One mission out of hundreds.

The barrel of the deadly weapon glared down at its victim. Sweat trickled down the side of the man’s face, falling at the chin along with the salty tears leaking rapidly from his fearful eyes.  The cold, empty face of the gun bearer stared down at the snivelling man, who lay sprawled against the hard floor. A small whimper left his trembling lips. The finger, pressed lightly against the trigger…

                                                                      ***

A breeze whipped its way down the dark alleyway as a dark shadow surveyed the tall skyscraper. It was a great night for this precise task: cold, overcast and quiet. The surrounding area was empty as people were safely behind their locked doors.

The task at hand would be simple enough: just an easy get in, disable the security, assassinate the head of the organisation and other important commanders, then get out. Simple. And permission was granted to barge right in, guns blazing, terminating anything that breathed. 

However, stealth was in an assassin’s genes.

Before walking up to the glass doors of the building, the assassin checked that everything needed for a mission as simple as this was in the holsters and pockets within the black leather coat that swirled around his long legs. With everything in place, he silently walked forward and entered the building. It was a stereotypical reception. A couple of chairs of to the side surrounding a coffee table, magazines scattered across the glass worktop, bare walls and fluorescent lights glaring down onto the marble space. A single receptionist sat behind the marble desk blowing bubbles out of her pink lips whilst staring idly at the stone ceiling. The lights highlighted her orange skin and bottle blond hair. Her eyes were dilated and her movements were sluggish, showing signs of an illegal substance running through her veins. An easy target. With a flick of the hand, a needle-like blade flew thru the air and pierced the blond between the eyes. No time to react before her death. Walking behind the desk and assessing the clattered mess, no means of accessing a key to enable passageway through the building could be found. And that just made this mission more interesting. A slight challenge.

Gliding across the floor, the assassin came to a stop in front of the elevator doors. A key slot was on the control panel signalling that the use of the simple trick of picking a lock was needed. With only one try, the silver doors slid open to the elevator shaft. With a quick hack into the mainframe, the doors closed with a little thud and jerked to a start.

The blue prints of the building had been studied and were now flashing through the assassin’s mind, indicating what floor to travel to, corner to turn, door to duck and dive through when approaching feet could be heard and where to complete the mission.

The small cubicle shuddered to a stop and the doors opened to the security level. The long, grey hallway stretched down and ended at a wooden door, opening up to the security booth. The assassin started to walk slowly down until the brass handle was in front of him. The door swung open and bounced on its hinges. Three men shot up from their chairs, shocked at the unexpected guest now standing in the doorway. They reached for their guns at the same time, but what are three security guards compared to a highly trained assassin? As they got their weapons in place, ready to fire, the spy sprang into a crouch. Flicking two silver knives that circled in the air, they smacked the outside men in the chest, sending them backwards onto the desktop. The third looked shocked as his friends went flying away from his side. His head snapped back to the door but a black blur came smashing into him and he crashed down on the floor, a knife now lodged in his skull. His gun clattered against the floor as his limbs went limp. Lifeless, like the eyes that now stared at the ceiling.

After assessing the mess and retrieving the weapons, the assassin studied the security system. It was a basic locking system with a key card and finger-print scanner. Fortunately, every other floor was unoccupied, making the task less bloody. And the jackpot could be found on, of course, the top floor. Simple. The head of security,  sprawled across the floor in a puddle of blood, had a key card sticking out of his front pocket. Wiping the card clean of any blood splatter, the assassin brought out one more knife and then pulled the hand of the guard free from his body. With a quick and precise slash, the arm slapped against the stone floor as it fell away from the hand now being pocketed into the darkness. Quickly hacking the system and disabling any further alarms and major door locks, the assassin spun round and exited the security level, leaving the dead bodies to soak in their own blood.