Blood of the Assassin

CHAPTER 1





Turquoise water lapped at the powdery sand on the leeward side of Trinidad, caressing the shore with a tranquil surge. Decrepit fishing skiffs with single outboard engines floated a dozen yards from the beach, tugging gently at their moorings as their captains lazed in the shade, passing rum bottles and familiar stories back and forth.

Music and the heady aroma of exotic food drifted on the evening air as the annual Carnival festival lurched into full roar. Excited groups of young children tore up and down the waterfront, peals of glee and laughter battling with the din of adult celebration. From far and wide, revelers packed the streets, beers hoisted high to the setting sun, welcoming the untamed night that was to follow. Flashes of coffee-colored skin, strong white teeth and long, smooth legs hinted at the weekend’s delights as a tremble of simmering promise pervaded the atmosphere, of possibility and inebriated hope. Drums pounded hypnotic tattoos as the flamboyant costumes and masks paraded, the natives and visitors alike bubbling with a giddy sense of abandon.

The chime of the little internet café’s front door sounded, jolting Maya’s focus from the computer screen at her desk in the rear office. She pushed her long, black hair from her face with a listless hand and clicked the mouse with a sigh, noting the onscreen time. There had been no visitors for at least an hour, and she was getting ready to close. Her assistant had taken off at five, eager to join the bash, leaving her to clean up at the end of the day. Now, four hours later, there was little hope of any more revenue with the town in party mode. Anyone on the streets would have a more tangible kind of entertainment in mind than the sort found in cyberspace.

As she shouldered through the hanging beads that separated the back from the storefront, a garrote looped over her head, and she barely got her left hand up in time to keep it from closing around her throat. She sensed the raw strength of her assailant as the wire bit into her hand and instinctively stomped on the top of his foot, trying to break his hold. Had Maya been wearing her boots, she would have broken metatarsal bones, but with tennis shoes, all her effort bought was a grunt and a momentary relaxation of the deadly pressure.

Blood ran down her wrist as she threw herself back, driving her attacker against a granite counter supporting a bank of monitors. A screen tumbled to the floor and shattered as she groped along the edge of the computers for anything she could use as a weapon.

Her fingers found the neck of a Fanta bottle, and she swung it back to where his head would be. It connected with a satisfying thunk, and she swung it again, this time feeling it break against his skull. Ignoring the pain from the garrote, she stabbed behind her head with the jagged edge of the broken bottle, again and again, then heard a muted exclamation as a warm gush sprayed against her upper back. The grip on her loosened, and she swung around, bringing her knee up in a fluid motion as she flung the garrote away. She felt her leg connect with the soft flesh of his groin and caught a brief impression of a hardened middle-aged face with blood streaming from the man’s lacerated cheek and right eye. He swung at her with a fist, but she ducked to the right, and the punch went wide. She slashed at him with the bottle again, then feinted with it as she kicked him in the abdomen with all her might.

The attacker’s legs buckled, and he stumbled, hitting his brutalized head against the counter as he dropped to one knee. Stunned, he reached into his pocket and extracted a switchblade. The blade snapped open – he lunged – she dodged the knife and kicked him again. This time he was ready for it; she felt the stiff muscles of his stomach tighten for the blow. As he crashed against the counter again, she flung the bottle at him then grabbed a flat screen monitor and swung it against his head, connecting with his cheekbone. The screen splintered as she continued to beat him with it, savaging what was left of his face.

But he still held onto the knife.

He threw himself against her, and she felt a stab of pain as the blade nicked her lower back even as she twisted to stay clear of it. She kneed him again, pulled a mouse free from the devastation and wrapped its cable around his neck, improvising a stranglehold.

The muscles in her arms bulged as she pulled against both ends of the wire, and the slashing of the knife gradually became feebler even as she stayed out of its reach. Maya ignored the blood streaming from the slice in her left hand as she strained to maintain her grip, watching as consciousness faded from the killer.

Aware that he was losing the struggle, he wrenched himself away, tearing the mouse cord from her hands. She rushed towards the cash register, hoping to grab one of the heavy metal pitchers she used for water and juice, but he swung a foot at her legs, bringing her down against the register before he spun, leaning against it for support as he lurched towards her, knife at the ready. She knew he was blinded by the blood streaming down his face, but that wouldn’t do her any good now that she’d lost the momentum and he was on the offensive.

