by Cole Reid
“You’re still a patriot,” said Georgia.
“I’ll never say I’m not,” said Gavril.
“At least they’re no misconceptions,” said Georgia.
“None,” said Gavril.
“In my mind communism has its misconceptions,” said Georgia.
“How so?” said Gavril.
“Communism is supposed to support the working class, am I correct?” said Georgia.
“Well, it’s meant to create one class, the working class,” said Gavril, “But if you create a class of workers, you just have workers and no class. They cannot represent their own interest because they have been created. They didn’t create themselves.”
“In so doing it creates a misconception,” said Georgia, “More likely a distortion.”
“What misconception is that?” asked Gavril.
“It creates a misconception between those who struggle and those who have struggled,” said Georgia.
“Ok,” said Gavril.
“Well the Bolsheviks wanted to oust the upper class not understanding that the upper classes at some point were working class,” said Georgia, “The factory owner worked in a factory, paid attention to what he saw everyday and saved his nickels. He did so in knowing that one day he could own and run his own factory. The mechanics and workers would work for him and some obvious jealousy would be involved. The factory owner is guilty because he thought a little further ahead. He was wise enough to make his struggle past tense. But the factory workers don’t see that. They only see that they are the ones wiping sweat from their brow but the factory owner isn’t. So they rise up, take his factory—with little history in mind. They’ve forgotten the history.”
“And that’s how you wind up with a society with no history,” said Gavril. Georgia set her coffee down and gave him applause, three claps only. She smiled away from him out into the open air of the room.
“Could it be that we agree on something,” said Georgia.
“You mean something besides a mutual love of intellectual argument,” said Gavril.
“Let’s call it part of your recovery,” said Georgia, “Your body seems to be heeling nicely. We’re working on your wits.”
“And so you’re debating communism with me as part of my recovery,” said Gavril.
“Some recovery is for your body,” said Georgia, “Some is for your m---”
They heard the sound at the same time but Georgia reacted first. Gavril was recently up from a long slumber. He hadn’t returned to awareness as a reflex. He held his cup hoping the sound wouldn’t repeat itself. Georgia didn’t need it. She knew it was a gunshot. She even knew the caliber, .25. It was a rare caliber. Her training made it more common, but only to her ear. She set her cup down unsteady. It fell to its side spilling coffee on the kitchen island and the floor. Out of the corner of her eye, Georgia could see Gavril was static on his feet. She was one step ahead in every meaning. Realizing Gavril was still getting use to the unpredictability of reality, she gave him a hint.
“Gun,” said Georgia, looking back at Gavril. Georgia hustled toward the stairs.
“Where are you going?” shouted Gavril, still frozen in place.
“To get my weapon,” said Georgia, “Stay away from the windows.” Georgia sprinted up the stairs realizing there was a low probability an MVD man would take orders from a woman. She realized she’d have to rush even harder to protect Gavril from himself. He would try to take charge of the situation, even though he was in no condition to do so.
Gavril rushed to the window and looked through the glass French doors toward the vineyard. There was nothing out of the ordinary. He saw a figure move through the window next to the French doors. He looked to the side to see a bald-headed man aiming a steel-plated pistol down toward the ground. The man seemed so focused on his target that he didn’t notice Gavril through the window. The bald man fired three times into his unseen target. The low caliber of the pistol let out no flash, only a bang. Gavril heard the three pops in succession and froze.
Georgia took the bottom drawer of her dresser completely out and found her Browning taped to the bottom. She inspected the pistol to make sure the safety was on, before tearing off the tape. As she ran through the open door, something hit her. She realized the look in Gavril’s eyes. She hadn’t had time to register the look because the picture of her pistol was at the forefront of her mind. With pistol in hand, she didn’t focus on it anymore. She could see the look in Gavril’s eyes again. He froze—froze from shock. It took Georgia to the bottom of the stairs to get a clearer picture of what happened. She made a mistake. She wasn’t the only one to recognize the sound of the gun. Both she and Gavril had recognized the sound. But they reacted to it differently. The last time Georgia heard a .25 caliber round go off, she was in training. The last time for Gavril was when he was shot.
The meaning was simple. Gavril was compromised. Georgia had to prioritize. The gun had gone off from close range. The caliber was too low to be effective from a distance. The target wasn’t far from Georgia when she heard it—Simone. She left Simone outside as she came inside for more coffee. As targets go, Simone was a sitting duck—alone, outside. At the bottom of the stairs, Georgia realized she had heard three more shots when she was fishing for her gun. Those three shots complicated her priority. She didn’t know where those shots went. She crouched down as she reached the bottom step. With both arms outstretch in front of her she held her weapon just between her eyes, lining up her sight. She looked directly into the dining room toward Simone’s chair. She could see the wooden buffet behind Simone’s chair and the end of the table where Simone sat. That was it. There were no reflective surfaces to cheat from. She could only see what she saw. There were no reflections. Without any reflections to enhance her view, she looked directly at the floor. There were no shadows that didn’t explain themselves from what she knew was in the dining room. It gave her only one option. She waited and listened. She held her weapon steady, waiting for any moving thing to come into view. She waited. Realizing it wouldn’t be that easy, she refocused her priority to finding Gavril. Cedric was somewhere. Simone was outside. It wasn’t worth going outside to find Simone. Georgia figured it was the protocol of the French agencies because it was CIA protocol. If she owed a specific duty to protect Simone, then it would serve her purpose to go outside and check on Simone. If she didn’t, Simone would not be expecting her and would not be priority. It was the same protocol with all high-ranking officers. Unless specifically trained in evasion, ranking officers were to wait to be rescued. Georgia wasn’t Simone’s rescuer. Cedric was.
