The Hardest Thing

Click-click. It was coming from the door. A key in the lock? Analyze, assess, act. My gun was on the dressing table. I could jump over Jody and be armed and on my feet within five…
    The door swung open with a creak that would have woken any civilian. Jody stirred and murmured, “Wha…?,” but I hushed him with a hand. A man stepped into the room, silhouetted against the streetlights. It didn’t take much to figure out that he was armed. I was naked and defenseless. Wait a minute. A marine is never defenseless. I had the cell phone Ferrari had given me—a block of metal, glass and rigid plastic, maybe six inches by three inches. Properly used, it could kill.
    If this had been a simple hit he’d have shot us from the door and made a getaway. Not much you can do about that, just hope he’s a lousy marksman—and who hires a lousy marksman for an assassination job? But that wasn’t the deal. Any rookie can tell the difference between a shot fired from eight feet away, and a shot fired at close quarters. This was meant to look like a nice cozy domestic killing. No third parties involved.
    He crept toward the bed, unaware that we’d woken. I lay still, and thank god Jody got the message—we’re in
trouble, don’t move a muscle. One step closer. Another step. Another. Close enough to hear him breathing. Close enough to smell the cigarette he’d been smoking a few moments ago. Nervous, asshole? Don’t you know cigarettes are bad for your health?
    He extended his hand. The gun gleamed in the dim light. The safety must have been off already—maybe that’s what woke me up. Click-click. Nearer it came, nearer my head, but it was not yet near enough. He wanted point blank.
    I shot my arm out from my side, grabbing his wrist with pinpoint accuracy. His reflexes were quick—he pulled the trigger before I disabled him—but not quick enough. The bullet skimmed the surface of the blanket and hit the dressing table mirror with a crash. I sprang to my feet, twisted the man’s arm hard and fast enough to dislocate his shoulder, then brought the short end of the cell phone smashing down into his temple. He hardly made a sound, just a gasp as the ball popped out of the socket and a faint “Oof” as the breath left his body. I had no time to see if he was dead or alive.
    Jody was up, jumping from foot to foot—he was starting to panic, and if I didn’t stop him he was going to blunder into the shards of broken mirror on the floor. I reckoned we had about thirty seconds to get into the car before someone came calling—that shot was loud, and I didn’t feel like answering questions. Particularly if the guy on the floor was dead.
    I grabbed Jody by the shoulders; the light from the open door showed the shock on his face. “Listen to me, Jody. Put some pants and shoes on, then sit on the bed.” He did as he was told, not saying a word. I threw a
few things into my bag—gun, cell phone, clothes. The money was safe. “Come on.” I pushed Jody through the door and on to the forecourt.
    And before we checked out, on a sudden impulse, I took the gun from the assassin’s hand, put the safety on and checked it over. Like I said, I’m no great weapons expert—I can’t tell you the make and model at a glance, but I just don’t believe in wasting perfectly serviceable firearms, even if they have just been leveled at my temple.
    But it only took a single glance to see that this wasn’t any old gun. This was a Glock 19.
    Just the same as mine.

The Cabin 6
    The priority was to get as far away from Lincoln as we could, then ditch the car. Every cop in the state would have our license plate within the hour.
    But why run? Why not wait on the motel forecourt for the police to rescue us? Why not call them ourselves? We’d just been attacked in our bed by an armed intruder, and if I’d fought him off—if I’d killed him—it was self-defense. An American’s home, even if it’s just rented for the night, is sacrosanct. He was the bad guy, not me.
    But there was something about the whole setup that was making this American very suspicious. The police that stopped us back up the road, looking for someone “about your age”—who the hell were they reporting to, and why were they looking for us? The missed phone call, and Ferrari’s evasive, nervous manner when we spoke—just stay where you are, Dan. Wait for further instructions. Yeah—like a bullet in the brain. That certainly tells you where you stand.
    And to cap