Page 20 of Assassin Anonymous

The highest bidder so far is a splinter faction of Islamic jihadists who may or may not be—but probably are—tied to Hezbollah. They’re keeping him in Singapore while they negotiate numbers and sort out the logistics of moving him. There are plenty of casinos to keep him busy and, presumably, enough security to keep him safe.

Campbell spends his nights living large with a battery of ten bodyguards. The buyers have built in a layer of plausible deniability. Instead of sending out men of their own, they’ve hired local Triads. That they’ve survived the sledgehammer of Singapore’s law enforcement means they’re tough. Though not the kind of tough I can’t handle.

Still, I can’t pull off a hit on a casino floor. When Campbell isn’t in the casinos, he’s sleeping it off here, in an executive suite on the top floor. Satellite imagery says there are rarely more than two men in his room, and the rest are in the adjoining rooms or a floor below.

As much as I wish I had more time to plan this out, or at least the cover of darkness, Campbell is only supposed to be here for another day or two. Ravi said the Agency classified this as an ASAP op. If it’s so important, I don’t know why they chose it for my first gig. Maybe it’s a test.

As I stand on the roof, looking out over a foreign country that looks like a city sprung up out of a jungle, the wind whipping at my face, ready to rappel down into a hotel room and murder a bunch of people I’ve never met, I feel a tug in my gut.

This will be the first time I’m taking lives outside the haze of a battle. Shooting someone who’s trying to kill you in the sands of some forgotten corner of hell, that’s not only acceptable, you sometimes get medals for doing it.

There’s something slightly distasteful about this. I feel like I’m hunting deer with a tactical nuke. But I get it. I did the math. Campbell is willing to sell off deadly knowledge and tech, which will likely be turned on Israeli civilians. Biological weapons don’t discriminate between enemy combatants and innocent children. Taking him off the board isn’t a question.

And yet.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut.

It’s funny, the thoughts that come to me as I peer over the edge, my stomach doing a drunken flip. The ground is five hundred feet below and I can feel the hum of gravity. Campbell’s balcony is twenty feet down, but I need to land on the far side of it, out of view from the sliding doors. Which means the optimal target is really only four feet by four feet.

Too much to the left, they’ll see me and be ready before I get my bearings.

Too much to the right and I’m going to spend the rest of my life regretting this decision.

All five seconds of it.

It’s better to move than let fear make its case. There’s a pipe at my feet, burrowed into the surface of the roof. I give it a yank to make sure it’s secure, then attach the grapple, loop the nylon rope to the climbing belt, and dangle myself off the edge of the building.

I glance down one more time to situate myself and let go.

My stomach hovers for a moment before I connect with the balcony, and I fold down into a kneeling position to let the impact disperse through my body. I detach the rope and make sure it’s hanging out of view, then reach down and press my fingertips to the rough concrete under my feet, appreciating the solid ground.

And I’m in the shade now, which is a value-add.

Now comes the part I can’t control.

Ravi said that of the two bodyguards who stay in the room with him, one of them is a chain-smoker. The overflowing ashtray on the small patio table confirms this. So I have to wait until he comes out. I can neutralize him, which leaves only two people inside—one of them being Campbell, and he’s not a fighter.

My knuckles crack as I interlace my fingers and stretch out my hands. Given the local government’s delight in using the death penalty, the risk of walking around with a weapon is too high. Not that a gun would have been all that helpful; even with a silencer it would be loud enough to alert people in the surrounding rooms. But these can look like murders, not accidents—apparently someone in some office somewhere wants to send a message—so I don’t need to worry about finesse.

I press my ear to the door. There’s a low murmur inside that could be people talking or could be a vacuum cleaner. That’s the best I can do. I take this as an opportunity to review the floor plan, which I spent the morning committing to memory.

The sliding doors open onto a living room. There should be a coffee table, a couch, and two easy chairs right in front of me. Across from that is a kitchenette, to the right of which is the entryway and a half bath. The bedroom is to the left, with a king bed and a full bathroom beyond that.

After ten minutes I’m getting worried, that maybe they went down to the pool or something. That maybe the hotel will sort out the camera problem before this guy has a nicotine fit. But then a man in a tank top and jeans comes out, his hands cupped to his mouth, from which erupts the familiar scritch of a lighter. He’s Chinese, mid-thirties maybe, with a bodybuilder physique and a round, boyish face. He has a nasty-looking bowie knife tucked into a leather holster on his belt. He takes a deep drag, gazing out over the bay, basking in the breeze coming off the water.

The serenity of the moment.

I wonder what he’s thinking about.

Does he have a girlfriend? A family? Kids?

I push those thoughts away. In this equation he’s a remainder and I need to turn in a clean sheet. He’s still in full view of the sliding doors so I move fast, slipping behind him and hooking my arms around his neck and his forehead. He goes tense, reaching up for me. But before he can get a good grip, I yank hard, separating the vertebrae in his neck with a crack that feels more satisfying than I would care to admit in polite company. As he falls, I slip the knife out of the holster and turn to pull open the sliding door.

At which point I realize our intel was not good.

There are five men in the room.

Two on the couch, one on each easy chair, one across the way at the kitchenette, making himself a cup of tea. They’re dressed as casually as the man I just killed. The coffee table is littered with empty beer bottles and snack wrappers. They’re watching Pretty Woman, the part where Julia Roberts and Richard Gere are shopping.

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