Neck Snap

Snapping a neck is easy.

Almost too easy.

When you snap a neck, it’s actually two separate sounds—more like a snap-snap, with a greater emphasis on the second—though it all happens so fast, that the two sounds merge into one.

When Jayne makes a kill, however, her sense of time is a bit distorted. Everything is slowed down, and those two distinct noises are like separate syllables of the same word.

Snap. Snap.

Like little hits on a chime. Like a spoon clinking twice against a bowl.

Snap. Snap.

These particular snaps came courtesy of an Omani businessman known locally as Babu Khalifa. Grandfather Khalifa. His large, flabby body had been sitting on the flattened cushion of a weather-worn chair on the rooftop of the old Emerson Hotel. He was alone, his back to the entrance, and Jayne had taken about eight seconds to spot him, approach him, and kill him.

Snap. Snap.

She had enough time to sit back and enjoy the view before any of Babu Khalifa’s eight guards would find her. Enough time to sit on the cushion next to the Babu’s large, limp body. Enough time to finish off the Babu’s three-quarters-full mimosa. Maybe put up her feet. Watch the ferry boat slowly dock into the port below them.

This was Stone Town, a sprawling cluster of white stone buildings along the southwestern tip of Zanzibar. Jayne wasn’t the biggest fan of islands—limited escape routes, fewer places to hide—but she did enjoy a nice ocean view.

A large, white bird squawked overhead. Not a seagull. Something else.

Just as she looked up into the cloud-streaked sky, she heard a familiar creak coming from the stairs. As she had climbed the wooden stairs just a few minutes ago, she took a mental note of the wood’s stability. There were three weak steps, each of which made a creak sound under her feet. The loudest of the three was a mere five steps from the rooftop.

The sounds she had just heard told her three separate things:

One, someone was coming, someone five steps away.

Two, that someone was heavy, heavier than she was, apparently.

Three, she had to get out of there. Now.

Looking around, Jayne knew that she had two choices. Staying here was not one of them.

She had to jump to the roof of a neighboring building. There were two within jumping distance, though one was further away than she had hoped. The closer roof, however, was made of rusted sheet metal. Even though it would be easier for her to land there, she had a feeling the metal would give way. She’d either fall through completely, or get impaled on twisted metal. Neither possibility was ideal. That just left the farther building. She had an eighty percent chance of making it, and owing to its wooden construction, a zero percent chance of getting impaled by metal. Much better odds.

BAM! A streak of plaster dust—almost beautiful—rose up from a fresh bullet hole in the wall. Most people wouldn’t notice a detail like that, a streak of fust amidst a flurry of bullets, but Jayne wasn’t most people. She saw things in slow-motion.

That didn’t, however, give her any extra time. She couldn’t wait another nanosecond. She couldn’t even turn to look at the gunman, although she didn’t really need to. Judging by his first bullet—and the second, which splintered the chair she had once been sitting on—he was standing at the top of the stairs and approaching fast.

No, Jayne didn’t have any time left. She had to get to the next building. She hopped onto the ledge and jumped toward the wooden roof six feet away. She didn’t have much of a running start, but she had some—six steps—which gave her enough momentum to hurtle through the air and land without injury on the next building.

More bullets spiraled through the air.

For a single moment, when she was in the dead space between buildings—when there was nothing underneath besides a bustling alley far, far below—she felt a singular sensation. A kind of exhilaration that few people would ever experience. It was the closest she ever got to actual enjoyment, to the real, undeniable fulfillment in her job.

She landed with a roll, twisted to the side, and steadied herself before she accidentally toppled over this downward sloping roof. In the process, she halfway collided with a lounge chair.

A currently occupied lounge chair.

The occupant, a shirtless, sunburnt foreigner with a bald head and sunglasses, fell onto his butt. “Hey!” the man shouted. Just a single word, but Jayne could tell by the accent that he was most likely South African of Dutch descent. An Afrikaner.

More gunshots sounded.

Jayne scooped up the man, despite him outweighing her by at least fifty pounds, and pushed both of them behind the wooden structure that served as a bar for this particular rooftop.

