The Orion Assignment

by Camacho, Austin S.

  At that moment, he was very happy he possessed an unexplained sixth sense that alerted him to danger. He had read a lot on the subject in the last few months, since he discovered another person, Felicity, with the same sense. He had always thought his five senses combined to alert him on some subconscious level, but he now suspected he possessed a true form of extrasensory perception. He figured if he relaxed and let his instincts guide his aim, perhaps this bizarre sense would tell him in advance when a clay pigeon would fly.

  As if in slow motion, he watched the first clay target leap into the air, and shattered it in zone one with little effort, not reacting to the muted blast. The second flew, then the third and the fourth. Each one he blasted with ease. Five was lower and faster, but he pulled the trigger at the right time to hit it in the zone. The gun’s stock punched into his shoulder, but it was a comfortable and familiar pressure.

  While he reloaded he glanced at O’Ryan. The Irishman smiled back. He had hit one target O’Ryan missed, but the toughest ones were still to come.

  He leaned far over to the right to sweep onto number six and kept swinging so that he blasted number seven well inside the target zone. Then he was swinging right. As lead shot crashed into number nine, he thought to himself that he had caught both clays his opponent missed. Now he had a shot. He could beat him.

  In the same microsecond that thought was born in his mind, another part of his brain recognized it as the distraction of overconfidence. The bottom row of target grids was much too fast to be forgiving. An instant’s hesitation caused the next blast to be high. He hit the clay, but above the ten space. No score.

  Forget it, he told himself. Move on. Swing onto the next target. The clay pigeon exploded in the number seven spot, and the final disc shattered well inside grid twelve a few seconds later. He kept squeezing the trigger with gentle pressure and potted the last two flying targets with almost casual ease. Only when the blast died away and the clay shards lay on the ground did he turn to face O’Ryan. They had tied.

  The big Irishman was walking toward Morgan, but the black man was looking past him. He was scanning the area for Claudette, but it seemed that she had not waited around for the finish.

  “Well, my friend, now we shall stand side by side.” O’Ryan’s too-big teeth shone in a death’s head grin. “The tie breaker game is called `one hundred and out’. You know the game?”

  “I think so. Why don’t you refresh my memory?” The gentle breeze stopped dead as Morgan spoke and at that moment the world population shrank to two for this pair of combatants. Their eyes locked for a moment. Then O’Ryan turned and shouted to the crowd behind them.

  “First I choose three targets. Eight, ten and twelve.” He turned and mounted his weapon. Clay targets flew in the order called, one right after the other. O’Ryan shattered them in order.

  “Each target is worth the number of points corresponding to its position. The total of eight, ten and twelve is thirty, which I now deduct from my score. I have seventy to go, and the first man to get to zero and then break a pair, wins. Of course, as I have hit all three targets I shoot again.”

  While the stocky Irishman reloaded, a man wearing a press badge eased up to Morgan’s side. His windblown hair gave him a wild, flighty look.

  “Do you know this man?” he asked in a neutral British accent.

  “Just met. Why?”

  “A word of advice,” the reporter said.

  “Yes?”

  “Lose.”

  “What?” Morgan stared. “Why?”

  “Mister O’Ryan is not a good loser,” the reporter said in a confidential tone. “I mean, he don’t lose often, and them what beats him, well, sometimes they disappears.”

  Then he was gone, and O’Ryan called for the same three targets. Again they flew, and again he dispatched them with three quick blasts. He turned, smiled at Morgan, smiled at the onlookers and shouted, “Again!”

  “Can you be lucky three times in a row?” Morgan asked just before the first clay leaped into the sky. Flying lead pellets smashed number eight. Another clay bird died in the ten spot but the twelve came up faster than O’Ryan could react and he undershot it.

  “I have twenty-two to go, me Yankee friend,” he said, backing away from the mark. “Now, will you take an easy combination and risk having to shoot all day, or will you be daring and take higher numbers like us grown-ups? You do realize, don’t you lad, that my next turn will be the last?” O’Ryan was playing to the audience, and his brogue was coming out with his viciousness.

