First Blood - Part 4

Next I changed into my wetsuit, laid out the diving gear and the dive scooter and packed up my street clothes and empty duffel bags. Everything was going into the water, even the bike which I would ditch. I figured I would ditch about 4 grand worth of gear on this run. My main target tonight probably made that much money in just 4 minutes. Now I'm not poor but I wasn't going to be able to drop this kind of money every time. Remember, I'm a cheap bastard. Maybe I could submit a paper to the Harvard Business Review on the cost/benefit of various assassination techniques.

Anyway, I grabbed my rifle and ammo, went up to my firing position and started scanning the scene. More people had arrived and the party was in full swing. About 2/3rds were in costume and about half had covered or painted faces. I tried to read the body language of people to find out which one was my main target. It stands to reason that the host or hostess of a party will more and behave differently than a party guest. After awhile I was pretty sure he was dressed as a Southern Colonel in a white linen suit. I had memorized the faces of 23 top level people in this firm but so far I was able to id only the Colonel and 3 others.

When I was walking back from setting up the fireworks diversion, I had decided that I would not shoot to kill at anyone I couldn't identify. I had a hunch that 2 of the execs were dressed as the half white/half black guys from the original Star Trek. I was sort of tempted to give em a pass for that but the more I watched them, the more confident I became they were on the list of 23. So now I had 6 targets.

I needed to pick out some more targets but couldn't recognize any others from the list of 23. So I decided I'd target some of the more obnoxious costumes. Top of the list was a guy dressed as a bundle of cash. That should get some good press - "Bank exec dressed as wad of money, shot in the ass at Halloween party!"

There were a fair number of ladies dressed in some pretty racy outfits. The harem girls and the stunning I Dream of Jeanie look alike were definitely safe along with the cutie dressed as a wood nymph.

Now the guy in the flesh colored body suit and wearing a wooden barrel, he was going to get bunged along with the dastardly robber baron, the Southern plantation owner, and the Great Gatsby. There was a guy in a fat cat suit but I wasn't sure if he was just a furry or plushie, a cartoon cat or actually a fat cat. The last batch was a bling pimp, a walking money tree, and a walking classic fountain pen.

Well that was that and so I started dialing the fireworks phone...