The Rookie?s Guide to Espionage: An Eva Destruction Espresso Shot

by Dave Sinclair

  Isabella unlocked the front door of the apartment block and went in. Eva didn’t know which apartment she was hiding out in, but there appeared to be only half a dozen in total, judging by the doorbells at the entrance. She’d narrowed the search from the entire world to a handful of apartments. Not a bad afternoon’s work.

  There was a spring in Eva’s step as she strode in Isabella’s direction. With any luck, she’d have her apprehended by the end of the day. Just as Eva reached peak smugness, Isabella appeared on Eva’s screen.

  She’d emerged on the balcony of one of the apartments and was staring directly into the drone’s camera. In one smooth movement Isabella raised a gun and shot the drone. Eva’s screen went black.

  She’d been made.

  Stupid wazcocking technology.

  Eva broke into a run. Isabella knew she was coming. She was armed. She was cornered. She’d be ready for Eva.

  Not that any of that mattered. Eva hadn’t come this far to lose Isabella now.

  As she sprinted around the final corner, Eva pulled out her pistol. The time for stealth was over. It was time to make some noise.

  Without breaking stride, Eva bounded up the stairs and shouldered the cheap wooden front door. It splintered from its hinges as Eva burst through. She scanned the hallway: no threats present. Above her was a glass atrium, the once-transparent glass milky with age, moss growing where there had once been a clear view of the sky.

  Her gun raised, she moved up the stained, aged stairs. They creaked underfoot, sounding like bass drums to Eva.

  Her pistol sweeping left to right, she edged along the mildewy hallway. A cacophony of exotic smells seeped from under the apartment doors. The faint sounds of TVs and radios added to the soundscape. There was no way Eva would hear Isabella coming. The counter was that she wouldn’t hear Eva, either.

  She paused at the door of the apartment where Isabella had fired on the drone. The longer she hesitated, the more time the DGSE agent would have to escape. Eva couldn’t let that happen. Using her heel, she kicked the door in. Just like the door to the apartment block, it buckled and flew open. Eva didn’t fire. There was no target. Well, not a live one.

  An old woman in a tattered house dress stared at Eva, her eyes wide with shock. Her body slumped backwards in a recliner, and there was a clean bullet hole in the centre of her forehead. Eva touched the woman’s neck. No pulse, but she was still warm. A fresh kill.

  Isabella must have executed her to get to the balcony. This wasn’t Isabella’s apartment. She’d killed the old woman purely to get a shot at the drone.

  Isabella was a cold-blooded murderer.

  A quick search of the apartment failed to reveal her target. Isabella was somewhere else in the complex. There were five more apartments—too many to explore one by one. Eva needed to narrow down the search.

  Returning to the landing, Eva tucked the pistol into the back of her jeans and casually pulled the fire alarm. In seconds a shrill siren sounded. Tenants piled out, wearing undershirts and carrying children. Within a minute, all the apartments had been evacuated. Except one.

  Eva flicked off the alarm.

  Extracting her gun, she trod towards apartment four. This time Eva was certain Isabella would be inside waiting for her. That meant caution was the advisable course of action. It was obvious she would stop at nothing to protect herself.

  Eva shot the lock off the door and took cover beside it, her back against a solid brick wall. The door squeaked as it slowly swung open. The silence from inside the apartment was deafening.

  After a nervous exhale, Eva pushed herself off the wall and grasped her pistol with both hands. Her prey knew she was coming, was armed, and was far more experienced than Eva.

  Yeah, but does she know all the lyrics to REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”?

  Eva stepped into the small hallway, gun ready. It was as quiet as a politician’s conscience. The room wasn’t as well appointed as the other apartment she’d seen, with only stark furnishings: bare wooden floorboards, a couch, a small table and chairs and a TV.

  Suddenly a small black metallic device about the size of a hockey puck slid across the floor. Eva clenched her eyes shut, opened her mouth and covered her ears.

  The flash grenade exploded in a burst of light and noise. A split second later Isabella dove out of the bedroom, gun aimed at Eva.

  Too slow.

