Sei "Assassin Mama" Thriller Starter

The massive beast charged out through the tangle of brush. Its two front hooves dug deep into the soft forest floor, propelling it to top speed in only a few feet. It had dark eyes, small and deep set, and a thick neck that held its mammoth head steady like a battering ram. Four-inch tusks curved upward from the sides of its mouth, popping against the coarse coat of black bristles. The mane running down its spine, a pronounced Mohawk, signaled its aggression. Its throaty growls grew louder as it closed the distance. 

In an instant, my senses erupted. 

Run! 

Climb! 

Fight! 

The wild boar stood larger than any I had seen in the forest. From my estimate, it had a shoulder height of at least forty inches and a weight in the high four-hundred-pound range—nearly the size of young brown bear.

The attack triggered a tingling in my skin and threw the beats in my chest into overdrive. I lowered my head and ran toward the snarling animal. I had enough time to take the few steps needed to leap upward and tuck my body into a tight ball, rotating once before landing squarely behind it. The boar’s size didn’t hamper its agility, and it deftly pivoted, resuming its attack. 

I had expected that.

The momentum from my somersault propelled me forward toward a birch tree, allowing me to run straight up the smooth silver trunk before pushing off with my second step. As I rotated back over the black beast, I withdrew a razor sharp knife from a sheath I had strapped to my hip. I timed my rotation perfectly and landed on the back of the boar, driving the seven inches of hardened steel into the base of its skull. The blow crippled the animal, causing its forelegs to give way, but I hadn’t killed it. And I didn’t want to leave it to suffer. 

Still thrashing its head from side to side, the boar could easily shred my arms with its sharp tusks. A throat slash to the neck would be too risky.

Instead, I yanked the knife out and reached back to its hind legs, severing the tendon. The boar fell over to its side. I quickly grabbed the exposed front leg, lifted it up, and drove my knife deep into the soft, vulnerable armpit and into the animal’s heart. The end came quickly.

I removed my blade and used the boar’s hair to wipe it clean. It had been only minutes ago that I ran peacefully through the forest. I couldn’t understand why the animal had decided to attack me. I looked the boar over carefully and discovered a small bullet wound near its hindquarter. It was the case of a novice hunter using an inadequate gun for such a large animal—a small caliber, most likely. Had they hit the boar anyplace else, the bullet probably would have bounced off. But it hadn’t, and the animal had run off. And into me.

Barking dogs in the distance told me the hunting party was near, and I didn’t necessarily feel like explaining why I’d finished their job. I wasn’t that big of a meat eater, but I was sure someone would enjoy grilling the animal’s carcass. They should be thanking me, I thought as I hurried away.

It was early autumn and colorful leaves blanketed the floor of the Ardennes forests. Mostly narrow birch trees populated the region, which sometimes gave certain areas an almost impenetrable thickness, but I knew the area fairly well and could thread through them easily. Pine trees made up the other half of the forest. Other ground vegetation consisted of lush ferns and grasses.

That day, thick, gray clouds padded the skies, giving the forest an appearance worthy of a Grimm’s fairytale. But it was those very days that I found the forest to be at its liveliest and most serene. Experience that, and it was not hard to understand the attraction to the woods surrounding Saint-Hubert, Belgium.

Unlike most residents of the town, I chose to live away from the center. My cottage sat on a large patch of property near the forest’s edge. I had no neighbors, well, none close enough that I would be bothered. No need to explain my existence, what I did, or why a single woman chose to live alone in the woods. Those were questions nosy individuals asked, and I had no intention of revealing information about myself to anyone. I relished my privacy. Living like a hermit was justifiable if I wanted to stay alive.

I picked up the pace for the remainder of my run. Boar blood had splattered on my insulated running pants, and I was keen to wash it out. At about two hundred yards out from my property, I slowed down. It was the same careful approach I had always taken when returning home.

With the cottage in view, I stuck to a thicket of waist-high ferns and slowly circled the property. My skin prickled, thanks to the chilly autumn weather and the diminishing effects of my run. My body had cooled faster than normal, and I wanted badly to jump into a warm bath, but I stuck to my protocol.