“Don’t move,” she ordered him. They were both safe now—safe from the thudding, constant shots—but the man would be riddled with bullets if he moved even six inches to his left.

The man didn’t argue. The stream of bullets did wonders to shut him up.

She placed her hand onto his bald, sweat-glistened head and pushed him further onto his knees. “You’ll be all right,” she said. And then she was gone.

She ran through the gunfire in less than a second and dove headfirst onto the wooden staircase at the roof’s corner. Like many of the multi-storied buildings in Stone Town, the roof was accessible by an open trap door and several alternating flights of wooden steps that zigzagged through the inside of the building. This design was a clear waste of available space, Jayne knew, but she also knew that it gave her a distinct advantage. Rather than having to run down each flight, she could hop over one railing and lower herself down one flight at a time, until she reached the ground floor.

Which she did. Four floors in less than seven seconds.

The jump from the first floor to the ground floor was the most difficult, because she’d have to jump the greatest distance, and there wasn’t a clear shot at the floor below. This building was a coffeehouse, and the ground floor was filled with wooden tables and clusters of coffee-drinking foreigners.

She landed feet-first onto one of the larger tables. It wobbled under the sudden change of weight, but didn’t tip over. Several plates crashed to the floor, however, and the two women sitting at the table screamed and fell backward.

Several more customers screamed. A few ran outside without paying.

Jayne scanned the room for shocked faces, and found one man whose face was anything but shocked. The man was large, thick-necked, with a complexion that looked more Omani than African. He had small eyes that looked at Jayne, not with shock, but with anticipation. He rose out of his chair.

Clearly, he was planted here. Just another one of the Babu’s men. She didn’t recognize his face from the files she’d uncovered last week, so he must be a new addition. Good. That meant he probably wasn’t as comfortable in these surroundings as his coworkers.

The man reached for his back pocket. His movement was swift and efficient.

Not swift enough, however. Jayne had enough time to dive behind the cappuccino machine just as he fired the first bullet.

BAM.

BAM.

Two more bullets whizzed past. Though the gunman’s movements were that of a trained guard, his aim was wild.

Jayne turned to her side. A large Zanzibari woman in a full head scarf was crouched down next to her. They shared the safe space behind the cappuccino machine. The woman was holding a metal platter against her chest. As she shook, the edge of the platter hit against her beaded necklace, making a loud string of clack-clack-clack noises.

“Jambo,” Jayne said.

The woman forced a smile. “Jambo,” she whispered. This wasn’t an ideal time to say hello, especially with the bullets whizzing past them like—

The bullets stopped.

Everything stopped.

The entire coffeehouse was plunged into silence, aside from the steady clack-clack-clack of platter against necklace. The woman looked at Jayne as if to ask, “Who are you and what’s going on?” Jayne didn’t have time to reassure this woman with an explanation—even a short one—and she wouldn’t have said anything even if she did. Best to keep the locals out of it.

Jayne grabbed the trembling platter out of the woman’s hands. She peered over the counter for a fraction of a second, just long enough to see the thick-necked gunman reloading his weapon. She had less than three seconds to act. In a whirr of motion, Jayne threw the platter Frisbee-style right into the man’s face. He looked up at the precise moment of impact, just as the edge of the platter collided with the bridge of his nose. Jayne was actually aiming for a few millimeters lower. After all, a broken nose would give her more escape time than a bruised one.

Still, the impact knocked him backwards, though not off his feet, and he wildly grabbed at his face.

Jayne didn’t pause to see if the man was bleeding. Probably, though that shouldn’t matter to her. She hopped over the counter, knocking the cappuccino machine onto the floor. Streaks of steam shot into the air in three separate geysers. Jayne landed in front of the much larger man. She punched him twice, once in the lower gut and, after he bent forward, once in the neck.

The waitress screamed behind her.

The cappuccino steam made the air stickier and hotter.

The man fell backwards against the wall, taking a framed picture of sailboats down with him. He held his face with one hand. The other reached out blindly, swiping through the air in a desperate attempt to grab his attacker.

Didn’t work.

