Lesson Learned- Mission Report 1

by G J Stevens

  “Now take off your clothes,” Nate said, his voice breathy.

  My hands went to the hem of my top.

  “Skirt first,” came another equally breathy voice, but I couldn’t tell which of them spoke..

  My face impassive, I moved my hands down the curve of my back, dug underneath my shirt and both hands found the clip.

  “Slower,” Nate snapped.

  My fingers replied, edging forward with micro movements. I gripped either side and let the hooks separate, fingers tracing down to find the zipper. I heard deep breaths, but they weren’t getting closer. I let my fingers pull at the zip, the teeth separating in slow motion. It came to a stop and I let go, the thin fabric dropping to the floor.

  “Turn around.” Nate again.

  I did as I was told and turned away from them.

  “Bend forward,” came the first voice again. “Over the bed,” it said, and I did.

  I felt my heart flutter, my mood woken with a spike of adrenaline. They hooted and hollered behind me, deep breaths pulling in. I thought at that moment one of them would grab out, pull the fabric to the side and the deed would be done.

  “Wait,” came Nate’s voice, the word not directed to me. He was holding someone back and they seemed to obey the command. For now. “Turn around and do the top,” he said again.

  I stood up straight, turned around and took a deep breath as I grabbed the hem.

  “Slowly,” Nate added.

  I could hear fabric moving. I slowed, letting the top come to just below my bra. I looked up and saw they were no longer hiding away, their underwear to the floor and standing proudly pointing toward me. They were ready.

  I looked at the guy with the knife for permission. He nodded as I pulled the material higher, twisting it as the hem rubbed my bra strap. It caught, as I expected. Still, I pulled with my gaze locked to the guy with the knife. He looked red and swollen, like he wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer.

  “I’m stuck,” I said as soft as I dared.

  “Help her out,” he said, motioning with the knife to Nate still pleasuring himself.

  Grinning as he heard the command, Nate pulled his hand from his dick and took a slow step forward.

  I licked my lips and he licked his, mirroring my gesture. I turned away, presenting myself by bending over ever so slightly. He ran his hand across my back just above my knickers. I could feel his hardness touching me as he stroked the small of my back until his hands reached the tangle at the strap.

  As I felt the material separate, I turned slowly until I was a breath from his face. He smiled as I pulled one arm and then the next from my top and threw the fabric towards the knife guy, landing it at his feet.

  As he bent to pick up the top, I brought my knee to bear on Nate’s crotch, the cap smashing his spheres into the base of his stiff dick.

  The guy with the knife took a second to realise where the pained sound had come from and why his buddy had doubled on the floor, screaming but with no sound coming out.

  He dropped my top and lunged forward. The other guy hadn’t moved as he went out of view, hurling myself face down onto the other bed, my hands darting under the piled clothes with a Beretta pulling from the first leather holster.

  I’d won the race, the safety off before the knife man completed his manoeuvre and the guy from the study had even reacted.

  “Sorry, boys, I’ve got a headache.”

  I didn’t need to shoot. I didn’t need to shout. They followed my every direction as they lined up, kneeling and facing the wall, dragging their fallen colleague with them as I dressed.

  “What are you going to do?” the guy who’d had the knife said, his features sullen.

  “Now my turn for fun. I want to watch you suck both their dicks.”

  All three turned towards each other then back to me, glaring at the gun.

  “You’re kidding, right?” the guy who’d had the knife said.

  I picked up a pillow and took a step closer.

  “Of course,” I said. I leaned the pillow into his torso and pushed the Beretta in as deep as I could before pulling the trigger. Two more shots came not long after.

  They panicked less than I thought they would, the sound only a little louder than a suppressor. I let the pillow drop to the floor on top of the last guy’s body. How sad they looked in just their socks.

  I wiped the gun of my prints and pulled on my clothes and the jacket from the smallest of the guys, ambling down the corridor, out into the dark night.

  36

  I walked flat mouthed along the quiet street, only vaguely aware of my location and for once scarcely taking any notice as one foot followed the other. My shadow rose and fell with each light above.

  I just walked.

  A lie.

  I thought about how I could find ice cream and a comfy sofa with a TV.

  Wasn’t that what you’re supposed to do when your heart breaks?

  I stopped walking, my head reeling as the thoughts bubbled to the surface. Heart-broken. Not me.

  I barely summoned up the energy for the extra breath to allow the deep sigh.

  I watched a bus roll past; watched it stop a few car lengths away. I should get on the bus, I knew. I should get on and never look back.

  A young woman stepped to the pavement and I stared after, my thoughts turning to those who’d stepped from those coaches and assigned themselves to the foul torture of that place.

  I thought of the waving hands and smiling faces at the windows; the small children sat next to caring parents who had no idea what would happen.

  I imagined their heartache as they realised. If they could still feel at all now. It would be more than I felt, but it put my pain in context.

  I was alive and well. I’d get over her loss. Her betrayal. Eventually, I told myself.

  The bus pulled away and I saw the neon sign for a twenty-four-hour internet cafe. I needed to let them know, at least. I needed to let them call in the rescue team. I needed to let them call in the army, the police or whoever would come and save the day.

