In Too Deep: A Romantic Suspense Novel (53 page)

"You always said it was cute when we were out together," I retorted, whipping my thrust to the side and smacking into the hand that held the pen. I knew that once the distance was closed between us, she would use it like a shank, stabbing me with it.

I had to circle around her desk, or in some way get it from between us. Stepping to my right, I saw Faoxin retreat to her own, starting to circle. I kept it up until we switched places when I went for it, using what I'd been hiding in my left hand. It had hurt, but it was effective, a handful of thumbtacks. It caused Faoxin to at least try to ward off the projectiles for a moment, allowing me to dive over the desk and tackle her to the ground. The impact drove the wind out of her, although she retained enough sense of mind to lift her legs and push me over, flipping me. I rolled through, shoving a desk out of the way as I went.

Finding my feet, I spun, pouncing back on Faoxin just as she was getting to her knees, her face red and gasping from the pain of the tackle. Taking her back, I wrapped my arm around her throat, not for a choke but rather to bring her chin and around to the locked position. From there I could twist and easily break her neck. Faoxin clawed at my arm, but the janitor's coveralls I was wearing prevented her from doing much, especially with my weight bearing down on her back.

"Goodbye, Han Faoxin," I said sadly, twisting. It had to be done, but it didn’t mean I had to enjoy it. A sharp brittle crack reached my ears, and she collapsed, face first onto the floor. I looked in her eyes, and could see that there was still a glimmer of consciousness in her eyes. I could see her still trying to form words, even as her lungs failed to breathe, and her heart stopped getting the signals it had gotten for over thirty years. She mouthed something, I wasn't sure what, and then the light faded as her brain slowly died.

"Eighty one."

W
hen Mark left
that day for the hit on Han Faoxin, I was in one of our strike bases near the red light district of the city. It was a crummy tenement actually, one that Mark had owned since before he had met me, and the strike base was actually the basement, which was only reached from an outside steel door that for most people was rusted shut. Inside the basement, I found what Mark had told me was there, an AR-15 configured in a heavier caliber than the normal M-16. We were using it because Mark had trained me so much in Europe on the AR-15 and it's main rival, the AK-47. With the ability to attach a scope the same way each and every time, all I had to do was bring the scope that I had already adjusted for my own uses. It wasn't going to put a bullet through a playing card at half a mile, but it would do its job.

Checking the cabinet, I pulled out the heavy caliber AR and attached the scope. Bringing it up to my cheek, I sighted down the dimly lit basement, impressed. The scope wasn't super powerful, only magnifying things by a factor of seven, but it was enough. I could easily see the writing on the paper down at the end of the basement which was taped to the wall.

"Remember, find the cold place," I repeated to myself before smirking and pulling the rifle away. It was one of the lessons Mark had taught me, and perhaps the hardest for me to internalize. Watching Mark, even when we were sparring in martial arts or working out, it was easy to see when he went to his cold place. There was something in his eyes, something in the way he held his jaw that told me the warm-hearted man that I knew had dropped away, and I was looking at another side of Mark, the survivalist side that would have no problems slaying a thousand men if it meant they were in his way. I once told him that if there ever was a zombie apocalypse, that was the side of him that would make sure the two of us survived.

For me though, finding the cold place when it came to violence was more difficult. Sure, I could do it, I had done it when the Russians had attacked us, but it was much easier when I was saving lives rather than taking them. The most recent time I could think of was when I had stitched up Mark after the Russians had shot him, and I had to not only stabilize him but dispose of the bodies and evidence. Once I'd treated Mark, staying in my cold place was easy. Getting there however was difficult.

Still, I thought I could do what needed to be done. In a lot of ways, Mark had given me the easier of the two hits. Illyusas Petrokias was the biggest controller of the sex trade in the city. Whether it was men, women, old, young, or even more "exotic" if you wanted it, chances were you'd find it under Petrokias' control. He was of course also heavily involved in the sex slave trade, trafficking girls and young boys both in and out of the city. When the newspapers came out with a story of a young undocumented immigrant found dead, if they carried it at all, nine out of ten times they were a worker for Petrokias who had outlived their usefulness.

