Page 357 of Lars

“Okay… THAT’S unusual…”

“But expedient. Turns out the client lives 30 minutes from the target.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah.”

“Anything else I should know?”

I thought about telling him that the client knew my real name – or rather, my MI6-assigned last name. But I figured that would spook Sean, so I only said, “I’m getting a mafia vibe.”

“Yeah, but isn’t the guy you’re supposed to kill in the mafia?”

“Yes, but I’m thinking the client is, too. I need you to look into him.”

“Got a name?”

“No, but I’m dropping you a pin on the property.” I pulled the phone away from my ear and tapped the screen to place a geo-locating pin. “See if you can find out who owns this place.”

“Alright.”

“He says he’s a partner in an olive oil exporter, but I kind of doubt that. He also says he’s a distant cousin of the target, whose name is Dario Rosolini. The target went to prison a while back for a bribery scandal. Look into any family connections, specifically a fifty-something guy.”

“Let’s say your client IS in the mafia… what then?”

“I don’t know. It probably doesn’t matter in the slightest. Kill a scumbag for another scumbag, and the world has one less scumbag. But I’d like to know more about the scumbag paying me.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Okay. Talk to you later.”

Things quickly fell into place.

That evening, the driver delivered a large box to my cottage. Inside was an assortment of stylish clothes in my size with the store tags still on.

There was also a camouflaged bodysuit that approximated the colors of Tuscany’s foliage… a bulletproof vest… brown hiking boots… and a tan, bulletproof, full-face helmet for the mission.

Whoever my client was, he didn’t fuck around.

The next morning, the driver delivered the gun I’d asked for: a suppressed Heckler & Koch M110A1.

The M110A1 is a semi-automatic sniper rifle. Unlike a bolt-action rifle, where you have to work a bolt lever to eject the spent shell casing, a semi-automatic will fire every time you pull the trigger and eject the shell on its own.

Bolt-actions were generally a tad more accurate… but if I was going to punch through bulletproof glass before Rosolini could react, I would need to fire in rapid succession. I could do that a lot faster with a semi-auto than a bolt-action.

The client also got me explosive-tipped bullets – highly illegal in Europe. I didn’t ask where they came from, and my host didn’t offer any information.

Also included were a digital range finder, some bulletproof glass panes for practice, and a rope ladder with grappling hoods on the end – for scaling the 10-foot-tall stone wall surrounding the property.

I’d also asked for a Glock, just in case I needed a pistol for close-quarters fighting. They gave me one with a suppressor.

I looked at my weapons and thought, This guy is SO in the mafia.

I went out after lunch to practice with the rifle and the bulletproof glass panes.

The plan was to use an explosive-tipped bullet to weaken the glass, followed by a regular bullet to punch through and hit the target.

The combination worked spectacularly. In all three test runs, the one-two combo allowed me to blast through the glass with only a second between shots.

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