Carnifex

21/9/466 AC, Westminster, Anglia, Tauran Union

The small brass placard above the mailbox said, "Mahrous ibn Mohamed ibn Salah, min Sa'ana." That name and address matched his briefing packet was no particular surprise to Khalid. This was his fifth hit in two years and, so far, there had never been a mistake in identity. What he would do if he ever was called upon to make a hit that turned out to be a mistake, Khalid didn't know. At this point, he suspected, he'd probably yawn, then go to a café and read the paper. He'd grown a steel shell, had Khalid, these last five years.

Unlike the previous four, this target was "hardened." This is to say that his house was detached, with broad lawns around it and a wall around them, that his sedan—sedans, rather; Mahrous kept four Phaetons—was armored. He had bodyguards, mostly veterans of the Royal Anglian Army's Special Operations Directorate, or SOD. He was believed to wear body armor of the very highest caliber, religiously. Moreover, Mahrous rarely traveled the same way from his home twice in a week.

If the swine wasn't so paranoid, thought Khalid, I'd have offed his ass months ago.

For those months Khalid had considered and discarded one option after another. Shoot him from a distance? No way; nothing elevated hereabouts and no really good firing positions. Besides, I'm a good long range shot, but not a great one. We Arabs rarely are; I don't know why. Shoot him close up? I'd never get through the bodyguards who are, let's admit it, first rate men. Bomb the house? No way to get close enough with enough material. Bomb the office? Similar problem. Bomb the Phaetons? Which one. How do I get to it? No way.

He'd even considered leaving a small bomb with a chemical agent in it but . . . It wouldn't surprise me a bit if those SOD types carry atropine and nerve agent antidote.

In the end, Khalid had gone for something simple. There was a sewer that ran the length of the street Mahrous lived on. That sewer had one manhole cover not far from the driveway to Mahrous' residence. Khalid had simply made a radio control detonator from parts obtained at a local hobby store, then manufactured—as he had been trained to do in Volga—about fifteen pounds of PETN, pentaerythritol tetranitrate, in his apartment in the city. "Factor P for plenty," the Volgan instructor had said. Fifteen pounds of PETN was more than plenty. An electric blasting cap he lifted from a poorly-guarded construction site.

A visit to the local courthouse had given Khalid the map for the sewer system. A couple of visits to three different uniform shops had given him a fair simulacrum of a sewer worker's uniform and accoutrements. A used automobile dealer provided the van and a paint shop changed the van's color to green to match those used by the public works authority. A few telephonic complaints to the PWA had given him, after a bit of figuring, a schedule and therefore a time frame in which there would be no sewer workers down below.

Making a package of the PETN, descending into the sewers—Blech, that stank!—and finding the right manhole cover had been easy.

And so, now, Khalid waited and watched the road and the manhole from a café not far from the manhole cover. He'd been waiting for four days. If Mahrous didn't soon use the road that led by the bomb, Khalid would have to think of something else. You just couldn't leave a bomb lying around indefinitely. And if it was found, if Mahrous or his bodyguards got wind of it, their paranoia level would go, oh, way up.

"Which would be saying something," Khalid muttered, as he sipped his coffee.

As Khalid put down the cup, he spied a long, black Phaeton easing out of the barred and guarded gate that fronted the driveway from Mahrous' house. He didn't tense; he seen the same thing three times already, since planting his bomb, and three times the Phaeton had gone in a different direction.

Ah, but Allah smiles upon those who wait, Khalid thought, with a smile of his own. Now let's see if the wretch doesn't turn off before he reaches the manhole. And . . . . .bingo. They might stop outright, but there are no good turns before the bomb.

Judging the speed of the Phaeton, Khalid carefully timed his reach into the side pocket of the jacket he wore. His hand curled around a small transmitter, his finger caressing the detonator button. At precisely the right moment, he pushed that button and smiled.

* * *

The explosion went off directly under Mahrous' ample posterior. Besides cracking the street around the manhole cover, sending chunks of asphalt, concrete and rebar flying, it lifted the cover strait up at an amazing rate of speed. The cover cut right through the Phaeton's transmission and then cover and transmission together mashed Mahrous' anus into his brain, forcing the resulting mix right through and out of the Phaeton's armored roof.

The blast was also sufficient to kill the ex-SOD driver and guard, both seated in front, as well as Mahrous' eldest son, sitting beside him.

* * *

Knocked over by the blast, as was nearly everyone else within two hundred feet, Khalid stood up, forcing an artificial expression of shocked disbelief onto his face. Like other people, he ran forward to try to help the injured. Khalid, however, merely wanted to confirm results.

He saw that all four tires had been blasted off the torn and twisted wreckage of the Phaeton, and that it was burning merrily. Since there were no screams coming from inside, despite the fire, he was reasonably confident that his hit had been a success. Once a sufficient crowd had gathered to cover his withdrawal, Khalid simply melted through it and was away.

I love my job, he thought. Where else could I get both revenge and excitement in these quantities and to these qualities.