Chapter 97

Chapter 97—Jack deals with Jerry
7:00 a.m., Friday, January 13

"You Archibald?" a pudgy man said, walking into the coffee shop and spotting Jack.

"Yeah."

"I got your bagels. They’re in my car."

"I’ll check them out," Jack said, dropping a $10 bill on his table as he followed the Bagel Man out of the coffee shop.

Bagel Man did not resemble any one you would want to buy food from. He was short, fat and sloppy. His protruding belly poked out between his soiled slacks and tattered windbreaker.

Fortunately for Jack, no one was really talking bagels. (Truth be told, Jack hated bagels. He thought that eating a bagel was like swallowing your gum—repeatedly.)

As the two men approached Bagel Man’s car, Jack just kept walking. "Pull around here," he said, gesturing for Bagel Man to pull around the coffee shop and into an alley. Bagel Man complied.

Parking his older SUV in the alley behind two large dumpsters, Bagel Man got out and opened the driver’s side rear door. After looking around to be certain that only Jack was around, Bagel Man slid his hand under a couple jackets and sweatshirts, and pulled out a wrinkled brown paper bag, and tossed it on one of the jackets. He was careful not to raise it higher than the top of the rear seats.

He took half a step back, looked at Jack, then gestured with one hand towards the package, saying, "There it is, the bagel you ordered."

Jack said, "open it up, I want to see it."

Bagel Man stepped up and opened the bag. He pulled out a small pistol, again cautious to conceal it.

Jack looked at it. Taking a handkerchief out of his pocket, he gripped the pistol, pushed the lever that restrained the cylinder, and snapped it open by jerking his wrist to the left. It was obvious that he was satisfied with the gun. With his thumb he then spun the cylinder, still careful to keep his handkerchief between his skin and the pistol. Then with a sudden snap of his wrist to the right, he flipped the cylinder back to its ready position.

Jack then removed a latex glove from his pocket, but did not put it on. He just wrapped the glove around the suppressor, to be sure it fit the pistol properly.

"Ammo?" Jack queried.

"Sure, it’s in the bag."

"Show me" Jack demanded.

Bagel Man, looking a little disgusted, reached back into the bag, and pulled out a full box of .22 caliber long rifle cartridges, and a box of .380 ACP 80 grain cartridges.

"You idiot!" Jack snapped, sticking the .380s in his pocket, "I told you to get .22 longs, not long rifles! What the hell am I going to do with long rifles? You can’t use them with that pistol. Damn it, I thought you knew what you were doing!"

"Keep your pants on!" Bagel Man snorted, as he walked around to the front passenger door. He opened it, and reached into the glove compartment. Fumbling around in it for a minute, he pulled out a tattered box of ammunition, examined it, and then tossed it on the front seat. He pulled out another, and another. Then he pulled out a fourth box, carefully read the label, opened it up, and slammed the glove compartment closed. He had found what he was looking for—half a tattered box of .22 longs. That he tossed over the back seat and onto the jacket with the pistol.

"There ya go, .22 longs."

"Load it." Jack said.

"Here, just take the whole box, or what’s left, no extra charge," Bagel Man offered.

"Load the damn thing—four rounds only."

Now clearly disgusted, Bagel Man counted out four rounds from the box, picked up the pistol, and started to load it. This time, though, he was not so careful about raising the gun above the seat. Letting his anger get the best of him, he rocked back and forth from one foot to the other. Perhaps it was just too hard for him to bend over any more—he must have carried 280 pounds on his wide, but short 5-8 frame.

"Damn it," Jack grunted, "you gonna show it off to the whole damn world?"

Jack then slipped on the latex gloves, and told Bagel Man to hand him the gun. He checked it over one last time. It was exactly what he requested. He was certain that Bagel Man was too stupid to have had much to do with procuring the pistol. "All this joker did is write down what I told him, and pick it up from a third party. This thing is probably traceable," he concluded.

The fact that a firearm might have a history was not actually of significance to Jack, because he always disposed of his weapon after a hit. He did always make sure that he did not get busted in possession of such a firearm, and he never left fingerprints or DNA on one. So it would be impossible to trace it back to him.

Jack took a look over his left shoulder, and feigned seeing someone approaching. "Quick, get in," he commanded, pushing Bagel man into the rear seat, right on top of the jackets, and the partial box of ammo. "We’ve got company."

