Guilty Eye

Chapter 1

Crow Motel, Mutare City's outskirts

I grunted in pain as the assassin's knife sank two centimetres deep into my thigh. I nearly relinquished my grip on his right hand which was straining to reach my throat. Hearing my grunt, the assassin shifted his focus from the right to the left hand and pushed the knife deeper.

 My vision started to grey at the edges and I knew that if I did not act quickly I was going to pass out.

  My right hand hung limp from an earlier blow to the shoulder, so I had to depend on my busy left hand and my wits, which were rapidly leaving me. Clenching my teeth against the bone-jarring pain, I brought my left knee up hard onto his groin and, as he pulled back I released my hold on his right hand and quickly extended two tensed fingers which I then drove hard into his exposed throat.

     He jumped back, eyes bulging, gasping for breath, his hands trying to massage his constricted throat. Without thinking, I pulled out the knife from my throbbing thigh and, with all my fear, anger and pain, I drove the steel blade into the assassin's heart and twisted it once before limping back to watch.

    The man fell to his knees, his mouth working, spitting blood, his eyes glazing. Then he fell forward and was still.

     I stood there for a while, leaning back against the white wall of the motel room. The pain in my thigh sent me into action. I cut a strip off my shredded T-shirt and used it to bandage my bleeding wound.

    I rose and surveyed the destruction that had been done to the once orderly room.

The coffee table had been broken in half when I landed on it --now it stood with the surface caved in, like an uppercase M. The small fridge lay on its side -- its door open, revealing broken bottles and an overturned food-box. The 32 inch flat screen TV had fallen from its stand but was miraculously still functional albeit without sound.

     It was news hour and the anchorwoman was obviously talking about the death of the British ambassador's wife. The caption at the bottom of the screen read: "investigators still looking for missing witness...private media claims Mrs Blakeney was targeted by Zimbabwean security agents...."

     I turned away from the TV, shaking my head at the incredulity of the situation.

   I went to the dead man and searched through his pockets.There was nothing to identify him, only a set of car keys.

       By the door lay the briefcase he had in his hand when he came in. I opened it hoping it would give me answers but in it was just a pair of rubber gloves and a sheaf of blank papers. Probably he had used the briefcase to lie to the front desk clerk, something like, "hey,Mr Saka wants this brought to him, room 9B. Isn't it?"

     And the clerk, overeager to be hospitable, would just smile brightly and say,"yes sir, thank you sir."

   I  opened the door and was about to go out when I remembered my bloodied clothes. I shut the door and bit my lip,telling myself I had to do it.

    Five minutes later I left the room wearing the dead man's clothes.

      As I passed the front desk no one took notice of me, least of all the clerk who was busy chatting up a busty teenage girl in school uniform.

    Once outside I pulled out the car keys. Noting the Audi insignia engraved on it I looked around and spotted the silver sedan parked just outside the motel's perimeter.

I walked towards it, heart pounding, expecting a man with a gun to show up and end me. The car had tinted glass so if someone was inside they could see me before I saw them.
With my nerves stretched to the limit, I inserted the key into the keyhole, opened the door and sighed in relief.

    I searched the interior of the car and came up with a cell phone and a khaki envelope.
The phone was turned off so I switched it on. Unfortunately it was password locked. A dead end.

I turned to the envelope. In it were two sheets of bond paper neatly typed and stapled together. As I started to read my heart started beating faster.

"Target Profile
Name: Richard Saka
Age: 42
Description: 1.8 metres tall, dark skinned, slender
Skills: N/A
Background: Security guard for 15 years
Notes: unarmed, not dangerous
Termination method: Preferably suicide..."

     Wow,I thought, these guys did their homework.
I turned the page and continued reading about me and my family. There was even their names and ages:
"Wife: Portia,35
Children: Grace and Blessed,both 11..."

     These people,whoever they were, had me dead to rights. Well, almost.

Unarmed, not dangerous...The assassin had expected an easy kill and had instead got killed himself.

As I sat there thinking, the cell phone began to ring.