major assignments, ninety-one people taken down in the doing of them,
and he had never failed to complete a job.
Not any longer. He hadn't assassinated anybody in a while, and if you
didn't sharpen your edge regularly, you got dull. Oh, he could still
run with most of the elite; his skills had been considerable and they
had not deserted him completely--but his time had passed. Somewhere
out there was a man for whom hunting and taking human prey was a total
focus. A man who was faster, stronger, younger, whose entire being was
wrapped around what he did, and that made him better than Ventura. His
ego didn't want to hear that, but he wasn't going to lie to himself.
Experience could balance many things, but no fighter stayed champion
forever. Those who tried to hang on too long always lost. Always.
He could still do twenty chins, he could run five miles in half an
hour, and he could hit any target his weapon was capable of hitting,
but he was pushing fifty, and his reflexes weren't what they had once
been. He wore glasses to read and, these days, he missed some of the
high notes he knew were there when he listened to a Mozart concerto or
a Bach fugue.
He could have tried to fool himself into thinking he still had all the
moves, but that was the road to hell, sure enough.
Three years ago, he had taken out a Brazilian drug dealer protected by
a hundred troops and a dozen skilled bodyguards. The tap had been
extremely difficult and it had been perfect in every way.
Perfect.
Even if your talents never wavered, you couldn't improve on perfection.
The best you could ever do was match it, and there was no joy in that.
It was not worth the risk. He was on the downhill slope, and the lean
and hungry days were long gone. There weren't any old assassins, not
at the level he'd played on. So he'd folded his cards and walked away
from the game a winner.
Sure, he had killed people recently, but those didn't count, those had
been defensive, more or less. Once, he had gone forth and stalked.
Now he made his money 9
protecting people from other assassins. It was, in many ways, more
difficult. There were still challenges to be met. That was his focus,
and while it did not have the same level of excitement, it had some
advantages. It was legal. It was less risky. And although he didn't
need the money, it was lucrative.
He put the espresso down, finished. All he needed was the first sip.
He didn't need the caffeine, didn't want the artificial mind-set that
came with it. One sip was enough.
It was the essence of the experience, no more was necessary.
Finished with the coffee, he looked at his watch. It was one minute
past eight a.m. He had a new client, though he was not to start
officially working for the man for several days. But as soon as
Ventura took on a job, it occupied his attention, and he did what it
took to get into the proper mindset.
Although he was out of town for a few days, at around seven-thirty a.m.
on Saturdays his client usually arrived in Seattle via ferry and came
to this coffee shop, where he had a cup of triple espresso. For the