Bagel Man reluctantly obeyed.

"My money. You owe me two grand," he said holding out his hand as he clumsily landed on his side.

"Here you go," Jack said, raising the pistol to Bagel Man’s temple, and tossing a paper bag containing the cash on his lap at the same time. Just before he shoved Bagel Man, Jack had rotated the cylinder to an empty chamber. He then squeezed the trigger until the hammer slammed forward. Bagel Man was terrified.

"Now" Jack warned in his most ominous voice, "if I ever think that you have breathed a word about this to anyone, I’ll look you up and kill you. … Do you clearly understand what I am saying to you?"

Bagel Man, convulsing in fearful sobs, said nothing, but did shake his head affirmatively.

Jack slammed the door, leaving Bagel Man too frightened to even look at him, much less speak. Jack then slid the revolver and ammunition back into the bag with which Bagel Man had transported it, tucked it into his jacket, and left.

Jack always preferred using a .22 caliber revolver. For one thing, unlike a semi-automatic, it did not spew out the empty cartridges. He always snickered when he watched hit men on television doing their job using a semi-automatic with a suppressor. "Someone didn’t do his homework," He would mutter.

Another advantage with a .22 caliber revolver was muzzle velocity. A .22 long cartridge, shot from a four-inch barrel, would pierce any skull. And, because of the small entry wound, blood spatter and blow back would be minimal. Plus, a suppressor worked well on that particular pistol. He always requested Smith and Wesson.

He did carry with him a Walther .380 semi-automatic. He liked the Walther because it was reliable, and easy to conceal. Thankfully, he had never fired it on a job. The .380 was intended for use only if the revolver failed, or should he need additional firepower to extricate himself from the scene of his hit. With scores of successful contracts, he never made a mistake that warranted its use.

As soon as he accepted a contract, he would start making arrangements to procure the kill weapon in the same city as the hit. That way he never had to transport it. As far as the Walther was concerned, he did transport it. But before getting on a plane, Jack would disassemble the .380 entirely, right down to every bolt and spring, and then pack the parts separately in his check-in luggage.

However, Jack never transported the ammunition for the .380. That he always procured along with the kill weapon.

Another thing Jack never did was to load the pistol he intended to use with more than two rounds per victim—one for the head (or to the chest, if he were certain there was no body armor, and if a head shot were not feasible), and one to the brain stem. Jack’s hits had always been clinical marvels. His plan was for this not to be an exception.

10:30 a.m., Friday, January 13

Jack had his checklist. Nothing was written down, of course—didn’t need to be. … Shouldn’t be, in fact. The less clutter the better, Jack figured. Clutter, when it gets into the wrong hands, becomes evidence. And evidence can destroy.

"Judges don’t send you to jail," Jack would frequently tell himself, "evidence sends you to jail."

Jack rehearsed in his mind what he needed to learn about his subject, and just how he was to conduct his study.

"Did his subject live alone? Was he married? Did he party? "Did he know how to handle a firearm? Did he own one? Did he work out? Did he have a live-in lover? Was he gay? Did he have a dog? What sort of hours did he keep? What type of alarm system did he have? Did he even have one? And if he did, did he use it? What type of police response could be expected? And, what were the best escape routes?"

There were obviously dozens of other questions that Jack would have about an individual subject, but those were the big ones. Not always was he able to have all the answers he might like, but he knew that the more information he had, the better the job was likely to go.

Of course, there was no question about it—once he signed on to do a job, the subject was going to die. That was a given. Throughout his long career, every subject he targeted, died; and never did a client fail to pay him. Jack now collected no less than $150 grand for a job—usually much more. And he never had a problem getting jobs.

The part that irked him most about this hit was that he was not being paid for it, at least not extra. He was supposed to receive several million from Reginald when his part of the assassination plot was consummated. Because of Reginald’s untimely death, Jack received nothing. But even had he been paid, it would not have included the hit on Jerry and his wife.

He was executing the hit on Jerry mostly to make a point. Past and future clients had to know that he was not a person to be toyed with.

In every case, Jack tried to avoid the messy. That’s where his checklist came in. The better his preparation, the better and cleaner the operation.

