by Gareth Flood
Julie’s flat was tiny, even by Parisian standards. There was a short corridor off the front door, which entered into the main living area. The main area consisted of a small kitchen and lounge. French doors at the back of the property overlooked a tiny, unkempt garden. On the other side of the lounge were stairs, which went up to the single bedroom and bathroom. Julie directed Jonathan to the couch in the lounge.
‘I will make us some coffee.’ Julie said, as she filled up a shiny silver kettle and turned it on to boil. ‘You must be hungry. Would you like some fruit?’ she asked.
Jonathan was hungry. He had mostly been eating processed snacks recently. Fruit sounded great. He nodded and smiled.
Julie handed him an apple and small knife on a plate as he sat on the couch.
It was a scene of normality and Jonathan was savouring every moment of it. He felt he could almost relax but dare not. Julie would ask him soon enough how she could help or what the plan was.
The truth was, he did not know and did not have one.
‘It all sounds so crazy,’ Julie said as she made coffee, ‘stuff like this actually happens.’
‘I know,’ he said, ‘ it’s probably too dangerous asking you to help me. I’ll have a drink and go. I don’t want to make any trouble for you.’
Julie brought two steaming cups of coffee from the kitchen and sat beside him on the sofa.
‘Well, you are not so far.’ she said with a smile, ‘we are just having coffee.’
Jonathan smiled back and felt himself relax a little.
‘Tell you what,’ Julie said, ‘while we are having this drink, let’s not talk about it, then afterwards we can figure out where you should go next. Did you know there are the bones of six million Parisians stacked in the old quarry tunnels under the city?’
‘What?’ Jonathan asked surprised, ‘what are you talking about?’
‘Just changing the subject,’ she said with a smile as she held her cup in both hands, ‘better than talking about the usual tourist things like the Eiffel tower – so boring.’
Jonathan laughed and asked further about the mysterious bones.
Over the next twenty minutes their conversation was wide ranging: from the joys and perils of living in Paris, cuisine, hobbies, holidays and home furnishings.
There were never any awkward silences and they were comfortable in each other’s company. Jonathan could feel himself really starting to like her.
‘Look,’ he said, turning serious again, ‘I really don’t want anything to happen to you. I somehow got myself into this mess and I don’t want to drag you down with me.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, ‘if I do want to help you then it is my decision. I’ve been thinking about since we got here and I’m going to help you and I’ll tell you why. Jonathan, my Grandfather was in the resistance in the war, while he was very scared and had friends killed, for the rest of his life he always said it was the time he had also felt most alive. He really enjoyed his retirement because he could look back and know, really know, that he had made a difference in this world. He’d stood up to the presence of evil and was part of overthrowing it. How many opportunities do we really get like that these days? To be honest, my life is boring. I hate it. I get up, do admin for a bloody oil company and come home to cook dinner. I do not believe this type of existence is what we are here on this planet for.’ she grabbed his arm in excitement. ‘Of course I will help you!’ she continued, ‘We may die but we may also get to live, really live - more than anyone else in that time we have. This is what life is about.’
Jonathan was stunned.
‘Wow, I never realized you were so philosophical.’ he said.
‘I am French.’ she said with a shrug as she stood up and started heading for the kitchen, ‘I will make us another coffee and then we decide what to do.’
Jonathan couldn’t stop smiling.
Across the road from the flat, an unmarked car pulled driven by a man in a black coat. The man killed the engine and pulled a nine-millimetre Glock pistol from within his jacket. From underneath the driver’s seat, he pulled out a black zip up bag. He took from the bag a gun silencer and door entry kit that contained lock picking tools. The man carried on watching the door as he screwed the silencer on onto the Glock. Once it was on tightly, he put the gun into his jacket and smoothly got out of the car and headed toward Julie’s front door.
As Jonathan went back to slicing up an apple, he looked up to see how Julie was doing. His eye was caught by a disappearing shard of white from a closing door, followed by a growing black reflection in the silver kettle on the kitchen counter.
It was someone coming up the hallway!
Jonathan was on his feet and lunging before he could even think about what he was doing.
A hand holding a gun was rising from behind the hallway wall to be pointed at Julie’s back in the kitchen. Jonathan still held his knife as he travelled toward the disembodied hand. He thrust forward with his right arm, stabbing the knife into the back of the hand till it made contact with the hard surface of the gun handle.
There was a grunt from behind the wall as the gun dropped. A split second later, a left fist came flying out of the gloom to hit Jonathan squarely in the chest.
The air was knocked out of Jonathan’s lungs and he staggered backwards till the backs of his legs were up against the coffee table. The burly attacker was around the corner now and advancing on Jonathan quickly. Jonathan feebly tried throwing a right hook. The man parried with ease and counterattacked by punching him in the stomach, then elbowing him in the face as he dropped forward.
Jonathan’s eyesight exploded in fireworks of multicoloured light. The man took one step back and launched a full sidekick into Jonathan’s torso. The impact sent Jonathan flying over the coffee table and crashing into the television in the corner. As he sailed through the air he was vaguely aware of Julie screaming in the background.
