"Mr Miller, you can come in. Dr Stevens will see you in a moment."

The man left aside the magazine he was reading and followed the young, blonde nurse to the doctor's office. Doctor Stevens was talking on the phone, and made a gesture for the man to sit down.

"Sorry, I had to answer this call." As soon as she hung, Dr Marsha Stevens opened the file over her desk and gave a quick look at it. "We have the results for your tests, Mr Miller, and I'm afraid I have bad news. You're in the early stages of Parkinson. We have ran the test twice, and there's no doubt about it . I have talked to_"

The man heard nothing else. There was no need to do it, in fact. He knew too well what Parkinson was, since it was a quite common thing in his family, and he also knew too well what it would mean for him. He looked at his hands, the ones that had made of him the best one in his job, and cursed them for putting him in the current situation.

"Are you okay, Mr Miller?" Doctor Stevens's voice pulled him out of his gloomy thoughts. "You'll be able to have a life as normal as possible, but I want to see you next month. You're having this medicine twice a day, with breakfast and dinner."

"Thanks, Doctor." The man took the prescription and walked out of the office. Once in the street, he started walking slowly, unaware of all the hustle and bustle of people coming in and out of the shops, or chatting at this or that cafeteria. He was about to stumble with one of those electric skateboards, and inwardly insulted the young man using it. 

When he finally arrived to his house, he left his jacket by the door and went into his living room. After a brief moment of hesitation, he took one of the albums and started reading the newspapers he had been collecting for years. It was probably a symptom of self pride, but after all, he was the most respected shooter. Never, in his almost forty years of career, had he been arrested or even interrogated. He was clean, his facade as a simple accountant had done well in providing a cover for his actual business.

His mind flew back to the mid 1970s, right after his return from Vietnam. Before that, he had led a plain life as a farm boy, growing in the wide prairies of Missouri, along with his parents and his two sisters, Lorraine and Julia. But that boring, previsible life came down the moment he opened the letter informing of him being drafted to the war. What most of his friends considered a disgrace, was a kind of blessing for him. It meant leaving behind boredom and a job he despised, to face the excitement of the war.

His time there, as tough and hellish as it was, provided him getting used to handle all kind of weapons. Guns, rifles, machine guns...it wasn't long before he found pleasure and power with them in his hands.

He knew them.

He respected them. 

And he loved them. 

He was proud of having his very own arsenal, and each one of his  fellows knew it wasn't wise touching them.

Things changed when the war was over and it was time to fly back home. He had no intention of going back to Missouri, and he managed to stay in New York for some time, doing the kind of jobs no one wanted. Street cleaner, hearse driver... Still, those shitty jobs left him spare time enough as to practice and improve his aiming.

Until his luck  suddenly changed. 

He had never forgotten that day, how could he? It was in the late 1970s, and he was gardening all along Central Park when he overheard a conversation. The men talking hadn't even noticed him, for them he was just invisible, or inexistent. 

"I want him dead. Find me someone able to do it" A well dressed man, in his mid forties, was talking to a younger one, probably his secretary, or his bodyguard.

"It will cost money, you know. And time."

"I don't care. I've lost enough because that son of a bitch. I don't want to know who does it or how, contact me when it's done." After saying that, the elder man walked away, leaving the other one behind. He sat on a bench in the park and took a small agenda from his jacket.

The gardener hesitated whether saying something or not; it was about a crime what those two were talking . But it sure meant money, and most of all, the possibility of leaving that damned garden for good.

"Excuse me." 

The man infront  of him lifted his eyes, startled by the gardener's voice.

That had been his first job, and it had been unexpectedly easy. The target was too previsible, and kept no security measures. He had shot him, only once, when he was leaving his job. One single, accurate shot and that was it. No more casualties, no risks. That was his rule number one, and he always sticked to it.

After that first time, there came many more. The man he had overheard in the park hired him  as his bodyguard, and that included doing extra missions every now and then. Eventually, his name got to be well known in the circles where it had to. For the police, however, he was as invisible as he had been for his first employer. "The ghost sniper", that was how the media had baptized him. And he loved it.

He had managed to have a good living through the years, his accountant job provided enough, and he had settled things . If he was arrested or shot down, he would have the money sent to his surviving sister, Julia. She was still living in Missouri, not far from their hometown. 

The man got up and kneeled by his bed, taking a small box . He sat on the armchair facing the window, and opened carefully the box. He unfolded the napkin in it, and gave a long look at his old Smith & Wesson. That had been the gun he had made his first job with, and it would be the one in the last one. 

The man took a bullet from the box, and put it in the gun, making sure it would be the first one in the wheel.

He put the gun by his right temple.

One shot.

One only shot and that was it.