Blood of the Assassin - By Russell Blake Page 0,124

six-inch steel spike driven through his ear into his brain. When he stopped convulsing, she fell back onto one of the swivel chairs, trembling slightly, and quickly took stock. The hand was messy, but when she flexed her fingers, they moved, so it was superficial. She could tell that the cut on her lower back was trivial, even though it stung a little. Most of the blood on her was from the dead man.

She stood panting for a few moments then, after glancing around, grabbed one of the shop T-shirts she sold to tourists and wrapped it around her hand. Returning to her attacker’s corpse, she leaned down and felt in his clothes for a weapon, but he’d carried nothing other than the garrote, the knife and a wallet with a no-name credit card and a few hundred dollars.

A noise at the back of the shop snapped her back into the moment. Someone was trying to get through the locked back door.

If they were professional, it wouldn’t stop them for long, she knew.

~ ~ ~

A gloved hand pushed the door open, the lock having proved a minor impediment easily overcome with a strategically placed silenced gunshot that shattered the doorjamb with a muffled crack. The cramped hallway was dark, so the intruder moved cautiously through it until he arrived at the small office. Leading with the barrel of his gun, he felt for the light switch on the wall, which he flicked – nothing happened.

The door opposite him burst wide as Maya exploded from the storage closet in a blur. He’d hardly registered her arrival when he dropped the weapon, his life blood pouring down his back from where she had driven the scissors between his shoulder blades, into his heart.

It was over within a few seconds. The intruder’s body slid to the floor and leaked out a dark puddle of crimson. Maya stepped over him, scooped up his pistol and checked it. A Beretta 92, full clip, so fourteen more rounds, allowing for the one used on the door. Custom-machined compact silencer. The gun had been modified to accommodate the suppressor; money and time had been expended – not good.

She crouched by the dead man and performed a quick search but found nothing other than another blank wallet with a few hundred dollars.

The slightest of scrapes sounded from near the back door.

Maya threw herself onto the floor of the hallway and fired close-quarters at the silhouette hulking in the doorframe. A grunt from the shooter, then a silenced slug tore a hole through the wall by her head. She fired two more rounds, and the attacker fell back onto the ground outside.

She waited. One beat. Two. Could be only three of them, or could be a fourth. Or more.

Nothing.

If anyone else was in the mix, they’d be smart to wait for her to come outside and check the body.

She jumped to her feet and ran to the front of the shop. She’d flipped off the breakers before hiding in the closet, so the storefront was now completely dark, the sun having completed its celestial plunge into the sea. Maya stopped at the counter and grabbed another T-shirt from the pile, stripping off her bloody top and replacing it with a clean dark blue one, then grabbed a roll of paper towels from behind the register and made a makeshift dressing for her hand, stuffing another wad into her bag. The gash was already clotting. Even if it felt awful, she’d live.

She paused, ears straining for any sounds. Music from the street and occasional whoops of passing celebrators were the only ones she detected.

Nothing from the back of the shop.

Maya pulled her purse over her shoulder and clutched the gun inside it so it wouldn’t cause panic on the street. Glancing through the windows, she estimated there were easily a couple of hundred people meandering outside, which would make it easy to disappear into the crowd, but would also make it tougher to spot potential attackers. She took one more look at the carnage in the little internet café that had been her livelihood for the last two years and inhaled a deep breath. Nothing good would come from stalling the inevitable, and with any luck, she now had an element of surprise in her favor.

She swung open the front door and stepped out into the fray, alert for anything suspicious. Waves of inebriated locals flowed tipsily down the sidewalks, spilling into the streets, which were closed to cars for