The Assassin's Prayer (4 page)

“Are
you Company?” Kain asked.

The
gunner didn’t reply. Or twitch. Or even blink. He just laid there and leaked
red all over the black and green linoleum.

Kain
lifted the MP5/10’s muzzle off the gunman’s nose, pressed it against the spot
where the man’s left arm hinged to his shoulder, and pulled the trigger.
Apparently the man’s pain-tolerance techniques did not extend to having his arm
nearly amputated by a half-dozen bullets—he howled in agony.

Kain
ignored the howling. During his years with the Company, he had encountered
other operatives who cultivated a taste for torture, who got their rocks off by
inflicting prolonged pain upon others, but they had been the demented, the
deranged, the sadists and psychopaths. Invariably, the Company put them down
like the diseased dogs they were. For Kain, torture was just one more tool in
the toolbox. He neither loved it nor loathed it, but understood that sometimes
the rules of the game called for torture as a means of harvesting information.
Sure, drugs were better, the information they extracted more reliable—a man
being tortured will sell his own mother down the river to stop the pain, making
the information gleaned suspect—but Kain didn’t have any sodium thiopental sitting
in his medicine cabinet, so he would just have to keep pumping bullets into
various parts of the gunner’s body until he broke.

“Silence
gets you nothing but more pain,” Kain said. He moved the MP5/10 over to the
gunman’s other shoulder. “So I’ll ask again—are you Company?”

The
man managed to stop howling, but huge drops of sweat dappled his forehead and
rolled down his face. Through agony-clenched teeth he hissed, “They’ll kill me
if I talk.”

“I’ll
kill you if you don’t and I’m right here, right now. Worry about me. Now, one
last time—are you Company?”

“Yes.”

“Talon?”

“Trying.”

“What’s
that supposed to mean?” Kain asked.

“I’m
in the program,” the man replied. “Last phase. You were my final field test.
They sent me to take you out and if I succeeded, I would be part of the Black
Talon team.”

Kain
couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’re telling me this hit was nothing
more than a training exercise?”

“Basically,
yeah.”

“Who
sent you?”

“Macklin.”

Kain
felt the past clawing at his mind. He had known this day would come. The
Company was not in the habit of letting their top-tier assassins just walk away
as Kain had done. The only real surprise was how long it had taken them to send
a team after him. He had expected to be targeted for extermination years ago.
Wasn’t like he had been hiding out or on the run—there was no point. He knew
better than most that if the Company wanted to find you, then you would be
found, whether you were living as a monk in some Mongolian monastery or simply
residing at your last known address. Kain had just gone on with life, learning
to live with the itch between his shoulder blades, knowing full well the
crosshairs would come eventually.

“Macklin
is going to kill you,” the crippled gunman said. His face was turning an
unhealthy shade of white. Blood pumped from his shattered legs in a widening
pool, probably from a bullet-pierced femoral. Add to that the severed arm and
the man was living on borrowed time.

Kain
took his foot off the man’s neck. “Maybe,” he said. “But you’re going first.”

The
hitter lifted a hand, the only one that still worked, and rubbed his throat where
Kain’s boot had pressed. He then lowered it back to his side and looked up at
Kain. “We about done here?”

“Yeah.”

“Make
it quick, will you?”

“Sure.”
Kain put a triple-burst through the hitter’s face then called Silas’ cell. As
it rang, he looked at the piles of dead meat polluting his kitchen and knew the
gunner had been right—Macklin would come for him. Kain had killed two Black
Talon protégés and Macklin would take that as both an insult and a challenge.

According
to the rumors, myths, legends, and bathroom wall graffiti, Black Talon was
commanded by a man known only as Colonel Macklin. He wore a wicked ear-to-ear
scar on his throat, compliments of the Colombian drug cartels. During a strike
against one of their cocaine networks in Bogota, Macklin had been captured and
brutally tortured. When the Colombians finally accepted the fact that they were
up against a man who simply would not break, they had cut his throat and left
him for dead.

But
somehow—by making a deal with the devil himself, some whispered—Macklin had
survived the ghastly wound. But even though the blade did not kill him, it
savaged his larynx, cursing Macklin to the life of a mute. According to the
stories, Macklin now hunted in silence, backed by his ruthless Black Talon
squad, seeking out those assassins who tried to leave or who the Company deemed
expendable for whatever reasons. Lay down your guns without permission and
eventually Macklin came looking for you. Basically, he was the Company’s
boogeyman.

