Helping Jeanny [4]

So, after being interrogated by police as witnesses for more than two hours, I and Jennifer went to my apartment in exhausted. I let her slept on my bed while I had my couch for the night.

It's not that I was being a saint. But as flirty as Jeanny the striptease looked like, this D.A Jennifer is very stern and thus ... not too attractive (?) Or maybe it was because of a shock she still had after the shooting incident of her assistant. Or maybe I just not that in to her. Whatever my reason was, I decided to sleep on my couch, not even trying to seduce her.

In the morning, Jennifer is becoming more tense. She even jolts when I pat her shoulder. "Are you okay ?" I ask her to make sure. She sighs then nods vaguely.

"The polices are outdoor already," I inform her.

The police department has agreed to give her protection. Last night I asked the head of department to make sure that he himself handpicked the personnels and made sure everyone knew everyone. It's just a precaution so the assassin can't go undercover as one of the police officer. And of course, since Jennifer is a D.A, he accepted my request.

Jennifer stands and reaches her things. Then we walk out from my apartment. Inside the elevator I say to her again, "Have you canceled the press conference ?"

She nods. "The judge is also agree to make it a closed court," she adds. Good, I say inwardly while nodding.

She must close any opportunity to meet strangers. The assassin can easily sneak up to be one of them. The assassin surely is in panic mode right now. His attempt was failed yesterday and I believe his deadline is today, before the reading.

We walk out of the apartment building in silent, occupying our own minds. She only asks me after knowing I'm not entering the police car with her. "Are you not coming ?" she asks.

I shake my head. "I have something else to do," I say to her with apologetic smile. She shrugs then smiles.

"Thank you for everything you've done," she says in sincere.

"Sure," I reply her.

--------------------

The something I have to do is to find the assassin before he launches his action. If only his target is not someone I know, I surely don't care about it.

The court building has a metal detector on every doors it has. So it's either the assassin has a plastic gun, or he has another way to get in the building. The latter has more probability than the earlier. But after an hours of searching, I truly can't find an entrance where I can enter the building without leaving my gun.

Is he really has a plastic gun ? But the gun causes fortune. I'm not bragging about my self, but to see what he has done, he surely is not better than me. Thus, I doubt he has the money to buy the plastic gun.

Other methods will require him to be close to Jennifer, thus he must face those cops directly. I, personally, will definitely avoid that. There is no way I would risk my live or even career like that.

Except, of course, he is not an assassin, and rather just an amateur that do it out of.. revenge ? For what ? Beside, what he did yesterday couldn't be done by an amateur. If only I wasn't there, his action was a success. It was merely Jennifer's luck that I was there and saw what the assassin did.

"Hey, watch out, man !" someone yells at me from above. I look up to see a gondola few meters above me. Shit ! I quickly moves to the right to avoid being squeezed by the heavy equipment. Suddenly, something crosses my mind.

"Is today your company regular schedule to clean this building ?" I ask the man on the gondola. He frowns a little.

"I don't know, man. I'm just a freelancer. I got call this morning to clean this building," he answers.

"How many are you cleaning this building ?" I ask him again.

"Five. I mean six, with me," he says, "I'm the only riding the gondola because of my injury though. Others just using the sky rope as usual," he adds.

Shit !! I glance at my watch. It is now 9:15. Jennifer's trial will start at 9:30. She said it will be held in the 5th floor court room, but I don't know which side of building the room is. More over, I didn't bring my rifle to do the long shot.

"Can I go with you to roof top ?" I ask the man out of nowhere.

"What ? What's .." He is taking too long to answer, so I just press his sleeping point. With him sleeping on the floor of gondola, I ride the gondola to the rooftop of the building. Once it is there, I jump to the rooftop, walking to every wall sides, looking around for the cleaners.

There are five cleaners, two each on north and east side, and one on west. I doubt that the assassin needs accomplish to do his job, so I focus on the west cleaner. The south cleaner is definitely not the assassin, since he was too dumb not to notice my movement previously.

I stick my head to the west wall. This building has 8 floors. I count from the top, the cleaner precisely on the 5th floor. He is cleaning one of the windows, but he does it really slow while gazing through the window. His legs are stepping on to the nook that the building has below its windows while his body is secure by the rope tights on belt he wears.

I look at my watch. 9:30. The trial should start now. I reach my gun and pointing it at the cleaner. I really hope that I don't miscalculate. If I am, then at another wall, the assassin will shoot Jennifer once she stands to talk to the suspect. I smile in relieved when finally the cleaner on my surveillance is putting his cleaning tools down and grab something from his ankle. A gun, of course.

Once he points it at the window, I shoot his hand. He must be surprised and in pain. But, he is definitely not an amateur because he doesn't even lose his gun and shooting it back at me. I quickly hide behind the wall.

When I hear no gun shot, I stick my head again, and see him climbing to the roof top. I shoot him again, this time on his right shoulder Now, his gun loses from his grip and falls to the ground.

He looks at me in furious. I just add another enemy, I sigh. I hate having enemies. I shoot him on his left chest, then reach my ankle to get my hunting knife. With that, I cut the rope not far from me. The assassin falls freely to the ground. A SUV doesn't have a chance to hit its break then runs over him. Sorry, Man..