[NSW-Fic] Heart of The Assassin

[machievelli]

This is the intro for a new book I'm writing. Let me know what you think...

 

Heart of the Assassin

 

I felt the trigger break clean, the gentle cough of the silenced weapon, the round already halfway to it’s target. The man fell forward and I waited a moment before approaching.

 

He wasn’t who I was after. Bodyguards cover my usual targets, and this guy had just accepted the wrong man’s money.

 

As often as you see it in the movies, a gun cannot be completely silent unless you accept some serious drawbacks. The bullet has to be sub-sonic so it doesn’t make a noise as it travels. That means you have to be a good shot. Second, you can’t use a revolver; the gaps in the cylinder allow the noise out. Automatics are the weapons of last resort, and you lose the ‘automatic’ part because the slide cycling first lets out noise, and even if it did not the click of the cycle would. So you use the slide block to stop it. Felt recoil is greater because the gas that would initiate the cycle has to go forward into the suppressor. You end up with a silent single shot pistol that has to be cycled by hand.

 

I picked him up, lifting the dead weight and leaning him against the windshield of the car he had been guarding. I crossed his arms, tilting his head down bent forward as if asleep or deep in thought, one leg bent on the hood, the other hanging down. To someone who didn’t expect trouble, he looked like he was merely relaxing. My opponents might be fooled, but if they were worth what they were paid, not for more than a second.

 

I slid out the Dutch made mini grenade, sliding it between his back and the glass, the spoon against his pack. Then I eased out the pin. I had cased this job very carefully as I had been taught. La Rive Gauche was one of the best eateries in the city. Try a C note a plate dinners of rich French food. Imported wine that would pay your rent for a week, that kind of thing. It was on the third floor of the building, with a good view of the harbor.

 

I knew that because I had eaten here less than a week ago on my internal sweep. That was how I knew that someone eating even at one of the window tables could not see the street directly. There were only two ways out of the high-class restaurant, the main door, and the back stairs. I had this side covered.

 

I moved nonchalantly down to the alley, slipping around the corner then flipped on my Blackberry. I keyed in the sequence that brought the four cameras up. One covered the rear entrance, another the roof, the other two different angles on the car. I know that cell phone companies ban the use of their systems for this kind of work. I won’t tell them if you won’t. I waited.

 

The door started to open, and I saw one of the travel team guards freeze in the door then back up. Standard procedure, if switching from an enclosed space to an open one send one guy ahead on point at least five meters ahead of the principle. Anything wrong, he merely backs up, and you go for plan B. Or he eats it and you go for ‘run like hell’. There was a long moment then the same man came out of the door, walking rapidly toward the car.

My estimation of the competition went up a notch. They had obviously scoped out the rear entrance and didn’t like it at all. Narrow alley; forgive the pun but a straight shot either direction for 20 meters or so. The only cover was the two dumpsters either side of the door. Doable if you were up against one man, but against a team a deathtrap. When I saw the section of the Movie Sin City named the Big Fat Kill I knew what was going to happen to the mobsters.

 

Spoiled the movie for me.

 

But if they could get to the car, they might be safe. An armored Mercedes Benz would stop just about anything.

 

The man looked at his late partner, then nudged him. He had less than a second to realize that he had been booby-trapped before the grenade erased him from existence. I had replaced the standard five to six-second fuse with one out of a smoke grenade, which has a delay of just one second. Mercedes won the bet, because as two bodies were blown across the street, I could see that the car was dented and scratched, but the hood and windshield stood up to the explosion. I pressed the button. There was a thump of metal, the back of the car bounced once sharply on it’s shocks. An instant later the back of the car suddenly opened up like a flower of metal as the .50 caliber armor piercing bullet punched down, the depleted uranium exploding into a fireball engulfing the gas tank.

 

Like I said, almost anything.

 

I could almost read the team leader’s mind.

 

So there were two of us, eh? One close one far; now the back door must look pretty good. I drew my pistol, cycling it, catching the brass before it could hit the ground.

 

Now it was a toss up. Try the front in a rush, get to another street and grab a car? Or out the back like bunnies, run down it to the street and again acquire a vehicle? I was covered either way, so it really didn’t matter.

 

I saw the back door open, a head sticking out. A waiter. They had grabbed him obviously to shove out in case I was standing out there gun in hand like some idjit out of bad movie. Then the waiter disappeared, and I saw the team leader take a quick look. He came out, his remaining partner popping out back to back, each aiming in opposite directions, eyes checking not only the alley itself, but the overhead. You wouldn’t believe how many people die because they forget an enemy can be above or below them. There was a motion, and the target came into view. Pierre La Batiste, a mob boss of the Union Corse, the French version of the Mafia.

 

They started to move down the alley, one man ahead, the other behind looking at the back trail as they started to run. I pressed the second button. The three claymores I had planted went off pretty much simultaneously.

That’s right three. Two had been placed on opposite sides of the door on those dumpsters, the third on a trashcan across from the restaurant. 600 balls the size of a BB swept death across the two scenes, and all three went down in a bloody mass. I ran down the alley, turning into the crossing one they had been in. I checked them all. If one of the guards had been alive I would have left them, but I wasn’t going to let them shoot me in the back. All dead.

