Far From Ordinary

by M James Murray

  “Smashing,” the British man responded skeptically, smoothing his mustache.

  “Now, Abelard will meet us here,” Adrian checked his watch, “at the top of the hour. I have briefed him via electronic mail. However, he may have additional questions. It is imperative, my boy, that you leave the talking to me. Do not speak unless Abelard asks you a question. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Adrian, I understand.” It occurred to Dick that the same message had been given to him for most of his life, in one way or another. “We don’t like when you talk. Just sit in the corner and be quiet. You’re not important enough to be in the conversation.”

  The thought made him sad.

  Dick sat in silence for a good ten minutes. Adrian, on the other hand, was reviewing a document while pacing back and forth.

  “Are you nervous?” Dick asked. He had seen Adrian conduct a high-speed car chase, and shoot a person in the back. Both times Adrian could have had ice water in his veins. But now…

  “Of course not!” He exclaimed, smoothing his mustache for the tenth time in the past twenty minutes.

  “It’s just that you’re wearing out the flooring a bit. You know, with all the pacing. That you’re doing. It’s not actually wearing out the flooring, it’s just an expression. But I’m sure that if you keep doing that it will eventually…” Dick saw Adrian’s expression and decided that it was wise for him to stop talking.

  “Humph,” Adrian sat down and crossed his legs. It became quiet in the room. Dick could hear the hands of the clock on the wall ticking rhythmically.

  “What is that about?” Dick asked, gesturing to a significant emblem on the wall which showed a black eagle holding an arrow in one talon and a sprig of laurel in the other.

  Adrian looked up, distracted by the document in front of him.

  “What? Oh, that’s the Black Eagle. Now please, my boy, stop distracting me. I must finish reading this document post haste!”

  Dick was left wondering what a Black Eagle was once again, and what it could possibly mean. It was the same symbol which he’d seen on the water bottle in the van which had picked them up from the airport.

  He ran his fingers through his hair again and silently cursed the humidity. His hair was typically the consistency of straw – it didn’t need any more help to look bad.

  Finally, after many long moments, a door opened on the other side of the room.

  “Agent Vandervoort, Mr. Lochte will see you now,” rang out a feminine voice.

  Adrian sighed and stood up.

  “Thank you, Judy,” he said. “Come along, Dick.

  “It’s my pleasure,” Judy said. She was dressed smartly in a tight blouse and a slim pencil skirt. She was beautiful, moving with an elegant grace. Dick noticed that she glanced in Adrian’s direction more than one time, trying to catch his eye but the British man was too wrapped in his thoughts to notice. “Right this way gentlemen.”

  She found Adrian attractive. Dick wondered what that must feel like, for girls to look at him like that.

  Judy led them down a hall decorated in frescos which seemed to describe different battles from the middle ages.

  He could see a lot of people with red hair and beards who were slaughtering anyone around them as they burned and pillaged. Their faces, painted with incredible detail, sent a chill down Dick’ spine.

  “Can I offer you, gentlemen, anything?” Judy asked as she walked down the hall, her black heels echoing off the floor “Water, coffee, iced tea? Maybe something with a little more… kick?” She suggested provocatively at Adrian.

  “Water will be fine. For both of us,” Adrian said curtly.

  “I do love when you take command,” Judy preened. “Right through here. I’ll be right back with your water shortly.”

  Judy opened the door for Dick and Adrian but did not enter the room.

  Inside was a massive office which followed a similar decoration scheme as the hallway except in the place of frescos there were appropriately sized painting on the wall. Dick glanced at them.

  It seemed that these paintings were much newer, depicting different crucial moments from the Napoleonic wars, according to the inscriptions that Dick could see.

  Sitting behind a massive polished oak desk was Abelard Lochte. At first glance, he was unassuming in stature – a small man with Eurostyle glasses and specks of white flecked through his short beard and bald fade haircut.

  He glanced at both men, then took a cigarette from a metal case inside his designer suit, lit it up and inhaled deeply.

  “Vandervoort,” he said. His voice was much deeper than Dick expected.

  “Mr. Lochte,” Adrian said. Dick could have been mistaken, but he thought that he still heard notes of trepidation in Adrian’s voice. “Let me introduce Richard Mitey.”

  Abelard’s eyes flitted from Adrian to Dick. Suddenly, Dick could see why Adrian had been nervous. Abelard’s piercing blue eyes held Dick’s gaze and made him feel like an insignificant speck of dust. There was some sort of power which just exuded from Abelard which made Dick’s hands sweaty.

  It felt like Abelard knew every little secret which Dick had ever had, including the mischief he’d gotten up to as a teenage boy in suburban Houston.

  “I understand that everything went to plan.” He turned his gaze back towards Adrian.

  “Yes. We recovered the body and have safely expedited it back here.”

  “Complications.” Abelard never asked questions; he formed statements which you felt inclined to answer.