Sometimes, mostly lately, his hits had been very clean. He would do his homework, study his subject thoroughly—but not over a very long period of time—then execute a perfect kill. And then get out. He never liked to spend more than one week in any given city. That was one of the things that made him feel uneasy about this hit—he had been in New York for over two weeks. Only one other time in the past four years had he been in a subject’s town for longer than a week, and that because the subject was out of town visiting a sick mother when Jack arrived. When that subject returned, Jack hit him the first night, and left town within hours.

Jack parked his rental car two houses down from where Jerry lived, and walked right up and rang the bell.

Carol, Jerry’s trophy wife, answered the door: "What can I do for you?" she asked over the intercom, as she took a peek at him through a glass panel beside the door.

"I’m sorry to bother you," Jack said in his most apologetic voice, and with a very disarming smile, "I was walking my dog, and he slipped out of his collar." He then raised an empty leash and collar, showing it to Jerry’s wife through the glass. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled broadly. "I thought perhaps he ran into your back yard to play with your dog."

Carol then unlocked and opened the door. Jack was struck with just how trusting Carol seemed to be, and the fact that there was no chain on the door.

It was about 11 a.m. Jack knew Jerry would not be home, because he had arrived early enough to see Jerry leave. And, he knew that Jerry would be spending the day in New York on business—business he had arranged.

Jack observed that Carol did not have to disarm an alarm system, and that she did not have a secondary security lock or deadbolts to disengage. This told Jack that his subject was not paranoid, and actually fairly trusting. It seemed to Jack that Jerry was not concerned about his safety, or he would have insisted his wife keep the alarm on even during the day.

"I don’t have a dog, but you’re welcome to check the back yard, if you wish," Carol said. Then turning around and looking toward the great room, called out "Hey, Marion, my neighbor is here looking for his dog, have you seen anything?" Turning back to Jack, she said, "I’m sorry, but my cleaning lady hasn’t seen any new dogs around … what’s your dog look like?"

"He’s a medium-sized Norwegian Elkhound, probably 45 pounds. His name is Mister." Jack answered.

"What’s a Norwegian Elkhound?" Carol asked. "No offense, please. I’m sorry, how rude of me. Please step inside and tell me about your dog, so I will know what to look for. I just never heard of that breed. Please come in."

Jack took the opportunity to step in and look around. He observed that there was an alarm system. There was a motion sensor—probably more than one, and a keypad by the front door. He also noticed that there was a drill-mounted hard-wired contact on the top of the front door. "Thanks," he said as he closed the door behind him.

Jack could be very disarming. He had a strikingly handsome and rugged face. While it was his green eyes that captured attention, it was his smile that melted hearts. And he smiled a lot, when he needed to.

He stood about five feet ten inches, and weighed a very trim one hundred and seventy-five pounds. His upper body strength was obvious.

No matter where he was, or what he was doing, he always wore running shoes—expensive running shoes. On this day he was wearing, in addition to running shoes, a pair of loose-fitting but expensive jeans, a Yankee baseball jersey (which was not tucked in), and a Yankee warm-up jacket and baseball cap.

"Please, let me get you a beer. You should rest a moment before you go looking for your dog—your Norwegian Elkhound." She named the breed for Jack, so that he would not think her ignorant.

"A beer sounds great," Jack said. He knew he did not want to stay long, because he did not want to hang around, should company arrive. Already he had been surprised that the cleaning lady was there.

Carol returned to the foyer with a cold lite beer and handed it to Jack. As she did, she noticed that her guest was wearing flesh-colored latex gloves.

"Don’t’ they make your hands sweat?" she asked.

"They do, but I have to wear them because of a skin condition," Jack replied. His response was quick because he had been asked that question before—many times before.

Jack took a couple sips of his beer, and then began to excuse himself. "I had better find Mister before he gets too far. Those Elkhounds are hunters by nature. He’s probably chasing a squirrel or something. Thanks for the beer."

As he turned to leave, Jerry’s wife asked him how she could reach him if she happened to spot his dog.

"Here," he said, reaching in his pocket, "just call my cell phone. I carry it with me all the time. I’m sure Mister will find me, once I get back outside. By the way, that beer really hit the spot. Do you mind if I take the rest of it with me?"

"Not at all. Good luck finding your dog."

