Disclaimer; I do not own the Kim Possible, or anything related to the television series.

The Kidon

Chapter One

Prologue

The hotel the Assassin checked into was neither large nor small, it was not particularly inexpensive, nor particularly luxurious; it was almost completely average. This suited the Assassin just fine. He was not in Paris for the sights, the culture, or even the food… the Assassin was there to do a job, and then leave.

Although he noted an elevator as he walked past the tired hotel clerk, the Assassin instead took the stairs to his second-floor room, moving fluidly despite the extremely early hour and the weight of his newly acquired duffle bag. Even though he had spent the entire night on a trans-Atlantic flight, the Assassin had slept well.

As he moved silently down the hallway, the Assassin automatically catalogued the entrances and exits of the building. Further orienting himself with the hotel and reaffirming his escape routes. Not there were many in a hotel that mainly catered to tourists and businessmen, but still, the Assassin liked to be as prepared as possible.

Once in his room he closed the door and pulled a pistol from his duffle bag. Chambering a round as he went, the Assassin did a thorough sweep of his room. Under the freshly-made bed, in the empty closet, and in the undecorated bathroom. Satisfied, he placed the duffel onto the bed and pulled a second tool from the bag.

This device was a solid-looking piece of tech that resembled an old Nintendo Game Boy. It was a sensor, a piece of equipment that the Assassin had been assured would pick up on any outgoing signals near the room. Again, the assassin searched his room. This time pulling open drawers and checking behind furniture for explosives while his tech worked its magic.

He didn't really think that he would find any bombs in his hotel room. For one thing, he hadn't known that he would be coming to France until less than 24 hours ago. That wasn't nearly enough time for knowledge of his operation to become known… especially at the high level of secrecy and paranoia he and his handlers worked in. For another thing, the Assassin knew that no competent demolitionist would bother to sneak a bomb into his room when they could simply rent one of the four rooms surrounding his and plant a shaped charge.

That would be a much better way to kill someone.

Still, there were plenty of incompetent bombers, and it would suck to be killed by an amateur. So, the Assassin looked in the toilet tank, and after finding zilch, he deemed the room passably secure.

After that the Assassin did what any traveler does in a hotel room after a long flight. He used the toilet, showered, changed into street clothes, and grabbed the things he would need for the day.

The Assassin brought many of the things any normal tourist would with him: a phone, money, identification (although his I.D. was fake), and a map. The only "tools" he brought with him were the pistol and extra magazines he carried in a shoulder-holster, and the folding knife he kept in the front pocket of his jeans.

Again, the Assassin made his way silently down the stairs and into the lobby. There were more people in the lobby now. It was later in the morning and people were checking in and checking out; as people tend to do in hotels. No one saw the Assassin.

There were less than ten people in the lobby, including two jet-lagged preteens and a sleeping baby, and yet no one so much as looked up as the Assassin casually made his way through them. He blended in so naturally that it wouldn't have mattered if there were only two other people in the room; he still would have gone unnoticed.

It was one of his gifts. One of the reasons his handlers had been so eager to recruit him. The Assassin simply had a genius for camouflage. It was perhaps his greatest asset in the field. Witnesses (not that there were many) didn't remember him, bystanders overlooked him, and his adversaries didn't recognize him until it was far too late.

He had once spent all day in a garden café in Syria waiting for a terrorist financier. By the time the Assassin's target arrived it was late evening, and the only other people that remained in the café were an elderly couple and himself. Once the target arrived with his two-man security team, the Assassin ordered a plate of baklava. When the terrorist went to use the toilet -accompanied by one of his bodyguards- the Assassin finished the last piece of his dessert and easily slipped underneath the radar of the bodyguard that had remained to watch three diners. The Assassin then found the bodyguard waiting for his principle outside the restroom. He casually leaned against the wall as if simply waiting for his turn to make use of the single-toilet restroom, until he saw the doorknob begin to turn.

