Angel and the Assassin

opened the
    door, she said, “Mr. Carpe, what a pleasure to see you again.”
    Kael eased his big frame into the driver‟s seat. “Dragana.” He smiled. “The last
    time I saw you, I was ready to kill you.”
    “Why doesn‟t that surprise me?” Conran‟s teeth chattered as a gust of freezing
    wind nearly blew him over. “Is there anyone you haven‟t thought of killing at some
    point, Saunders?”
    “Only my mum.” Kael looked at Conran and thumbed over his shoulder. “In
    the back. I want Dragana in the front.”
    Conran did as he was told, and Dragana got into the front seat. “You could
    have picked better weather to visit my country, Mr. Carpe,” she said.
    “And better circumstances,” he added. “Call me Kael.”
    To his relief, the engine sounded smooth, and they headed for the road going
    west. He had read and memorized the map on the plane, and he no longer needed it
    to find his way to the countryside outside of Sasina, where intelligence told them
    Beganovic and his group planned and practiced their attacks.

    Angel and the Assassin
    171

    “I didn‟t know she worked for you, Conran. You got one over on me. That
    should make you feel good. She saw Angel the day after I brought him home. I
    thought she‟d go straight to the police when she left my flat. But we had a little talk
    in the car.”
    Hanging onto the sides of her seat, Dragana turned her head to look at Conran
    as Kael drove well above the speed limit on the rough road. “I got suspicious when
    he pulled over in an industrial area and he began to pull on latex gloves.”
    “Latex gloves and Saunders are a deadly combination.” Conran also hung onto
    his seat as if he were on a fairground ride.
    “Then she explained to me that she was with your office and part of her job
    was keeping an eye on me,” Kael said.
    “So why the hell didn‟t you report the boy?” Conran raised his voice over the
    noise of the engine and the wind whistling through the plastic windows that would
    not close properly. “You could have saved me a lot of time and trouble.”
    Dragana smiled at him. “It was not my job to report on Mr. Carpe‟s
    companions, but only to plant bugs. Anyway, I like Mr. Carpe…Mr. Kael Saunders.
    I was just so happy to see him with a partner. He always seemed so lonely. Besides
    that, he said he would come after me and kill me if I told you, and I believed him.”
    Kael laughed out loud and drove even faster.

    * * *
    Sitting on the dirt floor of the farm outbuilding, Angel was freezing cold. From

    the moment he was snatched off the street, he had been hooded, his hands bound
    behind his back, and now they were fastened to something on the wall behind him,
    making it impossible for him to rise to his feet. Hunger gnawed at his stomach, and
    his tongue was beginning to stick to the roof of his mouth, he so desperately needed
    some water. His jeans and underwear were wet because he had not been allowed to
    unfasten them to pee. He had no idea where he was, but he knew the men who had
    taken him were Bosnian. He recognized the language from the men who had visited
    Sven in New York.
    It could be day or night, but he suspected it was night. He could no longer hear
    the noises of animals he had heard hours ago. The hood blacked out the light and
    was fastened around his neck with a piece of string so that even though his body
    was cold and stiff, his face sweated. The leather hood Sir had made him wear was a
    good preparation for this. He might have panicked and choked had he not
    experienced it that night and learned how to stay calm and breathe with it.
    Footsteps on the gravel path outside alerted him that someone was
    approaching. Angel used all his senses to understand what was happening. That‟s
    what Sir would do. The door was loose on its hinges. It scraped across the ground
    when it was opened, and he tightened his muscles against the wind that swept in
    with the footsteps. He knew the roof overhead was low because all the sounds were
    loud despite the hood muffling everything.

    172
    Fyn Alexander

    Someone spoke, a man. Angel raised his chin as if he could look up at him. The
    words made no sense, but the man was unfastening the hood, tugging it up so that
    his mouth was free, and he was immensely grateful. He gulped in cold, fresh air and
    saw a small amount of pale light, probably from a flashlight.
    “Could you give me some water, please? Water.”
    A bottle was pressed to his lips and tilted. Angel