Chapter 26: Mantis – Aurica – same day, earlier
In addition to being bad for her psyche at the best of times, this crappy weather also presented an element of fear in Mantis because she had to drive through it. She lacked confidence behind the wheel, even on a sunny day.
When she thought about it though, she suspected there was a good chance her fears were because of a specific unpleasant memory. As she heard another dollop of sleet slap her windshield, obscuring her vision on highway #400, where she continued to follow Ruth Clarkson-Smythe, Mantis recalled the high school teacher who taught the grade 11 driving instruction class.
Mantis remembered that a girl in the class named Madison had revealed the teacher's motives. Madison was the next-door neighbour to Mr. Puerco, the Spanish teacher. She informed anyone in class who listened, that he had admitted in conversation with Madison's mother that he 'taught the class so he could get a free car!'
Mantis's hands gripped the wheel of her rental car as she drove. She imagined she was performing a barehanded strangulation of Mr. Puerco and that the steering wheel was his neck! She recalled the day she went for her simulated test with Mr. Puerco and discovered that a free car was not the only reward he had been enjoying.
Mantis remembered how as part of her test, he had ordered her to drive the car to a large, secluded, and particularly vacant, grocery store parking lot. She had been shocked when he had offered her a guaranteed passing grade if she would service him sexually right there in the car.
As she changed lanes to continue her pursuit of Ruth, Mantis tried to laugh at the memory of Mr. Puerco with his left arm wrapped around the back of her driver's bucket seat when he turned to her just before he made his offer. She managed a smile because in retrospect, she recalled that he had thought he had a very attractive offer for grade 11 females.
He had apparently seen himself as a sort of gigolo with genuine allure as he presented his sweat-scented, porcine-shaped body to her for consideration. She laughed aloud in her rental car now as she thought about her refusal. She had explained, "But, sir, I would want to know that I really passed something like a driving test. If my certificate were false in anyway, then I could kill someone or myself due to insufficient training!"
She recalled that despite her entirely logical answer and that she never actually had the chance to say 'no thanks'; nevertheless, Mr. Puerco flew into a fury. She decided she was unsafe in the car, and opened her door to get out. He just missed grabbing her before she managed to close the door on his hand.
After she replayed this in her mind, she realized that he probably would have forced himself on her then; thus, he would have raped her in that car when she was 17, instead of her being date-raped by the captain of the rugby team when she was a university freshman at 19. Suddenly, this trip up the grey slushy #400 highway more resembled one down #1 bad memory lane.
As a truck passed by on the left, it sent a massive load of slush onto her windshield and this forced Mantis to pay attention to the road in front of her and forget the bad paths of her past.
She turned on the radio and heard a quiz show. As it played, Mantis pretended she was a contestant on a game show. She decided that the two bad experiences she just thought of were two prize options she could ignore. She imagined her conversation with the show's host.
She makes her selection, and asks, "I'll take whatever is behind door number 3, please!"
Dramatically, the host asks, "Are you certain? What if behind door number 3 you find a newspaper-stuffed moose!"
Sarcastically, she replies, "Well, if it is, then at least I know my prize won't be able to rape me!"
Mantis laughed aloud for a moment, and drove on, this time trying to recall any previous driving experience she had ever enjoyed. Then she remembered back a few years to her holiday in Bermuda. The island rules stated 'no foreign cars allowed'; thus, she and any other tourist who chose to drive, rented a moped and toured around the island with the sun tanning them as they drove. Why couldn't a rich snob like Clarkson-Smythe travel in the tropics instead?
As another 18-wheel truck passed Mantis on the left, splashing more slush on her window, she shook her head from side to side and let out a 'humph!' The weather had changed from 'sunny with a light breeze' to 'sleet all over my damned windshield' in surprisingly little time.
Mantis became worried. Her current location was Ontario, Canada, driving northward, during a winter snowstorm. This is screwed!
She changed radio channels and listened for any report relating to weather. If Ruth continued to drive for a long period in this northerly direction, then Mantis might give up pursuit.
