Work In Progress

I'll call him John. He never gives out his real name, so one name is as good as another. He is, among other things, an assassin, and a damn good one. Actually, he's the best there is, though of course you won't find anyone who will either confirm or deny that.

Now, assassins are a poorly understood lot. If you close your eyes and try to picture an assassin, you'll probably come up with the image of a man casually setting up his sniper rifle on the top of the building next to his mark. If killing people was so easy, we'd have to draft our political leaders by lottery rather than elect them by vote. The world of the skilled assassin is a very deadly one, often more dangerous for the predators than for their prey. Assassins spend most of their time hunting their own kind.

It was doing exactly that which took up most of the time John spent on the execution of Carlos Ramirez y Fuentes, the erstwhile dictator in all but title of a small rural patch of one of the less prosperous of the South American countries. He wasn't too bad, as such overlord-thugs go, but then being beaten with a stick isn't bad as vicious beatings go. However little his conscience bothered him, he did know that there were people who would, so he spared little expense in fortifying his villa.

A dozen armed men patrolled the edges of Carlos' extensive property, and there were another four inside who stuck close to Carlos day and night. They were not high quality assassins, but then most of the paid killers in this world are mere thugs — simple men whose one great intellectual discovery was how to amputate their moral compass.

Of course John attacked in the night. Those prepared for the night always have an advantage in it. This advantage would largely have been lost if the Carlos' guards had their dogs at hand while walking the patrols, but luckily for John the dogs had all been sick for the past two days from some bad dog food. Either that or an inhaled neurotoxin the dogs were exposed to sniffing around the grounds. The symptoms are quite difficult to tell apart.

The guards were very nervous without their dogs, of course. Any change in routine is enough to set a bodyguard on edge. They had largely calmed down by the second day. John always liked to say that Iago's observations about reputation go double for fear: it often comes without cause and goes without reason. Not that their lost fear would have done them any good, but their reduced caution made John's job easier.

The first two (they patrolled in pairs) were not much trouble. A pair of crossbow bolts silenced them forever. The rest were easier; with a gap in the patrol there was more time to work on the tail end of the snipped circle. Within half an hour the twelve professional killers who guarded the property had become professional worm food. It was the first time any of them had ever given food to the hungry.

Though it was safe to walk up the driveway, John never took risks he could avoid. He had dispatched the sniper who sat at one end of the property and watched the patrols over the patrols every night with his scope. The last words he heard before he felt the bullet pierce his skull were the almost apologetic explanation, "It's a bad idea to return to the same place by habit." John had hidden the walkie-talkie in the tree next to the forked branch the sniper sat in every night. It was unnecessary, but John always had a soft place in his heart for snipers. They played a hard and lonely game, and when they lose it, they deserve to know why they lost.

John had killed that sniper, but what if he missed a second one? He had never made that mistake in his one hundred and thirty eight jobs, but if there was going to be a first time, he'd rather not make it easy for the guy.

The electricity going out was not an unusual occurrence and the well maintained diesel generator kicked on almost instantly. It sputtered out nearly as quickly since John's bullet cut the fuel line almost where it entered the engine. In a few moments John was inside the house and eliminated the house guards. Private rooms may be more comfortable, but they are less safe than shared quarters. Within ten minutes of entering, John had made his way inside the bedroom to where the man and his wife slept. Silently he drew the long, sharp sword from its velvet-lined sheath. Moving with silent grace, he came to the foot of the bed with his sword poised and looked into the face of the doomed man.

John almost thought that it would be a pity that this man who had ordered so many tortures and painful executions would himself die a quick and painless death, but he checked himself. No. He grimly smiled to himself. I will not make Hamlet's mistake, he thought. I am executioner, not judge; God may decide whether Carlos Ramirez y Fuentes should suffer, it is only my job to hasten that decision. In a flash John brought his sword down separating the dictator's head from his body. At the same time as Almira Ramirez y Sanchez was startled from her sleep, John leaped catlike over the bed and twisting in mid-air pulled his sword out of the mattress, landed next to the woman who just sat up and continuing the sweep of his sword sent Almira to join her husband. Her jealous spite had deprived too many beautiful young girls of their ears and nose because Carlos had looked at them longingly, too many women of their lives because Carlos flirted with them.

John cleaned his sword and re-sheathed it. There was still one task left. The Ramirez' daughter, Arcelia, had no hand in her parents cruelty and no one really wish her ill. Certainly no one who had commissioned John to execute the elder Ramirez, at least.

He walked into her room, in which she lay asleep, and inspected it (and her) carefully for hidden weapons and trap triggers. When he was satisfied that she was completely unarmed, he leaned against her dresser and said, simply, "Arcelia."

She awoke slowly at first, but then with a start when she realized that there was a strange man in her room. He held his hand up to signal that she should be quiet, but she screamed anyway. Pulling the blanket protectively around her, she huddled up in the corner of her be farthest from the strange man and waited for the guards her scream would fetch.

After a few moments, he broke the silence, "There is no one here to come running to you, Arcelia, unless you can scream loud enough to wake the dead."

She merely looked at him with fearful eyes. He was probably lying just to get her to keep quiet. She screamed again, "Help! Help!" Where were the guards? She cowered back a little, and pulled the sheets a little tighter, though he hadn't moved.

"Since all I want to do is talk with you, we might as well start now as wait a few minutes for no one to come."

She started at him in pure fear. Who was this man, and could he be telling the truth? How could he be telling the truth? Her father had over a dozen men working on the grounds. Could they call be dead?

"What do you want with me?"

"What does any man want of any woman? That you listen to me and be rational."

She flashed him a burning look. The circumstances might be terrifying, but she was not going to take a sexist joke lightly, all the same.

He chuckled. "If you don't want certain answers, don't ask open-ended questions. Anyhow, for your sake I'll be brief." He drew a deep breath, then continued, "Arcelia, you're a woman alone in dangerous country. For perhaps obvious reasons I had to disable the telephones, so you can't call for help. I don't suggest trying to shout to your neighbors, either. Your father picked this area for his retirement because of its isolation. Unless you can talk with animals you'd find it a very one-sided conversation.

"My offer is this: I can simply leave you here, and you can find your way to wherever you want to go carrying whatever weapons you can find in the house, or you can go unarmed and I'll escort you until you're there and safe."

She stared at him incredulously.