CHAPTER - I
Robert Williams walked out of the U. S.
Capitol after an interesting meeting, that surprisingly, had little to do with politics. That evening he sat alone in the living room of his modest suburban home after arriving at an important decision. He had to kill someone, and that someone was a very significant target. Instead of a daunting proposition, Williams saw it as a worthy challenge. He'd killed before, many times in fact, the only difference now was he wouldn't be doing it for his government. This one was all for him.
The next morning Williams drove to his office in Northern Virginia. Sitting at his desk in a space that was small and cluttered, and looked exactly the same as other work spaces up and down the corridor, he mentally assembled the critical pieces of his task. Williams finally concluded that he would do the deed himself, unwilling to trust it to a third party.
He spent the next 2 days in careful, decisive preparation efficiently conducted around his day job. The three imperatives of his mission were embedded in every action he performed: 1. Keep it simple, 2. Provide for every contingency and 3. Never panic no matter how much your plan goes awry, which it occasionally does. However, if there were a fourth rule, it would have to be, exploit the fact that most people are fools when it comes to things that actually matter, like their own survival. He had never suffered from that shortcoming.
Robert Williams was 42, single and childless. A wife and brats would certainly have complicated his unorthodox lifestyle. In his previous career with the federal government he adopted false identities and travelled across the world. Fortunately, changing identities was stunningly easy to do in the computer age. A few clicks of the Dell, a server somewhere in India hummed, and from one's fancy laser printer out popped a new you with all the official bells, whistles and available credit.
Williams could actually buy all that he needed on an internet site that required a carefully guarded password. It was akin to a Macy's department store for criminals, sometimes dubbed by its felonious clientele as "EvilBay". There one could purchase everything from first-rate ID packs and stolen credit card numbers to the services of professional hit men, or sterilized weapons if you were inclined to commit the murder yourself. He usually obtained the necessary materials from a dealer who had a 99 percent approval rating from his customers and a money back guarantee. Even killers liked to go with quality.
Robert Williams was tall, well built and handsome with thick blond wavy hair, on the surface he seemed carefree in his ways and possessed an infectious grin. Virtually every woman in his vicinity copped a secomd look, as did some envious men. He often used this to his advantage. When you had to kill or deceive, you used whatever tools you had as effectively as possible. His government had taught him that too. Though he still technically labored fir tge United States, he also worked for himself. His "official" pension plan fell far short of giving him the quality retirement he felt he deserved after so many years of risking his life for the red, white and blue. Fir him, though, it had been mostly red.
On the third afternoon after his enlightening visit to the capitol Williams subtly modified his features and put on several layers of clothing. When it grew dark, he drove a van up into the expensive fringes of northwest D. C. where the embassies and private mansions all had paranoid guards patrolling their compounds.
He parked in a small countryard behind a building across the street from a very exclusive club housed in an imposing brick Georgian that catered to wealthy and politically obsessed persons, of whom Washington had more than any city on earth. These folks loved to gather over passable food and average wine and talk polls, policies and patronage to their hearts' content.
Williams wore a blue jumper suit with "service" stenciled on tge back. The key he would make earlier fit the simple lock of the vacant building that was awaiting extensive renovation. His toolbox in hand, he took the steps two at a time untill he reached the top floor and entered a room facing the street. He flashed a pen light around the empty space, nothing the single window.
He opened his toolbox and quickly assembled his sniper rifle. Next he attached the suppresor can to the muzzle, chambered a single round - he was nothing if not confident - crept forward and drew up the window a bare two inches, just enough to allow the can to be fit in the opening. He checked his watch and looked up and down the street from his lofty perch without much worry of being spotted, since the building he was in was completely dark. In addition, his rifle had no optics signature and sported camoflex technology, meaning it changed color to match its background.
Oh, what the human race had learned from the humble moth.
