“I understand, I understand. I’ll do anything you say, just let Heather go.”
Ten minutes later they arrived at Heather’s house. Ian opened the front door with Sanders’ key and shoved Sanders inside. When Sanders turned around, Ian fired the weapon.
The assassin smiled as the mechanic collapsed to the floor.
His eyes traced the copper coils of the Taser M26 down to the man lying on the floor. The needle-tipped darts stuck in Sanders’ chest delivered fifty thousand volts when the assassin squeezed the trigger.
How easy it had been. His master plan had worked flawlessly, and Duane Sanders would be the first fatality of the Savannah Project.
He squeezed the trigger again and watched Sanders lose consciousness.
Sanders awoke to water splashing over him. His blood-stained shirt clung to his chest. His head pounded. He couldn’t move his arms and legs, they were duct-taped to a chair.
Music played from the stereo.
The lights were off.
The afternoon sun beat against the closed blinds.
Heather was moaning.
Ian was sitting on the edge of Heather’s bed. The Taser was gone.
In his hand he held a pistol.
“Welcome back, Duane. You’ve been out quite a while.” Ian stood and walked toward Sanders.
“I thought you were going to let us go. I did what you wanted.”
Ian smiled. “I lied.”
The color drained from Sanders’ face. “What are you going to do with us?”
“What do you think, Duane? I would just leave and let you two walk away? You’re a liability.” Ian leaned close and whispered, “But first, I’m going to enjoy Heather. And you’re going to watch.”
The thought of Ian touching her made him want to vomit. He wanted to save her, but how? Ian was a huge man with a body builder physique. He was a small man bound to a chair. What chance did he have against a man like that, a killer like Ian?
“Ian, please don’t hurt her. Do what you want to me, but let her go. I beg you, please.”
“No begging, Duane. It’s very unbecoming.” Ian smashed the butt of his pistol into the side of Sanders’ head.
When Sanders regained consciousness, Ian was wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist. The humid smell of soap and shampoo filled the room. Heather was naked on the bed, bound to the corner bedposts.
Ian sat on the bed next to her. He ran his large hand along Heather’s tanned body, caressing her breasts. He skimmed his hand along her curvy anatomy.
Sanders tried to scream, but was gagged with one of Heather’s socks.
Ian stood up. “Duane, I’ve decided to honor your request. I’m not going to kill Heather — only you.”
Sanders struggled against the bonds holding him to the chair — but to no avail.
A shadow loomed over him. He looked up and saw Ian pointing a pistol at him.
“Goodbye, Duane.”
CHAPTER 2
Ian Collins folded his newspaper, tucked it between the cushion and the armrest, and studied the eighteen-foot sculpture that dominated the lobby of the Dallas Adams Mark. It was a Remington-style metal sculpture — a cowboy falling off the back of a rearing horse. The high ceilings gave the foyer an open feel. Outside the large plate glass windows overlooking the valet station was a line of taxis, each driver waiting for his next fare.
He glanced at his reflection in the window and noticed his white hair visible beneath his cap. He readjusted it on his head.
His most notable and quite prominent features were his white forelock and his mismatched eye color. His left eye had a brown iris and his right eye was a vivid sapphire blue. His appearance always commanded second and third glances from passersby.
His profession as a hired assassin mandated he maintain a low profile, which was difficult due to his size and unusual physical features. He had tried several disguise techniques — hair dye, head shaving, and hairpieces. None suited his taste, so he opted for the sole use of hats to conceal his hair.
His eyes were much easier. Brown-colored contact lenses were easily obtained, drew no suspicion, and masked his mismatched eye color.
He had been in Dallas for only three weeks, but it seemed like three months. A dirty city, he thought. Then again, Belfast was far worse. Even so, he couldn’t wait to get home to Ireland. He despised the United States.
Collins had already killed one person and critically injured another — both aircraft mechanics. He’d raped the girlfriend. Of course, that part was enjoyable. Icing on the cake. The women usually were. No doubt when she came out of her drug-induced stupor, her life would never be the same.
He’d submitted a résumé to the manager of Longhorn Aviation, a fixed based operator at the Dallas Love Airport under the assumed name of Ian McDonald. The manager seemed impressed by the credentials and references he provided for the same type jet aircraft that Longhorn Aviation operated. The assassin knew there wasn’t an opening. Not yet. Just laying the foundation for his plan.
Two weeks prior, he began following the two mechanics at Longhorn Aviation and studying them closely — watching both men at work and play. Lurking in the shadows, he’d learned their individual traits, habits, mannerisms and, more importantly, their weaknesses. Sanders’ weakness was his trophy girlfriend, a former NFL cheerleader. Duane Sanders had been a likable little man, amicable and gullible.
This worked to Collins’ advantage. He chose Sanders as his mark.
Sanders was one of the two jet mechanics at Longhorn Aviation Services.
Collins’ knowledge of automobiles made it a simple task to engineer the accident that incapacitated Sanders’ coworker, leaving him comatose and creating a job opening.
Collins had used coercion to get Sanders to install the bomb.
Sanders installed it correctly.
The plans and materials for the device came from a contact he made while working a job in Libya. His contact had sent the device in three shipments from three different countries. Each shipment in and of itself benign. But when assembled — deadly. A fourth was shipped directly to Savannah, a harmless radio remote control. The radio remote matched the discrete frequency of the device Sanders had installed in the aircraft.
The assassin kept his true identity and personal details a closely guarded secret. His clients accessed him only by email. An anonymous email account on an anonymous server.
Only two of his closest friends knew his real name, Ian Collins, and how to reach him other than by email. He went by the online username “Shamrock,” a name also given to him by Interpol because of his trademark left on the victim after each hit — a shamrock.
The Savannah Project was a unique assignment in two ways. One, it was the first time he actually knew one of his targets. And this job had several targets, each a necessity to reach his ultimate mark, a man he’d met as a teenager and despised ever since.
Second, it was the only time he’d ever used anyone else on a job. He had known them since childhood, one was his former best friend. Both of them knew everything about him.
For his friends, though, he knew this wasn’t just an assassination — it was far more than that. It was a cause. A cause for their homeland, a cause for their people, a cause for all those, like themselves, who had watched as their loved ones died at the hands of a traitor.
This job would take the lives of innocent people. An acceptable consequence. Their cause was more important. The end justified the means. He knew for them, this was all about revenge.
An eye for an eye.
A blood vengeance.
For Collins, it was also about revenge. And money, a lot of money. Unbeknown to his friends, though, he had planned a fitting payback for his mark. Payback for all the pain and anguish and humiliation he had suffered because of his final target. A game of sport. A well-conceived plan in which Collins planned to lure his target into a deadly trap.