Turning calmly to face the bodyguard -as if to comment on the nice weather they were having- the Assassin plunged a stiletto switchblade into the bodyguard's ear. As the door opened the Assassin position himself carefully, and when the door was wide enough he stepped into the room while simultaneously stabbing his knife directly into his target's heart. Then he dragged the bodyguard' dead body into the bathroom, wiped his knife clean of blood, and washed his hands. The Assassin concluded his operation by casually walking back into the garden café and asking for another cup of tea and his bill.

The Assassin was very good at what he did. Also, it had been very good tea.

As he walked into crisp Parisian air, the Assassin wished he had a hot cup of tea with him now. Indeed, almost any hot beverage would have been nice. While winter had left Paris, spring had yet to arrive. It was chill in the way you only truly appreciate if you had to stand outside all day. Like the Assassin had to.

He walked through the Parisian streets, away from his hotel, and began his Surveillance-Detection-Route.

A Surveillance-Detection-Route, or an SDR, is a part of spy tradecraft where the operator assumes that he or she is being followed and enacts any number of methods to discover and then lose their tail. Normal procedures are to double back, duck into shops, make many twisting and surprising turns into corners and through alleys, all while maintaining heightened situational awareness.

That's the easy part of an SDR; finding a tail. The hard part was remaining anonymous while you did it. If they lose a tail in an obvious way, then the operator will have given away their position as a player. The trick was to appear totally harmless and unaware while still discovering and evading any potential hostiles.

The Assassin had become so good at this over the years that he liked to add another purpose onto his SDR. Basically, the Assassin liked to go sightseeing. His general feeling was the more you understood the ebbs and flows of an area, the easier it as to blend in.

So that's what he did. He mimicked the few other pedestrians that where on the street; shivering and then sticking his hands into his jacket pockets. He stuck to the sidewalk and was grateful that most of the snow was gone. He didn't turn to look around, he didn't study the architecture, or gawk at the locals, or window-shop at the boutiques. If anyone had paid him the slightest bit of attention, then they would have assumed that he was a local. The Assassin simply appeared to do nothing at all. In fairness, he wasn't exactly in the most interesting part of Paris.

Most of the streets he walked down where like any of the many others he had visited in cities all over the world. Restaurants, cafés, and bars. Shops for clothing, technology, and knick-knacks. Offices for lawyers, real-estate agencies, and insurance agencies. As far as the Assassin could tell, most lived-in parts of cities were essentially more-or-less the same. The only differences between Paris and Bangkok was the language, the weather, and the fact that most of the buildings the Assassin past were two or three stories and built to last.

At a rather busy looking pastry shop the Assassin decided that he would get his breakfast there. He came in, checked his surroundings, ordered and payed for his meal, and then came back out; it took him about three minutes start-to-finish. Instead of continuing the route he had been on, he turned around started walking in the direction he had just come from.

Casually sipping his hot chocolate, the Assassin came to a small park in what had once probably been a vacant lot. Sitting on a park bench facing the walking path, the Assassin pulled out his phone and checked his messages for any mission updates from his handlers. Nothing. Next the Assassin opened his bag of delicious goodies, savoring the smell.

Like most cities, Paris had the under-odor of car exhaust, garbage, and the body odor of thousands and thousands of people living together in close proximity. Intellectually, the Assassin knew that as far as cities went, Paris wasn't that bad. And that given a few days, he himself would probably fail to notice it at all. Still, the Assassin attempted to inhale the scent of his croissants as if they were perfumed flowers… before he hungrily tore into them.

After his meal, he went about his business. He familiarized himself with the landscape, and the people, and as Hemmingway might have said, the movable feast that is Paris. No one followed him.

For first lunch, he had several crepes filled with spinach, mushrooms, and chicken, that he bought from a cheerful looking outdoor stand by the river Seine. For second lunch -which he ate a few hours later- he had something called a jambon-beurre, that he purchased for a corner bakery. It was a sandwich made from a buttered baguette and a slice of well-cooked ham. All his meals were delicious… and the only interactions he had with people for his entire day.

