Hitman vs Hitman - L.A. Witt Page 0,49
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Not one of them would—by the time the car was reported stolen—be able to connect August or Ricardo to the vehicle despite watching them drive away in broad daylight.
Such was how the human brain worked, and covert operatives exploited that whenever possible. And like a sniper and his spotter, sometimes a team was more effective than one man working alone.
August cackled with glee as Ricardo drove them out of the garage. “Oh, that was fun. I really should’ve been a thief instead of an assassin. There’s so much more creativity involved.”
Despite himself, Ricardo chuckled. “Maybe next time, though, we can just swipe a car that’s parked on the street.”
“Pfft. You’re no fun.”
Ricardo rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling. Truth was, they’d tried to find a suitably abandoned car—one parked out of sight of cameras and anyone who might notice it being stolen—but this was a rather affluent area. Cameras were more plentiful than traffic lights, and there were a lot of jumpy rich white folks who would call the police the instant they thought someone was stealing. In this part of town, playing the politically batshit crazy white conspiracy theorist made August non-threatening but distracting enough to turn heads and let Ricardo steal the car.
“Where did all that electric car shit come from, anyway?” He glanced at August, who was still smiling like a kid on Christmas, and then he faced the road and pretended his heart hadn’t gone wild. “Did you just pull that out of your ass?”
“Pretty much.” August sounded exceptionally pleased with himself, and Ricardo hated that it wasn’t annoying him this time. “I mean, all you have to do is start raving about a new piece of technology, say it does something scary, and claim some rich asshole is behind it, and boom—you make sense to some people and entertain the shit out of the rest.”
Ricardo laughed. “It was effective, I’ll give you that.”
“Oh, that’s nothing.” August waved his hand. “Last year, I had a mark who was ridiculously paranoid. Like, he bought into every conspiracy known to man. Chemtrails, Reptilians, the Illuminati—all of it. And his security system made mine or Lance Baldwin’s look like a paper sign with NO GIRLS ALLOWED written in Sharpie.”
“What?” Ricardo stole another glance, catching another look at that spectacular smile. “What the hell did he have? Something modeled after Fort Knox?”
“It was basically what would happen if Fort Knox had been designed by someone with a penchant for ultramodern aesthetics and genuinely thought the KGB and the Navy SEALs were going to bust in at any moment.”
“Still sounds like you and Baldwin.”
August tsked. “Shut up. Anyway, I basically realized there was no way I was busting into his place, offing this fucker, and getting out in one piece. My best bet was to grab him someplace else.” He sat up a little, that grin present and accounted for in his voice. “So I showed up outside his office three days in a row pretending to be one of those Q-Anon lunatics. I waved a sign around and told everyone in earshot that any day now, the mass arrests of the rich and Hollywood elite were going to start. It was mostly just nonsense, but whenever he was around, I’d start in on this thing about how Q-Anon knew who the Reptilians were, and that he was going to unmask them soon and reveal everyone involved with the Illuminati.”
“I’m amazed you weren’t arrested,” Ricardo said dryly.
“Oh, I was ‘talked to’ by a few cops and security guards, but yelling about suppression of free speech always made them roll their eyes and walk away.” He paused, and sounded a touch sheepish as he added, “I, uh, try not to make a habit of weaponizing my white privilege, but it got them out of my hair.” He huffed. “Figures being clean cut and white is enough to chase them off, and they don’t even realize I’m literally standing there waiting to murder someone.”
Ricardo made an unhappy sound. That was definitely not a card he could play during an op, and in fact he’d been hassled more than once by cops who were convinced he was (depending on the cop and the lighting) an illegal Mexican immigrant, an MS-13 gang member, or a Middle Eastern terrorist. Ironically, that usually happened while he was doing something perfectly innocuous like driving to the supermarket or “loitering suspiciously,” whatever the fuck that meant.
But that was a rant for another day. As much as it