  Morgan’s response was calm and assured. “Judgment is the game. I’ll call six, eight and ten.” He had called an easier combination not worth as many points. He hoped that with consistent shooting he could continue on and take the match in one turn.

  The six was a medium easy shot. For the ten, he just dropped his point of aim a couple degrees. An easy swing to the right brought him on line for the eight. The first set was gone in seconds. During reload he glanced over at O’Ryan but his opponent was focused on the targets. Would he feel beaten if Morgan won this way?

  Morgan set himself for the second wave. Bending forward was beginning to bother his lower back a little and as he tracked and blasted clay number six he received a short message from his right shoulder. After the eight and ten he realized that a padded jacket would be an asset. But he was down to fifty-two points and he was confident he could win.

  A third time clay targets flew into the black void. In the six box lead scattered fragments of a clay bird. He waited and caught the ten just as it left the ground, but he barely caught the third fugitive at the upper edge of the eight space.

  His score was down to twenty-eight, but he was getting physical reminders that he was not a regular shotgun hunter. His right shoulder was sore as hell, and at this rate he would have to do this twice more. An extra opportunity to miss and give that Irish murderer the one chance he needed to laugh in Morgan’s face.

  His mind wandered to the reporter for a second. He may have been a concerned citizen, but Morgan suspected he was a shill sent by O’Ryan in an attempt to unnerve him. If so, he could not allow him to think it worked.

  He knew what he was talking himself into.

  Some days, your common sense has no choice but to compromise with your ego.

  “Let’s not drag this out,” he said into the hunter’s florid face. “I’m changing my numbers. I call nine, ten and eleven.” In return, he received a stare of disbelief. Targets shot through the bottom zones with incredible speed and now he was going for three of them in rapid succession, including the one space that had been O’Ryan’s nemesis.

  He had just a moment to reach to his center to achieve perfect calm and a kind of relaxed tension. All his senses beamed in on a spot inches from the ground, a spot through which the first target would fly. He had to be ahead of it. He wondered, just for an instant, if he had made a stupid mistake.

  He felt a feather touch of sensation on the back of his neck and knew it was time. Even he was surprised when he fired a split second before the first clay cleared the trap. He was already aiming at the middle of the ten zone when the number nine pigeon exploded. He fired on the next clay disc, and before the buckshot hit it he was swinging hard to the left. Faster, he told himself. His back screamed as he pivoted left and down on the flash of movement in the darkness, like a target acquisition computer, and squeezed the trigger.

  He felt the punch into his shoulder which told him the gun’s butt had not been fully seated. Across the bead sight at the tip of his barrel, he saw the clay burst apart in front of the glowing yellow eleven in the corner of the grid.

  After three deep breaths, he called for the closeout double. With an arrogance born from the union of ego and skill, he fired from the hip, and caught them in zones one and two. There was a smattering of applause when he returned to O’Ryan’s position.

  “Good shooting,” O’Ryan said through clenched teeth. He held out his hand, which was full of American bills
. “Especially for a soldier. And you said you’re not a hunter, did you not?”

  “Oh I hunt,” Morgan said, putting his hand into O’Ryan’s to accept his bet winnings. “But I only hunt terrorists. Know any?”

  Ian O’Ryan locked his short thick fingers around Morgan’s and what the crowd saw as a courteous handshake threatened to break bones in Morgan’s hand. O’Ryan was applying crushing pressure and he had caught Morgan off guard. It seemed too childish an attack to consider.

  “Terrorists are always hunted, even though it is they who are the hunters.” O’Ryan glared into his new enemy’s eyes.

  Morgan did not allow the pain or the anger he felt to cross his face. Instead, he took a small step toward O’Ryan and moved his left hand forward in a casual manner. Out of sight of the onlookers he ground the knuckle of his middle finger into the back of O’Ryan’s hand.

