Ultimate target

Rule #32: Stick to the plan. Don’t improvise.

There is a reason the phrase ‘men live less than women’ exists.

They are stupid. Slow. Easy to manipulate.

Which is also the reason my job is basically child’s play.

I sit on the passenger seat of the sedan, looking at my reflection on the rearview mirror while reapplying my lipstick. I smile at myself, making sure the lines are straight and that the red stays off my teeth. Perfect, like everything else.

Satisfied, I turn the reflection towards the man in the driver’s seat.

His name is Adrian Cole.

Well—was.

He died at 9:14 PM on this boring Tuesday night, in the parking garage beneath his office building. Took him about two minutes to realize I’d stabbed him below his left rib cage, another seven to play in his futile fight and ultimately ten to fall limp on his seat.

No witnesses. No cameras that hadn’t been looped thirty minutes prior.

I turn my head to look at the poor bastard.

Adrian Cole was not only stupid. He was arrogant, horny, a drunk, and too self-centered for his own good. None of which is why the Agency wanted him dead, really. I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I never do.

I just kill.

I reach out to adjust his collar and tie, shift his shoulders and head so he looks like a drunk sleeping in his car rather than a corpse, and wipe away the blood he’s smeared across his cheek before returning to my original position so I can examine my work. From this angle, he looks like a perfectly normal, everyday passed-out fellow.

He will not be found until morning, when the security guard starts his early rounds.

I clean the knife with the sanitary wipes I keep in my purse. The blade goes back into its sheath beneath my dress. The gloves come off and into the sealed bag along with the bloodied wipes. Everything that touched this job will be burned before sunrise.

I check my reflection one last time. Lipstick still perfect. Blond hair still in place. The woman in the mirror looks like she’s coming home from a late dinner, not walking away from the perfect murder.

I take Adrian’s phone and snap a picture of his face before turning it off and putting it in my pocket. I swing my legs out of the sedan, close the door gently—no slam, no attention—and walk up the ramp to the street level, where the city swallows me whole.

Step 1 complete.

New York’s night breeze creeps under my coat as I walk along the corporate buildings, taking a turn into the 42nd.

The street is still alive at this hour. Restaurants spill warm light onto the sidewalk. Couples share cigarettes outside bars. Taxis honk. A group of tourists argue over a map. A hot dog cart is doing late-night business. A guy in a suit talks too loudly onto his earpiece. Normal people doing normal things while I walk past them with a dead man’s phone in my pocket.

I walk two blocks. Stop at the curb of Vanderbilt Avenue to let a cab pass, reaching up and pulling off the wig.

Blonde hair becomes dark.

Easy. Casual. Like it’s nothing.

I toss the blonde strands into a trash can. No one looks twice. No one was looking at me in the first place.

Phone out. Fake conversation. Head down.

“Yeah, I’m on my way. Ten minutes,” I say to no one on the other end.

I take the stairs into the subway entrance with the green globe, right across from Grand Central. I swipe a MetroCard bought with cash three days ago and walk to the 7-train platform. Three stops west. Change at Times Square to the N train. One stop south to 23rd Street.

I surface like a ghost. Walk the five-block distance to the 24-hour parking garage and past the sleeping attendant inside his booth like I belong here. Take the stairs to the basement level. Push open the bathroom door.

The duffel bag is where I left it three weeks ago. Grey hoodie. Jeans. Boots. Helmet.

I change in under two minutes. The coat, the heels, the dress, and my knife go into the duffel and behind my back. The sealed bag and phone stay close to me inside the hoodie’s front pouch. Thirty seconds later, I walk out of the bathroom in a different skin.

Step 2, done.

The Kawasaki is parked in the corner spot. I swing a leg over, pull the helmet down, and start the engine. The sound is loud in the concrete garage. Comforting.

I ride out, heading south through the dark city, crossing into Brooklyn over the Brooklyn Bridge, taking surface streets toward Van Brunt Street in Red Hook.

The dead drop is behind a shuttered factory, behind a wall of rotting pallets, invisible from the road.

I kill the engine. Listen.

Silence.

I slide off the bike, duck under the pallets, and pull open the container door. Inside, a small terminal sits on a crate, screen dark.

I place the sealed bag and Adrian’s phone on the crate. Type my ID. Step back.

The screen flickers on.

CONFIRMATION PENDING...

I wait.

Nine seconds.

CONFIRMATION RECEIVED.

ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINTH KILL SUCCESSFULLY VERIFIED.

RELEASING PAYMENT...

A slot at the bottom of the terminal clicks open. A thick envelope sits inside.

I take it. Don’t count it. Don’t need to.

Step 3 finishes the job.

I walk back to the bike, helmet and a proud smile still on, when the burner phone buzzes inside my pocket. A text.

I check my watch. 10:21 PM.

Read it.

UNKNOWN: NEW FILE AT USUAL LOCATION. ACCEPT?

