"Be very careful, assassin. We have no idea where the hidden cameras may be. Whoever is behind all this has been always a step ahead of us. Letting him win is not a choice." Cathy speaks through my miniscule receiver and I barely control the urge to frown. She's emotional. She may get us compromised.
All the while, I roam around the Russian ball room with the disguise of a waiter serving champagne. My target, an ex-KGB and now one of the international terrorists, is directly in front of me with a request for a champagne. I hand him his glass and leave before he gets a proper look on my face.
It has been five years since my initiation into the world I was created for and I have already been to all the major countries. U.S., U.K., Ireland, Australia, China, India, Iran, Iraq and many more. All countries, despite their differences, were shelter for one terrorist or another. If I didn't have a powerful memory, I would have definitely forgotten all the places I had been and what I had done.
That was not a possibility for me though and even as I walked among the privileged who chose to spend money like water while others starved outside, I wondered if having Cathy as my contact was the right decision. Mark Mildew, aka Marcus Dewter as I later found out, was dead in the eyes of those who still lived in that mansion/fortress. I suspected he was now busy on quelling the coup in the Resistance. "I can sense you loitering, assassin. Keep your guard up." Cathy remarks and I immediately correct my previous assumption. Cathy could indeed be a worthy remote contact.
Without any sudden changes in body posture, I prepare my body as if I'm about to enter a fight and act as a meek barely legal waiter serving people way beyond his pay-grade. I move through the crowd while offering drinks in fluent Russian while tagging all the guards in the ballroom.
The one by the piano is more interested in the pianist than the security of the place. He could be a problem though if I do something while close enough to him. Two guards at each of the three entrances are more concerned with security than any of the plain-clothed five guards amidst the guests. The plan I have made is just perfect in regards to the guards. It is the anomaly that bothers me.
Honestly, I do believe she tries to blend in but it is hard to blend in when her heeled slippers have a slight defect that can also be a knife handle hidden in plain sight. I mentally curse Cathy for making me go blind on this one and wonder how to work up her profile. She has shown no recognition to me so I cannot be certain if she knows about me. If she is from the Resistance, I doubt she even knows of me. And by being an anomaly, I have no clue if her secret has to be protected or exposed. "Focus, assassin. Keep staring up at the pianist and you will surely attract the eye of a guard." Cathy warns me and I take heed of the knowledge. My lessons tell me I should feel annoyance but even that would be a risk too big in such an adverse condition.
I finish my rounds and am just about at the spot I need to be when my target, Dvok Belikov, walks in with a barely legal girl on his arm. The slightly smudged hair and the swollen lips ensure that everyone knows what just happened. The fifty-five year old is dressed in his tuxedo and I mentally adjust my plan on seeing the alert look of his eyes that had been hidden so long on his easygoing face. Is he expecting an attack? Have we been compromised yet again?
"Remember assassin, raise no alarms." Cathy speaks up and I know that she sees what I see as well. As the target grabs a drink from my tray, I make sure that I bow my head a little so that he cannot see my fae. Marcus taught me that bowing the head would please people far more than just seeing the fear and would offer a higher chance of being forgotten. I walk around the floor and serve the guests the rest of the drinks of my tray. Good. Exactly as planned so far.
Mentally, I plan my clock and recall the positioning of the basement guard who moves past the electrical of this place. According to my calculations, he should be hitting my small trip wire in exactly five seconds from now. At the same time, I see the target move directly under the chandelier. With my head still bowed, I head to the front door of the ballroom with the pretense of getting more drinks to fill my empty tray. Exactly as I reach the left basement entrance behind one of the twin grand staircases, it begins.
The trip wire is activated and burns itself, also burning the wires and connections, therefore plunging the entire place in darkness. As screams and shouts fill the place, I move down the stairs as fast as I can without raising any attention, I mentally 'see' what is going on upstairs. The spiked drink would force the target to head to the men's room which is located to the right of the right entrance of the basement.
The small area between the two staircases is patrolled by two guards but thanks to the alarm, everyone on this level has run to the guard who got tasered while activating the tripwire. As I reach the bottom of the stairs, I see an unforeseen complication, though.
