A Little Assassination

Lawrence Troyna

Description

Most people will have heard of the saying "set a thief to catch a thief". So what do you do when an assassination attempt goes wrong? Simple: you send another assassin to find and eliminate the first assassin. The story follows the misadventures of Nero, a British assassin, as he tries to escape the long and vengeful arm of a major American crime family who have employed their own specialist hitman to find and kill him. The book follows the actions of the two assassins as they jockey for position against each other in Los Angeles, London and then across the continent of Europe. They finally meet, but which one is the hunter and which one is the prey?

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 29 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528961288
• Langue: English

Extrait

A Little Assassination
Lawrence Troyna
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-11-29
A Little Assassination About the Author Copyright Information © Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Reads Pharmaceuticals Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Epilogue
About the Author
After spending over thirty years travelling the world as an international financer, Lawrence Troyna retired and began writing books which encompass some of the weird and wonderful characters he met.
Copyright Information ©
Lawrence Troyna (2019)
The right of Lawrence Troyna to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528915564 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528961288 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Chapter One
The assassin sat in the car quietly, revving the engine to be certain that it did not stall. Keeping his left foot on the clutch, he practised putting the gear lever into first gear. The car had been stolen only four hours earlier and he was unfamiliar with the gear change. He was much more used to cars that were automatic. He had all the patience in the world as people in his trade usually do. He had already been waiting for his target to emerge from the pub for two hours and was prepared to wait another two hours if necessary.
Eventually Mel Packham, the banker for whom he had been waiting, came out the saloon door, said his goodbyes to about three other drinkers and made his way slowly down the street to where he had parked his car. He had toyed with the idea of getting a taxi home as he had been drinking steadily since nine o’clock, but discarded the thought when he realised he would have to recover the car in the morning.
He was about halfway to where he could see his car when he heard an engine revving loudly behind him and approaching at a fearful speed. He was already on the pavement but moved even further away from the road towards the wall of the house on his left.
Suddenly, he found himself bathed in the glow of the beam of twin headlights. He turned to face the oncoming car and saw for the first time that it was also on the pavement. He had no time to duck, weave or jump clear. The car hit him full-on going at about sixty-five miles an hour.
Packham was thrown twenty feet into the air and was already dead by the time his head crashed into the pavement behind the car which did not stop.
The assassin drove a further mile, turned a corner and parked the car in a side street. Crossing the road, he climbed into another car that he had parked earlier in the day and drove away.
***
Alfred Horton had left the cinema with his girlfriend and the two of them were walking through the car park to their car. They were arguing in a friendly way about in whose flat they would spend the night together. Horton, who sold computer software for a living had the larger flat, but his girlfriend’s flat was nearer.
‘I want your wallet and watch now,’ said a voice behind them. They both turned to face a hooded figure brandishing a large knife.
‘Just give him what he wants Alfred. Don’t get into a fight with him while he’s got that knife,’ said Horton’s girlfriend very quickly and very frightened.
‘Quicker,’ said the hooded figure appearing to be very agitated.
‘Okay,’ said Horton, ‘I’m being as quick as I can.’
He handed over his wallet and was removing his watch from his wrist when the hooded figure struck with the knife. It entered Horton’s body round about the sternum and was then forced upward into his chest. He dropped to the floor instantly dead. His girlfriend started screaming uncontrollably as the hooded figure ran off.
He could still hear the screams even when he was about one hundred yards away from the scene of the supposed mugging. The assassin tore off the hood from his head and walked calmly down the street to his parked car. Climbing in and adjusting the rear-view mirror he drove away, crashing the gears because he still was not used to a gear lever.
