Primary Target: Six Assassins: Book 1

by Heskett, Jim

  Wellner eyed the boy’s pen, and Kunjal obliged him by setting it on the desk.

  “What I want doesn’t matter. Ember saved my life once, a couple years ago, not long after she became a registered member. The surviving brother of a man killed for a contract found out about us and came after me. Ember was in the right place at the right time and stopped him from getting what he wanted. Don’t bother looking for that in the records. You won’t find it.”

  “You owe her a debt.”

  Wellner shrugged. “Not officially, no. I’ve done what I can for her by giving her a chance, however slim it seems. Whatever happens next is up to her.”

  “How does it all work?”

  “There are six Branches in the DAC. Each one will send a representative assassin after Ember. Each assassin has one week to take her out, one after the other. The Club treats it as six consecutive, exclusive contracts for one assassin to eliminate one target. If she survives all six, she has earned her freedom and a choice to remain or to turn in her token and leave the Club. If she doesn’t survive, well…”

  Chapter Six

  EMBER

  She parked outside the four-story building in the northeast end of Boulder, Colorado. It was in the industrial district of town, a place lousy with self-storage lots and trailer parks and small farms. Only three or four miles from the opulent downtown, but a world away from the density of the heart of the small city.

  The stone and brick building was nondescript, and that's how the Branch liked it. At one time, it had been home to a software startup with a volcanic rise and an equally explosive downfall. Now the cubicle farms sat dormant, the building forgotten. A cheap real estate buy. Also, a perfect place for the Boulder Branch of the Denver Assassins Club to have meetings and train. No one cared what went on out here in this barren section of town.

  She took out her favorite guns, the dual Enforcers from Nighthawk Custom, the heavy dark graphite pistols with eagles etched into the grips, and the word ENFORCER imprinted on the sides. The 9mm pistols had been a gift from Fagan, and she had been amazed at how well they fit her hands. The weapons matched perfectly, both upgraded extensively, including the RMR sight upgrade and Trijicon sight cuts, and both had been factory polished down to the bevels. Custom laser grips finished off the package. Altogether, each pistol was somewhere around the $4,000 mark, and the quality wasn’t just for vanity’s sake.

  They worked well. She spent time at the range weekly practicing and honing her skills, and the weapons kept up without issue.

  “Be right back, my pretties.”

  She left them under the front seat. There were no guns allowed inside Post Offices, and contract work or any shooting at all was expressly forbidden. Most of the assassins had memberships to gun clubs in nearby cities and towns, where they would spend time on accuracy training.

  Each of the six Branches had a building like this, known as a Post Office. Safe havens for the Branches to conduct their business.

  As she crossed the parking lot and approached the building, Ember’s head swiveled around to look for threats. An old habit, one of the first she’d learned after earning her DAC membership coin. Stay alert, stay alive.

  While this spot was typically the safest place she could be in, things were different now. It was day two into the seven-day period when the first assassin would make her a target. The bylaws were supposed to be sacrosanct, but with a black spot given for the first time in decades, no one would know exactly how to act. These were uncharted waters.

  Ember rounded the building, glancing left and right once more, then held up her keycard against the panel buried in the back wall of the building. The door clicked and creaked open an inch. She pulled it back and stepped inside, greeted by a long hallway.

  Familiar sounds drifted down the hall. Up on the right, an open door led into the gym. She could hear the clacking of wooden training Bo Staffs hitting each other. The thud of medicine balls on the gym floor mats. On the left, she could hear a lecture from one of the classrooms. Club law. There were always so many lectures on Club law. Decades of Club law and constant adjustment to the rules left a maze of regulations for all new members to learn and existing members to relearn on a recurring basis.

  They called it continuing education, but Ember wanted to call it continuing boredom-cation. The joke didn’t feel fully formed, but she was still working on it.

  It also didn’t make her feel better.