  “Now be a good loser and let it go,” Morgan said, maintaining a cheerful smile. “I don’t want to have to hurt you in front of all these people.”

  O’Ryan emitted a muted growl and their clasped hands sprang apart. Money fluttered to the ground but neither man moved to collect it.

  “One day, boy.” O’Ryan spat the words out. “One day you’ll forget to look over your shoulder. That’s the day I will be there.”

  “I look forward to you getting that close,” Morgan answered. “I like to look a man in the eye when I break him.”

  As Morgan walked away, he heard Ian O’Ryan say under his breath, “Don’t sleep too soundly, boy.”

  - 13 -

  Patrick O’Neill led the young maid into the long Pompeii gallery with a flourish. He was on night guard duty this time, and the end of the shift was not far off. The girl had never been allowed in the gallery but she had heard stories. Patrick had tried for several days to convince her to share his bed. Last night she decided she might just give him what he wanted, if he would take her to see this room that was always locked.

  The instant the light came on, the simple maid was captivated. There was beauty there she had never experienced, except in an occasional book. She drank in the deep richness of the paintings, the smooth detail of the busts and sculptures, the sparkling majesty of the jeweled pieces. This was indeed a rainbow’s end of loveliness and being able to say she had seen it was a cachet well worth the price of admission.

  While she indulged in this beauty, O’Neill was busy clearing a place on the long table for collecting that price. He moved one item at a time, careful to remember where each one was. By the time he made enough space, the maid was coming to him with a new glow on her face. He was impatient and she saw no reason to delay. In seconds she was leaning back against the table and he was hiking up her skirts.

  Enveloped in a sea of blackness, Felicity listened to the young couple’s grunts and groans. She hung suspended in the fireplace, no more than five feet above the floor. Her bare feet were pressed against the wall in front of her. The rough brick of the opposite wall scraped her back sparking flashes of pain.

  The stale air she breathed was thick with dust, not soot. If she reached above her head she could touch the bricks blocking off the flu over this fireplace that was no longer used. Her body was wedged into a space no more than thirty inches square. Years of yoga training and burglar experience prepared her to ward off claustrophobia. With a conscious effort she forced her muscles to relax, except for those really needed to hold her in position. She created a calm center within herself, and then expanded it until it held her entire being. One small piece of her awareness was left to follow the activity out in the room.

  Colleen O’Hara, upstairs maid of Orion House, had proved herself to be well worth waiting for. She bucked her ample hips one last time, draining the last of Patrick’s love essence from him, and released a contented sigh. She preferred these hurried meetings to having a man in for an evening. For one thing, a different setting made it all the more exciting. Also, she didn’t face the hassle of having to shoo a boy out of her room.

  Two minutes later she and Patrick were returning the articles on the table to their original positions. Three minutes later they were closing the door behind them.

  Four minutes after the lock clicked closed, Felicity lowered her toes to the floor. One thigh was cramping but despite the pain she moved across the floor without a sound to retrieve her shoes from behind the toga covered statue. She had thrown them there on her hurried way to the only hiding place in the room.

  It would not do to be seen now, begrimed by her hidey-hole, but she doubted anyone was abroad at this hour. Her hearing and her instincts told her the hallway was empty. She slipped out of the room, losing no speed for all her stealth, and moved like a living shadow to the front door.

  Crunching down the gravel path, she glanced east and saw the razor’s edge of light that presaged the dawn. To her surprise she realized at that moment how much she had missed watching the sunrise over those deep green hills.

  On her left, a man in a hunting jacket and boots came running around the hedge, cradling a shotgun. No hunter, she thought, but rather a guard. And he was on the lookout for people coming in, not those going out. Get into character and stick to your role, she thought.

  Affecting a slight stagger, the type that might go with a hangover, she continued three or four steps, and then looked up as if seeing the man for the first time. She froze, lifted a finger to her pursed lips and shushed him. Then she gave him a big smile and a broad wink, and tiptoed on. The “hunter” gave her a conspiratorial smile and let her pass.

