Diary of an Assassin Read online

  DIARY OF AN ASSASSIN

  A Thriller By

  VICTOR METHOS

  FREE WORKS BY VICTOR METHOS

  (Limited Time Offer)

  The Murder of Janessa Hennley (A Thriller)

  CHAPTER 1

  “Are you going to kill me in front of my family?”

  Isaac Rhett glanced out the window to the minivan that was pulling away. “I waited until they left.”

  “Where did they go?” the man said, panic rising in his voice. “You can’t do anything to them. They’re not involved in any—”

  “I wouldn’t hurt your family. I called your wife and told her you were in the hospital because of a car accident.”

  The man swallowed. “That gun you’re holding. The silencer looks homemade. You a former military man or something?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll pay you double. Whatever it is. I don’t care. I’ll sell my house and my cars. I got blue-chip stocks I could sell for six figures tomorrow morning.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not? You’re a fucking hired gun. What do you care?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The man sighed. “Okay, okay. Just…gimme a minute, will ya? Just one minute.”

  “Clock’s ticking.”

  Rhett sat down across from him. The desk between them was a cherry wood that seemed to glimmer in the moonlight coming through the windows of the home office. The power had been cut and the moonlight was the only thing that allowed the man to see Rhett’s face.

  “You’re a good lookin’ kid. Young. How old are you?” the man said.

  “Thirty-four.”

  The man pulled a blue pocket square from his jacket pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Thirty-four…I remember when I was that young. When my eyes were this blue,” he said, running his fingers over the piece of cloth. “I remember a lotta things. And you’re gonna take all of ’em away. Every single one of my memories you’re gonna wipe away. Everything I’ve ever done and everything I’m ever gonna do. Just like that. Poof. What gives you the damn right?”

  Rhett stood up. The two men stayed silent a moment.

  “It’s time,” Rhett said.

  “Holy…oh shit on me, okay, okay,” the man said.

  As he went to stand, a twelve gauge came up from under the desk, the barrel pointed at Rhett’s stomach. Rhett leapt to the ground as the boom echoed and the buckshot embedded itself in the wall behind him.

  He rolled under the desk as another boom tore through the air. Rhett aimed and fired two rounds into the man’s knees, the silencer causing little more than two quiet spits.

  The man toppled over screaming as Rhett jumped up, kicking the shotgun away. He pointed his weapon at the man’s head.

  “You can’t do it,” the man said. “You can’t do it. Please. Please! I have two kids.” The man pulled out his cell phone. On the screen was a photo of two young girls. “They can’t grow up without a father. Not in these fucked up times. Please…please…”

  Rhett felt the smoothness of the trigger, the weight of the .22 caliber Ruger. It was an older model, one that had been used by American soldiers during World War II. When a German unit would surrender, the .22s were the most prized out of what the soldiers would confiscate. Rhett had spent several thousand dollars modifying this one to ensure its reliability. He wondered just how many men had been killed with it.

  Rhett lowered the weapon. He had killed so much, brought so much pain into the world, that there was nothing left of him. An empty hole right in the middle of him. He wondered when he had begun to dread new contracts, and why just now he felt the weight of having had enough.

  He turned to leave. He was at the door when he heard shuffling on the carpet and the metal clank of the shotgun cocking. He spun and fired almost blindly into the dark. Three quick spits.

  The man was frozen, the shotgun at his side. It dropped from his hands as blood began to trickle from three small holes in his face and throat. He toppled to the side. Rhett bent over him and checked his pulse…it faded, and then he was dead.

  He looked at the man’s phone and the picture of the two little girls.

  I’m so sorry.

  Though it would have been easier to leave the body where it was, he wasn’t about to let one of his children find it. He hoisted the man onto his shoulders, and made his way out of the house.

  May 20th

  I remember the first time I killed a man. It isn’t something you forget. Not your first time. It burned itself into my mind and it never let go. I took him out to this swamp and we had to walk through mud to get far enough away from the road so that I felt comfortable. He spoke to me the whole time we walked. People always say the same things when they think they’re about to die. “Don’t do this” or “I have a family” or “I have money” or “You can just walk away and I’ll never say anything.”

  I did that once. Walk away. It was a young man of maybe nineteen and I felt so bad for him that I let him go and he promised to disappear and never return. That night he went to the police and gave them a description of me. After that I heard he moved to South America where he was arrested for the murder of a thirteen-year-old girl.

  But enough about him. I was talking about my first. I forget his name. I remember down to the last detail what he was wearing and the pained expression on his face, but I can’t remember his name.

  He was telling me how much money he had and how much of it he could give me. He told me of his six children, which he had with two different women. He pulled out photos of the children and showed them to me. I just said, “And how many others are there?” He knew what I meant and put the photos away.

  He was a war criminal, a major or equivalent in Bosnia. He was in charge of a rape house where up to eighty women a day, including girls as young as four, were gang raped by Bosnian soldiers. Many were impregnated. Those were allowed to live. This man was personally responsible for perhaps over one thousand rapes and was known to prefer that mothers and daughters be raped together.