  Fagan leaned out of another door about halfway down and waved Ember forward. The old woman smiled, a sad look on her face. Fagan had an odd smile since the right half of her face had been badly burned on a contract at least a dozen years ago. Her smile curved on the left, but the right half of her face stayed flat and still, from the mutilated flesh of her cheeks, leading up to her dead eye and the missing section of hair. Ember had often wondered why Fagan hadn't had the eye replaced with a glass one. She supposed the old woman liked the grim reaper look. Most assassins wanted to blend in with the population, to hide in plain sight. To be the kind of person that next-door neighbors would say, “she was so quiet. Kept to herself, ya know? I had no idea she was a contract killer with five dozen dead bodies to her name.”

  Fagan was a lot more old school. Ember had always thought Fagan was mean as hell — one of the reasons she had considered asking Charlie instead — but the old woman had quickly grown on her. She hadn’t seen Fagan’s softer side until she’d been invited to Fagan’s house, where she had seen the vast tea collection the woman kept in her kitchen. Teas from all over the world, some still in their decorative collector’s box, were piled on countertops and behind cupboards with glass fronts.

  She was proud, too, offering Ember tea ‘that would change her life.’ It hadn’t quite done that, but Ember had to admit that the tea, an imported black spice from some island she’d never heard of, had tasted amazing. It was at that moment that Ember had warmed to her new mentor. Drill sergeants simply didn’t collect a thousand different flavors of tea, but Fagan was a connoisseur. Ember suspected that her decade living abroad had had something to do with it.

  She stopped in the doorway of the office and saw her recruit, Gabe, inside. He sat in a chair, stretching a rubber band between his fingers. He plucked it like a guitar string. There were a desk and four chairs in Fagan's office, plus one file cabinet and a whiteboard on the wall. Aside from that, nothing else. Not even a plant.

  "The gang's all here," Ember said. When Gabe met her eyes, and she could see the sorrow in his look, she gave him a hard punch in the shoulder. "Wipe that sourpuss look off your face, recruit. I'm not dead yet."

  He tried to smile as he rubbed his shoulder. But he still had nothing to say. He went back to playing with his rubber band. Eventually, he said, “This doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Yeah,” Ember said. “No shit. It’s maybe sexist, too. But it is what it is.”

  Fagan uncapped a marker and wrote on the whiteboard: Westminster | Five Points | Highlands | Parker | Boulder | Golden.

  “Do we know which Branch comes after me first?” Ember asked.

  Fagan shook her head. “No, but it has already been decided. Each Branch chooses one experienced member to take you on as a contract, on the last day of the previous contract, if it hasn’t been fulfilled. Due to the Club’s rules about non-competing contracts, it’s considered six different jobs. One per week. You are on day two of the first week. If you stay alive for five more days, then the first contract is void, and the second contract begins. You only have to face one at a time.”

  “Seems cold-blooded that I have to go up against someone from my own Branch. You’d think they would give me a pass on that one.”

  “That’s just how it is,” Fagan said. “Or at least that’s how they’re playing it. The last black spot was before my time, so I’m not sure. The rules now are basically whatever the Board says they are.”

  “Aren’t they always?”

  “I can tell you this much: you won’t have to go up against anyo
ne from Boulder Branch this week. Your first assassin is not one of our own.”

  Ember crossed the room and pointed at the words Five Points on the Board. “My best guess is that this Branch is the first one. Niles Thisdell was a member of Five Points, so I think they would want first crack at me.”

  “Reasonable guess,” Fagan said. “I can draw up a list of who I think is most likely from that Branch, since the assassin’s identity is confidential unless they voluntarily decide otherwise.”

  Gabe stood and eyed the Board. “Does it help to know who it’ll be? I mean, are you allowed to go on the offensive and proactively take someone out?”

  Ember looked to Fagan for the answer, and the old woman tilted her head back and forth. “I think so. But if you start indiscriminately killing Club members because you think they might come after you, I'm sure your trial by combat will cease immediately, and you'll forfeit your sentence. Probably earn yourself an immediate, on-the-spot execution during the Review Board meeting about it. I can ask the Club Historian to be sure."