  Once out of sight, she pulled off her shoes, hiked up her skirts and fell into a light jogging pace. A cooling breeze tossed her hair and tall grass swabbed her feet and ankles with dew. The first birds of morning acknowledged her passing with song. It would be a pleasant dawn run to her uncle’s little house.

  She could hardly wait to get back to Sean’s cottage, set up her room with the darkroom gear she had bought, and develop the film in her camera. Once she knew where O’Ryan kept his money and how much he had, she could direct her two partners to take it away from him.

  - 14 -

  Every great city has a personality all its own. Over time, any area cluttered with enough humanity takes on human characteristics. Like the grand dame of Europe she is, Paris is flashy, always wearing her best jewelry and charming her visitors with witty stories and a gay smile. Morning to evening, she shows the tourists why she still deserves her singular sobriquet: the City of Lights.

  But Morgan was no tourist. He knew the old girl’s other face. He had seen her without her wigs and girdle. He was familiar with this town’s seamy underside, her sewers and subways. He knew this city as the center of Europe’s underworld. He knew the worst and, like a boy with an aging favorite aunt, he loved her anyway.

  A light rain fell on his uncovered head as he walked the narrow back streets, at home in the dark. He wondered if he should have stayed at Claudette’s instead.

  Morgan had taken a taxi to Claudette’s apartment after the shooting match. After she didn’t respond to his knock he opened the door with the two keys she had given him.

  “Hey, baby, did you wait up for me?” he called as he entered. A quick look around told him that he was talking to empty rooms. Nothing was disturbed, and there was no reason to suspect trouble. He opened the closet to see if a coat had been pulled out, or if her day outfit was hanging in its place. No, it looked as if she had not been home since they separated at the Air Show. He figured that she was just staying elsewhere for a while. He realized how much O’Ryan must have spooked her, but knew she would return. Too bad. He had wanted to celebrate his victory with her. Instead he stood his new gun case in the closet.

  He had picked up a new toy for himself at the Air Show, a sniper rifle complete with scope. It would sit there for a while, until he was ready to leave town. His immediate course of action was to shower quickly and change clothes. He could have gathered his things and left, but not without saying good-bye. Maybe he shoul
d have waited for her to come home but he was too excited by his victory to sit still. Already he was pacing like a caged tiger. He had to get out.

  His thoughtful stroll through the city continued until it was nearing dawn and he was listening to the staccato beat of his own shoes on the rain-slicked sidewalk. In black denim trousers and a leather jacket he wandered the streets without purpose or direction. He did it often, knowing it was impossible for him to get lost.

  He didn’t change his pace when two sets of footsteps were added to his own, but he did change directions. He knew by the sound he was being followed by two large men who were amateurs at it. No problem. He was just in the mood for a good mugging.

  He turned several corners, crossing the street whenever his followers got too close. He smiled when he came to a cross street he judged to be a total of twenty-two feet wide. He would not likely find a narrower lane. At the corner he stopped to stare up at the street sign, nailed to the brick wall of a building as was common in France. He could just make it out in the darkness. Rue de la Chat-Qui-Peche.

  “Street of the cat who fishes?” he wondered out loud. His French was rudimentary, but he was pretty sure that was it. Or maybe it was the cat that was a fish. It hardly mattered. He walked on, knowing a street this narrow would be crossed by an even narrower alley, where he hoped to find some privacy.

  Morgan could almost feel his followers’ arrogant overconfidence as he stepped into the dead end passageway. Near the alley’s end wall, he turned to face them. Two large lineman types in cheap sweat shirts and slacks stepped forward. Clearly one was East European. His facial structure and hair were unmistakable. The other brute was pure Irish. They moved in unison, with smooth coordination that gave silent evidence that they were not amateurs at this part. He smiled at them, looking forward to a nice, quiet fight to release his tension.