  “It was war,” he told me. “It was a different time. You can’t judge a man for things he does in war. That’s not fair.”

  “What did those women do that you declared war on them?” I said. For some reason I spoke back to him. I haven’t done that since with a mark. Not ever. But that first time, I felt I owed him an explanation—or that he owed me one.

  “It’s different now,” he said. “I would never do the things I did. I’ve repented.” I turned him around to look me in the eyes. “Some things you cannot repent for. Get down on your knees.”

  In the movies, the person at gunpoint always does what their executioner says. I never questioned this, which speaks to the power of movies. But once you consider it, why would they dig their own graves? When I told him to get on his knees, he began to run. He knew he was going to die and he didn’t want to cooperate in his own death.

  I shot him once through the hamstring but he kept running. I shot him through the other and he fell to his knees and began to crawl away. I could have ended it then, but I didn’t. I don’t understand why. Instead, I shot out his elbows so he couldn’t crawl and I came up and stood over him. He was crying now. I had always thought that if someone was about to die, they would pray. He didn’t.

  Maybe he thought that God wouldn’t listen to someone that had done the things he’d done. I don’t know. Or maybe he knew it just wouldn’t help. I pointed the weapon and fired a round into his temporal lobe, just above the ear, and another into his frontal lobe, just above the eyebrow. That’s how they taught us to look for targets—view the person without their skin and fire at the most vital areas.

  I stood over the body a long time, just looking at him.
For some reason, I expected the skies to part and the wrath of the heavens to rain down on me. I thought I would be punished. Few people on this earth deserve to die as much as he did, but I still thought I would be punished for it.

  But nothing happened. Silence. A gray silence as the fog rolled over the wet swampland. I heard a crow somewhere above me. They were quick. They knew death better than anything and they were quick getting to it. They would finish it.

  CHAPTER 2

  The motion of the plane landing on the tarmac and applying its brakes woke Rhett from a dreamless sleep. He looked out the window to the night sky, a full moon hanging over the island. Saint Thomas was technically an unincorporated province of the United States, but every time he stepped off a plane, it didn’t feel like it. It felt like he was a million miles away.

  The air was humid and he wore a loose white shirt and jeans with sandals as he hailed a cab. The driver smelled of alcohol and marijuana.

  “Where to?”

  “Hamlet’s Café near Magen’s Beach. You know it?”

  “Yup,” he said, pulling away. “So where you coming from?”

  “Mainland. A small town with a thousand people.”

  “Oh yeah? I’ve always been interested in small towns. I’m from a small town just outside Nashville. I came out here for vacation and never went home.” The driver glanced in the rearview and then back out onto the road. “So what were you doing in a small town like that?”

  “Work.”

  “What d’ya do?”

  “Retired.”

  “No shit? You’re pretty young to be retired. Must’ve made some good scratch.”

  Rhett didn’t respond. Instead he stared out the window as the airport faded away and the lush, green vegetation closed in. Soon, they were on a narrow road heading up a small hill as they headed for the coast.

  The cab arrived at the café in less than ten minutes. Rhett paid the driver and thanked him before going inside and ordering a pulled pork sandwich and a margarita. He sat out on the veranda about a hundred feet from the beach and watched the moonlight reflect off the water.

  His phone buzzed. He pulled it out and next to the icon for an app was the number one. The icon didn’t have a name and was black with no illustrations. He opened it, revealing a black screen with red lettering.

  Houdini, are you there? I assume everything went well.

  The words appeared on the screen soundless, pulled from the air. Rhett replied.

  Yes.

  Excellent. The other half of the funds will be deposited immediately.

  Thank you. There’s something else…

  What?

  I need a break. I’ve had several contracts in a row.

  What do you mean???

  I simply need some time off. A vacation.

  There was a long pause before the reply came.

  You can’t be serious. Is this about the mark? Do you feel guilt? Guilt is not for us. Do you know he was a war criminal?

  I know.

  If you know then why do you feel guilt????

  I just can’t do it anymore. I’m having nightmares. It’s killing me. I have to stop.

  Another long pause.

  You once told me that you owed me a favor for what I did for you. Do you recall?

  Yes.

  I am now calling that favor. I have one more assignment. Just one. When it is complete, you may take as much time off as you need.

  I would like to be done now. Sorry. Ask anything else for the favor to be repaid. I will waive the other half of the fee for last night.

  I don’t want anything else and money means nothing. You owe me one favor given by your solemn word. So now you just need to ask yourself: are you the type of man who keeps his word or breaks it?????

  Rhett exhaled. His food arrived and he took a bite of the sandwich and wiped his lips with a napkin before taking a long drink of the margarita. He looked out over the ocean a while before responding.

  Fine. One more.

  Of course. I will forward the information now. Thank you, Houdini.