  “Don’t ask Kunjal,” Ember said. “The kid has only been here for a few weeks. He won’t know squat. Anyway, I’m not going to go around killing people for no good reason.” She turned to Gabe. “It’ll help to know who’s coming after me so I can get an idea of how it will happen. I have the advantage of knowing most of the assassins coming after me. I know how they think. Once I know who it is, I’ll know what I’m up against. I’ll know what kind of support network they have in place.”

  “If you can figure out who it is,” Gabe said, “it’s harder to do detective work with a target on your back.”

  “Yeah. There is that.”

  "Let me do some work on this," Fagan said. "In the meantime, you should prepare. If you have a security deposit box or weapon stashes you need to check, now's the time. Assume nothing and make sure you're prepared for every contingency. You may not get a second chance."

  Ember nodded. “Right. I’m going to go home and think about packing up my condo.”

  Fagan and Gabe didn’t respond, but Ember could read the looks on their faces. Neither of them thought she would last for the whole six weeks. A snarky comment appeared in her mind, but she could tell the joke wouldn’t land. They weren’t in the mood. Neither was she, actually, but she didn’t know what else to say.

  “Alright then,” Ember said. “I’ll catch you guys on the flipside.”

  Chapter Seven

  EMBER

  She needed advice, and she needed it badly. After leaving Fagan’s office, she turned left and walked down to the open area just inside the front door. The smell of gym and sweat was strongest here, but that was where she found Charlie.

  “Hey there,” he said. “How was the Board meeting?”

  She shrugged. “You didn’t hear?”

  He donned a warm and grandfatherly smile. “I did, but I prefer to get my information directly from the source.”

  “Well, I’m dead. Pretty much this week or one of the next five.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I heard. Sorry to hear that.”

  She paused, looking up and away at the fluorescent office lights that dotted the ceiling, then back at Charles. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

  “The black spot?”

  “Yeah. A six-week open-kill order? Letting the other Branches take a crack at me?”

  “No, never like this. I heard a little about one, but it was before my time.”

  “Oh. How did it turn out?”

  Charlie raised an eyebrow. His face took on an expression she’d never seen from him before, like a concerned father hearing that his only child had been diagnosed with cancer. Or like a man too conflicted to tell her the truth.

  “That good, huh?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Details about the last black spot are all blurry, but no, I hear it didn’t turn out well. None of that matters, now, Ember. You’re a different person, in a different time, in a different situation.”

  “Feels an awful lot like the sort of situation where the only way out for me is death. I’m not planning on selling tickets or anything, but it seems like a sure thing.”

  “I know. But it’s not. And it’ll help you to remember that.”

  She shifted on her feet. “I guess. But still — it seems petty. Or unfair. I don’t want to keep bringing that up, because it makes me seem whiny... but it’s true.”

  “You’re in a line of work that thrives on the unfairness in society. It might be good for you to taste a bit of it.”

  She’d never thought of it that way. Still, she wasn’t a rapist or a criminal. She’d killed a man — accidentally, at that — for breaching the trust and sanctity of the DAC’s bylaws. She wasn’t a bad person. Niles had ignored her, and she’d acted out of self-defense. Didn’t the Board see any of that?

  “I guess we’ll find out, if I make it that far.”

  Charlie looked around, then leaned against the wall. “Ember,” he said. “I took a liking to you the moment I met you. You’re down-to-earth, real, and you’ve got a strong sense of right and wrong. Assassins don’t need those things to be successful, but if they want to operate in the real world without going nuts, they’re helpful tools.”

  “...Thanks?” she began.

  He held up a hand. “But you also have a strong sense of dignity. And dignity is something only people who care about themselves can feel.”

  Ember wanted to interrupt, to walk away. This was going in a direction she hadn't expected — as if Charlie was delivering her last rites. A eulogy for her funeral. I’m not dead yet, she wanted to say.

