Page 16 of Assassin Anonymous

“Fine,” she says. “I’m hungry. We’re ordering in and I’m adding it to your tab.”

“Sure,” I tell her. She uses the room’s phone and has the front desk connect her to a pizza place, and then she’s asking me about toppings, but I’m already lost trying to figure this out.

I have killed a lot of Russians. If the KGB knew who I was, my picture would be on dartboards all over Moscow. The list of people who’d want revenge is both endless and devoid of any jobs that spring to mind as likely instigators. There’s a certain level where killing stops being personal. Usually it’s just the money that matters, and money can be replaced.

Just because this guy is Russian doesn’t mean he works for Russia. He could be freelance. He could work for the Agency, which has finally found me, and decided their lives would be made easier if I was dead.

So it seems like a stupid move, digging through my phone, searching for the encrypted messaging app that used to pay my bills. The one I should have deleted along with Astrid’s number, and didn’t.

But that’s the closest bunny.

Just seeing the blinking blue cursor on the black screen brings back a flood of memories of what using this app meant. None of those memories are good. This is the kind of triggering action I’d love to talk to Kenji about, but given the circumstances, I have to rely on the tools I’ve got.

This is not who I am anymore.

This is to protect me and the people in my life.

It’s not a slip, it’s the next right action.

I fire off a message that I’m not even sure will be read.

That part of me hopes won’t be read.

Requesting meet

Rev 6:8

With that done, I navigate through the international sections of the New York Times and the Washington Post, looking for leads. When that doesn’t pan out, I open up D@nt3, the secure web browser that anonymizes my presence on the web, and pull up the Via Maris website.

Another thing I haven’t looked at in a year.

I key in my username: GJoubert, after the hitman Max von Sydow portrayed in Three Days of the Condor. I appreciated that he was both professional and kind: pursuing Robert Redford’s Condor until his assignment changed, then offering his former target words of encouragement and a ride to the train station. I used to think the username was a cute reference, but now it makes me feel a little embarrassed.

The Via Maris was an ancient trade route that linked Egypt with northern Syria, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia. Now it’s a darknet marketplace where you can find anything from an assassin to an M777 howitzer to a former doctor who takes cash and is comfortable operating in bathtubs.

It’s how the people in my world communicate. It’s also where I spent a lot of late nights, strolling through the message boards, to see what was really going on in the world, or to figure out where I might get sent next. Sometimes I’d look for local gigs—small-scale stuff that would earn me a little cash and scratch the itch until the Agency came calling.

The feeling of being back on the boards is both warm and cold.

The pizza arrives and I realize I should have said something about being lactose intolerant. Worse, it has olives on it.

“Who the hell puts olives on pizza?” I ask.

“I do,” Astrid says.

“You’re a monster.” She mumbles something as I scrape the cheese off a slice and eat it so fast I can’t even register if it’s any good. I shift and realize P. Kitty is no longer nuzzled next to me. He’s now sitting on Astrid’s lap, and she’s stroking his orange fur while chewing on a slice.

She catches me looking at them. “What’s his name?”

“P. Kitty.”

She laughs. “That’s a ridiculous name for a cat.”

“It’s an awesome name for a cat.”

“How’d you come up with it?” she asks.

I’m about to answer when my phone buzzes and I am immediately beset by a feeling of intense dread. Sending that text was the only thing I could think to do, but I just rang a bell that can’t be unrung, and I have to hope that in the course of figuring out what’s going on, I didn’t just sign my death warrant.

---