Page 82 of Assassin Anonymous

The space around the trash can finally clears, so I take the remote out of my pocket and hit the button. A flash-bang goes off with a thump I can barely hear and a burst of light, then two more in succession. With the way the trash is compacted around it, it immediately catches fire. Bystanders duck for cover or pull out their phones to record it. I wonder if any of them actually call 911 or if they’re just posting it to Instagram.

As soon as I see flames, I jump off the edge of the building, rappelling my way down, and when I land on the roof, I sprint for the emergency panel. It’s locked, so I slip the knife inside and lean into it, prying the panel off. There’s a USB port and a small computer screen with a keyboard, so I stick in the kill switch and run the prompt to start it. The security here is a little more robust than in most places I would use this, but still, it’ll buy me some time, and…

“Hey, Mark.”

I turn to find Ravi standing twenty-five feet away, his hands behind his back, like he’s waiting his turn to order coffee. He’s wearing a white dress shirt, navy slacks, and an expensive pair of Italian loafers. There’s a tactical vest under the shirt and a handgun strapped to his belt.

“Hey there, bud,” I tell him. “You seem awful lonely up here. Where’s the goon squad?”

“I wanted to talk,” he says. “You and me. I figured you’d come in through the roof. I know you. I didn’t share that with anyone else.”

“How kind of you.”

Before he can blink I’ve got one of the air pistols cleared from the holster and trained on the spot directly between his eyes.

He squints and tilts his head. “That a toy?”

“Pepper spray pellets. It won’t kill you, but it won’t feel nice, either.”

He nods slowly and takes a step, keeping the same distance, walking a circle around me. “At this point, I have to figure, you know that I know. Dymphna’s. The paper cranes. The last year. Sara and Lucas. Everything.”

“And you were just waiting to, what? Pressure me back into the game?”

“No, Mark, I’ve been trying to protect you. The Agency has been looking for you since you went into the cold, but do you really think they’d let you walk on killing a civilian? If the Director knew, you’d have been dead within a day.”

“What happened, then?”

He pats his chest. “I did. I made it go away.”

“Do you want a medal?”

“A little thanks would be nice.”

“Why’d you do it?”

“Because regardless of what you might think, I like you, Mark. It was easy enough from the crime scene details to tell it was an accident. I could just imagine how it tore you up. Finding you with the paper cranes confirmed that. I thought you deserved a little peace.”

“And now you want me back. You even assigned me a chaperone.”

Ravi sighs and puts his hands on his hips. “First off, Ms. Nguyen was one of our best agents. She was there to protect you. Second, there’s some shit going on that would take about six hours and a slideshow to explain. Instability in Eastern Europe. Regime shuffling in the Middle East. High-level targets we’ve been watching for years taken out. There’s been chatter about some kind of concentrated effort here, but we can’t see the full picture yet. The only thing I can surmise is that Kozlov was hired to take you out, so the board would be clear.”

“See, Ravi, here’s my problem,” I tell him. “I know that you’re lying.”

“How’s that?”

“You’re breathing. When we had lunch in Singapore, you said you didn’t know who he was.”

“C’mon, Mark,” he says, raising his voice, getting agitated. “I had to play a little dumb. I still had no idea why you showed up. And I’m juggling that with the fact that the Director wants you in his office. Azrael is waiting downstairs, by the way…”

“Good. I could use the workout. Where’s Kenji?”

“He’s downstairs. He’s safe.”

“He better be.”

“I figured whoever was coming after you would chase him down next to draw you out. We extracted him. He knows the whole story. You’d know that if you checked your messages. I’ve been trying to get in contact with you to set up a meet.”

“I’ve been busy.”

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