The assassin bent over and grunted again as he jerked the knife out of his hand. He spun around toward the kitchen to throw the knife at Julie but he froze halfway through his movement.
‘Stop!’ Julie screamed, while pointing the gun that he had dropped straight at his chest.
The attacker’s face parted in an evil sneer.
‘You have not killed before.’ he said in a thick Eastern European accent.
‘True.’ Julie said calmly, ‘but I have fired a gun before.’ she lowered the weapon and pulled the trigger – discharging a round into the assassins the right leg.
The man cried out and hit the floor, whereupon Julie took a step forward and shot him in the left leg.
He cried out in pain again and writhed as he held his legs.
Jonathan was getting up onto his knees in the corner.
As Julie kept the gun trained on the assassin, Jonathan picked up a stone sculpture of what seemed to be two people hugging that was next to the television. He shuffled forward on his knees around the coffee table and hit the attacker over the head with it. The man grunted and turned to look at Jonathan - pure venom in his eyes.
Jonathan countered by belting him even harder with the stone sculpture on the temple on the side of the head - knocking him unconscious.
The assassin’s body collapsed in a crumpled heap.
Jonathan put his hands on his chest and face where he had been hit and looked up at Julie in amazement as she lowered the gun.
‘You were incredible!’ he said, ‘How? How?’
‘It was pre-meditated.’ she shrugged, while nonchalantly flicking on the safety switch of the weapon before placing it on the kitchen counter.
She tossed her hair back with her right hand. ‘I would not kill him.’ she said. ‘But you always see those situations in the movies, where they do not use the gun and then the villain gets the upper hand again. I’m always screaming at the screen “Just shoot him in the legs!” It’s obvious - so that’s what I did.’
‘But where did you learn to shoot like that? I mean you live in su
burban Paris.’ Jonathan asked, still astounded by the entire scene.
‘Ah. Yes. But my uncle, he does not. He has a huge farm in central France and has an arsenal of weaponry. We spent some summers as kids shooting cans off walls. It was great fun.’ Julie said.
‘Not to mention life savingly handy.’ Jonathan replied.
‘You’re welcome.’ she gave a little curtsey.
Jonathan was still holding his head where he had been elbowed. As the adrenalin ebbed away, the volume on the pain was rapidly being turned up.
They both stood for a few seconds contemplating the unconscious killer in the lounge.
‘We have to get out of here.’ Jonathan said
‘Agreed.’ Julie said, ‘We leave in one minute - out the rear door. My car is parked one street back from here. He probably has friends on the way.’
Jonathan used the edge of the kitchen counter for support as he stood up unsteadily. Julie came forward and supported his arms. He leant against her. The pain subsided slightly.
‘Julie, I have to get away from you.’ Jonathan said. ‘Look what happened and you were only with me for fifteen minutes.’
‘And go where? My usual haunts? This goon here would’ve let someone know you were with me. They will be looking for me too with the same intensity. Probably easier if we run together.’
‘I’m sorry I got you into this. Really.’
‘Don’t give me that.’ she said as she released his arms. She picked up the gun and began wiping it down for fingerprints before putting it into her handbag, ‘I made the decision on my own. Right now we have to get out of here. Then get out of Paris. Just let me grab another bag, some toiletries and we are off.’
‘What do we do about Mr. Chuckles here?’ Jonathan asked, as he nudged the unconsciousness man with his shoe.
Julie was moving round the room, quickly wiping down the stone sculpture and knife that Jonathan had touched.
‘We will be out in thirty seconds. I will call the police from the car pretending to be a neighbour and say I heard gunshots from the apartment. They will pick him up for burglary and whatever else they decide is going on from this scene.’
Jonathan moved to wait by the back door.
‘Any suggestions for where to go once in the car?’ He asked.
Julie was halfway up the stairs. ‘Let’s decide once we are driving.’ she yelled down over her shoulder.
Jonathan looked through the French doors onto the small patio. He was dumbfounded on two counts. Firstly, at the scale of what an amazing woman Julie was, and secondly, thinking about how many resources his enemies had - if they were able to watch every apartment of everyone he may have known in Paris.
16
London
Deep within the confines of the MI6 building on the South Bank of the Thames, Harry Shaftsbury felt his bowels shift within the windowless, soundproofed meeting room. Across the expansive meeting table, the cold tungsten eyes of the head of MI6, Sir William Gladstone, bored into him.
He was desperately trying to stop himself from twitching, but could just feel his left eyebrow starting to go. With the rest of his willpower he tried to prevent himself sweating. No use.
‘So,’ Gladstone said flatly, ‘this contact is your roommate eh?’ The perfect eyebrow of suspicion he raised would have put Roger Moore to shame. ‘Aren’t you just a bloody analyst? Sounds like a hell of a coincidence to me. ’
Harry desperately grabbed the edge of his eye to abate the twitching.
‘Uh, yes, sir,’ Harry said awkwardly, ‘but…but the coincidence is not as great as you may think. Neither of us are at the stage in our careers where we can afford to live in central London on our salaries, as well as eat, sir.’