Jayne pushed his hand to the side. She needed to dispatch this guy as quickly as possible. She grabbed his cheeks and twisted his entire head to the side. His neck made a noise, but it wasn’t the double snap she’d been hoping for.

For some reason, this guy’s neck was much harder to snap than his boss’s. Judging by the noise, and the guy’s sorry expression, she’d done some sort of damage, but not enough.

He moaned weakly.

Okay, maybe it was enough. He wasn’t dead, but it didn’t look like he’d be chasing after her any time soon. She got up to leave.

The waitress screamed.

Jayne turned and saw three more men rush through the front door. All big, all wearing similar, expensive suits… All armed.

Diving between two matching tables, Jayne pushed her way toward the back of the restaurant. The front entrance was blocked by men, but the back could provide an escape.

Or it could be a dead end.

Two tourists, already cowering under their table, saw her running. They screamed in unison.

A single door at the back of the restaurant. Small. Wooden. Ornate carvings. It was a nice door, but Jayne could tell that its wood—made from local baobab trees, probably—wouldn’t shield her from even a single bullet.

She threw open the door and ran inside.

A bathroom. She was now inside a small, single-toilet bathroom.

Jayne leaned against the wall. Gunshots blasted through the air behind her. She was right. The door didn’t offer any sort of protection. It splintered instantly. None struck her, though. She was too fast.

The window just above the toilet was large enough for her to climb through, but not by much. In a single fluid motion, she hoisted herself onto the toilet’s porcelain tank and slid her body through the open window.

BANG! More gunshots rang out from behind.

She fell somewhat clumsily onto the uneven ground below. The sandy earth wasn’t hard, but a few snarls of craggy grass dug into her side. Still, pokes of grass were preferable to bullet holes, and for now, she was shielded from her attackers.

With an oomph, she hoisted herself onto her shoulders. Still laying low.

She surveyed the area.

Courtyard. Blocked.

Shit.

This mission had started off so easily. Just a neck snap. That was it. Now, she was trapped, pursued by at least five men.

The courtyard was bordered on three sides by an unscalable metal wall. Pieces of abandoned playground equipment stuck out of the earth. It was… well, not an ideal place to be trapped.

Still, in a place like this, Jayne was able to scan her immediate surroundings for possible weapons. There, at her feet, was a rusted pipe. There, off to the left, was another. She grabbed them both, deeply aware that their jagged surfaces were digging into her palm flesh.

Two weapons. One for each hand.

She stood at the ready and waited. If she couldn’t escape from her attackers, she’d have to fight her way out.

Bring it on.

A half hour later.

Jayne walked through the crowded alley, just ten minutes from the Emerson Hotel and another five from the cannons that lined the island’s main dock. There were shop keepers on all sides, but something about her hard-set expression had told them not to flag her down.

She looked fine. Beautiful, as always, but also anonymous. She’d already washed off most of her attackers’ blood. There was still a bit behind her ears—she could feel it—but not enough for anyone else to notice. Just another souvenir from killing five men in an enclosed courtyard.

Her mission was almost accomplished.

She just had one more target. The Babu’s partner.

Two minutes later, she arrived along the outer edge of the island’s Old Fort, a touristy relic that held her target. The structure was a wide, square building, crumbling in all directions. The brown and gray stones looked like they’d seen one too many tropical storms. But it was also beautiful.

In a way.

For such an old, imposing structure—basically the African equivalent of an ancient castle—it sounded pretty lively. Several speakers, mounted on the walls, were blasting bongo flava, a reggae-influenced genre of music that had dominated island culture for the last decade.

Before she’d dispatched him, but after she’d snapped his wrist, one of her attackers had told her to come here. He’d said that her final target, Minister Edmond Mbili—or Eddie Two as he was known—would be inside enjoying the music. While the Babu was the mastermind behind virtually all organized crime on the island, Eddie Two was his muscle. Jayne had to approach carefully.

If her intel was correct, Eddie Two would be just on the other side of this wall. He’d be easy to spot, too, not only because the inside of the Old Fort was surprisingly small. No, he’d be an easy target because of his unique fashion sense. He always wore white suits, as if he were dressing for Easter Sunday.