To bolster her spirits, Mantis reminded herself that with $2.5 million at stake, then she should be creative and positive when thinking, instead of fearful and negative. She reasoned that if she could maintain pursuit, and then if Ruth eventually pulled over in some remote gas station – entirely feasible – then Mantis could kill her there!
True, she might have to drive at an unsafe speed to escape the crime scene unscathed, but then again, maybe not. She reasoned that the shock element of a killing would be so severe that Northern Ontarians would react slowly. How many would expect to see one woman shoot another dead in a gas station convenience store using an Uzi?
That is, Mantis recognized that if she were to pull a gun out of her overcoat in almost any American convenience store, then the owner there would pull out a gun and shoot back. Maybe too, patrons within the shop would join in; however, here in Canada, she wondered what the same sort of folks would pull out of their jackets – a fully loaded, semi-automatic, health card?
After almost two hours, but with the weather growing milder again, Ruth pulled off the #11 highway at a southbound road named '6th Street' and then drove in a southerly direction. Mantis followed, hoping that this rural road represented the opportunity she had anticipated. Theirs were the only two cars on it, and so Mantis could allow a gap to open up in her surveillance: she slowed to maintain discretion. She knew she could easily detect Ruth stopping or turning off the road now that they were the only ones on it.
Suddenly, Ruth turned off the road ahead, and so Mantis slowed her rental vehicle, and drove beyond Ruth's turnoff point. As she drove by, she saw Ruth heading westerly, but then her car turned north again, around what appeared to be a gravel driveway bend. Mantis could no longer see Ruth's vehicle due to tree cover. Great! Thank you very much, Ruth!
Mantis pulled over intending to analyze her situation. After just a few seconds, she reasoned that she should at least continue driving south until she found a place to turn around. In this way, she would be already pointing in the direction she expected Ruth to head in when she eventually departed. This would also allow Mantis to determine how far away any potential neighbour was to the south. Mantis had not detected any neighbours from the highway turnoff to Ruth's turnoff.
About a mile south, she found a driveway on the east side, and turned around. She returned to Ruth's turnoff; pulled over 50 feet in front of it; shifted her gear into park and turned off the engine. She needed to make a cell phone call to Tigris. She wanted to alert her boss that Ruth was still alive, but that Mantis was in pursuit.
Once connected, she said, "Tigris, this is Mantis."
With uncharacteristic excitement, he exclaimed, "Mantis!" Then he calmly explained, "I am pleased to hear your voice, but will be more pleased to hear it say 'job completed' for, you see, I have not received confirmation yet."
Mantis admitted, "The target remains extant."
"Unfortunate."
She explained, "In an unforeseen series of events, I have tracked her approximately two hours distance by automobile, north of the original intended neutralization location."
Tigris stated, "That does not make sense given our information on the target's habits, Mantis."
Mantis continued, "Agreed. The target has moved to a rural setting. Due to poor sightlines, I cannot see the target. I cannot perform surveillance from my position either; therefore
, I am not prepared at present to neutralize at this location."
"Unfortunate," began Tigris. Then he asked, "Do you have any information that might help us moving forward? As you know, the client requested completion today."
Mantis explained, "No more than that I believe the target is planning to travel soon – I spied several suitcases on her bed through my telescopic lens this morning."
"I see. That should be impossible given the information we received from the client directly."
Mantis reasoned, "I can continue to track the target; however, if it leaves the country, then I will require an extension on the time parameter."
Tigris explained, "I will need to contact the client for further instructions before confirming. I will return a call to you within half an hour."
"That is reasonable. In the meanwhile, I will continue my surveillance."
They ended their conversation there. Mantis realized she had a half an hour to kill, and then laughed thinking of the idiom 'to kill'. She had had a few seconds to kill before she would have killed Ruth Clarkson-Smythe about two hours ago, but now she was sitting in a rental car at the side of a rural road she imagined no one had ever heard of, except the locals, with a couple of thousand seconds to kill.
Judging by appearances, Mantis decided she was in farm country. She thought back to her youth, and that she grew up on the edge of the city in Dayton, Ohio. She recalled if she looked in one direction back then, she saw tall buildings from afar, but if she looked in the other direction, she saw cows and grass.
