View a brief background of this project at Link En Fuego.
Also, I would love to get someone to help in keeping this project aloft and/or getting some buzz going. Please leave your message in the administrative section. Thank you.
It had rained for several dreary days, and the onslaught had finally abated. Steam rose from the puddles in the sticky heat.
Monique ran across the street, soaking her foot in a puddle formed by a pothole. Had she not been so preoccupied, she’d have cursed the gods for conspiring to ruin her shoes. She looked at the sheet of paper in her hand as she had so many times before. She wanted to be absolutely sure this time.
She ran along King's Road, sprinting from awning to awning until she reached the cheerfully titled End of the World. A quick glance at her watch confirmed she had no time to spare. She took a moment to gather her courage and then entered the pub.
Her first impression was that of rounds upon rounds of citron lambics trading hands, each downed with unwitting zest. She waited restively until the whole ceremony was done; then a voice—
“Can I buy you a drink?”
She knew who it was, even before she turned around to see a sandy-haired man of average height and gangly build. It wasn't so odd that he was wearing the dark gray raincoat, but the slightly-too-small brown fedora hat he wore did strike Monique as a bit too cliche for the part.
“Charles! What are you, some sort of secret agent? Sneaking up on me like that!"
“Just this lifetime. The secret agent thing, that is,” he answered, showing his well-organized teeth with a smile. “Did you have any trouble getting here?”
“No, except for the usual rain, but—” she held back, wavering.
“But you’re not expecting to see me alive?” His smile vanished, leaving behind a faint glimmer of pearly light. His inflection and different tempo of speech, which accented certain syllables slightly and gave tiny pauses sometimes between words seemed to match his usual less-than-coordinated manner of gestures.
“I just didn't expect you to be back in the country so soon. I got the impression the mess they needed you to clean up was rather substantial, in the metaphysical sense.”
Charles held her gaze for a long moment. It was clear he wasn't going to elaborate on any of that, so she decided to move on to business.
"I assume you have it."
Reaching under the table, Charles showed the edge of a brown envelope sealed with a smiley face sticker which, oddly enough, bore more than a passing resemblance to Charles himself.
“Don't move,” Monique commanded in a low voice as she held up a silencing hand. A look of intense concentration entered her eyes. Something was out of place. Her mind strained to discover what it was before it was too late.
There. In shadows at the back of the room - a flash, almost (but not quite) like a glint of light refracting off a metallic surface, but with no apparent source. With a sharp intake of breath she turned back to Charles, a grimness that was quite becoming to her facial features entering her face.
“We need to leave. NOW!” She leapt from her seat, snatched the envelope from Charles with one hand and grabbed him with the other before her words even registered. Sprinting towards the door, with Charles stumbling after her, she could see four men in suits rapidly making their way toward the duo. Not good.
Four men, who by the looks of their bulging muscles could qualify for the Olympics, after one journalist and a "secret agent" with a mysterious document. It seemed like overkill to her - if you didn't consider the secret agent part, that is. And how could they know that? It was supposed to be a secret. At least she didn't see any weapons.
A bullet suddenly whizzed by Charles’s ear. So much for Mister Nice Thugs, she thought.
Startled, Charles stumbled and fell. Instead of going through the door after her, his shoulder violently connected with the door post. Monique dragged him the rest of the way out. The door post splintered where the second bullet hit it. This was why she picked a popular pub along a busy street. She pulled Charles into the crowd. The thugs were professionals, but she hoped to make it just a bit harder for them.
The four men burst out of the pub.In the time it took for them to take in their surroundings, she'd already hailed a taxi. She pushed Charles into the upholstered interior and hopped in behind him.
The disheveled driver, who had watched the proceedings from his seat with much interest, now came to life.
"Where to, miss?"
"Anywhere, so long as you lose those guys," she told the cabbie, jerking her thumb towards the back window. She just wanted to get out of here.
"I'm always the cab that others point to when they say, 'Follow that cab!'"
She wasn't in the mood to find that funny, especially considering the situation. She looked out the window as the cab roared away. None of the men dared fire at them in the street. It was a big enough risk firing a gun at all in central London. The information Charles brought must have been far more damaging than she realized. It was all the fault of that pickpocket.
Through the back window of the cab, Monique saw a sporty red suburban pull up and the men climbed inside. They were going to follow her, then.
"Is he going to be alright?" the cabbie asked.
