The Assassin's Mark (Skeleton Key) (2 page)

Sir Alan merely bowed his head before turning away and returning to the group of knights and our horses. The other guards were staring in my direction as they spoke in low voices. That made it all even worse. They were either trying to protect my feelings or talk about me without me hearing their words. Regardless, I didn’t care what they thought now.

I’d have enough of people talking about me in front of my face when I reached my cousin. I faced away from the group as if looking out over the majestic mountains and merely focused on breathing until Sir Alan called out to the group about our imminent departure. The only thing I could do was carry on as my parents had taught me. They had ruled the land long before I was born. With their training, I knew what to do. Now I just needed to act.

Edward

The day had been relatively quiet until the phone started ringing. Life was calm and almost normal while I was between assignments. Not all covert secret agents lived the high life like James Bond. I sat on the couch in my London flat and kicked my feet up on the matching beige ottoman. The annoying call interrupted the Manchester United game I’d recorded, one of the few things I enjoyed outside of work.

I answered the phone with a crisp “yes?”

“Edward, I sincerely apologize for interrupting, but something has come up,” Croft said cautiously from the other end of the line. This didn’t bode well. Croft handled my assignments, and he rarely ever rang me. Most of our communication was through e-mail or text messaging. He never saw the urgency to do more than that, unless things weren’t going well… His wary tone also threw me off when he’d mentioned something had come up. Our team rarely showed those kinds of pensive emotions to one another. We were trained to be strong and fearless.

“What’s the latest, Croft?” The nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach grew in size. “Is everyone at the office safe?” I lowered my voice a little as I turned up the television in case anyone was listening in. All interest I’d had in the game was gone now as I waited for Croft to gather his notes and give me a brief rundown on whatever was happening.

“They’re fine. However, a target of yours has surfaced again. We have footage of the man behind the bombings in Berlin last month. He’s presently in London. I know you’re off-duty, but I have a bad feeling about his presence here. You’re needed out there, mate.”

I clenched my hand into a fist. The man behind those bombings was mine to catch. He’d eluded me when rare few had before. “I’ll check into it. Send me the details.”

The clacking of his keyboard preceded a chime on my phone. “Done.”

“Keep me updated if anything changes.” I hung up the phone, then changed clothes. Within ten minutes, I was headed out the door and on my way to the terrorist’s last known location.

The smell of gasoline and the unwashed bodies of a few homeless people to my left rankled my nose as I strode through the seething underbelly of London. I'd been given a clue as to what my target was up to, not much of one, but enough to act upon. He was last seen at a local market buying some ingredients for what seemed to be an explosive device. Aerosol containers of hair spray, a box of nails, a couple of digital timers, cleaning chemicals, and a few pots and pans had been enough to cause the store clerk to ring up the hotline with a tip. Security footage outside of the shop had confirmed the target’s identity.

My suit was perfectly tailored to conceal my SIG P938 and a tactical knife. With a quick mental check on the surrounding streets, I slowed my pace.

I approached the tenement building from the west for a better look. The terrorist didn’t work alone, so I knew to anticipate lookouts and other flunkies. A man leaned against a wall opposite from the building. He wasn’t doing a good job of masking his presence. He kept scanning the alleys leading toward one particular staircase. The general outlook of the man gave little to the imagination, and he failed to act natural. His jumpy reactions and shaky frame told me he was using chemical assistance to remain alert.

My time was limited. I had little choice but to take him out. The alleyway was well hidden and quiet with an occasional squeak and giggle from the nearby school barely reaching it. Not wanting to draw much attention, I pulled the knife holding it against my side as I walked toward the man. I held my cell phone to my ear and enjoyed the benefit of modern society. People rarely paid attention to a person on the phone. So, naturally, I blended in. The man was too agitated and antsy to notice me. He kept his gaze on the alley as if his life depended on it, allowing me to get close.

