10 – Ephemera

This time the meeting place was at a café downtown, near the art museum. It was a sunny day, but the wind off the water gave everything a slight chill. Still, Frost was sitting at one of the round outdoor tables, in the shade of a multicolored umbrella. He wore sunglasses and a gray fedora along with a heavy dark coat, the kind that might be worn by an old man … or a hit man. It was sometimes a strangely fine line.

Z sat down in the chair across from him, suppressing the grimace that her broken rib had threatened to cause, and tried to guess what he was drinking by smell alone. Earl Grey? Frost folded up his newspaper, and said, “You were right about your American. He’s excellent. How much have you coached him?”

“Very little. Some people are just born fighters.”

“Such as you.”

“I wasn’t going to say that. I don’t want to seem conceited.”

“You’ve been a lot of things. Never conceited, though.”

“Thanks. I think.”

The waitress came over, a perky little brunette who was too cheerful not to be high on something or thinking about something much better than her job. Z ordered a sugary soda and sent her off. “You were always intending to permanently neutralize Oswald, weren’t you?” he asked. It almost wasn’t a question.

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“I can’t help but notice you didn’t deny it.”

“I’m more curious in why you said that.”

He shifted in his seat and took his sunglasses off, so he could fix her with his scrutinizing blue eyes. “He didn’t have much in the way of fight injuries, in spite of the mess in the room. Just that single paralyzing wound. It was almost surgical.”

“Almost my ass. It was perfectly surgical. A work of art, if I don’t say so myself.”

The waitress arrived with the soda, so he scowled at her until she left, then slipped his glasses back on. “You gave up the game. Canadian Intelligence knows when they encounter an assassin. They’re not happy.”

“They wanted Oswald out of their country. He is, so they shouldn’t be complaining. Karma’s a bitch and so am I.”

He grimaced as if in pain. “I know what you’re doing.”

She took a drink of her cola, which was iced near to death, and the cold combined with so much sugar made her teeth ache. “Getting my caffeine fix?”

“You think you’re going to get out of this by being trouble. Deary, we at MI-6 knew you were trouble the first moment we saw your psych profile. It’s not going to be that simple.”

“I know. I figured I’d have to die again and take up shop elsewhere. I hear Argentina needs more sheep farmers.”

“It’s a good thing you’re joking.”

“Am I?” She grinned at him in a humorless and honestly annoying way.

He sighed and stood up, putting the folded newspaper on the table. “You did good, so you’re off the hook … for now. But don’t press your luck. They’re so humorless at MI-6 nowadays.”

She wondered if they ever actually had a sense of humor, but didn’t say it. Frost knew it better than anybody.

She was torn. She was getting older, and she couldn’t keep doing this forever, and Shan, as tough as he was, couldn’t do this forever either. Not only did his seizures continue to get worse, he was still a little shaken up over the levels of violence employed on this assignment. He sometimes looked at her sidelong when he didn’t think she was looking. He didn’t ask about Oswald, so she figured he knew he was dead. She guessed it bothered him that she’d killed the guy and didn’t seem bothered by it. He was hardly the first man she’d killed, and besides that, he was a mad dog that deserved putting down. But Shan didn’t know that, and probably never would.

Z picked up the newspaper Frost had left behind, and wasn’t surprised to see a phone number scribbled in the margin of the front page. It was a British number, probably his. But did he give it to her in case she decided to pack up and disappear again, so she could keep him in the loop? Or did he want to talk her out of it?

That was what most sucked about the spy game, and what she missed the least. You never knew quite who you could trust, and how far you could trust them. Absolutely everyone could be bought, but prices varied.

Z sat at the outdoor table, in the shade of the parasol, and tried to figure out her next move.

*****

The End

9 – New Orleans Is Sinking
Shan wondered how long he could sit here before he could think up an excuse to bust in on Z.

She’d hate him for it, but damn it, he just could never reconcile the difference between who she appeared to be and who she actually was. She looked like a kind of average to slightly small woman; in reality, she was more gonzo and hard core violent than any hockey player he had ever met. It was hard to reconcile the two things. His head knew she didn’t need his help ever, but his head was basically broken, so he could expect no help from it at all. But that worked in his favor, right? She’d probably forgive him. He could blame a ton of shit on his brain injury.

