Araiza Palmira Hotel was located a short drive from the Manuel Marquez De Leon Airport. John parked his car in the underground garage and walked up to the fifth floor. His instructions were pretty clear. Go to room 57 and kill Dominique Chavez. Make it a little painful and do it with the windows open. The Client wanted to watch. John didn’t like leaving the windows open, but its kinda hard to argue against an extra two hundred thousand dollars cash, especially when it had already been paid.

Jon wanted to avoid the lobby. Two weeks ago he had checked out the parking garage and seen that there wasn’t a guard or any cameras. Mexican hits were pretty easy because of the lax security, but John didn’t like being this far south. Airports weren’t an option so he had spent four hours driving down a double lane road. The plan was to make the transaction then drive back to the states. He would make a pretty easy target if the authorities knew about him. Jon didn’t worry too much about that. His bosses would make sure the police stayed out of his way.

When he got to the fifth floor John looked at his watch. 1:36 am. He was right on time for the Chavez appointment. As John walked down the hallway he screwed the silencer onto his pistol. When he got to room 57 he put his ear against the door and listened. He did this on every job. There wasn’t any real reason for doing this, it was just a superstitious habit. Those are the hardest to break.

There wasn’t a dead-bolt on the door. Just an old, worn door-handle lock. John was able to open the door with his credit card. The only sound was a soft squeak from the hinges as the door swung open. The room was dark. John quickly walked inside the room and closed the door behind him. As soon as the door was closed John flicked the lights on. It was always best to turn the lights on as soon as possible. The customer’s eyes would be tuned into the darkness, so turning on the lights would give John a little bit of an edge in case there was any excitement.

John quickly scanned the room. Two rooms - bedroom and bathroom. The bedroom was pretty sparse. In the middle of the room was a single twin bed holding a sleeping Chavez. Pushed up against the far corner was a small wooden table with one worn chair. On the table was a closed black suitcase. The bathroom was no threat. A few towels dropped on the floor and a messy counter. John’s only concern was the bed and the man sleeping in it.

John was surprised that the lights didn’t awaken Chavez. This was the second time John wasn’t looking down at a half asleep dead man. The first time ended with John taking a knife to the thigh before completing the transaction. John slowly walked to the other side of the room. He kept as much distance between himself and Chavez as possible. He wanted enough space to be able to deal with any surprises from Chavez.

In a normal transaction John would have put three bullets in the man’s head. Then he would have identified the body to make sure it was the right mark. But this time there had to be pain and the Client wanted to watch. When John got to the far side of the room the man in the bed opened his eyes and stared at John. He wasn’t the least bit surprised to see a man with a gun standing in his room.

“I was waiting for you last week.” Chavez told John. He spoke in perfect english, with just the slightest hint of a southern accent. “I knew my time was over. I figured they wouldn’t take too kindly to the new law.”

John didn’t know what Chavez was talking about. He didn’t know that Chavez was a member of La Pez’s city council. John also didn’t know that Chavez had just maneuvered a bill into place that would make drug running on the Baja peninsula a very difficult and dangerous trade. John didn’t know any of this and he really didn’t care. All he cared about was making sure Chavez was no longer of this world the next time the sun rose.

“Hunh.” It was the standard hit man response.

John backed up against the wall with the windows. He slowly pulled the curtains open. This openness was killing John. He liked to make his transactions in private. No witnesses left living except himself. Once the curtains were open John quickly looked out onto the rooftop across the street. He saw a flashlight blink in the darkness. That was his signal to complete the transaction.

“Get up.” John commanded.

Chavez got out of the bed and stood beside it. There was enough space between the two men that John felt comfortable. John had the gun pointed at Chavez’s heart. If he made any sudden movement he would die. Both men knew this. Chavez didn’t look like he was about to do anything foolish. Normally John would have respected the calm that Chavez was displaying, but this time things were different. Chavez was going to bleed. If he knew what was coming Chavez would have taken the quick way out right now.

Instead, Chavez spoke up. “The windows open? This is a show. You know they’re setting you up, right?”

“Everyone says that. Hasn’t happened yet.”

“You don’t know what this is about do you? They’re cleaning us up. Did they tell you what I used to do for them?”

“Nope.” A wicked smile crept across John’s face. “Apparently you’ve been fired.”

With that John pulled the trigger. The silencer hid most of the sound, save a soft pfft. Chavez’s right wrist exploded. Blood and bone sprayed onto the bed behind him. Chavez shuttered and grabbed his stub with his good hand. Again, John was impressed with his mark. After a few seconds Chavez regained his posture. There wasn’t the slightest hint of pain on his face.

