47- Assassination of Dana Linder

  Linder continued with a carefully prepared, pep-rallying speech designed to incite enthusiasm and excitement among her listeners.

  The woman with the stroller looked around the bridge and confirmed that all eyes were on the pavilion stage.

  The moment had come. It was when time slowed down and every thought, every action, seemed to last an eternity, and yet only a partial second elapsed with each effort.

  The woman noted the flags waving on the poles and determined wind velocity and direction. Perfect.

  The noise of Linder speaking ceased. The sound of the air became a vacuum.

  As she’d rehearsed faultlessly, the woman reached into the carriage and picked up a cellphone. She quickly dialed a number and dropped the mobile back inside. An instant later, surprisingly loud, popping explosions went off in a trash barrel in the middle of the park. The crowd around it screamed in fright, reacting to the sudden clamor. This diverted everyone’s attention, including Linder’s.

  The woman on the bridge swung the weapon to position, resting the barrel on top of the carriage in lieu of a tripod base. She bent her knees slightly and aimed. Even through the sunglasses, she got a clear bead on Linder through the Schmidt & Bender telescopic sight.

  Linder’s forehead appeared in the crosshairs. Her mouth was opening and closing, uttering silent words blocked by the sniper’s sensitive discipline.

  The woman’s index finger touched the trigger. All it would take was a simple squeeze. She took a split second to breathe, and then she instinctively and efficiently applied the appropriate amount of pressure.

  The shot rang out over the bridge.

  Without looking to see if the target was hit—the woman knew she was—she reached into her pocket and removed the smoke grenade obtained from Cherry Jones’s arsenal. The woman pulled the pin and tossed it a few feet away from the baby carriage. With a loud, thudding boom, a thick cloud of violet-colored smoke immediately filled that section of the BP Bridge. Pedestrians screamed.

  Time resumed its normal pace.

  Visibility was reduced to zero. Then came the vocal reactions from the crowd near the stage. Something had happened. Something bad.

  Police whistles. Shouts. Pandemonium.

  It took several minutes for the smoke to thin. By then, a large host of onlookers had congregated at the foot of the bridge as uniformed officers desperately tried to keep them back. They all shouted at once:

  “Someone shot Dana!”

  “The killer was on the bridge!”

  “It was a woman!”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “What happened?”

  With handgun drawn, one officer cautiously approached the stroller, which still stood where the woman had abandoned it. He looked inside and found no infant—just an M40A3 sniper rifle, a gray wig, a baseball cap, and a gray and blue woman’s pantsuit that had literally been ripped off a body.

  Agent 47, naturally bald-headed and now wearing his black suit—revealed after tearing away the woman’s clothing—stood among the agitated crowd, participating in the shouting and clamor. He was just another one of the herd, deftly blending in with the chaos around him.

  As the police joined arms to force the crowd off the bridge, 47 slipped farther south and onto the Great Lawn. The audience was straining to see the stage and yearning for news of what had happened. The assassin slowly moved through them as he also pretended to be a concerned supporter. The TV screens by the stage had gone blank, and a group of campaign workers and police were huddled around the fallen body of Dana Linder.

  It took nearly twenty minutes for 47 to make his way to the south side of the lawn. He spied the trash barrel that police were now inspecting. The fireworks the hitman had procured from Cherry had done the trick once he had hooked up a firing cap with a cellphone detonator. They had supplied the appropriate amount of diversion.

- Hitman: Damnation, chapter 11