Primary Target: Six Assassins: Book 1

by Heskett, Jim

  “Welcome to the Millennium. How can I help you?” His voice had a slight warble to it, a touch of phlegm stuck just inside the corner of his mouth.

  She noticed the light in his eyes when he greeted her. A tiny hint of flirt in the professionalism. That would be enough. Since Ember wasn’t wearing anything low cut, she couldn’t leverage what limited amount of cleavage she had. But the counter was the perfect height, so she leaned over, making sure her breasts rested on top of it, in full view of the front desk clerk. She caught him making a quick glance down at the girls before his eyes whipped back up and he cleared his throat.

  “I have a… sensitive matter to talk about with you. I hope that’s okay.”

  The college-aged kid looked uncomfortable as he shifted on his feet, but he broadened his smile anyway. “I’m happy to help. Are you a guest at the hotel? I don’t believe I’ve seen you today.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  He reached for a stack of slips of paper off to his right. “Do you need a room?”

  “Someone checked out of 416, correct?”

  “A guest did request a late checkout time for that room, ma’am. I haven’t seen him in a while, though. He may have left his key in his room.”

  Ember stifled a smile. She knew it was a man now, at least. “You spoke to him, though.”

  “Um,” the kid said, and his eyes darted around. She could see the mental calculations running through his mind. “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to answer that. Can I ask what this is regarding?”

  “You see, the thing is… he’s my husband.”

  The clerk raised an eyebrow a little, which told her something else. He had seen this man before, and he was surprised they could be married. So, most likely older, maybe someone with facial scars or acted slovenly or something else to give the clerk pause. More clues.

  “I see, ma’am.”

  It would be easiest if she could persuade the clerk to tell her who had rented the room or to find a way to access that info herself, but there was no point. She would expect any good assassin to pay in cash, use a fake name, and stay well out of range of any hotel surveillance cameras. “I’m not asking you to do anything like tell me if he had company or something like that. You probably can’t tell me, anyway. I just want to rent that particular room, right now. Before housekeeping cleans it.”

  The clerk frowned. “That’s... not really hotel policy.”

  Ember leaned forward, smushing her breasts out a little further along the counter. She looked up at the young man and batted her eyes a couple of times, and then she pushed her credit card across toward him. "Please? I'm not looking for tawdry information about an affair. I'm concerned about him. It's important."

  He gulped, but accepted her card and started clacking on the keyboard.

  Two minutes later, she had a keycard to room 416 and was on her way. Her heart didn’t stop racing as she rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. She had to push the adrenaline deep down inside to play it cool for the front desk kid, but now it came bubbling out of her.

  When she opened the door to the room, everything was exactly as she’d expected to find it. The bed’s sheets had been pulled back, towels on the floor in the bathroom. Interesting. So, her target had been here all day long. Maybe even taken a nap and a shower while waiting for her to return home.

  The first Branch had chosen their assassin to take on her contract yesterday. Had the other five also decided already, or only the first in line?

  Either way, it didn't matter. Her assassin could have spent the night here last night or rented the room in the morning. The man would have easily been able to figure out what her car looked like, and a quick glance out the hotel window every hour would tell him when she was home. Ember hadn't been home for most of the day, so the man had probably decided to take advantage of the amenities and cleaning he'd paid for. She approached the window and examined it. Maybe she could get a fingerprint from it. She'd need a kit, but hers was currently back at the Post Office. But even if her assassin had been careless enough not to wear gloves, she probably didn't have time to find a willing law enforcement person to run his prints, and it wouldn't be the easiest and most efficient way of determining who her assassin friend was.

  She would have to use more manual methods of determining the one after her. And hopefully, she would know it before she opened a door somewhere to find the barrel of a gun in her face. Advance warning would be helpful.

  She did a full circle in the center of the room, taking it all in while focusing on nothing in particular. It was a trick Fagan had taught her, and she had perfected it. The ability to allow her subconscious to examine, assess, and analyze everything her senses fed it, then spit out anything noteworthy. It was like intuition, but she had turned it into more of a reliable science.

  One thing of note did stick out to her in the room. The trashcan sitting next to the window had a particular smell to it. She crouched and gave it a good sniff. Wintergreen and the tangy sour smell of Skoal tobacco spit. She remembered the odor well because her gross uncle Robert used to dip the stuff on a regular basis, always with little dribbles of brown in his beard after he would spit. He would then chase her around the room and try to hug her, which had quickly made it onto her top-ten all-time list of things she hated the most.

  She ran through the details she’d learned. Male, older, possibly strange- or weird-looking, dipped Skoal. Preferred sniper rifles, or was at least a fan of long-distance kills. Not an exact match for anyone she had in mind, but Ember had certainly narrowed the field.

  Chapter Twelve

  EMBER

  Day Three

  Ember took a bite of her bagel and then set it on top of the paper bag on the motel bed. She dabbed cream cheese from the corners of her lips and made a face.

  “What’s that look for?” Gabe asked, sitting in a chair on the other side of the room.

  “That place puts so much cream cheese on their bagels, it’s like they over-ordered on a shipment and they’re trying to get rid of it.”