  “Detailed in my report, Mr. Lochte. I think that it is best that-“ Adrian glanced towards Dick.

  Abelard immobilized Dick once more in his steely gaze.

  “I understand that you were instrumental in our success. I thank you. The New Socialist party, and the Black Eagle thanks you. There will be compensation. Now,” he gestured towards the door, “I ask that you give Adrian and I some privacy to discuss some matters.”

  Dick found himself back in the humid room with the exotic plants, sipping the sparkling water which Judy had brought.

  Dick sighed, wondered what Adrian and Abelard were discussing that he couldn’t be present. He wasn’t important enough to be included.

  Do I even want to be included? The thought crossed Dick’s mind. He decided that he did not, sipping his ice water.

  #

  “I do not like how sloppy this operation became,” Abelard said to Adrian with ice dripping in his voice.

  “Nor I, Mr. Lochte. But it couldn’t be helped. Lord Alfred knew that we were coming. He alerted the Americans, which rather complicated things, as you are aware.”

  “You are insinuating that the leak came from this office.”

  The Black Eagle, the paramilitary hand of the New Socialist Party had a secretive and airtight reputation, Adrian knew. He knew first hand how strenuous the applicant vetting program could be. Abelard was staring down Adrian, almost daring him to disagree.

  “No, no of course not. The leak came from Dimitri Khuldov, the –“

  “Yes, yes, we know him. Continue.”

  “He bungled the operation quite splendidly. He was to slip arsenic in Alfred’s drink, but the bloody fool dropped the tablet in the wrong drink.”

  “Stop. Tell me about the other casualty.”

  “Jane Dempsey. She was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and expired a few hours later. No-one important. She’ll leave a small fortune to her only son and her spouse – all in Texas oil money.” Adrian paused and took a sip of his water.

  “Continue,” Abelard stated, stone in his voice.

  “Khuldov placed the tablet in the wrong beverage quite by design. He feigned ignorance and surprise. It is here that he demonstrated that had not the intelligence necessary to thrive for us as an operative, anyhow. He simply never thought that I would discover his betrayal,” Adrian said.

  “Status.”

  “Deceased. I killed Khuldov myself.”

  Abelard simply nodded.
>
  “By that time,” Adrian continued, “the CIA had been alerted. I suspect that Dimitri had a hand in that as well. I thought him a double-agent. However, he never alerted them to our base of operations in Houston. I believe that Alfred had offered him a large sum of money to prevent his death. Given his list of indiscretions in the United States, Khuldov most likely saw little value in contacting the CIA.”

  Abelard narrowed his eyes.

  “The body.”

  “I had little choice, Mr. Lochte. I tracked down Katzmann after he fled the party, and I injected the arsenic into Alfred’s neck. For a moment I believed that I had given him too little. He thrashed around for a great while before the poison found its way into his heart.

  But eventually, he weakened, and I prepared to transport his body. However, the CIA was nearing by that point. I didn’t have time to get the body into the van, you see, Mr. Lochte. The operation was in danger of failing entirely. However, I spied a waste treatment plant nearby. I removed his mobile and threw it as far as I could into a river.

  I then deposited the body into the main pipeline of the sewage treatment plant for temporary safekeeping. I recovered the body and hid it, before fleeing the next day.”

  “Vandervoort, I am disappointed. You would have never been so sloppy in the UKSF. I shall not forget this. I am pleased, however, that you were able to recover the body without an international incident.”

  Adrian accepted the criticism with a slight bow. It was never good for one’s health to question Abelard Lochte’s decrees.

  “You will be pleased to know, Mr. Lochte, that Alfred was still slightly alive when I deposited him in that stream of fecal matter.”

  “Indeed. Katzmann must have suffered. That overweight twat was always a pretentious asshole. I can discern the rest of the story from the report which you provided.” Abelard’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. His thin lips stretched upwards for a few moments. The gesture seemed unnatural for him. “What of this Dick Mitey that you have brought back. You continue to involve him in the affairs of the Black Eagle.”

  “Quite intentionally, Mr. Lochte. You see, Dick will be the perfect candidate for...”

  Adrian Vandervoort laid out his plan. Abelard listened raptly, his head rested on his intertwined fingers, his stone eyes seldom blinking.

  Once he had finished, Abelard had merely nodded, agreed and turned back to the paperwork on his desk.

  Adrian could tell that Abelard was pleased, however. He’d known the man a long time.

  When he’d first met the smaller man twenty plus years prior, Adrian had been an officer in the United Kingdom Special Forces. He’d impressed his superiors with his strategic skill, his ability under pressure. He’d been earmarked for rising through the ranks, and rise quickly.

  The military life seemed to suit Adrian as well. He’d joined when he was eighteen, finding the brotherhood and sense of belonging that he’d never honestly felt at home growing up.

  He’d undertaken missions across the globe, but it was Bolivia which had changed his life forever.

