Ice Cold

by Mark Graham

  “After we return from these two next missions you’ll be given one of our special computers and satellite phones. Once you find a house and move in they will set it up kind of like mine where you’ll have more weapons, ammunition, and explosives. You’ll only get the explosives after you finish a intense one week training seminar. We don’t want our agents to have anything they are not familiar with. Some guys have never gone through that particular school, but I find a lot of fun can be missed out on, and missions not issued unless you have that skill set too.”

  “What we’re going to do next is drive about forty miles from here and you’re going to drop me off at a bar. I have a meeting with Talon, and because I hate shopping, you can take the car and go to the mall just down the road from there. Take three hours or less and join us at the bar.”

  “Wow, really?” she said kind of surprised.

  “On this shopping trip use your own credit cards and you will be reimbursed automatically,” he said with a smile. Don’t not buy something because you want to save your money. Buy enough clothes to last you a week. Jeans are good in some situations as you have already figured out. Also pick a few pair of regular type pants, or pant suits or whatever. Buy whatever you are comfortable with. If your load gets too heavy, go out and put the stuff you have in the car, and then return to your shopping. Also purchase any feminine products you might need, and one nice dress with nylons and such in guess we are involved with something where that kind of attire will mix well. Buy yourself four or five sets of shoes. At least three of them need to be the kind that are very comfortable, and able for you to walk, run, and hide,” he said with a smile.

  “Also, get yourself two or three handbags or purses or whatever. What ever it is has to have room for a gun, a cell phone and an electronic device that will down a four hundred pound man for five minutes. Remember, all of them, or even so some of them need to be too big. We will get you difference sizes of guns. However, none of them will be less than nine millimeter, using hollow points. Just buy whatever you would need to be off a week for. You’ve seen how other female agents look and just follow that lead. Let me tell you though, the women you saw today were probably dressed a little nicer than they usually do. There’s been many times I did best in a t-shirt, blue jeans and some sport shoes. I recommend the same for you. Got it?”

  “I think I do,” she said smiling, “I hope I don’t spend too much.”

  “Oh yeah, get yourself a couple good watches. Maybe a couple sport watches, at least one having the ability to light up if you need it in the dark. Another one that can be considered a little more dressier. Just no Rolex. Remember, we want to fit in and not stick out.”

  “We had one recruit that went out and got really nice suits, some of them being three piece suits. Really nice shoes too. As soon as the Director saw that he talked to the guy’s mentor. Their first mission was down in the bayou of Louisiana. The next was to search for a body in a big trash and garbage site. And the third, yep, wet work that the mentor actually caused blood to be dripping from everything the new guy had on. They kept him doing those kinds of things for a week. Ruined almost all the clothes he had purchased. His mentor sent him back out with a thousand dollars telling him that was his clothing budget for now and not to spend another dime.”

  “That’s funny,” Joyce said laughing. “He still here? Who is he?” Joyce asked.

  “He was one of them that really didn’t last that long. That was before we did all the testing we do now. The Director actually sent him to a costly, long term mental institution where somehow his memory during the time he was with us was all but gone. The Director found him a job in sales someplace. Those of us that know who he is are instructed to not go anywhere he may be. He’s up in upper Montana someplace so we don’t really need to worry. He was actually quite a dick. When I first met him I was dressed down quite a bit and he assumed I was a janitor at headquarters.”

  “That must have been funny,” Joyce said.

  “Actually it was very funny.” Ice said. “Talon took the guy aside and scared the living shit out of the guy. The guy actually pissed himself. We can be a bunch of very unkind people if we set our minds to it.”

  “Yeah, like that’s a problem,” Joyce added.

  “For the rest of the time Talon made sure that any time the guy talked to me he had to say “yes sir,” or no “sir.” One time he had him stand at the coffee pot in the conference room and the guy had to come fill my cup every time it looked like it was getting empty. That was near the end of his experience with us. I’m sure in the end he was actually really glad to be without us. I think there was a couple times Talon wanted to kill him but the Director wouldn’t let him.”

  “That big old teddy bear. I can’t imagine him being mean,” she said.

  “I’ll make it a point for us to be included in some of his better work. He won’t torture to death but seems to ruin a persons day with lots of vim and vigor. One guy ended up in the hospital for about nine months. Talon doesn’t usually like to cause a lot of pain, but when motivated right he bests all of us. He’s just a big ‘Hulk’ kind of guy.

  Ice got out at the bar, and went inside to meet Talon and another agent who would be there for only fifteen or twenty minutes. Another guy was with him and would leave then too. Ice decided along with their suggestion that they not be any place around when Joyce returned.

  The one man was actually a fellow agent of Ice’s, but unknown to most of the others. He was thought of as a spook’s, spook’s, spook. He wasn’t real big and he had the talent of changing his appearance in a very shot time. Ice had seen him at work and was amazed to see what appeared to be three different and separate men. The guy with him was some kind of special agent and Ice didn’t really know him well but since he had met and seen him before he felt safe in coming out of the dark side. They decided a few things and the other two guys left, leaving Ice with Talon. Being real friends they just enjoyed each other’s company and talked about work and man things.

