Who the hell was this joker? And what was he doing going after my mark?

If he managed to drop Steven instead of me, I'd have to fork over all of the money I'd accepted for the job. You never, ever try to claim credit on a kill that isn't your own - next to sub-contracting a job, that was the biggest no-no there was! If a cleaner was ever caught telling that particular lie, it was guaranteed that nobody'd ever hire them again. And that was the best case scenario.

This guy was going to cost me the whole job, a quarter of a million dollars. Money I actually needed at the moment.

I sat back and simply watched, not bothering to use the scope to get a closer view. If I used the scope I'd only be able to see one of them at a time. I needed to see this happen - watch both figures at the same time and take in how they reacted to each other.

The faux drunk's meandering steps began directing him closer and closer to the second figure in the black leather coat, who appeared to have seen him but was simply standing there, watching him make his way closer.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck . . . who the hell sent you?!" I growled quietly. "What the hell are you still doing this cornball routine for? You're only thirty feet away from him, for Christ's sake!"

Was this guy actually a pro after all? My eyes drifted once more to his ratty half-finger gloves and the gun he was holding.

Relaxed grip, and some very serious hardware. A pro. But what kind of a pro would give up an elevated position just so he could pull this dumb-ass 'cloak and stagger' routine, and all just for the sake of getting closer to the mark?

I kept watching. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten. The drunken stagger was less pronounced now, and the gunman's steps became more deliberate. He was getting excited. I switched back to my scope view.

There was a tense moment of silence. A gentle breeze caused a cellophane wrapper to skitter away into the shadows.

Everything was still, and then everything happened at once.

The gunman's arm swung around to point at the still figure, and a sound like a cardboard box being torn in two ripped through the street. I made out a few brief flashes of light, some faint smoke, a leather-clad figure reeling back, and then saw the gunman moving quickly on the balls of his feet and heading to the left side of the street, away from his victim.

And that's when things got crazy.

Steven seemed to come alive at the sight of his would-be murderer fleeing, and, as though he hadn't just been shot, he closed the distance between them in practically no time at all. He grabbed the gunman's filthy coat, and swung him around in a half-circle, opposite to the direction the gunman had been running, and let go.

The tattered gunman flew backwards a good six or seven feet, his feet trailing in the air behind him, and he landed on the sidewalk next to the building on the right with a quiet 'hoof!' sound. He'd barely hit the ground before Steven was on him, impossibly fast . . .

And impossibly strong.

With one hand, he lifted the gunman by the front of his coat and slammed him up against the dark brick wall, holding him in place. The gunman tried bringing his gun around for another shot, but it was slapped out of his grasp by the free hand of his hideously strong opponent.

As I watched, it dawned on me. Charging right at a gunman, bare-handed, likely due to a superhuman amount of drugs. And yet, stupid, but smart . . .

My target was wearing a vest.

The gunman, now sans gun, struggled to release himself from the firm grip of his attacker. As they struggled, I pressed my cheek back into the familiar hollow of the rifle and began lining up my shot. Buddy with the fancy gun wasn't in a terribly advantageous position all of a sudden, and if he was one of Sack's men it would probably be a good idea to help him out a little. If he wasn't, well, maybe I could still salvage this particular contract, and he'd be the one not getting paid.

I took a couple of deep breaths, and then looked through my scope at Steven, targeting the base of the neck on his right. I could make out just enough bared skin near the collar to pull it off. With the downward angle, it would end up going through and down his left side, avoiding the bullet-proof vest completely. I use very special bullets when working a job, and between the illegal hollow-cavity fragments and the very, very illegal titanium pin that was buried in the precise center of each soft-jacketed round, I had a better than average chance of a piece of my shot hitting something important, like the heart.

And even if I missed the heart, the extremely illegal nerve toxin the titanium pin was sheathed in would kill him before an ambulance could arrive.

If you're going to use illegal ammo, why go halfway?

Still pinned high up against the bricks, the gunman began kicking frantically at his foe, both hands grasping at the forearm that held him in place, quite obviously choking. My target was just standing there, doing nothing to avoid the kicks, snarling something I couldn't hear up at the man he was holding against the wall. My crosshairs lined up in a way that felt right.