Silas
answered his phone on the fourth ring. “Hello?”

“I
need a cleanup.”

“Why?”

“I
have two bodies leaking all over my linoleum.”

“I’ve
seen that linoleum. The blood is probably an improvement.”

“Just
get a cleaner over here already.”

“Our
cleaner is down in the city,” said Silas. “Be at least three hours before I can
get him to your place. Can you contain the situation for that long?”

“It’s
already contained,” Kain said. “I just need the mess cleaned up.”

“Three
hours then. If you’re not there, my man vanishes.”

Three
hours turned out to be an optimistic estimate, which left Kain with plenty of
time to mull over this morning’s deadly events. He suffered no delusion that he
had seen the last of Black Talon. Their reputation for relentlessness and
results was well-earned. When the brass pointed at a target, Talon went to
work, no questions asked, and didn’t stop until that target was deceased. Black
bag stuff, off the books; Kain doubted even the President knew about the kill-squad.
But any assassin who had ever worked for the Company knew that if you tried to
walk away, Talon would eventually come calling. Damage control, the brass
called it. Plugging potential leaks would be a more accurate description.
Silence the slayers, kill the killers, murder the murderers … it was all part
of the Company’s cover-your-ass syndrome.

The
cleaner arrived shortly after noon, accompanied by Silas. Kain bit back a surge
of anger as Silas entered. How many times had Silas knocked on this very door
and had Karen answer? How many times had she led him from this door to the
bedroom? Kain had never asked her how long the affair had been going on, how
many times she had slept with his best friend. As long as he didn’t know the
answer, he could convince himself it had only happened once, and once was
heartbreaking enough.

Silas
surveyed the damage in the kitchen and whistled. “They really did a number in
here.”

“Tell
me something I don’t know,” Kain said.

Silas
motioned to the cleaner. “I want your best work, Mr. X. Every single trace of
what went down here erased. Got it?”

Mr.
X, a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper crewcut, looked at Silas with weak
eyes that watered so much you’d think he was wearing contact lenses soaked in
lemon juice. “When I’m done, this place will be as pure as the Pope’s prick.”

“Yeah,
well, I’m relapsed Catholic and I’m not so sure the Pope’s prick doesn’t smell
like little boys’ colons.”

Mr.
X blinked at him. “Blasphemer,” he muttered. Then he went to work.

Kain
watched Mr. X drag the corpse with the knife in its eye toward the bathroom as
Silas leaned against the counter. “Don’t let his eyes fool you, Kain.”

“I
didn’t say anything.”

“You
didn’t have to. I know Mr. X has weak eyes, but trust me, he’s tough as nails,
gets the job done, and keeps his mouth shut. You got a mess you want cleaned
right, Mr. X is the best janitor there is.”

Kain
leaned down and plucked the dagger from the cadaver as the cleaner, grunting
with exertion, hauled it by. He straightened up and gave Silas a droll look. “Mr.
X?”

Silas
grinned. “What’s in a name, right? Can I help it if the guy’s read too many
comic books?”

Kain
went to the sink and washed the knife as Mr. X disappeared into the bathroom
with the body. What came next would be gruesome; Mr. X would douse the bodies
with a flesh-dissolving acid. Dead men were easier to handle when they were
nothing but bones.

“Got
any coffee?” Silas asked.

“Instant.”

“Mind
making me a cup?”

“Make
it yourself. You’re used to helping yourself to whatever is in my house.”

Silas
had the decency to flinch, but then composed himself and snapped, “You’re the
one who brings this stuff up every time we’re together, Kain, not me. Are you a
masochist or something?”

Kain
rubbed his temples. “Just shut up, will you? You’re giving me a headache.”

Mr.
X reappeared to drag the second body into the bathroom.

Silas
rubbed a hand over the bristles on his cheeks as he studied the blood smear
left by the corpse as it was dragged away. “Any idea who they were?”

Maybe
it was his imagination, but Kain thought he heard a wet sizzling noise coming
from the direction of his bathroom. “Company,” he said, images of flesh
sloughing off skeletons dancing in his head.

Silas
whistled. “Guess your past finally came back to bite you, eh, friend?”

“I’m
not your fucking friend.”

