by Rob Aspinall
“Come on,” I said. “I’ve been buying you drinks all night.”
The zillionaire and his wife stood outside a bank of elevators with their guards.
There were three guards in total now, all built like wrestlers. The couple glanced over to see what all the fuss was.
“Leave me alone, will you? I’m not interested,” said Inge.
“You tease,” I slurred, grabbing my crotch. “Come up to my room. I’ve got a present for you.”
The Russian man dispatched one of his bodyguards to intervene.
“Come in with us, dear,” Magdalena, the Russian’s wife, said to Inge. “Andrei will take care of him.”
“Thank you so much,” Inge said. “He’s been hassling me all night.”
As the elevator doors closed, Andrei told me to take a hike before I got hurt. I checked the corridor was empty, backing off and holding up my hands in surrender. The second he turned his back I chopped him on the neck with the point of my hand, catching him on his way down. I dragged his body out of sight into the stairwell next to the elevators, then bounded up four flights of stairs and out onto the second floor, where I stood waiting for the elevator, shiny black shoes sinking into the deep, red carpet. The doors pinged open, the two bodyguards out for the count on the floor of the elevator, Mr and Mrs Zillionaire out cold in either corner. Inge stood in the centre of it all, tucking a short, empty syringe pen into a strap around her left thigh.
“Fast work,” I said.
“Well, there were only four of them.”
She planted a foot against one of the elevator doors and unclipped a handgun with a silencer strapped to the inside of her right thigh. We piled three of the bodies up in the middle of the corridor, Mrs Zillionaire on top.
We rode the elevator down to the basement with Mr Zillionaire. I carried him over a broad shoulder into the underground carpark, chilly and dim, while Inge blipped a sleek, black Audi saloon and popped the boot. We rolled casually out of the carpark into the night and a stream of city traffic, the Eiffel Tower illuminated in the distance.
How cool. Paris was my dream destination.
“We’ve got a tail, moving fast,” Inge said, a little further down the road. I took a gun from the glove box and slapped in a fresh clip. “Silver Mercedes,” she said. “Two cars back, right lane.”
“Someone woke up early and called it in,” I said, pulling the seatbelt loose and opening the passenger door.
“Ready?” asked Inge.
“Ready,” I said.
She swerved hard into the right lane. I pushed the door open with my right hand and leaned halfway out of the car with the gun in my left, my head mere inches from the onrushing tarmac.
I only got a clear shot of the tail for a second or two, but I managed to hit the driver’s side tyre with bullet number two. The tyre blew out with a bang, sending the car skidding off the road, smashing into the central barrier. I sat back up in my seat and shut the door.
“Two shots,” Inge said, wearing a smirk. “Drink ruining your aim?”
12
Cherry Pop
Somewhere in a field outside Paris, the Audi saloon bumped along a lumpy grass field, bugs zipping in and out of the headlights. Inge stopped the car and turned off the engine, leaving the headlights on. We got out and stretched. It was nippy out. The smell of cow manure and chatter of crickets hung in the air. Muffled shouting and banging came from inside the boot. A tiny light appeared in the sky, growing bigger and noisier. A black jet helicopter came down over the fields, blowing up loose grass and pushing Inge’s dress away from her long, toned legs. It landed in the middle of the field, before a sliding door opened and Nathan jumped out. I opened the boot and hauled the Russian out by the jacket lapels. He was going crazy, swearing in two languages. Demanding to know what we’d done with his wife. We marched him across the field, meeting Nathan halfway.
“Mmm, the countryside. Marvellous!” Nathan shouted over the rotor blades. “Hello, Yevgeny. I apologise for interrupting your evening.”
“You can’t do this to me,” Yevgeny said. “I’m a senior committee member.”
“Of course, of course. That’s why I’m here,” Nathan said. “We’d like to talk to you about your vote. Vis-à-vis the treaty.”
Nathan put an arm around Yevgeny and guided him towards the chopper. “I won’t take up too much of your time,” Nathan said.