He slashed at her again with the blade, catching her loose shirt but missing her ribs. She twisted and groped for the scissors she kept by the register, but her fingers felt a different, familiar shape. Chest heaving from exertion, she grabbed it and smashed it against his head with all her might.

His eyes widened in puzzled surprise before he dropped to the floor, twitching spasmodically.

She watched his death throes, eyeing the base of the receipt holder she had used, its six-inch steel spike driven through his ear into his brain. When he stopped convulsing, she fell back onto one of the swivel chairs, trembling slightly, and quickly took stock. The hand was messy, but when she flexed her fingers, they moved, so it was superficial. She could tell that the cut on her lower back was trivial, even though it stung a little. Most of the blood on her was from the dead man.

She stood panting for a few moments then, after glancing around, grabbed one of the shop T-shirts she sold to tourists and wrapped it around her hand. Returning to her attacker’s corpse, she leaned down and felt in his clothes for a weapon, but he’d carried nothing other than the garrote, the knife and a wallet with a no-name credit card and a few hundred dollars.

A noise at the back of the shop snapped her back into the moment. Someone was trying to get through the locked back door.

If they were professional, it wouldn’t stop them for long, she knew.

~ ~ ~

A gloved hand pushed the door open, the lock having proved a minor impediment easily overcome with a strategically placed silenced gunshot that shattered the doorjamb with a muffled crack. The cramped hallway was dark, so the intruder moved cautiously through it until he arrived at the small office. Leading with the barrel of his gun, he felt for the light switch on the wall, which he flicked – nothing happened.

The door opposite him burst wide as Maya exploded from the storage closet in a blur. He’d hardly registered her arrival when he dropped the weapon, his life blood pouring down his back from where she had driven the scissors between his shoulder blades, into his heart.

It was over within a few seconds. The intruder’s body slid to the floor and leaked out a dark puddle of crimson. Maya stepped over him, scooped up his pistol and checked it. A Beretta 92, full clip, so fourteen more rounds, allowing for the one used on the door. Custom-machined compact silencer. The gun had been modified to accommodate the suppressor; money and time had been expended – not good.

She crouched by the dead man and performed a quick search but found nothing other than another blank wallet with a few hundred dollars.

The slightest of scrapes sounded from near the back door.

Maya threw herself onto the floor of the hallway and fired close-quarters at the silhouette hulking in the doorframe. A grunt from the shooter, then a silenced slug tore a hole through the wall by her head. She fired two more rounds, and the attacker fell back onto the ground outside.

She waited. One beat. Two. Could be only three of them, or could be a fourth. Or more.

Nothing.

If anyone else was in the mix, they’d be smart to wait for her to come outside and check the body.

She jumped to her feet and ran to the front of the shop. She’d flipped off the breakers before hiding in the closet, so the storefront was now completely dark, the sun having completed its celestial plunge into the sea. Maya stopped at the counter and grabbed another T-shirt from the pile, stripping off her bloody top and replacing it with a clean dark blue one, then grabbed a roll of paper towels from behind the register and made a makeshift dressing for her hand, stuffing another wad into her bag. The gash was already clotting. Even if it felt awful, she’d live.

She paused, ears straining for any sounds. Music from the street and occasional whoops of passing celebrators were the only ones she detected.

Nothing from the back of the shop.

Maya pulled her purse over her shoulder and clutched the gun inside it so it wouldn’t cause panic on the street. Glancing through the windows, she estimated there were easily a couple of hundred people meandering outside, which would make it easy to disappear into the crowd, but would also make it tougher to spot potential attackers. She took one more look at the carnage in the little internet café that had been her livelihood for the last two years and inhaled a deep breath. Nothing good would come from stalling the inevitable, and with any luck, she now had an element of surprise in her favor.

She swung open the front door and stepped out into the fray, alert for anything suspicious. Waves of inebriated locals flowed tipsily down the sidewalks, spilling into the streets, which were closed to cars for the duration of the festival. Two jugglers – high on stilts – tossed balls back and forth, their painted faces leering mirth at the throng beneath.

An explosion ripped into the air overhead, jarring, causing her to cringe. Another sounded before she took in the delighted expressions around her – the detonations were fireworks starbursting amid the fervor of festivities.

She shook herself mentally, forcing her pulse back to normal. The old instincts were rusty, yet it was all coming back in a rush. A third boom reverberated across the waterfront street, and a staccato popping of secondary fireworks followed it, the glow from the red and blue blossoms illuminating the night sky.