From behind a tree, I scanned each window carefully, looking for movement. It wasn’t a big house: two bedrooms, two baths, an office, a cozy living room, and kitchen. I had the attached garage remodeled into a training space: mirrored walls and padded floors. Various punching and grappling dummies, even a wooden Wing Chun training dummy. Free weights and a stationary bike rounded out the remaining equipment. 

I was confident that those who knew of me didn’t know I called this idyllic town home, but still, I took precautions as I moved closer. I had gone through great lengths to establish this safe house, and I preferred not to leave anything to chance.

Satisfied, I moved toward the back door. I never entered from the front. People get killed entering their homes from the front. Happens all the time.

***

Once inside, I walked the premises like always before stripping down, throwing my clothes into the washing machine, and stepping into the shower. Under the rush of warm water, I stood still, arms resting against my sides and my head tilted forward. My hair clung to my face, neck, and back as the soothing water lulled me into a standing coma. I allowed myself another thirty seconds of bliss before lathering and washing the day’s grit off of my body.

I towel-dried my hair in the warmth of the bathroom. It was long, hovering just above my lower back. Up until two years ago, I’d never allowed it to grow beyond my shoulders. It was less of a liability at that length. But since I had stopped accepting contracts, I relaxed that rule.

I picked out a matching set of black lingerie from my dresser drawer; I loved how the color popped against my skin. As I stood nude in front of the mirror clutching my panties, I stared at the barely visible four-inch horizontal scar above my pubic bone. Although it was barely visible, it was still the only thing I saw when I looked at my stomach. I pushed the thought from my head and finished dressing.

The sun had set, but I wasn’t one to keep all the lights on. I switched off the bedroom light and navigated to the kitchen in the dark, turning on the small lamp above the sink. I put a kettle of water on the stove and switched it on before opening a Mason jar I kept on the counter. Into a hand-painted, porcelain teapot I put two pinches of premium jasmine tealeaves before retrieving a five-inch tactical push blade I kept in the drawer. I placed it on the counter next to me. 

“Haven’t you heard the saying that you shouldn’t bring a knife to a gunfight?” said a male voice from the darkened hallway behind me.

“Just because you’re inferior with knives does not mean I am,” I said, my back still facing the hallway.

A floorboard creaked. “How did you know I was here?” the voice asked.

“I spotted you outside, in the tree.”

“Is that so?”

I turned around, and my lips widened into a smile. Standing in the kitchen doorway was my childhood friend, Long. “I thought you would have come inside sooner.”

“One of these days, I’ll approach you unseen.” He moved into the kitchen and threw both arms around me, giving me a mighty bear hug. “Sei, it’s really good to see you.”

It had been nearly five years since we last saw each other. From the ages of five to fifteen, we were nearly inseparable. We were both orphaned and taken in by the same clan of assassins and raised as such. That link kept us joined at the hip throughout our childhood and most of our teen years. We both also specialized in high-value targets. There were plenty of run-of-the-mill assassins for hire if a jealous wife had enough of a cheating husband, but we were a rarer breed.

“Your hair is longer,” he said, still grasping me.

My head was turned to the side, resting against his chest. “Do you like it?”

He pulled back a bit, and I watched his brown eyes trace my forehead, down the side of my cheek and to my shoulders before he gently spun me around. “I like it. It’s…silky.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It looks good on you but it’s…”

“A liability?”

Long smiled that same crooked grin. “So fill me in? No one has seen or heard from you in a while, including me. You’re not working; I know that much.”

The kettle whistled, interrupting our reunion. I switched it off and poured water into the teapot and covered it. “What have you heard?”

“Eh, it’s a little slow, to tell you the truth,” he said, running his hand through his short black hair. “It’s those damn drones. People are anxious and would rather just bomb an entire building to get a target. There’s an art to being an assassin, it’s a—”

“I’m not talking about work.”

“Oh…you mean the other thing.”

“Surely you’re wondering why I went underground.”

“Yeah, people are talking. Some say you lost your marbles. Some say you turned your back on your clan. No one heard from you in awhile. Even Ma thought you abandoned us. She thought you were dead. She fell ill over it.”

The figurehead and leader of our family of assassins was a woman we called Ma.

“And you?” I asked. “What is it that you believe?”

“Come on, Sei. You know I support you no matter what. I don’t care what the answer is. Never had an opinion on it. We all live off the grid, but what I don’t get is why you stopped working. You were in such high demand.”