So it was very, very easy to want to put a bullet in the man's head. I say head because I doubted he had an actual heart with the disgusting things I read he was involved in. There was still a challenge however in setting aside my disgust to complete the shot.

I triple checked the rifle, then checked that the sound baffles were still good in the basement. While I was sure the scope was good, my training taught me to always confirm the zero on any attachment to a rifle, especially if I was taking a shot over two hundred meters. Since our plan called for me to make a shot that was close to three hundred, I retreated to the far end of the basement, where a small pile of sandbags waited. Setting the rifle down, I then went to the other end of the building. The building was only a little over forty meters long, and the padding and absorbing material at the far end meant I could only make a thirty meter shot, but that was enough. Taking out a small paper target, I pinned it to the foam, which could absorb anything short of a fifty caliber shot or an elephant gun. I went back to the rifle, and put in a twenty round magazine. I wouldn't need all twenty rounds, I was hoping to need no more than two, but still, better to be prepared than to be sorry.

Getting down on the floor, I got into the prone position, the most stable position I could get. I looked through my scope, centering on the small X in the middle of the target. I chambered a round, took the rifle off of safe, and reacquired my target. The trigger was touchy, barely taking more than a caress of my finger to fire the rifle. The target blurred in my vision as the recoil shifted the rifle, but I quickly found the spot again, with a neat little hole just a shade over the X. Considering I was firing a hot round that was going to fly high at only twenty five meters, I knew I was ready. Even if I aimed at the head, I'd only miss low, dropping one right into Petrokias' torso.

Who knew? If I aimed for his chest, I might just blow off his balls.

The thought, while a little sick, comforted me as I removed the magazine and cleared the rifle, making sure I was ready to go. Concealing the rifle and my backup weapon, a Glock 19 pistol, in a electric keyboard case, I shouldered the heavy bag along with a small bag of other supplies and checked the way I looked in the mirror. My purple hair was concealed under a black wig and baseball cap, while my pants and outfit made me look like any of the other thousand struggling musicians in the city. As opposed to Mark, I couldn't use any sort of makeup, I was going to be sweating too much, but my skin tone was nondescript anyway.

Leaving the strike base, I hiked the near mile over to my shooting position, a cheap hotel that was often used by Petrokias' lower priced whores who would bring their johns over for the cheap hourly rates. I rented a room for five hours, laying down an additional fifty bucks to ensure the clerk at the desk wouldn't bother me.

"What's in the case?" the clerk asked as I scribbled an illegible muck of a name in the register.

"Piano and a CD player," I said, tugging at the thin leather gloves I had been wearing since unlocking the strike base. It was another one of Mark's rules, and one I had learned to work with. "I have an audition next week. Need to practice."

"Here?" the clerk asked. "Why in the hell would you want to practice at this dump?"

I shrugged. "It's better and quieter than where I live," I said. "Music is okay, right?"

The clerk shrugged. "As long as you don't mind a thumping headboard back beat, I don't care," he said, handing me the key. "Here you are, room five fifteen, just like you asked. Has a western view so you can get your sunset and everything. Hope you're inspired."

"Thanks," I said, picking up my case. I trudged up the five flights of stairs, glad that working out with Mark got me in such great physical condition. The girl who'd met Mark Snow over a year ago wouldn't have made it, not with the thirty pounds of stuff on my back. As it was, my legs were still a bit pumped up when I got to the fifth floor, which was the top floor. Mark had chosen it for two reasons. First, the top floor had the least amount of visibility to surrounding buildings. Secondly, I could escape both up and down. The cheap hotel was so close to its neighbors that I could leap from rooftop to rooftop for close to two blocks to make my escape. It was my preferred method of egress, actually. Going back down five flights of stairs and out the front or the most likely malfunctioning fire door would be too dangerous in terms of being spotted, especially since I planned on carrying the Glock with me.

