Contract City

It's the ninety-third minute of the championship football match and Cristiano Ronaldo has struck an absolute screamer into the top left corner from 20 yards out, to win the Champions League Final again. As the goal commotion begins the Nigerian born mercenary, codename Zane, infiltrates the head security office of the Acropolis Arena.

"Banger", he says to himself and smiles as he watches the replay on the jumbo-tron. He turns away from the window and begins punching letters and numbers into the computer; the bodies of a few guards lay strewn throughout room. Before he enters the final command, he pulls a little black book from the pouch on his vest. He flips to the page he needs and begins crossing items off the list. Lastly it reads:

37.39, 48.31 ... 4865872

Simon Steele: +$20k

After looking up the coordinates, he's surprised to see the location is a shabby looking shack, near the southern coast of Verdansk. Nonetheless, he makes a mental note of the shack and gives a quick scan of the camera feeds. In the stairwell he sees three assailants moving quickly; two men and a woman. The frame below shows a familiar face moving up the same stairwell three floors below; Lerch.

"Bastard", Zane says to himself as he recognizes his nemesis as the leader of this squad. Over the past three years these two men have battled for supremacy as title of best assassin with Zane maintaining a slight edge, but recently, the friendly competition has turned more sinister after the Dominican devil injured a civilian friend of his, all that fun shit ends here.

He grabs the black bag he entered with and jogs down the hall just out of sight from the security room, opening the bag he dons his armor vest and starts to build his gun. The industrial blueprint for the gun would be referred to as the Kilo 84, but to Zane he calls her Amaka.

Singuard Arms barrel, locked in. Monolithic suppressor, attached. VLK 3.0 optic scope, for clearer sight. Commando Foregrip for recoil control. And a 60 round ammo clip to top her off. Zane is ready for a fight.

Zane takes two deep breaths, becoming more connected with the building on each exhale; a technique he learned from monks in Brazil. He hears the door of the security room creep open and three sets of footsteps on the carpet.

He opens his eyes and turns the corner to an empty hallway. Beautiful.

He walks stealthily past the security room and enters the stairwell. With a quick peek, he can see Lerch two floors below him loading his weapon, Zane unclips a flash grenade from his belt.

"Mucho tiempo no veo, mi amigo" as he tosses the grenade down the stairwell. He closes the door so Lerch's pain can't be heard upstairs.

Zane stands in the doorway for a moment listening for an opening, but all he hears is typing. He unclips the stun grenade from his belt and tosses it inside the security room. He steps away from the door shielding himself from any bullets that might be coming through.

The moment the grenade goes off, he bursts through the door instantly gunning the man on his right. One down.

"Stitch!" Zane turns to his left to see the female disoriented but attempting to aim her weapon. With a smooth flick he grabs his knife from his waist and throws it with precision at her neck; her gun fires needlessly in the air as she begins choking her life away. Two down.

The last man in the room is still just barely regaining consciousness, one bullet in each kneecap and he's defenseless; with one heavy size twelve boot to the face the man is out. Before Zane can reload his weapon he hears the doors to the stairwell blast open, it'll be seconds before Lerch enters with vicious intent. Zane slings Amaka over his back and picks up a submachine gun and he sprays the glass window shattering it, then turns toward the entrance of the room so he can flip the middle finger to an approaching Lerch.

"Pinche-" Zane can't hear the rest of the curse as he stepped out of the window and is now falling 170 feet to his death; if he wasn't so used to this feeling he'd be afraid for his life, but instead he calmly pulls his chute as the timer on his watch begins beeping. He lands in a tunnel connected to the VIP parking garage, as alarms in the stadium begin to blare. Three minutes later Zane is cruising the highway to Simon Steele's address in the hills, as the Acropolis Arena descends into a pit of dirt and dust.

As Simon Steele arrives home for dinner he steps into his living room to see his dog, Sparkles quietly staring down the barrel of Zane's silenced Desert Eagle pistol.

"I don't wanna do the dog, but she goes first if you wanna act stupid."

A big sigh from Simon. "Who's paying you?"

Zane takes a moment to check the name on the account, "A.E Wendell".

"She's already going by her maiden name... Do you mind?" Simon motions toward his breast-pocket. Zane waves the gun in agreement and he pulls a spliff from his pocket. Simon walks to the living room in front of the open glass view and sparks the joint.

"You think to yourself, where did-' before he can finish his thought, his brain splatters all over the window in front of him. Zane looks down at the dog, it whimpers.

"I hate talkers." He leans down to take a confirmation photo and spies a bright glint from a sniper in his peripheral. He dives behind the counter and checks his phone to see if he got the photo of Steele's body.

"That'll work." The photo shows a blurry selfie of Zane, Sparkles and Steele's bloody corpse. He checks around the corner to sees Sparkles take its dying breath, as he pulls his head around the island a bullet whizzes past.

"Two." Zane opens the cupboard and finds a knife set; setting a timer on the front cam of his device he throws both the knife and the phone in the air. He hears a bullet hit the wall as he catches his phone. It's dark and a bit blurry but behind the laser of the scope Zane can identify Lerch's bald head.

"Three." He takes a moment to steady his heart rate and jumps out from behind the island. A bullet skims his calf as he repositions behind a couch.

"Four." He smiles knowing Lerch is on his last round, Amaka in hand now he works for an angle on his enemy.

As Lerch takes his last shot, he feels the pain of a bullet in his foot. He loses his balance on the hill overlooking the house and begins to roll; Lerch knows if he falls into the backyard he has no chance, begrudgingly he plants the injured foot in the dirt to stop the movement.

Zane watches in satisfaction as Lerch pulls his bloodied foot from the earth. "Five." He takes the time to savor the moment, then empties the rest of the clip in to his motionless target. He looks through the scope once more, visual confirmation this saga is complete.

As Zane arrives at the shack he opens the black book again. He crosses out Simon Steele's name. Then confirms this is the right place. He walks up to the door and punches in the code. Ready for anything, Zane steps inside the shack. With little room inside, the platform begins to descend. As the elevator slows, he places a hand on his pistol.

Zane steps off the elevator to a cozy room, the fireplace in the corner emits blue flames. A woman from behind the bar perks up.

"Welcome to the Winner's Circle."