by Ray Green
As she rounded a sharp bend, she came across a payphone booth. She stepped off the path and crouched down behind the booth, struggling to control her ragged breathing. She waited … and waited. Nothing happened: no footsteps, no-one approaching … nothing. She stayed like that, huddled behind the phone booth for what felt like several minutes; still nothing happened. Get a grip, she admonished herself, standing up and smoothing down her clothes with her hand. You’re only five minutes away now. She stepped out on to the path and made to continue on her way.
Then it happened. A large, shadowy figure stepped out from the trees and onto the path, around ten yards in front of her. He looked like a bald, white guy, of muscular build, as far as she could tell in the meagre light. He didn’t say anything or make any attempt to approach her; he just stood there, facing her, blocking her way.
‘What do you want?’ she demanded, in a voice which carried far less conviction than she had tried to muster.
He didn’t reply.
‘What do you want?’ she repeated.
Still no reply. The man just stood there: motionless, silent, and menacing.
Now the cold tendrils of fear snaked down her spine. What should she do?
She slipped her hand into her purse and withdrew the self-defence spray which she always carried, thrusting her trembling hand forward. ‘You’d better back off,’ she cried. ‘I have a pepper spray here, and I’m not afraid to use it.’
The man chuckled: a low, sinister sound which chilled her to the bone. ‘From that distance?’ he taunted. The accent sounded British.
She didn’t know whether to step forward and use the spray or turn and run. Paralysed with fear, she did neither.
‘What do you want?’ she repeated, once again, dismayed to hear the involuntary tremor in her own voice.
‘You shouldn’t be poking your nose into business which don’t concern you.’
‘Wh-what do you mean?’ she stammered. ‘What business? Leave me alone.’
‘Sorry, love,’ he said, now raising his right hand towards her.
As Julia strained to discern what he was holding, a creeping horror permeated her entire body. It was a gun, its muzzle elongated by the fitment of a silencer.
‘P-please,’ she pleaded, ‘I don’t know what you want, but there must be some terrible mistake here. I’m just—’
Her words were cut short as she saw the muzzle flash and felt the pulverising impact to her chest, punching her backwards and onto the ground. She lay on her back, unable to move, gasping for breaths which would barely come. The only thing she could see was the deep blue-black evening sky through a gap in the overhanging trees.
And then the sky disappeared as his face loomed over her; finally, at this very close range, she could see him clearly, in spite of the poor light. Cold, dark eyes; broad, flat nose; sallow cheeks; lips set in a thin, straight line; thick, bull-neck; shaven head. The evil intent evident in that face cut through even the searing pain in her chest.
‘Wh-why?’ she gasped.
‘Nothing personal,’ replied the flat, featureless voice. ‘Just business.’
She felt something hard, hot, and metallic being pressed into her ear. A bilious terror rose in her throat as she realised it was the muzzle of the gun.
The last thing Julia Turner ever saw on this earth was the evil smile on the man’s face just before he pulled the trigger.
Chapter 2
Toronto, Canada – Sunday Morning
James Connolly had hardly slept at all the previous night. It was the disturbing news report he had seen on the TV the previous evening which was preying on his mind. Murders in New York City were not exactly rare events, but there was something about the reported killing of the young New York Times journalist which had grabbed his attention and was now tormenting his every thought.
The first light of dawn was beginning to filter through the thin drapes at the window, suffusing the room with a soft glow. He turned over and laid his head on the pillow, his face just inches from Juanita’s. She was still fast asleep, her olive complexion smooth and her expression untroubled. They had been together for just over a year, and still, James was utterly captivated by her striking features: strong, angular cheekbones; aquiline nose; and dark, penetrating eyes – now closed as she slumbered peacefully. He kissed her lightly on the forehead, eliciting from her a little snuffling noise as she shifted her position slightly. She did not wake, though.
James had been wrestling all night with the issue which was on his mind. Now he knew he had to make an important decision … or rather they did. They needed to talk.
He decided to get up and make some coffee. Then he would wake her and share what was troubling him. He slid out of bed, slipped into his bath robe, and made his way through to the kitchen, flipping on the under-cupboard strip lights, which cast a far more agreeable light across the room than the harsh overhead lights. He spooned some ground coffee into the filter machine, poured in some water, and pressed the power switch. As he waited for the coffee to brew, he reflected on the events which had led to their fleeing from mortal danger in Miami to make a new life together in Toronto, Canada.
***
It was just over a year earlier that he had awoken from a coma in a Miami hospital bed, remembering nothing about his head injury, how he came to be in Florida or even who he really was. The only thing he knew, with near-certainty, was that he was British, his own accent contrasting sharply with those of the medical staff in the hospital. As fragments of his memory gradually began to return, though, he embarked on a quest to discover his true identity and find out what had happened to him. His enquiries eventually led him to Juanita who, it transpired, he had previously tried to rescue from some vicious thugs who had attacked and tried to rape her in a darkened alley in Miami Beach. For his trouble, he had received the blow to the head which had put him in hospital, robbing him of his memory and his identity.
