Assassin Down Read online

  Assassin Down

  Ed Grace

  Rick Wood Publishing

  For Lizzy,

  With all my ham sandwiches.

  Moscow, Russia

  Chapter One

  Every part of Senator Egor Kuznetsov’s body wobbled as he laughed—from the thick skin of his toes, to the waves of his belly, and the wattles of his neck. He was repulsive to every whore he paid, but he had enough money that they wouldn’t care.

  The Federation Council of Russia adjourned, and Egor stood, prising his backside from the chair as he shook his clammy hand with those around him, satisfied he had sufficiently manipulated them into whatever political turmoil he had required them to enter.

  He despised these people—they were idealists, and as far as Egor was concerned, idealists were almost as bad as liberals. People who endeavoured to make the world into something perfect.

  It was unrealistic.

  The world was full of shit. A cesspool of vagabonds yearning to acquire his wealth. And the world was beyond changing. He despised each and every wretched soul that took up oxygen on the earth he so boldly inhabited.

  Luckily, he was far too powerful for them to oppose him. They’d had to work for their positions, had to endure hardship, grave difficulties and, in some situations, poverty.

  He’d bought his position.

  Inherited wealth was his substitute for hard work. That gave him a power they could never earn.

  He smiled a triumphant smile at the wayward glances they tried to give each other, wishing to exchange a look that said this guy is such a dick but not daring to have their look observed by him.

  He savoured their hatred.

  To earn hatred is to earn power—the more power you gain, the more hatred you earn.

  He wobbled out of the doorway, down corridors adorned with grand paintings and detailed architecture, and descended the stairs to reception. The woman behind reception wore a suit blazer over a neat blouse with a cravat and damn how he loves it when they dress up.

  It was as if a woman had to dress like a man to feel confident.

  She wasn’t in a dress; she was in a poor imitation of a man’s suit, and he found it both precious and enticing.

  “I ordered three girls, are they here?” he asked the woman, leering at the small line of cleavage between the buttons of her blouse. He could see some lace on her bra.

  “Yes,” she answered, forcing a smile that could not be interpreted as genuine. “They are waiting for you.”

  “Are they as I requested?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what did I request?”

  He had been specific about the women he wanted, and any mistake would be abominable.

  “A brunette with large eyes, a blond with a minimum of a double D bust, and a redhead with glasses and tattoos on her forearm, but nowhere else.”

  “Perfect.”

  “You will find Samara, Zoya and Alena waiting for–”

  “I don’t give a fuck about their names.”

  He turned away and trudged up the stairs, having to stop halfway up to catch his breath. These whores better not expect him to do anything. He hated it when he hired a whore that wanted him to touch them or go down on them—he did not pay extortionate amounts of money for them to receive pleasure. He paid them to be his fantasy, not for him to provide them with any satisfaction.

  He turned the key to his room. 216. The door automatically locked behind him as he waddled through the suite, past the bedroom, and into the living space.

  There they were. Waiting. In the lingerie he had specified, with the exact requirements he had wished for.

  Perfect.

  It was precisely as he had requested. It was so rare they actually got it right.

  “Get on the bed and wait for me,” he instructed. “I need to piss.”

  He went through to the bathroom and left the door open. He wanted them to see him, to hear him. He wanted to disgust them and know that they could do nothing about it because he was the one paying them.

  He. Was paying. Them.

  And that meant he could do anything.

  He fucked the redhead first, then had anal sex with the blond as the brunette sucked his scrotum. He lay down, and the blond tried to sit on his face and he grabbed her by the throat, telling her to get her filthy snatch the fuck away from his face or he’d fist her until she bled. He watched as she and the redhead fingered each other and the brunette rode him.

  He decided he wanted to cum inside the redhead, so he told the other two to fuck themselves as he fucked her. She mounted him and rode him and rode him and stretched her chest until her tiny little tits poked out like the peak of a mountain, pointing north and fuck and fuck he was about to cum and he was cumming he was he was he was and–

  What the fuck?

  Right at the moment of deepest pleasure, someone swiped the redhead from his dick and flung her across the room. Semen was still spurting out of him as the black glove of a man reached around his neck and threw him to the hotel carpet.

  Egor was too stunned to say or do anything. This man, appearing from nowhere, effortlessly dragged him across the floor until they reached the window; a giant pane of glass that took up the entire wall, overlooking the streets of Moscow.

  The man tied a rope around Egor’s throat.

  Egor’s senses finally returned and he resisted, kicking his legs and thrashing his chest around and wiggling his head, helplessly clawing at the noose. Despite his body being far bigger than the thinner, leaner man standing over him, he struggled against the stranger’s strength.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded. “Do you not know who I am? You will be done for this, you will be fucking done, you will be fucking killed!”

  The stranger covered Egor’s mouth, and Egor finally looked into the stranger’s eyes.