  Gabe looked like he didn't know how to respond. He was a cute specimen, barely twenty-two years old, tall and lean, and pretty tanned for a white guy. He had deep green eyes that Ember appreciated any time she noticed them. The Club had no rules about recruits and mentors dating, but Ember wouldn't consider it. Mixing business and pleasure was a recipe for failure. Plus, he was too young. He never got any of her pop culture references, which was a big turn-off.

  She got the feeling that Gabe had considered it, though. She’d seen him steal glances. That was fine with her —she enjoyed the extra attention but trusted him to be professional. She wouldn’t have agreed to become his mentor if she didn’t.

  “...I should get bagels from somewhere else next time?” he eventually said.

  Ember paced the room, hands on her hips. "No, Gabe, I'm sorry. I'm trying to be funny, and it's coming out bitchy. Just wound up a little too tight. Because of the consecutive multiple assassins coming to kill me. You know."

  “Yeah,” he said, chewing a mouthful of over-cream-cheesed bagel. “This whole thing sucks.” He glanced around at the motel room, frowning. “It’s like you’re trying to make it worse with this choice of motel. You could have at least gotten a room at the Boulderado or the St. Julien. I know you can afford it.”

  She stopped pacing and eyed him. “You’re a rich kid, aren’t you?”

  “You say that with a certain tone.”

  “Are you telling me you’re not?”

  "I could have been rich until I turned down a job offer from my dad."

  “I didn’t know that.”

  Gabe frowned. “You don’t know much of anything about me, actually. You haven’t asked.”

  “Fair point. I’ve tried to keep it professional, but maybe that’s come across as a little too cold.”

  “I just look at it like we work together. We don’t have to be buddies.”

  She nestled into a spot on the bed across from his chair. �
��Now you’re making me feel bad. I don’t want you to think of me as your boss. Tell me where you’re from.”

  “A tiny little town in Oklahoma named Catoosa.”

  “Oklahoma? I don’t hear an accent.”

  “I worked hard to shed it when I moved to Colorado.”

  “How did you get rich?”

  “I’m not rich. My family is. Oil money, initially, and then my grandfather invested in payphones. At one time, he owned just about every single payphone in Oklahoma. My dad invested it back into oil before cellphones made those things obsolete, and he got really rich. I grew up, he offered me a job, and that's where we split. I had no intention of entering the family business."

  “Why not? Seems like with money, you could have done anything you wanted.”

  “Is being an assassin not good enough?”

  She laughed. “No, it’s just that most of us are here because of something or someone in our lives. Military background and the ‘seen too much shit’ mentality, private espionage sector and again the ‘seen too much shit’ syndrome, or they were groomed for it — picked by someone else and taken under their wing.”

  Gabe shrugged.

  “I guess it just seems like you’ve got that ‘star quarterback from a small town who woos the world with his genius intellect and ends up as a hotshot banker’ vibe.”

  Now Gabe raised an eyebrow. “That’s quite a specific vibe, Ember.”

  Ember felt silly, but hell — this was quite possibly the last week of her life. “Sorry,” she continued. “I honestly don’t mean any of that in a bad way; it’s just that doing what we do means you’re taking a massive risk with everything — with your entire life. It seems like the kind of gig you fall into because there really are no other options. And it seems like you’ve got at least a couple of other options.”

  “Are you talking me out of it?”

  “Not at all,” she said. “I like you, and you’re going to make a hell of an assassin. It’s just surprising that someone so… normal ended up doing this.”

  He shrugged again. “Yeah, I don’t know. I guess I just needed something different in my life. Something… more interesting.”

  “So, you’re a trustafarian on the run?”

  “Sure, I have a trust fund. Does that mean you don’t want to mentor me?”

  Ember shrugged. “There’s a good chance that, at some point over the next six weeks, it won’t matter anymore.” When he looked uncomfortable, Ember waved a dismissive hand. “I’m just messing with you. When I’m dead, I’m sure Fagan will take you on and finish your training. I know she looks like a hardass drill sergeant… but she’s actually much worse than that once you get to know her.”

  “Good to know.”

  Ember snorted. “I’m still messing with you. Fagan is a big kitty cat. She knows better than to go too hard on a new person.”

  “She hasn’t mentored you for long, has she?”

  "No, she hasn't. Something happened to my last mentor, a little before your time. It doesn't matter — someone will fill you in. I've known Fagan since I joined the Boulder Branch three years ago. She helped me when I was a recruit, she helped me when I was training, and she's helped me after that, too. She's as solid as a rock. I did consider asking her to be my mentor when I first joined, but she was too intimidating to ask. But, as you can see, I went a different direction.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Sure, why would you? But, if I'm going to survive the next six weeks, it'll be by listening to Fagan’s counsel and doing exactly what she thinks is right. You don't get to be as old as she is and still suck air unless you know a thing or two about how to survive in shitty times."

  She thought about mentioning Charlie, how she had often considered asking him to be her mentor instead but decided not to go down that path.

  “I definitely believe Fagan knows what she’s doing,” Gabe said.