  Rhett placed the phone down on the table as he took another bite of the sandwich. The phone buzzed again a moment later. On the first page of the app was the black-and-white photo of a woman with shoulder-length blond hair. Underneath her photo, her name was hyperlinked to a dossier.

  Rhett texted back, I told you, no women.

  The favor, remember?

  Ask someone else. You have other magicians.

  You are perfect for this. It is high profile and I cannot risk any exposure. It must be you.

  I’ve seen her somewhere. She’s famous.

  She’s a congresswoman. Right up your alley, eh, Houdini???? ;) Now be a good lad and do your job.

  Rhett stared at the phone. He had made a promise that he swore he would keep, a favor to a man that allowed him something he needed desperately in his life at the time, but now he wanted to do nothing more than break it. He opened the dossier and read the name: Stephanie Michelle Johnson. Congresswoman for the fourteenth district of New York.

  CHAPTER 3

  Stephanie Johnson stepped out of the mansion and breathed in the night air, calming her nerves. A line of Cadillacs, limos, and two bright red Ferraris traced the circular driveway. The mansion sat in upstate New York on twenty acres of property owned by Clarence Fillmore: one of Stephanie’s biggest donors, a man who had made his money in the beef industry in the eighties.

  Rachel, Stephanie’s aide, stepped out and stood next to her without saying anything. She pulled out a package of cigarettes and lit one.

  “Gimme one of those, Rach.”

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” she said, handing her the lighted one.

  “I don’t.”

  Stephanie sat down on the stone steps and Rachel joined her. They watched as a drunk man stumbled to his car, a young woman behind him. They made out a while before the car started and he drove away.

  “I can’t believe someone this rich didn’t hire a valet,” Rachel said.

  “That’s how he made his money. Squeeze everything you can from every penny.”

  “I think he was hitting on me earlier. He could be my grandfather.”

  “He has a reputation for abusing women. Stay away from him.”

  “Eh, as if. How could you even think that?”

  “I’ve seen the way you look at Greg, and he’s, what, twice your age?”

  “That’s totally different. Greg’s hot. He goes to the gym twice a day and tans like crazy.”

  “Does he still have his original teeth?”

  Rachel nudged her with her arm. “You’re so mean. No wonder you’re a politician.” She puffed at her cigarette. “Where’s Paul?”

  “My husband,” Stephanie said, looking away, “is in the coat closet right now with an intern.”

  Rachel nodded. “Steph, why haven’t you left him yet? I got you that meeting with the lawyer. He’s supposed to be the best in the state. He’ll get you out with no mess.”

  “I’m almost forty. It’s not as simple as that.”

  “Bullshit, you’re a total cougar. Do you know how much the interns talk about you? You’re like the hot teacher they all wanted to bang in high school.”

  She smiled. “Really? What do they say?”

  “You don’t want to know; they’re gross about it. I’m serious, though. Why do you stay?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I know I can’t satisfy all his needs and I’m gone so much, how can I expect him to just be alone?”

  “He’s not alone now. Instead of being with you, he’s in a closet with some slut.” She sighed. “You wanna do something naughty?”

  “What?”

  Rachel threw her cigarette down and stepped on it. “Come with me.”

  “What are we doing?”

  “Just come on.”

  Entering the mansion, they passed a large atrium replete with plants flown in from all over the world. Party guests mingled in all the corners and s
urrounded the bar as a handful of waiters served champagne. Rachel took Stephanie’s hand and slipped through the crowds until she spotted Clarence Fillmore speaking to a few people out on a patio.

  “Wait here.”

  Rachel ran over and interrupted. She whispered something in his ear and then ran back, taking Stephanie and disappearing into the crowd.

  “What d’you say?” Stephanie asked.

  “I told him I wanted him right now and to meet me in the coat closet.”

  Stephanie giggled despite herself. She took a glass of champagne and nursed it as Rachel struck up a conversation with two men. Stephanie managed to slip away unnoticed a few moments in and went out to the patio. She sat and watched all the men and women meandering about, attempting to look sophisticated or say something witty. She disliked them. But Clarence had asked her to come so she did.

  She understood something that most politicians were only dimly aware of their entire careers: she could be rented by her donors. Every politician catered to their major donors but most of them fooled themselves into thinking they were independent and didn’t need to do it. She understood that she was obliged to them. Many of her friends had been thrown out of Congress by younger challengers because they didn’t understand this simple fact.

  A scream rang out and then laughter. Stephanie glanced back to see a half-naked woman running out of the mansion and Paul scrambling to pull up his pants. She smiled and turned away.

  A few moments later, Clarence came and sat next to her. “No one appreciates a good joke as much as me, but that was just cruel.”

  “Don’t take it personally, Clarence. It was directed at Paul.”

  “What the fuck was he thinking? In my coat closet? Chris Mathews is here. What if he decides to run with the story of your husband openly cheating on you?”

  “Didn’t seem to hurt Hillary much.”

  “Touché,” he said, taking a sip of his champagne. “You’re always welcome to stay here. I’ve got thirty rooms and it’s just me.”