7PM - Bjorn

by Chris Heinicke

  “My pleasure,” I said. I went to add something else when she pressed her lips against mine again and kissed me deeper than the first time. As muscular as she was, her mouth felt soft inside, her tongue gentle as it twisted inside our mouths with my own.

  “You kiss okay,” she said, and as the cab came to a stop, we released each other and separated, each heading to a different door. “Tonight we fuck like we should have a long time ago.”

  I smiled back at her and wondered if it was something we should do, given how long I built an image inside my head on how much I wanted her.

  “Looks like there’s been a wild party here, we better get the hell out,” the driver said, and put his foot to the floor.

  Chapter 5

  Before she set out on the failed 5PM mission, Emily handed me a sealed envelope, which was only to be opened in the event of her death. I liked her very much, as well as Ed and Hayley, who also lost their lives in what should have been a straightforward assignment.

  Nakato always said they should have never brought another police officer into the operation, and she should have posed as Ed’s partner, but the client Kate wouldn’t have things that way. And then the Praying Mantassassin organisation was in disarray. The reputation we had took a bad hit, and we needed someone to step into Ed’s spot.

  I was requested to enter the communications building and spoke to the boss, who told me I could be the new Ed. He believed in my skills as a killer and said I had the type of charisma a recruiter should have, but we would be missing the police connection unless Gary, Ed’s father, could find a way back in.

  I accepted and carried the burden of having to step up. I sat alone in my room and stared at the envelope, aware I had to open it and read what the now deceased writer wanted me to see.

  Dear Bjorn. I could start by saying if you’re reading this, then blah blah blah, but I won’t. Every mission carries a risk, and with this one paying so much, I want to be sure someone knows my big secret. I have a childhood friend who has undertaken surgery to look just like me, so if you can, please make contact with her at my gym. You should recruit her, and organise her to take ownership of all my properties and assets, and live as if she were me. You are one sexy motherfucker, Bjorn. Fantastic in bed, but most of all, you have a great heart. Please don’t cry for me. I have done a lot of wrong in my life, so death is my rightful sentence for the life I led. Please destroy this letter once you’ve read it. No one but you can know I have feelings.

  Lots of love,

  Emily xxxx

  Well, I had to break one part of her wishes. The tears came and wouldn’t stop for several minutes. I tore up the letter and threw it in the bin and set fire to it, and smoked a big fat joint, falling asleep soon afterwards.

  ******

  I waited nearly an hour for her to wake, her face bathed in beauty as she slept. After she had awakened and we both drank a strong cup of coffee, I told her about Emily’s letter and the request she penned before her death.

  “So what’s your answer, Ebony?” I asked the woman who easily passed as Emily in the physical sense. The conversation had been long and the tears plenty. I didn’t know this woman, but if her personality was anything like Emily’s, I had no doubt she would carry on her good friend’s legacy.

  “I’m in.” She leaned in and gave me a big kiss.

  “I will find a way to bust Talissa out of jail and let you hunt her down and kill her. And we will find her husband Terry and their children…”

  “Please, Bjorn. No child killing. If you need help making inroads to Talissa in prison, I have a couple of biker friends who could find someone on the inside. We can do this, just you and me.”

  I smiled. Her face reminded me of Emily, and I knew I would be making love to her by the end of the day. I had gone places in the PM organisation. I would make many contacts and help Ebony get her revenge.

  Life was good.

  Epilogue

  Five years Later

  “So, are they all accounted for?” the man asked the woman sitting opposite from him at the table.

  “Three of them are in prison, but I have someone on the inside to pull target five out. I’ll see to it personally that target ten is picked up on a transfer, but target one will be the biggest problem. There’s only so much even I can do.”

  The man sighed. So much preparation had gone into the mission, but if he couldn’t get target one to come to the party, they risked everything.

  “The postcards are ready to be sent, the venue is ready, and I have the team assembled. This is happening.”

  “So why go to all this trouble?”

  “I like games.”

  “You could just send me out to take them out one by one, and the risk will be zero. Think about it, at least.”

  The man pulled out a pistol. “I’m in charge here and don’t you forget it. You’re lucky to even be alive, let alone given such an opportunity to participate in an active role.”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot my manners.”

  “It’s natural. But you’ll get to have your fun once the dice are cast and able to personally take out some of my eleven prized marks.”

  11PM – Sneak Peek

  Chapter One

  Juneau, Alaska

  Terry stared at the postcard, reading it once, twice, and then a few more times. Were his eyes lying to him? Could he still be in his bed dreaming this crazy stuff? No. This was the mailbox at the end of his path leading from his house, and he emptied the contents of said mailbox, and this postcard really was sitting in his hands.

  On the front of the postcard, a Caucasian male held a guitar in a pose almost looking like he was making love to it. To his left, an African American played a harmonica into a microphone on a stand. But the back of it put Terry’s mind in a spin. The message giving him goose bumps each time he read it—

  Miss me, Terry?