With a swift elbow to the face, I sent the man flailing into the alley beside us. He fell against the wall, and I slashed my blade across his throat being not careful to be sprayed by his blood. Messy but silent. That summed up my job really. Assassin and spy for the government. We were trained for these situations. Things like how to angle a knife when slicing someone’s throat and how to pull it away to avoid ruining your clothes and drawing attention to yourself. All manners of oddly useful information. The man struggled for a few moments, but as the light faded from his eyes, he slumped over.

I wiped the blade clean on the hem of his shirt, then rummaged through his pockets to find a key with a number tag on it.
Gotcha!
This was working out nicely. I rearranged the trash bags to conceal his body. He wouldn't be found for hours to come.

After taking a few moments to be sure there were no other guards around, I finally began my approach. The numbers on the key guided me toward the correct flat. A couple of stairs later, I stood beside a heavy metal door in a hallway with no windows and a narrow walkway. The out of service lift was stuck on my current floor with its doors repeatedly trying to open and close behind me. I stayed quiet, doing my best to listen to my surroundings and piece together what was taking place. Everyday sounds of talking or television came from several of the flats. Something felt off about all of this.

Shite.

I headed down to the second floor and called Croft to inform him of the situation. This was exactly like what happened in Berlin. The terrorist tried to kill as many people as he could with his bombs. There were several tenement buildings here with a school nearby. A serious amount of explosives could be in the lift stuck between floors where the terrorists could freely access it in middle of the night. Croft told me that there were at least five people in the flat where my target was. Any one of them could have the trigger, and the lift itself could be trapped.

"Of course. On a bloody Monday," I grumbled under my breath after hanging up.

The process was clear. Evacuate the building, disarm the explosive, and get rid of the threat. The last two sometimes took care of themselves, but more often than not, it was better to deal with the explosive before taking out hostiles.

The close proximity to the school and the threat being just a few doors down from the lift made my skin crawl. To hell with the procedure. If they caught wind that something was wrong, who knew what they'd do. Locating a maintenance door to the lift shaft took only a few moments. At least the maintenance man had left a spare hoistway key nearby that I put into my pocket.

The lift itself rested on the cables several feet down from where I was. The ladder would give me access to the elevator, but I didn’t trust it. What if it was booby-trapped? I grabbed the cables and slowly slid down to the lift’s roof.

With sore hands, I opened the hatch on top and took a cursory glance. Inside the darkness, I could faintly make out the shape of pressure containers, gas bottles resting against tins, and closed containers littering the floor. A few red lights here and there made it evident that some of the makeshift bombs were powered, making them dangerous to disarm. I wasn’t exactly a trained bomb tech, but I knew enough. Using my flashlight to scan the packages, I couldn’t discern any pattern, organization, or other reason for the materials to be spread around inside the lift as they were. Extensive sets of wires ran to and from a small box beneath what seemed to be an acetylene gas container.

I tucked my feet beneath the support bar holding the cables and lowered my head and torso inside the lift, being careful not to touch anything. With the flashlight in my mouth, I did my best not to grimace as I hunted for the section of explosive that mattered the most, the remote detonator. With the reinforced metal of the lift acting like a Faraday cage, it wasn’t hard to find. Thick wires were running out of the lift’s main body and outside of it. It had even been wired to some of the control panels inside the main cage to ensure the device’s batteries were fully charged.

All in a day’s work.

I reached for a smaller utility knife on my belt making sure all of my movements were slow and careful. I peeled off the protective layer on the antenna cable making sure not to touch the conductive wiring inside. First, I’d have to check if this thing was protected by an active signal. With no voltmeter, I touched the wire to the tip of my tongue and waited. Nothing happened. No jolts of any kind. Satisfied, I followed the wire around the lift’s walls with a flashlight. A small copper wire betrayed the locations where the cable was taped to the roof nearby and was easy enough to access. With the explosives effectively deafened, I took my time and snipped the cable while focusing my eyes on the red LED lights that glowed around me.