"Thanks," Jack said, as he smiled and closed the door behind him. "You sure you don’t mind if I take a peek in the back, just in case he’s back there?"

"Go right ahead, no problem," Carol told him.

11:40 a.m., Friday, January 13

Jack felt a little uneasy carrying an opened can of beer to his car, so he dumped the remainder out as he walked to the rear of the house. He wanted to inspect the telephone interface—to find out whether or not they used a landline, VOIP, cell only, or a combination. He could not be sure without popping the cover on the interface, but he would do that when he came back. At least now, he knew where the interface was located.

As he got back in his car, he tossed the empty can in the back, and started going over what he had learned. "I know that they have an alarm system, and that they don’t use it during the day. I know his wife looks to be at least fifteen years younger than her husband, she is friendly, and very beautiful. I am quite sure he sleeps with her. And I know that there are no bedrooms on the main level—so they obviously sleep upstairs."

Experience had taught Jack that the easiest subject was a somewhat drunk middle-aged man after sex. Jack surmised that if he came back in the middle of the night, there is a good chance that Jerry and his wife will have been drinking, and probably screwing. "This just might be easier than most," he concluded.

Jack had learned what he had hoped to learn. The stage was now almost set for the hit.

Jack returned to the area about 6 p.m. that evening. He knew that was about the time Jerry would be coming home, so he took up a position on the route he knew Jerry would be using. And, just as expected, he spotted Jerry’s car approaching.

He followed at a safe distance to be sure that Jerry arrived at his house, and parked the car in the garage. He waited until he was certain that Jerry had entered his home. He then set out to do the most dangerous part of the whole operation. Parking his car in the next block, Jack cut through the rear shrubbery (avoiding the mechanical gate in front of the house), scaled a six-foot fence, and made his way to the overhead garage door, which Jerry had opened to park his car.

Taking out a roll of transparent packing tape, he affixed it to the door, and onto the frame. Later he could use that tape to determine whether or not Jerry had left with his car.

At eleven o’clock that evening, Jack returned to the neighborhood, parking his rental car in front of a house several doors away, and across the street, from Jerry’s house. He put a "handicap" permit on the dash, and then grabbed a small shoulder bag from the back seat. As he approached a medium-sized maple tree across the street from Jerry’s front door, seized a small limb in his right hand, pulled himself up enough to snatch a similar limb in his left, and then pulled himself up into the branches. He waited there for a moment, to see if he had been detected. Once confident no one had seen him, he continued up the tree until he found a relatively comfortable limb that afforded him a good view of the front of Jerry’s home.

Jack had trained for this sort of thing for years. He had always been physically fit. He had never allowed the physical dexterity developed in the military to diminish. One of his favorite exercises was to climb a forty-foot rope using only his legs and right hand. And then he would switch hands, and come back down.

At one time he was a good friend of a man who ran a rock-climbing school. So he would frequently use his friend’s equipment. But when his buddy’s school went under, Jack decided to string a large rope from the upper limbs of a tree in his back yard, and use it. He did not like going to gyms, because too many people asked questions.

Using binoculars, he spotted the bedroom Jerry and Carol slept in. "Just what I thought," he whispered to himself. "I can see them both in their bedroom, I don’t even have to inspect the garage door."

Jack waited in the tree for nearly an hour—well after the last light went dark. Once he was confident that his subjects had settled in, he slid down the tree, and returned to his car. He then drove away. He retired to his nearby motel (to which he had moved earlier that day), and waited until four in the morning. He figured that the bar crowd would all be home by then, so it would be a decent time to be on the roads. The cops would be finished testing for alcohol, and would all be eating donuts. Everyone on the streets at that time would be people headed to work.

This time he parked in front of Jerry’s house. Taking the same bag (but with different contents) from off the rear seat, he scaled the fence, and walked around to the back of the house.

Using his specialized tool, Jack removed the cover from the telephone interface, and placed his lineman’s butt set on the red and green terminals that were connected to the blue/white pair of telephone wires. He listened on the butt set for, and found, a dial tone. That told him Jerry most likely had a standard landline, and probably not VOIP (Voice over IP). That would be relatively easy to take out. He then placed a small wire (with alligator clips on each end) across the red and green terminals, shorting them out. That would temporarily disable the telephone line, and the standard communicator on the alarm system.

