Night of the Assassin: Assassin Series Prequel by Russell Blake (people reading books .TXT) 📗

on his exercises. Emilio had transitioned him from hay to a real workout, in order to keep up with his rapidly-developing physique. His upper body was sculpted by a series of isometric exercises, culminating in chin-ups and push-ups; his lower body was conditioned with increasingly longer runs. Even as he approached his fourteenth birthday, he could easily be mistaken for two years older and his gait had taken on the measured confidence of an athlete.

Don Miguel had occasionally stopped by – each time he’d been surprised by the boy’s development. Gone for six months at a time, it seemed that with each visit, the boy was a few inches taller and with a few more pounds of muscle. Don Miguel was pleased with the metamorphosis and indicated his satisfaction with generous increases in the boy’s allowance, as well as in Emilio’s remuneration. The boy was now easily half of Emilio’s workload because the number of skills to be learned increased with his age. He was already an accomplished horseback rider and swimmer, and had shown considerable aptitude for archery. It wasn’t unusual for the boy to spend hours each day patiently firing at targets with his hunting bow, gradually increasing the distance as he mastered a given range. That was how he approached things – methodically, analytically. He’d quickly taken Emilio’s counsel to heart and worked at controlling his emotions no matter what the stimuli. Emilio had taught him any number of tricks to help him remain detached and calm in any situation.

On his fourteenth birthday, Don Miguel was nowhere to be found, but had sent a substantial financial stipend to be lavished on the boy’s newest tier of training – weapons. Emilio had received instructions to teach him to become proficient with handguns and rifles, and had sourced a variety of guns of all shapes and sizes. By this point, he knew the boy would practice until he mastered whatever the challenge was – and he wasn’t disappointed with his firearms progress. Within a year, the boy was a crack shot with any weapon you handed him, firing either right or left handed. He’d become ambidextrous through discipline and application, and spent three to four hours every afternoon at the private shooting range Emilio and he had constructed for his use.

Firearms were illegal in Mexico, but out in the country, with no neighbors for miles and with all the local police on the payroll, nobody seemed to mind the constant volleys of shots that echoed through the trees for hours on end. Nobody was being hurt, no harm was done and everyone was getting bountiful Christmas bonuses each year, so there was no reason to rock any boats. It was live and let live as far as law enforcement was concerned, which worked out in everyone’s best interests.

The boy quickly grew comfortable with any guns provided to him. As his fourteenth year transitioned into his fifteenth, he was exceeding all expectations Emilio had for him. One afternoon, shortly after the boy’s fifteenth birthday, Emilio performed the ultimate pistol test, bringing with him a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum revolver and a Ruger 9 mm semi-automatic. He set up two coffee cans thirty yards away from each other, paced off forty yards with the boy and held out both handguns.

“The target on the left, shoot with your left hand using the revolver. The one on the right, use the Ruger. Fire as quickly as you can while maintaining accuracy,” Emilio instructed.

The boy hefted both pistols, getting a feel for their weight. He knew from hundreds of hours of experience that firing a big bore revolver required different skills to firing a small caliber automatic. Besides the difference in recoil, which was considerable and had to be adjusted for, a revolver used each trigger pull to rotate the cylinder that held the bullets, requiring significantly more pressure and causing a reflex that would make most shooters fire high, pulling up from the target. Firing a revolver with both hands in a military crouch was hard enough, but doing so with his ‘weak’ hand while adjusting for the low recoil of the Ruger was an almost impossible challenge.

“How many pounds of trigger pressure on the Ruger?” the boy asked.

“I wonder, if you’re in a situation where you have to use someone else’s weapon, whether they’ll be able to answer that for you? My guess is, not.” Emilio replied.

The boy shrugged. Never hurt to ask.

He calculated the distance and then began firing, alternating weapons, rapidly, but not in an uncontrolled manner. The cans, which they’d filled with water, both sprouted leaks. After emptying both weapons in their direction they walked over to inspect the results.

Of six possible hits from the revolver, five had found their mark. All nine that Emilio had loaded the Ruger with found theirs.

“Heh. Not bad. I would have guessed you wouldn’t have hit any with the revolver. The only problem is that the one you didn’t hit it with might have been the one you needed to save your life. We’ll need to practice this more, switch things up on you. And I want to start practicing shooting while running or riding in a vehicle soon. Once you master being able to hit anything using whatever you’re handed from a still position, we’ll kick it up a notch and have you simulate real combat situations where you’re not stationary.” This was high praise from Emilio, who was grudging with his accolades.

The boy smiled. He understood his performance was extraordinary. Nobody he knew could have done it. But Emilio was right. There was no room for error, and no satisfaction from being almost great.

Emilio’s only concern as the boy matured was the inevitable interest that he showed toward his daughter, Jasmine. She was a year younger than the boy but already a beauty, thankfully reflecting her mother’s genes rather than Emilio’s. Also highly intelligent, she was every bit the boy’s match when it came to anything intellectual, and there had