Shan was searching his pockets for gum when he glanced up and realized the guy currently getting out of a cab in front of the hotel looked familiar. He quickly glanced at the print out Z had left him, and saw that it was the guy that Z inexplicably called Six. On the drive here, she told him Six was called that because his last name was phonetically close to the German word for six, but Shan wasn’t sure that made sense. It could, but not so much. Didn’t mean it wasn’t true, though; life was strange, and Z was stranger than that. Shan sighed, as he knew he had to go get him; storming in on Z would have to wait until later. Damn it.

He waited until the guy had entered the hotel before getting out and following. He followed Z’s instructions perfectly, because he was good at that.

He stayed out of earshot, stayed away from Six, and then realized he had no actual plan. He had Z’s guidelines, but she left him room to improvise. Crap.

Well, he knew what his room number was, right? He knew what floor he was on. Six got into an elevator and Shan got in too, not sure what his plan was. It turned out he and Six were alone in the mirrored elevator, and Shan felt big next to the guy; he was at least five inches taller, and maybe fifty pounds heavier. But he was a big boy; he wouldn’t be a bouncer if he was smaller than your average bear. He could overpower the guy without much trouble. But Z had emphasized, “Always assume a gun. With these morons, always assume they have a Smith and Wesson stashed somewhere, because more than half the time you’ll be right.” And while attacking him in the elevator might be ideal – really confined space; even if he had a gun, he could only shoot him – he couldn’t lug an unconscious body around. It was a little too early to go with the falling down drunk excuse, even in Canada.

He caught Six’s eyes in the mirrored walls, and as he wondered if he’d been made (what a cool phrase – did that ever actually apply to him? Did you have to actually be someone before you could get “made”?) he slapped on a big stupid smile, and went with a guise that had never ever failed him: dumb ass American tourist. “You in for the conference?” Shan had no idea if there was a conference, but it was a hotel. It was one of those bets where the odds heavily favored you.

Six’s cold eyes narrowed slightly. He had really thin eyebrows, almost like they’d been burned off at one point and he just glued these tiny strips of felt to his face. “No.”

“Ooh, accent! Where you from, buddy? I’m from Michigan myself. Ever been to Michigan?” Part of the reason this guise was easy was because he was just parroting his Uncle Stan, a good natured chatterbox who was never exactly a Mensa candidate at the best of times. As if to prove that point, while drunkenly hunting deer one winter, he accidentally shot and killed himself when he dropped his rifle and it went off, and the bullet ricocheted and hit him in the stomach, severing a vital artery. It was discovered he’d also left his headlights on in his truck, and the battery was dead by the time his body was found. It seemed like insult to injury.

Six’s gaze was much eviler, and he looked away, shoulders hunching in a way that suggested he wanted the stupid American to go away and leave him alone. “No.”

“You oughta go! We got lotsa lakes. You like fishing? I love it, but ya know, Vancouver ain’t so good for it. A buddy of mine was up here last year, and he said the place was lousy with trout, but I gotta say, place seems kinda dead to me. I think Phil was just yankin’ my chain.” Shan elbowed him, sending him stumbling towards the wall. “Oh, sorry bud. You okay?”

Six straightened the collar of his jacket and gave him a dirty look to compliment the perfect “fuck you” vibe he was giving off like steam. If you were blind, deaf, dumb, and brain damaged, you’d still get that he wanted you to leave him the fuck alone. Shan just gave him a big Uncle Stan smile, wishing he could give off an odor of cheap bourbon like Stan did. “Fine,” Six spat like poison, before turning and exiting. He barely let the elevator doors finish opening before he slipped out. Shan waited until the doors were completely open before he followed the guy out. “Hey, you on this floor too?” Shan boomed, sounding like the world’s happiest idiot. “I’m in room 321. What’re you in?”

Six cringed but made no effort to respond. If Shan were him, he’d probably be considering shooting the stupid bastard, damn the consequences. But Shan kept his distance, allowing Six to disappear around a bend in the corridor, and he waited until he heard the noise of a door accepting an electronic key and unlocking. Only then did Shan come around the corner, and see the back of Six’s nondescript coat disappearing into a room. The door was closing, but Shan got a hand on it and shoved it all the way open, startling Six and making him stumble into his room. “What the hell -”

“Hey, we haven’t been properly introduced,” Shan said, shutting the door behind him. “My name’s Shane Shanahan, and we have a mutual friend.”