But that was not enough. Jack then had to deal with the possibility of a radio back up on the alarm system. To accomplish that, he removed two sophisticated looking devices—cell phone jammers, such as are used in theaters to block cell phone usage during the showing of a movie. The difference between his units and the standard units was that he had installed a twenty-watt linear amplifier to each of his. That made them capable of taking out any radio back-up on any alarm system located within a hundred yards in any direction. He switched on the two devices, and hung one on a tree limb at each end of Jerry’s house.

After cutting the ground cable connected to the telephone interface, and the telephone cable leading to the street, Jack then removed one end of the alligator clip jumper he had initially placed on the phone line terminals that connected to the house phones. Making sure that one end of that jumper was still connected to the house side of the surge protector, he attached the free end to the positive terminal of a very large electrolytic capacitor, fully charged. He then connected a second jumper to the other side of the surge protector. Finally, using a pair of insulated needle-nosed pliers, he touched the free alligator clip to the negative terminal on the capacitor.

When he did it, there was a very bright spark. "So much for their telephones, and their alarm system," he reasoned. "That will have taken them both out."

He then put his butt set on the green/white pair. Even though he did not detect a dial tone, he repeated the procedure he used on the blue/white, using a second capacitor.

Finally, using wire cutters, he snipped all the cable connections. He knew that it was possible that Jerry had his alarm monitored through his cable Internet connection.

Knowing now that the alarm and the telephones were most likely disabled, along with the radio backup, he proceeded to make his entry.

He knew that the contact on the front door was on the top of the jam, and hard wired. He had determined that on his first trip. So he was prepared to cut a hole using a battery-powered hole saw, and to disable the contact, should his attempt at blowing the system with the capacitor have failed.

Happily, however, he was able to look in through the glass side panel, and check out the status of the alarm keypad. Just as he had suspected, it was totally dark. He had successfully taken it out when he discharged the capacitor. Therefore, there would be no need to cut a hole to attack the contact itself.

That meant all he had to do is open the door.

Using a small flashlight, he looked into the crack where the door meets the jam. While there was a deadbolt installed on the door, it was not engaged—just as it was not engaged when he was at the house earlier that day.

Now all he had to do was to get by the latch lock. Just for kicks, he pushed down on the thumb release, to see if perhaps they had left the door unlocked altogether. "No such luck," Jack muttered, as he reached into his bag for a long skinny screwdriver.

Sliding the thin tool into the crack, he painstakingly worked the latch until he got it to slide into the open position. He then quietly opened the door.

The rest was a piece of cake. He knew where their bedroom was. He strongly suspected they would be sound asleep. He set his bag inside the house, and pushed the door closed, but not latched. He slid the bag in front of the door to keep it from opening.

He then removed the .22 caliber revolver from the bag, and walked up the stairs to where the couple was sleeping. He opened the door, and walked over to Jerry. He could see him well enough to recognize him.

Beside him on the bed was beautiful Carol.

Just as Jack placed the muzzle of the suppressor a few inches from Jerry’s temple, Carol turned over so that Jack got a good look at her peaceful face. "My God," he thought. "She can’t be more than ten years older than Kate."

Jack reflected on all that he had been through over the previous two weeks in rescuing Kate—how Reginald had even made the ultimate sacrifice to save her.

Now Jack was looking into the face of another beautiful young woman. And this one was every bit as innocent as his Kate.

Never before had Jack ever hesitated when it came to squeezing the trigger. He prided himself on not allowing second thoughts.

But this time, looking into the sleeping face of an angel, he was questioning himself.

"Darling," Jack thought, "this is the luckiest day of your life."

Silently, Jack released the pressure from the trigger of his .22 pistol, and drew backward a step, and prepared to leave.

But, just as he was about to turn around, Carol woke up.

Half sitting up beside Jerry, she grabbed her husband’s shoulder and shook him. "Jerry," she said. "I think I heard something."

Now all options were gone. Jack extended his gun hand and he fired a single shot through the left side of her forehead. The bullet entered the front of the left lobe, then the back of the right. It shattered the back of her skull, pierced the head of the bed, and lodged in the wall.

Carol was dead.

Jack immediately fired a second round into the woman, striking her in the upper neck, and severing her brain stem.

