. He probably set the trends fashion editors followed. I wanted to vomit acid all over his ten thousand dollar shoes and cashmere pants.

The target didn’t do illegal or prescription drugs. He didn’t abuse liquor or drive himself. He liked expensive cigars and pretty girls. He liked variety and he liked them young. Very young. Perfect.

His bodyguards were ex-SAS contracted through an international security services firm headquartered in South Africa. Like a certain company whose name starts with K-R-O-L-L, de Martine’s goon farm provided intel and muscle to the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, dictators of small countries rich in natural resources but poor in law and order, and people who kept the FBI and Interpol in business. Everyone has a price, some people put theirs on a preprinted menu.

The Target had his security company vet his employees, household staff, drivers and accountants. But not the girls who came and went from his bed. The security company was publicly listed. Pandering underage girls to a sociopath probably wasn’t covered by its articles of incorporation.

I smoothed the kilt down over my thighs. The waist of the skirt rode below my bare hipbones and a good four inches below my navel. The hem barely covered the garters that held up my black stockings. Over the stockings, I wore white knee socks edged in tiny pink bows. The white button down shirt was pulled tight across my upper body and tied just under a heavily padded push-up bra. Knotted loosely around my neck was a scarlet and black striped satin tie, the tip of which landed just above my bare navel. I had more skin exposed during the Oxford High school dance, but not much more. In memory of my one and only school dance, I wore the stiletto heels with my outfit. They gave me three more inches of height and two more weapons.

My color hair today was brown and the tresses reached to the small of my back, courtesy of a human-hair wig found in L.A.’s Koreatown. A long fringe of bangs covered my forehead and curved around my jaw. Prostheses between my molars and the inside of my cheeks added the illusion of baby fat. Three pieces of cherry flavored bubble gum added the illusion of immaturity. I gave my lips one last application of grape flavored sparkly lip-gloss and approached the nice men with the guns.

The Target sat behind them at his usual table overlooking South Beach and the Atlantic Ocean. On Wednesdays, the Setai’s head chef tested new dishes on favored customers. According to one of the busboys, the Target tipped well and never missed the Wednesday special if he could help it.

I could have taken him out with a gun from across the room. But I wanted him to know – I wanted to see his face as he watched me kill him – I wanted to see his fear. I would never know Logan’s last thoughts. But I would know those of his murderer – they would all be of me.

“Let her pass,” he told his men. “Regina left a message about a little gift for me – a VIP customer perk.”

That was the last message Regina was ever going to leave for a customer. Right after she read my little script at gunpoint, I tasered the woman and left her tied up in her penthouse apartment. In about two hours, her computer would release a time-delayed emergency call to the police over an internet telephone account. The police would not only find her but also pictures of dozens of clients with her girls, some of them younger than me by too many years.

Michael de Martine’s eyes roved over me. “You’re a little spicier that Regina’s usual stable. I’ll have to thank her later.”

He smiled and it was like seeing Logan through a distortion mirror in a nightmare house. I kept the knowing, seductive smile on my face with the grimmest of glues. I tried not to let my murderous thoughts narrow my pupils into black dots.

The Target placed his fork and knife side by side on his half-empty plate. He stood and filed out of the restaurant with his guards. Goon #1 led the way while Goon #2 took the rear. I was second in line while Logan’s father studied the way I twitched my hips in skyscraper stilettos. CORRECTION: while the TARGET leered at my backside in the perviest of ways.

I had to stop thinking of him as Logan’s father or I would puke all over the murderer’s white linen shirt. I stared out of the elevator’s glass walls as we climbed into the sky and tried to clear my mind of distracting thoughts. Instead of flinching or cutting off his hand as the Target stroked hair away from my face, I counted the floors and looked at the waves rolling onto Miami Beach. Something in the courtyard below caught my attention.

A thin woman in a bright blue pantsuit and a shorter, older man were entering another elevator. The woman’s hair color was wrong; the clothing was different; and she had one of those hideous and hideously expensive designer handbags that could double as a suitcase on her arm. But I was trained to remember people no matter how they might try to change their appearances. That woman was Amelia Bennington. The man with her in the Panama hat and cream, linen suit was Oxford High’s Shop teacher, Benjamin Sde-Or.

What the hell were they doing there? My mind raced over various scenarios. 1. They knew the Target and were there to warn him about me. 2. They worked for the people after my father and me. 3. They had been partners with Dulles and were after me for ruining their plans. It struck me that my universe of enemies had expanded quite a bit since the start of the school year. I returned the Target’s gaze and ran my tongue over my lips before baring my teeth in a fake smile. I was going to shrink that list by at least one today.

The elevator’s steel and glass doors slid open. We had reached the top floor, where the Target kept a suite for his “indulgences.” Flanking the double doors to his rooms were another set of bodyguards and someone else I wanted to kill. Oh. Joy.