Guardian Knight

by Aarti V Raman

  Sebastian smiled. “Aah, Miss Naik strikes again. What has she done this time?”

  “It’s not what she’s done. It’s what she’s going to do. In Paris.”

  Brand turned to look at his friend and employer grimly. “She is going to get herself killed. Again.”

  ~~~~~

  A few days later…

  “And now we come to the Arc Di Triomphe that Napoleon himself built to honor his love for this beautiful city.” The guide continued along with the tour while Brand, dressed in the typical tourist garb of a white letter tee, leather jacket, jeans, took pictures. Of the Eiffel. The Champs Elysees and the Arc Di Triomphe. Up ahead, a long way ahead he could see the three thousand glass squares that made up the entrance of the Louvre.

  The group moved ahead and so did Brand.

  He snapped a quick picture with his excellent telephoto lens of a woman in a yellow sundress with red highlights in her dense black hair and white heels.

  She was talking on her phone and paid no attention to her surroundings. She carried one of those bags that women held in the crook of their elbows and, with her sunny smile, looked about as Parisian as anyone possibly could.

  He moved his Nikon away from the woman across the street.

  Gotcha.

  ~~~~~

  In the last two days, Brand had arranged for the former premier to go to a remote village in Austria to recuperate further. In a villa that he’d himself bought a few years ago when he’d been bored of the American-Caribbean beach scene. He was sending all of his men back with Sebastian, apart from Markham who was already packed for Nassau, muttering about interfering reporters.

  Delgado had had a GPS transponder embedded in his shin so that they could track his movements to a few feet of where he was.

  Brand wondered how Akira would react to such lo-jacking.

  At the same time, he was making his own arrangements for his stay in Paris. A first-class seat, a hotel reservation, all these things were accomplished within a few clicks of a keypad.

  But the real trick was in getting his weapons cache across the border without too many questions being asked. He did have a few friends in high places, but he didn’t want anybody alert to his presence.

  In the circles that Akira was going to be asking questions, Brandon Michael Rice was well-known.

  It hadn’t been hard to find out about the stringer or foreign news correspondent who was stationed in Western Europe, currently on vacation, gambling his way through his job. It was even easier to determine that Stephan Flaubert had innocently passed on a useless bit of information to a curious reporter and it was just his supreme bad luck that the reporter was Akira.

  He’d read through the stories she’d written and corroborated it with his own research, and he was astounded by the accuracy of her reporting.

  Brand still remembered what Sebastian had told him just as he was boarding the plane surrounded by security designed to keep away God himself.

  “I want her to find out the truth, Brandon. Not because she is bait, but because she can actually do something that even I couldn’t.” Sebastian’s voice had been quiet, insistent. “She can find and nail the son of a bitch who’s brought my country to the brink of destruction.”

  Brand had known then, and he knew now, that Seb was right.

  All through the flight to Paris and then in his hotel room at one of the better hotels along the river Seine, he’d studied all the data she’d collated, using the worm he’d embedded in his very first email to her. It was a gross invasion of her privacy and he’d resisted doing it so far but now he could justify it.

  Now, her life was most probably in danger.

  Brand was honestly impressed with a woman who had combed rental and bought properties in three continents that looked even slightly suspicious. Her attention to detail made him feel if they did end up working together, then at least he would have someone who would make sure that the ends were all tied up together while he focused on the big picture.

  Brand was not so much a details man. He got the job done, but he was mostly brilliant on the big picture planning.

  He could visualize, right down to the last contingency, how a certain operation could go.

  Everything from saving a president from his own premature death, to a reporter who’d gotten under his own skin, enough for him to give up his actual job and focus on her.

  He was impressed and angry and frustrated and he intended to give her hell the minute she showed up.

  He found her as amusing as fascinating and, for some reason, she seemed to feel the same. Certainly, she challenged him like an equal.

  None of these reasons made it any easier for him to know that she was in the same city as him. That he could find her with a touch of a button. And that she’d be spitting mad when he did.

  So, Brand did what he did best.

