November 2030

Custer, South Dakota

“More coffee, Aaron?”

Aaron Matthews nodded and held out his cup. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Ruthie.”

The gray-haired woman refilled the cup with a practiced hand and returned the decanter to the hot plate behind the counter. “How come a good-looking young man like you can’t find himself a wife to cook his breakfast? I swear, Aaron, if I was single and twenty years younger, I’d marry you myself.”

Matthews smiled. “What woman in her right mind would marry a guy who lives in a two room cabin and doesn’t have a job?”

“If that book you’re writing becomes a best seller, the women will be falling all over you.”

The man sitting on the next stool looked up from his bacon and eggs. “What’s your book about?”

“It’s the story of a handicapped boy who refuses to give up on his dream of becoming an astronaut.”

The stranger’s eyebrows arched in distain. A few minutes later, he paid his check and left.

“I’m guessing he won’t be buying my book,” Matthews said. “Who is he?”

“Never seen him before. Probably a tourist come to see Mount Rushmore.”

“Doesn’t look much like a tourist. My guess would be a hunter.” He drained the last of his coffee and got up.

“There’s a storm coming, Aaron. They’re predicting a foot or more. Make sure you’ve got some food in that cabin. I don’t make house calls.”

“I’ll stop at Mac’s on my way out of town.”

The icy wind hit him as soon as he stepped outside. He pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt and zipped his down vest. He made the promised stop for groceries, then headed west on Highway 16. The first snowflakes were swirling in the wind when he turned onto the dirt road leading to the cabin. He steered around the worst of the teeth-jarring ruts and breathed a silent prayer that the fifteen-year-old Jeep would hold up a while longer.

When he reached the cabin, the snow was coming down in quarter-sized clusters. He unloaded the groceries and brought in enough logs from the massive pile stacked beside the shed to fill the woodbin. He lit a fire in the fireplace and hung his vest on a hook by the door.

When Matthews moved into his father’s hunting cabin that summer, he was a cocky bastard with a severely damaged ego. He could still see the surprise and disapproval on his father’s face when he told him that he had been fired from his job as a reporter for the Tampa Bay Sentinel and, instead of looking for a real job, he was going to write a book.

Matthews had anticipated it would take only a couple of months to kick out the novel that would launch his career as an author. Six months later, he was still in South Dakota, grinding away on a story that still didn’t have a title or a plausible ending.

The warm glow and crackling of the fire lifted his spirits. He turned on his computer and brought up the latest version of his manuscript. It was after ten when he finally decided to call it a night. He went into the bedroom, tossed his jeans and sweatshirt on the floor and crawled into bed. Within minutes, he was asleep.

* * * *

The man from the diner had been watching the cabin from a Humvee hidden among the pines. When the lights went out, he waited exactly fifteen minutes before putting on a pair of night-vision goggles and getting out of his vehicle. He trudged through the blowing snow towards the cabin. When he reached the porch, he unsheathed his knife and ran the blade up between the edge of the door and the jam. He slowly lifted the latch and pushed the door open. When it’s this fucking easy, it takes all the fun out of it.

He followed the sound of snoring into the bedroom and put his hand on the sleeping man’s shoulder, shaking him gently. When Matthews opened his eyes, he deftly ran the knife across his throat with a sweeping motion, severing the carotid artery and jugular. Death was almost instantaneous.

The assassin whistled as he moved about the cabin dumping the contents of drawers on the floor, knocking over chairs and smashing dishes. When he was finished, he surveyed his work with satisfaction. Still whistling, he picked up Matthew’s computer, tucked it under his arm and walked out the door.