Gladstone cocked his head to one side as though listening for the far off braying of his foxhunting dogs.
‘Is that impudence I hear?’
‘Ooh, no sir,’ Harry said quickly.
‘Better not be. Or you will be analysing somewhere quite…nasty. We still have a few nasty places left on earth we can send those who don’t cut the mustard.’
Around the table, the other men shifted uncomfortably. Three senior intelligence chiefs, they had come through their careers being pummelled with workplace political correctness and recurring programmes on “diversity” and “inclusiveness of working styles”, which reinforced the message you must never yell at anyone or fire brazen ineptitude. Not Gladstone though, he was completely immune to political correctness. While he was in charge, he did things his way.
One of the intelligence chiefs was Harry’s boss, in whom Harry had initially confided about Jonathan. The current meeting had quickly been convened as a result, since it was the first break in the file that they had.
After confiding in his boss that morning, before Harry could say “Projectile vomiting dizziness, ” the great grey moray eel himself was staring him down. Gladstone had a reputation for leaving underlings feeling like their backs had been beaten with a sack full of assorted rounded fruit, turning them variations of primary colours for the next six months.
Harry gave up on the eye and just closed it. He knew he had about five minutes till sweat patches would start showing on his arms. He could feel the defence of anti-perspirant that he had caked on was being breached.
‘So say it is a coincidence.’ intoned Gladstone with an accent built by generations of good breeding, ‘Bloody good break for us then. A man with credible information actually calls one of our analysts - unheard of! Still, I’ve seen stranger things happen in this job, that’s for certain. We are confident the source is credible?’
One of the other men leaned inwards. ‘Yes Sir, we have checked the source out. He is a consultant within the company. His record is perfect, never even had a parking fine. So the hypothesis is that he has seen something he shouldn’t have and is marked for elimination.’
‘Good.’ said Gladstone in approval. ‘So we take the break. Purpose of this meeting is to ascertain if this Marshall character contacting us is credible and if it has any bearing on our mole in the oil company. In summary, he does seem a credible source and in no way affect the status of our existing operative. So now we have this new man as well as our mole in the company to move the case forward. You, analyst-’ Gladstone directed his cool ire toward Harry again. ‘Did your man mention anyone else trying to get information out of the Oil Company, or word of anyone leaking company secrets?’
‘No Sir, he did not. We have a mole in the oil company?’ as soon as Harry said it, he knew he had overstepped his mark.
His boss’s eyes widened.
Gladstone’s eyes narrowed and he spoke in a voice of cool ire. ‘Of course we have a bloody mole in there. All the agencies do. No one trusts those oil company bastards as far as we can throw this building. The security of a country depends on the energy security of a country and half of these damn oil firms are foreign owned now. Anyway,’ he said, brushing off his old school tie, ‘Scotland Yard received a call this morning from someone in the London office of the company. The caller claimed to have some information relating to the recent murder of one Hoot Mitchell, Oil Company Chief Executive. They did not leave a name but apparently sounded scared as hell.’
‘So someone else is trying to get the information out as well?’ ventured one of the men to the right.
‘Yesss.’ replied Gladstone, irritated by the obvious question. ‘Our man on the inside is trying to track them down from within – if you get my meaning. Now listen here all of you. This information stays within these four walls. If we have any of those stupid teleconferences or “catch-up” meetings with any other agencies - I want nothing mentioned. I don’t want any Johnny Foreigners catching wind of any of this, that includes our American cousins. You, analyst-’
Harry jerked up in his chair again. He could feel the stains under his arms were on the march.
‘You are now seconded to this case.’ Gladstone said, ‘I want a full debrief written up of what you know of this ro
ommate character. Then liaise with the case agents in preparation for if he calls again. We need to get information out of our two sources as quickly as we can, the Prime Minister wants an update tomorrow, so I want one at the end of today.’
‘Yes Sir.’ Harry kept a straight face, but on the inside he was on the verge, at the very apogee, of actually dying from excitement.
17
Paris
Julie’s car changed lanes with a jerk, narrowly missing a slower car that had been in front of them. Julie planted her foot on the accelerator and the car leapt forward again to continue its headlong flight down the motorway.
‘Slow down.’ Jonathan said, trying to remain calm. ‘I know we’re on the run, but we don’t want to blatantly look like it. Besides, your little engine sounds like it is going to explode.’
Julie slowed the car back down to something near the speed limit.
‘She can take it.’ replied Julie, stroking the dashboard in front of her. They were hurtling down the southern highway out of Paris in Julie’s hatchback Peugeot 106.
She’s clearly a skilled driver, thought Jonathan, but definitely going too fast.
Jonathan was more worried about alerting the police at this point, than any trailing killers.
He hunched back in his seat and tried to clear his head to think. It had been such a mad panic getting out of the apartment and into the car without being seen. They had no plan other than to get onto the motorway without being killed.
Once they were on the motorway, he was forced to think of what to do next, his thoughts could only get as far as getting off the motorway without being killed.