“I must say you’re taking this very well, Thirty-Eight. Now if I could just get a ‘please’ we might be in business,” he purred, and that was when I knew my plan was a good one. All my neural circuits were now firing double time, and I was poised for action. I just needed the man to get close to me.
“Pretty please,” I purred back, in my silkiest voice, my eyelashes fluttering downwards slowly, almost as if I were too scared to look at him.
That submissive-style glance must have pushed some buttons because this time when Adie bent down and swooped in, the kiss was not the same. When his lips smashed into mine, his hands went around the back of my neck and buried themselves in my hair. Dragging my face closer to him, his tongue raged war inside my mouth, and for a few precious moments, I let it. There was a good chance I was going to die in the next few seconds, and if I was, there was no reason to deny myself an ounce of all-consuming pleasure before the bullet hit. That was all I let myself have, though – just a taste. When Adie made to deepen the kiss, I knew I had to act, or risk losing my sanity – and that wasn’t an option. Reaching for the back of his waistband, I snatched his gun away in a heartbeat. Before the bastard had a chance to figure out what was happening, I let the tie around my leg fall to the floor and then elbowed my chair sharply backwards. In the next second I had the muzzle of his gun pointing up through his chin as I pulled our faces firmly apart.
"Shit." Adie's voice was rather terse when he finally realised what had just happened. The look on his face was absolutely priceless.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” I breathed throatily in his ear, bringing my syringe out and pricking the tip of it against his neck. “In this baby I have a rather unpleasant neurotoxin that will turn your body to mush in a matter of minutes. I have a feeling you know which one I’m referring to.” I raised my eyebrows provocatively and fluttered my lashes. The hand I held against his neck felt him swallow, while his eyes watched me warily.
“You make the tiniest move on me, and I pump you full of it – and it won’t be a pleasant death. Are we clear?” His jaw clamped down tightly, as he nodded. “Good. Now get me out of here.”
“And how do you intend we do that?” he said through gritted teeth.
"Well, we'll just have to hope your life is still valuable in these parts because if it isn't, we're both going to be dead very shortly. Now turn around." He did as he was told, and I grabbed him around the neck, marching him towards the door. The gun was in my left hand, and the syringe was in my right, and both were set to do damage, should the situation arise.
Bursting through the double doors, the guards jumped back in surprise when we came at them. They look to Adie for instruction, as well they might, but he wasn’t the one calling the shots here.
“Tell them to put their weapons down, and slide them to the other side of the corridor,” I instructed. He did, and thankfully his orders were followed. We then proceeded sideways down the walkway until we met a juncture. “Guide me outside to a car. You even think of leading me into a trap, and you’ll have the most horrible death to look forward to. You’ll start…”
Butting in, Adie said, “I’m aware of what neurotoxins do, Lois. Save your breath and let’s focus on getting out of here. Just be careful with that needle, okay?”
I poked the thing further into his neck to ensure he knew I was the one in charge, enjoying the choked whisper that escaped from his lips. “Absolutely. You might want to bear in the mind that the less people we see along the way, the less chance there is of us both ending up dead along the way.”
“That is something I had already considered, Lois.” I noted that he was now calling me Lois rather than Thirty-Eight. I smiled tightly. It was probably sensible to place nicely when you had assassin with two options for doling out death behind you.
“So can you get us out of here?” We began turning this way and that through the maze of walkways within Carte Blanche and I really hoped this man wasn’t leading me up the garden path, but there were no other options available.
“Yes, but it won’t be easy, Lois. There is only one exit we can use, and lots of armed guards will almost certainly be waiting for us when we get there. What will you do then? It will be two against an army.”
I’d worry about that when the time came, I thought grimly. For now, I just needed to get the hell out of Dodge.
“I’m a big girl. You don’t need to worry about me,” I murmured.
“That much I’d gathered,” came the rather dry reply.
We didn’t move as fast as I would have liked. Time was of the essence if we wanted to get out before we had a massive welcome party, but we couldn’t run. This was mainly because I had to stay close as possible to the bastard in front of me. True to his word, we didn’t see too many people along the way, but even though the ones we did meet set their weapons down upon his command, as soon as we were out of the way, they would be gathering reinforcements and coming after us. Our time was swiftly running out. Wherever we were going, I hoped we were nearly there because there was no way on earth I wanted to enter hell with this bastard coming up alongside me.
"How much further?" I asked through gritted teeth when we took yet another turn with no end in sight.
“We’ll be at the parking lot within two minutes. Hang on in there, angel of death.”
“Don’t make me mad, Adie. That would be a very unwise thing to do at this point in time considering the fun day we’ve just had together.” I was in no mood for jokes, and I thought I’d let my displeasure be known.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Lois, but we need to run. The longer we take to get upstairs, the less chance we have of getting out of here. Every second counts.”
“We’re not running. If you think I’m letting go of you for a second, then you underestimate me.” I wouldn’t trust Alain Dumortier further than I could throw him, and that wasn’t very far.