I grabbed two mugs from the cupboard and filled them with tea. “It wasn’t easy. I felt like I needed time to think.”

Long blew into his cup before taking a sip. “Mmmm, you always have good tea. Nothing like the cheap stuff I’m used to slurping.”

I followed him into the living room. His strides were long and light as usual. I switched off the lamp he had just flicked on.

“You having trouble paying your power bill or something?” He sat in one of two armchairs. 

I let out soft chuckle and sat in the other, opposite him. “I like it this way.” Enough moonlight shone through the windows.

“So this thinking you needed to do, what’s come of it? You’re not planning on retiring, are you?”

I took tiny sips of my tea as I thought about how to answer Long’s question. I was eager to know the answer myself. But I wasn’t sure all the thinking I had done provided me with one. “Maybe.”

“You can’t be serious.” Long’s expression flattened. “What will you do if not this?” He tilted his head slightly and crinkled his brow. “You plan on living like a hermit for the rest of your life, gardening and stuff?” He shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”

“Why is that so hard to believe? I can do other things.”

“I’m not saying you can’t, but this life, what we do, it’s who we are. It’s not like you can join the local book club and start blending in.” Long placed his mug on the coffee table and leaned forward. His stare intensified, and his eyes disappeared against his beige complexion. “Sei, there are people who want answers from you.”

“I won’t deny that. By the way, what gave me up?” I didn’t think there was a weak link in my planned disappearance. Plus, I wanted to change the subject.

Long drew a deep breath and let it out. “It wasn’t easy, I’ll say that. So don’t think you’ve gotten rusty. It took months and some luck, but I eventually cracked your real IP address and traced it back here.”

“How? I mask my online identity using multiple VPNs and accessed the Internet with a TOR browser.”

“Like I said, it wasn’t easy. At some point you used a public WiFi system. Had I not been looking for you around that time, I probably never would have discovered it. That’s the lucky part.”

“Hmm, interesting.”

“You didn’t answer any of my messages. I was worried and had no choice but to track you.”

I said nothing and only stared at my friend. I had purposely ignored his messages, along with many others. I had shut a large steel door onto the world and thrown away the key. Why? Well, that was a hard subject for me to talk about, but I figured I owed my friend an explanation. I stood and walked over to a wooden hutch in the corner of the room and removed a small item from a shelf inside of it.

“What is that?” Long asked, squinting from his chair. He took the item from me and unfolded it, revealing a tiny pink blouse. “You’re pregnant?” His eyes shifted between the blouse and my tummy. “I’m not sure I understand.”

I took a seat and chewed my bottom lip before answering. “I lost the baby while giving birth two years ago.”

“Sei. I…I had no idea.”

“It’s okay. I should have told you.”

“I could have been here for you. I could have helped.”

“I needed to be alone.”

“This is why you stopped working?”

I nodded. “Shortly after the doctor confirmed the pregnancy, I decided I didn’t want to bring my child into the life I live. I couldn’t. I wanted her to have a chance at a proper, normal one.”

“A baby girl.” A smile formed on Long’s face. “I would have been her uncle, sort of.”

I smiled. “I had planned on naming her Mui.”

“Mui? That’s a pretty name. She would have been beautiful just like her mother. But who’s the—”

“Someone I met in America. He didn’t know about the pregnancy, or my profession.”

Long nodded. “It’s better that way. Having him involved would have complicated things. So now what?”

“That’s what I’m struggling to answer. Losing the baby was akin to losing a part of myself. For a long time I didn’t feel like doing much of anything. I contemplated continuing with my self-imposed retirement, as well as resuming work, but hadn’t any strong feelings toward either direction. My instincts lacked strength. Essentially I had a horse but no carrot to dangle.”

“And then a few years goes by.”

I nodded.

Long slapped his hands against both of his thighs, and a broad smile lit up his face, showing off his cosmetically enhanced whites. “Well, it’s a good thing I came along. It’s time you got back in the saddle, and I’m here to help.”

When the CIA picked up the tab, dinner wasn’t just dinner. Kostas Demos, my handler at the agency, sat opposite me at the outdoor café. He was easy on the eyes with his broad shoulders, meaty arms, and chiseled jawline. His Greek blood blessed him with a nice olive complexion; thick, wavy hair; large, brown eyes; and lengthy eyelashes. I doubted any woman would have complained about having a meal with him—but our meal wasn’t a date.

