Reset
by Vivvian
Jackson had watched the FBI agents parade through their schedules for 7 weeks. Slowly, their hidden routines had emerged, the off-timed teams had surfaced and Jackson began going after the individual men. Murdering them in their homes or in their gym locker-rooms or when walking to their cars, groceries spilling wantonly across daytime parking lots.
At night, when on his own surveillance cycle he would see new faces show up, replacements moving in with bravado – until every face was rookie personified and no one man could begin to expect who he would be working with on his next shift. It was a harsh reality, this particular method, but Jackson being only one man had to press his own advantages and going in blazing was out of the question.
Instead, on the chosen night, Jackson had taken advantage of the disarray in the agents' scheduling and concomitant chaos in their C3 and slipped into the Keefe house as one of many new faces. Identification had been easy - pretending to know the various newbies even easier. The unbelievably tacky, poorly cut suit had been Jackson's main stumbling block. Now, at this late hour, Jackson found himself in the opulent mansion's private quarters hallway - completely accepted, totally alone, and half-way done with his old assignment. He walked to the door of the master suite and without hesitation opened the door and shut it quietly behind him.
Keefe sat up from a light and troubled sleep and stared in horror between his sleeping wife and Jackson looming casually at the foot of the bed. Recognition swept through his sweet, blue eyes in an instant. Jackson had researched this man and knew him to be a former college football jock - then, a lawyer, a husband, a father, a statesman, a governor, and a helluva poker player - now, Secretary of Homeland Security. Keefe also had the unlucky distinction of being Jackson Rippner's only unfinished job, what he and Lisa had taken to calling "The Anomaly". It was not an affectionate pet name, but, rather, an epithet Jackson uttered with the deepest loathing and a touch of embarrassment.
Keefe whispered, resisting the temptation to grab his wife and shake her. "My children-"
Remorseless, Jackson sliced his hand through the air. He had done them first. Lisa liked these people and he had taken that into account. Besides, it made sense. It was the thing done and required no show-boating. In fact, doing it was the dinner and the show. His client would be pleased and everyone who needed this particular message would receive it, loud and clear. No bullshit this time. Keefe broke out in a sweat. But, Jackson wasn't here to torture the guy, he thought his words kind, given the circumstances, "I did them first. I didn't wake them."
Keefe's quarterback features began to crumble and his large hand moved to his wife – not to wake her but to feel her breathing for one last time, to pour his misery and regret into her body with one quick touch, to thank her for their lives together and their children. Jackson understood this and let the touch occur and as Mrs. Keefe, who he had come to learn was "Rachel" in addition to "Momma", stirred in her comely sleep, Jackson raised the silencer laden .40 calibre and shot her in the head. The vacuum-packed report thwacked through the room, quickly followed by another, and Keefe slumped over his dead wife. His life spent in a tapestry of brains, blood, and bone across the stately Shaker headboard.
Jackson waited for a calm count of thirty – as if he had all the time in the world – and then he strode around the bed and felt for each of their pulses. Stillness prevailed. He surveyed his work and keeping his pistol in his hand, gave his jacket a curt tug. It was with grim satisfaction that Jackson realized: The Anomaly had been extinguished. He turned on his heel and strode from the room. It was time to get Lisa out of Utah and start their lives.