Prologue of "Assassin's Apprentice"

A New Suspense Novel by the Author of "The Hour Thief"

Prologue: How an English Muffin Saved Her Life

2025 CE

The English muffin popped up from the toaster distracting the skinny man in the ski mask pointing the gun at Connie. He’d appeared in her kitchen between the time she’d lowered the muffin into the toaster and the time she’d removed the lid of the Skippy’s extra chunky peanut butter. She’d just been standing there with the butter knife in her hand waiting impatiently for the ancient toaster to finish. Truth be told, she’d dipped the knife into the jar and licked a wad of peanut butter from the blade while waiting. Twice.

He was here to kill her, no doubt. But not before a lengthy and uncomfortable torture. She would, of course, tell him what he wanted to know immediately, hoping to avoid the messy unpleasantness. She was no hero. He’d certainly torture her anyway, just to be sure. She was pretty certain he wouldn’t molest or rape her, given her age of 72 (though she was in remarkably good shape). But you could never be certain with men.

All that was academic. The toasted English muffin popped up with a mechanical clank, the skinny assassin looked over, and she scurried around the counter faster than anyone would think she could, thrusting the butter knife into the carotid artery in his neck, twisting the gun free, and shooting him twice in the head. He crumpled to the ground like a deflated party balloon.

She picked up her iPhone from the counter, punched her Favorites, and jabbed McClurry’s Laundry Service.

“Yes?” the voice answered flatly.

“I have some dry cleaning I need picked up.”

“How many?”

“One man’s suit. But there’s a stubborn spot on the lapel that needs attention.”

“We’ll send someone right away, Ms. Faulkner.”

Connie Faulkner bent over the dead body, ignoring the crackling in her knees, the ache in her hip, and the tightness in her back. She peeled back the ski mask and laughed.

“Tony Blanchard,” she said aloud. “I wish I was surprised.”

She had personally trained Blanchard more than twenty years ago. He’d shown great promise with his George Clooney good looks and quick wit. They’d spent weeks together on assignments in Moscow, London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro. She’d taught him how to kill quickly, efficiently, and ruthlessly. He had been a fast and enthusiastic learner.

Maybe it was sentimentality that distracted him when the toaster popped. A lingering feeling of gratitude toward her. Well, it got him killed and that was on him. She’d taught him to never let personal feelings interfere with the objective.

Hypocrite, she scolded herself. It was personal feelings that landed her in this situation.

Connie went to her bedroom closet and opened the small wall safe. She brushed aside the cash and jewelry and Beretta. The four corners of the back of the safe had heat sensors embedded, to react to her fingertips. She tapped an elaborate code using all four corners. When she finished, the entire safe along with a section of the closet wall swung open to reveal a small room behind. No one would think that a safe would hide a bigger safe, especially if it was seeded with cash and jewelry.

Inside the room was her “go bag”: a small rolling metal suitcase stuffed with numerous passports under different names from various countries and a couple hundred thousand in cash. This would get her to a safe location where she could then access her Swiss and Cayman Island accounts. It also contained one change of clothes, extra bottles of her blood pressure medicine, Advil for her arthritis, and enough morphine to kill her peacefully, if it came to that.

Connie grabbed the thumb drive that was the cause of all this fuss, including poor Tony’s demise. She hid it in a secret compartment in the handle of her purse. This was the only copy of what actually happened back then. How many had died to ensure this record was not destroyed? How many more had died to destroy it? The billions of dollars spent to cover it all up.

Someday, when the time was right, all would be revealed. Even then, would people be ready to accept the truth, or would they riot in the streets and tear down this world? This truth would be unbearable for many people. Mass suicides were almost certain.

“I guess we’ll see,” Connie said aloud as she closed the door on her very expensive house which she would never see again.

Why had she bothered to call for body clean-up? Because she wanted whoever had authorized her assassination to realize that once the cleaners identify Tony, the bigwigs will know they have secret operatives in their ranks and begin an investigation. That will make it more difficult for the perpetrator to use in-house agents to track her. They’d have to hire independent contractors, who would be a lot easier to kill.

Connie arrived at the airport, bought a ticket under one of her aliases, and arrived at her destination ten hours later. From there, she took a train, a bus, and a taxi. And disappeared.

Except for the woman wearing sunglasses and a logoless baseball cap who had followed her the entire trip.

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