Chapter Eight

Three years ago, on September 1, William clicked off the phone. He’d used a patch to dial the call. It was a hard line that scrambled the call outside the country. It wasn’t impossible to track, but many of the people who monitored calls leaving the country had too many to count, and yes, if they reviewed the data, it wasn’t cryptic jargon that meant anything top secret of military oriented, it was a dialogue between two people who were in love, who still had strong emotional attachments, and who missed each other much. William missed Ronald. He was an anchor in the night on a black and stormy sea of uncertainty. The deeper into this life, the harder it was because Ronald carried him back to the shore.

He camped on a roof through the night. The smell of cooking garlic filled the tarp cover and nested with him, much like the pigeons that found their way along the ridge of the roof. He had to wait for the deepest of night, a time when most people were fast asleep, just before they had to get up for a new day. William had to wait two days under cover of the tarp. If any of the drone cameras saw the roof, it wasn’t him the lens picked up. Just a discarded plastic tarp and a few paint cans to hold it down. The corner of the building, along with the edge of the tarp made a fort. He had water and rations.

When the time came to move, he rolled out, stretching his legs and suppressed a yawn. There was no time to sleep. He had to move fast. The line between the buildings was strong enough to support his weight. He used the deep furrow of a shadow created when the building obstructed the street light as his point to enter the building across the street via the cable that stretched between the two points. From under the tarp, he climbed up and over the side of the roof. He attached a carabineer to the line that had the other end strapped to the vest.

The guards never looked up. Unless there were a close fly-by from military aircraft, they preferred to pace the dusty street, smoke cigarettes, and watch the corners of the buildings for ambushes. But they never looked up. So William used his expertise to cable across between the buildings. No one was posted on the roof opposite his fort. He had a clear landing and no eyes. Once he made it to the other side, he unhitched the safety line and slithered over the edge of the roof. He waited, listening.

There were two guards below on the street. They spoke Turkish and joked about a recent sporting event one of them attended. Stealthily, William made his way to the roof access on the building he’d monitored for the last two days. It took very little time to pick the lock. And barring a deadbolt or bar across the door from the inside, he’d make his way into the dark space.

People were asleep inside the apartment. It wasn’t just one person. That’s what he’d prepared for, at least a few people sleeping fitfully. Training for missions meant to expect anything or everything. Each problem had more than one solution. He was quick at deciding the best course of action to achieve the objective. It was the reason he’d been tapped for this kind of assignment.

Two bedrooms, three people, both doors closed. He pressed his gloved hands against the door for one bedroom. The handle turned, and he peered into the dark space. A teenager, half-covered, sprawled across the bed, the headphones over his ears had pulled to the side while he slept. William closed the door. He moved to the second room.

It was the only piece of information that didn’t have precise data. They had no idea which bedroom the target’s room was. Matching window dressings upstairs, nothing definitive, and the shades never opened. Even monitoring of the last two days from the roof didn’t shed anymore perspective than what he encountered during the briefing.

Someone snored lightly in the next room. He moved with practiced and quiet feet. The unique footwear absorbed sound, and his training kept his footfalls light and practical.

William made his way into the room. Once he moved to the appropriate side of the bed where the target slept, he snapped a quiet identification photo through an inferred lens. Then he completed the mission.

Backtracking through the apartment was comfortable. But many agents mistook completing a mission as delivering the target. William knew the mission wasn’t done until he was out of harm’s way. Retreating through the hallway, slipping upstairs to the access door, and locking the door once on the other side, William crouched on the roof and waited a few minutes before his breathing slowed. He had a few hours before the target succumbed to the poison. But a less than fifteen minutes before the streets began filling up with people leaving for work or taking their morning constitutionals.

He glanced over the side of the building. One guard at the entryway, the other likely walking point, William used the cable and harness to move back to the building on the other side of the alley.