Author's note: this story is part of my MacGyver AU, Second Chances. Chronologically, it takes place between chapters 7 and 8 of First Kisses.
He's doing the kid a favour, Pete Thornton tells himself. Handing out this assignment himself, instead of delegating it.
Because this Murdoc person (with that makeup and those glam clothes, could be either sex, though certainly very English)- this Murdoc can't be more than sixteen, maybe even younger. So the DXS owes HIT for helping them out with that Belgravia affair; does that really mean he has to line up an assassination job for a teenager who wears too much lipstick?
According to his superior, the answer's yes. Intelligence isn't a pretty business.
So he'd dug into the files. Found just the right target- not someone who carries a gun, not somebody who'll hire goons to chase down Murdoc, after a failure. But annoying enough to warrant a hit during downtime, and nosing a little too close to Morningstar for comfort.
Somebody who's also unreasonably lucky.
Maybe the gods will be kind enough to let both of them walk away from this.
"So who's the target?" Murdoc asks, keenly questioning. Very earnest type, couldn't fault the enthusiasm. (Or could, maybe. Far too eager.)
Pete hits a button, plays back the recording with a sense of faint nausea.
My name is Carl Kolchak. I'm a reporter with the INS in Chicago….
"The kind of gadfly who nobody notices until he wins a Pulitzer," he tells Murdoc. "Your job's to stop him getting there. Not too obviously, please."
"And what's he working on, that's made it necessary to kill him now?"
"If we wanted to tell you the details," Pete says, lightly. "We'd go ahead and hire you."
Maybe they will; this is exactly the kind of misfit that ends up working here. There are days Pete thinks he got this promotion just because the director was sick of being the only man at the office who wears ties. (Doctor Shaw from biomedical does as well: but then, Doctor Shaw's a woman.)
"Depends on whether you pay as well," Murdoc says. "I have a lady friend to support, you know."
Pete manages not to cringe. "I wouldn't count on that. Shall we get on with it?"
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
It's the first time he's done a job for anyone besides HIT, and Murdoc isn't sure he likes it. Nobody goes to a place called Homicide International with a request to kill their wife (well, they do, but paying the kinds of fees that suggest everybody involved is a screwed-up millionaire). He's been able to satisfy himself that all his targets are the unpleasant type anyway.
But this Carl Kolchak, annoying as he is, doesn't sound like that. Just an anonymous maniac for truth and idiotic headlines, so enraptured with his delusions of the next big story that he probably doesn't know what year it is. This isn't the sort of person he's going to feel right about knocking off.
Murdoc pages through the DXS file, and reminds himself; this is for Ashton. Safe for the next six months at a French boarding school with fees astronomical enough to take in any student, no questions asked; and which provides the right type of protection. Keeping his sister safe is an expensive proposition.
He will, quite literally, kill for her.