Chapter 6

The man kept the lights turned off and the blinds shut in every apartment he leased. The glow from the television or computer monitor was often the only device to illuminate the studio apartments. He grunted as he used the portable pull-up device mounted on the bathroom doorframe. “Twenty-eight, umph, twenty-nine, umph, thirty, aah.” He let loose of the bar, and his completely chiseled and nude frame dropped to the ground. A man such as he was not afforded the luxury of gym memberships or spaces large enough to have his own elaborate vault of equipment. He was always on the go, never staying in one of his remote sites for more than four or five days. A man in his profession took caution in forming bonds with neighbors or providing a familiar face to the townsfolk where he resided that week.

His prestigious clients had preferred a professional of the utmost anonymity. He was a specter to the communities he visited and a faceless name to the powerful men and women who utilized his services. Meeting a client face to face would leave both parties vulnerable to various possible outcomes. It was a hard rule, just as with his method of communication with clients. His clients ranged from the highly ambitious politician to the monopolist corporate executive looking to ease the competition. International or Domestic, it didn’t matter. In order to acquire the services and talents of such a person, one must delve into the deepest depths of the dark web. For him, his clients could be Peter, Paul, or Mary. To them, he was simply known as Nyx.

He had taken a strong liking to the name over the years. The Greek mythological roots defined the name as the personification of night. Even though Nyx was a goddess and feared by the likes of Zeus, the name itself was, in fact, gender neutral. The tier one operator in a life since gone had always considered himself the dominating entity of the night. Seldom did he see the daylight when the mission was entrusted to him.

Nyx grabbed a towel from his duffle bag and patted the sweat from his body before wrapping the towel around his waist and concealing his groin. It was his fourth day in the rural New York state community, and already he was feeling the urge to move on. Still, he needed the extra time to keep his mind and body at peak performance. The contract he had completed on Tuesday night had taken a toll on his mental state. He hated New York City with a passion. Too busy and too compact. To the law enforcement that had discovered the body, it was a case of accidental overdose with large traces of fentanyl. The savvy Wall Street executive apparently did not have the means to purchase the ‘good stuff’ for the night. But to Nyx, it was a man who passed out in bed from celebratory intoxication while a syringe filled with the deadly concoction entered his veins.

Nyx always waited one to three days before acknowledging the completion of the contract and sending it to his clients. It was another reason and rule why he typically stayed four nights at one of his sites. He couldn’t risk the covert act of remaining in vicinity and physically checking up on the victim’s state. He chose to wait for news reports to acknowledge the success of the hit. This method also led to another hard rule for his business. Never women or children. It was not merely a moral obligation, although even he had some emotion left in his soul. News outlets typically highlighted and focused on the murder of women and especially children more strongly than that of an adult male. Stories might be aired for weeks while the media had spun their theories. That sort of prolonged attention put him at risk, as well as his clients. Tragedy sells, and people are always watching.

He sat at the small dining table that held his laptop and took a sip of his vitamin infused water. It was seven A.M., and the news programs were just about to report on the latest happenings before they got recycled throughout the day. He reached across the table and powered on the television with the remote. After a few regurgitated news topics, a new report finally came in.

“Jacob Wallace was found dead in his Manhattan apartment early Wednesday morning. The man was found by the building manager after coworkers expressed concern when he didn’t show up for work the previous day in what appears to be an accidental overdose. Early toxicology reports revealed a deadly amount of fentanyl in his bloodstream, which is often linked to the misuse of narcotics and is becoming a common occurrence among partygoers and the youth today. In related news—”

Nyx turned off the television. He had heard what he needed to, and nothing more was of interest to him. It was time to close the contract and secure the second half of his payment. The laptop itself was barebones. Nyx didn’t use it much other than for a few casual searches related to dining and vitamin shops and his merchant site, which existed beyond an immense amount of security. Beyond the initial login screen, Nyx would start a program that allowed his computer to hop between ten different virtual private networks with nodes located worldwide. Once the connections were established, he could proceed to do what he needed on the internet. Connections to the networks would rotate to another random node every five minutes. This meant that any session he was currently in would be disconnected and must be re-established at the same interval. This did not allow him much time to work but he deemed it extremely necessary.

The Tor browser took him to his storefront titled ‘Nyx’s Tricks.’ An extremely vague title that gives the impression he still had some sliver of humor; however dark it may be. The link to his storefront was not a publicly known string of characters, nor would the random explorer have found it through traditional methods. Methods involving searching through a trail of site code that would eventually lead you to the place you wanted to visit had not existed for his site. You had to know someone who already knew the link. And if the link had ever been leaked by an untrustworthy source, the link would be scrambled, and repercussions would ensue. Not only would the contracts and clients be removed from the database, but the clients would also have to reacquire the correct link again on their own. Furthermore, the inconvenience could lead to penalties of the most severe nature for those that had become untrustworthy. The warnings were clearly stated in the user acceptance agreement.

Nyx logged in under his administration account, and clicked a link displaying Open Contracts. No other visitor was privy to this information. He clicked ‘Completed’ next to Jacob Wallace’s name. The contract disappeared into a long list of completed contracts. A new request had just popped into his inbox.

Nyx stared at the request. There was something very odd about it. It wasn’t the fact that it was from a client he had never dealt with before, that sometimes happens. It was the additional instructions outlined in the description, and the preferred setup method to place the hit.

Target: Andrew Simmons

Location: Tarrytown, New York

Status: Urgent

Threat: Low

Payment: 25/25 Bitcoin upon acceptance and completion.

The destination didn’t sit entirely well with Nyx. While he was only a couple of hours’ driving distance from the target, doing two jobs in the same week while not changing locations certainly bothered him. The payment, however, was sizeable over that of his standard fee. Twenty-five plus twenty-five made it fifty in total. That was no small change. At the lower end of his scale, a typical contract would be close to twenty-five altogether, or even forty for the higher profile targets. Perhaps he could make an exception this time around. He decided to keep reading rather than keeping his mouse cursor hovered over the deny button.

Time: Tonight; Thursday @ 2000 hours.

Additional Instructions: Bring a - -

The session timed out.