Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer

There’s nothing like an abruptly terminated career in clandestine operations to make you paranoid in ways nobody considers. I’ll admit they’re often unconsidered because, outside of an active hostile arena, they’re nothing but the everyday behaviours of the weirdos we think of as normal people.
Take nearly-a-millionaire Algo Jenkins, for example. He lives in the big house at the end of the close. I know that seven years ago, his former home got emptied one day. They’d been watching the place for a month beforehand. Algo saw their van several times, but thought nothing of it. So now Algo notes the registration of every vehicle that even idles briefly within sight of his driveway.
While his relentlessly swinging CCTV cameras are an ongoing joke amongst the neighbours, they miss the point. Much as I laugh with them, their blind assurance irritates. The arrogant surety it’ll ‘never happen to you’ is how covert operations and criminals thrive. Your default stance is trust. You believe the news and don’t think officials lie to the public. They might omit things, but lying? Surely not.
Sometimes you get the devastating awakening you never thought to receive. All that technology: video in your doorbells, motion-sensing spotlights, glass with security stickers – yet some uncaring bastards waltz in and help themselves.
Which, by my usual roundabout contemplations, brings me to why I’m hidden in the hedge outside number eleven at two in the morning.
While Algo has fair reasons for paranoia, being an older gent, he doesn’t pay attention to the sky. There’s a drone that’s been loitering overhead around sundown. I only ignored it the first time. The fourth is when I used the splice I’d put into Algo’s cable line to backdoor his surveillance suite and see what else had been hanging about.
On the day after each drone visit, a red car lingers just far enough down the road to only appear in the periphery of Algo’s videos. Never enough to show a number plate. But someone likes hiring assorted top-end saloons, but always in red. They don’t realise how obvious patterns like that can be. Arrogant surety goes both ways: treating all your would-be victims as idiots is just as bad as assuming you’ll never be one – victim or idiot.
Tonight’s red saloon arrives. Two figures, one eavesdropping device. The passenger window lowers. Somebody’s vaping. Hints of caramel and desultory whispers on the breeze.
“All quiet.”
“Good. It’s all about getting to the bedroom before they rouse. Pin ‘em, drug ‘em, get alarm and safe combinations, then passcodes for their accounts. That’s why we’re making sure they’re deep sleepers.”
Thanks for explaining. I sprint from the hedge and have the suppressor of a very big gun pressed deep into the passenger’s neck before either can react.
“Mornin’, kids. I’m the security. Show me ID or I redecorate using this one’s windpipe.”
Shock paralysis wears off. The driver twitches like he’s considering something stupid until the one under my gun hisses at him. Phones are held up. I snapshot both instead of connecting to either.
“Here’s how this goes: you find some other place to hit, or your bodies will be found in a car at low tide in the harbour. Understood?”
Two nods.
“That’s it. Now do one.”
They U-turn and leave.
I don’t need extra police attention in this area. That’s how I got caught last time. Managed to escape without killing, but that sort of luck never repeats. Next time it’ll be murders in Melcombe. My semi-retirement and quiet life would be over. That’s not on. I like it here.