The ruckus woke Jerry, and he turned to comfort his dead wife. Jack fired his third round through Jerry’s left temple—also a fatal shot.

The bullet entered just above and in front of Jerry’s left ear, and passed through both sides of his brain. Jack knew that if he angled his shot slightly downward, the bullet would pass through the brain, and exit from Jerry’s lower temple. Jack did not want it to strike the hard skull on the opposite side of Jerry’s head, and possible ricochet back in his direction.

And, just as Jack intended, the .22 caliber bullet delivered instant, paralyzing death to the target, and ended up somewhere in the mattress.

He then held the pistol a few inches from Jerry’s upper neck, and put a round through his brain stem.

Jack then immediately prepared to leave. He went back down the stairs, placed the pistol and mask in his bag, and walked out the door—this time closing it to the latched position.

He walked back to the side of the house, and removed the radio jammer, and made sure that he left nothing incriminating by the telephone interface.

Then he made his way over to the other side of the house, and removed the other jammer. In both cases, he made sure that they were turned off and battery removed before placing them in his bag. He knew that there was a funny thing about linear amplifiers. Both HAM operators and the FCC took major exception to their being used for anything. If he were to forget and leave one on, eventually someone would find him out.

Once all his tools were properly accounted for, and the telephone interface closed up, Jack returned to his car, and drove away.

"I don’t know what the hell I was thinking," Jack mumbled, reflecting on his hesitation to consummate the hit. "That never happened before. Maybe it is time to hang it up."

This had been the toughest job he had ever done—given the death of his friend, and the anxieties of his daughter’s kidnapping. "At least this part of it’s over," Jack thought.

On his way back to his motel, Jack stopped at a convenience store. There he bought half a dozen large bags of ice, a box of trash bags, and two large containers of table salt. As with every job he did, Jack wanted to quickly dispose of the pistol he had used, and these were the materials he used to do it.

Once back at his motel, he took the pistol apart as much as could be done, and placed the parts on a towel on his bed. Then he placed two more towels on the bathroom floor, and a garbage bag on top of them. On top of the trash bag he set a special over-sized and plastic-lined brief case, and opened it. He lined the inside with another trash bag, and then poured into that case two bags of the ice, then sprinkled one of the boxes of salt over the ice.

Next he placed the parts of the revolver used in the hit, along with the spent cartridges, on top of the ice. Then he sprinkled a little more salt over the ice and the revolver parts, followed by another layer of ice on top, making sure he would still be able to close the case. Finally, he poured the rest of the second box of salt over the ice.

He checked his watch. He left the case open for exactly two minutes, as the salt started working on the ice. Then he closed the case enough to allow excess water to drain out, and held it over the bathtub.

After ten or fifteen seconds, with the last of the water dripping out, he latched the case and dried off the outside. He then immediately left the motel, taking the case with him.

With the case securely stashed behind him in the car, he drove to his preselected spot accessing the East River. He got out of his car, taking the case with him.

Just as he had done so many times before, Jack unlatched the case just as he approached the river. He knew he needed to exercise caution when removing the ice from the case, for not do so could result in severe frostbite. The salt, while melting off some of the ice, actually turned the remaining ice into a super cold block.

With one swift motion, he dumped the contents into the river, making certain to hang onto the trash bag lining his case. That he tucked into the case and latched it.

Immediately turning back, he headed briskly toward his car. "Let’s see," he thought, "it will take about forty-five minutes before the ice melts enough to drop the pistol. Given the current, that could be a quarter to a half-mile. They’ll have fun finding that gun—especially in this river. It might even reach the Atlantic."

As Jack walked back, his mind wandered to a conversation he had had with Reginald regarding this job—that they both stood to earn millions from it.

To date, Jack had not received a penny for his work. Aside from the satisfaction that his effort (or lack thereof) saved the life of a US President, and that he now had a much closer relationship with his daughter Kate, these winter weeks in New York were a bust for Jack.

… However, he did have that most curious puzzle. … "Someday," Jack thought, "when I have more time, I’m gonna have to sit down with that and see what I can make of it."

Then his mind switched over to his fond memories of his friend. "Reg must be smiling right now," Jack thought, as he approached his car.

Jack’s tearless eyes were also smiling.