Who was the Target?
It had taken him four months to plan this event. Now all the planning was done, the day was at hand. It was an unseasonably mild day, well above zero and the sun was shining brightly as he walked down the street. He was wearing a dark blue zippered hoody, with a company crest on the right brest. Underneath that was a dark blue shirt, tucked into dark blue cargo pants. On his head was a dark blue baseball hat with the same company crest on it. On his left shoulder, a technician’s tool pouch hung from a long strap. From his right, a long duffle bag with the company logo on it with fall protection device, written under the logo. He was about six feet tall, had broad shoulders and his steel capped work booted feet walked down the street with a purpose.
He walked into the buildings front entrance and up to a bank of four elevators. Although the building was in the downtown area, it was a class b building and there were no security people or cameras anywhere in the building during working hours. Placing a ‘Maintenance in progress’ sticker on the elevator door, the man called one particular elevator to the lobby. He had obtained the keys he required by simply ordering them from the company itself. The elevator came to the lobby and opened the doors and the man quickly used another key to take the elevator out of service. Then using the same key, inserted it in the keyway on the door jam and drove the elevator down with the doors still open. He then pushed in the stop button located on the car top control box, followed by the inspection button. Turning on the work light, he placed his tool pouch and the duffle bag on the cab top and got on top of the elevator, closing the hall doors behind him. Pulling out the stop button, he pushed in the ‘Up’ button and the elevator ascended slowly until he reached the top floor doors where he stopped. Blocking the mechanical door lock so it would not lock behind him, he opened the hall doors, took the duffle bag and softly closed the door behind him. To all intents, the door looked like normal. He knew from his research, that the elevator control system would not call in a fault if he followed those procedures.
Now, duffle bag across his shoulder, he made his way down the long hallway to the stairwell that led to the roof. The door was not alarmed and by building code, could not be locked barring re-entry. Following the concrete pathway laid out on the roof, he made his way to another small stairway that lead to the elevator control room and pulling a small screwdriver from his shirt pocket, picked the simple lock and gained entry.
It took only moments to assemble the rifle concealed in the duffle bag. It was a high quality hunting rifle manufactured in Finland. The high powered scope mounted on it was American and had been picked up used at a garage sale. The day before, he had, along with dozens of others, sighted the rifle in at an impromptu range in the woods an hour away. Target shooting was a popular pastime in this area. He had tailor made the bullets himself for just this one purpose. The rifles clip held five bullets, he would need no more. They were a popular hunting calibre, .270. The round was famous for its long range, flat trajectory and hitting power. The bullet he was using had a soft led tip, mounted in a copper jacket and did massive amount of damage to soft tissue.
The timing of this act could not have been more perfect. It was 4:30pm, the beginning of the afternoon rush to go home and the time his target habitually used. Taking rifle in hand, he blocked the door to the control room open and walked to the edge of the building. It had a waist high wall around roof and he knelt down and placed the rifle on the wall, jacking the first round into the chamber and looked for the first target.
There standing by herself waiting for the traffic light to change was number one. She was in her mid twenties and wearing a skirt about 50 meters away. He sighted two inches below her left knee and slowly squeezed the trigger. The rifle went off with a loud boom and he shifted aim to another intersection a block away and found another perfect target as screams could be heard below. The bullet had hit the woman’s knee cap and torn the leg below the knee right off. The next target was a buss sitting at a red light, he sighted on the drivers head and again slowly squeezed the trigger. Another loud boom and he was sighting now at the building across the street and three floors down from where he was. Sitting in the room were two men, one with his back to the window behind a desk, the other sitting across from him. The man sighted first on the visitor, placing the cross hairs in the center of the mouth and squeezed again. Then shifted to the other man at the base of his neck and shot again. The last shot he saved for the first police car to show up, catching the officer in the bridge of the nose.
Now he quickly strode back to the elevator control room, dismantled the rifle, stuffing it back in the duffle bag walked back to the elevator, drove it back down to the lobby, returned it to service and left the building. Like all the other people in the street, he gawked around at all the activity for a minute and then calmly walked away.
The authorities eventually may figure out where the shots had come from. But he had taken all of the shell casings with him. No security cameras had been in range and even if they found a bullet that had survived the impact, it was a popular round and there was nothing remarkable about it. In any case, the duffle bag with the rifle was in the bottom of a dumpster that had been picked up at 5:00 PM and the likely hood of it ever being found was remote. The randomness of the victims would lead the authorities to suspect a terror plot, not a targeted assassination. Nor the purpose of the assassination.
Who Was the Target?
A short story
Copyright © 2016 R.P. Wollbaum