  Love, BluesGirl88 xxx

  He turned his head in each direction, searching for any signs of someone possibly hiding amongst the throngs of trees surrounding much of his property. The driveway ran to the east side of the house, cutting a clearway through the forest allowing people access to come and go by road. To come from any other direction would require trekking through thick forests.

  His eyes followed the driveway as far as his visual range extended, but from where he stood, he couldn’t locate any movement in that direction either. Taking yet another look at the postcard, a chill ran down his spine as his mind absorbed the name of the sender—BluesGirl, a chat handle for a woman who had caused him much trouble and changed the course of his life forever. Barely surviving the real life encounter with the woman behind the name Bluesgirl88, Terry didn’t dare peek at the chat program known as 3DDreamchat ever again after those crazy times.

  “Yeah, right,” he said aloud, dismissing the card as being sent as a prank from someone he knew, albeit, an extremely sick prank. He bundled up the postcard with the rest of the day’s mail, to show it to his long-time partner, Hannah, when she arrived home from work later in the day.

  But he couldn’t deny the presence of a nervousness creeping inside him, travelling up through the extremities of his body, and an unnerving chill felt on top of the freezing bitterness of the snow blanketing the ground.

  He took a few steps towards the house, the best place to seek refuge from the biting winter air.

  Terry thought about giving Hannah a call about the strange postcard once he reached the inside of his residence. The unmistakable clapping sound of a bullet slicing its way through the air stopped him in his tracks. Frozen on the spot, he glanced sideways as bullets rained down near him, burying themselves into the snow, and splashing specks of the white powdery substance coating the ground. He needed to make a decision where to run and doubted he would be fast enough to outrun the lethal lead storm hunting him down.

  A single shot thundered over the pelting of the bullets, silencing the gunfire but causing a person to scream out loud before the screamer’s
body thudded to the ground. Terry scanned the area and saw snow dust rise up in a thin cloud from where the body had fallen.

  He decided running to the house to be the best course of action, and as if the ground lay booby-trapped, the shooting resumed. “Oh fuck,” he yelled, taking a couple of steps backwards from the last location where bullets had pelted down. He stole a quick upwards glance, an attempt to spot any sign of movement in the trees around him.

  A second loud boom echoed through the dense forest, resulting in another scream and downward crash. With the shooting at a halt again, he placed one snow buried foot in front of him ready to make a mad dash for his house. As he pulled his rear foot out to overtake the other, further shooting erupted, making its way closer to him again. He backed away in the opposite direction from which he wished to take, and almost wet his pants as a couple of bullets hit the ground between his feet and spat snow in the air at the point of impact.

  Once again, the shooting subsided, and Terry yelled at the top of his lungs, “Okay, you’ve made your point. If you’re going to kill me then just do it.”

  A third single shot reverberated through the air, followed by the falling of a body, its downward journey to the ground interrupted courtesy of the roof of Terry’s house. The head of the body covered with a balaclava, Terry had no idea if the corpse belonged to a male or female.

  Bursting through the foliage and onto the driveway, a tall, lean figure approached him with a rifle pointed his way. Unable to see another way out of his predicament, he put his hands up, waiting for the next thing to happen.

  Step by step, the figure’s physical features became more apparent. Looking at the hips and small protrusions from the chest, Terry guessed the body belonged to a female. She wore dark jeans, a hooded parka, and a pair of sunglasses covering most of her upper face. He stood like a statue, not daring to make any sudden movement to give the woman a reason to shoot him. The armed visitor stopped a few feet from him, and as she removed her eyewear, Terry took a few seconds until his realisation of the identity of the person in front of him smacked him in the face.

  “Brittany?” he asked.

  “Hi there, Terry, how’s my favourite womanising real estate agent doing these days?”

  “Holy shit. You were in jail, death row even. How the hell did you get out?”

  “Long story. We’ll save it for another drinking session perhaps. The question you should be asking me is what am I doing here? At your house? And who were those bad guys? But if you really want to know, can we please get the hell out of this damn freezer box environment and in front of your fireplace, perhaps?”

  “Brittany, you were going to kill my kids, and my mother, and me. Apart from the gun you have pointed at me, what the hell reason would I have to let you in my house?”

  “There’s something big going on, Terry, and it’s something bigger than you and your family and me and those dead C-grade snipers painting the snow and your roof red with blood. This shit is bigger than the Praying Mantassassins even. Please, for the love of puppies, let me in the goddamn house or else I’ll shoot you in the nuts.”

  ******

  “Sergeant Hall, this came directly to the station,” the young female constable handed her superior a postcard.

  “Strange they didn’t send it to my house instead of the station,” Hannah said. “Thanks. Oh, could I bother you for another coffee, Officer Kempson?”

  “Sure,” she said, happy to be asked to do anything her idol requested. She almost floated out of the office high on enthusiasm.

  Hannah looked down at the postcard on her desk. Gracing the front of it were two musicians on a stage, a caption near the bottom of it read ‘Greetings from the House of Blues, Las Vegas, Nevada.’

  “Who the hell do I know who’s visiting that place?” she asked out loud and flipped it over. She almost fell back on her chair when she read the handwritten note on the back—

  Confess your sins,

  Regards

  Dancergirl.

