The cold wind is in sharp contrast to the heat I felt when I was leaving the Arizona cabin. The same feeling of my chest being ripped apart is glaringly present, but I have no canine companion to share it with this time.
I drive off.
Passenger side empty.
Completely alone.
EPILOGUE
Clear Shot
Cool mist dampens my face. I’m sure at some point it stops raining in Seattle, but I’ve never experienced a dry spell here. With a duffel bag over my shoulder, I scout out the security around the Space Needle and ultimately decide it would not be a good place to set up. It might have been fun, but there aren’t enough ways to get out, and the chances of being caught are too great.
I have two other options.
I jump a bus and head down to the pier near Pike’s Place Market. The area is fairly open in many places, and transportation is easy to find. My target shops here every Saturday. Once a month, he takes a dinner cruise from Tillicum Village. There are plenty of docks along the edge of the Puget Sound—lots of hiding places. Taking him out while he is on the water gives me maximum escape time, and he’s already scheduled his dinner for next weekend.
I don’t even bother checking out the third location. It is too close to his home—too close to his additional security. I walk back to my hotel, soak in the bathtub, and pretend to myself that I’ll get some sleep.
There’s no way. I’m too pumped up. By the time the sun is rising, I’ve slept maybe an hour or two. I shower, shave, and dress in workman’s overalls. I put a change of clothes, my binoculars, and a pair of gloves in my duffel bag before I head out to the pier.
There’s a catwalk above the entrance to the ferry. Two large air circulation units provide the perfect cover and a close-up view of the water. I walk casually around and watch various dock workers as they go through their morning routines. The ferry fills up with vehicles and pedestrians wanting to travel to Bainbridge Island. Kneeling near the ladder to the catwalk, I pull out my gloves and slide my hands inside them. There’s a ton of activity as the ferry prepares to take off, and I use the chaos to mask my quick ascendance of the ladder to the top of the platform.
It’s cool and breezy, but the view is perfect. I kneel down and listen closely, but I hear no one yelling out to me. I’m not surprised. They key to moving in restricted areas is simply to look like you know exactly where you are going. Few people will actually question you.
Taking out my binoculars, I get a better look at everything around me. Tourists mill about the shopping areas and the aquarium. The view is perfect, but there is an obvious problem—I’m too low to the ground. There are other walkways at my level, and I could be too easily spotted. The wind is going to make my shot difficult, and the trajectory is low. I need to be higher up, but there aren’t many tall buildings.
The building housing the fire department has a tower on it. I’m not sure if it’s functional or decorative, but it’s close to my location. There’s always the Alaskan Way Viaduct, but I’m not a fan of shooting from a roadway, and I can’t see any overpasses. On the other side of the viaduct, there’s a parking garage with several floors of office space above it. Beyond that, a federal building is the tallest and most obvious place for height, but there will be too much security there.
I decide to check out the office space instead.
The building looks like an ideal spot, and roof access isn’t difficult. There are security cameras, but those are easily dealt with from my end. There’s no outside fire escape from the roof, though. I’d have to make my way down from the inside.
I watch the building for the next two days. There aren’t any security guards, and the cameras are easy to locate. The main breaker is just inside the gated parking garage, and I see no signs of a backup generator.
Getting to the roof isn’t challenging. The back stairway leads to a service elevator, and there aren’t any cameras in that area. The service elevator requires a key code, which is laughably hackable—15951. I barely have to put any effort into it.
In the center, there’s a small rooftop park—trees and flowering plants are everywhere. People from the ad agency inside seem to like it as a place to eat their lunches. They don’t even make eye contact with me as I walk around carrying a watering hose and tend to the plants.
When the area empties, I discard the hose and head up a ladder to the very top of the building. There is a lot of wind coming off the sound, but I’m going to have that issue anywhere.
The stairway at the top of the building is locked but uses the same code as the elevator. Where the stairway exits is slightly higher than the rest of the roof and easily scaled. I climb up and sit there, watching the ferries come and go.
This is definitely my spot.
I watch the sun set over the water. The traffic noise keeps the area from being as peaceful as the scene implies, but it’s still nice. Shortly after the sun goes down, it starts to rain, and I make my way down the stairs and out of the building without running into a single soul, and it’s only just past six o’clock on a weeknight.
Perfect.
When the day arrives, I’m set up early in the morning. I’ve spent the past two days sitting up here and haven’t been noticed by anyone at all. I’m not sure if that’s a west coast mentality or what, but no one seems to care who I am. I disabled two cameras yesterday—the only ones that will have a view of my escape route—and no one has noticed that either.
I take out a dowel rod with a bit of cloth tied to it and place it at the corner of the rooftop. The little flag waves around, indicating wind speed and direction. From my duffel bag, I pull out the pieces of my rifle and start assembling it. Running my fingers over my Barrett is comforting. I know every inch of the metal. Every scratch on the surface is a memory. I feel at home and alive with the weapon in my hands.
She will never leave me.
I shake the thought away. I’m not going there, and I’m not thinking about that—about her. It’s done. It’s for the best. I don’t need anyone.
I position the Barrett’s bipod on the left side of the air intake unit on top of the stairwell and lay down on my stomach behind it. Taking out my binoculars, I scan the Puget Sound and the docks, taking it all in. It will be hours before Joseph Franks takes his final dinner cruise, but I have patience.