A professional assassin, posing as a gift-bearing security man, gains admittance to Yvonne's apartment and points his gun at her. She backs off. He apologizes and offers to let her pray. She continues to back off, saying no and telling him to go away. Following her, he continues to speak, speculates about what sort of person has hired him and says that he does not have much time. She pauses, reflects and asks what she can give him. He explains that he would die if he let her live. She asks how much time she has and he repeats his offer to let her pray. Saying that she wants to live, she sheds her bathrobe, stands naked and offers him sex. He expresses surprise. Continuing to explain her actions, she turns and runs into the kitchen, knowing that she might be shot in the back. He follows slowly, knowing that there is no rear exit. She pulls a screen behind her and seizes a boiling saucepan. When he pushes the screen aside, she throws the pan in his face...
I could go on to describe how she grabs his dropped gun and kills him but I have made my point. What is wrong with this scenario?
4 comments:
He's not much of a professional. If you're going to kill someone, you just kill them.
Mr Stirling,
Too true! He even says that he has little time, yet he delays endlessly, and no other character comments on this. This entire chapter needed a rewrite. Yvonne should have been suspicious and not let the guy enter the apartment.
Paul.
Dear Mr. Stirling and Paul,
Mr. Stirling: you beat me to saying the same thing! I had to think a bit before I this was not a truly PROFESSIONAL hit man threatening Yvonne. A cold blooded pro would have killed her as quickly as possible, and not waste time talking to her.
Paul: Once you pointed it out, Chapter VI of THE BYWORLDER is a surprisingly weakly written chapter. It makes me wish Anderson had realized its defects and rewrote it.
Sean
Not even Poul was perfect! Sometimes he was rushed. And of course that isn't the sort of personality that he found naturally congenial; he -could- get inside that sort of head, but only by deliberate effort.
This is -a- reason (apart from the usual division-of-labor ones) that intelligence services usually assign different people to surveillance and "wetwork".
The Mossad, who are among the best at it, have three teams for an undercover action on foreign ground; one to bring in the materials and equipment, one to systematically build up the subject's dossier (movements, etc.) and a "tactical incursion team" to come in, do the hit with the data from the second team, and then immediately leave, by which time the set-up team and the surveillance team have already gone.
These days the incursion may be via drone, tho' a couple of low-velocity .22 bullets through the head used to be their trademark (when they wanted people to know who was responsible), or the "exploding phone set", which has the added advantage you can ask the person's name before pressing the button.
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