"Then you'd better pray for a miracle, Lois because we're going to need one. How about we compromise, and I walk quickly?" Adie then increased his walking pace to a march, and I almost had to jog alongside him to catch up, but at least this way, I could still remain close to him. It wasn't an ideal solution, but our time was running out.
When we rounded the next turn, there was an elevator in front of us. I breathed a sigh of relief. The end was in sight. Now if we could just get through this next hurdle intact, there was a chance we’d get out of here alive.
There had to be a problem, of course. At the door, Adie piped up, ‘The elevator requires a code, Lois. You’re going to need to let go of the needle to let me get it.”
Rolling my eyes back into my head, I took a deep breath, before I said, “I’m fucking not letting go of either you, the gun, or the needle. So we need to figure this one out together.” I meant it, too. If Adie thought I was green, that was his problem. I’d been in this business too long for amateur mistakes like that.
“Seriously…”
I cut Adie's sentence short by diving into his pocket and retrieving a key chain. On it, there were several little tags, and I was pretty sure one of them would work the elevator.
“Which one?” I held the key cards up to his eye-line and fanned them out. If necessary, I could eventually work it out for myself, but we needed to hurry. It wouldn’t be long before several armed guards were flat on our tail.
“If you’d just put the needle down…” Adie’s voice was wheedling, but I wasn’t having any of it. There was a reason I was very good at my job, and it wasn’t because I was stupid. Pressing the needle tightly to his neck, I then injected the first few millilitres of the contents into him. Adie made a choked sound in his throat, as if he couldn’t quite believe what had happened.
“In case you missed that, you now have a very potent neurotoxin floating around in your bloodstream. I reckon you have about thirty minutes to get to a hospital, before your major organs start shutting down. If I were you, I’d start talking. Which key card is it, asshole?”
“I hope you’
re enjoying yourself, Lois,” Adie growled, as he then pointed to a small white one that worked first time. The elevator immediately began moving upwards with barely a sound, and it took mere seconds to reach its objective – which was floor zero – the highest floor on Carte Blanche. It was amazing what you could achieve with the right incentive.
“Where to now?” I barked. “Don’t even think of stalling, or you’ll get the rest of the syringe, and your life expectancy will dwindle to around ten minutes, which won’t give you a lot of options.”
“Take a left and the next right. That will take you to the only exit we can use to get out of this place, but by now it will be heavily guarded. You’ll have hired guns all over you, waiting to pump you full of lead,” Adie warned. It was nothing less than I’d expected, though.
“Then we’ll just have to hope your life is really valuable in these parts because if anyone puts a bullet in me, you’re next in line for one, and my reflexes are pretty sharp at the moment, sweetheart.”
Sure enough, when we got to the foyer, there was a whole platoon of goons waiting for us, with an arsenal of weapons. Although I was using Adie as a human shield, if they wanted to pick me off, they stood a fair chance with a decent sniper. Doing my best to keep my head out of their line of vision, I pushed on forward slowly. It was all I could do to keep my focus equally divided between all the upcoming threats and Adie himself. I had no idea which was more dangerous – actually, scrap that, I probably did.
“Tell them to put their weapons down and stand aside,” I hissed.
"We've got bigger problems," said Adie, as a series of footsteps could be heard coming from behind us. This was followed by the sound of several safety catches being released, which put a considerable dampener on the situation. Looking around, I saw another team of mercenaries right on our tail, and they were closing in fast.
“Will they risk losing you as well as me?” Turning us both sideways, while keeping my back to the wall, I keep an eye on what was happening.
"I've never tested that theory, but dad doesn't like loose ends. He may consider me collateral damage in this fight. What we do here isn't a secret he's going to want shared. Besides, he knows as well as I do, that as soon as you get where you want to go – you're going to kill me anyway." Adie's voice had dropped to a strained whisper, and I could feel the pulse in his neck beat double-time as we stood there waiting.
He had a point, but could Geraud really kill his son in cold blood? It took one hell of a nasty monster to do something like that, but I had a feeling Geraud was up to the task, and probably capable of giving those orders. This meant we had a problem. What the fuck did we do now?
“Let him go,” Geraud barked, as he came striding out from behind the army of militia. The man looked absolutely furious, and his attractive face was now bright red with fury. It was a look that was becoming all too familiar.
"Drop your weapons and let us pass. He's got thirty minutes to get to a hospital, or he's dead," I shouted right back.
“You’ve got until the count of three to let him go, else I’ll shoot both of you, until you’re virtually unrecognisable.
Pushing down the plunger on the needle that was jammed into Adie's neck, I retaliated by saying, "You've now got ten minutes to get him to a hospital. Let us pass, or he's dead." Adie's body went rigid under my hold then, as he realised that there was a good chance he was going to die, whatever the outcome here.
"Three." Geraud stared at me menacingly, and I could hear his men circling around us.
“Are you really going to kill your own son?” I asked, incredulously.