Setting my case down, I went out of the room and over to the stairs to the roof, quickly checking the access. The door was locked, but I was able to pick it quickly, leaving me with a clear path. I went back to my room and locked the door, taking out the CD player. The main purpose of the player wasn't to give me background music to play piano to, but rather was an hour long mix of synthesizer heavy music from the eighties, which was enjoying a resurgence in certain hipster circles in the city recently. Anyone who listened would think I was playing along with the tracks. It would also hopefully, if someone was a total idiot, mask the rifle shot as well, since a lot of the tracks also had a lot of snare drum in them as well. I wouldn't notice, since I would be wearing heavy hearing protection for the shot itself.

That ready, I set up my sniper shot. Petrokias was one of the more predictable members of the Confederation, having dinner and drinks at the same one of his so called "gentleman's clubs" every night starting at seven. He had created "Pollux and Castor" to cater to his more wealthy clientèle, along with some of the best Cretian cuisine in the state. A very deep fondness for the Greek dish
moussaka
had him eating at Pollux and Castor five or six nights a week. He always took the balcony table, where he could look over his ill begotten empire and enjoy the finest Greek wines.

Looking out the window, I could see the building. Taking out my rifle, I looked through the scope, and even through the late afternoon glare, I could see the small white "reserved" tag on the table. I looked around the room for something to use for a rifle rest since I didn't want to stick the muzzle out the window. Finally, I decided to use the two chairs that were in the room. The taller one, a mostly straight backed wooden affair that looked like it came out of someone's old dining room set, had little knobs on each side of the back that created a rest I could wedge the barrel against. With the heavy weight of the piano itself sitting on the seat, it was a very stable rest. The other chair was a shade too tall for me to sit straight in, but by reversing it and leaning into it, my upper body was also supported for the shot. I was ready, I just had to wait for Petrokias to arrive for dinner.

Setting up my CD player, I started the music, listening along as Dire Straits filled the minutes, along with Kenny Rogers, a bit of Van Halen, Bonnie Tyler, and a-ha!. As bad as it was, at least it wasn't nineties boy bands. I might have had to shoot myself if I had to listen to that too much. As the CD repeated, I turned it up a few notches, hoping the johns with their girls didn't mind listening to
Total Eclipse of the Heart
. Just as the CD was starting for the third time, I saw movement at the club, and I looked through my scope.

What I saw nearly floored me. In addition to Petrokias, who was clearly identifiable by his haircut, a silvery fox look that looked a lot like he should have been a televangelist, I saw Sal Giordano. I'd studied his picture for hours on end after he'd ordered my death, and there had been shot after shot that I'd imagined returning the favor.

My fingers itched as the two Confederation bosses sat down, Petrokias pouring what looked like a deep red wine for both of them. I wanted to take down Giordano, but I couldn't. Mark had been very specific on that fact, if either of us had a chance to take down Sal Giodano, we had to pass. "If Sal goes down, the entire Confederation will blame Owen Lynch, and they'll go to war with him, united," Mark had said as we had gone over the plan again. "If we do that, this city will run with blood, and neither of us could do a damn thing to stop it. We want the Confederation distrustful and broken up, so that when they do go to war with each other, they'll be able to be taken down by Federal and state law enforcement."

Still, I wished I could take the shot. Instead, I focused, searching for the cold place that Mark had trained me for. Taking deep, calming breaths, I blanked out everything but my target, and then even lost that. Instead of seeing Petrokias the criminal, I saw just a target, like any of a thousand other practice targets I'd shot at. It took me a long time, a lot longer than Mark would, but by the time I opened my eyes and looked down the scope, I was ready.

My timing couldn't have been any more perfect. Petrokias and Giordano were deep into what looked like massive plates of either
moussaka
or lasagna, perhaps each man enjoying their particular culture's specialty. I turned up the CD to maximum volume and put in my ear plugs, muffling the noise. Sitting back down, I needed only a moment to find my target, sight for his head, and stroke my trigger.

As soon as I took the shot, I knew I had hit. Everything was exactly like Mark had taught me it would feel. There was no betraying quiver of muscle, or tightly held bit of breath. The rifle shot had actually surprised me, and in the moment I took to reacquire my target, I saw that I'd struck him in the throat. Sal Giordano was already down, crawling for safety and people were yelling. I pulled back and tossed the rifle on the bed, grabbing my Glock and headed for the door.