The Sandman - Sample

Cheese was none too happy, he wasn’t dressed for the Chicago winter, the price of being fashionable. A bitter wind was gusting off the canal and soughing through the trees in Dearborn Park. Cheese sat on the assigned park bench waiting impatiently for me to come and pick up my diamonds.

I counted three of his men lurking in the bushes. One was covering the jogging trail along the water front, one was sitting on the childrens roundabout about twenty five metres behind Cheese. Another one was standing by a black Lincoln Navigator in the parking lot. I expected one more to be covering the park entrance but maybe Cheese was overconfident.

 I already knew that I wasn’t going to get my diamonds. Gideon had confirmed that Cheese had failed to buy the diamonds as planned. Yet Cheese was here for the meet minus the stones. Maybe he planned to pay me with cash or drugs? Their body language and my gut instincts told me something different. I could only surmise that he intended to kill me instead of paying me. No great surprise to me but for this I was running late for Elise’s birthday celebrations. A lesson was in order.

My vantage point was across the canal in the old rail yard. I was ten metres up on fire escape landing. In view of the weather I had chosen the Remington 700 in 7.62mm fitted with the Zeiss Victory V8 56mm scope. My trusty Leica Geovid binoculars had the range at 275 metres. That looked about right to my well practised eye. It was a little long for the conditions but the target was large.

Tom Tom, Cheese’s chief muscle man was about 6’4” and maybe a shade over 225lbs. He was in decent shape considering his life style and very formidable. He had a fearsome reputation and a long wrap sheet including seven years in Rikers for manslaughter. My source in the NYPD advised me to be extra careful with Tom Tom. Looking at him now I needed no second warning. He had the dead eye, the soul had been burned out of him long ago, extraordinarily dangerous.

I toggled the transmit button on the walkie talkie a couple of times. Watching Cheese through the Leicas I saw him jump up startled. I toggled the switch again and smiled as Cheese got down on his hands and knees to look under the bench. He found the walkie talkie taped there and held it like it was a red hot coal. This time I held down transmit and spoke,

“Let’s try again next week Cheese, the price has gone up $200,000, I’ll be in touch.”

Cheese whirled around helplessly, enraged. He flung the walkie talkie into the ground and stomped on it. His men came running instinctively. I waited till they reached Cheese, standing apprehensively trying to figure out what was going on, without catching the boss’s eye.

Allowing for the breeze I put the cross hairs of the big Zeiss on Tom Tom’s sternum. One deep breath in, half a breath out and squeeze. Tom Tom was standing right beside Cheese when the 180 grain ballistic tipped hollow point bullet vaporised his aorta and severed his spine. He stood a moment, literally transfixed and then fell flat on his back. He went down like a tree, definitely a $200,000 dollar kill.

In hindsight I should have put the bullet in Cheese and walked away from the deal. He would at least have made a good example. However Cheese had a sponsor, Antonio Ángel , a powerful and dangerous man. Killing Cheese without permission would have dangerous repercussions.

If I’m honest I also have to admit I thought I could still get Cheese to pay me. In that I seriously underestimated Cheese, he was far more stupid than I ever could have imagined.