HE SLEEPS WHILE THE PLANE IS in flight, having learned long ago that few people will try to make conversation with a sleeping man. At 1:35 PM the stewardess awakens him. They are about to land.
He enters the terminal and casually strolls past the embracing couples and reunited families, heading directly for the men's room. He is just another of the hundreds of businessmen who arrive at and depart from a major city airport on any given day.
Safe inside the toilet stall, he locks the doors and slips out of the business suit he chose to wear on the trip. From his duffel bag he pulls faded jeans, sweatshirt and tennis shoes. Hurriedly, he pulls on the clothing. Then, balancing a small mirror on the back of the toilet, he slips a stocking cap over his hair to flatten and hide it before pulling on a shoulder length wig. His neatly folded suit, shirt and tie fir snugly on top. From a zippered side pocket he takes a pair of tinted, wire-rimmed glasses and a nondescript hat. In less than ten minutes, he leaves the men's room a different man.
At the row of car rental booths in the airport lobby, a tall hippie in a sweatshirt waits in line to rent a car. He does not seem to be inconvenienced by the long lines that are so irritating to the other customers. When the girl behind the counter finally gets around to him, he responds affirmatively to her offer to help.
"Yeah, I wanna rent a small car for a few days."
She take sin his appearance. She has seen his type many times before and immediately interprets his use of the word small to mean cheap. She suggests an economy car that is terrific on gas and comes with unlimited mileage.
He explains that he intends to pay cash for the use of the car. She tells him that he may do so when he brings the car back, but a valid driver's license and major credit card are required identification for security purposes. From an ordinary looking wallet, he pulls the necessary identification: a valid North Carolina driver's license and a major credit card, both in the name of Alfred Johnson.
With key in hand, he leaves the car rental booth and goes to claim his baggage. Then he wanders to the airport news stand to purchase a city map and some reading materials.
Seated in the lobby, he checks the map for an address he memorized weeks earlier. Folding the map so he can follow it while driving, he exits to pick up his waiting car.
Afternoon traffic is moderately heavy on the interstate. Exits, side streets and intersections are unfamiliar. He drives carefully and obeys all traffic rules. He does not want to become involved in any accidents or pick up any traffic tickets.
Finally, he arrives in the section of town where he will find the memorized address. he drives slowly down the street until he has located the apartment complex, then drives on past so his interest will not be observed.
He continues to scout the neighborhood, checking streets and consulting the city map he carries for possible escape routes. He notes that the neighborhood is upper middle class; neatly kept lawns and sidewalks, with a population consisting of mostly singles and young families.
Three blocks west of the apartment complex there is a park which has a small pond. One block east he finds a large shopping center which has a movie theater and an adult book store that is open all night.
About a mile away, at the point where he exited the interstate highway, there are several chain motels and fast food restaurants. he heads back in that direction and pulls into a motel parking lot. He jots down the California license tag number of a car parked near the restaurant entrance. It is 4:15 PM.
The motel clerk is disinterested and mechanical in registering him. He fills out the required form in the name of Sam Wilcox, gives a fictitious address in Los Angeles and uses the California tag number from the car parked at the restaurant. The clerk does not ask for further identification.
"I'm a late sleeper. I'd like a room on the back side -- away from the pool, if you have it," he requests.
"Will that be cash or charge?" the clerk asks without looking up.
He lays down enough small bills on the counter to cover two days lodging, "Cash," he answers.
He drives the car around back, locates his room and takes in his baggage. By 4:45 he is seated on the bed studying the contents of a large manila envelope taken from his locked suitcase. Using the information from the envelope and the telephone directory, he begins to chart routes on the city map. Afterwards, he carefully studies an assortment of photographs taken from the envelope. Satisfied, he returns everything to the envelope and locks it away in the suitcase again.
Wearing a jogging outfit and still in his hippie disguise, he drives to the shopping center and locks his car. On foot, he begins a slow jog through the neighborhood. He circles the block and carefully scrutinizes the area before cutting into the apartment complex parking lot. The sun is just beginning to set.
The apartments are all identical. Patios on the rear are enclosed with privacy walls. On the front, each apartment is separated from the other by an ornamental cedar fence. Two parking spaces are reserved at the front of each apartment for the residents' use. Guest parking is clearly marked in the center of the parking lot, surrounding a small island landscaped with a few scrawny trees and thick bushes.
He jogs over to the guest parking island and sits down on the curb. Removing his shoes and socks, he begins to rub his tired feet. It is 6:47. If his information is correct, the mark should be arriving home from work any time now.
At 6:53 a green Mustang pulls into the parking space in front of the apartment he has under surveillance. The car matches the description of the vehicle belonging to the mark. A heavyset man emerges slowly from the small car. He is puffing on a large cigar. Judging by his physical characteristics and the cigar, this man appears to be the mark. He glances up uninterested, as a jogger trots out of the parking lot.
He jogs back to the motel, stopping at the fast food restaurant for dinner. The clerk shortchanges him by five dollars and the hamburger he orders is not prepared to his liking but he does not complain. without drawing any attention, he heads back to his motel where he reads and watches television until 11:00.
It is after 11:30 when he swings his car into the apartment complex parking lot. The mark's lights are on and his car is still parked in its allotted space. The mark is said to spend most of his free time alone at home, staying up late watching television and sleeping in until an hour or so before his scheduled time to report for work at a used car lot; it appears that this information is correct.
