by Nic Saint
“Right.”
Frank sounded dubious, and Matt couldn’t blame him. In spite of the fact that the woman had kicked his ass three times, and had made a fool of him during the interrogation, he couldn’t deny she was one hot mama. He’d never liked the skinny types. For him a woman had to have curves, and there was no denying that Yvonne Assenheimer was all curves all over. The moment the thought entered his mind, he blocked it. He so didn’t want to go there. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Frank the ASS frowned upon interoffice relationships.
Besides, he was pretty sure she hated his guts. Why else would she kick him up and down the alley?
Suddenly a thought struck him. “You know what’s weird? Yvonne and Izzy are at the top of their game, right? The best of the best of the best?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So why let us capture them? I mean, they kicked our asses pretty good, right? And then suddenly they allow themselves to be carted off to HQ and interrogated?”
Frank rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Hadn’t thought about it that way. Good point, Matt. Why, indeed?”
“Unless they wanted to get caught. Which would explain why they were on the scene in the first place.”
“But why would they want to get caught?”
Matt narrowed his eyes at the file on his computer. “The only thing I can think of? They’re here to take a long, hard look at our operation.” He nodded, seeing the whole picture now. The ASS was fairly new, and operating under the wide umbrella of the CIA for the time being. “You know? I bet this is just another way for Harridan to keep track of what we’re doing down here.”
“Harridan? You think she’s behind this?”
Kathleen Harridan was the person overseeing the ASS. CIA brass, she’d personally designed the program and pushed its inception through the channels. She had a lot riding on this, so it stood to reason she wouldn’t suffice with their weekly meetings and Joe’s daily reports, but would want to have eyes on the ground as well.
He tapped the screen. “I bet Harridan maneuvered Assenheimer and Superczyński into ASS as her personal eyes and ears.” He sat up a little straighter. “Buddy? I think we need to be on our best behavior around those two from now one. Everything we say or do goes straight to the top of the chain of command.”
“Great,” commented Frank wryly. “So Izzy’s definitely off-limits, huh?”
Matt gave a determined nod. “Most definitely. And so is Yvonne. From now on, we’re doing everything by the book. No more improv, all right?”
“By the book. Right,” muttered Frank, looking disappointed.
“We’re going to show Harridan we’re running this operation the best way possible.”
And to emphasize his point, he slammed the desk with his fist, making Frank jump two feet in the air.
Chapter 8
“I don’t know, Iz. I still think they’re pulling our leg.”
“But why? Why would they do that? No, I think they’re giving us a real opportunity here. An opportunity to shine. An opportunity for greatness. And an opportunity to put our best foot forward for Uncle Sam.”
Yvonne snorted. “Puh-lease. We’re garbagewomen, hon. No one expects anything from us that cannot be contained within a black plastic bag and smells to doggie doo or puke. It’s what we do.”
Izzy shrugged and popped another French fry into her mouth. Yvonne would never be able to understand how a girl that thin could eat whatever she wanted and get away with it.
They were seated in the downstairs eating area of their local McDonald’s, the place they usually flocked to after work. And since their working day ended early, they often had the restaurant to themselves. Today, since it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet, they had the breakfast crowd to contend with.
Matt had given them the rest of the day off. Said he was going to get in touch with the Sanitation Department and arrange everything so they could start their new working lives the following day without any worries.
“I still think it’s fishy. I mean, the name alone. ASS? What kind of self-respecting operation calls itself ASS? Whoever came up with that name must be a total idiot.”
“I think it has a nice ring to it. Put your ASS on the line? Get your ASS out of a sling? It’s quite catchy if you ask me.”
“Hrmph,” was Yvonne’s response. She took another gulp from her strawberry milkshake. Then she narrowed her gaze at her companion. “I know what’s going on here. You’ve got the hots for that Frank guy, don’t you?”
