Page 17 of Assassin Anonymous

Confirm identity

I comb through my memory for something that only Ravi will recognize. When it comes to me, I crack a smile. He’ll appreciate this—assuming that hearing from me didn’t cause him a stroke.

Gulab jamun

There’s a lingering pause. Probably longer than it needs to be, as I imagine he’s now making frantic phone calls, or checking the windows to make sure they’re locked. The response comes in:

SIN

ASAP

Details TK

Singapore.

Of course.

A little more clicking around on my phone and I find a story from a few hours ago about Cho Jin-Su, a North Korean diplomat drowned in a hotel pool there. I poke his name into Google and find he has ties to their nuclear program. The man is forty-three and, from his picture, looks pretty fit. Pool drowning makes sense. I would have done something similar. Deaths with the potential to start World War III are best made to look like an accident.

I put down my phone and wave at Astrid. “Do you have any friends or family you could stay with? Out of town? Like, very far out of town?”

She shakes her head before taking a few ruminating bites of pizza. “I have a sister in Portland, but we don’t really get along. Why?”

“Because I have to go to Singapore.”

“No, why, Mark?” she asks. “What is going on? I deserve to know.”

She’s not wrong. I don’t have to tell her everything. But I need to tell her something.

“I’m an assassin. Someone’s trying to kill me. I don’t know who, and I don’t know why. I have to figure that out.”

“And the answer is in Singapore,” she says.

“The person I need to talk to is in Singapore. It’s a bit of a haul, but given the current state of things, flying halfway around the world sounds pretty appealing.”

She puts down the uneaten crust of her pizza and strokes P. Kitty’s head. He nuzzles back into her, closing his eyes and reveling in the attention.

“So you’re like John Wick?” she asks.

I don’t bother to contain the eye roll. “Being an assassin is nothing like John Wick.”

“If he knows who I am now, too, wouldn’t I be safer with you?”

I can’t tell how she feels, asking it. She sounds annoyed, but I think I can detect an undercurrent of fear in her voice. At this point, I don’t know how to answer that question. Maybe? Or maybe whoever this is will lose interest if she disappears? There are too many unknowns.

Astrid scratches at a dried piece of cheese stuck to the top of the pizza box. “And I’ve always wanted to see Singapore. I’ve heard the shopping is incredible.”

“Yeah, one of the malls has a river with a gondola in it.”

She picks up another slice, takes a bite, and with a full mouth says, “Whatever’s happening right now is on you. I don’t want to get killed or kidnapped because you darkened my doorstep. So I’m coming with you and you’re going to make this right. And I have conditions.”

I hold my hand up, beckoning her to list them.

“You’re paying me a retainer. Five grand a day.”

“Only fair.”

“And I want you to tell me the truth about who you are.”

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