  Eva was ready for her. The second Isabella emerged, Eva fired. The bullet hit the revolver in Isabella’s hand, smacking it from her grasp. Isabella hit the floor hard. Eva fired twice more, close to Isabella’s writhing body, to ensure she had her full and undivided attention.

  Isabella, unarmed and clutching what had until recently been her firing hand, glared up at Eva, pure hatred oozing from every pore.

  “’ow did you recover from the flash grenade so soon?”

  Eva grinned as she stepped towards her. “Years in the front row of Aussie rock gigs, bitch.”

  It wasn’t entirely true. Eva had been trained on how to handle flash grenades, but she’d also been to plenty of ear-bleeding rock concerts in her time. Eva didn’t know if she shouted her answer due to the ringing in her ears. It didn’t matter. She had Isabella exactly where she wanted her. A cursory search revealed no other weapons on Isabella’s body.

  Eva grabbed a fistful of Isabella’s hair and dragged her across the floor to a kitchen chair. Using various kitchen electrical cords, she tied Isabella to the chair.

  “I think it’s time you and I had a little chat.”

  Chapter Nine

  It took a while —and plenty of jaw exercises—for Eva’s hearing to return. When it finally came good, Eva was ready to begin her interrogation.

  Isabella appeared genuinely shaken that she’d been taken down by a rookie agent.

  Too bad, Spunktrumpet.

  “’ow did you find me?”

  “Your own words Isabella, several times over. Do you remember our first meeting?”

  Eva tugged at a restraint, tightening it, to emphasise the point. Isabella grunted.

  “I do remember, yes.”

  Eva nodded and paced around her captive. “You made some joke about a meme, but after that you said something telling. You said that lies work best when they contain an element of truth. Do you remember?”

  Isabella glared at her.

  “So, when you later told me about the café near your home growing up, I found out where you truly grew up and worked back from there. It seems your safest place in the world betrayed you.” She let that hang in the air for a moment. “Speaking of betrayal.” She slapped Isabella hard across the face. “That was for Volmer.”

  Isabella sneered. “That little man was about to give you everything. Worse, ’e would have spilled all to the BVT.”

  “What was he going to spill, Isabella?”

  The DGSE agent tilted her head, a red blemish materialising on the right side of her face. She tutted, then rolled her eyes, as if to say, not that easy.

  “Then what can you tell me?” Eva folded her arms and assessed Isabella. “Straight or lesbian?”

  Isabella pursed her lips and lifted an eyebrow at the question. “I hate to disappoint you, but I am straight.”

  “What was with all the lesbian talk?”

  She shrugged. “All part of the game.”

  “And if I took you up on the offer in the hotel room?”

  Isabella took a moment to think about it. “Then we would have learned many things together I think, yes?”

  Eva recommenced her pacing, formulating another tack to try. Isabella was well-versed in interrogation. This was going to be tough.

  Isabella’s arms pulled against the restraints. “I do not understand why you ’ave tied me up like this, Eva. In spite of all the events, I thought we were friends. I could ’ave killed you back in Vienna, at the ’otel, but I did not.”

  “You ran me over.”

  Isabella frowned. “In my defence, you were sh
ooting at me.”

  “You hit me with goddamn a car!”

  “But I did not kill you, no? I did not reverse over you, I did not fire my weapon at you. That is quite magnanimous of me, yes? You see? Friends.”

  Eva wasn’t getting anywhere. She decided to change the subject.

  “The identities of the suicide bombers. The DGSE knew them almost instantly. How?”

  Isabella poked out her chin. “The DGSE, we are incredibly good at what we do.”

  “Nobody is that good. Someone knew beforehand, and I think it was you.” Eva planted her fists on her hips. “I initially assumed they’d been identified quickly because Mustafa and the others had known terrorist links. But they didn’t. None of those kids had links with any terrorist organisation. The funny thing is, that’s not what you told me. So my question is, how did the DGSE know their identities?”

  Isabella shrugged, as innocent as a sleazy guy asking if you wanted a teabag.