  Brown eyes. Slicked back black hair. An expensive suit—possibly Giorgio Armani, maybe Brioni. A black tie. A white shirt.

  And empty eyes.

  Nothing in those eyes showed enthusiasm or regret for what he was doing. They were void, removed of all emotion or satisfaction. There was no pleasure and no pain in his actions. There was no wrath that would indicate him being personally motivated. It was just an activity that he was required to partake in.

  This led Egor to assume the man was an assassin.

  Which made him wonder which imbecile dared hire such a thing.

  The three whores all fled to the door, doing nothing to cover themselves or preserve their dignity. They attempted to unlock the door but failed. They pushed on it and pulled on it, but it was jammed, as was every other door they tried. They could do nothing but push themselves up against the wall and watch with wide, fearful eyes, as this man tied his noose multiple times around their client’s throat.

  Egor struggled with as much vigour as his panting body and the stitch in his side could manage—of course he did—but whatever he did, his giant body was no match for the athleticism of this slick bastard.

  He must be expensive. One of the best. The kind that only a government could afford.

  Which led him to wonder… which government?

  Any thoughts of who did this went as the grave danger of his imminent death took over, filling his thoughts with the sting of a thousand scorpions, each one pricking his brain with another bout of useless desperation to live.

  Any will to survive dissolved as he flew into the air. The stranger had threaded the noose through something on the ceiling, Egor couldn’t see what, and had hoisted him until he dangled and suffocated. He kicked out, thrashed the rope back and forth, clawed at it with his thick fingers, but nothing worked.

  The assassin stood and watched. Below Egor. No smile or frown, no satisfaction at a job wel
l done, or regret at taking a life. He just acted as a voyeur, looking over his work, checking on the expert precision of his quickly executed job.

  Egor tried to spit out some words, some venomous angst or hostility, but the rope was squeezing too hard on his larynx. His throat was constricting, was getting smaller, and he was coughing in desperation for a breath that he knew would never come.

  Some blood forced itself to Egor’s mouth. In a final act of retaliation, he spat the blood over the assassin, landing a large splodge over the man’s face and collar.

  The assassin didn’t even blink. Didn’t falter. Didn’t wipe it off; didn’t even react to it.

  The assassin just kept watching until Egor was dead, until his neck finally snapped, and he was just dangling like a helpless doll.

  The assassin turned to the redhead, the blond and the brunette, all pressed up against the far wall, no effort to conceal their naked, shivering bodies.

  The man took out three photos. He threw one at the blond. One at the brunette. One at the redhead.

  They each cried out as they saw their sons and mothers and fathers and siblings displayed to them; pictures taken for this precise moment.

  It was as if the man knew they would be there.

  Like he needed leverage.

  “You tell the police it was suicide,” the man said in a deep, well-spoken British accent, his face masked in a silhouette. “And no harm will come to your families. Tell them you had sex with him, then you went to get dressed, heard him gagging, and came out to find his suffocating body.”

  He stepped forward, his mouth appearing in the light. His teeth were white and his lips were red.

  “Don’t tell them it was suicide and I will gut your sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers—and I will give them a far more painful death than I afforded Senator Egor Kuznetsov. Do you understand?”

  They nodded frantically.

  “I said, do you understand?”

  They all verbally confirmed, thick Russian accents of, “yes,” “please,” and, “we will, we will!”

  The man retreated to the living area, and the women didn’t stop shaking, not even when they heard the gentle click of the hotel room door close.

  Chapter Two

  Jay Sullivan pulled up his rental car beside the motel and paused.

  You never use your own car; you use a rental.

  You never use an expensive hotel; you use some obscure motel in the middle of nowhere.

  And, most important of all—you never just get out of a car.

  You stop and you wait. A pause can save your life. The pause would be unlikely to reveal anything but silence and a still night, but at least you’d know that the night was silent and still.

  He checked his wing mirror. Checked the door to his room. The reception. The car park.

  A couple stood and kissed outside a door a few down from his. They were too caught up in their passion to notice him. They both fitted this kind of hotel, and he did not imagine that they were entwined in lust as some kind of decoy, so he stepped out of the car, and kept his eye on them for every inch of the eight paces it took for him to reach his motel door.

  He unlocked it. Stepped inside. Closed the door.

  Checked outside the windows.

  Shut the blinds.

  Turned on the lamp.

  “Hi, Dad,” came the sweet voice of Talia sitting on the bed. His twelve-year-old daughter looked up at him, her face previously buried in a book. Wuthering Heights by the look of it.

  Weird kid, he thought. He’d bought her Horrid Henry, he’d acquired her Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, and he’d even found a copy of The Babysitter’s Club that his sister used to read when he was a child. But no, this was what she read—not even a teenager yet and already she was devouring classic works of literature. This was, what, the sixth time she’d read it?