To my immediate relief, none of them flashed as I cut the wire. That was one less thing to worry about. As I returned for my target, I spotted a man outside of one flat’s door with a bag of groceries in his arm. He wasn’t my primary target, but as I spotted the keys in his hand, I knew he’d still be helpful. He barely registered my presence as he balanced the heavy bag with one arm while trying to get the key into the lock.

With the tactical knife in hand and a clear path to my objective, I let my instincts take over. One arm supported his weight while I stabbed him in the neck, pointing the blade upward into his skull. The poor bastard only managed a soft whimper before he dropped dead against me. Dragging him and the bag of groceries without a sound took some effort, but in the end, I would be able to complete my mission with one less person in the way. I hid his body hastily and leveraged the grocery bag for visual cover as I opened the door.

“Amir, you are late. Did you get everything?” A male voice came from an adjoining room as soon as I stepped inside the flat. The low voice carried a Turkish accent, which matched my target’s nationality.

The hallway’s shaggy carpet was full of stains, but the rest of the entry wasn’t in much better shape. It wasn’t any wonder that I saw two large roaches scurrying along the walls as if looking for a place to hide. The chances of them using this as an ongoing hideout were slim. Plain walls and empty built-in bookshelves reinforced the fact these men were here to cause terror soon and move on.

I dodged into the kitchen to avoid being seen. The bag might work for a moment, but it wouldn’t be useful for long. I left the groceries on the counter and turned in time to see a man walk into the room. Thinking on my feet, I threw my knife, catching him in the throat. I glanced into the hallway to see a man’s shadow ducking out of the view.

There went the element of surprise
.

I rolled to the small bedroom on the other side of the hall, wiped the blade on the dirty carpet before putting it away. The knife wouldn’t help me now. I drew my gun from its shoulder holster. Two hushed whispers came from the end of the hallway where I’d seen the shadow right as gunfire opened up on the kitchen’s wall. Shots were fired in short controlled bursts as bullets pierced the wall in search of their target.

I glanced into the hall and squeezed off two shots into one attacker’s chest. It might not kill him, but I hoped it would do enough to keep him out of my way. If Croft’s intel was right, with two targets down, three were still in the flat.

The bedroom had a door within it that presumably led to a bathroom. I’d seen this type of floor plan before, and if I was right, the bathroom would connect to the second bedroom. The soft creak of the hinges on the bathroom’s door put me on edge. As I’d hoped, a second door stood before me, and I crept closer to the other bedroom. Whispers came from the other side, but this time I could listen in better. None of them spoke English, but there were at least three targets.

I turned the handle ever so slightly to gauge the stiffness, then sprang into action. A quick twist of the knob and four steps took me into the thick of things. By then, I had my knife at the ready and my gun aimed.

I shot the man closest to me who was starting to aim at my chest, then threw my knife into the guy’s chest who was farthest away. The last man standing, my main target, moved to the left to swing his rifle around. His finger was locked around the trigger.
Rookie mistake
. With his stiff tracking stance, he lacked mobility. I slid toward him on the false hardwood floor, letting my momentum carry me closer. He tried to keep me in his sights, but the rifle’s size was too much for such close quarters. There was no way he’d be able to reliably hit me, and once he took a shot, he’d have to manually reload the gun before being able to try again. That made him hesitate.

I fired my gun into his right knee sending the bomber’s shot wide. Another bullet ripped into his left arm and made him drop his rifle. My weapon remained trained on him as I rose to my feet. “We’ve finally caught you, you bloody bastard,” I said aloud and scanned the room to make sure no one else was hostile.

The one I’d shot twice in the chest stared up at the ceiling with his unblinking eyes wide open. The rest of them moaned in pain, but they didn’t move around much. For a brief moment, I let my guard down. The tables in the room had various pots and pans, two scales, and a few boxes of nails beside empty cylinders that betrayed their intent well enough. Among the items were zip ties.
Useful.
I used them to tie the arms and legs of my target and his friends. It might take time for support to arrive, but this way they wouldn’t get themselves into much trouble while we waited. I still needed to secure the building and get any civilians out of here.