Raymond Benson - 2012 - Hitman: Damnation (4 page)

 
          
The
bodyguard/pilot opened the door and started to climb in.

 
          
Now.

 
          
47
stepped into view, leveled the Glock in front of him, and shot the bodyguard in
the pilot’s seat through the open door. Before the victim could register that
he was shot, 47 swung his arm over, trained the sight on the second bodyguard,
and squeezed the trigger. The man jerked and crumpled to the deck. It took
precisely 2.3 seconds to eliminate
Corado’s
protection.

 
          
47
was
confident the gunshots and the girl’s subsequent
scream couldn’t be heard on the other side of the ship.

 
          
Corado
reached inside his jacket and fumbled for a pistol
hidden there. Apparently he wasn’t used to having to defend himself—he always
had others nearby to do the job.

 
          
The
hitman
shot him with a double tap—one in the chest
and one in the head.

 
          
Easy.

 
          
That
left the girl, who was now hysterical. She started to run back to the port
side, yelling bloody murder.

 
          
47
raised the gun again to eliminate her from the equation—but his hand
unwillingly trembled. Nevertheless, he squeezed the trigger.

 
          
A
miss! How could that happen?

 
          
By
then the girl had disappeared behind the bulkhead, running along the port side
toward the bow.

 
          
47
took off after her.

 
          
Even
though she had long, muscular legs, 47
was
taller,
stronger, and was genetically engineered to be a superior athlete in every way.
He caught her in six seconds, and they weren’t halfway to the ship’s midpoint.

 
          
The
assassin picked her up by the waist, even with the Glock in his right hand. She
continued to scream and struggle.

 
          
Only one thing to do.

 
          
Agent
47 lifted and threw the girl over the rail into the sea.

 
          
He
paused for a moment to look aft and toward the bow. Luckily, a guard, some
forty feet away, was facing forward and didn’t witness the act.

 
          
47
tossed the Glock overboard and then calmly walked back to the helipad. He
picked up and piled the dead men, one by one, into the helicopter. The corpses
slumped to the floor and wouldn’t be discovered immediately. Satisfied, the
hitman
circled around to the starboard side and returned to
the party. He smoothly merged into a line dance in progress. 47 put on his best
happy face, performed the step in rhythm, and got lost among the partygoers.

 
          
The
job was a success; nevertheless, 47
was
angry with
himself. The trembling hand had nearly cost him the mission. Was it the
painkillers? Of course it was. The
hitman
knew it was
so, and yet he obstinately refused to acknowledge the message this portended.
Instead, he reached into his jacket pocket, found the plastic bottle, opened
it, threw a tablet into his mouth, and swallowed it without water.

 
          
Over
the next half hour, he calmed down and continued to act as one of the
privileged guests at an exclusive Caribbean party. 47 saw no indication that
his handiwork had been discovered. No one had a reason to go aft. If Fernandez
missed his friend, he would figure the criminal and his girlfriend had gone
below to a cabin.

 
          
Eventually,
the assassin boarded the barge with twenty other exhausted and very drunk
guests, and he sailed back to Ocho Rios and safety.

 
          
As
big noisy parties went, 47 decided this one hadn’t been too bad.

 
          
THREE

 
          
Another
superyacht
, coincidentally also built by
Lürssen
, slowly and aimlessly drifted in the waters west of
Spain. At three hundred sixty feet long, the Jean
Danjou
II was not unlike the luxury vessels owned by the many wealthy socialites in
Spain or France. After all, the Costa del Sol, especially the port of Marbella,
was one of the most exclusive sailing destinations for the rich and famous.
Thus, multimillion-dollar pleasure boats were a dime a dozen. Many of them
navigated through the Strait of Gibraltar from the Mediterranean, into the open
Atlantic, and back. The Jean
Danjou
II was no
exception. Law-enforcement agencies knew she docked in Marbella but was
registered to a corporation based in Switzerland. The owner was allegedly a
major player in OPEC. This, of course, was false. The Swiss company was in
reality the front for yet another business based in Portugal. This
organization, too, was simply a cog in a third layer of deception, but it had
connections to a conglomerate of banks in the Cayman Islands. In short, no one
had any idea who really owned the yacht.

 
          
But
if Interpol or other legal watchdogs of the world had an opportunity to visit
the interior of the Jean
Danjou
II, they would
discover a beehive of ex-military personnel, some of the
world’s
savviest IT and encryption specialists, and the core middle-management team of
a shadowy, secret international network.

 
          
Since
she never anchored in one place for very long, the yacht was the ideal vessel
to house the cerebral cortex of the International Contract Agency. And while
high-level government officials, such as the president of the United States,
the prime ministers of the United Kingdom and of Russia, and the king of Saudi
Arabia, were certainly aware that the Agency existed, and although elite inner
circles of intelligence organizations such as the CIA and SIS had reason and
the ability to contact the Agency’s leaders, these entities denied any
knowledge of such an immoral but sometimes useful society. The ICA’s services
were sought after by the bad and the good alike. And yet, if America or Great
Britain or Russia or any other nation on earth desired to actually locate the
Agency’s physical headquarters or meet its administrators, they might as well
look on the moon. It was inconceivable that the ICA was right there in plain
sight, moving from port to port on the open sea.