Jayne dug behind the shrubbery near the fort’s main entrance. She looked around. No one noticed her. After thirty seconds, she pulled out a single pistol duct taped to the crumbling wall. Bingo.

She slid it into the holster strapped to her back. The pistol was one of several she’d planted in strategic areas around Stone Town. It would come in handy.

She’d have two shots. All the rest of her ammo was already spent.

No problem.

She walked through the entrance and approached a woman sitting behind a desk-full of brochures. The sign next to her said that entry into the fort would be two hundred shillings.

“Ticket, ma’am,” the woman said, not unkindly.

“Don’t need one,” Jayne replied, her voice soft but forceful.

The woman started to reply, but Jayne kept walking past her. Confidence was key, Jayne knew, and the woman didn’t follow.

A short corridor opened into a grassy, open-air courtyard divided into an empty field and a crumbling set of stadium seating surrounded by craft stalls. To her left, clusters of people sat in front of a metal stage and swayed to the music. A bunch of foreigners, white guys with dreadlocks, sat toward the back.

Other than that, not a lot of witnesses.

I’ll be in and out, Jayne told herself. None of these people will notice anything. She walked through the crowd, not acting in any way that would pull attention.

And in the distance, sitting a bit too close to one of the speakers: the man in the white suit. Mr. Easter Sunday himself. Her target.

He sat cross-legged on the grass, one arm draped around his wife. A small girl in a blue dress, his daughter, sat in his lap.

Crap.

Jayne knew that she’d have to get closer than she’d anticipated. She’d have to position herself less than five feet behind him. Otherwise, her bullet would be an unnecessary threat to the man’s family. And she knew, beyond any doubt, that she didn’t want to punish his family for everything he’d done. The bullet was his and his alone.

She’d have to get pretty damn close.

The speakers blasted their steady rhythm. Right into Jayne’s ear. For such slow, simple beats, the song kept her on edge.

She looked around, making sure that there weren’t any other witnesses. Any other watchful eyes. Any potential guards. Any suspicious individuals who might be working with Eddie Two.

None.

Actually... One. She saw one African gentleman, dressed in a blue robe, as he looked at her unblinking. He half-smiled.

Who was this man? Should he be on her radar? Was he watching over her target?

No.

He probably just thought she was hot. Can’t blame him, she thought darkly. Even after a rough-and-tumble morning, she still cut a nice silhouette.

Still. Can’t be too careful.

She approached him, moving in a languid, casual way.

“Jambo,” he said. Then his voice deepened and he added, “Beautiful lady.”

Nope. Not a threat at all.

Just an idiot.

He reached out to her, his large hand about to slide those slimy fingers across her side.

Before he could make contact, though, she grabbed his wrist and twisted. Her second wrist-break for the day.

She heard the bone crack, but she didn’t hear a scream, which meant he was still in shock. “Nice to meet you, too,” she said.

His body twisted and he crumpled onto the ground. Once the pain really set in, he started to whimper. She anticipated that.

Well, that was that. Now back to Mr. Easter Sunday. She walked a few steps behind him. He didn’t notice her approach. He didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

That was good.

The man’s wife, though… She noticed. She looked toward Jayne, a single tattooed eyebrow raised into a suspicious curl.

Jayne waved to her. Forced an awkward smile. In a moment like that, it helped to look as much like a bashful tourist as possible. Being awkward was usually good cover.

The wave seemed to work, because the wife looked away. She went back to chatting casually with her husband.

Jayne stepped closer. She stood about three feet behind the target, sliding the gun out to her side. The target still didn’t notice. His wife kept talking to him, and his daughter looked at the clouds. Jayne repositioned herself so that neither wife nor child would be in the way.

Perfect spot.

Without making any sound at all, she shot the man at the base of his neck. His body didn’t move. Until it did. Until he slumped forward, his head landing on his daughter’s shoulder.

“Daddy?” the girl asked.

Jayne turned to leave. She was finished. Sure, she could stay there for a few more moments and see the many different reactions to her work.