Of course, I wasn’t particularly hungry when I sat down to my Greek salad, but the Mediterranean olives had the right amount of tart, the cherry tomatoes were sweet, and the block of feta was fresh with a perfect crumble. I had just finished the last few bites when the waiter arrived at our table with our main entrées.

He squeezed a fresh lemon over the grilled beef kabobs, causing them to sizzle on the cast iron platter. Each of the metal skewers had five meaty cubes separated by tomatoes, onions, and red and green bell peppers. There were six in all. We also had a bowl of couscous and a plate of anginares a la polita—artichoke hearts with potatoes drizzled in olive oil. The usual accompaniments, pita and hummus, were present as well.

“Go ahead, Sei. Don’t be shy,” Kostas said as he grabbed a skewer and placed it on his plate. “They use a filet cut at this restaurant. Soft as butter. I like to take a few pieces of meat, a little couscous, a healthy dose of tzatziki and roll it all up in a warm pita. Best thing ever,” he said as he did just that. 

I arrived in Nafplio, Greece, earlier in the day and had been instructed to meet him for dinner at a restaurant called Two Brothers. It was located on Staikopoulou Street—a pedestrians-only street during the evenings. The place wasn’t terribly large; there were four candlelit tables inside and six outside on the cobblestone pathway. The weather that night was mild, and the skies were clear.

He had requested that I dress, and I quote, “casual with sexy mixed in.” I wore a floral summer dress with sandals, had my shoulder-length, black hair braided in the back, and as usual, wore light makeup.

“This is fun. I might have to arrange these meetings more often,” he said with a dimpled smile before taking a bite of the rolled pita.

I had known Kostas for five years. We first met in Turkey when he was hired as a driver responsible for getting me safely out of the country. At the time, neither my employer nor I had any idea he worked for the CIA. I eventually figured it out during our drive. To make a long story short, we each had skills that could benefit one another, and thus, a working relationship was formed. 

It had been six months since I last met Kostas in person. As far as I was aware, he had spent most of that time running operations in Bulgaria and Greece. Turkey was off limits to him, since we’d departed the country on unfavorable terms.

“Dig in,” he said in between chews. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“Aren’t we supposed to be working?”

“Can’t you multitask?”

I grabbed a skewer and placed it on the plate in front of me. “I realize you didn’t ask me to come all the way to Nafplio to try the kebabs, though now that I think of it, that is something you would do.” I used my fork to slide a piece of meat off the skewer.

He smiled back at me after wiping his mouth with a cloth napkin. “Believe it or not, we do have a task tonight.”

“You keep looking over my shoulder,” I said as I cut the meat into a more manageable bite.

“How very astute of you. Sitting four tables over is a plump, middle-aged man with a beard. He has a lovely blonde as a dinner date.”

I forked the beef into my mouth and then removed my compact from my clutch and used the mirror to look behind me. The gentleman Kostas was referring to faced me, so I had a clear view of him. His date had long, straight, blonde hair, and that was all I could gather from my position.

“His name is Fareed Ahmadi, an Iranian who immigrated to the States fifteen years ago. He’s an engineer at Lockheed Martin and works in the division that oversees a program called MEADS—Medium Extended Air Defense System. He’s also selling that technology to his friends back in Iran.”

“Am I to think, from your instructions earlier in the day, that you asked me to dress this way so I could seduce him?”

“No, I asked you to dress this way for me.” Kostas popped one of the cubed meats into his mouth and chewed.

“I should have known.”

“On Fareed’s left wrist is a titanium wristband. Inside of it is a microchip containing the schematics for the system. The hand-off to his contact will take place in the next day or so, probably tonight.”

I closed my compact and tucked it back into my purse. “I’m a bit confused here. He doesn’t look very intimidating. Seems like a job you’re fully capable of handling yourself.”

Kostas leaned forward and lowered his voice. “True, but I’m always looking for ways to work with my favorite assassin. That, and I need the woman separated from him.”

“Oh, now I realize the brilliance of your plan. Your job is to seduce the woman while I grab the wristband.”

“Actually, she’s your responsibility.”