“Think
twice before you exile me, Kain. I mean, take a good look around you.” Silas
gestured around the room, pointing out the bloodstains and bullet holes like a
realtor showing off some new macabre interior design trend. Warzone chic. “The Company
tried to ice you this morning. That’s serious business.” Sunlight streamed
through the shattered glass doors and gleamed on Silas’ clean-shaven cranium. “Frank
has a lot of friends, Kain. Powerful friends, allies in some very
high
places. I say the word, he makes some calls, and maybe all your problems
disappear. Face it, Kain, you need all the help you can get right now.”

Kain
wanted another drink, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to pour it down his
throat or pour it all over Silas and then toss him a lit match. Didn’t matter anyway;
the bullet-busted bottle of Jack Daniels had been the only alcohol in the
house. “All I want from Frank is the money he owes me,” Kain said. “I’ll handle
my past my way.”

“Kain,
listen to—”

“This
conversation is over.” Kain headed for his bedroom, passing by the bathroom as
he did so. He could hear Mr. X working in there and the smell wafting out was
about as pleasant as having your nose rubbed in a dead skunk’s rectal cavity. Time
to get out of here. Hopefully by the time he returned the corpses would be history.

In
the bedroom, he donned a shoulder rig that housed the Colt .45 in an easy
cross-draw position, slid the dagger back into its boot sheath, then shrugged on
the black duster.

When
he stepped back into the kitchen, Silas asked, “Where the hell are you going?”

“Shopping.”

CHAPTER 5

You
could apply any number of derogatory adjectives to the back parking lot of the
Trinity Mall, but deserted was the one that best suited and it was the one that
came to Kain’s mind as he parked the Cherokee near the entrance of Paul’s Guns
& Sporting Goods. An autumn breeze scuttled dead leaves across the asphalt
and they had to drift quite a ways before finding a set of car tires to rest
against. He glanced at the dashboard clock. 1:21 P.M. The lunch break shoppers
had come and gone and it was too early for the evening rush.

As
Kain entered the gun shop, he saw that he was not the only customer. A woman
with thick, silken blond hair cascading down to her shoulders stood at the pistol
counter that ran along the left side of the store. Kain could only see the back
of her head, but he was betting she was a looker. God wouldn’t waste gorgeous hair
like that on an ugly face.

A
short, thin man wearing Coke bottle glasses that made his eyes look huge stood
behind the chrome-and-glass counter, assisting the woman. Having never been to
this particular shop, Kain presumed this was Paul. The guy looked more like a
hellfire-and-brimstone Bible-thumper than a gun dealer. He glanced up as Kain
walked in. “Be with you in a few,” he called out. “Feel free to look around.

Kain
nodded and then wandered the aisles, savoring the familiar scents of gunpowder
and cleaning solvents as he approached the racks of rifles and surveyed the
selection. Paul had an impressive stock, everything from single-shot .22s to
.12-gauge shotguns to 7mm-.08 hunting rifles to .50 caliber muzzle loaders. Mounted
deer heads watched him with cold marble eyes from their vaulted positions on
the beige-colored walls.

Kain
picked up a Mossberg .12-gauge pump-action shotgun. A fine weapon for sporting
and home defense, but not quite the type of combat weapon Kain needed to
replace the SPAS-12 that had been destroyed by the hitters currently enjoying
an acid bath in his shower. Still, the Mossberg was a quality piece, its lines
sleek and smooth with the lethal grace so inherent in firearms and Kain took
the time to enjoy the feel of it in his hands. He heard Paul talking to the
blond-haired woman but it was just background noise, no more intrusive than
elevator music. He didn’t pay much attention to it. Not at first anyway.

“Listen,
ma’am,” Paul was saying, “I’m not sure sellin’ you a pistol is such a hot idea,
and that’s the pure and simple truth.”

“Why
not?”

That
got Kain’s attention. His head jerked
up at the sound of the woman’s voice as memories rushed in from the recesses of
his mind. He hadn’t heard that voice in over five years. Could it really be
her? He still could only see the back of her head. “Larissa?” he said softly.

Her
shoulders stiffened, almost as if she expected the sound of her name to be followed
by a bullet in the back. Then she slowly turned around and Kain saw the shocked
look on her face. “Travis? Is that really you?”

Kain
put the Mossberg back on the rack and walked toward her. To his surprise, his
heart was hammering. He and Larissa Peterson had been lovers before they each
found someone else. He had gone on to marry Karen and Larissa had married Todd
Auburn, another Company operative. While he never became friends with Todd,
Kain had respected the man and been happy to see Larissa end up with him.

