Primary Target: Six Assassins: Book 1 Read online

  Primary Target

  Six Assassins: Book 1

  Jim Heskett

  Nick Thacker

  Contents

  Disclaimer

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Notes for “A History of the Denver Assassins Club”

  Get the Sequel Now

  A NOTE TO READERS

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Disclaimer

  The Six Assassins hexalogy takes place a few months prior to the events of The Enigma Strain by Nick Thacker, and features characters related to the Harvey Bennett Universe as well as characters from other books by Jim Heskett.

  However, you do not have to have read any other specific other books before reading this one to follow this story.

  Enjoy!

  Chapter One

  EMBER

  Week One - Day One

  October 3rd, 2013

  Ember Clarke collected her hair with one hand while she rolled the poison dart through the fingers of the other. It was smooth, grooved with diagonal channels that wound along the outside of the shaft. The dart’s shape was similar to the kind she had handled in scummy dive bars whose names she’d rather not recall, only much smaller and lighter. The feathers on the back end of the dart were lighter as well, and real, unlike the tripod-shaped plastic tail that was used for throwing darts. She’d used this brand before, knew it, and trusted it.

  Her deep black hair usually fell just past her shoulders, and she twisted it with one hand several times before tucking it into the back of her shirt. Of course, she’d forgotten to bring a hair tie. On a night like this, of all nights, she hadn’t remembered to bring the most important hair weapon in her arsenal. A muted groan escaped her lips at the thought of having to shampoo blood out of her hair in the morning. Ugh.

  She was in Rocky Mountain National Park, near the Moraine Park Campground. A wide-open valley corralled the area, surrounded by snow-capped mountains on all sides. It was a breathtaking sight, and she was often amazed by the grandeur of it. This late at night, however, she couldn’t see any of that. Aside from the few dozen sleeping campers tucked away in their tents, she had only the stars above and a collection of elk on the other side of the valley for an audience. Not so much a captive audience, but for the lethal work she needed to do tonight, no audience would be required.

  It was nearly midnight, and the brisk Colorado air arrested her breath, almost making it difficult to focus. Camping made her think of her little brother, and she didn’t want to take that sad trip down memory lane tonight. Ember had critical work to do in the here and now.

  Driving the twisty road through the park with her lights off had been a challenge. But she hadn't become one of the best in her business by complaining about piddly stuff, and in her line of work, a healthy fear of risk was a necessity. Having no fear got people killed because it meant they had their guard down.

  Secrecy above all. That’s what her mentor had taught her. Secrecy and efficiency could keep you alive for years past your due date. She’d driven slowly, purposefully, careful to avoid frightening any nocturnal wildlife and even more careful to avoid any patrolling rangers and park employees.

  In this campground, between ten and twenty feet separated most tents. At this hour, waking a person in one would have a domino effect on all the others — the noise from one site would wake the next, and on down the line. And it wasn't just her own noise she was worried about. If a deer or elk happened to wander by and step on a twig, just like in a cheesy horror movie, it could wake the whole area, too.

  She needed to move fast. A hair tie would have helped. Also, she wished she could stop thinking about the stupid hair tie.

  Ember loaded the poison-tipped projectile into the Pneu-Dart X-2. Used primarily for sedating animals from a safe distance, she’d come to appreciate the CO2-powered pistol as a near-silent weapon. The payload of choice tonight would be tried-and-true hydrogen cyanide. The poison should, at this dosage, simply give her target a heart attack.

  Ember had found over the years that using poison was a delicate game. Every medical examiner's office was different in what they tested for, but the vast majority of cases any coroner faced common causes of death, like strokes and heart attacks. It was expensive and time-consuming to test for minute, rare chemicals, and it could bring the coroner's office to a halt while waiting for the results.

  Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to use the dart, because while it wasn’t as loud as a real gun, it wasn’t exactly silent, either. She preferred to approach her target and jab the dart directly into his neck manually. Three seconds for aiming and preparation, one second to do the deed, and another for the effects to begin. By the time her target woke up and figured out something was awry, he would be a second or two from death.

  What a shitty way to wake up. But some people get the shitty wake up they deserve.

  Ember didn’t always have the luxury of a quick, painless kill, though. Secrecy and efficiency sometimes took a back seat to urgency. And while she preferred to be efficient, the job was to be effective.