But she didn’t. She couldn’t. There would be no enjoyment in watching the aftermath.

Once out on the main road leading toward the docks, she stopped to look around. The next stage of her plan—the escape part—was simple enough. She had a boat waiting for her outside Tembo Hotel. All gassed up. No driver, though. She could handle that herself. She’d take it up the coast about a mile and a half, docking in a hidden area near the Mbweni Ruins. A helicopter was waiting inside the ruins. That would take her to the nearest mainland city, Dar es Salaam. And from there, she’d be safe. No one would know anything about what she had just done.

“Wait,” a voice commanded from the alley.

Jayne stopped. She was ready to dive behind a nearby cart if necessary, but she had a feeling she wasn’t in danger.

She turned.

The wife had followed her. Her large, dark eyes stared at Jayne. Her tattooed eyebrows seemed relaxed. No expression at all.

No weapon, either. The woman was harmless.

Jayne didn’t have time for this. Without saying anything, she turned again and started walking away. Running would only cause a scene.

“Wait,” the woman said again. Something in her voice made Jayne change her mind. She did wait. She did listen, though her back was still to the woman. “Did you…?”

“Yeah,” Jayne answered.

There was a pause. A long one. Jayne really didn’t have any time for this.

“Thank you,” the woman said. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Come here.”

Jayne turned to look at the woman. She shook her head.

The woman raised her eyebrow again. She didn’t look unkind, but her face flashed impatience.

Jayne stepped forward. She knew the local police would take their time catching Eddie Two’s killer. She also knew that his network of goons was more-or-less dispatched. She wasn’t in immediate danger. Not right now.

When she got close enough, she could see a single spot of Eddie Two’s blood staining the woman’s cheek. Either the woman hadn’t noticed, or she hadn’t bothered to wipe it off. “Thank you,” she said again. And she spread her arms wide. She wanted a hug.

Gulp.

Jayne didn’t hug. Her expression must’ve sent that message, because the woman shifted her position and, instead of a hug, offered her hand for a hearty handshake.

Fine. Jayne could do that.

Their hands met, and Jayne noticed how cold the woman’s fingers were, especially in this hot weather. They shook, but when it was time to let go, the woman didn’t. She clamped down tightly.

“You killed my Eddie,” she said again.

Jayne instantly knew that she’d made a mistake. She should’ve been in her boat by now. She should’ve been out to sea, feeling the sea water spatter her face.

Quickly, Jayne looked toward the woman’s free hand. Did she have a weapon after all?

No. Jayne’s earlier appraisal was correct. The woman was unarmed… Which begged the question: Why wouldn’t she let go? What was she planning to do to her?

The answer, it turned out, was nothing. She just wanted to hold Jayne in place.

Jayne heard a low, angry scream coming from her left. She turned. Eddie Two’s daughter—no more than six—ran toward her with a dagger in each hand.

The wife squeezed Jayne’s hand even tighter.

Normally, Jayne could easily dispatch the dagger-wielding child, but the shock of seeing a little girl running at her with such hatred in her eyes… it pushed her off her game.

In the half-second it took for the girl to reach her, Jayne mentally laid out all her options. If she twisted out of the mother’s grasp, that would give the daughter enough time to stab her with at least one of the knives. Judging by the girl’s general build, it probably wouldn’t be a deep cut. Then again, a figure compelled by that much hatred could summon unnatural reservoirs of strength.

If she decided not to free herself from the mother, she would have enough time to kick one of the knives out of the girl’s hand and grab for the other. The problem, though, was that the girl was much shorter than her, and Jayne would have to bend at an awkward angle in order to grab the knife. She could very easily miss and get slashed.

So if Jayne couldn’t free herself from the mother and she couldn’t directly fight off the daughter, she’d have to do something else. Without quite realizing what she was doing, she twisted her body to the side, sliding behind the mother at the very last second. If she couldn’t let go, then she could at least turn this woman into a human shield.

The daughter stabbed at her wildly, and both knives sunk into flesh. The good news, though, was that it wasn’t Jayne’s flesh. The daughter had stabbed her mother directly in the torso.