He circles the guest parking island and drives back to the motel.
Early the next morning he is waiting in his parked car with a pair of binoculars and a newspaper when the mark leaves the apartment. In the bright morning sunlight he clearly makes positive identification. This is his man!
Using his premarked map, he spends the early part of the day checking out the places the mark is known to frequent. Around noon, he drives to the main post office to pick up a parcel he mailed to himself the day before. as he drives, he contemplates the various places he has checked out. Because of the layout of the apartment complex in relation to the private patios and sectioned courtyards, he decides that the best place to make the hit is in the mark's own home.
Back at the motel, he opens the heavily taped parcel which was addressed to Mark Donaldson. There had been no problem in picking up the package, stamped "Fragile -- Precision Machined Parts." Today the postal clerk had not even asked for identification.
Inside the first box is a second box. And inside the second box is a special set of clothing, several pairs of rubber gloves, a clean pair of tennis shoes, a new disguise, ammunition, a disassembled weapon and a disposable silencer.
Lovingly he begins to assemble his weapon. With gloved hands, he wipes every part, inside and out, for fingerprints. As he loads the clip, he wipes down each of the bullets. he is a man with a job to do. He has the tools, he has done his homework, he knows he has the right target and he has determined how he will accomplish the job.
After putting the tools away, he leaves the motel to fill the gas tank on the car. While he is out, he steals and out-of-state tag from a parked automobile and replaces the rental tag on his car with a stolen tag.
Back in his room, he dials the airport and gets flight information. Space is available on a flight departing at 11:55 PM.
At 7:00 PM the alarm sounds, waking him from a four hour nap. It is time to get ready for work.
He dresses in the clothing that came in his parcel. He puts on the clean tennis shoes and a new disguise. He puts the hippie disguise, clothing and shows into the duffel bag, along with the tools he will be using. When he is all dressed and packed to go, he has a very few important details to complete.
First, he removes the manila envelope from the suitcase and goes over to the bathroom to burn all the items it contains over the toilet. One by one, he burns the information sheets, photographs, maps and other physical evidence that may prove conspiracy to commit a crime and flushes away the incriminating remains.
He pulls out a fresh pair of rubber gloves and begins tot wipe down the room for fingerprints. He knows the room will probably be rented against by tomorrow, but he takes the precaution anyway. he puts all the trash, newspapers and magazines accumulated during his stay into a plastic garbage bag, along with the room's telephone directory and places it beside his luggage. He will dispose of these items on the way to the jobsite. Still wearing the rubber gloves, he loads his luggage and equipment into the car, locking it in the trunk, and heads for the mark's neighborhood. He will not be returning to the motel again.
At the shopping center one block from where the mark lives, he parks the car in the crowded theatre parking lot and gets out to continue on foot.
No one is out and about as he walks into the apartment complex parking lot. Protected by the cedar privacy fence, he peeks through a crack in the drapes and sees the mark puffing on a cigar while he watches TV from a recliner chair. The volume is so loud that he can hear the program plainly from his position outside.
He goes to the front door where he quietly and efficiently picks the lock. The mark is startled by the intrusion of his entry but is unable to respond quickly enough. he is helpless against the professional.
The muffled sound of three shots fired in rapid succession goes undetected by the neighborhood. The professional has neatly carried out his assignment. Quickly but carefully, he checks the body to make sure there is no pule and drags the body to a place in the apartment where it will not be easily detected. At the scene of the shooting, he drops a newspaper over the blood that has seeped into the carpet. He pockets the three empty cartridges that were ejected from the gun. Then, after a quick check of the apartment to make sure he leaves behind no incriminating evidence, he exits, locking the front door behind him.
Resisting the urge to run, he strolls nonchalantly back to the theater parking lot and his waiting car. Safe inside, he immediately runs a rat-tail file down the barrel of the gun to change the ballistic markings. Then he changes back into his hippie clothing and disguise, unobserved while the other car owners are inside viewing the movie.
he checks the work clothes carefully for bloodstains. Finding none, he drops them into the charity collection box at the shopping center entrance, keeping the shoes he wore for disposal later.
He drives cautiously and carefully to another shopping center several blocks away. He feels no panic. It will be days before the crime is detected, days before anyone investigates the mark's failure to report for work or answer his door. In the crowded parking lot, he disassembles the weapon and removes the stolen tag. Now his only remaining task is to dispose of the weapon.
He gets back onto the interstate highway and heads out of town. Traffic becomes sparse as the city is left behind; now he begins to toss out the small gun parts at irregular intervals, aiming for water filled and overgrown drainage ditches. He also tosses out the tennis shoes.
At a rest area, he walks through the woods and buries the barrel of the gun. He crushes the plastic silencer and disposes of the bits and pieces as he drives back to town.
Just before he reaches the airport, he pulls over to the side of the road and wipes the car for fingerprints. He removes and discards the stolen tag, replacing it with the rental tag. He disposes of the rubber work gloves and replaces them with a pair of leather driving gloves. Then he returns the "clean" rental car to the agency and heads directly for the airport men's room.
A short time later, a businessman emerges from the men's room and approaches the ticket counter for information. His flight leaves in forty five minutes.
he checks his baggage, a suitcase and small duffel bag, and goes to the coffee shop to wait for the flight to be called.
On the plane he dozes, having learned long ago that few people will try to make conversation with a sleeping man. Too all appearances, he is just another businessman suffering from an exhausting schedule; no one interrupts his rest.