The Hitman’s Phone – Chapter III

III. The Plan

The very next morning, Tony went to the store to buy supplies for the trip. As he stood in line at Wal-Mart with his new phone he smiled. Did he have the greatest wife or what? She was so willing to make the trip west with him and he didn’t even need to use his full-on convincing tactics he had been prepared to use. No wonder he married her. She was simply the best. How lucky could one man be?

Before his trip to Wal-Mart, he had gone to a car lot and paid cash for a vehicle. Due to the extensive travel he did for work and also the fact his homebase was New York and it was crazy to own a vehicle in New York when public transit was so available, this was his very first automobile he purchased that he planned to keep and not ditch somewhere. A vehicle seemed like a purchase someone who wanted to plant some roots would make. Until he married, he never saw himself as a planting roots kind of guy. Cheyenne had changed that almost from day one.

He sat in his new Ford Focus in the Wal-Mart parking lot and opened the package to the phone. He punched in the phone number he had received from an encrypted online message source. The kind hidden in plain sight but routed through three different countries to make it difficult to track.

A gruff hello greeted him.

“Letting you know,” he said lowering his voice and speaking slowly. “The job has been accepted. Expect it to be done within a week.”

A pause. “You should know,” came the reply, “if it is not done within a week a cleanup crew will be sent to clean EVERYTHING up.”

He wasn’t sure what hit his pride harder, the implication that he wouldn’t succeed or the threat. He always succeeded. But he had enough control to not let his ego get the better of him. “Send the details to this number.” He disconnected and waited.

Less than a minute later he received the details on his target:

CODY KVASNAK

He drove to a public library to tap into the free wi-fi. He used his new phone to google the name. Cody Kvasnak, a Wyoming mayor elected a year ago on the promise to help his small town rid itself of a rising crime trend. The mayor blamed the mine as the culprit which was tricky since the mine was the hand that fed the town. While he hadn’t discovered the drug trafficking, he knew something was amiss. At first, his complaints went unnoticed by the local media. Leading up to the election, they attempted to paint a picture of a politician making waves just to get elected. He almost lost the election but at the last minute, his story caught the attention of CNN. With that kind of exposure, he managed to woo some local citizens who were also worried about the rise in crime and won the election by a narrow margin. It was unlikely that he would get reelected when the time came so he was doing his best to speak up to get the word out.

“A do-gooder,” Tony said scanning the articles. For a moment, he felt a pang of guilt. At least, he assumed it was guilt. He had never felt it before. His justification for doing his job had always been the fact that all people die at some point. If he could make money helping them to the inevitable then so be it. He shook his head. “Whoa, now is not the time to go soft. I have to finish strong.”

When he finished reading all he could about Cody Kvasnak, he tapped on the Map App. He zoomed out so that he could see the whole country. In all his assignments and while he was in the military, he had traveled all over the world. But he had never traveled to the western states. Through, yes, many times. To, no.

He was getting excited about the trip. Unfortunately, he was actually going to have to do some camping since that is what he told Cheyenne they were going to do. But a real vacation? He had never taken one that didn’t involve him killing someone. Up until he met Cheyenne, his life had only been work, work, work.

He zoomed the map in and looked at the route they would take. Interstate-80 all the way through Wyoming then north on Highway 191 would take them through the mayor’s town. A quick little stop so that Cheyenne could go antiquing while he went and took care of this Cody fellow. Then back on the road and arriving at Grand Teton National Park by nightfall. By that time, he would officially be retired and on the lookout for a small little community he could retire in as they traveled north to Yellowstone.

Perfect plan. If there was one thing Tony did well was plan everything down to the last detail. Surprises were costly in this line of work. He could end up dead or worse, in prison.

He drove the car home.

Come to the parking lot, he text Cheyenne when he pulled in.

A couple minutes later she walked out and looked for him. He honked the horn. She looked at him and squinted.

He jumped out and smiled. “What do you think?”

“Is it a rental?” she asked unimpressed.

“No, it’s our car. Our first car.”

Her eyes got big. “What?”

“I bought a car for our trip.” He beamed.

She did not return the smile. “You bought a car?”

“For our trip.”

He obviously did not see this the same way as she did. “You bought a car for us and you didn’t take me?

Okay, he was beginning to sense he did something wrong. “I just thought it would be better to have our own car instead of renting one.”

“Why?”

It made sense to him because they were going to move out west. But she didn’t know that part yet and he couldn’t tell her at this point because it needed to seem more like a spur of the moment decision. He also couldn’t explain the reason he picked this one was solely based on the fact the spare tire compartment was big enough to hide his assault rifle from her.

“I just thought it would be a good idea,” he said instead of every thought process currently in his head. She was the only person who could make him squirm at a decision he made.

She looked at the car and then at him. “Alright,” she said and he breathed a sigh of relief. “What kind of gas mileage does it get? Is there a warranty? How do the tires look?” She didn’t actually wait for him to respond but went about checking the car herself.

When she finally slammed the hood shut after a very detailed inspection she looked at him. “Not bad. I probably would have opted for a newer model if I had been there but this will probably get us where we need to go.”

He smiled, “We can leave in the morning?”

She nodded. “I guess so. We don’t actually own any camping supplies though.”

He swallowed. “I actually bought those this morning also.”

She looked at him.

“They are in the trunk.”

“Well, let’s have a look at that also,” she said somewhat annoyed. “Anything else you buy this morning that you want to tell me about?”

He shook his head. “She didn’t need to know about the ammo and phone he thankfully had in his jacket pocket.