Operation: One percent

Chapter 4

Margaret

In the following days, I was more successful at tailing him and keeping a low profile.

His routine was well established.

On Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, at 8 pm he would go to a jazz club Roxanna, where he would stay for 2 hours, then he would take his car, and drive back home. I know because I took a cab all those days. 

Naturally, I was always wearing a disguise. Methods of putting on different shapes of glasses, sometimes padding my bra and sometimes taping it with scotch tape so that my breasts are not noticeable, the same wig dyed into a different color each time, applying a fake mole here and there, and different types of clothes were the best artillery for changing my shape.

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, he would drive straight home and didn't go out afterward. On weekends, he would never leave the apartment. He didn't seem to have friends, and he was always alone.

In that sense, he was just like me, and it was the only thing we shared.

The dread brought by his silent approach didn't want to leave the home it made in my lungs. How does one take out the goliath that is Ace Mountangue? 

Am I Don Quijote fighting a windmill? It would be appropriate considering how "entertaining" I was to him. 

The thought did nothing to soothe my already paranoid and frayed state of mind. 

Compared to my previous targets, he was a dragon and all the others were simply chickens. Maybe that would explain why all other assassins are no longer actively pursuing him, even though they accepted the bounty request. 

I am not sure that I can catch him off guard. I needed to either infiltrate his work or routine.

The apartment that I have been renting was long due for a paint job, as the cracks in the pine green walls indicated. The champagne drapes were now several shades darker than they were when I initially moved in. Keeping no plants and no pets, my space was as dull as it could possibly be, as they would all probably die under my care. The television was always turned off as I and all other folks here had only one channel with the news and government propaganda on replay. I haven't thoroughly cleaned my living space for a while or cooked anything special, only maintaining what I needed to function. The term home for me has long lost its meaning this was merely a place where I slept and ate. 

Adjusting myself on my ugly and uncomfortable mustard-colored sofa, I tamed my shoulder-length hair into a braid, which for some reason had a will of its own. Even though I dyed the living soul out of it in the past, it still somehow had a will to fight the constraints of my braid, slithering out its strands one by one. My peppermint green linen night dress, wide and comfortable always somehow managed to make me look like a tent. I had no desire for lingerie or any particularly visually appealing apparel. 

The newspaper was the only way for me not to leave my articles of interest showing up when Lilith scans for suspicious activity if I lingered too much in my internet search. Passing through the pages, I saw that Roxanna, a place he visited regularly had a gig tonight, and I have a feeling that it's going to be special to him.  A singer Cornelius Peter was coming to town, and it was financed by none other than Sierra Tech. 

Everybody knows how difficult it is to get into this town, but it is more difficult to get out. The border control was so extreme that common folk had to wait at least an hour to pass through. And that was only if they had a pristine police file and an inconspicuous internet search history that couldn't be erased. Search for pornography was tolerated and even encouraged, but a search for knives longer than 15 centimeters was alarming. 

Speaking of sex, when it came to contraception, the male population had pills that they could take with almost no side effects, but they rarely took them out of paranoia. However, they popped Viagra like it was candy.

When it comes to Ace Mountague, I doubt that he would need to search far to get laid. Powerful, successful, and seemingly polite, women must be flocking to his side like sheep to the shepherd. 

An unsettling idea came to me - What if, I get closer to him in a way that would not be suspicious?

And I hoped to god that somehow he would not remember my face from our encounter. It was too risky, but the idea cemented its presence. I popped the "antidepressant " into my mouth, in hopes to numb myself from the anxiety brought on by this entire concept. 

Even without bodyguards, he is a scary target to take on without a plan. 

A befriending the enemy approach might be exactly what I need to do here, and what better way is there than to be right under his nose coincidentally, hoping to do it in a way that he would not register me, but still would give me a way to look for an opening. Of course, I would never be his friend, only a polite coworker who would greet him and never quite face him. He probably thinks he is too good to face his employees anyway.

I applied for an open position as a secretary at SierraTech, having little hope that I would be accepted. It would be a perfect opportunity to monitor him from afar.

An alternative would be that I could go ahead and try to lure him into my bed and take his life where the men are most vulnerable, but, I refuse to be touched by that monster. Not even at the price of an utter failure. 

I dialed the phone:

"Hey, Juht, I need you to do something for me."

"Oh, my dear. It's been so long! I am so sorry about the way things played out back then. I was scared and.." 

The moment he started mentioning that night, I got annoyed.

"Spare me. I will give you 40.000 credits for this job. I will be sending you the details."

I hung up the phone and sent him what I needed instead. I still could not get over his betrayal, but he was a jack of all trades, and I needed him to forge my whole CV. As long as I was nothing too important, I should be able to pass under the radar of Lilith. 

Message arrived.

"It will be done in 1 hour."

I transferred credits and decided to make myself a coffee, in hopes that it would soothe my headache. 

As I was observing the vapor from the warm liquid, I remembered my first kill. 

The night I lost it all.