Page 83 of Assassin Anonymous

He nods, continuing to walk around me, maintaining that distance. It’s not lost on me that the distance is twenty-five feet. I take a few steps toward him, closing the gap. He notices but doesn’t react.

“Come downstairs with me,” Ravi says. “Peacefully. The Director is out for blood. I can talk him down. I’m willing to stake my reputation on it. He’s going to want you back. And that’s something we’re going to need. When you realize what’s happening, you’ll drop all this recovery bullshit and help us put things right.”

“It’s not bullshit.”

“We need you, Mark. We need the Pale Horse. A lot of people are going to die without you.”

“A lot of people will die no matter what.”

“You can make sure it’s the right ones.”

“That’s not true, and it never was.”

Ravi puts his hands together in mock prayer. “Please, Mark. I’m your friend.”

“A friend wouldn’t be telling me to throw out everything I worked for over the past year.”

“A friend is someone who sees you,” Ravi says. “And I see you. I get why you struggle. I do, too. If you didn’t, you’d be a complete sociopath. But in the end, the world needs bad men to keep other bad men from the door.”

“Did you just quote True Detective at me?”

He pauses, a little embarrassed. “Shit, you saw that?”

“Remember what you told me in Singapore? When I asked why you picked me for this?”

Ravi starts to say something, then stops.

“That it was my temperament,” I tell him. “That I wasn’t some militia nut. That I had high scores and a strong will. It was all bullshit. You picked me because I was a scared, lonely kid, desperate to be told he was good at something. Am I right?”

His lip flutters into the makings of a smile, which is all the answer I need. Then he sighs, his body going slack for just a second.

It’s a distraction. I know it is. By the time he’s reaching for the gun on his holster, I’ve got a pellet sailing his way. It lands on his chest with a crack. I expect there to be some kind of hissing sound, or to see a cloud of dust. I wonder if these things are defective, but then he starts hacking and grabbing at his face.

He falls to his knees, choking.

“See you around, Ravi,” I tell him.

—

At the bottom of the stairs is a door, which leads to the elevator bank serving the top floor of the building. Beyond that is a dim office area that looks mostly empty. The Director’s office is, presumably, past that.

Standing between me and my goal are twelve men and women in tactical gear—black body armor and heavy goggles, all strapped with FN P90s, a compact submachine gun designed for tight spaces that spits out fifty rounds in a blink.

At least I have some air pistols.

As they raise their weapons in my direction, I duck back into the stairwell and a voice rings out, “We will shoot to kill.”

“I’m sure at this point you know who you’re dealing with,” I yell around the corner. “You want to go home healthy, now’s the time.”

In response, the lights snap off.

Which is exactly what I was expecting.

My vision goes completely black, and I’m sure the strike team is turning on their night vision goggles. I pull a flash-bang off my belt and throw it through the doorway, not really worried about aiming.

“Grenade!” someone yells.

The first bang hits, followed by a flash. I’ve got my eyes closed and my hand over my face, but even still some of the light seeps through. With their night vision goggles amplifying the light, it probably looks like staring into the face of the sun from ten feet away. It must not feel nice; I can tell that from the screams.