  At all costs, survive and get the job done. Back home to sleep, then maybe extra sour cream in her breakfast burrito tomorrow morning. Why not? A dangerous job like this one should come with a sour cream reward.

  A deer appeared on the edge of the campgrounds. Its eyes glowed for a moment when it looked in her direction, catching moonlight from above. Ember stared at the deer, and the deer stared at her. She had to decide what to do if the creature moved toward her. Surely it would be smart enough to avoid bumping into these tents, but even a casual hoof striking the ground could be enough to wake someone.

  For a moment, she considered using her dart gun against it. She did have two non-lethal darts in her back pocket, but those were to be used on human targets of at least 150 pounds. She doubted the deer weighed that much. And Ember didn’t want to take the chance. If she tried to subdue the deer and ended up killing it, she would never sleep soundly again. People? She had no problem killing them, if and when they deserved it. But an animal? Nope.

  Animals weren’t capable of evil. They existed on instinct and habit, and they did only what was necessary to survive. No needless killings, no waste, no unnecessary emotional baggage. You never saw a doe crying about a buck she let take her home from some deer bar who then didn’t call her the next day.

  So Ember waited, as still as a clothing store mannequin, to see what the deer would do. She figured she
could throw a pinecone or something toward it — these creatures were always so skittish, anyway. But after a few moments staring one another down, the animal turned back toward the valley and jauntily hopped off in that direction.

  She let out a breath and refocused her mind on the task at hand. As she breathed, her watch lit up, a bright invasive beacon in the middle of the dark forest. A quick, frustrated glance told her she was only at eight-thousand steps for the day. The personal trainer whose calls she had been ignoring for weeks would give her The Frown and a lecture about pushing the lactic acid envelope or reaching for the cardio stars, or something. She told herself she would make up for it tomorrow.

  Ember lived an hour south of here in Boulder, a compact college town with overpriced housing and a vegan sandwich shop on every corner. It would be a nice bonus to get the kill and be home for sleep before the sun appeared over the eastern plains. Then, she'd take a few days off. Another perk of her chosen profession: she did actual work only five or six days per month, and even then only when she wanted. The rest of the time, she spent traveling, training, and — unfortunately — slumped in a conference chair for meetings.

  Always so many meetings. Meetings about contracts, bylaw changes, recruit names to learn, and even meetings about meetings. The irony of her profession was that in striving to find a career that valued flexibility and independence, she was now attending more meetings as a hired killer than she would have if she'd become a bank teller.

  This job, though, she was thrilled to complete. This job was more like a duty than a job. The target's name was Rodney Palmer, twenty-four years old. Allegedly involved in the rape of a teenaged girl two years before, but Rodney had never been tried for it. Rodney's mother had provided a bullshit — yet believable — alibi for him the night the attack had happened, so the police never looked into him too closely. The parents of the violated girl didn't have enough money to pursue a lengthy stint with a private investigator, and their cries for help at the local police station had fallen on deaf ears. The case was technically still open, but it had been lost in the cold case graveyard amid all the newer, fresher, sexier cases. Ember knew the victim would forever languish with justice only in her fantasies unless someone intervened.

  Someone like her.

  Rodney had suffered no consequences, either for his actions that night or for anything else in the course of his pathetic, privileged life. Tonight that would change. Ember had been contracted to make sure he would never hurt another person ever again. She'd done her homework, verified the target and his transgressions, and accepted the contract.

  Ember Clarke killed people for money. But a contract like this, she would have done for free.

  She exclusively took on this sort of work— criminals who continued to exist without punishment. Sometimes it was a person who thought they were above the law; sometimes, it was a person who was above the law. She excelled with targets that somehow found a way to elude either local or federal law enforcement. Like most other assassins in the Club, Ember had a personal code about which contracts she would or would not accept. The difference was that hers was much more explicit and much more restrictive.

  No minors, no one who had young kids, and no personal grudges. She would never take on a contract for some rich asshole who wanted to eliminate a business rival, nor would she entertain the fantasies of a misguided son-in-law who wanted his wife’s mother out of the picture. She’d had many chances to make easy money doing that sort of contract work, but she had never accepted one, and she never would. There was enough money to be made on “non-evil” contracts.

  And Rodney Palmer’s erasure would mean another scumbag removed from the earth, another notch on her belt, another direct deposit to the bank account. All good outcomes.