Now.

Inhale, exhale. Hold.

My brain sent a message to my finger to start squeezing very slowly.

The padding of my rifle bucked firmly against my shoulder and made a loud 'thpffft!' noise. I heard a second noise at almost exactly the same time - the percussive thump of high-velocity impact.

Inhale.

Steven's released the grip he had on his scruffy-looking quarry, who slid down the wall and crumpled to the pavement. At least, I think he did . . . I wasn't really paying attention to him. My eyes were fixed on my target, and they were starting to widen.

I missed?

Either I'd caught the edge of the vest, or he'd pulled himself out of the way at the last second. He was still standing, spinning in place, frantically looking around.

Quickly, I lined up a shot for his head and squeezed off another round. The shot was low, and he was moving, so it appeared as though the bullet only managed to graze his chin, though I couldn't be sure. I pulled the bolt back and got ready to fire a third shot-

Steven spun in place, and was now staring up at my window.

Just staring - standing there in plain view, not even bothering to find cover, sending me such an intense look of malevolent hatred that my first instinct was to start running. Quickly.

I'm a professional, okay? My instincts don't generally lean that way.

Some part of my brain informed me that my finger wasn't cooperating with the last set of instructions I'd sent it, and that my heart was suddenly doing its best to impersonate a drummer in a speed-metal band.

I exhaled and tried relaxing my shoulders, re-lining up my sights with the top of his forehead, trying to ignore the fact that Stevie appeared to be looking right up at me. I tried squeezing the trigger, but I couldn't seem to feel my finger all of a sudden.

An unfamiliar feeling of fear and panic washed over me, and I felt the barest tremor in my hands. Again, a sudden impulse to run . . .

I forced myself to stay put, reminding myself that he couldn't actually see me from where he was. Nothing but dark, empty space . . . I'd confirmed what visibility had been like from the street, and there was no way he could see me.

But then, why was he staring right at me?

Realizing that Steven's attention was no longer directed at him, I saw the tattered gunman lift himself into a crouch, cough weakly a couple of times, and then stumble quickly away down the street. He changed course briefly, scrambling over to his fallen weapon so he could retrieve it, and then bolting down the alley just as fast as his rag-adorned legs could carry him.

Steven hadn't acknowledged the fleeing figure in any way, and was still staring up at me, radiating fury. Then, after seeming to consider for a moment, he quickly started towards the building I was in, eyes still focused on my darkened window.

Had he felt where that first shot had come from? He might have felt the impact of my shot on his vest and figured out its most likely source . . . that was possible, wasn't it? Shit, I had to have hit the vest on that first shot, right? It made logical sense . . .

Why did none of this feel like it made sense though?

Didn't matter. I wasn't going to get a third shot. This job was botched. Retreat . . . regroup. Nothing else mattered right now.

I checked my memory, and confirmed both the fact that he was heading towards the front doors of the building itself, and that those particular doors were currently unlocked.

All I had on me was my distance gear, too . . . bolt-action, with a five round clip, three rounds remaining. Useless in close quarters. I didn't know if Stevie had a handgun on him, but I figured it likely.

This was so not good . . .

Swearing under my breath in Russian, I quickly dismantled my rifle and stuffed its various components into my duffel bag, packed up my infra-red scanner, and grabbed my water bottle. Quick check - no prints, no DNA, nothing I'd miss, nothing that could be traced back to me. Check on all counts.

I grabbed the bag and sprinted for the door, bursting into the darkened hall a half-second later.

The place I'd chosen had been completely abandoned, stripped of everything of worth a long time ago. No furniture, no lights, no emergency lights, no exit signs, nothing but a bunch of dust, discarded rubble, and other trash lying about. My night vision was pretty good right now, but it'd still be a minor miracle if I made it to the end of the hall without snapping my ankle like a twig.

Running much faster than I should have been in total darkness, I took off down the hallway, toward my planned emergency exit.

