More prosaically – has anyone ever escaped a true spree killing like this unscathed, alive, possibly unidentified? It’s not just the logistics – few of them seem to think/want to ensure they will survive/walk away.
And – wouldn’t the fact that someone <did> escape be a huge red flag that whatever this was, it <wasn’t> just another crazy going postal moment, thus much more likely spurring inquiry that might reveal his nefarious connection to the Russians’ business, as opposed to an isolated killing over money, revenge, love triangle.
Full disclosure, I was biased about this scenario the minute the assasin used a nail file to score an X on the point of the (solid point?) 9mm rounds "so that they would flatten on impact. People who have never heard of hollow points probably ought not to write gunplay scenes . . .
Well, there is a question about just what 9mm pistol was used.
Most of them (Lugers, early Glocks) held only 6-8 bullets in a magazine. So even if the shooter was a good enough shot to use only a single bullet per victim, he would still have to stop and reload at least once.
Newer 9mm’s have bigger magazines; 15 or 17 bullets is typical. Still requires pretty accurate shooting to get the victim & 12 witnesses without having to stop and reload.
The automatic/semi-automatic ('machine pistol) versions have larger magazines, 33 bullets or so. But these are designed for a high rate of fire, rather than precision shots. The victims might have to be closely clustered to get them all with a single magazine.
So just the issue of whether your gun has enough bullets to kill the target and 12 witnesses might raise some questions.
Rather dumb, lurk around until you can get the guy alone, and icepick pith the guy and leave him propped up in the toilet stall. Or perhaps inject him with a drug or toxin that is fast acting. How about a classic, curare? Ricin? Heavy metal poisoning, maybe thallium or selenium?
You really don’t have to default to mass murder to get rid of a witness/whomever. About the only time you could justify it, spy-novel wise is if literally you are caught doing something and time is of the essence, and you had 5 minutes to cover something up - but then you would have the police after you for mass murder, instead of one body propped in the toilet stall and a casual stroll out of the office and out of the building.
A Glock was specified in book. Though I’d be willing to stipulate a 15 round mag if that was ever an option on Glock (I know I has one for my roughly-contemporaneous Taurus 9mm (Browning HP knockoff – and a pretty fun one too).
The “standard” 9mm Glock is 17 rounds (Glock 17). The compact has 15 rounds and subcompact 10. The fully automatic Glock 18 has 33 rounds (the magazine sticks out quite a ways as you might imagine). I don’t think that one would be easy to get for most anyone.
Bbbbut the HP rounds were $0.50 more per box! Do you think this assassin is made of money?
The killer has a large capacity Glock. the day trader is operating in a storefront cublical farm (the brokerage) with lots of foot traffic outside (public place); say about another dozen stock geeks (no Rambos). Killer comes in and herds everyone into a corner keeping his back to the storefront windows. Opens fire killing the target and witnesses reloading once as necessary. The sheep don’t try to run, just cower behind the other bodies as they pile up. Two minutes is plenty of time to shoot each and then do a head shot for “confirmation”. People outside are running or screaming. Gunman makes a quick turn shooting out the storefront windows then walks out the back door, down the alley, and into the subway.
You’ve got 12 dead. That’s a lot of connections to investigate instead of single murder. Probably plenty of skeletons in some of the other’s pasts. No reason to suddenly jump to a Russian mob connection.
Okay. But alleys and subways don’t really work for Delray Beach. And how much of the 120 seconds is occupied by herding them into a room (in the book, killer just went cubicle to cubicle)?
As you say, most if not all killing sprees like this have been done by people who were nuts, not by someone who was carefully planning how to get away with it. Most perpetrators have ended up either committing suicide on the spot, or making a poorly-planned escape during which they were captured or killed without making it very far.
University of Georgia professor George Zinkhan murdered his wife and two others at a public gathering and made good his escape. It’s not clear how large the gathering was, but if it were small it’s not impossible he could have eliminated all witnesses before fleeing. Of course, since it was known he was having marital difficulties and had gone missing, he would inevitably have been a prime suspect anyway. He was not apprehended, but his body was found after he killed himself (partially burying himself beforehand.)
The Brown’s Chicken Massacre: 2 assailants murdered 7 people in a Brown’s Chicken restaurant in Palatine IL. The case was unsolved for 7 years, when the girlfriend of one of the assailants tipped off the police. Sounds pretty close to the OP’s scenario.
Nothing of the time is used for the actual killing. No one outside would notice if the gunman semi-conceals his weapon. People could just be going back to the corner for a meeting. Clock doesn’t start until the bangs.
Okay, no alley (can’t believe that even in a small town - sorry about the subway) walk out back door and disappears. Preparked car in the back. Another a few blocks away to ditch and toss off any witnesses.
There was also the 2008 Lane Bryant shooting in suburban Chicago, in which five out of six people in the store were killed. The killer remains at large. There was a surviving witness to this one, though.
In the utterly horrific Port Arthur Massacre in Tasmania, Martin Bryant killed several people (14, I think, but I’m not going to re-count them) within 15 seconds. Some people survived, but were nearly all severely injured; if he were an assassin like in the story you’re talking about, it wouldn’t have been too hard to finish them off too.
Although it does seem very likely that Martin Bryant was the killer, this is not due to him being identified by the survivors from the cafe or from the the next two places that he moved on to kill people minutes afterwards.
He wasn’t disguised and his motive has never been properly ascertained.
So I guess your A, B and C premises would all be possible.
The Lane Bryant murder (I thought it was a Catherine’s) survivor apparently played dead, and seeing that the perpetrator was in a hurry, didn’t stop to coup de gras. Lesson learned, dude starts spraying bullets and you aren’t killed, drop and DON’T MOVE.