Simply Stories - A Last Shot by Carmen Anderson

A Last Shot

by Carmen Anderson

She should not be this hot. Not in mid-winter. The sun is behind her, still weak, yet she has to blink away beads of sweat that drip from her brow onto her eyelashes. She cannot risk her view being obscured, not now with only a few minutes to go before the motorcade arrives. She knows the timing will be to the second, the planning meticulous. She had been there every step of the way.

“How the hell do you expect me to get away with it?” she had demanded the night she had been commissioned. His face had been obscured by the shadows in that lamp-lit hotel room. She had been brought to him in a swift, smooth movement, executed in almost complete silence. A code whispered into her ear in the supermarket car park that had made her blood freeze and her bowels turn and then a discreet escort in a nondescript car, not recognised, not followed.

He, on the other hand, was still anonymous, even after all these years. She had never seen his face before, although this was far from her first job for him.

“And I’ve retired,” she reminded him, ignoring the tremble of fear at even this tentative show of insubordination. She was as surprised as she was relieved when he gave a slight chuckle.

“Once in, never out,” he said, and raised a glass of Scotch to his lips. He took a tiny sip and set the glass back delicately on the table. He gestured to the glass in front of her with his fine, pale hands, inviting her to join him.

She hesitated. The hotel room was luxurious, modern, clean cut. They sat at a glass table, not a scratch on its surface, chromed steel and shining perfection. Then she reached for the glass, took a large gulp and set it down, letting the heat of the whisky scorch its way into her bones, steadying, her nerves as it went. She would never know who he was. She had been curious for a while, wanting to know who pulled at the puppet strings that controlled everyone who controlled her.

“I heard those words when I was recruited decades ago,” he continued, “I could never have got out even if I wanted to. And the same goes for you.”

She grimaced. She had hated that sense of indebtedness, even after all these years. But she had never had a choice. They had been there, in the heat of battle, always anonymous, always in the right place at the right time. They had saved her life, pulled her from the burning wreckage before it blew. Their presence was muted, blended into every day so she could ignore they were there. Until the day they called on her, two weeks after she had demobbed. That first job was easy and the pay was good. They had asked four more times since.

“Last job was supposed to be the last one. They told me,” she said. They had wanted codes and getting them had been easier than she expected. It had all been down to perfect planning.

She blinks away the sweat again and adjusts her position slightly. That’s her trademark. Meticulous, flawless planning. It has been months in the preparation, every detail covered. She’s infiltrated the security company hired to guard the Minister. Perhaps one of the flaws of privatisation, she muses: you can never quite control who it is the company that you hire to protect you hires in their turn. She persuaded them to give her the perfect position: on the roof of the building opposite the Conference Centre where the Minister is to give a speech. Clear view of the door he will enter. She is in their uniform, on their com. She secreted in the rifle during her prep work. It is as smooth an operation as she has ever worked. Except she doesn’t want to work any more. The blood lust, the anger, that all-consuming rage disintegrated years ago. She works because she has to. Once in, never out. It is the utter exhaustion that is all-consuming now. The draining of every ounce of energy that she has left simply by living. That is all she feels now, since Rob.

The talk at the hotel had left doubts. Not in her, but in them.

“Are you saying ‘No’? he had asked, a dangerous edge creeping into his voice. She had hesitated for only a fraction of a second and caught sight of the almost imperceptible tap of his forefinger on the edge of the glass.

“Of course not. I’ll do it. Will my daughter be cared for if anything happens to me?”

“We’ll take care of your daughter,” he promised in spider-silk smooth tones.

It has only been two minutes since she received the pictures on her phone. They know she is standing in position, rifle ready, sights engaged, barrel steadied on the parapet. Her daughter, playing in the garden with the au pair. She’s been sick, vomit still spread at her feet. She knows how they work. They will have the house surrounded. There will be an explosive device by the gas pipes.

So it is his life for her daughter’s. A Minister. It’s a simple choice really, just not one she wants to keep making. Not just for the sake of her daughter. But for Rob. A good soldier, a wonderful father, her perfect husband. And another suicide when the Ministry refused to help him.

She is tired of the kills but the motorcade is in sight. His is the second car. She takes a breath, steadies, lowers her head to the sights. She knows she has only six seconds. She can see him now. Her daughter’s life for his, and her own. It is a simple exchange. She holds her breath, focuses. A squeeze. He drops. The world pauses for a fraction of a second. Long enough for it to hear the next, her last shot.