  He set up a tail.

  ~~~~~~~

  Brand knew she’d come to this bakery opposite the Arc Di Triomphe, because he’d told her about their heavenly chocolate macaroons and cappuccinos. She’d promised to try them out when she came to town next. So, here she was.

  All he’d had to do was play tourist and wait for her to show up.

  He grinned while he snapped off two more pictures.

  Civilians. They never suspected a thing was wrong with their lives until it all blew up in their faces.

  His grin faded as he saw the swarthy, muscled man in the black overcoat watching the same bakery that he himself was. And he was talking on a cell phone. Brand trained his telephoto lens on the man and then swung back to the bakery entrance. Akira walked out carrying a takeaway cup of coffee… still talking on her cell phone.

  The man disappeared too.

  Brand sighed. Wonderful.

  Now he’d have to really keep his distance lest he spoil the reception committee that had been prepared for Akira Naik, nosy reporter.

  Sixteen

  Brand had been trained in the art of surveillance when he was twenty-one, and had spent three years in the royal military corps in Australia. And, in his time, he could modestly say that there was never a quarry he couldn’t catch, never a target he couldn’t acquire. Best of all, he never, ever, wanted to get up close and personal with the subject of his surveillance.

  He did his job, got out, got paid.

  Now his patience and endurance were being tested by the reporter who insisted on going into the elite shopping district on the Champs Elysees and trying on outfits. And he wanted her outrageously.

  It wasn’t the arousal that angered him. He was used to getting hard thinking about Akira naked. It was the fact that he was tempted, acutely, to go up to her and just…talk to her. Continue one of their absurd email conversations.

  The distraction bothered him. What right did she have to cross paths with him and make him want her…want to protect her? And not just him. He remembered Sebastian’s words.

  I spent five minutes with that woman in a situation that required guts and heart. And she has both.

  Yes, she did have more than her share of courage. And it was all misplaced right now.

  It still didn’t stop him from being appalled at himself. Sure, he was on Delgado’s payroll and this was all part of the former premier’s game, but he’d decided to come to Paris before Sebastian had given him reason enough to do it.

  And he’d wanted to kill Markham for even thinking about ‘taking her out’ for being a nosy reporter.

  This did not bode well for his peace of mind, his meager stash of ethics, and his unruly emotions.

  He didn’t want to be involved with her, for god’s sake, and here he was stalking her like some lovesick Romeo.

  Brand went back to his hotel room, about four in the afternoon not sure if either his principles or his cool could take seeing Akira changing outfits so often, and looking way too good for his own good.

  His arms supply had been a simple matter in the end. He hadn’t smuggled anything in, except the knife he’d
carved about a decade ago, when he’d been in Africa. He’d decided to come unarmed to Paris and load up here.

  He’d not used his European connections, because he hadn’t pulled a job on the Continent for five years now and since most of them were in prison or dead he’d been dubious if he could get anyone to hook him up with firepower. Finally, one of his old mates at Montmartre had agreed to give him the tools of his trade for a dear sum of euros.

  Brand had already checked out Stephan Flaubert who was living in a garret in one of the lesser-known districts of the city and decided he really was no threat to anyone. Taking him out before he met the reporter was out of the question.

  Brand didn’t kill. Not even for money. Not anymore.

  The stringer’s meeting with Akira was at nine in Café Miramar, and Brand had already finished his dinner there when Akira, wearing a black model dress short enough to drive all thoughts of reporting from a man’s head, came walking to the entrance.

  She met Stephan and they shook hands. Stephan pointed towards a late-model Porsche, allowing Akira to precede him to the car. She looked mildly impressed.

  Brand had run the tags on the vehicle already and had come up with two speeding violations and thirty-three mortgage payments left on it.

  Stephan’s life ran to expensive tastes. So, it was but obvious why he was willing to sell data to the intrepid American reporter.

  ~~~~~~

  The men, all five of them came in from the approaching dark. Surrounded the vehicle and removed the two people about to get in, with a minimum of fuss. To the casual observer it looked like a bunch of people, six men and one woman were going to the same place, all casual and friendly-like.

  But Brand had seen the swarthy, muscled man who was clearly their leader talking to both Akira and the stringer. Saw them walk toward the alley at the back.

  He waited till they rounded the corner, paid his bill inside Café Miramar and then walked out to meet them.

