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He waited while the van drove away.
Slung over his shoulder was a large black canvas bag. After several minutes passed, he started to make his way down the alley. When he reached Burmiester’s fence, he pulled a can of WD-40 out of his bag and sprayed the hinges of the gate. He waited for the oil to take effect, then carefully lifted the latch on the gate and opened it. Slipping into the backyard, he dropped down behind a row of bushes and looked up at the windows of Burmiester’s house and the neighbors’, waiting to see a face peering out or a light being turned on, announcing that someone had seen him. For almost five minutes he sat behind the bush, waiting and watching. There was time to be careful and that was the way he liked it, the way he’d been trained. The man reached into the bag, this time retrieving a pair of wire cutters. Cautiously rising to his feet, he walked along the edge of the garage and then darted across the small open space to the back stoop, where he crouched down. Again, he used the can of WD-40, spraying the hinges of the screen door. While he waited for the oil to soak in, he grabbed the pair of wire cutters and cut the phone line running into the basement of the house. He put the wire cutters back in the bag and grabbed a glass cutter. Jumping up on the stoop he opened the screen door about two feet and slid in between it and the back door. The back door was wood with the top third split into four sections of glass. He placed the cup of the glass cutter in the middle of the bottom left pane and swung the cutting edge around the suction cup in a clockwise direction. After five revolutions, he took both hands and pressed in on the newly created circle. The freshly cut piece of glass popped free and stayed attached to the suction cup.
Sticking his arm through the hole, he unlocked the door, opened it, and stepped into the kitchen, carefully closing the door behind him. He stood completely still and looked out the window, staring at the neighbors’ houses, looking for anything that might have changed while his ears focused on the inside of the house. He heard the dog breathing and turned to see him lying on a piece of carpet in front of the kitchen table, completely relaxed and limp. Pulling the microphone down from under the brim of his baseball cap, he spoke in a soft whisper, “I’m in, over.” His partner was sitting in the blue van, six blocks away, around the corner from a small, twenty-four-hour convenience store. He was monitoring the local police scanner.
Calmly, he spoke into the microphone hanging in front of his mouth, “Roger that, everything is clear on my end, over.”
The man in the kitchen of Burmiester’s house pushed the microphone back up under the brim of his hat and slowly removed the black bag from over his shoulder. Gently placing it on the floor, he retrieved a gas mask and a green tank with a clear rubber hose attached to the end. With the tank and mask in hand, he walked down the uncarpeted hallway toward the front door and the staircase that led to the second floor. When he reached the foot of the staircase, he stopped and leaned forward, placing his hands on the fourth step. Again he paused, not moving, just listening. After he was sure that
Burmiester had not been awakened, he started to crawl up the steps, keeping his hands and feet away from the center of the stairs, leaning forward, trying to keep his weight as equally distributed as possible, not wanting the old stairs to creak and wake the owner.
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When he reached the second floor, he stayed on his knees and continued to crawl slowly toward the master bedroom, about twenty feet away. Once again, he waited patiently and listened. Gently, he stuck the rubber tube under the door, put his gas mask on, and opened the valve on the tank. Sitting down with his back against the wall, he started the timer on his watch. After fifteen minutes had elapsed, he turned off the valve and pulled the tube out from under the door. Slowly, he opened the door and peeked into the room. Burmiester was lying with his back to the door and showed no signs of movement. The intruder pushed the door the rest of the way open and walked over to the bed. Reaching down, he nudged Burmiester several times. The old man didn’t move. He took the glove off his right hand, placed it on Burmiester’s neck, and checked his pulse.
After checking it twice more, he concluded with relief that the old man was fine. The intruder did not know the man he was standing over, and he did not wish to see him die.
Harold Burmiester was not the man he was after tonight.
He walked around the bed to the double window that looked out onto the street below and stared straight across at the house opposite Burmiester’s. He lowered the mike and said, “I’m in position.
Everything looks good, over.”
The response came crackling back through his earpiece immediately. “Roger, everything is quiet on this end, over.” Five miles away on the other side of the Potomac
River, the second team had moved into position. The nondescript white van was parked on a quiet side street. Inside, the blond-haired assassin was undergoing a change. He’d taken off his dark jeans, jacket, and boots and had replaced them with a gray pair of sweatpants, a blue sweatshirt, and a pair of Nike running shoes. He sat still while one of the other men carefully applied black makeup to his face, neck, and ears. The makeup was for camouflage, but not in the typical military sense. It was meant to be noticed and to deceive, not to conceal.
After the makeup job was completed, a tight, black Afro wig was placed over his blond hair, and a pair of brown contacts were inserted over his blue eyes. Next, he put his headset back on and pulled a University of Michigan baseball hat over his head.
5:55 A.M Friday
The screen covering Mr. Burmiester’s bedroom window had been taken off, and the owner of the house had been carefully moved from the master bedroom down the hall to one of the guest rooms. The intruder was sitting on a wooden chair, staring out the window at a pair of French doors located on the second floor of the house across the street.
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Resting on his lap was a Remington M-24 military sniper rifle with a customized silencer attached to the end of the barrel. A round was in the chamber but the rifle was still on safety. The alarm on his watch had beeped five minutes earlier, and he was trying to stay relaxed.
The sky was just starting to brighten and the birds were chirping. His target would be rising any minute, and he was making a conscious effort to control his breathing and keep his adrenaline level low. A light was turned on across the street, and the drapes on the other side of the French doors turned from gray to yellow. In one fast motion he brought the rifle up into a firing position, pressing the stock between his shoulder and left cheek.
His finger came up and flipped off the safety, while he centered the crosshairs on the middle of the French doors. He continued taking slow, controlled breaths. A blurred shadow moved from behind the curtains. The shooter inhaled deeply, and just when his lungs were fully expanded, the doors across the street opened.