She understood rural settings, and the coldness of winter in Dayton. It was similar to this cold winter in Ontario. After all, the only thing separating heartland America in Ohio from a similar place in Ontario, Canada, was the Great Lakes and a small patch of Michigan.
She continued to sit for a few minutes, while she thought of what to do. She turned her engine on when the outside cold began to permeate the inside of the car. It was colder here than she remembered Dayton being, but then, she computed she would probably require about 6 hours to drive to Dayton from where she sat now, and that each hour she might drive on such a trip she would experience the air warming somewhat.
She also concluded that this rural Ontario spot was as close as she had been to home, since two Christmases ago, when she had visited her older sister and her family there for the holidays. She pulled out her real identification and perused it.
When she returned home for visits, Mantis always used the name she grew up with, Georgina Ivan. Only people in her hometown knew her by this name however, because she had changed it to 'Sheila Brown' before she embarked on her career as an assassin. She had concluded that any prospective assassin employers should only know her by a pseudonym to begin with: for her own protection from them, should she ever require it. This also served to protect family members' identities. If her employer suddenly turned on her, then her family would remain safe.
She legally changed her name after making copies of all her original identification. She kept the originals to use when visiting family so she would not raise suspicion. She smiled thinking to herself that she had thought of everything where it concerned her family and its safety.
On the other hand, she had not thought of her own safety to a satisfactory degree this morning. She should have selected a warmer overcoat before driving to Toronto. She brought her stylish black leather bomber jacket to Canada, intending to remain mostly indoors or in the rental car, but she had not anticipated her current situation. She told herself she would remain toasty warm if she did two things: stay in the car, and keep it running with the heat up.
The sleet had stopped falling by now, but a very light snow was falling in its place. It was perfect skiing snow, but she doubted that it would accumulate on the ground here because the temperature was not below zero. I know I must be bored when I am talking to myself about the weather!
She continued to think about the weather, but decided to think about it somewhere else. She recalled her family never took ski holiday trips to Canada, even though this country had the snow for it. They travelled to the eastern USA to ski, and once Georgina turned 13 and no longer cared for winter; her parents instead took her and her sister to Florida or South Carolina for warm winter holidays.
In fact, she realized she had never been to Canada as a youth because even when her family made their one pilgrimage to Niagara Falls, they had visited Goat Island, USA, and camped locally rather than cross over to the glitzy Canadian side. She remembered being a young adult before she had learned that, usually, America features the fabricated, shiny vacation spot, whereas, Canada features the untouched and natural one. The two countries had things reversed at Niagara Falls.
Thinking about Niagara Falls caused Mantis to recall crossing the border in Erie about a week ago, after acquiring the weapons arsenal in New York that she needed to complete this job. It was ironic that it was almost impossible to buy the weapons she needed in Canada, yet she could drive across its border with whatever she needed stuffed into the car trunk.
Tigris had assured her that Canadian border guards would not search a pretty, white female about 30 years old, who sported a $2.5 million smile upon her face. Nothing to declare!
Then Mantis remembered that she had brought a sweater, which she threw in the trunk after she picked up the rental car but before leaving her apartment in Philadelphia. She pulled the trunk lever and went to retrieve the sweater. She found it quickly but before she closed the trunk, she decided to risk removing the Uzi from its case, and to place it in the passenger's seat beside her.
After she returned to the car, she unzipped her bomber jacket intending to remove it before putting the sweater on under it. With one arm out of the jacket sleeve, Mantis noticed a set of headlights approaching her from the north. She paused for a moment, and then noticed that the vehicle approaching her had something on its top. 'Something' could be a problem; regardless, she did not want to appear to be stuck in this spot; thus tempting passing motorists to provide assistance.
She pulled her arm back into the jacket, and pretended to be using her cell phone. She knew that by doing this, the driver of the passing car would assume she was a dutiful citizen who had obeyed the law and pulled off the road to accept a phone call.
As she placed the phone to her ear, she noticed that the Uzi sat uncovered in the front passenger seat beside her. She quickly spread her sweater to cover the gun completely, and then continued with her fake call just as a car with the decaled letters O.P.P. on its door, pulled to a stop across the road from her about 25 feet in front of her car.
