"So tell us a little about yourself Mr. Thiago." Mark's crisp, clear voice sounded over the chatter, and everyone fell quiet.

Thiago shifted uncomfortably and said,"Really, there isn't much to tell. I'm quite a boring person in that regard...,"Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Michelle grinning at him, and resolved in his mind to make it a point to ask her how to avoid all these community meetings in the future, before continuing,"I was born in Switzerland, my parents shifted to Dubai when I was very little, they died in a car accident when I was twenty, I used to work as a ban-"

"Not so fast Mr. Thiago, even us fast talking States people can't follow you when you go that fast!" Mark exclaimed.

Thiago thought in his mind that if he couldn't follow his speech, he needed to have the holes in his ears widened... with a bullet. Smiling inwardly, he repeated the former a little more slowly, finishing,"bank manager. Then after moving around a lot and earning a bit of money, I decided to retire and move here to live out the rest of my life."

Mark said," But you don''t look a day past forty. Why retire so young?"

Thiago replied, irony dripping from his voice," If I continued to work in that line, it would have been the death of me."

Light laughter rippled across the room. Thiago thought inwardly that if they knew what he really used to do for a living, they might have laughed less and agreed with him more.

Mark asked,"So do you plan to earn some more money while you're here? This is, after all, the land of opportunity."

Thiago said,"Yes, I plan to open up a garage here. Fix up people's cars and all that. I'm quite good at fixing things."

Indeed he was. When he was a whole lot younger, he had learned to fix everything from a broken down radio to futuristic technology not yet seen or heard of, training from his agency that he had applied everywhere, in many of his hits. A few cars would really be of no trouble to him at all.

An old man wearing a sky blue silk short and black trousers shouted,"If you are, I'd like you to fix up my old Beetle. Had the baby since it first came out in '66. Now she isn't working so well, she isn't."

Thiago gave the warmest smile he could muster and replied,"It would be a pleasure to fix her up... for a price though. I was a banker, after all."

Everyone smiled, and the old man wheezed,"If you manage to fix my baby up, I'll pay you in gold boy!"

Michelle's mother stepped up. She was only an inch shorter than her husband, and he was tall to begin with. She had the same kind of blond hair and forget-me-not blue eyes as her daughter. Slim and graceful even for her age, she had a tray in her hands, upon which were laid drinks and an assortment of hors d'oeuvres. She exclaimed," Fruit punch, anyone?"

An hour later, having eaten a little and listening to the old man with the Beetle's war stories, which even a man like Thiago admitted were quite interesting, he got up and bid farewell to his hosts. However, the parting shot was fired by Mark, who much to his chagrin promised to hold a dinner in the near future and introduce him to some friends who were into financing small businesses, in order to help out with Thiago's garage idea. As he stepped out, Michelle followed him and said,"I'll see you off to your home, make sure you reach safely. Old men like you shouldn't go around wandering in the dark."

Thiago thought if he heard any more irony that day, he might just turn into the real metal. Considering that he was a recently retired master assassin who had killed people in the most impossible of situations and was capable of using almost anything as a weapon, she was the one who needed to be safe.

All the same, he graciously accepted her offer, and they set off under the cover of the dark night. Midway through the walk home, he asked,"Do you have a boyfriend?"

She replied nonchalantly,"Yeah, I go see him in the afternoon's most of the time. He's a good person; he actually means what he says, unlike those flattering old bats that you just met."

Thiago agreed with her, and they walked back quietly from then on.

Upon reaching his home, he saw Francis with a Dodge Ram pickup parked in his driveway. Michelle raised an eyebrow and asked," A friend of yours?"

Thiago lied,"He is an old business associate of mine whom I happened to meet today in the market."

Eyeing the large boxes in this trunk, she said,"For an old business associate, he sure brought a lot of gifts."

Thiago gave a smal fake laugh and said,"Oh no, these are furniture items that I bought from IKEA today. I don't have a car yet, and he graciously offered to bring them himself."

Somewhat satisfied, Michelle said,"Well then, I'll leave you two to your boy talk. See you around." She waved and turned away, in the direction of her home.

He walked up to Francis, who was grinning from ear to ear. Thiago felt a pang of annoyance and asked, "What is so funny?"

Francis laughed, a big booming laugh that resounded in the neigbourhood and whispered,"You sure like 'em young, don't you?"

Thiago felt a little humor mix with his annoyance and replied,"It's not like that."

Francis said,"Sure it isn't,"He winked at him, then said,"I got your nugas right here. Bloody lucky, I am, that some policeman didn't stop me on the way to ask what is in these boxes. Would've put me in a right fix, it would. Where do we take 'em?"

