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

it. He hoped that wasn’t a fatal flaw tonight. He’d know soon enough; even though his work was done, he still needed to complete phase two of the sanction, which was often the hardest part – the part where he got out alive.

Alberto called his men to an area near the dock and briefed the new arrivals. They would be on shift until four-twenty, at which point they’d be relieved by a new, fresh set of eight. The men handed the replacements their weapons and spare magazines, then moved in a group toward the hotel, a wing of which had been booked for the security detail and boat staff. Alberto debated going with them, having already been on for eight hours, but he couldn’t eradicate the twisting in his guts that something was amiss, so he knew there was no way he’d be able to sleep. He held up a pair of night vision goggles and studied the rocks of the jetty that protected the harbor, slowly and carefully scanning every foot of them.

Nothing.

A cry from the bridge interrupted his reconnaissance, and he looked up to where one of the new arrivals was waving. Fucking idiot. Why didn’t he use the radio? That’s what they were for.

Alberto turned the volume up on his handheld and called to the man. “What is it?”

“I…was Papi or any of the girls swimming earlier today or this evening? I’ve been gone for eight hours.”

“No. I don’t think so. Why?” Alberto asked, honestly puzzled by the question.

“There are a pair of–”

Without warning the radio went dead. The hair on Alberto’s arms stood up as he peered through the goggles up at the bridge. He couldn’t see either of the men who were stationed there as sentries.

“Bridge. Come in. Repeat. Come in. Do you read me?” Alberto hissed into the radio, his stomach sinking even as he called.

The body of one of the two guards sailed over the side of the bridge, landing in a formless mass four stories below on the concrete surface of the dock near his feet. Alberto stared at the body in disbelief, a stain of thick, dark blood quickly pooling around the corpse. Moments later a second form hurtled over – the security men all rushed toward the yacht, now in full-scale attack mode. The two men on the bridge had been in unassailable positions, with the only access from the rear deck…and the salon, where Papi had last been seen leading his nubiles below to his palatial zebra wood-paneled stateroom.

The night abruptly exploded into an inferno, temporarily blinding Alberto. From inside the boat, the whump of an incendiary grenade illuminated the interior with a white-hot flash before the ensuing blaze erupted from the side windows, shattered from the scorching blast. A figure in black wearing scuba gear swung from the bridge over the waterside of the ship, dropping the forty feet into the harbor even as Alberto hazily trained his weapon on him and opened fire with a hail of bullets. Burst after burst of sizzling lead seared into the water where the diver had sunk, and Alberto’s men quickly joined him, shooting point blank into the surface in the hopes of hitting something.

The assassin allowed himself to sink to the bottom, twenty-five feet below the surface. He kicked a few feet and took cover beneath the gargantuan hull, the bullets tearing harmlessly through the deep where he would have been if he was stupid enough to try to swim out of the harbor’s mouth. He’d give it a few minutes and let the gunmen exhaust their wrath before doing so – he still had sufficient air. Even the most dedicated mercenaries would tire of emptying weapons into the bay for no reason, so it would only be a few more moments before they stopped and began thinking about evacuating before the military arrived to check on the blaze.

It would be a long slog across the bay without the swim fins he’d been forced to leave on the aft deck. That was regrettable. He made a mental note in the future to bring an extra set with him to attach to the hull, where they would be safely waiting for him if he was forced to make a hasty departure. He checked his watch and peered through the gloom at his regulator gauge, which he illuminated using the dim glow from the GPS. He had forty-five percent left, which would get him out of the harbor and at least halfway across the bay before he needed to jettison the tank and switch to using his snorkel.

With any luck at all he could be on the far side, on the banks of the little fishing hamlet of Barra de Navidad, within an hour and fifteen minutes, where a battered Toyota Tacoma sat waiting on a dark, deserted street by the water. It would be the least-expected escape route given it was the farthest point from the ship. If the security detail still had any fight left in them after losing their meal ticket, they’d deploy to the more obvious areas closer to the yacht, although any pursuit would be hurried due to concerns over the arrival of the marines. The odds of there being any serious hunt for him were about zero, he knew. They’d be far more interested in clearing out before they had to explain their heavily-armed presence to the military.

From the town of Barra, he could be in Manzanillo within forty minutes, or better yet, at one of the big hotels just north of town. They were showing their age, but he still liked Las Hadras resort as a place to lay low for a few days while waiting for the wire transfer to hit his account. When he got to shore he would e-mail the photo of Papi, with his calling card in glorious display, using his cell phone’s internet capability. The client would be ecstatic that yet another impossible execution in his notorious string of accomplishments