Emerging from within was a tall guy in a police uniform – O.P.P. stood for Ontario Provincial Police! He smiled as he approached her car. Mantis respected that she would have to engage in a conversation with him. She knew instantly that she needed to appear the opposite of a 'female motorist in need'.
Pretending someone was speaking to her, Mantis said, "I'm going to have to call you back, Trudy; there's a police officer come to check on me." Pausing to increase the realism, Mantis then nodded, smiled, and said, "Yeah, love you too, girl!" She pretended to end the call and then politely addressed the officer, asking, "Good afternoon officer, can I assist you in some way?"
Hearing the petite, very pretty woman, utter his line, the constable remarked, "Uh, no ma'am; actually, I stopped to check on you. When I saw the car at the side of the road with someone in it, I assumed they may be in need of roadside assistance!"
Cheerfully, Mantis explained, "Golly, officer, that sure is sweet of you, but I'm fine! You see, my girlfriend called me on my cell, and well . . ." She stopped to change her tone and then continued as if she were repeating a phrase an elderly authoritative male had told her. Mantis stated, "I know that the law requires me to pull over to deal with cell phone calls!"
Pleased she was obviously obedient to the law, he remarked, "Yes, ma'am, that's correct!"
As she spied the officer's cruiser was empty, and that he was probably
6'2'' and about 200 pounds, Mantis rambled on, saying, "Yeah, so I did that, and you know, I think it's a great law, officer. Driving is hard enough without distractions like that!"
Impressed, he suggested, "Ma'am, that's a good attitude to maintain. You want to be obeying the law at all times. I'll let you get back to your call now."
Mantis noticed that his jacket was open enough that she could see his nametag on his uniform: PC Shempherd.
She concluded, "Thank you officer, and thanks for caring!"
"You're welcome, ma'am. Have a good day, eh," said PC Shempherd, and then he returned to his cruiser and drove slowly southward.
After that exchange, Mantis decided to turn the heat up higher and forget the sweater. She needed it to hide the gun! She dare not leave the vehicle to put it back in the trunk – the cop might see her!
She glanced at the car clock. It read 12:34. If Tigris called her as promised, then he would be doing so no later than in 10 more minutes. Mantis began to think of a story she could tell to the cop if he returned and she were still sitting here.
True to his word though, Tigris returned her call at 12:41.
He explained, "Tigris here, Mantis. Unfortunately, I have no illuminating information for you. The client suggested that since the target is rich, she is likely planning a holiday. The client applauded your attention to this detail and encouraged you to continue pursuit."
Annoyed, Mantis complained, "But Tigris, I can't get on board a plane with this arsenal. I'll have to ditch it all in the airport parking lot. Do you have an operative who can pick the car up and deal with the contents?"
Sighing, he answered, "I will have to find one, Mantis. This case is priority one. The client insisted that you complete the task by Sunday at midnight."
She explained, "Message received. I had better end this call soon, Tigris. I just had a visit from the local police. If I wait around much longer I could draw another visit."
Hoping to offer advice, Tigris asked, "Which police force was it?"
She answered, "A group called O.P.P. The officer just left in his cruiser a few minutes ago. I cannot risk another visit."
"Understood," he replied. Then he added, "Contact me when you discover her travel destination. I will have someone in place to meet you with a new arsenal at the landing point."
They ended the call, and Mantis made mental notes of the new plan. She had to kill Clarkson-Smythe by this Sunday at midnight. The time was now just before 1 PM on Friday; thus, she had less than 60 hours to complete the hit, but where was Ruth going? Mantis reminded herself that $2.5 million was enough money for her to do a lot of high fashion shopping, fine dining, and sunbathing. This will be worth it – eventually!
She comforted herself knowing that Tigris would be ultra-efficient also because as an employer, he always took a percentage cut of the hit fee. If she stood to make $2.5 million, he was going to earn a half million, essentially for playing telephone secretary.
If it disturbed Mantis that Tigris made so much for doing so little, then it truly annoyed her that the client had such faulty information about Ruth's plans and habits: who was her client and why were they so poorly informed? Probably some asshole politician – most likely a Republican!
Zarulium Chronicles I - Destination Nazca Page 29