“Where are you taking me? What have you done with my wife?”
“Your wife is fine, Yevgeny. Come on, let me give you a tour of the city at night. It’s quite beautiful.”
A young woman in a business suit hurried over to me and Inge, carrying a pair of brown envelopes. She handed us one each, then wobbled back awkwardly in heels to the chopper. They slid the door shut and took off, vanishing as quickly as they’d appeared.
“It must be important,” Inge said, as we strolled back to the car.
“What do you mean?”
“This treaty,” she said. “He’s the fourth senior member in a month they’ve wanted to talk to.”
She stopped at the car and followed the tiny blinking light of the helicopter in the sky.
“What do you think they’ll do with him?” she asked. “Drop or dangle?”
“Depends if he signs.”
“I’ll go for drop,” she said. “These billionaires think they’re untouchable.”
“He looks like a dangler to me,” I said, climbing in the passenger seat.
“Want to make it interesting?” Inge asked, pushing the ignition on the car. “A hundred euros?”
“Make it two,” I said.
“Easy money,” Inge said, putting the Audi in gear. She spun us round in a half-donut, flooring it back to the main road.
I stood by the minibar in a hotel room, sipping on a Scotch miniature. The room itself was a double. Three-star digs. Nothing like the grand hotel from earlier. From the sound coming through the window, more of a motel just off a dual carriageway.
I heard the toilet flush. I removed my jacket and shoulder holster. Inge appeared in the wedge of light breaking out of the bathroom doorway. Nothing but fancy black underwear. Damn, the woman had style. I wondered what brand.
“Well, that was an easy one,” she said, slinking across the room.
What was easy? The poo? Oh, yeah, the mission.
She unknotted my bow tie and brushed both hands down my chest. I felt something move in my pants. Like a small animal waking up.
Holy crap. Weird.
She was all set to pop my dream cherry. She kissed me gently, slowly on the lips.
Oh, this is confusing. Does this make me a lesbian? No, I’m just a passenger here.
I won’t deny the excitement I felt at the touch of her silk underwear and soft, smooth skin. It wasn’t exactly shrinking my noodle, if you know what I mean.
We ended up on the bed under the covers with nothing between us except our smalls. I memorised the label on her knickers as I slipped them off, thinking I’d Google them when I woke up. Not that I had the funds to buy them, but it was nice to browse.
“Did you bring protection?” she whispered in my ear.
“SIG P210, semi-automatic and a Glock 17,” I said.
“No, I meant … you know …”
“With our life expectancy?” I said. “What does it matter?”
Inge fixed me with a Seriously? stare. “You know the rules on pregnancy.”
I hesitated, and relented. “Okay,” I said, sliding off the bed and retrieving a condom from a zip inside a black travel holdall. I peeled the corner off the shiny blue wrapper with my teeth as I slipped back under the covers.
We got back to the heavy petting. She kissed my neck and it hit the spot. I got lost in the moment. The heat. The passion. The scent of her perfume.
She moaned expletives, speaking in her native tongue, saying she wanted me inside her. I wriggled clumsily out of my boxers and got a look at the old chap, standing to attention. This would look great i
n my penis museum.
With my little rubber raincoat on, she guided my ding-a-ling inside and we started to do the nasty. It wasn’t how I thought it would be. Not like on the movies where silhouette figures indulge in slow, breathless, choreographed movements while they gaze in each other’s eyes. It was vigorous, sweaty work and a struggle to find a comfortable way to prop myself up on my forearms.
She told me to strangle her.
Say whaaaaaat?
“No thumbs,” she added.
Where was the romance?
Reluctantly, I wrapped my fingers around her throat and gently squeezed. She started to moan and writhe. How did I know if I was killing her or not?
Don’t be silly, Lorna. Philippe’s a pro at this.
The more I squeezed, the closer she got to the big “O”, but something was wrong in the love tunnel. I felt, hmm, how do I put this?
Shrinkage. Yep, shrinkage.
