The Pierre had been the hotel Adam had stayed in ever since he'd visited the city as a small child, all the way up to and including when he was in business school. On this trip, he'd insisted on staying there, to his handler's chagrin. His primary handler, in particular, had tried to get him to stay in some less vigilant surroundings and where he'd have his Range Rover instantly at his disposal. But Adam had insisted. He was curious if he'd feel any nostalgia. He didn't think he would. It was as if his experiences in Iraq, particularly the covert missions, has sucked all the emotion out of him from both witnessing and participating in the kind of atrocities that before Iraq, BI, he couldn't have ever imagined. And most disturbing of all, he'd come to enjoy what he was doing, even the killing.
His Iraq experience came to a disastrous conclusion. It happened during an ill-fated covert action that went horribly wrong. He and the rest of his team had ended up being decimated by misdirected friendly fire, which he and his colleagues had called in. Although he'd not been killed, as were his squadmates, Adam had had a leg broken and had been rendered unconscious. In such a vulnerable state, he'd been taken hostage by the very people he and his team had been sent to kill or capture.
Despite supposed preparatory training as a POW, Adam was unprepared for his ordeal as a captive. He leg was never appropriately attended to and was a source of constant pain. But worse, he was tortured by repeated episodes during which he was certain he was about to be shot or beheaded.
Although it had been explained to him as a common psychological response called the Stockholm syndrome, he was shocked when it happened to him. After several months, he began to identify with his captors and their twisted ideology. He'd even made a tape that was shown on Al Jazeera satellite TV in which he lauded the insurgents' cause and cast aspersions on the United States' motives for the Iraq intervention. His mind had been so twisted that when his release was eventually brokered by an FBI negotiator for the secret exchange of a number of insurgent detainees, he didn't know whether to rejoice or bewail his release and ultimate repatriation. Intuitively, he'd known he could never return to his former life; it was simply out of the question.
Adam turned left on 61 st Street, and halfway down the block pulled over to the Pierre's entrance marquee. The doorman tipped his hat and opened the Range Rover's door. "Checking in, sir?"
Adam merely nodded as he climbed out of the car. Following the doorman to the car's rear, Adam insisted on taking the tennis bag, which contained the tools of his trade, the moment the doorman opened the hatchback. The small overnight bag he allowed to be carried for him.
"Will you be needing your vehicle this evening?" the doorman asked as he held open the hotel's door.
Adam nodded again.
"Fine, I'll keep it right here at the door," the doorman said as he gestured toward the registration desk.
Directions weren't necessary for Adam, as the lobby had barely changed over the twenty or so years he had intermittently stayed at the hotel. Pausing at the flower-bedecked center table in the middle of the carpet, Adam let his eyes take in the familiar surroundings, including the raised sitting area to the right and mostly nineteenth-century English furniture. As he'd expected, he didn't feel anything. The scene evoked no emotion whatsoever. It was like his memories were of someone else's life.
The check-in was dispatched with commendable speed, after which the receptionist called for a porter, saying, "Hector, this is Mr. Bramford from Connecticut. Would you show him to his room? By the way, Mr. Bramford, we've given you a very nice park view."
Bramford was one of the several identities Adam carried on this particular mission, along with all the associated documentation. His handlers in Washington ran a discreet risk-management/security firm with branches in major cities around the world, and Adam worked for them for special operations as an independent contractor. The clients for the current mission, all former lawyers and politicians, had contacts in the highest levels of government, so obtaining the identities had been relatively simple.
"This way, Mr. Bramford," Hector said, pointing toward the elevators.
The interior of the elevator was unique in regard to its French style, and Adam remembered it the moment he stepped in. Its frivolousness as well as its cleanliness stood in such sharp juxtaposition to his war experience that he marveled it could exist on the same planet as Iraq. And as he rose up in the fussy decor, the sheer contrast of the total situation made him think back to his release from captivity. At that time, he'd been picked up in the scrubby, battle-scarred desert dressed only in a soiled pair of boxer shorts and limping on a deformed leg.
Within hours, he'd been airlifted to Germany where his leg was rebroken and reset, and he began treatment for what was called a post-traumatic stress disorder variant. Under the psychiatrist's guidance, Adam made considerable strides in dealing with his anxiety, his inability to concentrate, his joylessness, and his difficulty sleeping. He had had less success with generating any interest whatsoever in returning to any semblance of his former life, which included resurrecting his relationships with his family, his family's business, his fiancee, or Harvard Business School. He also had had no success in adjusting to the loss of the camaraderie of his Delta Force colleagues and the unique and addictive risk of making a kill.
Adam's psychiatrist had become frustrated by what she considered Adam's lack of progress, until she suggested a new strategy: namely, for Adam to embrace what he'd been morphed into from his military experience rather than attempting to suppress or ignore it. It was even she, as an Alexandria, Virginia, resident, who had introduced Adam to the founder and CEO of Risk Control and Security Solutions, which was extremely receptive to the combination of his Special Forces training and his experience of having been a POW. To protect his identity, they worked out an employment relationship, which didn't show up on their books. In return, they paid him extremely well.
The Pierre elevator reached the correct floor. Hector allowed Adam to disembark first, then pushed ahead to open the door to Adam's room. He gave Adam a rapid tour of the room, including how to navigate the hotel's simple entertainment systems and the location of the minibar. Then he backed out of the room, obsequiously clutching Adam's tip.
For a few minutes, Adam stood in front of the window that gave out onto Central Park. The most apparent object was the skating rink, brightly illuminated in the center of the park's mostly dark expanse. He then turned back into the room. He took his tennis bag from his shoulder and unzipped it. Inside was a selection of favorite firearms, carefully wrapped in towels and tape. He took each out, unwrapped them, and checked to make sure they were all in the same working order as they had been when he had packed them. When he was satisfied that his arsenal was unscathed by the drive, he pulled out a single sheet of paper from an inner zipped pocket. On it was the target's name, a brief and probably useless description, and the rather odd address of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York.