“Morphine,” he explained. “Like I said, I knew you would be coming.”

“Lucky you.” With that John pulled the trigger again. This one hit Chavez in the shoulder. It knocked him on the bed, but almost immediately Chavez was standing up again. This time he was smiling.

“Once you kill me its over for both of us. Jose is done with you after tonight. I’m too important now. My murder will need to be solved. Jose knows this and he’ll hang you to dry.” Chavez began to slightly shake. “You want to know how this gets played out?”

“I know how this gets played out. I shoot you a few times. The last bullet goes in your head.” John suddenly realized Chavez knew the name of his contact on this job. “You die and I go home.” John’s mind was racing. How did Chavez know his contact’s name.

“I can see the confusion in your eyes.” Chavez said. He was rewarded with a bullet in his foot. “You wonder how I know who Jose is.” Chavez was hitting a nerve here. When his knee exploded he tipped over and fell back on the bed. He didn’t try to get up this time. From the bed he continued speaking, “The windows are open. There’s probably a video camera over there. You’re a risk to them now. There’s a detective staying on the first floor. He’s supposed to hired as protection for me. It’s the perfect set-up. Moments after I’m murdered he’ll rush in and kill the assassin. He’s probably on his way up right now. But here’s the rub. He gets to keep the suitcase.”

John was out of his league now. He turned around and looked out the window. He couldn’t see anything or anyone on the roof across the street. All he could see was darkness. He turned back to Chavez. “What’s in the case amigo?”

“Amigo? That’s funny. Why don’t you open it and see?”

Chavez was laying on the bed and shaking. They both knew he’d be dead soon. The morphine and lack of blood was taking it’s tole on his ravaged body. John walked over to the suitcase and opened it up. When he saw what was in it he knew he was screwed. The case was full of tightly wrapped bags of cocaine and cash. The icing on the cake was the four gold bars. There’s no way he was getting out of this job alive. There had to be a few hundred million dollars worth in that one suitcase. Jose knew about this. He had to know about this. A suitcase like this doesn’t just fly under the radar. Tonight was looking really bad for John. If Jose knew about the bag he wouldn’t have sent just one man. This was a team job. John started to sweat.

“There’s no way a single detective will walk out of here with this bag.” John needed some answers quick. He suddenly began to regret shooting Chavez all those times.

“He’ll probably take some cash. The rest goes to evidence. He makes the case and gets promoted to Chief of Police. Jose will own the police tomorrow. Stealing the evidence back won’t be that difficult.” Chavez was going pale from the lack of blood. Watching a Mexican go pale never ceased to amaze John. Chavez gasped a few times and died.

John was alone and scared. He decided to stick with the original plan and make contact. He pulled a small cell phone from his pocket. The phone was given to him with one number saved in the contact list. John called the number. After twenty three rings John hung up. He closed the window curtains and walked across the room and turned off the lights. John slowly placed his ear against the door. Fear was creeping up on him. In his mind he saw the door shatter into a million pieces as the entire police force emptied thousands of bullets into it. John backed away from the door and went into the bathroom. He knew he needed to calm down or he was going to loose it.

When he sat down on the toilet he suddenly remembered a face. It was the face of an eleven year old girl. He had been paid thirty thousand dollars to end her. It was a lot of money at the time.

John blinked a few times to try to get the face out of his head. He stood up and put his gun on the sink. He reached over and turned the water on. After splashing some water on his face he looked up into the mirror. He saw the girl again. She was standing behind him in the bathtub. John grabbed his gun and jerked around. It was pure instinct that put a bullet in the wall where his the girl was standing. He knew he was definitely loosing it.

All these years and it was that little girl that haunted him. She wasn’t the only child he had killed. Or the only female for that. That code of honor crap was for the movies. Hit men killed people for money. John didn’t care what the person was, just as long as the money was paid. But that girl was special. It had been his first child. She was a police officers daughter. John had broken into the house while the officer was at work. Once inside he killed the girl. She didn’t cry or scream out. She didn’t even try to run. As John leveled the gun at her head she started to cry, but she continued to look him in the eyes. John had killed lots of strong men who weren’t able to stare him down. But this little girl had been able to. John had felt a connection with her as he pulled the trigger. He had always regretted killing her. It was the only person he felt guilty about killing.

John knew his time was up. He might be able to kill the detective, but he knew he wasn’t getting out of Baja alive. He always knew he wouldn’t live long enough to retire. So he sat there alone with his guilt and a warm gun, waiting for the detective hit man.