He saw it; that instant of recognition, the sudden dawning that the big stupid idiot might not be a complete idiot after all. Six did something smart – he started backing up, reaching for something under his coat, but Shan could thank all his hockey training for the fact that he might be a big, lumbering oaf, but all his trainers made sure to teach him how to move fast, much faster than you’d think a big man like him would be capable of. He tackled Six, and they both hit the bed and rolled over it, Shan grabbing his arm and forcing it away, keeping him from going for whatever he was trying to grab.

They rolled off the bed and hit the floor, Six struggling to get free, driving knees into his crotch and midsection, attempting a head butt but failing, as he was beneath Shan and he saw it coming. The crotch hits hurt, but not as much as they probably would have had he not been wearing his cup. Come on – you go into a game, you gotta suit up.

Six realized it at some point, as he stopped trying to knee him, but he was now cursing at him in what was probably German – like Shan knew; French cursing he knew, but German was new to him – and finally stopped and said in English, “If you knew what she really was, you wouldn’t be helping her.”

“I know she’s Australian,” he said, wondering what the best way to knock this guy out would be. Could he reach that lamp?

He shouldn’t have talked to him at all. He got distracted. “She’s an assassin,” he said, getting his foot up into his gut and kicking him off of him. But he didn’t get as much strength on it as he should have; Shan stumbled back but controlled it, so as Six grabbed his gun and started rolling up to his feet, Shan was back on him, grabbing the gun and twisting it in his hand as he drove his knee down solidly into his chest. Shan got the gun away, but the guy suddenly slapped at him with his other hand. Shan ducked it and backed away, but as he did, he felt water dripping from his face. No, not water – blood.

Silver glinted in Six’s hand; it was a tiny blade, triangle shaped and wrapped with electrical or hockey tape at the bottom, the widest point, giving him something to hold onto. “Drop it or I shoot you in the fucking leg,” Shan ordered, all too aware of how dangerous a blade could be.

Years of hockey had taught him if a blade was sharp enough, a cut didn’t hurt; you could get a wicked slice and not even know it until after the fact. It also taught him there was an artery in the face, but he was sure Six missed it, because the blood wasn’t spurting, it was dripping. He’d seen guys with accidentally sliced arteries, and they sprayed like something out of a bad horror film. He started to feel an ache in his cheek, and figured that’s where he was bleeding from.

Six studied him, pale eyes glittering like wet crystals, and Shan wondered if that’s what crazy really looked like. Not the guy wearing underwear on the outside of his pants and four coats on an eighty degree day, ranting about how the aliens were sabotaging the cheese supply and trying to make everyone speak Swahili, but the guy who seemed to show no fear while looking down the barrel of his own gun, trying to figure out if he could throw the knife before the guy holding him could pull the trigger. There were degrees of crazy, and Shan imagined that Six’s mind was a hatbox full of rabid sewer rats. “Are you a killer, Shane? Really?”

He took aim at his thigh. “I won’t kill you. I’ll just cripple you. Drop the fucking knife!”

His eyes, hot and bright and just a fuckload of crazy, bored into his, and Shan tensed on the trigger. He was going to shoot the guy just to make him stop looking at him. But Six must have guessed his intent, because he let the sliver of a blade drop from his fingers and hit the carpet. “You know, as soon as you’re of no use to her, she’ll kill you too. She’s good at killing. That’s why the Brits took her even though she was an Aussie slag. She can kill anyone with anything.”

“You like to hear yourself talk, don’t you Colonel Klink?” Quickly, without telegraphing it, he snap kicked Six in the face, hoping that would knock him out, or at least stun him. But even though he slammed back hard into the nightstand, his lip bleeding from the contact, he was conscious enough to complain, “Son of a bitch! What was that -”

Shan turned the gun around so he had the butt out, and smashed Six on the head. It took two hits to knock him out, and even then he wasn’t sure he wasn’t just stunned into silence. It always looked so easy in the movies.

He heard a clunk, the door unlocking and opening, and he swung the gun around just in time to see Z come in. She had a bloody lip and what looked like the beginning of a black eye, but she seemed okay otherwise. “How’s it going here? Fuck, he cut you?”