“Watch me. Two.” Geraud didn’t bat an eyelid. The man was deadly serious. He was prepared to take care of one of his own in order to protect the business. Fucking hell. Praying for a miracle wasn’t really my style, but in this instance, I figured I’d give it a go.
“Been nice knowing you, Adie,” I whispered, “and on the bright side, at least your death will be quick.”
“One,” Geraud yelled, and then all hell broke loose.
Chapter Seven - Lois
The glass doors that were our escape to the outside world glinted enticingly at us, but there was no way we could get to them. Even if we put our heads down and barrelled our way towards them, it was too far to go without being torn apart with a barrage of bullets. There was no way we would make it. Besides, if we tried that option, I wouldn't be able to kill Adie in the process, and my last assignment would be a fail. I wasn't good at failure. You didn't come second in my line of business. You either won or you died. This time I'd do both together, but I could live with that.
Geraud and I both stared at each other as he uttered his final number. It felt like a bomb had exploded in the room. I suspect Adie's father was hoping against hope that I'd back down, but that wasn't happening today. As soon as I heard the first shot being fired, Adie was getting the rest of the syringe in his neck, and a bullet in the brain to make sure the deed was done. If I had any energy left after that, Geraud was getting one, too.
There was a tense moment of silence as I waited for the inevitable to happen. My life wasn’t flashing before my eyes just yet, but that was only because I was concentrating on doing what needed to be done. My death was going to count for something, and I was going down fighting.
"Fuck," Adie whispered, "you really do have balls of steel." The awe in his voice was unmistakable, but I didn't have much time to appreciate the sentiment, for the double doors to the outside world then opened with a blast of cold air, and three stun grenades were thrown inside.
The pristine white tiles beneath me swayed violently as my world tilted, and people went flying everywhere. Debris sprayed down from the roof, as smoke erupted all around us, not that I could see it.
When flash bangs first erupt, they activate all the photoreceptor cells in the eye, leaving you effectively blind for five seconds. The upside of this was that no one was going to shoot us just yet. The downside was that we were both sitting ducks for whoever was about to come through those doors. The only thing I could hear was a muffled ringing tone as my ears were bleeding. It was all I could do to keep my balance, but somehow I managed to keep hold of Adie, although the gun and syringe went flying.
When I felt a pair of arms around my waist, guiding me outside, I instantly struggled against them, but whoever it was, he was too big to fight. Without the use of my eyes, I was virtually helpless, and my captor used that fact to his advantage. Before I knew what was happening, my head was being forced down, and I was thrown virtually head first into what must have been a car because I landed on a seat and I could feel the gearbox next to me. My head reeled, and my arms flailed about, although I had no idea what they were searching for. Whoever my new captor was, it was unlikely he was going to have a weapon waiting for me.
A few seconds later, I felt a surge of movement, and my body slammed against the dash as we shot off. What the hell had just happened? Letting out a gasp, I cried out in pain, before strong, gentle hands came around my stomach, guiding me back into my seat. They then pulled my seatbelt around me, for which I was entirely grateful because the car suddenly accelerated into light-speed mode. My body was pushed back firmly into my seat by the G-force being applied, and breathing suddenly became a very important commodity. Concentrating on dragging air into my lungs, I waited patiently for my vision to return.
After those five seconds of darkness, your vision doesn’t return instantly. You see an afterimage of the blast, and it’s intended to impair the enemy’s aim, preventing them from shooting your retreating back. That was what I was now seeing. There was a very bright spot off the centre of my vision, throbbing behind my eyes, but that was a good thing. It meant things would return to normal before long.
Turning towards my captor in the driver’s seat, I tried to take stock of what I was dealing with here. At the moment, he was wearing a balaclava over his head, and only his eyes were visible.
“Who are you?” My ears still rang with the
after-effects of the explosion, but thankfully I could once again hear, although I suspected it would take a day or two before things went back to normal. When you take a one-hundred-and-seventy decibel bang in your eardrums, it does funny things to them, take my word for it.
The driver then gripped the top of his balaclava, pulling it off sharply, and I recognised him instantly – it was James. There was a God.
“You told me you weren’t going to come and rescue me,” I said, utterly amazed to see him sitting there.
“I was always going to come and rescue you, woman. Bloody good job I did, too. Look what a fucking mess you’ve made.”
I gave him a dark look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
"It means you tried to kill the wrong bloke, not once, but twice." James's face was set in a hard line, and it was clear he was unimpressed. After the day I'd had, his disapproval was the last thing I needed.
“If you’d seen fit to apprise me of the situation, and given me a description, none of this would have happened,” I barked angrily.
“At the time, I didn’t know, and it was important that you figured things out by yourself. I’m not your babysitter, darling.”
“Hang on, what do you mean, ‘not once but twice?’ I only got one shot at Geraud, and he was the only person that was referred to as ‘Dumortier’ in that place. I took me a while to figure out that Adie was his son, but he was going to be dead in the next couple of seconds had you not come bursting in chucking grenades around.”
The sound of a throat clearing could be heard from the back of the car, and my head swivelled around in shock.
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