  Eva went on. “You knew the attack was coming, Isabella. Either you alone or people within the DGSE, but you knew those bombers were going to strike. You knew innocent people were going to die, and I want to know why.”

  The chatty Isabella was suddenly quite cagey. She pursed her lips and shook her head as if to say, preposterous. Eva didn’t believe it. Isabella was involved, and Eva wanted to know how—and, more importantly, why.

  Eva pulled up a flimsy wooden chair in front of Isabella. Straddling it, she stared into Isabella’s eyes. “What about the families of your victims, Isabella? A hundred and ten people died with your bombs. Don’t you feel guilty about that?”

  The woman’s face was as stone cold as a glacier. Eva would keep poking until she found a kink in the armour.

  “What about the families of those children you so blatantly exploited? Hmmm? How would they feel about you sacrificing their sons for your own sick ends?”

  The disdain on Isabella’s face morphed. It was no longer tinged with contempt. It was something else entirely. It was menacing, vicious.

  “They are classe inférieure,” Isabella spat. “These people are all the same, whether they call themselves terrorists or not. They feed off my country like dogs, sucking us dry until we ’ave nothing left. ’ow do I feel about ’urting families like this? I feel nothing for them.”

  Eva tilted closer. “Careful there, Isabella, your prejudice is showing. Not exactly liberty, equality and fraternity, now is it?” Eva leaned back. “The families are innocent. They did nothing wrong until you stuck your hooks in their children, but they’ll be tarred as terrorist sympathisers, or worse, for the rest of their lives. You murdered their sons, their babies, for what? Don’t you care about that at all?”

  The way Isabella’s face transformed back into casual detachment made it plain she didn’t. She seemed not to care about the wreckage she’d wrought, on both the terrorist victims and the families of the perpetrators. She truly was heartless.

  Eva had gotten a reaction by mentioning the suicide bombers. She decided to push it further.

  “Again, I come back to your motive, Isabella. Forcing these kids to commit acts of terror isn’t going to rid your country of anyone of colour or of a certain religion. Your president spent time yesterday at a mosque, mending relations. So why sanction an act of terrorism? To what end?”

  Isabella gave a mirthless leer. “You think this is about terrorism?”

  Eva pushed herself away from the chair. It was virtually the same phrase Justin had uttered on top of the Ferris wheel. If it wasn’t about terrorism, what the hell was it about?

  For all the talk, Eva felt that she wasn’t getting anywhere. She needed concrete resolutions, not a vague collection of semi-answers. This was going to take a while.

  Just as she was about to launch into another round of questions, there was a deafening bang on the front door. Eva pulled out her pistol and aimed it at Isabella. She placed an index finger to her lips. Quiet.

  To emphasise the point, she wrapped a tea towel around Isabella’s mouth, forming an impromptu gag. She pointed at her to stay put. Isabella rolled her eyes. She wasn’t exactly going anywhere.

  In French, Eva called out, “Who is it?”

  A loud muffled male voice replied, “Fire brigade, ma’am. We are checking each of the apartments after the alarm. May I come in?”

  Eva peered through the peephole, gun barrel pointed at the door. On the other side was a member of the fire brigade, complete with full face respirator. That would explain the muffled voice.

  “All good here, thank you!”

  “Ma’am, I need to check, if that is alright? Regulations.”

  Behind the firefighter, other similarly clad members of the fire brigade were talking to various residents. They were all doing so with wide open doors.

  “Just a second, I’ll put some clothes on,” Eva said, rushing back to Isabella.

  She tilted the chair and dragged Isabella to the bathroom. Isabella’s gagged protests were silenced when Eva shut the door.

  Eva rushed to the door and opened it. The large bulky man nodded and gave a tweak of his helmet.

  “Thank you, ma’am. Now if I could have a quick scout of the apartment to ensure everything is alright.”

  Eva swivelled her shoulders seductively. “Are you sure that’s necessary?” She wasn’t happy about resorting to flirtation. It rubbed against her feminist tendencies. “I’m pretty sure there’s no fire.”

  She thought about adding, ‘unless you count in my pants’, but thought it would be a bit much.

  “I’ll only be a minute,” he said as he stepped into the apartment.

