Requiem for an Assassin

building was three down on East Bayshore, on the right side of the road. I strolled past the driveway, noting that it was shared by several office buildings, each an unremarkable, two-story glass-and-concrete box. From the size of the structures, I gathered Jannick was renting or subletting space. That, or DET was a much bigger company than its website suggested. I didn’t like all the windows. If Hilger wanted me dead, he could have a sniper waiting in one of the buildings, knowing I would show up here while tracking Jannick. Or someone shooting photos instead of bullets, compiling evidence of my guilt, evidence they’d use for blackmail later. But I didn’t have a choice. I kept going, my scalp prickling from the feeling of exposure to all those ominous windows.
    I walked through the parking lot looking for Jannick’s car, according to Hilger’s dossier, a black Volvo S80. I didn’t see it. I wondered if he was out at a meeting. Or if he’d left early for the day and I’d missed him on his way home. Or if he was traveling somewhere. In my experience, every predictable pattern you’ve analyzed goes to hell the moment you go operational. Imagination, backup plans, and an ability to improvise are the only countermeasures.
    I thought about calling him from a pay phone, but didn’t like the idea. I might come away with a better understanding of where he was, or even if he was in town right now, but I’d have to engage him or someone else with a story, too, leaving another potential piece of evidence for later. I decided to wait until a call would likely be more valuable.
    I headed toward Jannick’s building. As I got closer to the entrance, I saw that the windows next to the entrance doors were coated with some reflective material. There was a sign stuck to the window. It was too far for me to read from this distance, but I had a feeling it warned of CCTV monitoring. A security camera there, rather than in the parking lot, made sense. It was the building and what was inside it they’d want to secure. They didn’t care about employees’ cars.
    I turned and walked away, considering. With a camera, I couldn’t get to him in or directly in front of the building. That still left the parking lot. The problem was, to make a death look natural, you need some temporary control over the environment. If all that was required was walking up to Jannick and shooting him, I could have done it almost anywhere, the only real concern being escape. But I was going to need a few minutes alone with him. The parking lot wasn’t great for that.
    I kept walking. The light was fading from the sky, and it wasn’t yet five o’clock. At this time of year, almost no one left work before nightfall. In the dark, I might be able to drag him behind his car, depending on where he was parked. But unless it were especially late and deserted, there was a worrisome chance that the person whose car was parked next to us might choose just that moment to head home, too. Plus, even the relatively clueless tend to be somewhat vigilant in parking lots at night. I could overcome that with Jannick, but if there were other people in the area, they’d likely be more watchful than I wanted.
    Morning offered the opposite range of risks and benefits. On the one hand, people arriving at work are distracted by thoughts of the morning meeting, the day’s tasks, what messages might be waiting for them. And parking lots aren’t threatening in the morning, so no one pays any attention to their surroundings in them, anyway. But unless Jannick showed up for work very early indeed, it was hard to see how I could count on the privacy I needed. And then there were all the windows of all the buildings…even aside from the possibility of one of Hilger’s men lurking behind one of them, if just one person happened to be looking out at the parking lot at the wrong moment, there would be an eyewitness to the decidedly unnatural manner of Jannick’s demise. Hilger and I hadn’t discussed what would happen if Jannick’s death was a success but its manner a failure. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to take the chance.
    I walked another mile or so down East Bayshore, getting a feel for the area, its rhythms and rituals, what fit in and what might seem subtly out of place. My sense was that the neighborhood was transitional—office buildings on the south end, a new IKEA and shopping mall at the other, a trailer park and long-term storage facilities in