The only thing other than his food the Assassin paid any sort of outward attention to was a large house that he passed twice on the outside of town. It was a large three-story building with barred windows on the ground floor, situated in what was probably going to be a slum in twenty years. It looked as if the architect had been going for majestic, and had finally given up and settled on imposing. It looked larger than it was, and slightly run down despite a recent paint job. The Assassin couldn't help but be reminded of an aging thug who bought an expensive suit in an attempt to class himself up. Same old dirt-bag, brand new suit. That's what this building was. It hadn't been much to start with, and now it was on its way out.

Satisfied with his day so far, the Assassin checked one more thing near the house where his target was being held, and then he returned to the room for a nap. After his rest, he would begin.

The Assassins eyes snapped open as the alarm on his phone rang. It was midnight. Which meant that it was time for him to get to work.

He took another steaming hot shower. While it wasn't necessary for an operative at his level to mentally prepare himself for combat, he still enjoyed the opportunity for visualization and to get himself in the right headspace for a possible battle. The Assassin was also grateful, and a bit amused, by the fact that he actually had the luxury of a hot shower. In his experience, most operations were about as far from James Bond as you could get! The 5-Star hotels, beautiful women, and martinis were reserved exclusively for his targets… and the Assassin reflected, a few of his superiors.

Still, a warm bed, good food, and a hot shower. These were lavish luxuries that he had forgone countless times for the sake of whatever mission he had been on at the time. So, as he stepped out of the shower and dried himself off, the Assassin resolved to stop his internal bitching and stay on mission.

Dressed in nothing but his boxer-briefs, the Assassin surveyed his gear.

First, he picked up a grappling gun; it was about the same size and shape as a hair-dryer, with a length of Kevlar rope attached to a grappling hook that was capable of being propelled thirty-feet through the air. Inside the Grapple Gun was a motor that can pull over of 250 pounds straight up. When the Grapple Guns were available, and when they worked.

Intelligence, basic psychology, and common sense, suggested that his target would be on the top floor— the most defendable part of nearly any building. Thus, the Grapple Gun was his best chance for a stealthy infiltration. While the Grapple Guns were fairly reliable given exhaustive maintenance -and the Assassin was assured that his had been- there had simply been too many accidents for him to trust them completely.

Next the Assassin field stripped his pistol. It was a Beretta 92G with a threaded barrel. The Assassin sighed audibly as he screwed on the sound suppressor; he would have preferred a Glock, but as the French say, c'est la vie.

After the Assassin finished inspecting his 9mm ammunition -they were indeed the subsonic steel-jacketed hollow-points he had been promised- he began to dress. A pair of black leather gloves, pair of black jeans, a black turtleneck, and a pair of black tennis shoes. The Assassin put a multi-tool in one of the pockets of his jeans and his folding knife in the other. Then he put on a lightweight Type II bulletproof vest, which would protect him from everything from shrapnel to a .357 slug. Next, he put on a heavy belt and began to stuff equipment into the pouches that hung off it. His Grappling Gun, a night-vision monocle, a balaclava, a medical kit, and a hypodermic needle filled with a sedative. The Assassin liked to be prepared. Lastly, he shrugged into his shoulder rig, and after chambering a round, slipped the suppressed pistol under his left arm.

As the Assassin left his room he killed the lights. He would not be coming back.

The Assassin's feet were cold. It was almost three in the morning, so the Assassin supposed that he couldn't complain too much. He still silently cursed himself for not bringing thicker socks. It was still practically winter, and hours after the sun had set, so of course it was going to be frigid.

As the Assassin stealthily made his way toward the target house, all thoughts of cold were shoved from his mind. In fact, all thoughts non-mission related were set aside. The Assassin focused totally on his plan of action and his immediate surroundings. His breathing slowed, his heartbeat calmed, and then he moved.

