Assassin (16 page)

"This gate only has one patrolling guard, who watches over this whole area, from here to here, which means he has to keep moving to keep watch over everything. And he'll be distracted during the shift change, so we should be able to practically walk right by him without being noticed."

Case sat back on her heels.

"It's actually a pretty stupid set up they have, but they probably don't think anyone would try to get in that way because they'd have to go straight across this open courtyard to get to the house, which is the only target they seem to have accounted for. But we don't need to get to the house, we just need to have a clear shot from here," Case pointed to the top of the hill she'd selected as the sniper site, "To here." Case moved her finger across the screen to the semi-closed area of the rose garden off the side of the mansion. "Whoever they got in to do the security was only thinking about overt attacks on the house and the people inside it, not a stealth assault on a single individual from several hundred feet away, while that individual is outside the house. It definitely makes it easier on us, that's for sure," Case finished.

Rain nodded her head. Once Case had explained everything to her, it made more sense. Hearing the words seemed to make everything clearer in her mind. She went back to studying the pictures and trying to memorize the layouts and positions of everything.

"So, what did this guy do, anyway?" Rain asked, while she clicked on various windows to pull them forward or hide them behind others.

Case shook her head, as she tapped a hot key sequence on the keyboard to pull up a video file of the Target walking out of a building and getting into a car.

"I don't know."

"We're supposed to kill him and we don't even know what he did?" Rain asked, a little surprised.

Case closed down the ten-second video file and opened a scanned blueprint of the grounds to match them up with the aerial photos. It would give Rain a better idea of how the grounds were laid out without the clutter of shadows affecting everything.

"Why does it matter? It doesn't help you get the job done, so who cares what he did?" Case replied absently.

Rain turned her head to look at Case.

"Well, yeah, but I'd still like to kno..."

"Why? When you worked for Rossi, you killed people, right?" Case asked impatiently.

"Yeah," Rain allowed.

Case stood up and picked up the rifle and began putting it away.

"Well, did you ever stop to think about the people you killed? Did you ever ask yourself if maybe they had a good reason to be shooting at Rossi? No, you didn't. You didn't give a shit if they were right in wanting him dead. You just shot back until they stopped coming at you because that was your job."

"Yeah, but that was different. It was self-defense," Rain protested.

Case looked up from the gray bag she was beginning to zip closed and laughed.

"You really think so? Have you ever really looked at what self-defense is? It's simply one person asserting their right to live over another's. That's it."

Case set the rifle bag on the floor and pulled over the other one, which contained the rest of their purchases. She looked back and forth between Rain and the items she pulled out of the bag, as she went on.

"When Antonio pays me to kill someone who's threatened him in some way, is it self-defense? If the friends of the person I kill hire a hit man to kill one of Antonio's people because they know if they don't retaliate, they'll be seen as weak and will be attacked again, is it self-defense? And if the person they went after was Rossi and you killed the assassin, would it still be self-defense? And even if all those instances could be called self-defense, would it even matter at that point?"

"It's only self-defense if you're being actively attacked," Rain stated, very sure of her opinion on the subject.

"And you don't think Antonio's rivals are actively attacking him with all the things they do to undermine his authority?" Case asked.

"But that's different," Rain protested again.

"No, the actions are different, but the outcome is the same. If I told Antonio you weren't doing well and he decided to get rid of you, is that really different from me putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger myself?"

Rain was thrown for a second as she imagined Case turning on her at a single order from Antonio, but then she almost laughed. Personally, she felt that the two scenarios Case had described were very different, but it was Case's argument that she hoped to prove right in court.

Antonio had never been known to pull the trigger himself, but he had been responsible for countless deaths, and it was Rain's job to make sure that Antonio was held accountable for his actions. The idea that it was his assassin who held the view that could get him sentenced to life in prison, and not the agent assigned to his arrest, seemed ironically funny to the raven-haired woman. She kept her mirth to herself, though.

"Okay, I see what you mean. But I'd still like to know what the guy did to deserve being killed," Rain said.

"It doesn't make it any easier when you do," Case said quietly.

She'd learned early on that knowing what a person had done to warrant a death sentence was worse than not knowing because then it became a judgment call on her part, trying to decide whether they deserved to die or not for what they'd done.

It was a lot easier to just pretend that the person had done something really bad, or that she was just the messenger, that the person would be killed no matter what she did, so why cause her own death by refusing the order? It wasn't like any of these people were really innocent. Even if they weren't directly involved in the business, they always benefited from it in some way.

"But at least then you'd know. I think it would make it easier for me," Rain said.

"Right. And what if you didn't think the person should die? What are you supposed to do then? You still have a job to do. You can't just call up Doc and tell him you object for moral reasons and to please find another assassin. Trust me, not knowing is a lot easier most of the time."

"So sometimes you do find out what they did?"

"Yeah."

Case did not want to be having this conversation right now. They had things they needed to do, but Case knew Rain had to settle herself down, before she'd be able to go through with the job, and talking out the morality of the work they were expected to do seemed to put Rain's mind at ease.

Case knew it was her job to make sure Rain was ready when the time came and she intended to give Rain every advantage she could. Case had expected to have at least another two or three weeks before Antonio put Rain to work. Case wasn't sure why she hadn't been allowed a longer amount of time to train the woman, but she'd learned to work with what she was given.

It was just that Case herself had trained for over a month on her own before Doc had sent her on an assignment. Case had always been under the impression that all new assassins were given that amount of time to learn what they needed to know to carry out their jobs. The only strange thing about Case's training was that it had been solitary. This rush to put Rain to work didn't make any sense, no matter how Case looked at it.

The fact that Case knew she would be the one that would be asked to take Rain out, if Rain was unable to perform the way she was supposed to, didn't make things any easier on Case. She was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to carry out such an order and it was that fact more than anything else that was causing her major problems. But she had an idea.