She reached the far corner and moved without hesitation across the road to the cluster of buildings that comprised the center of the little beach area where her café was located. She used the storefront windows to study her surroundings, pausing every fifty yards to scan for threats.

Whoever had come after her was deadly serious. The weapons and the approach were uber-pro. Her carefully-constructed peaceful existence was blown. But why this – why now? And who? It made no sense.

Especially since she’d been dead for three years.

Maya was indistinguishable amid the women moving along the water – a sea of black hair and tanned skin – and she liked her odds more at night. Even if her adversaries had photos, which she assumed they must if they had done their homework, in the gloom it would be hard to pick her out, and with Carnival in full flow, many were wearing masks or costumes, further complicating any possibility of identification.

Her hand throbbed with dulled pain as she considered her options. It would be a matter of hours, at most, before the body outside the back door was found and the police went on full alert, issuing an all-points bulletin to bring her in for questioning. Even in a low-key country like Trinidad and Tobago, three dead bodies would demand an explanation – one that she wasn’t in any hurry to make.

She ducked into a souvenir shop and bought a black baseball hat emblazoned with a logo of the island, and a long-sleeved T-shirt with a poorly drawn sailboat illustration. Looking up, she impulsively grabbed a carnival mask with a feather fringe, which she stuffed into her purse before paying. When she exited, she looked more a punky teenager with the hat on backwards than a twenty-eight-year-old. Hopefully, it would be good enough to throw any watchers.

As she moved around a group of boisterous young men, she spotted suspicious movement on the far sidewalk. Maya lifted her phone from her purse and used the screen as a mirror before she raised it to her ear to fake a call. She’d seen enough. A man with a shaved head, obviously not local, wearing a windbreaker in spite of the temperature, was keeping pace. He definitely wasn’t there for the street party.

Maya pretended to chat to a non-existent friend as her mind raced through possible responses. First thing, she’d need to ditch the phone. Even though it was a disposable that she bought airtime for on a card, it might pose a threat – most governments, clandestine groups and sophisticated private surveillance companies could track cell phones or activate the handset to eavesdrop, even if the phone was turned off. She didn’t think it was an issue with a burner phone, but at this point, she needed to assume that the level of technology her pursuers had access to was unlimited.

A fire-breathing man spray-painted entirely in gold appeared in the street next to her and blew a yellow stream of flame into the night sky. Partygoers fought to take pictures until a drunk woman flashed her two companions with a shrill laugh, drawing more photos and creating a temporary diversion for Maya, who took the opportunity to round a corner and drop the phone into a trash can before picking up her speed. Up ahead was a bar she knew, which had a back outdoor area as well as the main barroom. That would pose an opportunity to lose the tail, assuming that whoever this was didn’t go overt and start gunning down everything that moved. Judging by the earlier attack, they wanted to take her out with a minimum of fanfare, although that had quickly gone sideways on them.

The doorway to the bar, El Pescador, was just a few more yards on her right. Music and laughter emanated in waves from within, and it sounded packed, which could work in her favor.

She slipped past a group of drinkers standing just inside and pushed through the mass of bodies, the rear outdoor area her target. A few jostled patrons shot her dirty looks as she pulled the new long-sleeved T-shirt over the one she was wearing. There was no point in making tracking her easy for her pursuers. She flipped the baseball cap onto a table and quickly pulled her hair into a ponytail, fishing a hair tie from her purse, the reassuring bulk of the silenced pistol brushing her knuckles. Within seconds, she was another woman – this one a serious college student on holiday.

Maya resisted the temptation to look back and see if her stalker had followed her into the bar, and instead pressed her way through the final five feet to the rear courtyard. There were fewer people outside, although she knew that within a few hours the entire establishment would be standing room only.

She looked around and spotted the area of the outdoor wall that had brought her to the bar – two bathrooms she remembered were in a brick enclosure that had open air over the commodes. Maya darted to the women’s room and locked the door, wasting no time in standing on the toilet seat and reaching to grab the lip of the wall.

Her injured hand screamed in protest as she pulled herself up and over, dropping silently into the alley before sprinting off. Whoever was chasing her was improvising now – there was clearly no plan other than to terminate her, and they were probably shorthanded since three of them had been neutralized at her shop.