Kain
studied her as he drew closer. She wore sunglasses so he couldn’t see her eyes
and there was a nasty scar on her left temple that had not been there the last
time Kain had seen her, but otherwise she looked exactly like she had when they
had been together. If only he could say the same; he was all too aware that
years of hunting men for a living had left its mark on him. There were lines
etched on his face and a haunted look in his eyes that had not been there the
last time she saw him.

“Travis?”
she said again.

“Yes,
it’s me,” he said, emerging from the aisle of rifles. Her hands were stretched
toward him in welcome and he reached for them.

A
snarling mass of black and tan fur lunged at him. Kain jerked his hand back
before the German Shepherd could tear it off at the wrist. He had not seen the
dog when he first entered the store due to the configuration of the aisles; it
must have been lying at Larissa’s feet. As the Shepherd’s teeth snapped shut, Kain
nearly drew his Colt and gave the dog a .45 caliber reprimand. But then he saw
that the animal was wearing a guide harness.
A seeing-eye dog. But—

R
ealization dawning, he looked at Larissa.

She
bent down and stroked the Shepherd’s head, ruffling him behind the ears. “Easy,
Sirius. He’s a friend.
Friend
.” She emphasized the word, but the way
Sirius kept eyeballing him like he wanted to tear off a chunk or two made Kain
less than sure the dog was getting the message. Larissa stood back up and faced
Kain. “Sorry. He’s a bit overprotective.”

“He’s
yours?”

“Sure
is. Sirius is my eyes these days.” She smiled, but Kain detected pain behind
the brightness. “I’m not wearing these sunglasses just to be fashionable.” There
was a mischievous lilt in her voice that Kain had always loved.

“What
happened?” he asked.

“I’ll
tell you all about it over lunch,” Larissa said. “Just let me finish my
business here and then we can go play catch up. I’ll even let you buy.”

“All
right.” Kain’s heart had stopped pounding, thank God. He didn’t want to sit
through lunch stammering like some idiot schoolboy on his first date.

Larissa
turned back to Paul. “Sorry about that. He and I go way back and we haven’t
seen each other in a long time.”

“Glad
I could be around for the reunion.” Paul sounded bored.

“Anyway,”
Larissa said, “you were about to explain to me exactly why you feel I shouldn’t
own a handgun.”

Paul
glanced at Kain, then back to Larissa. “Well, ma’am, it’s like this—there’s a five-day
waiting period on handguns. Gives Uncle Sam time to do a background check and
when they do, they’re gonna realize you got no business with a
pistola,
pure
and simple.”

“Why?
Because I’m blind?”

“Well
… yeah.”

“Why
shouldn’t a blind person own a pistol?”

“Uh,
what for?”

“Protection,
the same reason thousands of other people own handguns.”

Paul
sighed. “No offense, ma’am, but you might shoot the wrong person. You can’t see
where you’re aiming.”

Larissa
started to say something, but Paul cut her off.

“Listen,”
he said, “this conversation is pointless anyway. They—the government—aren’t
gonna let you buy a handgun. It’s that pure and simple.”

“So
‘they’ don’t need to know,” Larissa said. “Is there anyone else in the store?”

“Just
your friend there.”

“Him
I trust,” Larissa said. “As long as there’s nobody else in here, let me put this
in plain English for you. I live down in Albany and the only reason I took a
bus all the way up here to your store is because I was led to believe that if I
needed to obtain a handgun without going through the whole paperwork process,
you were the man to see.”

Paul
abruptly looked more nervous than a priest caught masturbating. “Who told you
that?” he demanded. “I oughta sue for defamation of character.” He sounded
indignant, but Kain could tell it was all an act.

“A
friend told me,” Larissa replied. “That’s all I can say.”

Paul
leaned forward, elbows on the counter, and lowered his voice. Maybe it made him
feel better, more secretive, but Kain could still hear every word. “Let me see
if I got this straight,” the gun dealer said. “You want me to sell you a pistol
right here and now, without botherin’ with all the red tape bullshit.” His eyes
flicked to Kain, then back to Larissa. “That’s illegal, ma’am, pure and
simple.”

“I’m
willing to pay extra.”

“I
see.” Paul tossed Kain another glance.

Kain
decided to set the man’s mind at ease. “It’s your business, fella. Don’t worry
about me.”