Izzy raised her eyebrows innocently. “I do not!” Then she smiled. “Though you’ve got to admit he looks kinda cute, huh? With those funky whiskers?”
“I think he looks like an idiot. I think they all look like idiots,” Yvonne grumbled. “Especially that guy Matt.”
“So that’s why you kept calling him Hottie Matt, huh? Cause he’s an idiot?”
Yvonne waved her hand dismissively. “That was the drugs talking. I would never have called him a hottie if it hadn’t been for the drugs, believe you me.”
“Well, he is kinda hot.” When Yvonne gave her the evil eye, she quickly added, “But so not my type!”
Yvonne didn’t know what to think of Hottie Matt. Frank had explained how Sodium Pentothal worked. How it made you totally honest. So if that was true, somewhere deep down in her subconscious, she must think Matt a hottie, no matter how hard she tried to deny it. But the man was such a wimp! What kind of guy has his ass kicked by a mere slip of a girl? Three times in a row? How could she ever respect such a man?
She was a big girl, and she needed a big guy to take care of her. A guy more along the lines of Dwayne Johnson. A guy with some heft. A guy who could lift her like a feather. If Hottie Matt tried to lift her, he’d probably break his back!
Still… “He is kinda cute,” she mused.
Izzy snorted. “He’s not cute. He’s hot.”
“Oh, well. Enough about him.” Yvonne slurped the remaining portion of her shake, and crumpled the container before aiming it at a nearby garbage bin. Slam dunk!
“I think we should take the job, V. You heard what the man said. Three times our current salary! Where else are we going to find an opportunity like that?”
“I don’t know. Did you really listen? These ASS agents put their life on the line every single day. We’re gonna get shot at, crazy psychos are gonna come after us, try to kill us? I don’t know about you, hon, but I kinda like collecting trash. Garbage smells, but at least it doesn’t kill your ass dead.”
Izzy giggled. “Kill your ASS. Good one.”
“Besides, it’s not as if we’re trained for this shit. I don’t know where they get this crazy notion we’re qualified for the job. I think these assholes are nuts to think we got what it takes. Hell, I’ve never even fired a gun!”
“Hey, if Frank tells me I’m qualified, I’m qualified.”
“Something’s not right, Iz.”
Izzy shrugged, and directed a radiant smile at her. “It’s an adventure, V. A great adventure. Just think of all the fun we’ll have.”
“When we’ve got some crazed killer trying to get a piece of us? Yeah. That’ll be a lot of fun.”
“I’m sure Frank and Matt will protect us when that happens.”
Yvonne raised a single eyebrow.
“We can do this, V, I’m sure we can. Let’s be bold and say yes, all right? We can always pull out later.”
She snorted. “Pull out of ASS?”
They both had to laugh at that. Yvonne had to admit the idea sounded kind of exciting. More exciting than a life fighting trash anyway. She’d never given a life outside of the waste disposal industry much thought, having been born into a family practically consisting of nothing but waste disposal guys. Well, she did have this momentary dream of being a Disney princess when she was seven. Nothing had come of it. Three Disney princesses could fit into her frame, even at the tender age of seven.
But perhaps Izzy was right. This was an opportunity to do something differen
t for a change. To do something for her country apart from keeping it from drowning in its own waste.
“Look at it this way. We’re garbagewomen, right? Taking out the trash is what we do. It’s what we’re good at; what we’re trained for. Only now we’ll be putting out a different kind of trash. Thieves and murderers and other scum.”
Izzy’s golden hair framed a face that practically glowed with enthusiasm. It was pretty infectious.
“You’re right, Iz. We’ll just keep on doing what we do best. Put out the trash.”
Her friend grinned and her cornflower blue eyes shone. “Exactly!”
Yvonne slung her right hand down on the table. “All right. Let’s join ASS.”
Izzy flung her right hand on top of hers. “Let’s clean out the city’s trash.”
“And let’s kick some ass!”
