The Assassin's Gift (Book One)

The Assassin's Gift

(Book One)

By

IAN C.P. IRVINE

Published by Ian C.P. Irvine on Smashwords

Copyright 2018 IAN C.P. IRVINE

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright observed above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Google and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedicated to Dedo

And to my Dad,

who taught me how to spel.

Other Books by Ian C.P. Irvine

Say You're Sorry

I Spy, I Saw Her Die

Haunted From Within

Haunted From Without

Time Ship

The Orlando File

The Messiah Conspiracy

London 2012: What If?

The Sleeping Truth

Alexis Meets Wiziwam the Wizard

Chapter 1

Loch Ness

Scotland

July 28th

9.30 p.m.

Salvador killed people for a living.

Why?

Was it for money? Notoriety? Or the enjoyment?

In fact, it was none of those things.

The reason Salvador was once again looking through the lens of his high-powered sniper's rifle, patiently waiting for his latest victim to appear in front of the cross hairs so Salvador could gently squeeze the trigger and blow the man's brains out of the back of his head, was none of the above.

In the silence and peace which afforded such similar moments of introspective contemplation that flowed in the moments prior to a kill, Salvador often reaffirmed to himself the three reasons behind his actions.

Firstly, Salvador killed because killing was an art, and Salvador was an artist.

He killed because he was good at it, and like other people, Salvador needed to earn a living. He worked hard. Took lives. Pocketed the money. Lived his life. It was a job. Nothing more. Nothing less. That was the second reason.

Lastly, the third was a simple statement.

Killing someone meant nothing to Salvador. He could take another human life and feel no emotion in the process. Salvador knew that others might view this as inhuman, an abomination, but Salvador saw it as a gift.

It allowed him to do what had to be done, without it impacting on his own life.

A glint of light from the boat below caught Salvador's attention. A man had come up from below and emerged onto the deck.

Salvador immediately centred his attention back onto the boat which was at anchor in a quiet cove on the other side of Loch Ness and focused the cross hairs of his riflescope onto the man's head.

The cove sheltered the boat and offered it some protection, that side of the loch being a nature reserve with no public access.

From Salvador's covered hide in the woods directly opposite on the other side of the Loch and a half way up the hill above the road, his high-powered rifle and telescopic sights took all that protection away. To Salvador it mattered not whether the boat was fifty yards away, or a mile.

Salvador's extensive training in America and years of experience had taught him everything he needed to know technically about killing with rifles, but his natural acumen and ability made up the rest. It was going to be a long shot and a difficult one, but not one that Salvador couldn't achieve. He had already accurately estimated and made adjustments to compensate for the various factors that influence a bullet's trajectory and point of impact, such as the range to the target, gravity, wind direction, wind velocity, air density, elevation, and even the Coriolis effect due to the rotation of the Earth across the distance that the bullet would fly. Having compensated for the particular local factors, - the heat rising from the loch, the wind speeds which varied across its surface from one side to the other, and the moisture in the air, Salvador was confident that he could achieve his mission so long as his Russian target appeared on deck. Salvador's biggest concern was the movement of the boat on the water itself, but by dropping anchor in a sheltered cove, they had stupidly solved Salvador's biggest problem and were practically offering Pavel Kuznetsov to him on a plate.

Salvador didn't know much about Kuznetsov, except that he was nicknamed 'The Blacksmith' and had a bad reputation. What he did, or why he had earned that bad reputation didn't interest Salvador. All that mattered was that someone was willing to pay eight hundred thousand dollars to have him killed, and for that sort of money, the man must have done something seriously wrong.

Anyway, the time for debate was long over. Salvador had already accepted the first four hundred thousand in advance. Now he had to deliver the expected result before the remainder appeared in his bitcoin account on the Dark Web.

It was cooler now, and less moisture would be rising from the loch, reducing resistance to the flight of the bullet as it crossed the loch. A quick glance at the small flags flying on the top deck of the cruiser close to where the man now stood also told him that the wind had changed direction slightly. Reaching up with his right hand but maintaining his hold on the rifle with his left, he adjusted the telescopic sight and made a few last minute tweaks to the settings on his weapon, automatically dialling in windage and last minute elevation corrections without moving his eye from the target.

The man who had come up onto the deck was Matvei Sokolov, one of two bodyguards who stayed with Kuznetsov twenty-four seven. As opposed to Kuznetsov, Salvador knew a lot about him. Likewise for the other gorilla, Leonid Hubenko, a Ukranian. Salvador always made it his business to learn about those who may be shooting back at him. How clever they were? What skills they had? How fast they could run if they started chasing him?

