Page 22 of Assassin Anonymous

I make for the sliding doors as bullets slam into the wall behind me. I hope that pipe is strong. I grab the rope and loop it a few times around my hand, and before my brain can take the chance to weigh in, I jump out from the balcony, soaring over downtown Singapore.

Laughter explodes from my chest.

I wonder if the laughing is meant to cover up the fear. But I do a quick inventory and don’t find any. I feel shot through with god-energy, like I can bend the universe—life and death itself—to my will.

It feels good to be good at something.

Then my arm almost yanks out of the socket when I hit the end of the swing and start coming back. I grip the rope with both hands and swing straight for the sliding door of the room one floor below. I kick as I connect with it, shattering it, and tumble inside, landing hard, shards of glass slicing my skin.

The adrenaline is doing a great job, keeping the pain at bay.

Tonight’s going to be a rough one, though.

There’s a heavy, older white man lying on the bed, his body milky white except for his face, which is beet red. A young woman with bronze skin and dark, cascading hair is riding him. The two of them immediately yell and pull at the covers.

“Sorry,” I tell them. I climb to my feet and head for the door. Before I open it, I reach into the closet and pull out a black blazer. The man is much bigger than me so it’ll work to hide some of the blood. I take a quick look in the bathroom mirror. My face is a little cut up and I can’t do much about that.

As I open the door to the hallway there’s a man running past with a gun. I throw a kick and take him clean off his feet, throwing him into the other wall and crumpling him to the ground. I yank the gun from his hand and put a bullet in his head—no sense in playing it safe at this point—then turn toward the end of the hall and see two more men coming at me, guns drawn.

Two more bullets and I’m alone again.

Those guys just came off the stairwell. I bet the rest are headed that way as well. It’s faster. I dive for the elevator and slap the down button. The doors open just as my suspicion is confirmed and the stairwell on the other end of the floor bursts open. I jump onto the elevator and press the close button as many times as I can, praying they don’t make it.

They don’t. The doors close. The other elevator was on the ground floor. No way they’re going to cover thirty-something flights of stairs in time to catch me. Which gives me a head start. I can’t go through the lobby, police will be either here or close by. I hit the button for the pool, on the third floor, and figure I can improvise.

It’s only now I realize I’m not alone; there’s an old man in the elevator wearing khakis and a polo, with sunglasses and a bucket hat on his head. White, definitely American, with that kind of terrified wonder you see in people from the Midwest. I’m still carrying the gun, and the oversize jacket I stole isn’t hiding the blood as much as I’d hoped.

I tuck the gun in the back of my waistband. I want to say something to him but I have no idea what. I think back to what Ravi said. The idea was to be invisible. People will see your face; let them forget it. One of the many reasons I was picked, he said, was the fact that there’s nothing particularly remarkable about me.

Average-looking white guy.

Still, should I kill this guy? Cameras are still out. I could.

But that doesn’t seem fair.

“Give me your wallet,” I tell him.

He fumbles for it and passes it over. I pull out the license. Franklin Reynolds, with an address in Kansas City. I hand him his license and pull a wad of cash out of my pocket, then gesture to his ring. “Go to the bar. Have a drink. Don’t volunteer to talk to the police. If they talk to you, you didn’t get a good look at me. Don’t even tell your wife about this. You understand, Kansas City?”

He nods. The doors open and I step off into an empty hallway. I hustle to the men’s locker room, the pool visible through floor-to-ceiling windows on an outdoor deck. There are people changing in the locker room, but nobody looks up, everyone more concerned with their own modesty. I grab a complimentary bathrobe, strip down to my boxers, and shove my soiled clothes into a garbage can. Then I go to the sink and make use of the free toiletries, wiping off as much blood as I can.

The guys protecting Campbell are bottlenecked. And anyway, they don’t give a damn about him. He was a job and now the job is off. They’ll be looking to scramble for the shadows, not get revenge.

The locks in here are all cheap and flimsy. I manage to work through three until I find a change of clothes that fit, and I’m just pulling on a pair of slightly-too-tight jeans when the door opens and a Chinese man walks in wearing a black suit. He juts out his chin and raises his voice to be heard throughout the space. “Everyone, there’s been an emergency. We need to ask you to evacuate the building for a few moments.” He repeats it in Mandarin and then Tamil.

I join the men streaming out of the locker room, eyes on the ground, and stroll calmly toward the elevators.

—

With nightfall comes relief from the choking humidity. My stolen jeans don’t feel so oppressive, and there’s even a nice breeze coming off the bay.

The stone steps leading down to the water are filled with tourists milling about under a darkened sky, waiting for something to start. It’s just dark enough that my injuries aren’t as apparent, so I’m less worried about hiding my face. My body is creaking and groaning like a piece of farm equipment left in the rain. I can barely raise my arm above my shoulder. Despite this, I’m still a little high after mainlining that much adrenaline. Ready to go another few rounds if necessary. I weave through the crowd, bouncing on my toes, looking for Ravi.

It doesn’t take long to find him, leaning against a railing, away from the crowd. He’s wearing a white polo shirt, cargo shorts, and sandals. He’s scruffy and his black wavy hair, shot through with the odd strand of gray, is stylishly unkempt. His outfit makes him look like a dad, but his sharp features and sly grin make him look like the kind of dad who hits on his kid’s second-grade teacher. He looks out over the bay like he looked at me when we first met, like he looks at the entire world: everything is a spreadsheet. Just data to process and put in its place.

I lean on the metal railing next to him. He looks me up and down, and for a fleeting moment his eyes widen. He tries to distract me from that by holding a brown paper bag toward me. Inside are deep-fried dough balls.

“I got a dairy thing,” I tell him.

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