Sam J. Redux

Sam J. Redux



Chapter 1: Cleaner



Lazarus Flynn opted for the 16" bore brush this time. The 14" brush was just too short to get to the grime down where the round first entered the barrel from the chamber. The Sporter 20" barrel on his Knight's Armament SR-25 had been custom tailored to his specifications: 6R rifling, a 1:12.50" twist, non-free floating delayed-blowback inner bore, and pinstring releases so he could change the barrel at any given notice. The gas-operated, rotary-bolt action and feather-light two pound trigger pull allowed for clean, semi-automatic firing, even when taking follow-up shots. In short, the gun was a masterpiece. Though Flynn had bought most of the parts to assemble the gun legally, in the eyes of the law, this particular gun was highly illegal. Through the available data, local law enforcement (and certain bureaus keeping tabs on Lazarus) had determined that this SR-25 had been used in exactly four-dozen murders and political assassinations. Of course, they couldn't prove it. In reality, the feds couldn't even prove that the gun existed, nor Lazarus Flynn himself. Every time the authorities were about to locate him, they would stumble upon an empty apartment in an empty building of an empty part of town. They were chasing a figment of Flynn's imagination.

Lazarus was no idiot. He'd been in the game long enough to know that if any of his clients, corrupt or otherwise, found out who he was, they would roll over on him in a heartbeat. That's the kind of attention you attract underground when a $250,000 price tag is put on your head, and all it takes to get it is to make one simple phone call. At forty-seven years old, just two weeks shy of forty-eight, Flynn had learned early that if he wanted to be successful in this business, he'd have to play anonymously, with no ties attached to anyone. In addition, because of his involvement in the "business" for the past twelve years, he was absolutely right.

Flynn felt the jacket on the back of his chair begin to vibrate, then heard the tinny sound of the Imperial March begin to play. He set the barrel of his rifle down and retrieved his phone from his jacket, and answered it.

"Speak to me," he said curtly. It was his business phone, and business was just that: business. No time for semantics.

"Yeah, uh, Mr. Langston, it's me, uh, Willie. That guy, the, uh, mob boss, Morritz, he just left the restaurant. I'm callin', just like you told me to."

Flynn felt that it was easier to work through low-level street mooks when looking for someone to play watchdog. Of course, he worked under an alias when contacting them, and made sure to cancel their birth certificate personally soon after the job was over. Everything was going according to plan.

"Acknowledged. Leave the rest to me. I'll call you when I need you." Flynn, or Mr. Langston in this case, hung up abruptly just as Nice-guy Willie began to say good-bye.

Quickly, Lazarus began re-assembling his SR-25 rifle. After doing so, he placed it in a custom-fitted cloth guitar case. It would help to not draw attention. He buttoned the top button on his collared black suede dress shirt, donned a long, black overcoat, a pair of leather gloves, a set of purple-tinted oval sunglasses with a silver frame, a black velvet scarf, and a black suede cabby's hat lined with red silk, then set out the door. He was dressing like a coffee-shop musician tonight.

Meanwhile, mafia don Charles Morritz sat down in the back seat of his Mercedes limousine and watched as the large 2005 GMC Envoys to his front and rear loaded up with his personal bodyguards. The caravan of shining black vehicles set off down the bustling Chicago street. Morritz was on his way to the Pole Position, the local strip club. After a good meal at a good place, the only thing that could make his night better was watching a half-dozen naked girls dance for him. And, who knows? Maybe he'd get lucky and find a girl willing to take him in the back for a little "special" attention.

The coffee shop, aptly named The Central Perk, was directly opposite the Pole Position on the southeast street corner of the four-way intersection of 71st and Kennedy. Lazarus meandered past the coffee shop patrons and made his way to the back of the store, heading up the stairs to the apartments located above. The room he had requested specifically was located to the left of the corner of the building, offering him a clear field of fire on the street below. He jammed the key in the lock, turned, then eased the door open. He stepped in. Silence. Good. If anyone had made him and sent a hitman to his room, he wouldn't be alive to think about it. He smirked at the irony of sending a hitman to kill a hitman.

Hitman. What a word... he thought to himself. He didn't like the term at all. He preferred to be called a "Disgruntled Public Relations Officer." It sounded much less incriminating. In the end, it didn't matter what his job description was, as long as he did his job right.

Flynn unzipped his guitar/gun case and removed his matte black rifle, then fitted the Harris-style spring loaded bi-pod onto the RIS on the fore grip. He fetched a gray, five-round magazine from the same case and loaded it with five hand loaded .308 Winchester rifle rounds. These solid brass-cased rounds had a 650-grain load of the finest U.S. Army surplus gunpowder which propelled a semi-jacketed, exposed steel core round at a speed of 953 meters per second with a joule rating of just under 4,000. In other words, these rounds would tear a hole in the fabric of reality.

Flynn racked the first round into the chamber, thumbed the scope covers off of the mounted Leupold scope, and rested the bi-pod on the window sill. As he shouldered the weapon, a cool gust blew from the west, into his window. As if carried by the gust, Morritz's vehicle convoy appeared in front of the strip club, just like clockwork. Lazarus trained his scope on the back-left passenger door of the limousine, and that calm, cool feeling washed over him as Morritz stepped out, accompanied by two bodyguards from each GMC Envoy. Little did they know, they were all about to feel the wrath of Lazarus tonight.

"Forty-nine, now," Lazarus said under his breath. He squeezed the trigger gently, and the gun barked, the flash and sound dampened by his custom flash/sound suppressor. The recoil was rough, but the recoil reducers in the stock helped baby his shoulder. The bullet struck Charles Morritz in the upper-right portion of his back, just below his neck, and traveled down into his heart. There was a cascade of dark red blood as he lurched and fell forward; each of the guards drew their GLOCK 19 handguns in unison, looking up and around for the shooter.

Four more shots rang out, and each thug fell like clockwork, the first two to heart-shots and the last two to head shots, to keep things interesting.

Just as the last shot was fired, and with his barrel still hot from firing, Lazarus was out of the window and removing the accessories from his gun, fitting them all back into his guitar case. He looked to the floor on the other side of the room, and spied four empty brass cartridges. Quickly, he scooped them up and put them in the inside pocket of his overcoat.

Four? I fired five. He had no time to lose, however, especially when he was looking for something in a room that the police would never link to the shooting. He shrugged it off, grabbed his guitar case and hurried down into the coffee shop, then casually, yet briskly walked south down 71st Avenue. He looked up as two black and white police cars careened past him, in the direction of the intersection. Curious Chicagoans looked on as more and more authorities flooded the scene. He knew just how it would go. The local news would report it as another mafia-on-mafia crime, telling the public they would do everything in their power to catch those responsible. However, in reality, everyone secretly knew that the case file would rot in a filing cabinet somewhere, and no one would miss the four men that died tonight.

The gears of the mob would begin to turn again, and yet another leader would be appointed to the Morritz Family Mafia. Eventually, Lazarus, or another top-notch assassin, would be called in to gun down another boss and his pack of good-fellas. Until then, everyone would just think of it as daily life in Chicago.

To Lazarus, it was just another job well done, or so he thought. He'd cash the check in the morning.