Night of the Assassin: Assassin Series Prequel, Russell Blake [good story books to read txt] 📗

evening, El Rey had a phone discussion with Victor, and they arranged a meeting for the next day to look over the space he’d gotten and inventory the hardware.

In the morning, a blue Ford sedan pulled to the curb by the original hotel El Rey had stayed at. Victor grinned from behind the wheel, inviting him to get in. Soon they were motoring to the deserted area near the W, and after a few turns, they arrived at a bleak strip of old industrial warehouses. Victor got out and opened one of the heavy steel doors and they stepped into a dilapidated twenty by forty brick space that reeked of stale air and urine. El Rey tried the lights – two fluorescent bulbs flickered above as if struggling to stay lit and then suddenly illuminated.

“This will do.”

Glancing around the dank room, El Rey dictated an additional list of items he’d need, based on his surveillance of the target and his appraisal of his new workspace. Victor scribbled furiously in a small notebook as El Rey ticked off the requirements. Finished, they eyed the overhead steel beams that supported the roof, before El Rey made two more requests. Victor nodded, and told him that within forty-eight hours he would have the space outfitted. He went to the car and removed a long duffle with the requested hardware and brought it inside the space. El Rey inspected each item and nodded in approval. Perhaps Victor resembled a buffoon, but he’d gotten everything right on the first try. That was good. He hoped Victor did as well on the second round of stuff. None of it was that specialized, so he was confident the man would be able to get it all.

Three days later, they returned to the warehouse. It had been transformed. El Rey was impressed. He’d spent parts of the last few days in the target’s neighborhood, driving around with Victor, studying the layout, and had a watcher confirm the number of guards at night, as well. El Chilango rarely left the house, so whatever his wine business was, you could apparently run it from home. That would make things somewhat harder – it would be far easier to stage something while he was in transit, but you played the cards you were dealt, and El Rey was confident.

Tomorrow would be show time, and he would either justify the considerable money he’d been spending over the course of his antipodean vacation – or die trying.

Chapter 13

A stiff breeze blew through the tall oak trees near the water’s edge, occasionally eliciting a moaning lament at the air’s harmonic passage through the branches. It was a partially cloudy night with only a sliver a moon peeking through the overcast. The lights from the surrounding homes on the harbor twinkled and danced as the roiling surface of the water reflected them up, moving in time with the swell from the harbor mouth as it surged against the outcropping shore of Point Piper, as the upscale neighborhood was called – a nub of land thrusting into the water, creating Double Bay on one side and Rose Bay on the other.

Three tough-looking guards prowled the grounds of the target’s home, two stationed front and back, with one circulating around. It was a lot of security for a relatively modest home. The neighbors had to wonder who the occupant was. The men did their best to appear discreet but they were obviously trained killers with military bearings and the bulges of handguns under their jackets.

This was the easiest duty any of them had ever had. Endless hours of nothing guarding a nobody from imagined threats that never materialized. They’d gotten complacent over the nine months they’d been working the gig, which was understandable given the uneventful nature of the job. But if it made the man happy, it was his money to spend as he liked and they weren’t going to complain. For fifteen thousand American dollars a month apiece, they’d put on a trapeze performance or ride unicycles on a tightrope every evening if that’s what their patron wanted.

It was quiet at one a.m. on a week-night, with very few cars winding their way along the New South Head road that tracked the coastline. Sydney’s suburbs were asleep, the citizenry enjoying its well-deserved rest in the privileged enclave.

A small black inflatable dinghy moved towards the target, bobbing over the swells as it made its silent way through the night. A hundred yards off the point, the operator dropped an anchor into the water before cutting the little electric motor. He sat, rising and falling with the waves, getting a sense for the amplitude and acclimating himself.

The waterside of the target’s home glimmered through the luminescent green of the night vision scope. El Rey could easily make out the sentry, sitting on the rear deck, smoking a cigarette and reading a book. Very unprofessional, but then again, given that the biggest threat the security team thought they were likely to encounter was an enraged koala bear on a eucalyptus-fueled rampage, he could appreciate their lackadaisical attitude. It would be the last mistake any of them ever made. But still, it was understandable.

The crosshairs of the modified M-4 assault rifle’s night scope bounced up and down from the waves, the weapon made ungainly from the additional weight of the long flash-suppressing silencer affixed to the barrel’s end. It would inevitably affect force and accuracy, as all silencers did, but he’d spent a few hours in a rural area out of town sighting it in with Victor yesterday for exactly the required distance and the margin of error was acceptable – down to a variance of two inches. Normally the rifle was far more accurate, but the silencer skewed the equation. An additional factor would be the brisk breeze; he automatically made a mental adjustment for it. It was blowing from the harbor mouth toward the point, so shouldn’t have a huge effect.

He’d spent the prior morning loading twenty