Previously on Assassin Hunter … The most intimate hit of his life turns very sour.
ANNOYED, VAYA SAGE HUNKERED NEAR THE LEDGE OF THE BUILDING, hooded, underneath a heat reflecting blanket, and carefully observing the layout of the conference, waiting, hoping for a more perfect set up. He’d waited at least a half hour in the hotel room before surmising that the brotherhood had changed their meeting room last minute and his remote backup was now the only method of ensuring a clean attack. Lady luck was clearly expressing her displeasure with him today and it appeared that a nasty breakup was inevitable.
Nevertheless, he waited patiently, magma rifle in hand, settings re-optimized every several minutes as lighting conditions changed. Dusk was approaching. Eight brothers were in the conference room, which was informally split into two sections. Ji Anna appeared to be napping in a room down the hall.
Waiting for eight ducks to neatly line up in a row seemed an unreasonably high expectation but something told Vaya Sage to patiently wait for a better opportunity so even when everyone’s positions looked decent, he did nothing. Eventually, they’d sit around a large table or in chairs facing a whiteboard or in some other quasi-organized fashion. When they did, he’d shoot as linearly as possible: whomever was closest to the doors nearest Ji Anna would go down first. That would keep them from alerting her about the attack. None of the others would be able to take cover in time. Magma lasers would burn through the walls or glass in complete silence. The bullets would follow milliseconds later, and the process would be relatively unheard from a distance with his MTM silencer snugly in place.
The brotherhood was habitually careful about keeping their meetings uninterrupted. By the time authorities were alerted to their deaths, Vaya Sage hoped to be long gone and moving on to his final three targets. Chances were, they’d be more difficult than these nine combined. Word was probably already spreading that Midi Ella wasn’t responding to calls about her non-appearance at the conference and the death of the other two wouldn’t have gone unnoticed. All things considered, Vaya Sage had been surprised to find everyone else at the conference.
From what he could tell using heat vision filters, they were snacking and schmoozing. Visuals suggested only two or three were packing. That left Vaya Sage puzzling for several minutes. He couldn’t make any sense of it.
Suddenly, heads were turning and bodies behind the room divider started moving toward the larger room with a window. It was the moment he’d been waiting for. One of the tallest brothers, Tomi Da, most likely, stood near the door by the hallway, undoubtedly stationed to ensure no unwelcomed guests interrupted their meeting. Vaya Sage took him out first. Supremely confident, he didn’t bother to wait for bodies to begin crumpling before moving to the next target. Three went down quickly before what appeared to be the presenter, lunged toward an exit. He went down next. Four left. Two of those drew their weapons. One took cover behind some sort of desk or cabinet.
Cute.
Magma rifles would easily penetrate several layers. Set to shut off the instant they hit fleshy objects, Vaya Sage simply trusted he wouldn’t miss his targets. If he did, the lasers could burn through possibly a dozen walls or objects before losing their intensity, which would set hotel guests on high alert as they would begin reporting the presence of holes in walls, appliances, etc. If not bullets. But he wouldn’t miss.
Because the one target was hunched over and difficult to clearly discern with the heat vision overlay, Vaya Sage took out the man taking cover behind the cabinet or desk with two shots. If he missed the heart, a lung puncture would keep him down. After everyone had been hit, he’d take backup shots if anyone moved. Three left.
Clearly aware of the situation, two raced toward different doors at the same time. As planned, Vaya Sage took aim at the one headed toward Tomi Da first. Two. A firm grip on the door, the other brother fell down before he could open it. One. For a moment, Vaya Sage couldn’t find the last brother.
Playing possum. Best move you had …
Vaya Sage began shooting each crumbled body a second time to ensure their deaths. Because he was being systematic about the order he shot the fallen, the final brother deduced his fate, rose up, and raced to the door. Seconds later, he was laying motionless on the ground for the second time as Vaya Sage finished his second round of shots.
Glancing toward Ji Anna’s room, Vaya Sage verified she hadn’t moved and wasn’t moving.
Too easy, he gloated as he packed the rifle, rolled it into an oversized duffle bag, and hid it and the heat reflecting blanket underneath a large piece of folded canvas that looked like it hadn’t been moved in many months. He’d try to gather the weapon later but if the police scoured the area before he got his chance, it probably wouldn’t matter. He was wearing thin gloves and he’d planted misleading fingerprints all over the rifle. By the time DNA evidence funding approval went through, he’d be in another state tracking down the last three brothers.
Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. If all went well, he’d be back later in the evening before forensics determined shootings came from this particular rooftop. He’d burned a couple low powered magma holes from the hotel room to throw the forensics team off track. He hadn’t shot any rounds so they’d only melted the glass, nothing more.
If the brothers hadn’t been too noisy during the attack, he might have a half-hour’s head start before police came snooping around. On the other hand, if Lady Luck wasn’t feeling overly guilty for bruising his ego earlier, he’d probably still be on the rooftop watching them arrive. That would still give him ample time to disappear unseen.
Despite the initial success of his hit, Vaya Sage’s gut ached as he raced down the stairwell. He ignored it as a disruptive nuisance, dismissed it as an echo from Midi Ella. But it didn’t go away and by the time he’d picked up a small stash of equipment from the garden area below, Vaya Sage felt so unnerved that he was grateful he’d decided not to take Anna out as impersonally as the others.
He couldn’t put his finger on it but intuition constrained him to ascertain the situation up close. He clenched his jaw, crumpled his brow as he thought about it. Ji Anna had ordered hits on innocents. He should have been happy to take her out whether from a distance or from up close, gruesome and gritty or clean and untraceable. It shouldn’t matter.
But it did.
As he made his way up the stairs by her room, something continually tugged on what little remained of his conscience. And something nagged at him to check at Tomi Da and maybe the other brother by the conference door to make sure they were down. It seemed foolish, unnecessarily risky … necessary.
As Vaya Sage passed Ji Anna’s room and made his way down the hallway, he slipped on another thin glove to inspect the fallen as he continually scanned the area for any signs of commotion or trouble. Everything was deathly silent, just as he preferred. Either the conference room had good audio insulation or the brothers never made much of a commotion. He presumed the latter was most likely. Assassins tend to be quiet in dangerous situations and not prone to panic.
He entered the conference room and surveyed the area for any signs of movement before pushing the door closed and hovering over Tomi Da’s body. A large, crimson stain decorated his unmoving chest. He kicked it. No reaction. He kicked Toma Da a second time, watched for any signs of breathing or eye movement. The corpse didn’t move.
Dead. No question.
Still, he couldn’t leave. Uncertainty plagued his mind. Vaya Sage knelt next to the body and pressed his palm against Toma Da’s chest. Nothing happened. Although feeling unreasonably doubtful, he followed his intuition and placed all of his weight onto the corpse, tightly squeezed his fingers. Instead of feeling the body, he felt the pads of his fingers pressing hard against the carpet.
That was it.
Mental implant.
With no real body underneath his hand, Vaya Sage could only assume the entire hit was nothing more than a test. But why? He’d expect payment and with eight men down, that amounted to a large stash of money. Why waste all of that money on faux hits? Vaya Sage considered testing the other bodies the same way but began to worry that his diversion had already lasted too long. And ultimately, it didn’t really matter. He needed to take out Ji Anna.
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