since it was highly unlikely anyone would hear any shots.
I looked at my watch. 6.16. I’d managed to grab a few hours’ sleep, and was feeling alert if not refreshed. Although I’d had the phone on silent, I had two missed calls from Schagel. One at 3.30, the other an hour later. Which wasn’t like him at all. Calling me when I was on a job was both dangerous – just in case the phone went off at an inopportune moment – and a sign of impatience that I wouldn’t have expected from a consummate pro like Schagel. It made me uneasy.
Checking once again that the phone was on silent, I used the two other keys on the ring to open the front door, and was pleased to see that the target hadn’t deadbolted it from the inside. It was clear that Schagel was right, and he wasn’t expecting trouble. Either that or he was very careless.
I moved through the hallway in the direction of the staircase, trying hard but without success to ignore the photos on the walls. They were family pictures, featuring the silver-haired man I was here to shoot, and an attractive, middle-aged Filipina woman, who I assumed was his wife. There were also two kids. Both boys.In some they were very young, but in the more recent ones they were adults in their early twenties. It crossed my mind that one or both of them might be at home, but I immediately dismissed the thought. Schagel would have known, and he would have told me. I might not have liked the guy but I trusted his information absolutely.
I didn’t like the idea of killing a man in his own home. I liked the idea of killing his wife there even less. Together in the marital bed. It was all too personal, because it showed me exactly what I was destroying. Not just two lives. But their whole, shared history as well.
I’d only killed people in their homes twice before, and both occasions were a long time ago. Plus, my victims had been brutal, sick killers themselves and had deserved everything that was coming to them. But this time . . .This time the intended victim was a journalist, for Christ’s sake. He’d dug something up on one of Schagel’s clients, and now he was being made to pay. As Schagel had pointed out, more journalists die in the Philippines than any other country in the world, and I doubted if very many of them were corrupt.
I could feel the doubts coming on, and I had to work hard to force them aside, something I was sadly getting better at as my body count grew.
But the stakes were higher this time. Do this, and Schagel had hinted that there might be a chance he’d let me retire and live out my life in my own secluded corner of the world, never hurting another human being again.
I mounted the stairs, gun out in front of me, listening hard to the silence, conscious of every squeak of the wooden steps.
And then, as I reached the top and found myself on a landing with doors to either side of me and too many photoson the walls, I heard it. Coming from the room at the end.
The sound of a mobile phone ringing.
I heard movement behind the door, someone climbing out of bed, cursing sleepily.
Now was the time. Do it now, I told myself, and I could be out again in two minutes. Back at the hotel in ten.
There’s never any point in putting off the inevitable. It’s one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned over the years.
So I didn’t. Taking deep, steady breaths, I yanked open the door in one movement.
The target, Patrick O’Riordan, was standing next to the bed. Stark naked, his silver hair all over the place, he was holding his trousers and rifling through the pockets, hunting for the mobile phone. The bed was empty.
He turned round as I raised the gun and his eyes widened. He looked so damn vulnerable, so shocked that his life had come to this sudden, abrupt point, that when he opened his mouth to speak, no words came out. His lips simply moved, and small burbling sounds came from between them. I could see first the fear, then the resignation in his eyes. And
I looked at my watch. 6.16. I’d managed to grab a few hours’ sleep, and was feeling alert if not refreshed. Although I’d had the phone on silent, I had two missed calls from Schagel. One at 3.30, the other an hour later. Which wasn’t like him at all. Calling me when I was on a job was both dangerous – just in case the phone went off at an inopportune moment – and a sign of impatience that I wouldn’t have expected from a consummate pro like Schagel. It made me uneasy.
Checking once again that the phone was on silent, I used the two other keys on the ring to open the front door, and was pleased to see that the target hadn’t deadbolted it from the inside. It was clear that Schagel was right, and he wasn’t expecting trouble. Either that or he was very careless.
I moved through the hallway in the direction of the staircase, trying hard but without success to ignore the photos on the walls. They were family pictures, featuring the silver-haired man I was here to shoot, and an attractive, middle-aged Filipina woman, who I assumed was his wife. There were also two kids. Both boys.In some they were very young, but in the more recent ones they were adults in their early twenties. It crossed my mind that one or both of them might be at home, but I immediately dismissed the thought. Schagel would have known, and he would have told me. I might not have liked the guy but I trusted his information absolutely.
I didn’t like the idea of killing a man in his own home. I liked the idea of killing his wife there even less. Together in the marital bed. It was all too personal, because it showed me exactly what I was destroying. Not just two lives. But their whole, shared history as well.
I’d only killed people in their homes twice before, and both occasions were a long time ago. Plus, my victims had been brutal, sick killers themselves and had deserved everything that was coming to them. But this time . . .This time the intended victim was a journalist, for Christ’s sake. He’d dug something up on one of Schagel’s clients, and now he was being made to pay. As Schagel had pointed out, more journalists die in the Philippines than any other country in the world, and I doubted if very many of them were corrupt.
I could feel the doubts coming on, and I had to work hard to force them aside, something I was sadly getting better at as my body count grew.
But the stakes were higher this time. Do this, and Schagel had hinted that there might be a chance he’d let me retire and live out my life in my own secluded corner of the world, never hurting another human being again.
I mounted the stairs, gun out in front of me, listening hard to the silence, conscious of every squeak of the wooden steps.
And then, as I reached the top and found myself on a landing with doors to either side of me and too many photoson the walls, I heard it. Coming from the room at the end.
The sound of a mobile phone ringing.
I heard movement behind the door, someone climbing out of bed, cursing sleepily.
Now was the time. Do it now, I told myself, and I could be out again in two minutes. Back at the hotel in ten.
There’s never any point in putting off the inevitable. It’s one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned over the years.
So I didn’t. Taking deep, steady breaths, I yanked open the door in one movement.
The target, Patrick O’Riordan, was standing next to the bed. Stark naked, his silver hair all over the place, he was holding his trousers and rifling through the pockets, hunting for the mobile phone. The bed was empty.
He turned round as I raised the gun and his eyes widened. He looked so damn vulnerable, so shocked that his life had come to this sudden, abrupt point, that when he opened his mouth to speak, no words came out. His lips simply moved, and small burbling sounds came from between them. I could see first the fear, then the resignation in his eyes. And
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