Chapter One

A good assassin is not squeamish. He does his work and that's enough, particularly if he does it right and there is no opportunity for a come back. If he doesn't, the all proverbial Murphy's Rule kicks in and "shit happens."

In the measure of the assignment when you raise to the ranks of the truly accomplished killer, there are certain privileges. The primary one is deciding the rules of the killing game. The assassin had long since developed a sharp menu in this area of what really becomes self-protection. The real assassin is not discriminatory. He kills the good, the bad, and the ugly. It doesn't matter. He kills women and children. Indeed, he kills any nature of man for whim he thinks it's justified which becomes a test of the character of the assassin himself. In making his rules as a much younger killer, the assassin read the history of mankind and thereby principally its wars and palace intrigues.

He had often pondered how after the death of Caesar, Mark Antony had sought replacement so successfully with Cleopatra. What Caesar knew and Antony ignored was that she was already an established assassin refusing to share the thrown of Egypt with either her younger brother or sister as the reagents required because none of them were adults and the power struggle had not resolved itself. Except to place her on the thrown itself, Caesar failed to remove the competition of Cleopatra's siblings regardless f how she begged for their death. Dead only a few years later in 44 B.C., Mark Antony became Cleopatra's savior and in exchange for her bedroom loyalty and as rul