  The cafe was empty and I could barely raise my arm to pay for the minimum hour.

  I tapped in the numbers for the IP address from memory and then my sixteen-digit credentials flowed through to the screen in a blur of my fingers.

  I waited the five minutes I knew it would take, then I checked all around me. With the place still empty, I typed.

  Half an hour passed before the message completed, sending everything they needed to know. Everything. And things I shouldn’t have said.

  A reply came back after barely a pause.

  Instructions:

  1) Detain FB (Alive). Seize project data. Eliminate project hierarchy.

  2) Call local law enforcement when objective complete.

  The instructions had no ambiguity.

  I knew what it meant for me. I knew what it meant for her. For all of them.

  But I couldn’t do it. I typed a reply.

  I told them I wasn’t able to complete the mission. I told them I wasn’t capable. I told them I didn’t have the equipment. I told them I was broken and cried, tears falling to the keyboard.

  I sniffed and wiped my eyes with the back of my hands, but the tears kept coming. I cried for what seemed like forever, looking up only as I heard a cough at my side.

  I was about to complain for privacy when I saw the guy holding out a box of tissues, beaming with a warm smile.

  “Are you okay, ma'am?” he said.

  “No,” I replied, taking a tissue. “But I will be,” I said and thanked him as I wiped my face and blew my nose.

  I took a deep breath and deleted my reply, replacing it with a single word.

  Acknowledged.

  37

  Leaving the Berettas had been a mistake. I understood that now.

  I’d let the emotion cloud my judgement, but not anymore.

  With the sun rising at my back I found myself in the bad part of town, trying not to remember the last
time I’d been here as my knuckles knocked at the door, both its panes still boarded.

  After what seemed like an age, I heard movement from the other side and I prepared myself. The door opened a crack and before the chain went taut I charged ahead, pushing the full trash can in front.

  The momentum snapped the loose metal from its mooring and I followed through with my hands gripping the thin handles. The guy fell to the floor after two involuntary back-steps, his weapon dropping no sooner than I’d expected.

  I threw the can over the man laying supine, his hands and legs struggling to gain traction in the air like a tortoise stranded on its shell. I scooped up his battered baseball bat and pushed the business end to his throat.

  “Where do you get your shit from?” I said.

  He calmed, quietening his struggle as I spoke.

  After two more polite requests and the shattering of his left knee, he let the information go.

  I smashed the other to keep him still, then deconstructed his two mobiles and the landline into tiny plastic pieces before I headed off down the street, swinging the bat in my hand with a new-found enthusiasm for my work.

  Five streets over, the houses improved a hundred-fold; the area clean, a better class of living for higher up the chain.

  The address he’d given had an intact front door and I circled to an alley between the backs of the houses and found the target by counting along the row. I pulled myself over the fence and knew myself to be lucky as I found the back door wide open.

  Creeping up to the windows looking out to the garden, I fixed on a young man watching TV, the side of his torso and the lower part of his body at least; the rest obscured by the straight-back chair.

  I made a mental note. He was an early riser. I’d have to go hard and fast, both because he might be high, his pain threshold raised and the Ruger KP90 on the arm of his chair.

  I counted six cans of beer and bottles, pizza boxes with the flaps open, single slices uneaten.

  I saw more signs of a high occupancy; ashtrays overflowing with stubs, crack pipes strewn across a coffee table. Either that or they were signs he was a lazy fuck.

  Creeping in through the open door, I stepped with care across the hallway as I acquainted myself with the interior layout, soon figuring he’d see me when I crossed into the room; another reason to go in all guns blazing, metaphorically, as I didn’t yet have one.

  Running my hand along the length of the ash, it would have to do.

  With the bat primed above my head, I charged into the room, bounding forward with the bat swinging in an arc, smashing into his ribs to push the air in near silence from his lungs. The Ruger, with its stainless-steel slide, remained on the arm of the chair as his hands went to his chest and the bat swung out again only to return to his head.

  He’d be dead if I hadn’t pulled the final swing.

  Instead he was out cold. He was a bad man, but more punishment than was necessary sat outside my remit.

  I checked the pistol, tutting as I flicked the safety on. Pulling back the slide I saw one in the chamber, the magazine filled to burst with fourteen forty-fives. It looked as if someone had fired it many times before and it needed a serious clean after being shoved into a thousand pockets, lint covering the inside of the chamber and the rounds.

  I pushed the gun inside my suit jacket; I had no time to check in any more detail and toured the ground floor, swinging the bat to find all bare of anything useful.

  I took the stairs, finding all three rooms above were empty, except for the great bags of weed and a table dusted with white powder. I tried not to breathe in as I let the door shut.

  I found no tools, which meant I’d have to pay a little trip to a familiar address first.

  After leaving the house with my primary aim fulfilled, I took from him one last thing; a distinctive set of keys which led me to a mode of transport I wasn’t expecting, but then again, I'd always thought of the Dodge Viper as a drug dealer's car.