After about ten feet or so, the faint light from the street lamps outside of the building managed to peek in through a mostly broken window, providing just enough light to be useful. As a result, I didn't slam into a wall, or break my leg, or any other potentially fatal mishap. I made it to the stairwell, and stopped once I did, listening very carefully for any sounds.

Junk being shoved out of the way, a deep voice snarling something unintelligible. Far below me, and . . . to my right. Way, way off to the right. It sounded like he was coming up the other stairwell.

Perfect.

I barreled down the stairs, realizing that packing my infra-red scanner had been a really dumb thing to do now that I needed to navigate my way through the near-total darkness of the empty building. Well, I'd call myself nasty names later. For now, I needed to get out of this building and away from this place without being seen.

Thankfully there wasn't too much junk or discarded furniture cluttering this particular stairwell, and I made it to the bottom in relatively good shape, and without making too much noise. My limbs were filled with too much energy, I noticed, and I breathed a quick prayer of thanks that I didn't miss a step on my way down.

I pushed against the squeaky metal bar of the heavy metal door, my foot brushing against the broken iron chains that had once secured the exit and prevented the door from opening. Rule number one when it comes to planning an escape route - make sure ahead of time that there's nothing physically preventing you from using it.

With a solid push, the door flew open, and I bolted outside. Compared to the pitch blackness of the stairwell, the dim light of the street lamp made the street appear as though it were the middle of the day. I stood still, cocking my head to the side and listening for any nearby noises. There were none.

Shouldering my duffel bag, I hopped over to the sidewalk and headed in the general direction of my car, which was two blocks away. I was walking as casually as I could manage, though my legs were practically itching to break into an all-out sprint and put as much distance between myself and this place as they could. I ignored this impulse, like I had before. Honestly, I almost always felt like this after any job, good or bad.

The temptation to run is a powerful one. As a species, we're hard-wired to notice it. Next time you're walking down a city street and you spot someone, anyone, running as fast as they can, take note of what you do. Chances are you'll look at their face, try to determine what you can from their expression, and then attempt to locate some sign as to what it is that they're running from, or to. It's automatic, instinctive. Biologically, most of us are just a few dozen generations away from living in thatch huts and worrying about animal attacks, and are a mere few thousand years from a time when we weren't even at the top of the food chain.

Those sorts of survival instincts are hard to shake, but I managed. Heck, after a few minutes I even started to whistle softly to myself. Unconcerned, blending in, looking like your regular guy walking down the street after a late night at the twenty-four hour gym. Nothing to see here, folks. I'm just your average Nobody.

Heh.

About thirty yards away I stopped, crouching to one knee so I could pretend I was tying my shoe, listened for any sign of pursuit in the stillness of the night air. There didn't seem to be any, though I thought I was able to hear the muffled sounds some furniture and other things being thrown around in an angry fashion. Well, if Steven was still in the building, that was a good thing.

What a night.

What the hell had happened?

Why hadn't I been able to get off a third shot? And why was my heart still pounding away in my chest? Was I that out of practice?

As jobs went, this one had to be pretty near the bottom. Double-booked, for a start. My guy was still standing, and probably knew there were at least two hitters after him now, thanks to a bullet-proof vest and an overly theatrical gunman who shopped at Goodwill. Who the hell was that other guy, anyway?

I turned the corner beside the red brick building.

There was a brilliant flash of light that seemed to come out of nowhere. I winced, shielding myself with my hands, heart in my throat.

A second later, there was an electronic 'beedah-beep'.

I barely had enough time to make out the source of the flash - a cellphone camera, being held out of a nearby car window by a hand wearing ratty half-finger gloves.

The glossy, dark-colored Mazda Miata convertible peeled away, tires squealing. I could only watch as it sped away from me, down the double-lane street. There were still after-images of the xenon flash in my eyes, and I couldn't catch the license plate quickly enough.

Soon, the car was gone.

He'd gotten my picture.

Likely a digital picture. A dumb, theatrical, risk-taking cleaner who spent way too much money on guns . . . now had a digital picture of me. My likeness could end up on the internet, and searchable, within minutes.

"Well, fuck," I said, quietly.

Yup. As jobs went, this one really sucked all of a sudden.