A service elevator takes me up, the stolen key card granting me easy access to the penthouse suites on top.
The doors open, and I walk along a narrow service hallway before peering out into the elite foyer. There, I see two more of the guards outside a door. Not that I needed to know that—it was easy to figure out which room they’d be staying at ahead of time.
I grasp a cleaning cart and roll it out into the hall to one of the rooms. It’s unoccupied, and the two security men pay me little heed as I disappear inside. I suppose I look like a janitor in their eyes, harmless. Someone weak and easy to ignore, with my head and shoulders hunched, ID card dangling from my belt.
It takes me a while to meander my way on up, but still I have ample time.
I pull a knife from beneath my pant leg and slide it into my belt. I give the gun in my pocket a final check. It’s small, but it’ll do the job. The silencer from my other pocket screws on, and I slide my mask on down over my face. Then that’s it. No time like the present.
But it’s not the door I go for. That’d leave two corpses in the hallway while I do the rest, and I’m a professional. Leaving dead bodies in plain sight is too risky, especially with the risk of those security cameras actually being monitored.
I head to the window, sliding it open to go onto the posh balcony, and the ledge I’m counting on is right there to the left. The wind up here is cold, and I let it bite into me. Distract me from the ridiculously long plunge below. One unexpected gust, and I’m a splatter on the street. I don’t feel afraid, though. I never feel afraid.
I can’t see the windows and balcony to the party's suite from here, I have to round the corner. But to get that far, I have about three dozen feet of clinging to the side of a skyscraper.
The key is to not think about it. As in all things, I let myself run on practiced instinct. Skills and methods honed through repetition.
The ledge holds as I creep my way along to that corner and peer around the edge.
It’s all clear. And I carry on, winding about the corner of the building towards the first window. The curtains are shut still, thankfully, so that makes my job easier. Even assassins have to be grateful for small favors.
But then the doors to the balcony open, about a dozen feet away. So much for luck.
One of the security guards steps out, and I go still as a dead mouse. He looks around the cityscape and lingers a while, so my hand creeps down into my pocket, slowly—so slowly!—pulling the gun out, keeping it at the ready, aimed for him.
Time stands still, quiet but for the wind. There’s about twenty stories between me and the ground. Long enough that if I fall, I’m going to have plenty of time to regret it. I focus my mind forward onto the man, let that cool calm grip my heart. My finger tenses on the trigger.
Then I hear him mutter seemingly to himself.
“Check in. All clear,” he says into a headpiece that’s all but invisible.
Now I have about five minutes, max. Then the next check-in will occur, and the men in the car would realize something’s wrong, impeding my getaway.
The guard meanders a while longer before turning, heading back in, and shutting the door.
I lower my gun, slip it back into my pocket, and carry on, sidling along until I can climb up over the railing onto the balcony. I can peer in through the glass doors, into the hallway there. The suite beyond is massive, I know: I looked into it ahead of time. But the hallway is guarded by that lone security man.
Slipping the knife from my belt, I ever so carefully open the door, which I earlier jammed so that it never quite locks, though it appears to. The sounds of laughter and music from the partiers immediately fill my senses.
With smooth, quick motions, I simultaneously wrap my gloved hand around the guard’s mouth and slide the blade into his back. I pierce his flesh right between his ribs, the long blade puncturing his heart then slicing through it and his lung.
He’s dead, can barely even kick before it’s all over. I don’t take any time to revel in my victory. He’s just one on a long list of guys who I’ve snuffed out. He wasn’t even important enough for me to know his name.
I drag his body back out onto the balcony, wiping the blade off onto his blazer before I slip back inside. Time is of the essence now, the clock is ticking. But I can’t hurry this, can’t do anything more than carry on at my precise killing pace. If I rush, something will get fucked up, so even as I silently keep count of the seconds as they tick by, I stay calm and practiced.
Another guard walks into the hallway, rounding the corner, and I’m on him quick and smooth, hand over his mouth as my blade slices through his breast, ending his life. Ending lives is what I’m best at, and now I’m in my groove. It’s not really a rush so much as an energy, feeding off these bastards’ deaths.