Only one of the guards left and the other remained. He heard my running down the stairs and is now looking at me suspiciously. "Help! There was a call for a guard upstairs, please help!" I play the role of the terrified waiter perfectly and the guard, unable to see my face, tries to lean in to see me. More shouts from upstairs stop him before he can get close enough and also, I duck as if in fear to hide myself. Only when I hear him burst through the doors above, I resume my walking through the doors to the basement kitchen and through the storage rooms for the exit vent.
By now, the target would have reached the bathroom thanks to the undetectable laxative. The water I had spilled within would not be noticeable in the dark and he would slip on the floor where I had spread some small pieces of sharp glass. The target would think nothing of these glasses in his hurry and later, the forensic tests would have the glass to come up to be containing champagne and his fingerprints that I had previously lifted off of an older glass. Undoubtedly, the Resistance would pull the strings to have the alcohol content in the target's blood to come up way more than normal to make it all seem like the perfect accident.
Making sure that the coast was clear outside, I got out of the vent and made my way to the exit. The sole traceable act could be the whole shenanigan of the trip wire but even that was taken care of since the fire would spread fast enough without any accelerant that no evidence can be gathered. The small hole I made on the water pipe on the other side of wall of the trip wire, as anticipated, would have used the guard's foot to quickly paint the leaking pipe as the culprit for the entire basement fiasco.
This much I had anticipated. What I had clearly not planned for was to find the pianist standing on the outer side of the very door I had used as my entry and exit. "You play a nice game but you forget details." She spoke in a clear French accent. "We are both unarmed and I am not looking to start a fight so don't tense up. I can easily take you down, though."
"What do you think you are doing?" I ask her in perfect Russian, unwilling to give even a small hint of my identity. Cathy is surprisingly quiet at the moment.
"Still keeping up charade, are we?" The girl remarks with an amused tone. "Alright then, my name is Natalya and I was sent here to do what you almost failed in. Belikov didn't hit the glasses hard enough. Thank to me though, he didn't have a chance to raise an alarm. Also, my presence would now effectively cloak yours." I don't even bother remembering the name. It's obviously a false one.
Dropping all pretense, I ask her plainly in Russian. "And I suspect there's a reason for us to be wasting time here like this. What would you require of me?"
"A lady always has infinite needs, dear boy. Remember that. For now, consider this a favour owed." And with that, she walks away from. I'm tempted to follow this pianist, who looks barely five years older than me. But since we both were in makeup to make ourselves look older, how old she really is or how she looks like cannot be estimated. Nor do I have the time to do so.
"Assassin, get back here right this moment and I might not execute you for this slip." Cathy seethes and I quickly make me way to her, knowing better than to provoke when I only hold pieces of a plan to stand up to them. The door has barely opened to the safehouse before she's getting in my face. "Who the hell was she? What did she want? Where did she come from?"
At least your response shows me that she ain't one of yours. "I know just as much as you do. What is true however that an alarm would be raised any moment now and we should really get moving." Neither of us is happy with how things went down but at least this time I have a mystery face to add to the growing players in this business of cloak and daggers. For hiding in the shadows, this world does have a lot of people in it.
It is a long and silent boat ride, at least in terms of conversation. We do not move far, stopping on the outskirts of the next city by the water. The plan is to lay low for two days and then move out of the country for a successful exit.
And all this time, I am wondering, is she the one who has been a step ahead of me?
*****
"Ah, so she played her cards perfectly." I comment to myself as I see the surveillance videos of their interaction. He has grown a lot over these past few years but he has never been able to lose himself in the crowd ever again, at least not to him. A lesser man would consider it a mistake to have him and the others alerted about his presence but the perfect plan for everything was just brewing.
All that was needed now was time. And soon, everything would play off just as planned.
"Execute the girl. She's worthless to me now." He barked out on a radio as one last command to wrap up yet another housecleaning mission.
A/N: Even I forgot it has been two years since I last updated this story. Well, here's the next chapter. No idea when the next comes up but now that I have started this story again, I ain't gonna just abandon it.