The Devil's breath

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The killer, like many assassins, came in the night.

The distant, echoing boom of gunfire and the lazy but deadly arc of machine guns’ tracer rounds seeking out their target across the windswept countryside would help hide his presence. And tonight would be one of his easiest assignments. His victim was a fifteen-year-old boy.

He checked his watch. His timing was good. He was in position. First choice: make it look like an accident-a broken neck. Second choice: a shot to the head and dispose of the body. It made no difference to him. The wind had veered from the east to the north-there was a colder bite to it and he thought of the soldiers lying out there on the waterlogged ground. They would not have slept for days and, with almost constant gunfire and the demands of patrolling, exhaustion and the cold would have eaten into them.

The steady chattering of the soldiers’ machine guns, a couple of kilometers away, was a comfort to him, the staccato rhythm like music to his ears. The ground-sucking crump of mortar fire and the thud of distant artillery blended in his senses. Some of his happiest days as a soldier had been spent killing, but now he offered a more personal service in his lucrative trade of murder. He was being paid impressive money for this job-so, whoever this kid was, someone badly wanted him dead. He checked his watch again, and then eased a 9mm semiautomatic pistol from his waistband-better to have it ready.

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