There was an alley on the Assassin's left side that separated his target's building from the one over. As the Assassin moved into the alley he opened his jacket and drew the Grappling Gun. Then he unceremoniously fired the hook onto the rooftop of the building. The Assassin held his breath as the steel hook made whoosh sound as it was expelled, followed almost immediately by a dull clank. The Assassin activate the motor that would pull him up to his primary entrance: a fairly large third floor window.

When he reached the window, the Assassin was delighted to find it both unbarred and unlocked. Funny, the Assassin had thought that cat burglars would be a bigger deal in France… maybe he had just seen Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief a few too many times.

In any case, he slipped inside as easily as if he were a professional cat burglar.

The room that the Assassin found himself in was pitch dark. He stayed low, ready to throw himself out the window if people started shouting -or worse- shooting.

Nothing happened. The Assassin strained his hearing. When nothing continued to happen, he removed his night-vision device from his belt and peered about the room.

It was a standard bedroom. A bed -obviously- as well as a dresser and desk. Dirty clothes were strewn haphazardly around the room and own the floor. The occupant probably hadn't been expecting guests.

Satisfied that he was alone, the Assassin put his NVD back into its pouch and pulled on his balaclava. Then, careful not to disturb the scattered dirty clothes, the Assassin unzipped his jacket and drew his suppressed pistol while moving towards the closed door.

The floor underneath the door was illuminated, and the Assassin silently cursed. Of course. It had been too easy up till now.

He had hoped that the late hour, combined with the amateurish nature of his adversaries, would make this a simple operation. He had harbored the faint hope that everyone would be asleep. But no, nothing could ever be easy.

Suddenly the Assassin froze. He could hear heavy footsteps approaching his position from outside the door.

As the Assassin held his breath, he slowly moved his gloved finger inside the trigger guard of his Beretta. Except for that single action, the Assassin did not move. Instead he waited, heart beating a slightly faster tattoo against his chest. He knew that in a few seconds there was the possibility that he would have to run or fight for his life; and yet his hands did not shake. All the Assassin did was wait… and listen.

When the Assassin heard the footfalls continue past him, down what he assumed to be a hallway, the Assassin began to breathe evenly again. He had remained undiscovered. The trick would be to stay that way until his mission was completed.

To that end, the Assassin strained his hearing again to verify that the hallway was clear.

It was.

The Assassin moved quickly and deliberately. He opened the door wide enough to slide through, and then raised his suppressed pistol.

Through his peripheral vision the Assassin took in the sights of the hallway he found himself in. Long, well-lit, and surprisingly clean. There were a few pictures that decorated the otherwise bare white walls, but they didn't interest the Assassin nearly as much as the large thuggish man with the shotgun grasped in his hand. Who must have somehow sensed the Assassin's silent entrance, because he was turning around and bringing his weapon to bear upon him.

The Assassin didn't hesitate. He aimed his Beretta at the man's head and fired a single suppressed shot.

Any gunfire is loud, and although a 9mm round is on the quieter end of the auditory range for gunfire, if the Assassin hadn't been using a quality suppressor along with subsonic ammunition, everyone in the complex would have woken up. But he was a professional, and the Assassin had planned ahead.

There was a cough from the pistol, and then the man's head seemed to blow backwards in a pink spray of blood and brains and bone. The dead man seemed to sway on his feet for a moment, and then he fell to the ground for the last time.

Or, tried to.

The Assassin rushed forward to catch the falling man, and thus was able to muffle what would have doubtlessly been a loud crash as a 200 plus pound corpse hit the linoleum floor.

For the second time that night the Assassin froze. And again, no one came to investigate.

If the Assassin didn't give a sigh of relief, it was only because he knew that he was going to have to hide a large dead body. Sniffing, the Assassin morosely noted that the corpse had just evacuated its bowels for the last time.

At this, the Assassin did give a silent sigh.