Given his recent coma, Georgia saw Gavril as most critical. Most critical was always the priority. She couldn’t shout his name. That was Hollywood. She didn’t know where the shooter was and if he was in the house. Shouting would give herself away. But strafing wouldn’t. She swung her body to the left to look right down the hall. She held her breath as she pointed her pistol. She was as steady as she could be, while moving her body sideways to see if anything would come into view—nothing. She swung her body to the right to look toward the dining room to see if there was anything else that could reveal itself. Georgia took a quick step into the hallway. Realizing the wine cellar was down the hall, through the door, Georgia let probability take over. There was little likelihood the shooter was on the other side of the door to the wine cellar. He couldn’t have gotten in that way, which meant he couldn’t have gotten out that way.
Knowing that side of the house had to be secure, Georgia turned to aim toward the living room. She moved slowly at first, positioning herself against the right side of the doorway to get a better view of the rest of the dining room. Georgia stood against the wall aiming toward the dining room. She heard a sound behind her. She had heard it many times before and couldn’t mistake it. It was the old wooden door to the wine cellar. Georgia made a quick retreat to the stairway and pointed her pistol toward the door. She put a slight pressure on the trigger and readied for the sl
ow squeeze. As the figure came into view, her eye was a fraction of a second quicker than her hand. She didn’t fire. Cedric came through with a bucket stacked with a mop. Georgia knew he couldn’t hear the small caliber gunfire from inside the wine cellar. His English was good but she had no time for English.
“Êtes-vous armé?” asked Georgia. Are you armed? The question was very stupid but very necessary.
“No,” said Cedric.
“Get your weapon,” said Georgia.
“What is happening?” asked Cedric.
“We heard four shots outside, from the kitchen,” said Georgia.
“Where is she?” asked Cedric.
“She was outside,” said Georgia.
“Where is he?” asked Cedric.
“I don’t know,” said Georgia, “I went upstairs to get my weapon.” Cedric set the bucket of water down, making very little noise. He walked at a quick pace toward Georgia looking awkward, like a pantomime. Like a pantomime, he didn’t make a sound. From close range, they could whisper.
“Get your weapon,” said Georgia, “Go check on Le Poq.” Cedric nodded.
“I will find the Gun,” said Georgia, “.25 caliber small arm, no one came here for a fight. The gunman will run. You know better than I do. Which way would you run?”
“Through the vineyard,” said Cedric. Georgia thought about Cedric’s words, as they started moving together. If the story Simone laid out were true, then the shooter had trained with Georgia, one of the boys. Georgia’s training was to never go back the same way she came. It was a good way to get ambushed or caught, which meant the shooter wouldn’t double back either. Cedric stayed behind Georgia as both entered the dining room. Cedric moved in between the buffet and the dining table. He peered through the door leading to the waiting chamber. Georgia went with him as they both scanned the room and looked through the entrance hall into the foyer. Like most rooms in the house there were two ways in and out. Through the foyer was a short hallway that led to Cedric’s bedroom and his weapon. Georgia looked down the entrance hall aiming her pistol and moved quickly with Cedric into the foyer. The foyer was next to the front entrance of the house. Anything in the front of the house could be heard from the foyer and seen through the window.
They both heard something. It was easy to recognize. It was the rhythm of a run. It was one of the most recognizable sounds, a person running. The rhythmic pattern of one foot then the other sounded like nothing else. It wasn’t an animal or an automobile. The shallow gravel in the front of the house broadcasted the footsteps as each foot shattered the arrangement of the small stones on impact. Georgia and Cedric ran to the large foyer window, looking out toward the driveway.
A bald-headed man was running up the gravel drive and was nearing the gate leading to the road. Cedric looked at Georgia without saying anything. Cedric ran toward his bedroom Georgia ran back to the entrance hall to the front door. It was a single solid wood door. The key was in the lock. Georgia turned the key and pulled the door open in one burst of energy. The next thing she saw was daylight and could feel the shifting gravel beneath her feet. As Georgia ran, she realized how loud the gravel was. She could no longer hear the gravel steps of the man running in front of her. The gravel affected her head. She had to stop her thoughts and get back in the game. The gravel made her feel slow. Among the Peers, she was the slowest overall, boys and girls. Running, Georgia had the idea that Simone had the gravel driveway put in on purpose. It was impossible to come or go without the gravel announcing it. Even with her father’s house, Simone had manipulated the details to her advantage. Georgia realized the extent of Simone’s shrewd mind but she couldn’t admire it. The gravel made it more difficult to run and she could feel her thighs sliding against one another. The gravel absorbed all impact and left nothing to push off of. Georgia didn’t have a runner’s build and the gravel mocked it. She stepped off the gravel onto the grass and cut across the garden, trampling maintained flowers and meticulous work. Georgia saw the man running to the left down the road. She didn’t have the safety on. She was taught not to. In the heat of it, many forgot about the safety. Having it on could ruin the one clear shot she might get.