Chapter 9
Kathleen Harridan nodded absently as her boss waxed eloquently on the relative merits of the usage of drones on the battlefield. Her mind was preoccupied with other things. Things like the two new ASS recruits Matt Halloran had just informed her about.
The news perturbed her greatly. Not one to micromanage, she still considered the ASS operation her personal baby, and had made it crystal clear going in that all new recruits had to be vetted by her. And yet Matt had decided to go over her head and appoint these two anyway.
It wasn’t right on so many levels the whole thing had ruined her day. She simply didn’t know what to make of it. Matt usually was pretty discerning when it came to running the day-to-day business side of the operation, and he never failed to keep her in the loop of even the minutest detail. And yet he’d suddenly opted to hire two complete unknowns and offer them the most outrageous terms.
Fortunately for her, the news hadn’t reached her own supervisor yet. Joe’s cavalier actions could only be construed as a sign of weakness in the way she was running ASS. It could jeopardize everything she’d worked so hard to achieve.
She just had to find a way to deal with this emergency before word got out.
“Yes, sir. I think you’re absolutely right,” she said when the droning voice of her superior momentarily faded away and he awaited her feedback. “We can never have enough drones.”
“And that’s why I want you to emphasize in your report the benefit of deploying the same strategy right here in our cities.”
Kathleen looked up. This was news to her. She blinked, momentarily suspending her thoughts on Matt and his odd behavior. “Right here, sir?”
Walter Pyke, the grand old man of the agency, leaned back in his comfortable chair, which creaked under his bulk. Even though he was nearing his fourth decade in office, he still looked well-preserved, with his steely gaze, his unlit cigar stuck between his teeth and his flabby bulldog face. “You heard me, Kathleen. I want to set up a project where we can use the drone miracle to our own advantage. America’s big cities are groaning under the increasing violence of gangs and other scum destabilizing the social fabric. We need to put a stop to that before it spirals out of control. And what better way of doing that than by sending in the drones?”
“You want to bring the drones to our streets?” It was the craziest idea she’d ever heard.
“Damn right I want to bring them to our streets.” He raised his hands in a wide sweep, his gaze fixed behind her. “Just imagine. A gang outfit operating from a known location in the heart of an infested neighborhood. The cops are too afraid to venture in. Informants tell us a meeting is taking place of the heads of all the associated crime families. We send in a drone, level the building, and send in the cops to take care of the rest. Arrest all the minor players. It will be the dawn of a new crime-fighting era. Simply imagine this same type of operation taking place in all the major cities. New York. LA. Detroit. Philadelphia. We’ll clean up those crime-ridden slums in next to no time!”
“Ahm, but, sir—what about the collateral damage? We can’t just start dropping bombs on inner city neighborhoods. There will be families living there. Women and children. What if our intel proves wrong and we level a school, or a hospital? The loss of lives will be devastating.”
Pyke’s face promptly turned into a scowl. “Nonsense. With the tech you’re developing over at ASS, the possibility for error will be reduced to zero. Isn’t what you told me yourself? Isn’t that why I’m paying for this whole project of yours out of pocket? Don’t tell me you’ve been feeding me a bunch of lies, Kathleen.”
He wagged his fat finger in her face. For a moment, she felt inclined to slap it away. Being used now to bossing others around, her tolerance for being bossed was becoming lower with each passing year and promotion.
She managed to keep her cool, though, as she invariably did. “I’m not, sir. It’s just that you can’t use weapons of mass destruction in our own backyard. The public will never allow it.”
Pyke shrugged his massive shoulders. “What the public doesn’t know won’t hurt them.”
Kathleen raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “They won’t know drones are bombing houses, sir? They’re not blind. It won’t be long before they take snapshots and post them on the Internet.”
Pyke’s fat lips curled up into a smile. “Not if the drones are invisible.”
Kathleen’s mouth opened and closed. “Come again? Sir?”