I kept on trucking, but it was like ice-skating uphill. I’d gone from Mr Lova Lova to Captain This Doesn’t Usually Happen, faster than you could say soggy spaghetti. I cut the dance with no pants short and loosened my grip on Inge’s throat.
“Was ist das?” she asked, totally miffed.
“Sorry. It’s been a long night.”
“Nein! This is unacceptable.”
I shrugged and rolled onto my back, counting the damp stains on the ceiling. My first time and I fluff it. You poor man, Lorna. You poor, poor man.
We sat naked, side by side in bed, laptops out. Inge was over her little strop and happily finishing off a cup of herbal tea.
“That doesn’t usually happen,” I said, dredging the subject back out of the shame pond. “Tired, I guess.”
“It’s fine,” she said.
“No, really …”
“No, really, it’s fine,” she said, eyes glued to the screen, red nail-varnished fingers whirling over the keyboard.
I reached over to the bedside table and grabbed the envelopes. I tossed Inge’s over. We ripped them open and emptied out the contents. A silver data stick each. We plugged them in, angling our screens away from each other. I clicked open the file. There was a Google map and clandestine snaps of an auburn-haired woman in a business suit and long, grey mackintosh coat, plus a document detailing her name and where she worked.
Her name was Sarah McKenzie, assistant to the head of MI6. At the bottom of the document, there was a line in large caps: RED FLAG PROTOCOL.
“So, where to next?” asked Inge.
“London. You?”
“Some hellhole in Africa,” she said. “Hopefully this little world tour will be over soon.”
She rolled her neck out. “The jet lag is killing me. And I’m way behind on my expenses.”
I closed the file and fixed my attention on her.
“Do you ever regret—”
“What, the life?” Inge asked, sipping on her tea.
“Yeah.”
“No,” she said, eyeing me suspiciously. “You?”
I paused for what seems like an eternity. “Of course not.”
“Anyway,” she said, getting out of bed and pulling on her bra, “what was the alternative, in our situations?”
She climbed back into bed and flicked off the bedside lamp.
“Life is survival,” she said, stretching and yawning in the half-light. “You do what you have to.”
13
Research
Day three of the Silent War. Neither side backing down. Auntie Claire had been working late. I’d been burying my head in coursework, cutting up my own raw-veg salads.
And now I was at my latest hospital appointment. The police had been in touch with Lisa, my personal brain tinkerer. My tiny mind might be on the fritz, they’d said. Could she tell them if I should be sectioned?
“I don’t know why no one believes us,” I said to her, slouched in the high-back leather armchair. “The guys were trying to force us into, I don’t know, some kind of sex act. What was I supposed to do? Go down on them? They got what was coming.”
Lisa nodded sympathetically, jotting something down on a notepad. Probably Ka-ray-zee bitch! :S
She opened a thin brown file and held up photos of the injuries. A black eye. A broken nose. A fractured arm. A splintered rib. A leg in plaster. An infected neck wound.
“Did you feel in control when you were … defending yourself?” she asked.
“Hell no.”
“I’m curious to know what you make of that.”
“I’m not a nutjob, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“It’s not about what I think.”
Oh, here we went. Make a controversial, insinuating statement and then totally disown it.
“I know you have to ask questions,” I said, “but don’t look at me for an answer. I mean, how would I know how to break a man’s arm in three places?”
“Interesting,” Lisa said, consulting her notes again. “The report mentions that one of the men suffered a triple fracture in his right arm.”
“I heard it snap a few times,” I lied. Truth is, it was a lucky guess, but I didn’t like her jib. As if I knew what I was doing and I might pose a threat. I just wanted to get back to normal and put all of it behind me. I had enough to deal with thanks to all the rehab, the study and the aggro at home.
“Okay,” Lisa said. “I have to admit, I’m concerned about you, Lorna. You’ve been through a lot of … adjustments. Both physical and emotional.”
She walked over to her desk and scribbled on a pink prescription pad, tore off the top page and handed it over.