She was taught to run without having her finger in the trigger guard, holding her weapon almost like a cocktail glass. She could quickly slide her index finger into the trigger guard as she adjusted into firing position. That’s what she did. She knew she had to get closer to the man. He wore a navy polo shirt and blue jeans. The direct sunlight reflected off his tan, shiny head. His shiny baldhead made it hard to lose sight of him but Georgia had to close the distance to get off a shot that had a decent chance of hitting him. Her Browning was small caliber like the weapon he was carrying. Whatever happened would happen at close range. There wasn’t much point to firing outside fifty meters. He was moving and the low caliber cartridge would start to stray from its intended path, the further it flew. The point wasn’t to aim at him. The point was to hit him.
Georgia was closing diagonal distance as the man ran along the road. She hustled knowing the man was in shape. He could run faster and longer than she could. She had one advantage. She heard the rounds he fired and earmarked them as .25 caliber. Her Browning held seven .32 caliber rounds. The advantage was slight but she didn’t have to get as close to him as he did to her. It was also possible that he had only a few rounds left. She heard four distinct rounds go off. He had either three or two rounds left, unless he had reloaded. The spy game was more like Blackjack than Poker. Probabilities were hard to come by. You did more assuming. Like Blackjack, you assumed the down card was a face card. It was the same as assuming every gun was fully loaded. Without knowing otherwise, Georgia gave the man a seven-round magazine to match her own. The idea sparked a small panic and she decided to stop and fire before getting to the painted-white fence that outlined the property. The shot ripped through the top of one of the planks but the man didn’t seem fazed. He was fazed. She didn’t know who he was but no one was unaffected by gunfire. She thought she changed the game psychologically, seeing how he did under pressure. Georgia sped up as she approached the white wooden fence. She looked down at her weapon and secured the safety. She took the fence like she meant to tackle it. She threw her right shoulder into the fence and used her cast left hand to brace on the cross board, as she cartwheeled her body over the fence. Her shoulder joint was bruised as she came down on the other end of the fence. But she didn’t flag it. She kept one thing in mind, as she went upside down over the fence. No matter how she landed; no matter what injuries she thought she had, she focused on remembering to disengage the safety. She landed on her feet but rolled to her side to take the impact of the ground. On her side, she flicked the safety switch up. She scrambled to her feet and took one, two, three, four steps forward. She put her arms out in front of her and let the muzzle of the gun line up between her eyes. She could see the man was still running but more of a jog. The mad sprint down the gravel driveway had winded him. By Georgia’s estimate he was outside her desired 50-meter range so she aimed for his torso but aimed slightly high to compensate for gravity’s pull. She slow squeezed the trigger and released it, feeling the blowback muzzle scrape the top of her right hand. She readjusted her grip to compensate for her cast-bound hand. She repeated the slow squeeze with her right hand to send another round toward her target. She counted the rounds like she learned to. She had four shots left. She squeezed off one more round at the man who was still standing but didn’t appear to be running. As long as he was on his feet, he was a target. But because he wasn’t running, Georgia held out her pistol in his direction and marched steadily closer. If he took off, she still had three shots to put him down. She saw the man go down—not all the way, to his knees. From a good forty meters back, the man looked like he could be readying his weapon. Georgia rang out another shot that she saw hit his back. He went forward down on his arm. Georgia kept her gun pointed—two shots left. She didn’t run up to him. She walked. She didn’t worry about cars passin
g by. They could become the victims of a clever explanation. She was more concerned about the downed man, who he was and what he had done. As she walked closer to the man lying face down in the grass on the side of the road, she could hear him breathing. His breathing wasn’t rhythmic. There were short inhales and long exhales, more air going out than coming in.
“Spread your hands out as far as you can,” said Georgia, “If I don’t see ‘em I put one in your ass.” The man’s hands went out. Lying flat on his chest made his labored breathing become almost none existent.
“Gigi, let me roll over,” said the man. The name made Georgia pause. She didn’t want him to roll over. No one had called her Gigi since they were all together—the boys and the girls.
“Gigi, please,” said the voice almost sounding desperate. Simone told the truth all along. It was the truth that could have stayed unverified. The man in the grass was one she trained with—one of the Peers. Georgia didn’t want him to roll over. She didn’t want to know which of them were dead. If he had killed all the others but her, then he was the last man down and she was the last woman standing. As she looked him over, she could see the three holes in the back of his shirt. They looked like snags, like he had caught his shirt on the fence. But he didn’t go over the fence. Georgia did.