  “You’ll be ready to take your membership test soon, then your intensive training begins. You can count on at least six months of that.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Okay, enough of this getting-to-know-each-other crap. Let’s talk business, kid.”

  Gabe smiled, then pointed at the cork board sitting on the dresser next to the TV, where four index cards with different names had been thumbtacked. “What do you think? These are our best candidates.”

  Ember crossed the room to take a close-up look at the names. She, Gabe, and Fagan had spent much of the previous evening on the phone with various people, trying to piece together the clues Ember had uncovered about her attacker from the day before. Based on what she’d learned, there were four older men who were known to use wintergreen-flavored Skoal in the Denver Assassins Club. Three of them had visible scars, and two of them had facial scars that made them stand out.

  But one name in particular kept jumping out at her. She removed the thumbtack from that index card. Xavier Montrose written on it. “I think this is our guy.”

  “What makes you think it’s him?”

  "He was involved in a single-assassin trial by combat last year, if I remember correctly. He seems like the type to step up and get some glory. Real surly bastard, war vet, mangled by an IED or an RPG or something like that. We met at an inter-Branch meeting about two years ago, and he sneered through our entire conversation. I mean, the members who are chosen or volunteer to be part of this black spot trial by combat don't have to hate their targets, but it doesn’t hurt.”

  “Westminster Branch? We were so sure yesterday it would be Five Points to send the first assassin.”

  Ember shrugged. “Yeah, but this makes sense, too.”

  “You’re positive it’s him.”

  Ember fanned her face with the index card and pushed air out of her nose. "No, not positive, but it's the most reasonable answer. And it gives us a solid place to start. I know he favors sniper rifles, so it would make sense for him to lead off his attempt on me by trying to hit me in my home."

  “Better than death by over-cream-cheese?”

  She grinned. "Nice callback. See? You're learning."

  “Do you know where to find him?”

  “Negative,” she said. “That was the other thing that made me sure it was him. The other three candidates have all checked in with their Branches in the last twenty-four hours. Xavier has not.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “I do. I don’t expect him to be home, but I’ll pay him a visit later.”

  “Not right now?”

  “No, Gabe. Not right now.”

  He put his bagel aside and wiped cream cheese from his hands onto a napkin. “Okay, what do we do?”

  "Nothing at the moment,” Ember said as she checked the time on the alarm clock next to the bed. "Sit tight. Be ready to act when I call you. I might need your computer magic if Xavier is hiding out. But, right now, I'm late to get to Fort Collins."

  “Fort Collins? What do you have to do up there?”

  Ember winked at him. “A favor for an old friend.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  ZACH

  Zach sipped his coffee as he stared at the second of the two doughnuts, sitting atop the wax paper. He’d already eaten one, and it had been delicious. Glazed, covered with a chocolate coating, drizzled with maple, and finished with crumbled bacon bits. He’d bought the two doughnuts and the coffee from the brand new place on Prospect Road in Fort Collins, an hour north of Denver. Even though he was running short on time, something about the crisp morning air had made him want to sit out on the patio with the other souls braving the cold. He liked to watch the steam rise out of the little hole in the coffee lid.

  One doughnut down, he yearned to eat the second one. Gourmet doughnuts were a new experience for him. But, he also knew he would pay for it. Not monetarily. He’d already done that part. No, in two hours, he and his roommate Alec were supposed to go for a run around campus, and he knew exactly what two doughnuts would feel like, rolling
around in his stomach. Alec liked to run hard. To him, running was a competition.

  Zach was already tired, having stayed up late last night for his upcoming Chem test. He didn’t even want to run, but he knew what would happen if he backed out of a planned session. Alec would call him a wuss (or worse) for days and change his Netflix password. Alec could be petty like that. But, it’s not as if Zach had room to complain. He gave Alec as much crap as he took from him. That’s probably what made them good roommates.

  A sudden gust of wind ripped along the strip mall outside the doughnut shop, and Zach put a hand over the doughnut to keep it safe. Maybe it would have been better for the spare doughnut to topple off the wrought iron table and fall to the ground, but something in him made him save it.

  And, when he leaned forward to wipe maple glaze from his hands onto a napkin, he saw her.

  Sitting at a table about twenty feet away, the woman was holding a mug of coffee in one hand and turning the pages of a paperback with the other. She had pale skin and jet-black hair. The hair hung flat against her scalp, but it spooled out into waves as it reached her shoulders. So black, it looked almost silvery in the light.

  He couldn’t tell for sure because she was seated, but she looked tall. Well-built. Wearing jeans and a tank-top that didn’t seem warm enough for this chilly October morning, he could see the V-shape of her back from this side angle. She had the defined biceps of someone who put in significant hours at the gym every week. Her triceps weren’t too shabby, either.

  Then, when she looked up at him, his heart stopped. She had giant eyes like two blue crystals, hovering against the backdrop of her milky skin and opposing cherry red lips. She smiled, and he felt a pulse of nervous energy shoot through him like the pull of gravity from the ocean’s undertow. Her eyes danced over his face, then away, then back again on him.