***
Jack Reckitt was a telecommunications expert. He was a partner in a large company installing systems all over the world. He did a lot of the design work at home in his eleventh-floor apartment where he had built himself an office and study. Strictly tea-total he was drinking some herbal mixture one afternoon when the front door bell rang.
He got up from his desk and went to open the door. A body crashed through the front door gathering Reckitt as it flew in. The momentum carried the two bodies into the lounge straight across to the large picture window boasting one of the finest views in Coventry.
The hustling figure carried Reckitt over to the window. He could not get a foothold to slow down the movement in that direction.
The two bodies hit the window with Reckitt’s head being the first part of either’s anatomy to actually hit the glass. Even though the window was supposedly made of shatterproof glass it had not been built to withstand such a battering. The window shattered into a million pieces and Jack Reckitt sailed through the gaping hole to the pavement eleven floors below.
The other figure pulled back from the window, glanced quickly around the room and walked out of the apartment. He took the lift to the ground floor and exited the building through a back door he had discovered earlier in the day. His car was parked not very far away and a few minutes later the assassin was once again driving away from the scene of a murder, still unhappy with his gear lever.
***
Arnold Sinclair loved to ramble in the Welsh countryside. Being an accountant in a large practice in Manchester, he was stuck behind a desk all week long and hardly ever saw any greenery apart from his tiny back garden that he and his wife tended with loving care. At weekends though he felt like a king. Dressed in corduroy trousers, a large pullover and sensible walking shoes he would tramp all over Wales following footpaths that had been walked across for hundreds of years. He was a mild-mannered man with not an enemy in the world. Or so he thought.
This was why he was terrified and totally mystified as to why he was lying in the boot of a car, being driven he knew not where, completely trussed up from head to toe. The car he was in had been driving for about thirty minutes.
Earlier Arnold had been walking in the bright sunshine, huge stick in his hand to give him some aid when the tougher part of the walk would come later. A car had pulled up by the side of him and the driver had asked for some directions. Leaning into the car to impart his knowledge Arnold had suddenly found himself being beaten around the head and then tied up. Thrown unceremoniously into the boot he was now more scared than he had ever been in his life.
Eventually, Arnold felt the car leave the tarmac road and go off onto some unmade pathway. Another five minutes and the car stopped. He heard the driver crash the gears as the car was put into neutral.
The driver came around the car and opened the boot. Light flooded in and Arnold closed his eyes from the brightness.
‘Here we are,’ said the driver, and manhandled Arnold out of the boot. Arnold did not weigh much so it was not too hard a task.
‘What do you want?’ he cried. ‘I’ve got no money on me but if you get me to a bank, I’m sure I can get you some.’
‘I don’t want your money Arnold. I just want us to take a little walk.’
And with that the driver took off some of the ropes tying Arnold up and prodded him to start walking. Arnold, crying and pleading, was forced to walk across some muddy fields until they came to what looked like a quarry.
‘Here we are,’ said the driver and removed all the other ropes still tying up Arnold. Arnold rubbed his wrists where the ropes had been, still mystified as to who his abductor was and the reason for the abduction.
‘What is it you want?’ he said. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to take a little walk like this,’ said the driver and pushed Arnold in the solar plexus. Arnold involuntarily stepped back into the void of an open disused mineshaft. The sealed cover of the shaft had been removed by the driver some hours earlier.
Arnold sailed down the shaft, screaming all the way, and occasionally hitting the walls of the shaft rebounding from side to side. He was unconscious before he hit the bottom which was just as well as he then felt no pain as his body shattered at the foot of the shaft.
The driver wiped his hands on some rags close by and returned to his car. Putting it in gear easily, he gave a grunt of self-satisfaction and drove off.
***
Wilf Patterson was still being feted. The winner of the St Leger horserace on a complete outsider, he was bought drinks whenever he went into his local pub in a little village just a few miles north of Leeds. All the people there who knew him had had a few pounds on Arabian Knight in the big race, and at thirty-three to one it would take quite a few drinks bought for Wilf before they had gone through their winnings.
This night, like most nights since he had returned from holiday, was no exception and he left his local pub a little worse for wear. He therefore did not see or he