Thiago began to reply,"We take them-"

He was cut across his speech by the single bullet that whizzed past his forehead.

Francis was quicker to respond. Moving surprisingly fast for his size, he pulled Thiago down with him behind the cover of the pickup. Thiago tried to peep through the side, to get a look at his attacker. He managed to catch a glimpse of someone at the top of one of the tall trees surrounding the road, before another shot sounded. This time, it hit the window, which did not shatter, rather the bullet caused large cracks to appear.

"Bullet-proof window panes really are the shit, huh?"Francis shifted, then pulled out a Browning Buckmark SWR with an attached silencer, and said,"I'm going to create a distraction by shooting at the asshole, you need to pull the box to the right here out of the truck while I do."

"Got it."Adrenaline pumping, Thiago tensed himself for the right moment.

Francis steeled himself, swung around and began emptying his clip at the tree. Thiago lauched himself onto the trunk and heaved the box out. He managed to get himself off just as another bullet grazed past him, lodging into the trunk of the pickup.

He opened the box and began to assemble the IMI Tavor TAR 21 assult rifle. Built for the Israeli army, its comfort and range along with its capacity for additional attachments was the reason Thiago had selected it. He finished attaching the silencer and night vision sight, swung around and fired.

With the night vision, he was able to clearly see the silhouette of his target, and so while the first couple of bullets missed, the rest got to their mark.Having been hit, the attacker slumped off the tree and landed in a padding of fallen leaves and moss, cushioning his fall. Thiago rushed to his would-be killer, and faced him.

He had worked with this man before. On a mission to take out the head of a Columbian drug cartel, his agency had picked this man to go with him, as a training assignment. His name was Tyrone Silver. Silver had been alright in the beginning, but when it came to the actual killing, he had messed up, forgetting to add a silencer to his high powered rifle and then missing his target, hitting a bodyguard. It was only some quick action on Thiago's part that ensured that both the target was dead and that they managed to escape safely. Upon returning, Thiago had him dismissed, saying that mistakes at that level could only get him killed. He had done the same even today. He had missed Thiago from just about four hundred and fifty yards out, and then had not even changed his position after firing. Still a rookie, it seems.

Tyrone coughed up blood. He had been hit twice in the chest, thrice in his leg and one bullet had taken his left ear clean off. He gazed up at Thiago, eyes full of hatred and something that might have looked like respect, and said,"Still messing up, aren't I, Cobrashot?"

Thiago flinched. Cobrashot was his codename, given to him for his habit of seeping his bullets in cobra venom so that even if he missed a vital spot, the venom would surely finish his job. He had not imagined that he would hear that name again, in this country.

He pulled up Tyrone by the collar of his camoflage suit and growled at him,"On whose orders did you come to kill me? Tell me now, or I'll just patch you up, torture you into insanity untill you do and then kill you."

Tyrone struggled to speak, then managed to say,"My employers are people who are going to bring chaos and destruction upon this country. And there isn't anything you can do about it. Oh and by the way...,"Tyrone with great difficulty pulled himself to Thiago's ear and said,"You personally know one of my employers."

Shocked, Thiago shook him and roared,"Who is it? Tell me!"

Tyrone with one hand gave him the middle finger straight to his face, while simultaneously taking out one of the buttons on his shirt and putting it into his mouth.

Thiago recognised the action and tried to take it out of his mouth, but it was too late; he had ingested the cyanide and was already beginning to convulse. Sickened, Thiago turned away as Tyrone began to fall into his death throes.

Francis then pulled out an army knife and beheaded him, sparing him further pain.

Blood splattered on his front, he exclaimed,"Well, we're bloody lucky to be alive! Who was that asshole?"

Thiago did not anwer, staring silently into the ground contemplating who might have been the one to attack him. The only blessing was that it was night; the darkness had covered up their actions, and with a bit of luck nobody had seen them. All of them had been using silencers, their bullets had not made much sound. But, the real problem at the moment was, who had tried to kill him?

About ninety seven miles away, in the cargo section of a container that wasn't really a container, being transported by a large flatbed semi, a man picked up his encrpted cellular and spoke into it,"It is time."

Smiling, he contemplated what he was about to do. Sending Tyrone after, Thiago or whatever he called himself in this country, had been genuis. He knew Tyrone would not survive; even in his training here he had not amounted to much, but atleast he had alerted Thiago to the danger he was in, instilling a sense of fear within him. Running would not save him; if he managed to escape, he would be killed the the multitude of assembled assassins he had at his disposal, if he stayed to fight back, like he knew he would, he would be caught in Operation Lightning Storm and be destroyed anyways. It was all going according to plan