Both men were bad news and potentially dangerous.

However, so far they had already made a series of spectacularly bad decisions, - like the positioning of their boat on the far side of the loch -, and Salvador could have taken advantage of any one of them.

But he had bided his time as they toured around Scotland, and had followed them to the loch where he had already been watching the boat for three days.

It was getting late. The sun was slowly going down behind the mountains that shielded Loch Ness, and soon the Loch would be silent.

There were only three men on board the motor cruiser which Kuznetsov had rented. Hopefully that meant only three bullets.

Salvador released the safety catch, focussing the cross hair on the centre of Sokolov's forehead. He took three controlled breaths and in the respiratory pause at the end of the last down breath, he gently squeezed the trigger, following through to the rear of the action before releasing the trigger slowly back to the front.

As hoped for, as the bullet passed through Sokolov's head it imparted enough momentum to his neck and torso to cause him to stumble backwards, trip on the rail and flip backwards over the side into the water.

In the seconds before Sokolov toppled over the edge, Salvador's practised eye registered the point of impact on the man's skull, noting that it was slightly elevated and to the right of where he had intended. Subconsciously calculating a few adjustments, he quickly dialled in some further minute adjustments to the rifle, pushing forward on the controls of the rifle and rotating them clockwise, thus moving the point of impact down and to the left. Only then did he start to think of the fate of his victim.

Salvador guessed that thanks to the density of muscle in the Russian's heavily built-up body, he would quickly sink to the bottom of the loch, out of sight.

How long it would be before he was missed and the Ukrainian came looking for him, Salvador could not know.

It depended perhaps on whether or not they had heard the shot.

By the time the bullet reached the boat it would be travelling at two to three times the speed of sound, creating a small localised sonic boom. However, if those inside the boat had any music playing, the sound of the shot would most likely be drowned out.

But assuming that he was missed, it would probably be five or ten minutes before someone came looking for him.

Unfortunately however, Salvador's plan had a weakness.

Everything depended upon Kuznetsov coming topside. If he became alerted to something going wrong, he might simply stay inside the cabin, and call for help, or raise the anchor and move up the loch.

At that point things could get messy.

Salvador would then have no choice but to fire into the cruiser itself with metal-piercing rounds that could pass through the hull and ignite the fuel tanks.

Kuznetsov would be killed, possibly cremated alive, but half of Scotland would hear the explosion.

Not very subtle, and potentially problematic for the days ahead.

Salvador knew that Kuznetsov had been planning to spend another two days on the loch. Yesterday afternoon, after it was clear that Kuznetsov's boat had moored up on the other side of the loch, he had made enquires in the rental office in Fort Augustus, requesting to rent Kuznetsov's boat by name: 'Maiden of the Loch'. Unfortunately, he was told, it was rented out for another seventy-two hours. Instead, Salvador had rented a smaller boat and spent an hour cruising the loch alone disguised in a wig and American looking clothes. Feigning interest in the surroundings, he had intentionally cruised once up and down past Kuznetsov to get a good look at the boat, and to get a feel for the strength of the wind and the current across the loch and near the cove.

Salvador needed as much information as possible on local conditions to help secure the shot. Fortunately, according to the weather forecast, the conditions for the next few days would be very similar. It was now just a matter of waiting, which was something that over the years, Salvador had become an expert at. Salvador had waited all over the world, killing people wherever his missions took him. In capital cities, deserts, mountains, brothels, casinos… he had tracked down and killed his targets wherever his targets frequented or would be found. Salvador seldom had the luxury of choosing the location; the location chose him.

This however was, without doubt, one of the most beautiful of them all. He was surrounded by incredible scenery: mountains, lush green forest, the tantalising and legendary Loch Ness. And the smell… It was wonderful. As he lay in the grass, covered by his portable camouflaged hide, resting on his elbows with the telescopic sight against his eye, the smell of grass, the earth and the heather filled his nostrils and stimulated all his senses.

Continuously scanning the deck for any signs of movement, he thought back to his encounter that morning with the Monarch of the Glen: as he had studied the boat below with his field glasses, a sixth sense had told him he was being watched, and he had turned around, lifted the corner of his hide, and found himself staring straight up at a glorious stag. At least nine feet from the tip of his magnificent antlers to the base of his front hooves, the stag was sniffing the air and studying the land around him. Slowly he had bowed his head and antlers towards Salvador, and for a few, brief but drawn-out moments, their eyes had met. The stag’s eyes, a beautiful translucent brown that sparkled in the morning light, studied Salvador carefully, before the great beast lowered his head still further and stretched out towards Salvador, sniffing the air.