Juanita, feeling a debt of gratitude to the stranger who had come to her aid, decided to help him in his quest to discover his true identity. As the two of them began to piece things together, James discovered some very dark and unpalatable things about himself and his past life: things which, at first, he just could not believe. Eventually though, as the evidence mounted up, he was forced to accept the truth: he had previously been a paid assassin. The reason he had been in Miami was that he was part of a plan to assassinate an eminent research scientist and several of his team in order to suppress the discovery of a revolutionary new treatment for cocaine addiction; his paymaster was a powerful drug cartel who had a vested interest in preventing the new treatment from seeing the light of day.
Horrified by what he had discovered, and wracked with guilt, James vowed to disrupt the assassination attempt, going to war with the others involved in its execution. Juanita was at his side every step of the way, saving his life on more than one occasion. Two innocent people died in the desperate struggle which ensued – one of them Juanita’s best friend, Sylvia. In the end, however, James and Juanita succeeded in foiling the assassination attempt, ensuring that the new addiction cure would indeed become a reality. In the process, though, they had made deadly enemies of those they had thwarted, several of whom had also died in the battle to disrupt the assassination.
And it was not only those behind the assassination attempt who now sought to hunt James and Juanita down: the police were after them too. From the police’s point of view there were far too many unanswered questions about both the assassination attempt itself and the various deaths which had also occurred. If the police caught up with them, it was by no means certain that they could avoid being falsely accused of murders which they had not committed. And if they should be charged and tried, it was equally doubtful that they would be able to convince a jury of their innocence, particularly once it emerged that James had originally been part of the assassination plot. Who would believe that one of the assassination team could turn himself around so utterly and completely as to becom
e the architect of the plan’s downfall?
In the end, they decided that their only course of action was to disappear: to just slip under the radar and try to make new lives for themselves in another country. They faked new identities as Canadian citizens and fled to Toronto; James and Juanita were not their real names.
A year had passed, and no-one had tracked them down; it seemed that their strategy had been successful. Surely, by now, both the police, and the assassins they had battled, would have lost interest in pursuing them. They had a good life together now and had fallen deeply in love with one another. It would be lunacy to do anything to jeopardise all that. And yet he just could not shake his nagging suspicion about why the young journalist had been murdered. If he was right, more innocent lives might well be in danger.
He had to know.
***
The glurping sounds emitted from the coffee machine, announcing the impending end of the filtering cycle, interrupted James’s introspective musing. He poured the coffees and set them down on a tray, before grabbing a few cookies from the jar on the counter top and laying those on a plate alongside the coffees.
When James returned to the bedroom, Juanita was still fast asleep. He kissed her on the cheek; she stirred, turning her head to one side but still, she did not wake. He gently shook her shoulder, calling her name; she gradually began emerging from sleep’s embrace, her eyelids flickering as she spread her arms and stretched her whole body, arching her back and giving a contented sigh. She smiled, putting a hand behind James’s neck and pulling him towards her for a kiss.
‘Coffee?’ said James, moving over to the window and pulling back the drapes a little.
‘Mmm,’ she purred, her nostrils wrinkling as she picked up the delicious aroma. She propped herself up on one elbow, turning towards the tray that James had set down on the bedside cabinet. ‘Cookies too?’ she said, raising an eyebrow and brushing aside an unruly mass of long, dark hair from her face. ‘What’s this … some sort of special occasion that I’ve forgotten?’
He chuckled. ‘No, nothing like that. It’s just that I couldn’t sleep.’
Her finely tuned antennae had obviously picked up on his troubled mood, for suddenly, the veil of sleep had slipped from her completely. She shuffled herself into a sitting position and locked eyes with him. ‘What is it?’
‘I need to talk to you about something.’
‘So talk away,’ she said, her wrinkled brow telegraphing a mix of puzzlement and concern.
He passed her coffee to her and took a sip of his own. ‘You remember last night’s news report?’
‘Well, yes … I guess so … but what exactly—?’
‘You remember the main stories?’
‘I … uh … yes, I think so. There was the earthquake in Mexico, more horrific bombing in the Middle East … the government shutdown … What are you getting at, James?’
‘You remember the report about the young journalist murdered in Central Park?’
‘Oh ... yes. She worked for the New York Times … only twenty-four years old, I think they said. Horrible.’
He nodded, slowly. ‘Why would anyone want to kill a young girl like that?’
She shook her head in puzzlement. ‘I don’t know … it’s New York City. All kinds of crazy stuff goes on down there. I don’t get it – why are you asking me about this?’
He fixed her with a steady stare. ‘I think I might know who killed her.’
Chapter 3
They sat opposite one another at the breakfast bar while James shared what was on his mind.
‘You remember what they said about the way she died?’ he began.
Juanita visibly shuddered. ‘Well, if what they reported was true, she was shot once in the chest and once through her ear … absolutely barbaric.’ The colour drained from her face at the retelling of the horrific details of the murder. ‘But didn’t the police refuse to confirm that?’