  So to speak.

  ~~~~~~

  The alley behind Miramar didn’t offer much protection and it didn’t offer him any kind of vantage point. He had to go into this situation blind, with exactly seven bullets in his magazine.

  Brand stayed behind the three large garbage bins that were overflowing with refuse from the restaurant. His nose wrinkled in distaste at the stench and the fact that he was ruining his leather jacket for the woman who just wouldn’t quit.

  The leader, Jacques, said something that he couldn’t hear. Stephan rushed him, and before Brand could blink someone had pulled the trigger and Stephan crumpled to the ground.

  Akira looked at the dead man in horror, but she kept her head. Jacques pointed to the ground and Akira kneeled down, hands behind her head.

  Brand considered taking the men out, but he couldn’t tip his hand yet.

  Maybe what he hadn’t been able to accomplish with his emails and his words of warning, this Jacques could. He listened to their voices carrying in the air, cocking his gun for safety and measuring accurate distances. It wasn’t going to be that hard, if he did have to shoot to injure.

  “You can kill me right now,” Akira said calmly. “But I’m not giving up. I’m going to find the truth about Premier Delgado.”

  His gun stilled in his hand. His cell phone buzzed.

  He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.

  What was wrong with her? Was she out of her blasted mind? Did she have a death wish?

  Jacques said that he would kill her, of course he would if she didn’t back off from her current quest. Stupid, foolish, slow Jacques. He should have shot her five minutes ago. Before Stephan even.

  Brand trained his weapon on Jacques’ forehead, trigger-ready.

  They were still talking. Jacques was surprised now. Rapidly becoming pissed at the annoying woman.

  “Are you crazy, woman? You would rather give up your life for a job than walk away? Does your life mean nothing to you?” Jacques was incredulous.

  Good for you, Jacques. Yes, make her see the error of her ways.

  “It means more to me, than you could possibly know, monsieur. And because it does, you should kill me. And soon. Or do whatever it is that you’re supposed to do. My knees hurt, and I’d like to stand up otherwise,” Akira finished coolly.

  Brand didn’t know whether to admire her spunk or shake her silly for her total lack of consideration for her fucking life.

  He tightened his grip on his gun, and straightened his back. For the first time ever, sweat pooled at the base of his spine. All because a stubborn reporter was willing to die for a cause she had nothing to do with in the first place.

  Brand didn’t wait anymore.

  His adrenalin was rushing clear to his head, and his heart was rock-steady. He’d done this a million times. At least, it felt like that sometimes.

  Please, God, don’t let me hit her, the stubborn idiot.

  He picked Frenchman three, four and five, who blocked his clear shot on the leader. And shot them in the legs. They went down like bowling pins, with barely a sound.

  He refocused on Jacques’ forehead then decided he’d had enough of blood for one night.

  One of the men said, “Fuck it, there’s someone shooting at us.”

  He had to reply to that, if only for distraction. “If you don’t let go of the woman, I really will.”

  ~~~~~

  Jacques squinted at the dark alley, still keeping his gun pointed at Akira. He didn’t look like a man who would lose his cool just because three of his five henchmen were down and the shooter seemed to know what he was doing.

  “If you make a move, I will blow her brains out.” He said to empty air.

  “You’ll be dead before you pull the trigger, my friend,” Brand said in a voice that meant total business. A man who could not be seen in an area where he was not supposed to be was a man to be believed.

  “Show yourself. And maybe I’ll let the woman go.” Jacques smiled viciously at Akira.

  Brand pulled the trigger, pointing south of Jacques’ forehead. A shot sounded at the asphalt at Jacques’ feet, right between his Yeezy kicks.

  Concrete and grit flew onto Akira’s face, barely missing her eyes.

  To his credit, Jacques didn’t jump, Brand gave him points for that. The other men, though, were getting jumpier by the second. They looked ready to kill or flee.

  “You boys can take off now. Or you’ll be history too,” he called out.

  The other two believed him. They looked at Jacques. Shrugged, a rather Gallic gesture, and took off, vaulting over the alley end and melting into the shadows of other buildings.

  Jacques swore in English. “Stupid cowards. Come back here. We have a job to do, let’s fucking do it.”

  Brand heard the smile in Akira’s voice. “You should have fucking done it, five minutes ago, asshole.”

  With the ‘asshole’, she squatted and in a lightning move, swung one heeled leg out, and kicked Jacques in the shin hard enough for him to lose his balance.

  He let loose a wild shot as he fell on his ass.

  Akira jumped up, and kicked him hard on the groin. “That was for Stephan, you bastard.”

  He doubled over on his side. “Jesus.”

  Brand admired the legs and the move and decided his entrance could wait a couple more minutes. Just so he could see what she’d do. She didn’t disappoint him.

  She snatched Jacques’ gun and pointed it coolly at the man. “When you point this at someone, you should shoot them. Immediately. Threatening doesn’t always work. Tell your boss that. Capisce?”

  Then she called over her shoulder. “Hey Brand, how do you say, capisce in French?”

  “You don't know French, Naik?” He called back, amused. “It’s tu comprends.”

  Jacques looked malevolently at the unsmiling woman who held the gun. “Thanls, Brandon. Tell your boss that threatening doesn’t always work. Tu comprends?’’

  Then she pulled the trigger and fired off all seventeen rounds in
to the ground near Jacques’ head. The bullets made a soft, pinging sound, hardly audible, but Jacques winced. He nearly screamed.

  Then, Akira dismantled the gun, releasing the safety, dropping the magazine into the ground, and tossed the barrel into the nearest garbage bin.

  Jacques cursed in low-key panic and anger. “You’ll be dead by the time I’m done with you,” he said finally.