  “The kitchen is over there,” Eva said in the most girlish voice she could muster.

  Stay out of the bathroom! Eva tried to project the thought into the man’s head.

  He roamed about the apartment, giving the oven a superficial inspection. He was certainly a big bastard. Six-four and could have played in the backline of a rugby team.

  Thankfully he didn’t head for the bathroom, but he didn’t seem to moving towards the front door either. There was something about his manner that put Eva on edge. Why the respirator when his fellow firefighters didn’t have theirs on? Why hadn’t he even glanced at the smoke detectors? Eva could see two from where she was standing.

  “Excuse me,” Eva said, walking towards him, “what exactly is it that you’re—"

  The backhand sent her flying. Eva’s back slammed into the kitchen table and her nose exploded in a fireball of pain. For man of his bulk he moved like lightning. He slammed the front door closed and bounded towards her.

  Eva extracted the gun from behind her back, but before she could even manage to bring it around, the big man barrelled his shoulder into her. The blow sent her flying backwards. The gun flew from her hand and landed somewhere near the couch, while Eva smacked into the fridge, hard. The world spun in and out of focus. No matter what, she had to stay on her feet.

  Eva wiped the blood cascading from her nose. Time for some Krav Maga, you fuckmuppet.

  Eva crouched into her fighting stance and cracked her neck. “Let’s do this, Marshmallow.”

  The big man took a swing, a big haymaker. Eva ducked and let his overbalance propel him forward. She used her mass to push him off balance, sending him crashing into the fridge.

  That’s one. Eva still owed him for the first cheap shot.

  “Who the hell are you?” she demanded.

  The man didn’t answer, he simply rasped through the respirator. His next punch wasn’t as wild as the last. Eva managed to duck the blow and get in a few rib shots, but not enough to harm a unit of his size. She was outmatched. She needed to get out of the apartment, but there was no way she was leaving Isabella behind.

  Before Eva could get in position, the man was at her again. Two massive fists flying, he went for successive headshots. Eva weaved past the first, but caught the better part of the second, which sent her careening across the carpet.

  A small chuckle escap
ed the brute’s mask. It stopped quickly when he realised what Eva was up to. She’d used the force of the blow to fling herself across the room. Right near where her gun was.

  As Eva scrambled for her gun she heard the shot. The pain struck her at the same instant. The bastard had shot her in the lower back. It was excruciating. She screamed and clutched at the wound. Blood flooded through her fingers, and her vision lurched into blackness.

  She was going to pass out from the pain.

  The brute kicked away Eva’s gun, forever out of her grasp, then strode into the bathroom. Moments later, as Eva clung to the last of her consciousness, Isabella emerged, a triumphant sneer spread across her evil features.

  She knelt down, her face level with Eva’s, and tilted her head curiously, but didn’t say anything. She observed the blood spurting out of Eva’s wound and grinned.

  She traced a finger across Eva’s arm, then slid it down her back. She carefully lifted Eva’s weak hands, which had been clenching her wound. Isabella examined the lesion and gave a tsk tsk. She then extended a finger and plunged it directly into the bullet hole.

  Eva shrieked in mind-numbing pain.

  Isabella covered Eva’s mouth and said soothingly, “Shhh, my love, shhh.” She yelled in Eva’s ear so she could be heard over the screaming. “Do you remember the last time we spoke in Vienna?”

  Eva couldn’t focus on anything. The pain was beyond comprehension. She writhed on the floor, slipping in the pool of her own blood.

  Isabella went on. “I do. I told you I would always ’ave your back.” She sunk her finger further into the bullet wound and Eva screamed like never before.

  She blacked out.

  Chapter Ten

  Eva was jolted awake by a splash of water in her face. She spluttered and strained against the ties that bound her to the same flimsy wooden chair she’d tied Isabella to. The tide had turned, but now she knew how vicious Isabella could be.

  Friend, hey? She glared at her captor.

  “Oh, do not look at me like that,” Isabella said with a pout. “It could ’ave been much worse. I could ’ave thrown coffee in your face, no?”