A chunk of mortar tore off the façade next to her, and she heard the distinctive sound of a ricochet, so she increased to a flat-out run to put distance between herself and the shooter. Another shot missed by a wider margin – she dared a glance over her shoulder. The gunman was firing through the rear bathroom window, probably standing on the toilet to reach the aperture, which had iron bars on it to prevent break-ins. She didn’t want to waste any of her precious bullets, so she raced to the end of the long block rather than shooting back. A silenced 9mm round would lose accuracy every yard she put between her and the gun. Given the distance, she liked her odds – which changed when she turned the corner into an even smaller street and confronted a running figure thirty yards away brandishing a pistol.

They must have been communicating, probably by radio or a private com channel.

The gunman hesitated for a split second, and Maya fired through her purse. Two of the rounds went wild, but the third connected, and he went down, shooting even as he dropped. She felt a tug at the bottom of her new shirt, and she saw a smoking hole in the loose folds around her waist. The bullet had missed her by no more than a centimeter, which was enough, but still too close.

Another round went wide as the shooter tried to hit her. Moving a few steps closer to him, she pulled the Beretta free of her purse, aimed carefully, and fired. The man jerked as his weapon rattled against the cobblestone, and then he lay still.

Maya approached cautiously, gun trained on his inert body, and when she reached him, she toed his gun out of reach. She noted that his Beretta was the twin of hers – then her legs swept from under her, and she was falling backwards. The shooter had sweep-kicked her, and she hadn’t reacted in time, realizing her error even as she went with the momentum and rolled.

The pain from the impact shot up her side as she hit the hard street, but she ignored it and concentrated on maintaining her grip on her weapon even as she tried to get far enough from the downed man to avoid any more damage from him. Her wrist struck the ground and went numb for a split second, and she involuntarily dropped the pistol with a wince.

He kicked at her again, but she surprised him by launching herself at his face, leading with her elbow. She felt a satisfying connection with his jaw and heard his head smack against the street’s rough surface. She followed it up with another brutal downward blow with the same elbow and heard a crunch as his nose fragmented.

Her head snapped back and blinding pain shot up her jaw as his fist bashed into it, then she felt impossibly strong arms wrap around her upper torso, seeking a hold. She pivoted with his pull and rammed the heel of her damaged hand into his ruined nose, but he twisted at the last second, avoiding the lethal strike that would have ended his life. Maya instantly followed with an eye dig, ignoring her hand’s protest as she drove her fingernails into his corneas. This time he wasn’t quite fast enough, and he howled in anguish – the first noise either of them had made during the deadly contest.

The scream was cut off by her next strike: both palms slammed against his ears, instantly bursting his eardrums – an injury she knew caused unspeakable agony. His arms fell away from her as they groped for his head, and she completed her follow-through by slamming his skull against the pavement. The sickening crack confirmed that the fight was over, and he lay still, blood trickling into the gutter from underneath him.

She rolled away, rose to her knees, then stood and stepped to where his weapon lay. Confirming that it was the same as hers, she popped the magazine out and slipped the full clip into her purse. There would be time to reload her gun once she had some breathing room.

Another figure peered around the corner of the building at the end of the block, the muzzle of his silenced pistol pointing in her direction – she instinctively reacted, whipping the clip-less pistol at him and pulling the trigger.

The lone chambered round that remained in the gun discharged, and she watched as the side of his face blew off and his body collapsed back behind the building.

After dropping the empty gun, she scooped hers up and approached the latest attacker’s motionless form as she mulled her options. She could either keep running or stay and concentrate on taking out anyone else pursuing her. The momentary glimpse she’d gotten of the latest shooter hadn’t looked like the man who’d been following her, so there was at least one more out there. Maybe more.

She peered cautiously in the direction she’d come from, but the alley was empty. The gunman in the bar bathroom had likely elected to exit from the front entrance and loop around. That was valuable information. She could anticipate his approach.

Still watching the alley, she reached her throbbing hand down and quickly went through the fallen attacker’s pockets, noting the telltale smashed earbud wedged under his head. State-of-the-art closed-loop com gear – as expected.

His weapon was another Beretta clone, so she exchanged the clip for the one in her pistol and then melted into the darkness of a nearby doorway, prepared for the next attack.

Which never came.

She waited expectantly but nobody materialized. One minute, then two, and nothing.

From the opposite direction, she heard conversation in Spanish over shuffling footsteps. It sounded like three young men arguing about where to go next. Their evening would be ruined when they came across the corpses, but that wasn’t her problem.

She needed to get out of there, grab her pre-prepared escape kit, and disappear forever.

Maya eased from the gloom, quiet as a ghost, and edged into the night, the echoing voices of the young men following her down the street as she became one with the shadows.