Dark Edge: Prequel to the C.O.I.L. Series
Page 4
Chapter Four – The Poison
As Nace "Pyvox" Scanlon passed his target, he skillfully brushed the back of the man's hand. Within an hour, the man would be dead. Maybe then the other agents trying to catch Corban Dowler would get out of his way and let him work.
In the men's restroom, Scanlon took off his glove and flushed it down the toilet, the poison with it. No one would ever know he'd just killed a German agent in the Paris airport deli, but death was part of being a government specialist. They should've been more careful approaching such a highly valued target as Corban Dowler.
Scanlon paused at the sink and washed his hands as he scowled at himself in the mirror. At fifty-two, he looked about sixty, maybe older with the scar across his nose. The hard life of an assassin had worn away the years faster than he'd been able to enjoy them. In fact, he'd not truly enjoyed any of those years. As a chemist, he'd slaved in the lab, without taking vacations or making friends. There were no trophies on his shelf at home to celebrate his years of sacrifice for the government that barely acknowledged him.
And he now hunted a man much like himself. Nearly. Scanlon was fascinated with Corban Dowler. He'd heard of the man over the years—a lone operator, a ghost from Langley who could infiltrate any nation and access any target that needed to be eliminated. Was he good enough to take out Corban?
"Aconitum napellus," Scanlon said to the mirror. The name had a nice sound to it—a deadly and almost romantic ring. Any part of the monkshood plant was deadly, inducing heart failure. It was the poison he'd chosen with which to kill Corban. No one would ever know.
However, his job had become quite difficult. German agents in the airport had about captured Corban, but Scanlon's orders were to kill him. In the process of beating the Germans to his target, Scanlon knew Corban had made him.
And then there was the Israeli woman, Chloe Azmaveth. He'd run her face in his portable recognition software as soon as he'd seen Corban talking to her. She was connected to the Mossad, a mid-level agent heading home after an operation in Argentina. Scanlon had approached her after Corban boarded his jet to India. When he was just a dozen paces from her, she'd turned, a pair of reading glasses in her hand. She had smiled and shook her head at him, her confidence suggesting she was more than a mid-level agent, even if that was all her file had said.
So instead of questioning and killing Chloe Azmaveth, Scanlon had swiped the German operator's hand. Eventually, they might suspect it was his doing, but no one would bother trying to prove it, he hoped. It was more blood on the Americans' hands for hiring a crowd of assassins when one precision instrument such as himself was required for someone of Corban Dowler's caliber.
Leaving the restroom, Scanlon found the nearest ticket booth and purchased a flight for Bangalore. India was a likely place for a fugitive to hide—in the midst of a billion people. But Scanlon knew Corban wasn't a man to hide from anyone. He had a feeling of foreboding that Corban was drawing him in. After all, Corban had made him in the airport, yet he had calmly boarded his plane anyway.
But Scanlon was determined to see Corban die in India, then he would return to the Thames to await the next promising contract to ring through his phone. In a week, he would forget the face of Corban Dowler. Scanlon never remembered the dead.
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