Then he stood, told himself to suck it up, and dragged the body into the room that he had just left. Once he had the corpse inside the door, the Assassin grabbed a hoodie from the floor and went to wipe down the bloody mess in the hallway. After that was done, the Assassin grabbed the shotgun off the linoleum and continued on with his mission.

The Assassin repeated the process of slipping wraithlike down the barren hallway until he arrived at the last door on the right. It was the only thing left in the corridor that could possibly be what the Assassin was looking for. The door was a heavy wooden number that would be impossible to break through without the proper tools.

Luckily for the Assassin, the door's deadbolt was on his side.

Attaching the Night-Vision monocle to a strap around his head, the Assassin carefully slid the deadbolt out of place and, weapon up, entered his target's quarters.

It was another dark room.

The Assassin moved smoothly into the room with his Beretta aimed in front of him in one hand, and his stolen double-barrel 12-gauge in the other, with its shortened barrel pointed down.

It took the Assassin about three seconds to clear the room, and another heartbeat after that to get visual confirmation on his target.

The target was a middle aged Indian man, a bit below average height, who was losing his graying hair and gaining weight.

The Assassin knew all this in spite of the fact that the target was sound asleep under the covers. It had all been in the dossier.

The Assassin moved into the room and silently approached the bed. With his left hand, the Assassin carefully laid his shotgun on the floor, and with his right he holstered his pistol. Then he covered his targets gently snoring mouth, and woke him up.

Dr. Vikas Singh woke with a start. The man's eyes bugged out as they saw the masked stranger and he tried to scream.

Of course, the Assassin's hands covered the Doctor's mouth, and did a fantastic job of muffling his cry.

Very calmly, as one might with a spooked horse, the Assassin brought two fingers to his lips, and shushed the panicking scientist. It took several long seconds before Dr. Singh calmed down enough for the Assassin to take his hand away from his mouth, and then the Assassin gestured for the Doctor to silently dress.

Several times the Doctor tried to speak to the Assassin, but each time he was immediately hushed. The Assassin did not speak a single word, only communicating his desire for Dr. Singh to hurry through use of hand signals.

When Dr. Singh was dressed, the Assassin redrew his pistol, and picked up the shotgun from the floor. Someone had apparently taken the time to work the wooden stock into a pistol grip, a feature that the Assassin found to his liking.

Gesturing for the Doctor to follow, the Assassin entered the corridor and was immediately thrown backwards.

At the opposite end of the hallway a man stood holding a smoking, long-barreled revolver. He must have saw the blood smear that the Assassin had not been able to remove, and had drawn his weapon accordingly. It was just bad luck and bad timing that the Assassin had chosen that exact moment to step into the hallway.

The Assassin had been thrown off his feet onto his back by the heavy slug that had hit him, but to his credit, he didn't let that slow him down. He had lost his grip on the shotgun when the round had impacted his bulletproof vest, but he retained his hold on the Beretta.

While on his back, the Assassin raised his pistol in his right hand and put two suppressed bullets into his attacker's chest before the man could bring back the hammer on his gigantic revolver. This time, the Assassin was unable to stop the solid thump that the dead man made as he fell.

…Not that it mattered. The Assassin knew that if the single roaring shot from the revolver hadn't woken the entire building yet, then it was simply a matter of time before those who had heard it raised the alarm.

In other words, it was time to go.

The Assassin took a moment a moment to make sure that the bullet hadn't penetrated his vest; it hadn't. The Assassin then rolled to his feet and was grateful to find that, although he felt like he had been punched by Muhamad Ali in his prime, nothing felt broken. The Assassin grabbed the shotgun off the floor and then turned to his charge.

Dr. Singh stared at his rescuer with… something. Not with fear, or awe, or even disgust at just having seen the Assassin kill a man— even if it was one of his kidnappers. If the Assassin had to define what he saw on the face of the Doctor, he would say that it was a look of mild-interest. The Assassin had seen the exact face the Doctor was making at people browsing for books at the library.

