Chapter 3: The Stillman Avenue Bridge

The scent of brine and rotting fish clung to the Brooklyn warehouses like a second skin. Marcus leaned against a rusted shipping container, watching the pier through slitted eyes. Markov’s men moved like shadows—loading crates onto a truck marked Fresh Catch, their voices low, their hands quick.

A crow cawed overhead. Marcus didn’t look up. He knew it was one of Markov’s lookouts—real birds didn’t perch this close to the water at night.

Clay’s intel had been solid. Markov liked to watch. And tonight, he was watching from the third-floor window of the old icehouse, a cigarillo dangling from his fingers. The glow of the ember pulsed like a heartbeat in the dark.

But the ember at the end of the cigarillo was also a beacon in the dark. It shone in the crosshairs of Marcus’s sniper rifle. He used the CIA’s weapon of choice in the US: the Desert Tech HTI, because of the ease of replacement parts and ammunition availability. Tonight it was mounted with a suppressor and an infrared laser pointer -- although at this range it was hardly necessary. At only 350 yards, with the target holding a lit cigarillo in his mouth, Marcus could hardly miss.

Markov was in the old icehouse near the bridge that crossed the Coney Island Creek that would have marked the lighted pincushion on a map of Brooklyn. At midnight on Tuesday, it was dark. Marcus could see the blue panel van pull up near the semi with the empty shipping container, doors already open. The men handled the ‘cargo’ carefully, hefting the girls on their shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He could see the cascade of blonde and dark ponytails flopping against the mens’ backs. They took care to move the girls into the container, so they would not damage the valuable commodity they represented.

Markov’s smile was visible in the optics of Marcus’s rifle. He took a long inhale on his cigarillo. Before he puffed out the smoke, Marcus’s rifle coughed quietly from his perch on the roof of Tony’s Salvage yard, about 350 yards on the other side of the Creek from Markov. The body of the former head of New York’s girl-trafficking mob crumpled to the floor. A naked blonde stood up from her position kneeling before Markov -- screaming. Marcus could see two bodyguards rush into the room, wielding submachine guns, aimed at the window.

They didn’t see Marcus across the Creek, naturally, as he swiveled the rifle to the semi. He ejected the spent brass and fired again, blowing up the truck’s front tire. Two more shots hit the back doors of the shipping container, clanging loudly, which caused the workmen, who had just finished loading the girls, to exit posthaste into the van. Marcus fired once more; this time, the .408 round pierced the door panel of the van, killing the would-be driver.

The others scrambled out of the area like cockroaches when the lights came on in a kitchen suddenly.

Marcus carefully packed the Desert Tech into its case, policed the brass that had landed on the rooftop, and dialed 9-1-1 on his burner phone.

“9-1-1 What is your emergency?”

“There has been a shooting. Near the Stillman Avenue bridge in Brooklyn, on the south side. Bring lots of cops and an ambulance,” said the assassin. He lifted the rifle case, slung it over his shoulder and changed. He dropped the burner and the crow flew off the rooftop into the night.

“Hello? Hello? Can you tell me your name?” said the 9-1-1 operator into the dark of the rooftop.

Once on the ground again, in human form, Marcus paused after the change. Dressed black, he quietly entered the nondescript house he called home in Passaic County, New Jersey. He picked up the cell that was scrambled and said to the agent who answered, “Mission complete. Will need a new rifle barrel in .408 caliber for the Desert Tech.” That was it. He carefully put the weapon behind a secret panel of his bedroom, showered as he always did, and went to bed.

His mind drifted back to that first night in Istanbul. He showed up at 0800 hours and presented himself to the marine guarding the front gate. He had ill-fitting pants and shoes with no socks.

“I am an American citizen. I have no passport and would like to be repatriated to the U.S.”

The guard looked at him from head to toe. He saw a black man who looked like a hobo, but he sounded like an American. In the U.S. he’d be called homeless. But in Istanbul, the guard had different priorities.

“Just a moment, sir.” He lifted his phone and called the OOD. “We’ve got a person who says he’s a citizen, who needs help.” He listened for a moment, then said to Marcus. “Follow the steps to the door. First door on the left.”

Marcus stepped into the embassy’s dimly lit reception area, the air thick with the scent of old coffee and bureaucracy. A harried-looking woman behind the bulletproof glass glanced up, her fingers pausing over her keyboard. “Name?” she asked, already sounding exhausted.

“Marcus Abernathy.” He slid Abernathy’s dog tags across the counter. The metal clicked against the glass, loud in the quiet room.

She eyed the tags, then him, skepticism tightening her mouth. “You don’t look like a Marcus Abernathy.”

Marcus leaned in, close enough to see the frayed edges of her blouse collar. “Classified mission,” he murmured. “If you need verification, call the cultural attaché.”

The woman’s fingers hovered over her keyboard, her nails chipped from too many late nights. “You’re telling me you were on a classified op?” Her voice dripped with the kind of skepticism that came from hearing every sob story in the book—lost passports, stolen wallets, midnight escapes from imaginary hit squads.