 
          
The
Jean
Danjou
II was the perfect home for a necessary
evil.

 
          
The
twenty-eight-year-old Asian woman known only as
Jade
rechecked the figures on her notepad, glanced back at the monitor on the
workstation labeled “Caribbean” to note any changes in the data, made some calculations,
and then stood. The command center was buzzing with activity and distractions,
but the woman had no problem staying focused. She looked at her
steel-and-white-gold Rolex and saw that she was due in the conference room in
five minutes. Just enough time for a quick walk-through to make sure everything
was running smoothly.

 
          
The
center, situated deep in the Jean
Danjou
II on deck
three, was the size of a baseball diamond. The walls were covered with
electronic maps and large-screen HD computer monitors. More than a dozen
workstations, dedicated to monitoring the Agency’s activities in various
territories around the globe, occupied the floor. Each one was manned by an
analyst or manager. A tireless and dedicated staff ran the Agency’s many
concurrent active operations. And it was Jade’s job to oversee the control
center, as well as serve as personal assistant to one of ICA’s top managers.

 
          
Jade’s
professional demeanor, dark leather business suit, patterned stockings,
glasses, and the black hair done in a bun might have suggested that she was an
executive secretary for a Fortune 500 company. But if one looked past her
obvious beauty and noticed her many tattoos—mostly illustrative dragons—and the
severe, no-nonsense soul behind her brown eyes, it was apparent that the woman
was a formidable and dangerous person.

 
          
After
making the rounds to each workstation and obtaining status updates from every
worker, Jade glanced again at the Rolex. It was time for the meeting with her
boss. She informed
Julius,
her immediate subordinate,
where she was going, and then left the command center in his capable hands.

 
          
Any
ship contained narrow and claustrophobic spaces, but the interior of the Jean
Danjou
II felt more like a high-tech corporate building
than a luxury yacht. Each manager, responsible for the various functions that
kept the Agency in business, had his or her own private office. Jade knew that
one day she would have one. With a promotion to manager, she would gain more
responsibility. That meant more money. Working for the Agency was the best job
in the world.

 
          
Ascending
to deck two by a marble and steel staircase, Jade nodded at one of the armed
guards who patrolled the ship at all times. She liked to give the guards the
perception that she appreciated their protection, when, in fact, Jade could
probably take on three of them at once, slit their throats with the stiletto
she kept on her person at all times, and then calmly go about her business.

 
          
Eventually
she reached the conference room and entered.

 
          
“Right
on time,
Jade
. My God, you’re damned efficient,” said
the man sitting at a long table in front of a computer monitor. He was
finishing his lunch—a
po
’-boy stuffed with salami,
cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and peppers. “Tell me again where you had combat training?”

 
          
“Westerners
call it the Golden Triangle,” she answered.
“Specifically
Burma.
But I spent a lot of time in Laos.”

 
          
“Jungle
stuff, huh?”

 
          
“Yes, sir.”

 
          
Benjamin
Travis allowed his eyes to look her up and down—it was something he did daily,
but she didn’t mind. All the men on the boat—and some women—thought she was
hot. It had its advantages.

 
          
Travis
said, “Sit down. What have you got for me?”

 
          
Jade
took a seat and placed her notebook in front of her. “We have a new lead on
Agent 47’s whereabouts.”

 
          
Travis
raised his eyebrows. “And we’ve been hearing that every month for a year,
Jade.”

 
          
“This
is different, sir. A reliable source informs us that 47
was
spotted in Jamaica as recently as two days ago. In fact, the source is one of
ours.”

 
          
Travis
swiveled his chair away from the computer. A man in his forties, he always
dressed in a gray suit, white shirt, and an Agency tie. He was probably
twenty-five pounds overweight; his gut drooped over his belt, and he tended to
sweat more than other men. With his thick red-brown mustache, glasses, and
communications earpiece, he might have resembled a retired CIA operative who
was past his prime. In reality, like Jade, Benjamin Travis was not someone to
be underestimated. The epitome of a “company man,” Travis was known by his
colleagues to have no tolerance for incompetence. Failure was severely
punished. As one of the senior managers of the Agency, he was cunning,
ruthless, and ambitious. He commanded teams of assassins that operated around
the world. He spent just as much time in the control room as did his personal
assistant, often doing her job.

 
          
It
was no wonder that he had quickly risen in the ranks to become one of the
Agency’s star players.

 
          
“Jamaica?”
he echoed.

 
          
“Yes, sir.”

 
          
“You
don’t say. How soon can you verify it?” he asked.

 
          
“I
have Julius on it. This time it looks promising, Benjamin. Our man in Jamaica
is usually reliable on
intel
but untrustworthy in
financial matters.”