  She placed her bookmark in, shut the book neatly to avoid any bending of the spine, and placed it on the bedside table. She stretched her arms out, ready for her hug, and Sullivan rushed forward to her embrace.

  She was petite, with long, auburn hair and her mother’s eyes. He could barely look at her without seeing her mum’s mannerisms or hearing her stern voice in Talia’s bulletproof positivity.

  He’d never known a young girl to be so friendly, so full of life, and so undefeatably optimistic about everything. No matter which part of the world she travelled with him to, where he took her, where he left her—she would never moan about lack of friends or her burning desire for a regular life going to school.

  He’d taught her to read. He’d taught her to add. He’d taught her to fit in.

  But, most importantly, he’d taught her how to spot if someone was sitting across from her in a library that didn’t look right. He’d taught her how to jam a lock and find the best hiding place. He’d taught her how to lose someone chasing her, how to put herself out of reach, and how to contact him should she find herself in danger whilst he was working.

  But he had never taught her how to use a knife. Nor had he taught her how to kill a man. Nor had he taught her how to use her surroundings as a weapon.

  He’d taught her to run, not to fight.

  That was how it would always be.

  She was to protect herself, but she was not to be like him.

  Maybe, someday, when he knew danger would not find her, he’d find her a real family. People who could give her the life most girls should have. She wouldn’t want it, but it would be best for her.

  He would never want to leave her, never want to be without her by his side, but subjecting her to this life was selfish. It would be painful not to have her with him everywhere he went, but it would also be painful to see her grow up aware of what he did for a living.

  When you love a child you want what’s best for them.

  And he wasn’t that.

  “Has everything been okay?” Sullivan asked his daughter, keeping his voice calm and low. He dreaded using his ‘assassin voice’ with her. She needed to hear his dad voice, not his killer’s voice.

  “Fine, Dad,” she replied, a bounce in her voice. “Catherine just took Heathcliff to meet Linton.”

  Sullivan did not know what that meant, but he adored her for it.

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying your book. Aren’t you fed up of reading it?”

  She shrugged. “It’s my favourite.”

  “I know it is.”

  “You have blood on you, Dad.”

  He looked down at his collar. So he did.

  “I’ll just go clear it off,” he said, and gave her a ruffle of the hair. By the time it had taken him to step the few steps to the bathroom, the book covered her face once again.

  The bathroom mirror gave him an image he hadn’t realised Talia had seen. The blood wasn’t just on his collar. It was still on his face. Spread down his cheek, dried and flaked.

  How could he have let Talia see this?

  This is exactly what I don’t want her to see…

  He filled the sink with water, cupped it, and soaked his face. He repeated this several times to ensure he had scraped every bit of the dried blood from his face. Then he took off his shirt, put it in a bin bag he could burn later and put on a black t-shirt.

  He checked his reflection again. He finally looked like a dad and not an assassin.

  He returned to the bedroom. Talia’s book was in her hand, but her eyes were closed, and her head was lolling to the side.

  He took her book from her, put the bookmark in, and placed it on the side. He lay her down and tucked the duvet over her.

  He whispered, “Good night,” as he tucked her in, but she was already asleep.

  He did his final checks out of the window, checked their plane tickets were still in his bag, and climbed into his bed. They were to take a few days off, travelling across Europe, just to make sure they weren’t tailed, before they returned home.

  He checked the news sites on his phone before he settled
down.

  Urgent breaking news of Senator Egor Kuznetsov’s tragic suicide was already all over the internet.

  He put the phone away, rechecked Talia was sleeping soundly, settled down, and was unconscious within minutes.

  London, England

  Chapter Three

  Ian Mulligan walked past the many, barely noticing the few. His head was down, his newspaper tucked under his armpit, and his trench coat flowed behind him in the wind of his strides. He readjusted his tie, cursed under his breath at a fool who almost walked into him, and crossed the road.

  The office building he approached was as regular and inconspicuous as a building could get—especially for one that was home to the Falcons, a group only known of by those few members of government with the paygrade to know. His calling to the job had been a surprise, a dream—yet, today, it felt like a grave burden.

  The day the prime minster had beckoned him into his office and sat him down with a whiskey to deliver the news of the job they were offering him, was the proudest of his life. Now, four prime ministers later, his meetings with the country’s leader were not so positive.

  And today’s cockup may well have been the last chance he had to prove his worth—and he was determined to make whoever was responsible pay.

  He entered the lobby. The doorman nodded at him, pressing button eight on the lift before Mulligan had needed to request it. It had been like this every day. No words exchanged; just a smile and the lift doors open by the time he reached them.

  His morning would not be so pleasurable on the unemployment line.

  He tapped his foot and checked his watch. The lift was going at the regular speed it always did, and normally he would enjoy these few moments to check over the newspaper and see the previous day’s events, checking that his staff had carried out their orders and created the news as it should be.

  On this day, however, he did not want to look at the newspaper anymore, and the lift was going exceedingly slowly.