Blood spurted through the woman’s beige dress in streams, first onto the ground and then straight into the daughter’s face. Because everything happened so fast, the daughter didn’t have time to pull back or turn her head or even close her gaping mouth.

The woman crumpled onto the ground. She was weirdly silent. Jayne had seen plenty of stabbings in her line of work, and if they weren’t instantly fatal, they typically came with screaming and moaning. This time, there was no screaming. There was no moaning. Instead, there was a full-grown woman falling to her knees, then onto her side. And there was a daughter, face covered in blood, desperately spitting out as much of the syrupy liquid as possible.

The woman let go of Jayne’s hand, of course, but Jayne didn’t run away. The scene was so bizarre, so jarring, that she stayed right there, frozen, watching.

“Mother?” The girl wiped the blood away from her eyes. She looked down at her mother, who was quickly bleeding out. “Mom?”

At first, it seemed like the woman didn’t have the strength to respond. Whatever lifeforce was inside her, it was leaking away fast. Jayne figured the woman wouldn’t be able to say her last words, to tell her daughter one more time that she loved her.

Then, the woman coughed. A hunk of thick, blackish blood plopped out of her mouth. With her very last boost of strength, she said her last words. It wasn’t “I love you,” though. It was: “Get her.” And she was still.

The girl didn’t react instantly. She waited, watching her mother, perhaps expecting some other word or movement. After a long moment, though, she wiped more of the fast-drying blood off her face, and she turned toward Jayne.

Her eyes narrowed. Her face wore the same mask of hatred that her mother’s had. She lunged toward Jayne.

It was at that moment when Jayne realized that they were surrounded by locals. Any burst of violence was going to spark at least some interest. Here, in the bustling heart of Stone Town, there was a back-of-the-head execution followed by an accidental stabbing. Of course people were going to gather and stare.

No one interfered, though. After all, who were they going to side with? A little girl who murdered her own mother (however accidentally) or a woman who shot a man in the back of the head? To complicate things even further, the whole island probably knew what kind of criminal Eddie Two was, and by this time, they’d probably also heard about the deaths over by Emerson Hotel.

In short, things were complicated. The dozens of locals didn’t interfere, but they also didn’t leave. They formed a circle around the action and waited, waited for the next spurt of blood or flash of steel.

Which left Jayne more or less alone with a tiny, blood-spattered African girl lunging at her. Jayne was an assassin, and she was very good at her job. Most people would hesitate before fighting someone so young, but Jayne wasn’t most people. She knew that this girl was dangerous. Just like her mother. Just like her father.

So just as the girl pulled one of the daggers out of her mother’s lifeless body, and just as she started to jab the blade toward Jayne, Jayne steadied herself and kicked the girl directly in the chest.

The girl toppled backward. The dagger slid out of her hand and out into the crowd.

Jayne walked forward and grabbed the girl by the fabric of her blue dress. She pulled her up to eye level. “Do not come after me,” she said. Then she dropped the girl back onto the ground. One thin arm struck the side of her mom’s dead body.

Once the girl fell down, she could’ve easily jumped back up and tried another attack. If she had, Jayne would’ve grabbed the second dagger and used it swiftly and efficiently to stop her. But that didn’t happen.

In the last few moments, the blood-streaked girl had seemingly realized what had happened. She understood the carnage around her. Her father was gone. Her mother was gone… by her own hand. She did not get up. She sat there and began to cry.

At the moment, she wasn’t a threat. But one day, probably not too soon, that girl would come after her. It was inevitable.

Jayne watched for just a second, watched as the tears formed clear lines through the blood stains on the girl’s cheeks. Wordlessly, Jayne turned around and pushed her way through the crowd.

When she reached the boat that was waiting for her, she untied the rope and started the motor.

Behind her, a single man stood in the sand. He had seen everything. “Miss,” he said. “What the hell happened?”

She shrugged. Already, the boat was speeding away.

It was just a simple mission. Take out a crime boss and his assistant. Simple. Efficient.

It should’ve been as easy as a neck snap.