How To Start a War

I remember the first time I killed a man.  He wasn’t the target, but collateral damage.  The target had been the embassy.  I only had to place two directional charges; one in the basement against the main support beam and another on the first floor by the meeting room.  At the time there wasn’t supposed to be anyone in the building.  The ambassadors were all in Tahiti for a “meeting” that week, so my employer deemed that the perfect opportunity.  Using a particular compound for my plastics and a remote detonator, it would look like a strike from a cartel that was already on rocky ground with the government.  This was sure to push them into a full blown war.  A drug war; the most profitable type.

I got out clean and took my bag to bodega on the corner.  I slipped into the bathroom before the clerk could see me.  She was too busy trying to pick out the cigarettes that the man at the counter was pointing to.  I pulled out my side arm, a flesh colored sleeve with fake tattoos printed on it, and a scruffy wig. My huge sunglasses covered enough of my face that I didn’t need the wig, but I liked it.  I never got to play dress up as a kid, so this was my way of getting back some lost time.

I strapped my side arm to my thigh, pulled the flesh colored tattoo sleeve up to my shoulder and smoothed it out so all the fake tattoos blended into my skin tone.  They looked real.  I would have gotten real ones if it weren’t such an occupational hazard.  The wig came last, I straightened it as best I could in the dirty cracked mirror.  The smell of the bathroom helped me rush along.  I didn’t have a lot of time.  The charges needed to go off at 4:17 and not a minute later.

My employer selected me for this job because he knew I wasn’t such a fan of killing, or maybe because I built precise explosives.  He didn’t need or want the ambassador dead.  The ambassador was imperative to the war.  Years ago he had ties with the Dorajes cartel.  Everyone knew that he had navigated them around customs and lobbied against bills that would harm their business.  When he moved out of the political eye and became ambassador, Barskova became skeptical of his allegiance to the Dorajes.  Barskova had taken over and made millionaires of indigents and he fancied himself the savior of his people.  His drugs funded land grabs, government coups, and many assassinations.  He felt that was validated by the mouths he would feed and the hundreds of people to whom he gave employment.

Barskova had been seen only a few times with the ambassador since his career shift and most of the world knew of the tension that arose between them.  With the Dorajes signature on the charges I set, the ambassador would not need to die, he would go into hiding; sure that his life would end if he were to ever surface again.  His disappearance would then cause suspicion from the government, and then he certainly was as good as dead.

My employer had his own reasons to construct such a scheme.  It always had to do with money.  Everything was always related to money.  Even my part.  He paid me handsomely, so I didn’t ask many questions, most information I could deduce on my own.

I rounded the corner a few blocks from the embassy and walked into the Barrish Hotel.  It was the tallest building within view, so I took the elevator to the roof.  I found a ledge with a view over a palm tree and perched myself on the concrete.  I looked at my stop watch and had two minutes before I needed to detonate.  I straightened my sleeve and took in a deep breath of the clammy air when the emergency exit door opened to reveal two hotel workers trying to sneak a cigarette. I ducked behind the air conditioning unit and held my bag to my chest.  It seemed as though they didn’t see me but I couldn’t be sure. I pulled a folding mirror from the pocket of my bag and stuck it out at arms length.  Their reflections paced and talked to each other while dragging on their cigarettes, but they did not search for me.  I couldn’t see the embassy from where I was sitting, but my watched turned to 4:17 so I hit my detonator.

The hotel roof vibrated as the blast echoed through the streets.  The boom slammed against my ears, then against my chest.  I fell to the concrete and gasped.  Two directional charges should not have caused that.  My explosives were deliberately weaker than whatever had just detonated. My ears rung as I looked over to my now broken mirror lying on the stone.  The hotel workers were gone.  I peeked over the ledge to see the embassy egulfed in flames.  A cloud of smoke clung to the air around the burning embassy.  People on the streets were screaming and running from where the blast had taken place.

I heard sirens, and that was my queue.  I snatched up my bag and flew down the stairs and out of the lobby.  I hopped into an old crown Victoria that was parked on the street and pulled out the wires under the dash.  Once I got a spark the car started moving and I drove it straight to the airstrip, making a call to my employer on the way there.

“I thought you weren’t going to kill him?” The raspy voice questioned me on the other line.

“It wasn’t me.  Send a bird to the field.  Ten minutes.”

Twenty minutes later, I was in the air.  My employer sent his smallest plane, but it was his fastest.  I switched on the cabin television and found a news station.  That’s when I heard the broadcast.

“In other news, one dead and five injured in an embassy bombing today.  Police are still on the scene and have not yet released a statement.”