Angel and the Assassin

leveled the gun, his hand completely steady, and fired twice in very
    quick succession. Both men fell to the ground. The dog leaped up and began barking
    loudly at the gunshots. Kael had his gun out in an instant and fired a bullet into its
    midsection just as it leaped on him.

    Angel and the Assassin
    177

    In the silence that followed, Angel walked into the shed and stood utterly still,
    looking down at the men he had shot. One of them began to move, cursing with pain
    as he tried to rise. In one step Kael stood over him, pressed his gun to the back of
    the man‟s head, and fired. The man slumped to the ground, unmoving, and he
    repeated the action on the other.
    Kael looked at Angel. “Good boy.”
    “Sir, I feel faint.”
    Kael caught Angel as he wavered on his feet. “It‟s all right, sweetheart. The
    first kill is always the hardest.”
    “No, Sir. I think it‟s because I‟m hungry. Those guys didn‟t give me anything to
    eat.”
    Kael‟s laughter rang to the low rafters. Dragana began a low chuckle, but she
    was bleeding freely from her foot and in increasing pain. Taking Angel‟s face in his
    hands, Kael looked into his eyes. “We have to walk a mile to the jeep. I‟ll carry
    Dragana, but you‟ll have to walk. Can you manage?”
    “Yes, Sir,” Angel said.
    “Good lad; let‟s go.”
    The jeep stood waiting with the lights and engine off. About five hundred
    yards away, Angel stopped. “Sir, Mr. Conran‟s not in the jeep.”
    Struggling under Dragana‟s weight, Kael stopped to focus. Even he had
    trouble seeing something in the dark and through fairly dense woods from that
    distance. “Are you sure?” The boy did not answer at once. “Angel, what do you see?”
    “Sir, he‟s across the road and in the woods on the other side.”
    “If he‟s taking a whiz when we need him to drive, I‟ll cut his dick off,” Kael said
    through his teeth.
    “Sir, there‟s two men with him, and they‟ve got guns. One of them‟s got one of
    those big machine gun-type thingies. It‟s really cool.”
    Dragana must have passed out. She was not even trying to help support her
    own weight; she was slumped on Kael‟s shoulder, and he was beginning to hurt.
    “Are you sure? How can you see them? I can‟t see them.”
    “I have difficulty in bright light, but in the dark, I‟m like a bat.”
    “You certainly are.” Kael was very impressed. “Can you drive?”
    “Not legally, Sir. I don‟t have a license, but I wrecked two of Sven‟s cars, which
    made him hate me even more, and the day you came I damaged his BMW.”
    “Could you drive that jeep?”
    “Yes, Sir, I think I could.”
    “This is what we are going to do. Very quietly we are going to get Dragana into
    the jeep. You are going to start driving as fast as you can. Keep your head down
    because those guys will fire on you. Don‟t stop until you‟ve driven for at least fifteen

    178
    Fyn Alexander

    minutes, then double back. They‟ll be so busy firing at the jeep they won‟t see me
    going round behind them to get Conran. Follow my orders exactly.”
    “Yes, Sir.”

    * * *
    In spite of the freezing wind, sweat ran down Conran‟s face and back. He had

    not seen the men come upon him until they dragged him out of the jeep and into the
    woods. Their English was very hard to understand, but they seemed to understand
    him, and they did not believe him when he tried to explain that he was a tourist
    who had got lost.
    Neither he nor the men saw Saunders come out of the woods across the road.
    They knew nothing of his presence until the jeep began to drive away at breakneck
    speed. By the time they aimed their guns and fired, the jeep was too far away to hit.
    Saunders had left him all alone, and he would never see his wife and children
    again. He doubted his body would ever be found. If he‟d had a gun in his hand at
    that moment and Kael Saunders in front of him, he‟d shoot him in the chest and
    walk away with no remorse whatever for getting him into this and then abandoning
    him. He‟d gone out of his way to help the man get his teenage boy back, and this is
    what he got for his trouble. He‟d had a spotless career, and it would end without
    fanfare in a dark wood in a foreign country.
    The man to his right crumpled to the ground, and a split second later the
    second man fell. “You didn‟t think I‟d leave you to die, did you, Stephen?”
    Conran whirled around to see Saunders silhouetted against the bright moon,
    larger