Paul
asked, “You a cop?”

“Not
even close.”

“You
have to tell me if I ask, you know.”

“You
asked and I told you,” Kain said. “I’m not a cop.”

Paul
stared at him, undecided.

Larissa
tapped her fingers on the glass counter-top. “Well, do we have a deal or not?”

Paul
finally nodded, apparently convinced Kain wasn’t a badge. “Yeah, I have a few
in the back that aren’t on the books and can’t be traced. Hold on a second.” He
disappeared through a doorway behind the counter.

While
they waited, Larissa tucked a silken strand of blond hair back behind her ear.
Kain felt a stab of nostalgia, remembering how many times he had cradled her in
his arms and done the exact same thing. Pleasant times, good times, before his
life went to hell, before his best friend betrayed him, before he opened a
bathroom door and saw white skin in blood-red water. Kain felt the nostalgia
twist into bitterness. Amazing how fast good memories could lead to bad ones.

Paul
returned with his illicit inventory. “I’ve got some Magnums here,” he said. “A
few .357’s, a couple of .41’s, and a handful of .44’s.”

“No
Magnums,” Larissa said. “Too much recoil. I want to protect myself, not break
my wrist. Do you have anything in nine millimeter or .40? Something that will
put a man down but without the kick of the Mags?”

Paul
looked at her with newfound respect. “You know your guns, ma’am.”

“My
husband owned a lot of them.”

Kain
noticed she said
owned
. Past tense.

Paul
pulled out a compact automatic. “This here’s an Interarms Firestar.” He hit the
button to eject the magazine and then pulled back the slide to check the
chamber, making sure the gun was unloaded. He popped the magazine back in and
slid the weapon across the counter to Larissa. “Forty caliber with a five-round
clip. Semi-auto compact, small enough to fit nicely in your purse.”

Larissa
felt around in front of her until her fingers found the pistol. She picked it
up, getting familiar with the weight and balance. “Feels good,” she said. The
overhead fluorescent lights glinted off the stainless-steel finish.

“It’s
a good gun for close quarter self-defense,” Paul said. “Which I assume is what
you want it for.”

Larissa
asked, “How much?”

He
rattled off a price.

Larissa
laid the gun down on the counter, surprisingly gentle for someone with no
vision. She removed a roll of cash from her wallet and quickly peeled off some
fifties and twenties. Kain wondered how she could tell the different
denominations, but then he spotted the small notches cut into the corner of
each bill—two notches on the twenties, five notches on the fifties. Clever. She
handed the money to Paul. “Here you go.”

Paul
tucked the bills into the cash register. The corner of his mouth quirked up and
his tone was dry and amused as he said, “I trust you won’t be needing a receipt?” 

Larissa
slipped the Firestar into her purse. “No, but I could use a box of shells.”

Paul
grabbed a box of ammo from the shelf behind him and gave it to her. “Merry
Christmas,” he said. “On the house.”

Larissa
added the cartridges to her purse, then took a firm hold of the handle on
Sirius’ harness. The well-trained dog was instantly on his feet, ready to guide
his master. Larissa turned toward Kain. “I have one more errand to run inside
the mall. Why don’t you finish up whatever business you have here and then meet
me at the restaurant? I think it’s called Ruby’s. I’m not sure since I haven’t
been up this way in awhile.”

“Yeah,”
Paul offered, “it’s still called Ruby’s.”

Kain
said, “Sounds good. I’ll meet you there in half an hour.”

“It’s
a date.”

Kain
watched her leave the store, Sirius guiding her with remarkable ease through
the maze of aisles and displays. He did his best not to let his eyes drop and
check out how her backside looked in the pair of jeans, but he failed before
she was halfway to the door. Real good, that’s how it looked.

He
turned to Paul, who was looking at him with a smirk. Yeah, Paul knew where his
eyes had been. Kain ignored the knowing grin and said, “Appreciate you helping
her out like that. She’s an old friend.”

Paul
shrugged. “First Amendment gives folks the right to bear arms. Just doing my
part to uphold the Constitution, pure and simple.”

Kain
thought about telling him it was the Second Amendment, but decided not to
bother. “So you’re a patriot.”

“You
betcha.”

“I’m
looking for a shotgun.”

“I’ve
got lots of shotguns.” Paul gestured toward the aisle Kain had checked out
earlier. “Browning, Mossberg, Remington—”