“Yeah. He had a knife thingy, but I didn’t see it until I took his gun from him.”

“Yeah, he’s a slippery bastard.” She came over and took a good look at the cut, grimacing slightly. “Didn’t cut all the way through, did it?”

He felt the inside of his cheek with his tongue. “Don’t think so. How bad is it?”

“It looks very manly. You’ll get laid for sure.”

“Awesome. You look like yours went down with a fight.”

She clicked her tongue as she pulled out her cell phone. “Mercenary types only go down with a fight. They’re testosterone poisoned like that.” She put the phone to her ear, and said, “We’re at the hotel and it’s done. Send in the teams.” Shan though he heard the distant sound of a female voice, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. Z gave no facial or vocal clues. If it wasn’t for the bruises on her face, she could have been ordering a pizza. “Oswald has been neutralized. Six is alive and awaiting transport to a heavily guarded facility.” There was a pause, more distant female voice. “Neutralized means neutralized, Chen, as in no longer a threat to anyone in the first or third world. Now get the teams in here before the RCMP gets involved.” She hung up and put her phone back in her pocket, even though Shan was sure he still heard the woman talking.

He looked at her, and asked, “Why did you specify Six was alive?”

“Because we could have killed him. Mission parameters allowed for death. We coulda picked ‘em off with sniper rifles if we ever got a clear shot.”

“Ah.” Suddenly, he didn’t want to know what neutralized meant. He really, really didn’t.

8 – All Come True

Besides the ka-bar, she was carrying another weapon: the electronic equivalent of a skeleton key. Only the manager was supposed to have it, but hey, it was a brave new world, was it not? Who was to say she couldn’t be the manager?

Okay, so she was as likely to be a manager as a room service tray. But this was all theoretical. No one who looked at her had paid a single bit of attention to her: she was a woman with short hair and a loose, drab wardrobe, her eyes hidden behind dark glasses. She wasn’t particularly attractive, startling, or memorable. She might as well have been wallpaper.

All part of the plan, of course. She was nobody, and no one ever remembered a nobody.

The hall was empty as she approached, and she hoped that it stayed that way. She was hoping she could ambush him in his room, as that would cut down on witnesses and possible collateral damage. Not that she’d kill any idiots who stumbled into their fight scene, but Oswald might. You could never tell with those gung ho mercenary types.

She made it to his room door and slipped the card in the lock. The lock released and the red idiot light turned green, so she pushed the door open and went inside. She didn’t see him or hear any sign that he was here … until she heard the toilet flush in the bathroom. Yeah, even soldiers needed to piss now and again.

She hurried up and planted herself against the wall in the main living area, just beyond the bathroom. She didn’t know if he’d heard her or not, but he didn’t charge out, which was a good sign. He cleared his throat and she heard him zipping up his pants – didn’t he wash his hands? Eww – as he started into the living room.

She’d already judged his height, so she simply swung her fist, and hit him straight in the throat.

That should have killed him (not immediately, but within two minutes; after getting your windpipe crushed, that’s pretty much all she wrote), but either she missed the windpipe or he had a thicker neck than she thought, because while he gagged on the initial hit, he still had the strength and presence of mind to grab her arm. She figured he might be going for a break, so she quickly slammed a flattened palm in his face, and as he tried to grab her other arm, she planted a solid kick in his midsection, breaking his grip as he slammed hard against the wall. Even though his face was turning red and he hadn’t recovered, he was a pro, and lunged forward, spinning into a kick that she blocked with a kick of her own. Impact hurt enough that she was sure she got an ugly bruise, but none of that was in the forefront of her mind as he threw a punch that she blocked, yet he still got a hold of her arm and slung her across the room, where she turned her head in time to avoid hitting the wall face first. He was good – he knew he was stronger than her, so he’d try and use that strength against her. She’d hardly hit the wall when she turned away, and Oswald ended up burying his leg ankle deep in the drywall when his kick missed.

Perfect.

Even though she was winded, she instantly brought her elbow down on his kneecap, bending it the opposite way with a loud pop. He made a strangled noise of pain, but also backhanded her across the face, sending her slamming back into the wall. It was a stunning blow, she could taste the blood on her throbbing lower lip, but she didn’t give into it. You ignored pain until you couldn’t, as a moment of weakness could be death in a fight.