  “The point is,” he continued, “I’ve met a lot of folks over the years. A lot of assassins. I’ve heard a lot of different reasons, and I’ve known a lot of different types of people. Every Branch is different. Every Branch makes their own way within the bylaws. But the assassins who have dignity seem to last a bit longer.”

  “Why’s that?” Ember asked.

  “Who knows? I’m no psychologist. But if I had to guess, it’s because they came to the whole thing from another past. Lots of folks have a past that they want to get away from, that makes them not care about themselves as much. And that makes them pretty damn good assassins, to be honest.

  “But again, the ones who last don’t have that baggage. They want to stay alive. They want to live to fight another day. It isn’t about the contracts. It’s about the dignity.”

  Ember couldn’t argue with his sentiment. She did have dignity, and she did feel a sort of calling toward the profession. Her ‘rules’ were a sign of that; she took contracts that adhered to her standards of operation.

  “Thanks, Charlie. Really. I mean it.”

  “I do, too. I think you’ll be around a bit longer than six weeks. I’ve been wrong before, but it’s not often.” He gave her a wink as he turned away and started to leave.

  Well, she thought. If I die, at least I’ll die with dignity.

  Chapter Eight

  XAVIER

  Xavier Montrose rolled up the sleeves of his shirt after he set the suitcase on the bed. His right arm bore tattoos, but the scars on the left had made new tattoos an impossibility. Flesh gnarled in twisting remnants of burns from an IED detonation in Kandahar. Some kid who was barely old enough to have scruff on his face had buried the thing in the middle of the road and flipped Xavier's Hummer on its head. At the time, Xavier had been thinking he was too old to be a soldier still, and the injury had proved it. A Purple Heart, an honorable discharge, and a VA card. These were the consolation prizes left over from an arm that looked like it had been shoved partway through a meat grinder.

  The left arm still functioned well enough, however, for what Xavier needed to do. It could support the stock of a rifle. It could grip a knife. It could hold piano wire. Best of all, due to the nerve damage he’d suffered there, he didn’t feel pain as much. These were the things required of a member of the Westminster Branch of the DAC, and Xavier excelled in them. He had for as
long as he’d been retired from the military.

  He enjoyed his work. Better this than wandering the outskirts of a factory as a forty-seven-year-old on the graveyard shift, nightstick in one hand, a scratchy uniform dress shirt rubbing his nipples raw as he counted the minutes until his shift would end. Xavier knew other vets who had condemned themselves to such an existence. Relegated to a lower branch of service than the military could provide.

  Not for him. He had decided long ago that he would earn a proper and dignified living for as long as he was physically able.

  Xavier popped open the suitcase and admired the contents. He liked assembling the sniper rifle, and even though he could do it in only a couple minutes, he sometimes worked through the process slowly, methodically. It was cathartic. Maybe even more than spotting the target, adjusting for distance, and pulling the trigger, though he enjoyed the entire process. There was something about the assembly that seemed so logical to him. He enjoyed the calming act of removing the parts from the foam slots, of taking these disparate parts and making them into a killing machine. Something about removing the hex key and screwing on the barrel. The sound the ten-round magazine made when it clicked in place. The snap of the stock when he unfolded it. The solid resistance of sliding the bolt action back and driving it home.

  Xavier put together the AX308 and loaded the magazine with the .308 Winchester subsonic rounds, then he set it on the bed and retrieved a chair from across the room. He set it next to the bed and admired his prized possession. He had pulled the triggers of many long rifles in his day, and the AX308 might be his favorite of all time.

  A knock came at the door. Xavier checked his watch, then cursed. He wasn’t expecting anyone, not this late in the afternoon, especially. His eyes went to the door locks. It had no deadbolt, but it did have a chain lock. If someone tried to open it, they could not see him from his current position. Xavier knew better than to put himself in clear view — or shot — of a door.