True Fiction (Ian Ludlow Thrillers #1)(19)
Once they were airborne, the woman cranked up the hip-hop on her earbuds loud enough for the assassin to hear and emptied her shoulder bag full of gossip magazines onto her lap and tray table. She flipped through the magazines and took possession of both armrests while eating from a bag of crunchy Cheetos that smelled like an endless fart.
It was as if the woman didn’t see the assassin in the seat beside her. Of course, going unnoticed was something the assassin worked to achieve but she didn’t appreciate suffering for it. Today the assassin was a slim, flat-chested woman wearing glasses and a gray pantsuit, her brown hair tied into an efficient bun. There was nothing memorable or remotely eye-catching about her.
The assassin traveled light, carrying a black jogging suit, running shoes, and some toiletries simply so she’d have something in her carry-on bag for the X-ray machine operator to see at airport security. She would buy or steal what she needed when she got to her destination and leave it all behind when she left. The assassin never carried weapons. She liked to improvise. It was what made her job fun. She understood why snipers enjoyed their work but it was too mechanical and distant for her. There wasn’t any opportunity for spontaneity or creativity.
When the plane arrived in Seattle at 4:00 p.m., both the assassin and the woman, her clothes now covered with a fine layer of yellow Cheetos dust, took the courtesy bus to the car rental terminal. Once there, the assassin used a stolen credit card at E-Z Rent a Car to book a compact Kia and was heading for the parking structure with her suitcase when she saw the annoying woman go into the restroom. It was too inviting an opportunity for the assassin to pass up. The assassin followed her inside.
The four stalls were open and unoccupied. The woman stood at the sink, washing the yellow Cheetos dust off her greasy hands. The assassin left her suitcase beside the door, came up behind the woman, and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper.
“Don’t worry about your hands. The mortician will clean them.”
“Huh?” the woman said.
The assassin grabbed the woman’s head and gave it a sharp twist, breaking her neck with an audible snap. She caught the woman by her armpits, dragged her into the nearest stall, and sat her on the toilet. Then she went back to the sink and gave the woman’s suitcase a kick, sending it rolling into the stall. She took a paper towel, reached up to the top of the stall door, and pulled it closed. The whole encounter lasted sixty-eight seconds.
It wasn’t one of the ways the assassin had imagined killing the woman but it was still satisfying. The assassin washed her hands, grabbed her suitcase, and walked out to her car.
Ian was right: There was Vicodin in the house. He found a prescription bottle upstairs in the master bedroom medicine cabinet. The tablets had expired six months earlier so he dry-swallowed two to make up for any lack of potency, washed his mouth out with Listerine, and went back down the ridiculous staircase to the kitchen, where Margo was making herself a smoked salmon sandwich. He made one, too, sat on the couch to eat it, and fell asleep after his second bite.
It was dark outside when he awoke. One of the dogs was lying across his lap. His head wasn’t pounding anymore, his backache was gone, and even his arm wasn’t itching in the cast. The Vicodin had worked its magic.
Margo sat in an easy chair, smoking a joint and watching CNN on the TV. Did she bring the pot, he asked himself, or had she found some in the house? One of the dogs was at her feet, chewing on a rubber lobster. A crustacean didn’t strike Ian as a logical doggie chew toy but what did he know? Perhaps it was lobster flavored.
Ian petted the dog on his lap. “Which one is this?”
“Kim.”
“I think she likes me.”
“She likes sleeping on the couch,” she said.
Okay, he thought, so Margo is still pissed at me. Not that he could blame her.
On the TV, Wolf Blitzer was talking with CNN’s aviation expert, Shawn Danielson, in the studio. The ticker-tape-style headlines running along the bottom of the screen reported that the downed flight’s data and voice recorders had been recovered from the wreckage.
BLITZER: The aircraft that went down in Honolulu is a Gordon-Ganza 877, the new, lighter, more fuel-efficient model of the company’s 876, the workhorse of many major airlines. How safe is this new plane?
DANIELSON: That’s a good question. This is the second tragedy related to the new aircraft, the first being the disappearance of Indonesian Air Flight 230 on its way to Hong Kong. But I don’t think the issue is the plane.
BLITZER: Data transmitted automatically by the aircraft indicated that the autopilot was activated shortly after takeoff. Doesn’t that contradict the copilot, who said in his final transmission that the plane was out of control?
DANIELSON: Not necessarily. Someone programmed the autopilot, activated it, and kept it on. The simple explanation is that one of the pilots is responsible. The alternative is sabotage.
BLITZER: Which possibility do you find more frightening?
DANIELSON: Sabotage. Because if they did it once . . . they could do it again.
“What have you been doing while I’ve been asleep?” Ian asked.
“Thinking.” Margo used the remote to mute the TV. “This is really fucked.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Over three hundred people are dead, almost a thousand are injured. Why would our own government do that?”
“I don’t know,” Ian said.