What Have We Done (6)

If she ever meets that woman again, she will kill her.

She separates the hotel room’s drapes an inch and looks outside. It’s a direct line of sight to the outdoor deck of the Capital Grille.

The deck is empty, which is unusual for the power-lunch hot spot. It’s usually packed when Jenna leaves spin class. Perhaps her target reserved the entire seating area.

She looks at the burner phone again.

Cap Grille, outside table, bald man.

Her thoughts drift to her family at breakfast—to her wonderfully normal husband kissing her goodbye, to her wonderfully angsty teen slamming the door, to her wonderfully adorable five-year-old sneaking food to her wonderfully loveable dog. Then Jenna imagines losing them all by the time she returns home if she doesn’t do this.

She examines the rifle, checks the scope. The hotel window presents a problem. She usually would have a two-person team, one to shoot out the glass, the other to take out the mark. But she notices that someone has disabled the suicide-deterence mechanism that ordinarily would prevent the window from opening more than a few inches. She pulls the latch and the window opens far enough to avoid obstructing the shot. She looks for something to take a wind reading and sees that a flag planted on the roof of an office building is limp.

She gets in position.

It isn’t long before the restaurant’s host leads a small cluster of men to an outdoor table. The men are muscular and seem uncomfortable in their business suits. Ex-military. They examine the area, look up and down Massachusetts Avenue. The target is someone important—important enough to have an

advance team, anyway. But not so high-value that he’s forbidden from eating outside on a beautiful spring day. One of the advance guys says something into his sleeve, then the target appears. Jenna can’t see his face, but he’s the only bald head. It might as well be painted with a bull’s-eye.

Still, it won’t be an easy shot. The bald man sits with his back to her. The bodyguards surround the table. She’ll need the perfect opening. Jenna hopes he’ll need to use the restroom.

She waits. Still as a stone, like she was taught. She once waited thirteen hours, frozen in place.

She shudders, remembering the weight in her chest and, worse, peeling off the adult diaper, its smell somehow shocking.

A bottle of something expensive is brought to the table.

She waits.

Sweat slides down her side. Can she still do this? Physically, yes. She’s rusty, but it’s a skill that never goes away. Emotionally, though … can she do it?

Yes, you have to.

At last, the bald man stands. Throws his napkin on the table. The guards change position, ready to escort him to the restroom.

Through the scope, Jenna gets the first look at his face.

And her heart plummets.

She pulls back from the rifle’s scope.

The face is familiar, one that’s been on the covers of magazines, the nightly news, endless social-media feeds. One that still looks much the same as it did twenty-five years ago in the dining room of their group home.

Something catches her eye. A reflection—a sharp glimmer from the rooftop of the building across from her, just past the restaurant.

Then it hits her: It’s the sun glittering off of another scope.

She’s not the only hitter. There’s a backup team.

This job felt “off” since the start. This is not how The Corporation operates. Jenna’s nerves are on fire. She needs to get out of here.

She presses her eye back to the scope.

In one fluid movement, she sets her aim, takes a breath, and pulls the trigger, light as a feather.





CHAPTER FIVE

The recoil slams into her shoulder. Through the sight she sees that the bald man is already surrounded by his human shields, who quickly shuffle him inside the restaurant. No one is hit. Precisely as Jenna intended.

She wipes down the gun, leaves it where she found it. She’s been careful not to touch anything else.

Examining herself in the long mirror near the door, she straightens the wig, puts on the sunglasses, tucks the burner phone in her pocket. After one deep breath, she calmly steps out of the room into the hallway.

Lowering her head in case there are cameras, she moves toward the elevator bank. It’s quiet. No one has connected the shooting to the hotel. Yet.

She senses another person in the hall and glances up. The woman’s back is to her; she’s searching her handbag for her room key.

Something is off. Unnatural.

Jenna turns and walks in the other direction. She takes a quick look over her shoulder and sees the guest—the woman from the bus stop and from the SoulCycle bathroom—in a double-handed firing stance. Jenna dodges to the right, hears the cut of wind from the suppressor. She sprints, zagging left and right and left and around the corner.

She spies the door to the emergency stairs and dashes through it, the woman running close behind.

The stairwell spirals down all ten floors. She won’t have time to outpace the woman. Jenna climbs over the railing and hangs, her arms outstretched, body a vertical line. Her chest is hammering.

She needs to collect herself. Remember your training. Hanging there forever, she gets her bearings.

And she releases her grip.

She drops two floors, whiplashing to a stop when she catches the railing.

She hears movement above. The woman’s head appears over the ledge for an instant before it pulls back. The shooter tries the move again, from a different position, hoping to avoid a bullet to the forehead. She peers over once more and gets off a shot. But Jenna’s already dropping two more floors, where she again catches the railing. This time one hand slips and leaves her hanging tenuously.