Cry Assassin by Loki Renard Read Free Book Online

his men.
    “What is so important, Kirk?”
    Kirk cut to the heart of the matter.“This deal is going sour. Phil isn't going to pay. He's traded his daughter to the Russians instead. I have her now as collateral.”
    “How do you know he isn't going to pay?”
    “How can he? The federal government keep hitting the shipments. There's a bubble in the supply line and its going to hit him first. It's time to make an arrest.”
    The pause was brief, too brief. Kirk knew before the Commander spoke that his request would be denied. “We don't want Philip Day. He's small time, nothing. We want Vladimir Flerko. Without a trade, there's no evidence. Without evidence, there's no charge.”
    “Without an arrest, I'm going to have to hand over a nineteen year old girl to the Russians,” Kirk explained.
    There was a brief sigh, a sigh that seemed to bemoan the sentimentality of the modern agent. “Sometimes collateral damage is unavoidable.”
    Kirk's eyes hardened as he stared at the wall in front of him. “She's innocent.”
    “That's unfortunate,” the Commander replied, his tone devoid of emotion. He didn't care about the fate of an unknown woman. In his lifetime he'd seen thousands sacrificed for the political machine. What was one more soul in the grand scheme of things? “Is that all?”
    “Yes sir,” Kirk tried to hide the disappointment and frustration in his voice.
    “Stay the course, operative,” the Commander ordered. The line went dead as the call was disconnected.
    Kirk sat back in his chair and tried to take stock of the situation. He hadn't joined the force to make innocents suffer. But the Commander wasn't going to give Evelyn safe haven and in less than a week, he would have to hand her over to the Russians, unless Phil paid up.
    He'd told Evelyn that his name was Kirk and indeed it was, but his underworld clients knew him by another title, 'Ender'. That was why he'd been called down to the basement, to ply his trade, to rid the Russians of a weak link in their chain in a way that would serve as warning to others thinking of crossing them. His reputation for killing with flair that left his enemies quaking was the reason they'd employed him. Any idiot could pull the trigger on a gun. It took a true artist to tease death out of a body. That talent had landed him on death row a decade earlier, before Command had taken an interest in the bitter young man and offered him a second chance at life.
    He was an agent for Command, but in his current cover he was working as a mercenary for private cartels, anyone with enough money to pay him for his services. He did whatever they wanted him to do, assuming the price was right. He'd done terrible things, things that haunted him many nights, faces rising up from the darkness of his mind to taunt him. Most could be sneered at, even gloated over. How do you live with yourself when you're a killer? You kill those who need killing. You tell yourself that you're acting in the service of a greater good.  Most of the time he could believe that, but tonight he could not.
    His mind drifted back to the sweet faced innocent sleeping in his bed. If there was good in the world, it was in her. She was beautiful and she was sweet and she was brave. The thought of Vlad's stained old fingers on her body made his stomach turn, and the knowledge that Vlad's touch would be the beginning of a sadistic game of sexual torture that would go on and on and possibly not end for years made his blood burn. Whatever impulse draws a man to protect a woman at the cost of his own life had taken Kirk strongly in its maddening embrace. Commander be damned, he would die before he saw harm come to that girl.
     
     
     

Chapter Four
     
     
    Eve stretched out between soft sheets and sighed. Soft sunlight was leaking through the curtains and she was filled with a peaceful sense of calm that dissapated the moment she realized where she was. The brief amnesia of morning passed all too quickly and her mind