  When Joyce returned she thought almost half of the trunk was full. Ice hadn’t said anything about luggage so didn’t look at any. By the time she drove up Ice was in front of the bar waiting for her.

  “What happened with Talon?” Joyce asked.

  “He had to make it to another appointment about twenty minutes ago,” he said. “Did you look at any luggage?” he asked.

  “No, I didn’t,” she said.

  “Good,” he responded, “I have some special pieces of luggage that have what we need built into them.”

  ~~~~~

  A few days later they landed at the Bush International airport, and again went out to rent a vehicle. Ice checked out another Chrysler 300, and drove out of the airport, heading downtown. The traffic wasn’t too bad at that time of day and got off at one of the downtown exits. He drove down some streets, turning here and there, and Joyce thought maybe he was lost. Before she could say anything Ice pulled off the street into a little curved drive where the front of the Four Seasons Hotel was.”

  “Ritzy,” she said smiling.

  “Only the best,” he said.

  They walked in and went to the lobby counter. Ice told the guy at the counter he had reservations in the name of Isa Boning, showing the guy his driver’s license and a credit card.

  Joyce wasn’t too surprised to learn they were sharing a room. Once checked in they took the elevator to almost the top floor, and she ended up being in a suite which contained two bedrooms and a beautiful living room kind of place. Both the rooms had it’s own restroom with both a tub and shower. “Damn!” she said not believing it.

  “This the way this is going down,” Iced said. I’ve done some research and our suite here is directly across two blocks over from One Houston Center, where our target has an office. We can get a direct shot over there and take him out.”

  “Right here in the city?” she asked.

  “Well, the Conference Center is only a few blocks to the east. They have some larg
e conference going on over there and the people usually here will still be here along with a bunch of other folks. Our target is a Vice President of his company and we know he stays in his office all day except for pee breaks and lunch.”

  “But none of these windows open to the outside?” she exclaimed.

  “That’s what glass cutters are for my lady,” he said with a smile. “When we leave here I’ll change my name and ID to something else, and we’ll be out of here. All we have to do is leave our keycards here on the table.”

  “What’s our chances of getting caught?” she asked.

  “About one percent,” he answered, “but this entire downtown area has commercial tunnels that can take us to anywhere we want to go,even up to the theater district.”

  Later the two of them went down to one of the nicer restaurants. She enjoyed the relaxing time they had and found the food superb. She was surprised when she saw the bill and it was over two hundred bucks.

  Ice had watched her, and appreciated her look of surprise. “Listen Joyce, we sometimes have to live in terrible conditions and eat things our mother warned us about. We are the saviors of the world as far as getting even with the bad guys. Every thing you eat, drink, where you stay, your house, and everything else is worth what we are asked to do. There is no guarantee that we will actually live though any of our assignments. Actually I am more alert on some of the little, simple jobs. We can be set up, or as we think, we have a leak somewhere in the department.”

  When they got back to their room, they settled in and watched a movie on Showtime, they both thought they would like. Just before retiring for the night, Ice went to his bag and took out a suction cup looking thing and a glass cutter.

  “Turn all the lights off Joyce,” he directed, “then come over here to the window.” Joyce followed her direction and returned standing next to Ice. He put the suction cup just about the bottom of the window. He then carved a distinct circle about three or four inches out side the circle the suction cup thing took up, which ended up being about about a foot, or a little less in size. Once he did that he said, “We’re doing this at night so nobody will see us, and if something happened and the circle of glass became disengaged from the suction cup it would fall below and smash all over the sidewalk.”

  “Is that something we should worry about” Joyce askedf.

  “No,” he went on, “the downtown area is quite sparse at this time. During the day there are probably three hundred thousand people who come down here to work. Only three blocks over there,” Ice said pointing, “are hookers, dope heads, and whatever else you can think. Over there, he pointed in the direction north of where she thought the conference center was, is where at least two hundred homeless people stay at night. About ten blocks north of us is several buildings which are quite full of homeless people too. If we had time we’d go get you in the car about seven in the morning and I could drive you around and you could see little communities like places where they get up, pick up their stuff, and move on to someplace else during the day. Ever so often you can see a drunk, or a dead homeless person laying in one of the door wells of a business downtown. Most people aren’t even aware there are so many. The city has found them places where they are allowed to hang out and can’t be seen easily by the citizenship. Those are places no one really want’s to be at night time. The cops won’t respond to those areas at night, but will come out and check them out once it’s light out. It’s not that the cops are afraid, but as the law goes they are supposed to arrest on any felony committed in their presence. If they went down there they’d be tied up all night and only get to about two percent of them.

  “Really!” she said. “How do know all this?” she asked.

