Chapter 1
Jade Vance — Level 9 Syndicate Contractor, 11 Years Active. Last Rotation.
My heart rate monitor read 45 beats-per-minute. I set the blindfold over my eyes, and the van’s interior walls disappeared. My fingers moved across the strip of nylon I’d cut from a cargo strap, tying it behind my head. The smell of exhaust bled through the chassis seams, and the engine block ticked somewhere below the floor.
The rifle case sat open across my knees. My hands found the barrel first. The metal had been sitting in the van at 8° for three hours, and the cold moved through my fingertips as I lifted it clear. I laid it on the foam tray to my left. The bolt carrier followed, its drag stiff from the temperature. I set it parallel to the barrel by touch. Firing pin seated home with the spring tension exact under my thumb. Extractor caught on its notch and released. Buffer assembly came last, hydraulic and slower than the rest. I worked without the kind of thought that uses words, the reassembly running in reverse. Each component to its receiver, each contact surface registered and confirmed. The bolt carrier went home. Barrel seated. Barrel nut torqued down.
I pulled the blindfold off. The nylon caught the edge of my hair, and I tucked it back behind my ear. I opened my pocket watch. The mechanism ran clean and steady, the second hand sweeping its arc. Ninety-four seconds. My best was eighty-seven. I clicked the pen and wrote 94 in the small black notebook, under a column of previous record times.
I sat with my back against the van wall, tired of waiting. Before me sat six monitors, stacked two-by-three. Faint blue light from the monitors illuminated the van’s darkness, displaying hacked security footage of The Meridian Tower’s rooftop garden. I studied the feed with its misting arrays, caged birds, and the warm lamplight of a charity gala in full progress. I had parked outside and watched since 2200 hours.
Dispatch came through my earpiece. The voice that directed contracts to my ear for over ten years. “Atrium level, east quadrant, twenty-two minutes on-site. Confirm operational status, Vance.”
“Confirmed,” I said. “Entry window?”
“Window opens in eighteen minutes. Target’s vehicle staged at B-level parking, but he’ll retrieve a coat check first. That’s your window on the Eastern exit. Primary approach at 2247 hours.”
“Copy.”
The line clicked. I returned to the monitors. My target’s file was open on the secondary screen. The photograph showed a conventionally attractive man, fitted blazer, a glass in one hand. Amber eyes, the outer corners holding a slight crease. Clean-cut dark brown hair, with some disheveled strands falling over his face. Defined jaw, though his face distributed weight evenly, nothing sharp pulled the eye. An approachable handsome that made unsuspecting victims trust him with their wallets. Next to the photo were notes. Calloway Mercer, 35. Con artist. No combat training. Relies on social engineering. Will attempt to talk his way out. I’d written in the margin: Do not engage verbally. Verbal engagement = manipulation vector.
He’d be an easy hit. The hardest part was the waiting. The Syndicate had tagged him for stealing an encrypted financial ledger. With no recovery requirement, the contract specified elimination only and demanded kill confirmation by 0300 hours. The maintenance catwalk above the rooftop garden’s misting array gave a 34-meter sightline to the east edge, where Mercer had been positioned for the last twenty-two minutes. The feed displayed him with a group of three unknowns, their backs positioned away from the party. Six exits from my current position. Two primary.
I checked my pocket watch. I counted five ticks, felt them through my thumb against the case, and closed it. I sighed and glanced at my driver. He was sitting three inches further from his door latch than optimal, right hand resting against the panel rather than on it. He’d done this three times in the last forty minutes. I rolled my eyes. I’d stopped tracking it after the second time.
I closed my eyes and released a breath. Twelve more contracts, eleven after tonight’s kill. Then Norway. The boathouse on the Hardanger Fjord. The asking price confirmed with the estate dealer six weeks ago. Which months the fjord froze. The dimensions of the east-facing window above the workbench space. The boathouse was the objective. The only one that mattered to me, anyway.
My thoughts took a sudden shift. A hand grasping my shoulder in the dark. The smell of mildew and rust. The sound of a key turning in a lock from the outside. My wrist monitor vibrated. 74 beats-per-minute. My right shoulder twitched. I pressed my back harder against the van’s steel wall, waiting for the cold metal to ground me.
There’s no lock turning. No one’s coming in. I hold the key now.
I opened my eyes and focused on the flicker of the monitors until the phantom weight on my shoulder vanished. The blue glow of light caught the edge of my jaw and the short line of my hair, turning the strands blue-black. I focused on the northeast feed and worked my heart rate down again. Breathe in through the nose, three count. Hold two count. Out through the mouth, four counts. The number dropped. Sixty-three. Fifty-eight. Fifty-one. I ran it again. Forty-eight.
I shouldered the rifle case and adjusted the strap until the pull equalized across my black flannel collar. My entry window opened in twelve minutes. I ran a final check of the monitors. Confirmed Mercer’s position, the primary guard’s station by the east catwalk access, and the misting array timing cycle. Thirty-two seconds on, ninety off. I’d be on the catwalk and in position before the next activation. It’s go-time. I lifted the rifle case and reached for the door handle.
“Vance, we have a complication.” Dispatch’s voice came through the earpiece. “Third party closing in on the target, unknown affiliation. They want him alive. Put him down now, before we lose the window.”
“Acknowledged.”
The line went dead. I took one last glance at my driver. His eyebrow lifted once, then settled. I opened the van door and my boots hit the concrete. The sharp winter air hit my face. Thirty-one stories up, the aviary blazed through the dark, glass-walled and warm, the small shapes of guests moving behind the light. I had eleven minutes.