‘They did, but these news channels often have a knack of getting hold of information long before the authorities are prepared to confirm it.’
She nodded. ‘I guess so. But you still haven’t told me how you think you know who the killer was.’
James’s face was grimly set. He hated delving into this murky chapter from his past, but now that he had raised the subject, there was no going back. ‘You know what I was before … well, before we met … before it all happened.’
‘Yes, of course’ she said, ‘but what does that have to do with any of this?’
‘Look … I don’t remember too much about that time, but …’ He cast his eyes downward, trying to compose himself for what he was about to say.
‘But what?’ she urged.
‘These professional assassins … they will often bring down their victim with a body shot – easiest and biggest target, you see – and then …’ – he hesitated as he felt the fragile barrier of self-control within him begin to falter, but forced himself to continue – ‘… then finish the job with a shot to the head.’
That was it: the dam burst, and the emotion overwhelmed him; tears sprang from the corners of his eyes and he began to weep, his shoulders heaving with each anguished sob.
Juanita jumped to her feet, rushed around the breakfast bar, and pulled his head towards her, hugging him to her breast. ‘James … oh, my love … what is it? Tell me.’
He clung to her, for a minute or so, immersing himself in her warmth and comfort while he struggled to regain control. Eventually he eased himself away from her arms, wiping away the tears with the back of his hand.
‘It’s just that … well, I can still hardly bring myself to believe that I was one of those people … that I could have—’
‘Stop it!’ she cried, cupping his face in her hands and locking eyes with him. ‘I don’t care what you were; this is the man I fell in love with – the man you are now. Come on – you need to tell me the whole story now.’
‘Can I have another coffee?’ he said. ‘I just need a minute or two to … well … compose myself, I guess. I’m all over the place right now.’
She smiled, kissing him on the cheek. ‘Sure … take as long as you need.’
She moved over to the coffee machine to pour him another cup. When she returned to the breakfast bar, setting down the coffee cup, he was ready.
‘As I said, I still don’t remember all that much about my former life, but I do remember one man in particular: a professional assassin who worked within the same network as I did. They had operatives all over the world, but this man, like me, was English. I think the reason I remember this guy, specifically, is because of the way he operated … the way he was.’
Juanita tilted her head, enquiringly. ‘What exactly do you mean?’
‘This guy didn’t do what he did just for the money; he enjoyed it. Even if he had the opportunity to take down his victims cleanly, he wouldn’t always do so. He liked to bring them down first, without killing them, and then close in and see the terror in their eyes as he put the muzzle of the gun into their ear before delivering the killing shot.’
Juanita’s hand flew to her mouth, her eyes wide with shock as she drew in a sharp breath. She took a second or two before she could speak.
‘I can’t … I mean, how could anyone be such a sadistic monster?’
James shrugged, shaking his head. ‘That, I can’t begin to explain. It’s just the way he was.’
‘Incredible,’ gasped Juanita.
James continued, ‘This guy was always so arrogant – so sure he’d never be caught – that he never made any attempt to disguise who had done the killing by varying his modus operandi. It was almost as if he wanted the authorities to know … to taunt them.’
‘And you think this is the man who murdered the journalist in New York?’
‘Well I can’t be sure, of course, but the chest shot – which, by accident or design, missed her heart – and the killing shot though the ear … it has all the hallmarks of his work.’
‘Anyway
,’ continued James, ‘here’s the thing: although, as I said, the money wasn’t important to him – he was already well on his way to becoming a billionaire – his reputation was such that he could easily command a fee running into millions, or even tens of millions, for a single hit.’
‘My God!’ gasped Juanita. ‘Can these hit men really earn that sort of money?’
James shook his head. ‘Only a very, very few … and a client will normally only pay this kind of money to take out someone very important, like a head of state, or a major crime boss, or head of a drugs cartel for example.’
The dawning recognition of where he was going with this began to register on Juanita’s face. ‘You mean, not …’
‘Not a junior journalist,’ he confirmed.
‘So why …?’
‘I can only think of two possibilities: either it wasn’t the guy I’m thinking about at all, or this girl was onto something very big … something which certain people would be prepared to pay almost anything to keep under wraps.’
She nodded, slowly, pursing her lips as she digested his words, an expectant silence between them.
After some seconds, she said, ‘So it could be nothing to do with this man at all … it could be a random mugging by some low-life criminal, couldn’t it?’
‘It could,’ agreed James, pausing before adding, ‘but if it is him, then …’
‘Oh, James … please tell me you’re not going to get involved in this. We have a good life here now, I couldn’t bear to see you get mixed up with those hideous people again.’
He met her gaze; the pleading in her eyes pierced him to the core, but he knew he couldn’t just ignore what he felt in his gut. ‘I’m sorry, Juanita, but I’m worried that someone, somewhere, is planning some horrendous crime. If I stand back and let more people die, I just wouldn’t be able to live with myself.’