“This will help with the moods and the dreams,” she said. “We’ll start you off on one a day and we’ll see how it goes.”
“More pills?” I said. “Do you know how many I’m on already?”
“Then one more won’t hurt, will it?” she said, showing me out. “I already checked with Dr Jennings and it won’t interfere with your other medication.”
The good news: this wasn’t a Girl Interrupted pre-cursor to a padded cell. The bad news: it was all a ruse to get me hooked on sedatives and take my bad ass off the streets. Lisa was probably just as confused as me, bless her. I mean, how does a teenage transplantee put four thugging great goons in traction with nothing but tall heels and a short temper? I think the easy thing for everyone was the old shrug and glug. Starting with my first pill, to be swallowed there and then at the hospital pharmacy in front of Lisa. I put the pill on my tongue, knocked back the small paper cup of water and smiled. “Ta-da!”
As soon as I got out of the door, I worked the pill from behind my upper gum line and spat it out in a bin. This had gone on long enough, I thought. Time for a good old-fashioned Googling:
Dreams that seem real …
Just a load of search results about lucid dreaming. Took me ages to read through all the bumf before I realised it was a dead end.
Weird dreams about killing people …
Could mean you’re trying to kill off a part of yourself … blah, blah, blah-de-blah. Already heard that from Lisa. I just didn’t buy it.
Woman having penis dreams …
Yeeeuuuw! Disgusting. Back, back, back!
I sat up straight on my bed, stretched out my arms and gave it some thought. I leaned back into the lappy.
Post-transplant behaviour changes …
Okay, now we were cooking. It took a bit of clicking through various scientific journals, but I finally found something written in plain English. Stories of people who’d actually experienced changes in behaviour following their op. Not only that, they’d developed whole new personality traits.
One woman got a heart from a teenage biker dude with a love for chicken nuggets. Next thing you know, she’s getting motorbike lessons and hanging out at KFC. Another guy developed a love for classical music after his seventeen-year-old donor was killed in a drive-by shooting, clutching a violin case. A man in his forties inherited a fourteen-year-old girl’s eating disorders, while a lesbian chan
ged sexual preference and married a man. My God, this was incredible. But could it really explain the Kung Fu Panda act in the alley? I mean, the woman had to get lessons before she could go tearing ass around the countryside on her Harley. And the man who liked classical music didn’t suddenly become Vivaldi.
I knew my donor died of a gunshot wound, but attaching that to the fight in the alley or the dreams seemed like a bit of a stretch. Eating meat and drinking Scotch could be linked though. It was a good starting point for a question. And the Twitter Q&A run by the author of the site, a medical doctor, seemed like the perfect place. In a hundred and forty characters or less, I posed the question:
Just wonderin. Do any of ur stories have patients with new skills? Or weird dreams? Thx @LittleLorna
I left the question hanging, then called it a night.
14
Red Flag Protocol
The latest dream started off boring. Upside-down boring. Handstand push-up boring in the corner of another small, dingy hotel room, veiny pumped forearms struggling on the final rep. My phone lit up on the lovely poo-brown bedspread. I flipped upright and let the blood rush back down from my head. The phone had an app on it that showed a red dot lurching along a London map. Suddenly I was hit by a memory of bumping into a woman in the street and spilling a little water on the sleeve of her stylish grey mackintosh.
It was the Red Flag Protocol woman, Sarah McKenzie.
“I’m so sorry,” I said to her. “How clumsy of me.”
She smiled. “It’s fine. It’s only water.”
Except somehow I knew it wasn’t. It was a nano-tracking device soaking its way into the lining of her coat.
Back in the hotel room, I pulled on a black jacket to go with my black jeans, black boots and black tee. Oh, and a black handgun with a black silencer tucked inside my jacket. Would a dash of blue or pink pastel kill us, Philippe? I zipped open a small (black) pouch with what looked like a silver rollerball pen, but instead of a nib there was a tiny needle.