  It was in Bolivia where Adrian Vandervoort met Abelard Lochte. He had been under the radar of the Black Eagle for a long time, he’d realized years later. They were merely waiting for the appropriate moment to recruit him.

  Lochte himself had invited him to join, appealed to his basest desires. He had shared his plan with Adrian. And Adrian listened.

  He realized at that moment that he wasn’t made out for the military life for the rest of his days. He’d only joined to spite his long-dead father – fuck the Dutch bastard - and he’d just stayed because he was very good at what he did. Abelard Lochte had helped him see this and had offered him an opportunity to unlock his potential.

  He wasn’t craving the military discipline of the UKSF nor the brotherhood with the other men in his regiment. No, what he was craving was an opportunity to realize his ambitions.

  The UKSF gave him the skills necessary to do so, but it wasn’t an end game. Adrian could have stayed in, perhaps have even made it to the rank of Colonel or higher. But he still would have been in the same mold, the same story.

  Lochte gave him an opportunity to break the cycle, to exact real change in the world. And Adrian accepted.

  In the ensuing years, Adrian was pushed harder mentally than he ever had beforehand. He found that he didn’t mind the less-than-legal premise behind many of the organization’s activities – he saw them as invigorating.

  There was an absolute thrill that he felt when he planted an incriminating document on someone innocent or assassinated someone. Killed them in cold blood. It sent shivers down his spine and sometimes even made him stiffen.

  In the UKSF he’d killed discriminatorily. His commanding officer would give him a target, and he’d accomplish his goal. In the Black Eagle, this was somehow different. He was choosing the targets, for the most part, and then he followed through. He was judge, jury, and executioner. It made him feel powerful – he was the God of Death come to enact glorious fury on those victims as he pleased.

  And every target the God of Death dispatched helped him gain credence in the Black Eagle. It raised Abelard’s confidence in his ability, brought him that much closer to his ambition.

  Adrian Vandervoort wanted power and prestige to far exceed the station of his deceased father. He wanted to one day visit his father’s grave and spit on it, to tell the old man that he had been so wrong about so much.

  He didn’t care for leadership, so he was happy to leave the politicking to Abelard and his ilk. He wanted to stir the winds of chaos and effect change on a dramatic scale, for when the dust settled he would be on top. That, he could guarantee.

  Once he’d killed a political dissident under cover of darkness. Slit his throat, in his bedchamber, no less, with his mistress sleeping right beside him. That feeling, seeing the blood leak out as his victim gurgled softly on the bed, it was almost sexual at times.

  He hoped that the pretty mistress in her slight slip would wake up, see what he’d done. But she didn’t.

  He’d stood over the bed for a few minutes when it was all over. Blood had leaked into the silk sheets, spewing weaker and weaker from his carotid artery as the heart tried hard to keep oxygen pumping to the vital organs. His victim was already gone, Adrian could see it in his glassy eyes, his twitching limbs.

  In the morning she’d awake covered in blood, beside a dead lover. She’d never be able to wear that negligee again.

  Such a shame. It complimented her willowy athletic body quite well. The dead man had chosen his mistress wisely; there was no doubt. Her breasts were perfect small orbs which hadn’t yet started to sag with age. Her nipples – little pink nubs with almost no discernable areola - were visible through the gossamer fabric and they were hard with the fresh night air.

  Her hair was light brown and somehow suited her perfectly despite being tousled with sleep. Adrian wanted to touch it, and her breasts and squeeze her nipples.

  He refrained, though. That wasn’t part of the mission which he’d set out to accomplish. He certainly didn’t want to risk capture because of a beautiful set of breasts. If she woke up, Adrian would have had to kill her. Wouldn’t that have been a shame.

  Adrian had wondered what the mistress thought about the wife. Not that it mattered anymore. Or maybe it was about to matter a great deal. Life could be funny that way, sometimes.

  Adrian had remembered that moment well. His target’s death would cause panic. He’d smiled. The God of Death had whipped up the winds of chaos and change once again.

  A change was coming, and change had to be drastic.

  Society will only change when you break the rules, after all.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  For the first time since his Mama’s funeral, Dick found himself wearing what he called a “monkey suit.”

  A few days had passed since Adrian’s meeting with Abelard Lochte, leader of the New Socialist Party and the Black Eagle. The days had gone by rather quick
ly, as an agent of the Black Eagle had checked Dick into a hotel which had a pool.

  A pool!

  Dick had spent the majority of his time down by the water, his hands wrinkled up like prunes until Adrian had shown up and had informed Dick that they were to attend a party, which he said was being thrown in their honor, to commemorate the Black Eagle’s great victory.

  “A lot of people will be there, my boy. They will almost certainly want to congratulate you for your involvement.”

  Dick couldn’t quite recall what he’d done to deserve such praise, but he thought about how pleasant it would be for everyone to look at him with admiration and not with annoyance in their eyes.