Written for the Spyfest Fic Exchange
Thanks for another wonderful Spyfest, Cthulhu - And for the great prompts!
Prompt: Yassen arrives at (place) to kill his target. But when he lets himself in, he finds his target dead, and Alex Rider alive.
Yassen landed in Barcelona six hours after his target.
His newest employers called him in late in a man-hunt and after negotiating a suitable compensation for the extra work, Yassen used the next few days calling contacts and running down leads.
On the third day, the target made the mistake of booking a last-minute ticket in his real name. Had Yassen been someone else, with less experience and without the same reach in the criminal underground, the trip might have gone under the radar. After verifying the man had boarded the plane and the whole thing hadn't been a decoy, Yassen booked a seat on the next available flight.
The domestic flight took less than two hours, and he spent them reading a Japanese bunkobon by Yōko Ogawa to expand his vocabulary.
As he had brought nothing besides a backpack, he skipped the baggage claim and went directly to pick up his pre-booked rental.
The woman manning the disk was young but competent and let Yassen sign the papers in record time. He made sure to tip her generously, before discretely pocketing the keys and the small slip of paper wrapped around them.
Completing high-profile hits cleanly required a network of equally skilled and efficient contacts and subcontractors. Yassen had always made sure to uphold these good relations, and his continued success after SCORPIA's inevitable downfall to greed and arrogance – while many of his colleagues were killed or arrested in the aftermath – proved their value.
Now with the target's current location in hand, Yassen had the time to scout the area and plan his approach.
Curiously, the target had booked his hotel room under the alias Antonio Pérez. He must have gotten outside help after arriving in Barcelona. Yassen's contacts had only managed to track the man down this quickly because the photo on the man's new ID matched the one on his real passport. Either an amateur or a last-minute measure – a potential complication, either way.
He would have to act quickly before this new player suspected his presence and took further precautions.
Yassen followed the highway into the city proper and used the narrow streets there to lose any potential tails.
Barcelona in early spring was cloudy, the chilly breeze carrying the smell of churros con chocolate and sea salt through the car window he had cracked open.
Yassen had done several jobs in the city before and took the turns with the confidence of a local, though with less of a death wish.
He made a few quick stops to pick up a light lunch, a Walter P99, and a few other things airport security frowned at if you smuggled them through without greasing a few palms. Yassen preferred to travel less conspicuous. Aliases tended to last longer that way – the cost of quality forgeries was always increasing, and he would never get the chance to retire if he squandered his savings.
After getting a look inside the hotel lobby under the guise of buying a drink at the bar, Yassen did his own scouting on foot. He knew the target wasn't inside the hotel at the moment, as he had been spotted leaving in the morning and hadn't come back since. That left Yassen with some time to prepare.
First, he made sure the hotel wasn't under surveillance.
It wasn't – at least not physically. However, a few of the businesses around the hotel had CCTV, and the hotel itself had several IP cameras in the lobby and at the two entrances.
Yassen was not a hacker. This wasn't the kind of job he was hired for, and he had no ambitions of switching to electronic targets. Sometimes having a few additional skills not directly related to his primary job made everything run smoother though – and getting access to CCTV connected to the internet could barely be described as hacking. People rarely bothered protecting a live feed of a public street. This hotel hadn't bothered to change the default password.
A few minutes later, Yassen was back in his car with eight feeds of decent resolution transmitting directly to his phone. He would be able to see anyone walking through the entrances or taking the elevators.
Of course, a third party could be doing the same.
His scouting mission had also revealed the back door of the staircase making up the nearest fire exit. Manually disabling the alarms and the single camera outside was another handy skill he had learned over the years.
With an escape route in place, Yassen settled in to wait at a café with chicken salad and a cortado, keeping the feed up on the phone under the guise of reading the news.
Around nine, he got a text with an address and a photo of the target at a restaurant. Without hurry, Yassen paid for his meal and made his way back to his car.
He got texted another photo two hours later of the target leaving. Yassen stretched and grabbed his backpack. He had moved his car closer to the hotel, strategically parking it outside the range of any cameras.
When the target walked into the lobby ten minutes later, Yassen waited on the staircase leading to the target's floor – backpack on to keep his hands free – and watched on his phone as the man nodded to the receptionist and went for the elevator.
Yassen made sure the elevator arrived on the right floor, then took the battery out of his phone.
He gave the man five minutes to get to his room and move away from the door, then strode in through the emergency entrance. There was no one else in the hallway, so he drew his Walter P99 – now with a suppressor attached – and used a cloned key-card to let himself into the target's hotel room.
The small entrance was empty and separated from the rest of the room by a wall. The target's dark coat hung neatly on a coat-hanger inside the reach-in closet, a pair of polished leather boots standing underneath.
Without turning around, he closed the door behind him.
The first shot rang out as he engaged the lock.
He crouched and aimed in one smooth motion, his gun already pointing towards the threat before he registered the shot had not been aimed at him.
A crash followed by a curse revealed the fight to be ongoing.
Yassen started counting in his head. He would give himself two minutes to complete the job and get out. Other guests would have heard the shot. Depending on whether they called hotel security or the police directly, their response time should be at least three minutes. He wanted to be long gone by then.
The second shot went off as Yassen turned the corner.
An old table lamp cast stark shadows on the pair standing in the middle of the room. The sharp smells of gunpowder and desperation hung around them.
Written for the Spyfest Fic Exchange
Thanks for another wonderful Spyfest, Cthulhu - And for the great prompts!
Prompt: Yassen arrives at (place) to kill his target. But when he lets himself in, he finds his target dead, and Alex Rider alive.
For a moment, they seemed frozen mid-motion, clutching each other's arms. Then the one facing Yassen – the target – collapsed backwards and stayed down.
Yassen shifted his aim to the back of the head of the second fighter, ready to finish him off while he was distracted.
The person was short and slim, his stance hinting at formal training. Yet, he held the gun loosely in his right hand, hesitantly – like he wasn't sure what to do with it.
Yassen's finger froze on the trigger.
Alex Rider turned his head and stared, eyes wide and face pale. A few dark-blond strands stuck to specks of blood on his cheek.
Standing above the body of Yassen's target, for once, Alex looked his age.