Hunter Hunted

[WP] You are the best assassin in the world, never missed a target, or made the slightest mistake. Everyone knows you by your professional name, nobody knows your real one. One day, you receive a request with your real name and information. Someone you know personally wants you dead.

******

The name 'Senkō' was well known, a least in the underworld of the city.

For the right price, I could put anyone in a coffin. Anyone at all. My targets and clients were not limited to the rich - I could kill your annoying colleague at work, all for the right price.

'Senkō' was a codename of sorts given to me. It meant 'flash', a reference to the speed at which I completed my assassinations, and also the interval of time between when my target was last seen standing and when he/she was lying face down in a pool of blood, a tiny bullet hole in the head.

I only killed with Headshots, there had to be a certain perfection and quality to my work that would form a trademark.

I never rejected a job, this was to carve a niche for myself as one who was not afraid of any job - whoever the target was. And I always executed the job before time.

I was your model student, except for a bag, I had ammunition, and for books, I had my US CheyTac M200 Intervention sniper rifle.

I was ever supposed to refuse a job, ever. Until that job came.

Target: Nick Atkins.

Address: 23 Fremont Street

Reward: $10,000

Attached below are the finer details and habits of the target. Job is to be executed by Monday, November 2, 2020.

Two days from now.

It'd have been a lot less scary if the name wasn't my personal birth name, and the address wasn't my home address.

My home and work identities were worlds apart - no one whom I knew 'professionally' as an assassin knew my identity - all jobs were received by encrypted email and my face had never been revealed to a client. Ever.

It was therefore impossible that someone from 'work' - whether a client, a relative or associate of a victim, or any other category - had requested this job.

It meant that amongst my tight-knit group of family and friends, someone badly wanted me dead - up to the point of requesting the services of the deadliest contract killer in the city.

But who?

The question was one that had me drawing up a list of all my personal acquaintances and stating whether any of them would have a motive for wanting me dead.

My Father: Dead.

My Mother: Alive and well. We were on good terms, so there was no reason to suspect her.

My Elder Sister: Married and living outside the country. We got along well, calls and all, so there was no reason for her to order the hitjob.

My brother: Oliver was a jealous type - we both traded cryptocurrency - at least that was what I used to account for my possessions, but I was apparently more successful than him. We had not spoken in a while, and he didn't receive me warmly during last year's thanksgiving visit. A possible motive for wanting me dead.

My High school Friend: Alex and I once had a crush on the same girl - something that led to our fall out as friends. The competition progressed into an intense rivalry after I'd dated the girl. We broke up a few months later, but she never considered Alex after. We were never on good terms until graduation, and even now I suspected he could have a motive for wanting me dead, however petty it seemed.

Moira: the ex-girlfriend. A few months into the relationship I found out that not only was she not ideal - as we wanted very different things in life, but I also wasn't very much interested in a relationship. The breakup was quite the scene, and even though I did not know whether she still bore grudges against me, hell hath no fury as a woman scorned. I couldn't rule out the possibility.

Just three people to think about. Three individuals to assess. I had to find out who wanted to kill me and strike first.

I went for Moira first. She lived in the uptown part of the city and owned a big lodge for guests there. I was disguised, and I monitored her throughout that day and her daily schedule. Her lines were tapped, her emails and messages were intercepted.

But there was nothing.

I was done with her by that night, and with 48 hours to go, I moved to my brother, hacking all his messaging platforms. All he did was work-related, although he did rant a little about how he'd love to know what I was doing that worked for him.

All the same, nothing seemed out of order.

Last was Alex. All his message applications were well encrypted, meaning that he lived a very secretive life. That struck me right away as suspicious - I never remembered Alex as having a lot to hide. I could not handle it, but I took it to Saggittar, my friend who could, and in a while, I had access to what he was doing.

Alex was involved in a lot of cybercrime and fraudulent operations. He also appeared to run a small drug ring. Even though this was evil, I was not the law (the very enemy of the law actually), and neither was I a snitch. I let him be.

It was a long-awaited day. The time had come, and I was seated at my table in my penthouse building, watching for any action. I knew that something was going to go down that day, it was obvious that whoever ordered my death must have switched to another contractor when I did not deliver early as usual.

Suddenly a call came in.

I answered as I picked up the phone and walked over to the window, peering outside. It was such a nice view of the highrise buildings from this point, and the glass was tempered anyway, so I did not think that I was unsafe.

A miscalculation on my part.

"I'm enjoying the look on your face now," the voice of Alex said solemnly from his end. "How distraught you look right now. Why didn't you kill yourself, o great assassin?"

He knew I was an assassin?! How?!

"I hacked into your secure email service a few months ago - you should look for a decentralized platform because the one you are using is vulnerable. So I intercepted most of your contracts and I knew you were worth a lot. A lot that would go to your family once you died."

"So you partnered with my brother to pull this off, eh?"

"Yes, and watching you stress yourself investigating and monitoring and hacking was divine. The perfect revenge. Don't take it personal - our petty squabbles are motivators as well, but the money is paramount. Eliminating you is a bonus..."

I tried to run away from the window, but it was too late.

"Sayonara!"

He shot thrice, the bullets silently leaving the gun, crashing through the glass and moving in a straight line towards their target.

"And that is over," Alex said, picking himself up from the rooftop where he'd perched to take the shot.

"Your life, that is," my voice called out to him from his short-range communication device.

He froze like a deer in headlights, looking around frantically.

"Did you really think I'd be so stupid as to present myself so unprotected as an easy target? Then you're a fool. You may know how to shoot, but that's not all in this business. I'm sorry there'll be no time to teach you, but I hope you learn a thing or two in hell."

"Then what..."

"A computer-generated-image. I worked on it yesterday, and I controlled the sequence it would play which would suit the discussion. You were watching a pre-recorded hologram without even knowing it.

He suddenly turned to face my direction, and with the short distance between our rooftops, I knew he could see my zoom lens reflecting the rays of the sun.

"Burn in hell, mate."

The bullet left the barrel of my gun silently, and it lodged right in the center of his brain. He fell off the edge of the building, and even though his body was going to burst open when it hit the ground, I knew he was already dead.

Turning to my other sniper already set up, I aimed at the car which brought him here. The car which had my brother on its driver seat. The car was just about to zoom off after seeing Alex's body fall.

It was right in the perfect position.

I shot six times, which was unorthodox for me, ut then this wasn't just 'work'. This was a personal vendetta.

Whether all six hit, I never knew. But Michael lost control and crahsed into a water hydrant. I already knew he was dead, I didn't need to confirm it.

I smirked as a new email came into my phone, another contract.

I decided to take Alex's device and move to a more secure, decentralized platform.

******

@Leo_kitti @Hanzell I've slipped back into this stuff ;;-;;