"Hey, go get your laptop out. I wanna copy some files to your hard drive. They might help you figure this stuff out for yourself."

Rain dutifully brought her laptop to sit next to Case's and Case hooked them up together so that the file transfer could take place directly. They both sat in front of the bed, while the two hard drives ground out their work, and Case explained to Rain what she was doing.

"These are the files I was talking about. I really want you to read the Tao Te Ching and the Art of War first, as soon as you get the chance. You'll want to take the Tao Te Ching in small bites, but the Art of War reads pretty quickly. The rest of them, just look them over at least," Case requested.

Case also transferred a copy of the files that Doc had sent to her regarding the hit and then she closed up her laptop and returned it to her bag. Rain shut down her computer too, as Case went back to the bag she'd been rummaging around in before and pulled out the two sets of night goggles. When Rain was done putting her laptop away, Case handed a pair over to the tall woman.

"Here, put these on. Don't turn them on until I cut the lights. You'll blind yourself."

Rain waited for Case to turn off the lights again, so that they could test their latest toys. As soon as Rain heard Case flip the switch, Rain turned the goggles on.

It was amazing. Everything was lit up like it was daylight, but in green tones instead of full color. Rain turned her head and looked in all directions, but the light intensity stayed almost the same. She could even make out what was in the corners of the room, though those areas would normally have appeared pitch black to the naked eye.

"We'll be using these after you've shot the Target so that we can get away quickly without being slowed down by the dark the way the guards will be. The garden is lit with Japanese lanterns, so you won't have to worry about not being able to see him to make the shot. Think you've got the hang of them?" Case asked from next to the light switch.

"Yeah," Rain answered and turned the goggles off and pulled them over her head.

Case pulled her own goggles off and then flipped the lights back on. She walked back over to the bag and took the goggles from Rain's outstretched hand and placed both pairs back into the bag. Then she picked up the packages of clothing she'd laid out on the bed and handed a set to Rain.

"We don't open these until we're there and we change outside of the truck."

"Wait, what? Outside of the truck?"

"Yes. There's going to be a major investigation for this one. They're gonna be combing those hills for every piece of evidence they can find. I want them to find black lint that hasn't touched anything but the plants and dirt they're found on. If we wore this stuff in the car on the way over, it could pick up fuzz from the seats and identify the car. If we'd already changed here, they could find clues that would lead them to this hotel and then it doesn't take them very long to narrow it down to my truck and me and you," Case explained.

Rain nodded. She was a little surprised at the forethought Case had put into this hit, but she realized she shouldn't be. Doc had said Case was the best. There was a reason the woman had never been caught. And from the reports Rain had gotten from Dawson, she wasn't even a suspect in a case.

Rain put the clothes in her bag and then stood up and turned around to see what else Case had pulled out. She found a plastic-wrapped pair of black combat boots in her face and flinched back a little in surprise.

"Shit!"

"Sorry. Here. These go with the clothes. Same rules apply. They don't go on your feet until you're standing on the ground there. I don't want soil samples giving them any leads."

Case grabbed both 9mm handguns and gave one to Rain, then handed her one of the boxes of ammo.

Rain looked at Case with a question on her face.

"I already have two of these."

"This is only for this job. If it gets used, then it gets trashed. If everything goes fine and you don't need it, then you can stash it somewhere. If there ever comes a time when you need a clean gun, or just any kind of gun at all, then you'll know where to find one," Case said.

Rain thought about that for a moment.

"How many stashes do you have?" Rain asked.

"Fifty-one weapons, six clothing, and thirty-seven tools and miscellaneous," Case replied from her internal filing system.

Case neglected to mention the stashes of money, both physical and electronic, but she didn't think Rain really needed to know about those. If she couldn't figure out something like that for herself, then Case's original estimation of the woman's intelligence had been way off.

"Wow. So, most of the time, you buy weapons that you never actually use? That seems like a waste of money."

"Depends on your point of view. I spend a couple hundred bucks on a gun I never use or don't spend any money to get a gun I end up needing, which costs more in the long run?"

"Good point. I'll have to remember that."

"Guess that's why I'm the teacher and you're the student," Case grinned.

Rain smiled sarcastically and then followed Case's example and pulled off her surgical gloves. Her hands had been sweating inside the latex and the cool air of the hotel room gave them relief from their self-generated heat.

Case dragged the second bag off the bed and let it sit on the floor. Then she plopped herself down on the bed and looked over at Rain.

"We should get some sleep. It's late and we need to be up by ten tomorrow to have enough time to get you into a range and then finish up the preparations before we get to the Target's place by two-thirty."

"What else do we have left to do?" Rain asked.

"Well, we'll need to eat before we head out and I want us to get some snacks to bring with us in case we get hungry. People can get shaky when they need food and, on a sniper hit, that's not good. And there's a few other things I want to do, but we can always wait until after the job, so it's no big deal. It's just better to be well rested. You think more clearly and, if things go wrong, you can handle it more efficiently. So no staying up late tonight," Case waggled her finger at the tall woman and got a laugh in response.

"Yes, Mom," Rain replied and sighed loudly as she began getting undressed for bed.

Case continued to lie on her bed and watched as Rain stripped, though Rain was unaware of her mentor's voyeuristic observations. Finally, as Rain climbed into her bed, Case stood up and began her own striptease, but this show was completely intentional.

Rain watched from under her covers as Case slowly pulled her T-shirt off and then tossed it to her bags. Then Case bent all the way over, emphasizing her extreme flexibility, and untied her shoes and slipped them off her feet. Rain marveled at the tight ass she was given an excellent view of through Case's jeans and couldn't help imagining squeezing those butt cheeks in her hands.