Requiem for an Assassin Read Free Page B

town.”
    Everyone nodded, accepting the matter as settled, at least temporarily. Pancho tilted his head toward the body on the floor. “You want me to bring around the van?”
    Hilger nodded and started to collect the surveillance photos. They all stood.
    Guthrie asked, “Where do you think we’ll spot him?”
    Hilger considered one of the photos. “Look at this guy. If he weren’t such a good sniper, he’d probably be playing professional football. How much does a guy like this eat every day?”
    Demeere smiled and said, “Plenty.”
    Hilger nodded. “Exactly. I don’t know what kind of food supplies he’s got laid in, but sooner or later, he’s going to have to go out for more. That’s what we’re waiting for.”

2
    D OX WOKE WITH a long, pleasant groan. He stretched out across the king bed, curling his toes, liking the feel of the cotton sheets against his body. From the sun on the gauze curtains, it must have been past seven. He’d slept late. But why not? He wasn’t on a job. He deserved to take it easy. Taking it easy was what Bali was all about. Hell, it was why he’d come here. It was why he’d built this villa.
    He got up and walked naked across the sisal rug to the bathroom to take a leak. It was funny, when he’d first imagined this place, he thought it would be the ultimate bachelor pad. But now that it was done, he found he was reluctant to share it. Bedding down with someone inside a place he’d built himself would feel more intimate than he was ready for. Or rather, he hadn’t met anyone yet who he was ready to be that intimate with. He wanted to meet someone good, someone right, but of the many women he’d known and enjoyed, he just couldn’t get that close with any of them. There was Rain’s lady, of course, Delilah, and a man would have to be gay or in a coma not to have some kind of thing for her, but even acknowledging to yourself that you had a hankering for your bro’s woman was a dangerous thing. And doing anything to act on it would be an unpardonable sin, not to mention a declaration of war against the kind of man you’d have to be insane to want for an enemy.
    Anyway, it wasn’t like he pined for Delilah or anything like that. It was more like, she was just the kind of woman he wished he could meet. Smart, confident, and of course drop-dead gorgeous. Semi-mysterious, with a tasty little edge to keep you on your toes. Like what Angelina Jolie might be if she were blond and had taken up spy work for the Mossad instead of acting.
    Well, he’d keep looking. And it wasn’t like he was suffering in the meantime. He had a couple of honeys tucked away in Kuta, only an hour away, and several in Bangkok and Jakarta who went into paroxysms whenever he called to say he was coming to town.
    He finished urinating, then looked at himself in the mirror. He liked what he saw: just shy of six feet and a solid two hundred twenty-five pounds, with a six-pack and no fat other than a pair of moderate love handles the ladies seemed to find endearing. Exercise was the key. He liked to do something different every day: weights, the jump rope, a Cross Fit routine, some kettlebell stuff he’d learned from the Russians and bodyweight exercises Rain had shown him. He figured his body looked about ten years younger than the forty he actually was, which was good. He wanted to be able to keep chasing twenty-five-year-olds for as long as possible without feeling like a dirty old man.
    He knew he wouldn’t be able to maintain himself forever, but that didn’t really bother him. He didn’t care if he lost his hair, either, although at this point it didn’t look like he was going to. There were only two things he would miss, when the time came: being able to take out a dime-size target at five hundred yards in low light, and getting it up as quick as a fourteen-year-old with a can of Crisco and a Carmen Electra video. Young enough to get wood right away, but old enough to last pretty much as long as he