Salvador smiled, and exuding no fear in response to the presence of the powerful beast above him, he momentarily turned his attention back to the field glasses and his mission below. A moment later he glanced back to the stag, only to find that it had gone. It had vanished effortlessly back into the wilderness around; his kingdom, in which Salvador now felt a blessed and welcome guest.

Pulling back from the telescopic lens, Salvador lifted his field binoculars and scanned up and down the loch. A cruiser was heading down to Fort Augustus, passing Kuznetsov on the side nearest Salvador. It would pass in the next few moments. Once it was gone, the rest of the loch was clear. Salvador blinked a few times, rubbed his eyes, and then returned to his vigil with his right eye close to the telescopic sight.

Twenty minutes passed. Twenty-five. Then the cabin door opened, and a man stepped out. A large man, larger even that the previous gorilla who had made the mistake of coming topside. Immediately glancing at the flag above and making a few minor adjustments to his rifle, Salvador then watched as Leonid Hubenko stretched, flexed from side to side, and then looked around him. With the cross hairs on his forehead Salvador saw him open his lips and call Sokolov's name, then turn and walk along the deck away from the cabin towards the other end of the boat.

Salvador followed him in his sights, waiting for him to near the other end, biding his time. Hubenko was calling his partner’s name again. A look of confusion now spread across his face. He turned towards Salvador, the cross hairs again centred on his head. Salvador temporarily increased the pressure on the trigger but then reduced it again, watching as Hubenko bent forward over the rail towards him. Hubenko was busy staring at the water beneath him, obviously evaluating possibilities. Anticipating Hubenko’s next action correctly, Salvador prepared himself as the Ukrainian straightened up, crossed the deck and started to bend over the rail on the far side.

The shot caught him at the centre of the base of his neck, removing that part of the spine and its momentum propelling the body forward and over the edge of the cruiser.

One moment he was there, and the next he wasn’t. Thanks to Salvador’s patience, and skill, another monster had found a home in the depths of the loch, leaving no blood or body matter splattered over the white deck.

Salvador stretched his neck, moving his chin from side-to-side, then stretching his fingers. After allowing himself a deep breath and a momentary closure of his eyes, he once again focused back on the cabin of the cruiser. Kuznetsov would soon start to wonder where his two bodyguards had disappeared to and emerge from below to search for them, possibly expecting to catch them smoking and chatting in the fresh air. The worry was that Kuznetsov might perhaps suspect something odd could be happening, raise the anchor and attempt to head for a port without showing his face on deck.

So far, Salvador’s track record was impeccable. He’d never failed in a mission. He’d always collected the final bitcoin.

Fifteen minutes passed. There were no further signs of activity from anywhere on the boat. Salvador was beginning to make mental calculations regarding the light. At this time of the year in Scotland the evenings were long, and this far north the light held for a long time. Salvador reckoned that he had at most another thirty minutes before he would have to consider switching to a night vision riflescope.

Salvador blinked. A light had just gone on in the main cabin of the boat. Sensing that someone had possibly just entered that cabin, Salvador automatically checked the flag above the boat and made a few tiny recalibrations of the rifle and sight. Checking his breathing and his pulse, Salvador took a few deep breaths and relaxed, calming his pulse and bringing it down from 59 to 55 beats per minute.

Readying himself once more for what Salvador hoped would happen next, he marginally increased the pressure on the trigger and focused on the door leading from the cabin to the deck which the Ukrainian and the Russian had both come through.

A person appeared in the cabin behind. Salvador could see his figure approaching the cabin door through the glass. Anticipating where he would exit onto the deck he trained the cross hairs on the glass of the door, head-height, in the middle of the doorway.

He only needed one shot.

One clear shot.

And the mission would be over.

Suddenly the doorway rose upwards in his sights, momentarily confusing Salvador. The boat was rocking, almost violently. Quickly, Salvador lifted the aim back up the door, but saw the figure inside the cabin take a step backwards.

Suspecting that the wash of a large passing vessel must be rocking the boat, Salvador quickly pulled up away from the rifle sight, lifted his field-glasses, and scanned the loch below.

Where was the vessel? Had it gone past already? Could Salvador still take the shot, or would the presence of the other vessel force him to delay it?

Scanning right and left, Salvador looked for a boat. Or a cruiser.

He could see nothing.

Had it gone past on his side of the loch and was it in the lee of the hill beneath him, out of sight?

Either way, it should now be far enough away from Kuznetsov not to matter.

He looked quickly back towards the boat, noting that there were