Consulting Sniper (Moran's Story)

Chapter 18: Physical Barriers

My time before the hit involving my sister Mycroft Holmes was divided between sessions in Jim's office talking to him and planning as well as taking on hits of my own with my team. I hadn't done anything on my own lately at the time.

Jim didn't want to risk it. He needed my gun too badly for his own purposes.

I did not feel the least bit of guilt for what I was planning against Mycroft Holmes; in the way of ethics I was about as ethical as a brick. Well, maybe not.

I have to say, the constant killing did get to me at times. I wasn't just killing adults. In some cases, it was minors as young as fourteen. Drug addicts who got too pushy in convincing Jim's clients to lower their prices. And sometimes, they were gunmen themselves.

It was not seldom that one of my hits pulled out a gun just as I was trying to shoot him. He would try to put one right in the center of my head. But I, obviously, wouldn't take it. I'd fire off all my rounds unnecessarily just to make sure he's dead for causing me that trouble.

Some of these hits that would try to kill me back were ex-military like me; others were just trained by their bosses. But there's no way Jim could have trained me to do what I do. It's too specific. He can't even fire a rifle. If anything, he'd either throw knives or leave bombs or on a rare occasion use a pistol.

I'm not going to lie. I did greatly admire my boss. Maybe a little too much. At first, as I mentioned, I admired his mind. He was a fucking psycho. But I kind of loved him for it.

Back then, I didn't know that's what it was. Love. I mean, I did sometimes wonder about myself. How could I not? I was an ex-military sniper who currently worked for the most dangerous man in London.

And because of my high rank, maybe that made me the second most dangerous man in London, per se.

I spent a lot of time with Jim. It wouldn't always be just formal stuff about the hits. We would sometimes talk until midnight, about anything but my hits.

Especially on some nights where the effects of killing maybe five people in a day got to be too much. He would sit me down in his office and talk to me a little bit, I guess to calm me down. He had a couch in his office, maybe for this express purpose.

Other times, when I didn't want to talk, we would just sit in silence. I'd stare straight ahead, too numb to even realize what was going on, and the next thing I knew Jim would be sitting next to me and he'd have his arm around my shoulder and we wouldn't really talk.

Once, and only once, did he ever look over to his left and realize that his arm was touching the tiger's head on the back of my right shoulder, and see its mouth open, ready to literally bite someone's head off. But he didn't mention it. I thought in that moment that I might have the ability to deduce, and that only made it worse.

On those nights, Jim never went any farther than that. He knew I wouldn't ever have stood for that, and so he never tried anything. I'm actually pretty grateful for that. I'm not sure I was ready at the time.

Our plans for the Mycroft hit were pretty simple. We would both get into the Diogenes Club, Jim would do an in-person interview and maybe I'd do one over the phone. Luckily, my voice and Mycroft's were slightly different.

After that, we would gain the trust of the members. Get close to Mycroft ad Tom without them realizing that we were actually criminals and that we were probably planning to kill them.

And then, one night, when he didn't even see it coming, I'd kill him. And then I'd kill her almost immediately after, whether or not it was really part of the plan. It really was a fail-proof plan.