Page 6 of Shrapnel

The assassin grinned as the first wolf ripped into his body.

Jamie stretched his stiff legs as he jumped down from the tree. The clearing had been silent for a while, and he could finally move.

Mental note,he thought to himself,pick a more comfortable position next time.

He ignored the gore splattered around. The reds of blood and organs were vivid against the snow. Like an expensive abstract expressionist painting, Jamie wondered if MOMA would pay him millions for it.

It took a little bit of doing to open the bear traps. He parted the jaws to remove what was left of Trey Langford’s legs. The blood was already frozen to the metal and Jamie had to admit it might be a perk to the cold.

Hefting the traps, he dragged them to the small pond he had seen on the GPS. They were heavy enough that when he tossed them into the kidney-shaped pool, they cracked the thin layer of ice and sank to the bottom.

The smell of a fresh kill was already attracting scavengers. Now that the wolves had taken their fill, the rest of Alaska’s wildlife was lining up for their share. Soon the scene would be clean. By the time summer came around and melted the snow, Trey Langford would be gone.

Rubbing his hands together, Jamie felt the thrill of the kill begin to fade. It bled out faster than his victim, a numbness that had nothing to do with the kill replacing it. The adrenaline was gone, and until the next time, he would be searching for a way to break the bleakness in his soul. A chance to break through his self-imposed detachment. Feeling nothing was better than what he felt before.

His satellite phone trilled, and his eyebrows rose when he saw the caller ID.

“Been a while,” he answered.

Predictably the voice on the other line had no time for pleasantries. His personal informant never wanted to talk for very long.

Jamie hmm’d and looked up at the moon. “South America, huh?”

2

Fake It Like You Love Me

He shiftedhis shoulders against the wooden wall and tried to straighten his arms. Rough metal shackles dug against the skin of his wrists. Whoever welded them did a shit job. Jagged edges cut into this skin—not sharp enough to cut but enough to irritate. It was more annoying than the pain in his fingers.

If he was being honest, it was the heat that he truly hated. It was late fall and sweat was trickling down his face. Salty drops catching in the open wounds on his lips. His dry tongue snaked out taking the liquid back into his degenerating body.

They were keeping him in some kind of shack. Judging by the quiet outside the thin wooden walls it was remote. Probably the cartel leaders hideaway tucked into the tropical jungle.

The last few days had been a bit of a blur.

It had been so long since he accepted a job like this. He was foolish to think it would be easy. The offer had come through one of his usual contacts. Personal protection for some up-and-coming politician. In a country where democracy was dictated by whoever had the biggest gun, he knew it could get messy. Jackson spent two weeks following around a man who told the reporters he would crack down on the corrupt government while taking bribes the moment the cameras turned off.

None of that mattered to Jackson. He wasn’t the morality police. What his clients did or didn’t do was irrelevant. His only concern was the money clearing whatever offshore account they had hidden it in.

What he did care about was honesty. He couldn’t do his job without it.

When he agreed to babysit the little politician, he expected attempts on his life. What he didn’t expect was that the man was employing a drug cartel in his intimidation campaign. He promised them an exorbitant fee to put the fear of God into his competitors and those who had the audacity to speak against him.

Which was all well and good. The problem was that he didn’t actuallypaythese cartels.

Strangely enough, murderous drug lords didn’t like not getting paid for services rendered. Jackson was good, but he wasn’t good enough to fight off a small militia of angry, sweaty cartel members who thought he was standing between them and the payday of their lives. So, while his potbellied client scampered off into the night, Jackson was getting what was possibly the worst beating of his life.

He shifted the shackles around his wrists and tested the weight. Steel, not aluminum. There would be no breaking these.

Experimentally, he tried to bend his right arm and found it wouldn’t. Pain and stiffness kept it from bending. The chain between the manacles wasn’t long enough for him to palpate his elbow, but he didn’t need to. He knew it was dislocated.

Bracing his bicep against his ribcage, he extended his right arm forward. Palm down, he inhaled, then twisted it so that his thumb was pointing down and his palm out. There was a click and a surge of pain. Biting down on his lip, he exhaled through his nose and waited for the pain to subside.

Wiggling his fingers, he could feel the blood flow returning to the digits. It already felt better.

This wasn’t the worst situation he had ever found himself in. He would get out of it somehow. And if he didn’t, well, then he didn’t. Jackson’s life expectancy was shorter than the national average for a reason.

It was something he had made peace with a long time ago. He lived hard and would die young. Jackson didn’t have a family—no lover would weep over his grave or children that would bear his name. Not that he wanted them. What the hell would he even do with that?