“This is strictly hush-hush, Kathleen. Need to know and all that.” He fixed her with his metal-gray eyes. “Your ASS isn’t the only secret project I’ve got simmering on the stove. I’ve set up another one called EYE. Enhanced Yield Equalizer. It’s a project to make drones invisible to the human eye. And it’s looking really promising so far.” He eyed her triumphantly. “So you see? If we hook up your ASS with my EYE, we’re as good as gold!”
“Ahm…”
Pyke grinned, displaying two neat rows of yellowed teeth. The sight never failed to revolt her. “Speechless, huh? That’s the way I like it. Once I lose the capacity to render my subordinates dumb with my brilliance, I’m ready for retirement.”
Kathleen swallowed uncomfortably. “Who’s in charge of your EYE, sir?”
“That’s the best part. He’s an old friend of yours. Aaron Chinn?”
Kathleen’s stomach lurched. Far from being an old friend, Aaron was more an old enemy of hers. “Aaron Chinn, sir?” she said morosely.
“That’s the one. I’ve set up a meeting between the two of you this afternoon to work out the details. And don’t worry, he’s been briefed about ASS so he knows all about it and about you and your involvement.”
He gave her a cold stare as he chomped down on his cigar. “And Kathleen? I want this project up and running in sixty days, you hear me? Before the year is through, I want the first drones flying over American cities, saving American lives.”
“Yes, sir.”
He waved his fat hand. “Dismissed.”
Chapter 10
Yvonne entered the house with some trepidation. In spite of the fact she was now making her own living, she still hadn’t moved out of her parents’ house in Brooklyn. The three-story structure, which had at one point housed no less than eleven people, was still the hub of the Assenheimer universe, though only Yvonne and her younger brother Albert now remained. Her seven older brothers had all flown the nest at one point or another, usually coinciding either with their first paycheck or when love came into their lives.
They all lived on the same block, though, except for Theodore, who’d mysteriously moved to the other side of the country and now lived on the West Coast with his girlfriend, an interior decorator working for the stars out in Hollywood.
He was the only Assenheimer who’d escaped the garbage business, however. Yvonne’s other seven brothers still trawled the New York streets every day, ridding the city from its massive amounts of waste, as did her father and several of her uncles and cousins.
Was she really going to do this? Was she really going to forsake a great job to go work for some weird government spy operation? She could hardly believe it herse
lf. She’d always been the sensible one. The one with two feet firmly planted in reality. And now she was going to turn into some kind of Jane Bond?
She decided to wait before she told her folks. Tomorrow was her first day on the new job, and if things didn’t work out, she was sure she could still return to her old one. Oddly enough, she had a feeling she would miss trucking around with Izzy beside her. Even though she’d only been at it for nine months, she’d grown accustomed to the regularity and the relative peace the job afforded her. The hard labor didn’t bother her, either. She was a big, strong girl, and hefting garbage had only made her stronger still.
She inserted her key in the door and stepped inside. Whatever the future would hold, she always had a place to call home, a family she could count on, and the best friend in the world in the form of Izzy.
As she made her way through the hallway to the kitchen, she picked out her phone.
“Iz? I’m having second thoughts about telling my folks. Think I’ll wait and see how it goes tomorrow.”
“Same here, V. My dad will kill me if he knew I was leaving the best job in town.”
“Tell me again why we’re doing this?”
“To kick some ass, hon. And to make America a better and safer place.”
“Oh. All right. Thanks. I forgot about that. A better and safer place. You really think we’re up for this?”
“Of course I’m sure. With your muscles and my brains we’ll make a perfect team, V.”
“Right. That’s true.” She hesitated. “Tell me we won’t regret this, Iz.”
“We won’t regret this, V.”
“Okay. I trust you.”
“Now what are you doing tonight?”
“Staying in I guess.”
“Movie night?”
“Sure. Come on over. I’ll get the popcorn.”
“I’ll get the movie.”
“Later, Iz.”