Monique shifted her attention back to Charles. He was curled up against the far door, clutching his shoulder and shaking violently, and she did not like the sour, sallow look on his face.
"Where's the nearest hospital?"
"Hmm," the cabbie rubbed his crooked chin thoughtfully. "Nearest one is Chelsea and Westminster, but Lister will be much more to your liking. They're much more discreet there, and—" he glanced pointedly at the yellow envelope clutched in Monique's hand, "I think discreetness is very much needed in your line of business."
"What do you know about my line of business?" she replied cattily.
"A lot more than you might expect, miss, but I'm afraid we've got to rescue your boy—"
"My partner. Please take us to Lister."
Charles blurred with a faint smile as Monique mentioned "partner," but her attention was occupied with more pressing matters. Charles gathered all the energy that he had left and moved his limbs to grab at the envelope in Monique's hand. He failed to get the envelope, but succeeded in shifting her focus.
“Ssshhh... Just get some rest. You’ll be okay,” Monique responded, squeezing Charles’ hand affectionately with her own. Then in a moment of revelation, she started to open the envelope, hastily ripping out the paper with her teeth.
She set the envelope on the seat next to her and examined the contents. There were numerous pages of handwritten text and a miniature CD. Of course it was a mini CD. The man can't be normal and burn a regular sized disc. Presumably the papers were interesting, but all the writing was in Japanese. Always a new problem... not that she'd delve into deep analysis of incriminating documents on the way to the hospital with an unconscious partner while thugs were in pursuit. They sure thought this was important. Or their employers did.
She wished she hadn't used her teeth. The papers weren't in good shape, and now there were bite marks in them. Get some perspective, she thought. People are trying to kill you and you're worried about marks on some papers.
The cab pulled up to a red light. Monique put her attention back on the suburban. They were three cars back. The windows were darkly tinted, but she knew they were watching her watch them.
"Hold on, I'm going to lose them!" shouted the cabbie. The car leaped into the intersection. Horns sounded, tires screeched, and Monique felt herself thrown against the seat as a car hit them from behind. The cabbie kept driving. When she looked back, she could see the by another vehicle broadsiding the Suburban. It would take some time before the intersection was moving again. Why was everyone so willing to jump to such drastic actions over this stuff?
When the cabbie announced they were approaching the hospital she folded the papers and along with the CD, stuffed everyting in the interior pocket of her jacket.
Monique awoke with a start. The clock glowed 2:23. Nothing had happened in nearly a month, but every day she grew more tense. The way her pursuers simply melted away was damned disconcerting. She thought she'd probably sleep better if there had been a few attempts on her life.
She knew from experience that she'd just lie awake until morning if she tried to go back to sleep, so instead she got up.
Without turning on the lights Monique walked across the hotel room and opened the microfridge. She'd become a connoseuir of hotel rooms in the last month, and they all have a predictable layout.
The fridge had a carton of juice, 3 day old takeout, some wilted celery and a jar of quince paste stared back at her. She closed the door and poured herself a glass of water. Then, expecting to regret it later, she took the takeout and put it in the microwave. Once again her thoughts returned to Charles. Where was he? How did he vanish from the hospital without anyone noticing? Was he even still alive? Walking over to the file cabinet, she unlocked the middle drawer and removed the unmarked manila folder containing everything Charles had turned over to her, including the translation she had commissioned. Wondering if Paul had had any luck decrypting the contents of the disk, she located the translation, turned on the reading lamp and sat down on the couch.
"There's got to be something more to this" Monique thought as she stretched her legs along the length of the sofa cushions. "You don't try to kill someone over menu options for a new restaurant! What am I not seeing?" She reached over and grabbed the pad of paper sitting on the coffee table and examined her notes from the night before.
As she folded back the first page she noticed the second page was annotated in big, nearly illegible script with a red pen. She couldn't miss it, and it was certainly not there when she went to bed a little more than four hours ago. The notes pointed out errors resulting from bad translation, criticized her tentative conclusions, and in several places seemed to have nothing to do with the text. The same kind of notes were on the the rest of the pages.
On the last page, separated from the other comments were the words, "I'd guess about 2:20, then complete panic ten minutes later."
Monique looked at the clock again. 2:34. Complete panic set in. They, whoever they were, were too close. All she could think to do was run far, far away. Again.
She grabbed her purse and was out the door barefoot, abandoning all her things. Was Paul home? Of course he was--he was a nerd. He's probably awake, too, at this hour, playing Dungeons & Dragons. She had to get that disk back.