  “No way. This has to be some sort of sick joke.” She flipped it back over, studying the two musicians before turning it over and reading the message again.

  She placed the card in the top drawer of her desk. Apart from the reference to a chat handle she knew to be used by a corrupt police officer a few years back, the card made very little sense.

  “Your coffee, Sergeant,” Kempson said, making sure not to spill a single drop of the precious beverage Hannah craved most in the morning hours.

  “Stevie, did this postcard arrive by regular mail to the station?” Hannah gripped the card in question by a corner.

  “Yes. I guess they mustn’t know your home address.”

  “There’s no imprint on it, see? Any mail going through the system receives a rubber stamp, but this card is blank.” She stood and looked through her office window, across the flat surface, and onto the quiet street, attempting to spot anyone or anything who might raise her suspicion. Not one person stood out, seeming normal for modern day terrorists and criminals who spent hours learning how to blend in.

  “Can you please do me a favour? I’m expecting calls from people, so if you could watch the office and take any calls for me, I’ll make sure you’ll be noticed by those single malt drinking types up high in the Alaskan police authority. So, do we have a deal?”

  Stevie extended her hand, waiting for Hannah to make a move, who then soon accepted the younger woman’s gesture and pointed to a seat next to her.

  “Deal.”

  “And if you hear of anything you feel I need to know, please call me without a second thought.”

  Hannah smiled, stood up, and exited the office, forgoing the coffee Stevie had made for her. She turned the necessary corridors to make her way to the front of the station, seeking anyone or anything out the front of the building looking out of place. As she scanned the area, a van left its park, revealing a tall and near bald man across the other side of the road. The man turned his head, locking his sights on her and sending a shiver up her spine. He turned away and disappeared using a bus as cover while it drove past.

  She left the office through the glass automatic double doors, checking for traffic and jogging to the other side to pursue the man who raised her interest. She drew her pistol from her holster in preparation for any trouble he might present.

  Spotting movement from the corner of her eye, Hannah followed it with her aim and picked up the pace. Running through a residential area, she hoped not to have to fire any shots should the man turn out to be hostile. She lost trace of the movement and took long, steady steps through the alleyway slicing through the two halves of the land providing low cost housing. She passed by a tree on the corner of a block, taking a long look at it before passing it by, only to hear a voice behind her.

  “Looking for me?” he asked.

  Spinning on her feet, Hannah’s forearm soon ended up in the clutches of the man she had chased to this point, the weapon in her hand wrestled out of her control. She threw a punch at him, only to find her fist caught in the grasp of the menacing figure’s other hand.

  “I’m not here to hurt you, Hannah,” he said.

  “You’re assaulting an officer of the law. You better let me go.”

  “My name is Griffon, Jack Griffon. You first contacted me some time ago on my blog, and now I’m here to warn you of a threat we need to take care of.”

  “Did you send the postcard?”

  “No. I received one just like it, though. You left some loose ends a few years back, and now they seem intent on taking out a big name target in just two days. I need you to sit down and listen to what I have to say. I ask that you hear me out before passing judgement.”

  “I could take you into the station. We can have all the time you need to chat, lots of coffee, and I know you won’t try anything deadly.”

  “If I were going to try something deadly on you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, miss. If you don’t mind, I’d prefer somewhere more publ
ic like a café, and I’ll even buy the coffee.”

  “Wait, you said I contacted you on a blog?”

  “Yes. You know me as DS, and I believe I gave you some very top secret information which helped you make a break in a case against the Praying Mantassassins.”

  Hannah’s eyes lit up. “I know a great place, and yes, I will take you up on that offer for a free coffee.”

  ******

  Brittany and Terry sat in lounge chairs that faced each other, sipping coffee by the wood fire. She no longer wore her parka, revealing her new look to the man she once had a part in trying to take down. Her hair was shaved on one side of her head, the remainder flicked over and back to its natural brown colour. Wearing a singlet top, Terry admired the collection of ink she had gained over the years since he had last seen her, some of the tattoos coloured, some plain, and mostly covering her arms and shoulders and the visible parts of her back.

  “Terry, I simply can’t apologise enough for what happened. It was just business, and now I feel privileged to still be breathing. You and Hannah are in danger. You will soon realise this when you visit the internet address printed on the back of that postcard you got in the mail today.”

  “But you held a gun to my little girl’s head. That’s not something I can just forgive and forget.” He stood up and walked over to poke a log in the fireplace.”

  “I’ve done a lot of thinking in that time, and I really want to be a better person. I hid in that tree for three days waiting for those guys to make a move on your house, living on snack bars and melted snow. I killed them, and if I hadn’t, you would be dead.”

  “How do I know you weren’t with them, double crossing them at the last minute to make your case and gain my trust?”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever gain your trust again, Terry, and that’s okay because I don’t blame you. But I busted out of prison on a bit of information I came across in that shithole, something I wasn’t supposed to hear, and it could have got me killed if I had stayed there.”