The Assassin shook himself, it was probably shock. Anyway, he didn't have time for a psychoanalysis on Dr. Singh. He could already hear two sets of footsteps pounding up the stairs on the opposite end of the hallway.

Before the mystery stair climbers could make their entrance, a dark-skinned man wearing tighty-whities and carrying a Kalashnikov burst through a door less than ten feet from in front of the Assassin.

Again, the Assassin did not hesitate. With his left hand, he raised the sawed-off shotgun and sent a load of buckshot into the AK wielder's chest. The recoil was enormous, and the Assassin had to readjust his grip on the weapon, but with luck the incredible report the shotgun produced would deter anyone else from coming at him.

It didn't.

The two men that came up the stairs carried pistols and were wearing clothes. Thank God. They had started shooting down the corridor the moment that they came to the top of the stairs. It was ill aimed panic-fire. Still, the Assassin rapidly put a single round into each of their chests, and then he repeated the maneuver with a third and fourth round respectively.

Gun held ready in a shooting stance, the Assassin waited for his next assailant. When no one came, he hurriedly dragged Dr. Singh back into the bedroom that he had initially entered through, locking the door behind them.

The Assassin led Dr. Singh to the window, and after grabbing a t-shirt from the floor to protect his hands, the Doctor was only too happy to slide down the heavy-duty rope.

The Assassin stood in front of the door, with the shotgun pointed at where a man's chest should be, ready to fire at the slightest provocation. And once again, the Assassin wondered about the Doctor's lack of reaction to the dead body that lay a few scant feet from where they had entered. The Assassin rarely saw that sort of non-reaction from someone without the training or experience necessary to deal with death.

His thoughts were interrupted when the doorknob jiggled. The Assassin decided that Dr. Singh had had enough time for his descent and fired through the door.

There was a roar as the last round of buckshot tore through wood of the door and into the flesh of whoever was on the other side. The Assassin didn't pause to admire his handiwork, he simply took several quick strides over to the widow -holstering his Beretta as he went- and went out the way he had come in.

In the alley, the Doctor gave the Assassin an unsure look, as if he didn't expect to get this far and didn't know how to proceed. Moving quickly over to a pile of garbage, the Assassin started tossing bags of trash off of what was quickly revealed to be a black Kawasaki motorcycle.

Dr. Singh needed no encouragement to hop of the back of the bike as the Assassin started the engine and roared off into the Parisian night.

Sunshine spilled onto the Assassins face as he greeted the Colorado morning. As nice as Paris had been, there was no place like home, and it was good to be back in the U.S.

The operation had been a success. After making their escape, he and Dr. Singh had driven around the city for nearly an hour to escape any possible tails they might have had. The Doctor had tried several more times to thank his savior and engage him in conversation, but the Assassin hadn't responded. Finally, apparently having decided that they didn't share a common language, the Doctor had given up and remained silent for the rest of the trip.

Less than an hour before sunrise the Assassin arrived at the destination.

The Assassin and the Doctor pulled into a parking garage where they met a short prettyish women, who gave the Assassin the correct code phrase. In return, the Assassin gave the women the Doctor.

Dr. Singh would ride out of Paris tranquilized and in the trunk of a car. After that, the Assassin had no idea what would happen to him. It was above his paygrade.

After the women and the Doctor had left, the Assassin rode the motorcycle to a pre-selected motel where he had identification, a plane ticket, and a change of clothes waiting for him. After showering and leaving his gear tucked away in a place where his handlers would find it -but no one else would- the Assassin had ridden back to the airport; he spent the rest of his time in France eating crepes while waiting for his flight.

The Assassin smiled as he made his way up the driveway towards the ranch-style home, it had been a good trip. Then he winced. Okay, being shot hadn't been fun, but other than that…

All thoughts of his other life fled his mind as a beautiful redheaded teenager walked outside to greet him.

"Morning" Kim Possible greeted the Assassin, in her friendly, chipper voice.

"Hey K.P., how's it hangin'?" replied Ron Stoppable.

C'est tout pour l'instant.