  But only if the evening went perfectly according to her plan. And, she had been around long enough to know that things rarely went according to plan. Within the next few minutes, this campsite would have one less beating heart. If she did her job correctly, it would be the target’s. If not, maybe it would be her heart that slowed and stopped.

  Chapter Two

  EMBER

  Standing in the campground, surrounded by the tents and sleeping campers, the cool air running through her hair and leaving her shoulders and arms chilled, she couldn't help but be reminded of another time.

  She had always done her best to keep her personal and professional lives separate. Not always easy in her line of work, but always crucial. It was too easy to lose one’s head, both figuratively and literally.

  But tonight she couldn’t help but let her mind wander back to another time, another place. Another night like tonight, but that particular night her body felt chilled for an altogether different reason.

  One she’d never forget.

  She remembered the weakness she’d felt, too, the trembling in her knees that had risen through her lower body and then into her heart and throat and psyche. It had consumed her then, and she hadn’t been able to shake it until days afterward.

  Her own brother. Her kid brother. Two days after their last camping trip ever, a mistaken-identity drive by in San Diego.

  Dead, in the street.

  And she hadn’t been able to stop it.

  A simple, harmless walk in the neighborhood, gone horribly wrong.

  That day’s events had launched her into a new life, onto a new path. It was a memory she wanted to both forget and carry with her — the horror of it all was a terrible cross to bear, yet it was possibly the singular moment that had defined the rest of her life.

  She needed that moment, as much as she had come to hate it.

  She had developed a set of rules, some adopted from her mentor and colleagues over the years, but most from her own experience and memory of that event. It had guided her into her career field, and it was why she was now standing here, observing the situation as it unfolded in front of her.

  Her personal code of ethics aside, Ember was also part of a group of assassins who had come together to pool resources, set boundaries and limitations for one another, and govern themselves according to a strict set of guidelines. She loved the simplicity of the Club’s rules when it came to contracts. One contract, one assassin. No competing, no rivalries. Once a contract had been accepted by a Club member, no one else could take it on. And hiring parties were not allowed to contract more than one assassin for any job. Everything was documented and completed according to the Club’s intricate bylaws.

  Ember skulked through the campsites staying on the side of the wide trail, eyeing each tent as she passed. Rodney’s was the green GoLite dome at the eastern edge of the campsite, staked down with neon orange tent pegs. He'd even had an eye toward safety: he'd tied a pink plastic ribbon on each belay line. Hard to miss. The tent looked like a two-person, which actually meant it was barely large enough inside for one person and a backpack. He had his hiking boots atop a small triangle flap of tarp, just outside his tent. Another tarp, this one bright blue, hung by four grommeted corners above a picnic table, where he had piled more gear.

  She saw a cookstove, a lantern box, a pile of dishes and a mess kit, and a cooler underneath the table. One line from the tarp held a string of clothing, likely freshly washed in the nearby river. It looked like he was staying a while.

  She would make sure he was alone in there once she got closer — another hazard of this work. Sometimes, random civilians or bystanders got in the way of a contract. Ember had a strict "no collateral damage" policy. Never had she killed an innocent civilian, and she didn't intend to start tonight. If anyone got near, she'd hide and wait until they passed. If anyone saw her and tried to interfere, she had the two non-poisoned darts in her back pocket. Ember wore jeans when possible because she'd always thought pockets were an inalienable right too often overlooked by women’s clothing designers.

  She held the dart gun in her left hand and a single poison-tipped dart in her right as she stayed low and moved. She ran a mental inventory as she snuck forwar
d. Four in total. Two non-poison, both in my pocket. Two poisoned, one in the gun and one in my hand.

  The ground was hard, a little crunchy in the early October night, but she kept her footfalls light and made no noise. The chill in the air seeped through her hoodie and gloves, lowering her core temperature. She shivered, then shook it off.

  Something shifted in the tent in the campsite to her left. A person turning over in their sleep, their sleeping bag crackling against the side of the tent. They coughed twice. They were far enough away that she wasn't terribly worried, but she never took chances. She'd been trained to be proactive, but reacting to her environment had kept her alive so far in her career. She tensed her body and waited, still and frozen as foggy breath plumed from her lips. One hand inched toward her back pocket, where she kept the non-lethal darts. Tipped with a high dosage of diphenhydramine, like the stuff found in Benadryl. If she did have to stick someone to knock them out, that person would hopefully wake up thinking they'd been stung by a mosquito.

  And hopefully not remember her face.