  I didn’t waste any time and I let the tyres eat up the road, ripping through the tarmac mile after mile until I was back at the little estate I’d already stopped considering as my home.

  Leaving the car parked someway down the road and out of sight, I was back at fifty-four. Only Brad was around, the others still in bed, if the parked cars were anything to go by.

  I could see him pottering at the far edge of the garden, cutting back the already short grass as it met the fence. I was in and out within a few moments, changed to trainers, jeans and a more discrete top; anything was more conservative than what I’d been wearing.

  Finally swapping the oversized jacket for a bomber to better conceal the Ruger, the final items collected were my thin leather gloves, which I’d brought with me just for this time.

  There was nothing else in this house I wasn’t happy to say goodbye to and I was through next door’s gate and turning the key in the back door in barely a moment.

  I found Lenara sitting in her dressing gown in the living room, the TV on low. She seemed troubled, not looking up from the ice pack she held at her hand.

  “You can’t feel the pain, can you?” I said as I ambled closer.

  “No. Sit down,” she said, still not meeting my eye. “Since the injury.”

  “What happened?” I said as I sat on an armchair next to her.

  “Car accident. A long time ago now.”

  “Frank’s still trying to find you a cure,” I said, but it wasn’t a question.

  “He’s close. He’s devoted his life.”

  “Why?” I said, shuffling forward to the edge of the chair.

  “We fell in love. What else is there?”

  “I’m sorry, but he doesn’t love you,” I said.

  Her head snapped up for the first time. “Just because he’s fucking Alarica?” she said, her voice still calm.

  I paused, holding back my reply for a moment. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “And you, too, if he had the chance,” she replied.

  “But I haven’t. I won’t,” I said, shaking my head.

  She gave a shallow nod and turned back to the ice.

  “He has needs I can’t satisfy, but when he’s fixed me, she’s gone from our lives and I’ll forgive him. In the meantime, I need him, want him to be happy,” she replied. “And then she’s gone,” she added, before I could say anything more.

  “Do you know how he’s finding his cure?”

  “My cure,” she said and shook her head. “I’m not the doctor.”

  Is she just burying her head in the sand? I asked myself.

  “I’m just going to go upstairs. I think I dropped something in the spare room. Do you mind?”

  “Go ahead,” she said, nodding towards the door.

  I took one last look at her, then taking each step with care, I headed upstairs.

  The room was the same as I’d left it, although the contents of the desk had been cleared away and the code had changed on the door.

  I tried another, my name this time, then turned down the stairs, my hands in my pockets as I stared at the gun pointed up towards me.

  38

  “He’s a good man,” Lenara said from the bottom of the stairs, the Bersa Thunder .380 clamped too tight in her right hand.

  “Then he’s a good man doing terrible things,” I said, swinging slowly to the right.

  “He’s doing this for me,” she said, with the small gun tracking my movement.

  “Why?” I swung to the left, letting the speed build.

  “He loves me,” she replied, moving her hand with my sway.

  “He was driving the car,” I said. “Wasn’t he?”

  She nodded.

  “But he doesn't drive,” I replied.

  “Not a day since. I told you, he loves me and he will make this right. I can’t let you get in the way. I can’t let you stop him.”

  “What makes you think I can?” I replied, the swing building this way and that.

  “I’ve seen it in your eyes, from
the beginning. There’s something about you,” she said, the gun tracking my pendulum movement.

  “Then you’ll understand I’ve got to try,” I replied. My movement stopped, my shoulders pushing in the opposite direction but her hand continued to sweep away.

  I pulled the gun from my pocket, flicking the safety off. The round bounced off the front door’s toughened glass, blood and brain matter following behind.

  At least she didn’t feel it, I thought. One member of the hierarchy crossed off the list.

  I jumped down the stairs five at a time, taking the gun and checked the contents of the magazine, counting in a flash the eight rounds and one in the chamber. As sunlight streamed from the other side of the front door, the deep reds staining the glass brought back memories of family trips to church.

  Back at fifty-four, the garden at least, I searched for Brad but I couldn’t see him anywhere, despite the shed door standing open.

  After struggling through the mounds of clutter, I found the bolt croppers behind an old lawn mower crusted with long-dried grass.

  When the wooden floor creaked, I turned to see Brad stood blocking out most of the light and I heard his voice for the first time.

  “Can I help?” he said, beaming a wide smile with his stare fixed on the croppers and his eyebrows raised.

  “No thanks. Got to go,” I said, moving past him and pocketing a pair of pliers found on the side as I did.

  Without looking back, I was up into my old bedroom one last time. Glancing out of the window, I could see no commotion next door. No police cars squealed to a stop, and I knew they never would; not as long as Frank was still in charge. Until I called them, of course.

  Pulling the magazine from the Ruger, I used the pliers on the first round. After quickly finishing the modification, I slid it back into the butt of the gun, before jabbing it in the corner of my jacket pocket.

  Jogging through the woods, I arrived sooner than I’d expected at the weathered concrete still rising from the forest floor. I wasn’t sure why I thought it would no longer be there.