 

I walked down the alley toward the cross alley, and pulled the slippers out of my inner pocket. I took off the bloody shoes, slipped on the new footwear, and cat footed it down an alley to my car. I popped the trunk, setting the shoes on a piece of plastic, and took out the boots that were there putting them on. The bloody shoes were bound and sealed into a plastic bag. The police would know someone had run down that alley to the bodies. Any idiot in forensics could tell them how tall I was from the stride distance. But they would be looking for evidence such as a bloody pair of shoes.

 

I climbed in setting the package on the passenger seat, started the car, and drove.

 

I stopped first at the building where I had set up the Barrett a klick and a half away. Couldn’t leave that… I liked that gun.

 

I passed a trash truck five kilometers away on it’s route, and as the men moved onto the curb to pick up I flung the package into the open maw of the compactor, pulling off half a block up and waiting. They dumped the cans, one of them flipping the switch and the shoes disappeared into the truck’s back. There were fifty trucks moving around at any hour of the day or night, and they all dumped in the same landfill. What do you think the odds are that they might find those shoes now?

 

Good enough that I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

 

I headed home.

[machievelli]

so, nothing? Maybe next time I should attach a poll. Here is the ending, which is already written...

 

Colorado in autumn is beautiful. The deciduous trees had scattered their leaves in a flurry of red and gold before turning brown and falling. The first winter since I had seen her was approaching, and part of me died every day she did not come. Maybe I wasn’t important enough to kill, or to love. A big part of me felt dead when I considered that.

 

Once I left the business, I might have become an open target. But most of us didn’t go after the retired ones unless they decided to write books about what they had done.

 

No worries there. I couldn’t write a paragraph more entertaining than what you might expect to fit in a military after action report unless you put a gun to my head.

 

The alarm on my security system went off, and I checked my Blackberry. A car one person in it. I saw her face, and part of me wanted to run inside for a gun. But I put it away, walked up onto the porch, and sat in the old rocker that someone had left when I bought the property.

 

Had she found the heart within the assassin? The one I had found? Was she here to kill me or join me?

 

The car pulled up, far enough away that I would need a long gun to shoot her; a long gun like the ones in my gun rack, not at my side. It wasn’t that I could not kill her. It was that I would not.

 

She climbed out, her long black coat brushing the blowing leaves, her long black hair blowing in the gentle breeze. She waited for a long time, then started toward me, her hands still in her pockets. She walked closer; close enough to kill by a steady hand with a pistol. Closer, close enough that the shadow of the house now shrouded her. Then she stopped at the bottom of those stairs.

 

And if I come to kill you instead?

 

I will waiting for that day.

 

I would find out in the next few moments.

[Mare Vir]

VERY INTERESTING!

[MJ-W4]

I like the style of your narrative, I can almost hear (and see) ol' Bogey telling this story. Very compelling, and a fitting, Bogartesque end.

Sounds good! Where's the rest?

btw typos:

the round already halfway to its target.

A car with one person in it.

I will be waiting for that day.

[machievelli]

Sounds good! Where's the rest?

 

This is one I have been trying to write to sell, people, so I didn't post a lot of it. But I have hit a conundrum, I was only able to maintain it for 57 pages, not even a novelette in size.

 

So; who wants to read it in its entireity, suggest scenes I can add, and at the same time get credit as contributors when I publish?

 

If so contact me with an e-mail address, and I will send the entire work to you.

 

Rules apply. Even though you will have it in your hands, it is still covered under copyright laws, and you cannot let anyone else read it without my express written permission. All people who read and edit it will be mentioned in the acknowledgements. Anyone suggesting additional scenes that will work (My discretion) will recieve credit for that scene by name.

[MJ-W4]

I'm game! Did you get the PM with my eMaiL address?

[machievelli]

yes, I did. I will send it to you by thursday

[Bee Hoon]

Ooh interesting! I would really have liked to read the manuscript, but I'm afraid that I won't have the time. Maybe if it's still knocking around in July. I love the style so far, and it's an interesting opening, but beyond that, it's really too short to say.

[machievelli]

Ooh interesting! I would really have liked to read the manuscript, but I'm afraid that I won't have the time. Maybe if it's still knocking around in July. I love the style so far, and it's an interesting opening, but beyond that, it's really too short to say.

 

Two people so far have suggested converting it into a graphic novel. I could use an artist if someone is so inclined

[Bee Hoon]

Quanon, Emalin and Torthane are extremely talented:) Ooh, a film noir style for this would be lovely!

[machievelli]

Quanon, Emalin and Torthane are extremely talented:) Ooh, a film noir style for this would be lovely!

 

So you've been named Q E And T; wanta try?

[Rev7]

I remember reading this, but not commenting on it. I have to say that I really liked it. Ruthless professional killer. I guess that I like those kinda stories though because you don't see many of them.

 

I like the idea of it becoming a graphic novel.

[machievelli]

I remember reading this, but not commenting on it. I have to say that I really liked it. Ruthless professional killer. I guess that I like those kinda stories though because you don't see many of them.

 

I like the idea of it becoming a graphic novel.

 

Does anyone want to see all of it?

[Rev7]

Yes

[machievelli]

I will post the entire thing with the editing done by mj4w's comments in a new thread.

 

Sorry I put the wrong name