Work Done for Hire by Joe Haldeman Page A

caught?
    With no wind deflection and a clear shot, working from a stable platform, I could put a bullet into “the head zone,” head or neck, from two thousand meters, call it a mile and some change. One or two follow-up rounds into the thorax. A little less accurate with a silencer, I assumed; I’d never used one.
    My first thought was that if it was a city situation, like Kennedy, King, or Semple, then no way. Of course those assassins hadn’t used silencers. Still, there would probably be witnesses and then a short chase.
    With a silencer, though? From a mile away? It could be done. But could it be done by me?
    I supposed it would depend on the target. If it was somebody I would kill for free, then sure, I’d do it for money. If it was some random stranger, then not. Maybe not.
    The phone rang.

2.
    I t wasn’t Kit; she always called the cell. And not before dawn. I let it ring four times and picked it up. “Well?” I said.
    A woman’s voice. “If it was the right person, would you do it?”
    I should have said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and hung up. Instead, I said, “I don’t know enough. Who are you?”
    â€œI can’t tell you that. I can tell you that we are not the government or enemies of the government; it’s not a political assassination.”
    â€œWhy should that be a plus? Being a gun for hire, with no principles involved, isn’t appealing.”
    â€œYou didn’t agree with the principles behind the war for which you killed sixteen people.”
    â€œApples and oranges. I didn’t have a choice.”
    â€œYou did, though. As you have said and written. If you had gone to jail for refusing the draft, it would have been less time out of your life. Less moral complication.”
    â€œYeah, happy hindsight.” Any way I could trace this call? I took the cell phone out of my shirt pocket.
    â€œPut the cell down,” she said. “If you call anyone I’ll hang up.”
    The blinds were closed. “You have a bug in this room?”
    â€œThere are other ways we can tell what you are doing. I need an answer.”
    â€œWhy me? I need
that
answered.”
    â€œExpert marksman, unmarried, apolitical and agnostic, low-income disabled veteran against the war.”
    â€œOkay, that must narrow it down to a thousand. Why me?”
    â€œBecause we can trust you to do the right thing. You wouldn’t want Kit to come down with a rare blood disease and die slowly. Would you?”
    â€œWhat?
Blood
disease?”
    â€œTimothy Unger. Google him. We’re serious.” The line went dead.
    That was Timmy’s name, the e-mail ammunition boy. I looked him up and found that he was born in Iowa City twenty years ago and died last year of a heart attack.
    Too young. There was an autopsy, the obit said, but no follow-up story except for funeral arrangements. But then I tried “rare blood disease” + “Iowa City” + “fatality” and his name came up, dead last year. It was supposedly myelofibrosis rapidly transformed into secondary acute myelogenous leukemia leading to massive cardiac failure. The doctors were “mystified” by the sudden onset of the disease.
    Maybe there was some mysterious poison that mimicked myelofibrosis, whatever that was. Or maybe they just put a nickel in the Google machine and asked it for the name of someone local who had died of a rare disease last year.
    No. That wouldn’t explain the e-mailings.
    Anyhow, this was way beyond the possibility of a hoax, for any reason. Too complicated and expensive and incriminating.
    I sat down by the rifle and rubbed its smooth stock. They’re giving me time to think this over, before they identify the victim. I have to kill X or they kill Kit. For what values of X would I refuse?
    How had they found me; why had they chosen me? My slight prominence as a writer? Well, I did write