He pulled his leg out of the wall and made strangled noises of pain, and from the way he was balanced it must have hurt like a motherfucker; it wouldn’t hold him at all. Now she had the edge. “So you’re Zero, huh?” he grunted. “You shoulda stayed locked in the trunk.”

She simply pursed her lips and blew him a sarcastic kiss, all the response she was willing to give him. She was here to fight, not chat.

There was a funny moment where nothing happened – he was waiting for her to commit to a move, and she didn’t – but then he lunged for her. She understood instinctively it was a feint, a clumsy move she was supposed to step into, but she didn’t; she held back and let him come on, blocking a weak throat punch and spinning away from the real hit, one aimed towards the solar plexus. As she spun back around, she slammed an elbow into his kidneys and kicked his bad leg out from under him.

But Oswald was a killer mercenary for a good reason. Even falling, he grabbed her leg and pulled her down. He tried to throw her into the dresser, but she curled up into a sitting position, still hitting the dresser but taking the brunt of it on her back instead of her head, and drove a thumb right into his eyeball. No, it wasn’t pretty, but she wanted Six to find a messy corpse – she wanted him to know how fucked he was before she made it permanent.

He shouted inarticulately, grabbing her arm and ripping her hand away as he kicked her away, throwing her into the desk. The edge of it hit the window so hard she heard a small, glacial crack. “Fucking bitch,” Oswald snarled, finally losing it. This fight was over; whoever got emotional first lost, and he should have known that. The deadliest killers weren’t the ones who were the angry; they were the ones who honestly didn’t give a shit. “Fight like a man.”

He lunged for her again, this time on his knees, but he did surprise her by grabbing the wastebasket and hitting her with it, the metal clanging up against her skull, as he followed through with a rabbit punch that neatly snapped one of her ribs, a sudden shock of pain that never failed to leave her momentarily breathless.

He was on top of her, trying to pin her down with his weight, and grabbed one of her wrists and twisted it. “Fucking cunt, you don’t mess with me and live,” he spat into her face, spittle making his lower lip slick and wet. She could see his eyes were bloodshot beneath the lower lids, thread thin tendrils of red snaking beneath the orbital bones.

She had slipped the ka-bar out with her left hand, and raised it before quickly bringing it down hard on the back of his neck. The shock of it widened his eyes and coaxed an involuntary wet noise out of him as she felt his muscles stiffen. Although it was impossible to tell from this angle, she was pretty sure she had stabbed him between vertebrae C1 and C2 – almost total paralysis. He was trying to breathe, he was trying very hard, but saliva was now drooling out his mouth, and his eyeballs looked to be straining from their sockets. She could see the bloodshot vein tattoos perfectly now.

She let go of the knife (it was perfectly safe where it was), and squirmed out from beneath him, doing her best to ignore the sharp pains coming from her broken rib. “So you’re the big bad killer, huh? I bet you usually did it with a gun. Guns make people stupid. You should have known that, Bradford. Any fuck can wield an AK-47. It takes real talent to paralyze someone with a single stab wound.”

She frisked him, finding his wallet full of fake IDs and some credit cards, some of which matched the IDs and some that didn’t, as he lay face down on the carpet, choking pitifully as blood and saliva made a small pool on the sandy beige carpet. She found a small gun in an ankle holster, but it was little more than a pea shooter, only good for close quarters and precision targeting. His other guns were probably elsewhere in the room. “Shoulda went for this right away instead of getting sucked into that mano a mano combat bullshit. You see, us female agents, we know we ain’t gonna overpower you, so we use cunning. Ever heard of that? What a stupid question. Obviously you haven’t. I mean, look at you.”

Maybe he was trying to say something; he was making noises. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand and figured he was near the point of passing out, so she knelt down and grabbed the knife handle, and shifted it ever so slightly. “Consider this karma, Oswald. You should have never left Eritrea.” She shifted the knife around with deliberate clumsiness before sinking it in deep and ripping it out one side of his neck. Blood spilled out, but by the time she had gotten through the bones and tore the skin, the spray wasn’t arterial. Somewhere between the beginning and this end, he had died. She hoped he felt enough of it. Because he was a murderous fuck, and he probably deserved worse than this.

But, no matter now. One down, one to go.