  “I’ve been down here a lot,” he said,. “About eight years ago I came down and got myself connected to work with a vice cop, and he told me about almost anything. And I will tell you, the last thing I would want to be is a vice cop in this city.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” there is so much dirty sex going on around here, and lots of fags that are out just looking for a partner. I lot of that type live here too, but most of them are high paid people and live in their own section of town which is on the quality side some of the better neighbor hoods. But as a vice cop a person has to witness all kinds of deviant behavior. Even I couldn’t have believed what goes on in those places.”

  Ice really didn’t want to talk any more about it. It was a time in his life that stuck out and he really didn’t want to review in his mind again about some of those experience. Near the end of the week he was ready to take the big guns out, or flamethrower and take care of business. Being disciplined as he was he just walked away and caught a plane home after he did what he was sent to do.

  “Let’s turn in,” Ice said. “It’s almost eleven and I’d like to get up at about six-thirty or so, get a shower, then go down and have a relaxing breakfast. By then the dowtown will be full and our target probably sitting over in that office over there . . . it’s the eighth window from the right corner straight cross from us, just beneath that brown trim you can see going around the building. I think they did that for looks or something. The have one of them about every five floors.”

  They both said good night, and Ice went and rigged the entry door, turned around and went to bed to fall a sleep in a short five minutes. He’d learned that trick and how to take power naps back when he was in the Corps. Back then he could go two or three days with only four or five power naps. Of course, when he was done with what he was doing he’d go back and get in his bunk and pass out for twelve hours or so. He realized too that age was always against him, more so as he aged.”

  Joyce woke up first and banged on Ice’s door, and she got almost an immediate response while he jumped up and headed to the bathroom. “I hear ya, give me about fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  He took his time showering and shaving, realizing women usually took longer. In did his morning thing first before showering, which took a little time. When walking out the door he saw Joyce, looking quite refreshed, packing her bag with all she had.

  “Cool, you’re fast,” complimenting her.

  “You’re right,” he started. “We’ll go down to breakfast and when we come back up will do our deed. That is if he’s there, which he should be. The moment we’ve packed up the rest of our stuff we’ll leave as quick as possible and take the elevator to the basement floor and get our car. I have a little thing here,” he said showing Joyce a little plastic box that kind of looked like a cell phone. “With this all I have to do is turn it on and it will lead us directly to our car. I put a bug in the truck when we put our baggage in. The damn little thing works great.

  They went to breakfast where the restaurant for breakfast was open and seated at a table with a table cloth and all the nice things about a restaurant in this class of hotel.

  When nobody was around they talked about their assignment, and what the long term plan was for today.

  “In short, we go up and do our deed, escape, and get right on the highway about seven blocks to the south, get on and it will take us right over to I-10 and take that to New Orleans. We’ll be there before dark and can take in a little of Bourbon Street if you’d like.”

  “Sounds good to me,” she said, smiling. “I’ve always wanted to see Bourbon Street.”

  “By the way Ice, why did you cut that circle so big?” she asked,.

  “Well, I’d rather have one too big than too small,” he answered. “I will more than likely take the shot from inside the room, causing the bullet to go through that hole and to where it is targeted. If for some reason and I can’t know until we do it, but if I have to stick that gun through that hole I want it to be big enough so that the kick of the rifle won’t allow it to jump up and break the entire window out.”

  “What’s the plan,?” she asked. Anything you want me to do?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” Ice said.

  “I want you hunker d
own at the side of the window, kneeling down causing your self to see the target with binoculars. As soon as we know we’re done you get those drapes closed as fast as you can without anybody seeing you.”

  “If everything goes the way it should,” he went on, “the target will get some attention probably. The bullet might pass all the way through and possibly, into the main office area. Or, he might make enough noise falling out of his chair. If he’s standing he might be thrown back into that wall.”

  “The gun I am using is a thirty-ought six, a gun that people hunt deer and such with. Why that gun?, Because it has lots of potential in being able to shoot out different types of ammunition, depending on the force, the speed, and a few other thing. I usually use a custom AK-47 but in this environment decided against it.”

  “Okay,” she responded.

  “The first bullet will be high speed. It will puncture that window so quickly I’m hoping it doesn’t shatter it. If for some reason I miss I have one of those bullets like you shot, but not near as explosive which can take the entire window out and hopefully our target. The third shot is just a regular steel jacketed bullet.”

  “After my first shot it takes a second or two to get the gun back in position, the same if I have to take another shot or two. You need to focus those binoculars on the man, and bring them in as close as you can to his head. If’s it’s a sure kill I will be able to see it by the time my gun comes down for the second shot, I can shoot the three shots quick enough that he won’t have time to hit the floor on his own or hide. If it’s a sure shot, just let me know. If not just say shoot again, and if a third do the same thing. Hopefully it will take only one shot. If that does it, wait until I tell you to go, then close the drapes. Wait until you hear from me. If I think I need to take another shot I don’t want you running in front of my gun as I pull the trigger.”