I raise an eyebrow.

Usually, I’d get a new job twenty-four to forty-eight hours after finishing the last one.

On rare occasions, within the first twelve.

Never right after the drop-off.

The urge to add another name to the list flares, a tiny poison that tastes like ambition on my tongue. It’s like a hand wrapping around my throat, this curiosity. It does not let me breathe.

But, oh, how I love being choked.

I type YES and hit send.

The Agency’s pickup point is a laundromat on the Lower East Side. Right on Rivington St.

It looks like any other laundromat. Flickering fluorescent lights. A row of machines that hum and clatter in perfect, indifferent circles. A tired woman folding a stack of mismatched socks at a metal table in the back. She never looks up when I walk in. She never does.

I walk past the dryers to the far corner, where a ventilation grate sits loose against the wall. I kneel, slide it aside, and reach into the dark space behind it.

My fingers find the package.

A small metal box.

Inside is a matte‑black envelope with my Agency number stamped on the flap: 20468. Sealed with a red wax emblem I’ve only seen twice before in my career.

Priority Alpha.

I slide it into the back pocket of my jeans.

I place the metal box inside and slide the grate back into position.

The woman folding clothes still hasn’t looked up. But I don’t risk it.

I walk out into the cold night air and wait the ten-minutes ride to the old apartment building. Wait while I change the plate on my bike. Wait as I make my way up the flight of stairs. Wait until I’m safe on the other side of my door.

The apartment is the same as I left it.

Alarm on. Bare walls. A couch I bought because it was cheap. A kitchen table with one chair. No television, no photographs, no plants. Nothing that could be traced, nothing that could be used, nothing that would make leaving harder when the time came.

I type the passcode before the last beep sends the signal to the alarm bells, throw the duffel on the floor and set the cash on the table. I sit under the single bare bulb, pulling the envelope from my jeans and examining it under the light. The wax emblem shines warm crimson, the ‘A’ shaped like a four smeared with the touch of my body heat.

I break the seal.

Inside: a photograph. A USB. A name. A single typed sheet.

Connor Davies.

Ex-military.

That is rare.

I’ve dealt with all kinds of men. Gangsters, big shots, hooligans, even politicians. But military men are something else entirely. Disciplined, focused, loyal. Which can only mean that Connor Davies has something the Agency wants. Or needs.

Priority Alpha.

I read the note twice.

Two prior attempts failed.

I grab my laptop and plug the flash drive into the USB port.

The computer hums for a second. A single folder appears on the screen.

DAVIES_20468

I click it open.

Inside: a photo folder, an audio file, and a plain text document.

I open the photos first. Six of them. All grainy. All just as recent as the one on my table.

The first is a bodega security still — he’s buying something at the counter, head down, the same black cap hiding most of his face. The timestamp reads the same date, a couple of hours later.

The second is a street corner. Midtown, I think. Different clothes. Different day. He’s looking over his shoulder, mid-stride, like he felt someone watching. Maybe he did.

I study each one. The way he stands. The way he holds his weight — balanced, ready, even when he’s just waiting for a walk signal. Ex-military. Definitely.

The third photo is different. A subway platform. He’s sitting on a bench, head tilted back, eyes closed. For a moment, I almost think he looks peaceful. Then I notice his hand. Resting on his thigh. Palm open. Fingers loose.

Ready.

Even asleep, he’s ready.

I close the photos and open the audio file. A 47-second wave file. I plug in my earbuds and press play.

A man’s voice. Low. Calm. A little tired.

“Yeah, I know. I know. I’m being careful. Listen — tell Marcus I’m going to pay him soon. Business is slow— No. I’m not touching that money. And like hell I’m giving up what I worked my ass off for this past year. Tell him I said that. He’ll know that I mean it.”

The recording ends.

I play it again. Then a third time.

Marcus.

That’s the first name I’ve gotten. And if Connor is protecting something important enough to risk hunting, then this isn’t just a termination job. This is a exfiltration mission.

I open the text file.

ASSET 20468 PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: Locate and terminate subject DAVIES, Connor R. SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: Recover subject’s personal data. Do not access. Do not review. DROP POINT: TBD — you will be notified. NOTE: Subject’s last known address is 75 Eldridge Street. Subject might be mobile. Do not assume he will remain at this location. AUTHORIZATION CODE: ALPHA-NINER-20468-CHARLIE

I look at the photograph again. His face. His eyes. The way he stands in the surveillance still like someone who knows he’s being watched and has decided not to care.

One hundred and forty.

I close the laptop, pull the flash drive out, and walk to the stove.

I crank the gas burner to high, holding the USB drive with tongs over the flame for thirty seconds. Watch the plastic melt, the circuit board char, hear the memory chip crack from heat. I drop the melted remains into the sink and run it for another ten seconds. The water takes everything away.

Outside, the city hums its endless hum. Inside, my apartment goes silent.

I don’t sleep that night.