Many of us are now re-evaluating the dictates of our faith concerning men and sons. After all, Cael is the descendent of Amazons of a First House dating back to the Trojan Wars. He has been welcomed by his ancestors and his goddess, Dot Ishara,” she completed.
“What is it with the Dot, Wakko and…”
“Everyone buckle up,” the pilot announced over the intercom. “We are on our final approach.” Saku and the Squirts had her armor in some kind of order, we buckled up and let the plane coast on down to earth.
“Delilah and Cael, since our ‘vacation’ was cut short, we haven’t been able to bring your personal effects back from Africa yet,” Rachel told us.
“Also, there will be four of Javiera’s people meeting us in the hangar,” she added. “We have been told to view them as non-hostiles.”
“Oh joy,” Pamela muttered then, “There is nothing to worry about folks.”
“What? Me worry?” I goofy grinned her way.
(Governments, horrendous enemies and ruthlessly evil friends)
Four SUVs waited for us in the wide-open hangar. No sooner had the pilot given us the ‘green light’, than Rachel released the door/stairs mechanism and Charlotte began her decent. We had the camp FN P-90’s, not the older Havenstone UMP 40’s, so that was the weapon whose sights she was looking down as her eyes scanned the room. Five people. Four SUVs.
Rachel went next with me right behind her. My SD’s precautions turned our guests from a rather annoyed-casual to alert-angry. Standing with our two standard Mercedes GL550’s was Wiesawa of House Ziva. A sole guardian indicated to me that an ass-kicking was in the offing elsewhere. The Golden Mare St. Marie was gathering the Havenstone Security Detail for some purpose, which meant she could only spare one more warrior for me.
I was fine with that. Not only did I feel bad about denying her the four ladies I had, I knew we were going into this global conflict outnumbered and out-financed. The Seven Pillars had gotten at least one blow in by striking at the Amazon summer camp. I had every reason to believe other unexpected attacks had occurred all across the globe.
In the closest black Tahoe SUV (didn’t anyone use sedans anymore?) were two men in modestly tailored, off-the-rack suits. One with buzz-cut gray-white hair, was closer to fifty than forty, was as tall as me (a bit over six feet/1. 9 meters) and close to my weight and build. That guy was pissed off.
His partner was smaller (5ft 10in/1. 78m) and lighter. He was also cocky with that ‘I know more than you schmucks’ air about him. Beside the farther SUV, a Range Rover (black, of course… I swore in that moment that if I ever got to have my own fleet of House Ishara SUV’s, I was going with baby blue, just to fuck with people’s heads), were two other men … one cultured and the other a bad-ass.
I didn’t call him a bad-ass because he looked like a bad-ass. I called him a bad-ass because he carried himself like a member of the SD, except he was a guy casually lethal. His buddy was the man he was body-guarding and, as I said, cultured looking. This second man was a thinker, a plotter and someone who had graduated from mostly taking orders to being the one issuing them. He was really unhappy.
As my foot hit the ground, the older/younger pair came toward me.
“Mr. Nyilas,” the younger man said. Early thirties, doing well and thinking he should be doing even better. “I’m Senior Field Officer George Cresky and this is Special Agent Vincent Loire. Can we have a few minutes of your time?” They flashed their badges as we closed the distance.
Right. That was not a request. I wasn’t born yesterday and I was becoming well-schooled in Amazon paranoia.
“Neat… well done. Can I see those ID’s again?” I came back with a healthy dose of distrust.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Nyilas?” the ‘smooth-talker’ grinned.
“Yeah,” I didn’t bother smiling anymore. “He’s FBI. You were a bit too quick concealing your junk.” SA Loire was getting irate with the son of a bitch too. Cresky showed me his badge slowly this time. What the fuck was a Senior Field Officer?
“Delilah, who the hell is on a Senior Field Officer of a Joint Terrorism Taskforce?” I asked the person most in the know.
“If that’s all he’s showing, he’s CIA,” Delilah smirked.
“Ms. Fairchild,” the cultured man spoke in a commanding tone and a crisp British accent. “A moment please.” Someday somebody is going to ask me an honest question and I’m not going to know what to do. Delilah headed that way. Pamela tagged along.
“Miss, this is a private matter,” the lead Brit stated calmly.
“I know,” Pamela answered in a decidedly mild tone I had come to associate with violence. “Young man, you are not as smart as you think you are shut your yap until I’m finished,” she pointed a finger his way. “SAS? SBS? Royal Marines? Commando?” she turned to the bodyguard.
“Royal Marines then SRR,” he responded with that same ‘easy’ voice, with a heavier Brit timbre.
“Are you and I going to have any problems?” she politely inquired of the bodyguard in a way I’d rarely heard her speak. She liked him right off the bat.
“I certainly hope not,” he gave Pamela a slight, respectful nod.
“Thank you,” she returned the respectful nodded. “Back you to you, buddy,” she turned on the ‘leader’. “What you have planned isn’t going to happen. You are going to play nice, debrief Delilah here and then let her leave with us. Do not get into a pissy turf war with me, or the powers-that-be who sent Delilah our way.”
“Or?” the man’s gaze was a blatant provocation.
“I don’t know your name, but I know you are MI-6 station chief for the UK’s UN mission. I can name a half-dozen people who will give me your name. I don’t give a rat’s ass about extraterritoriality. You have a wedding band.
You don’t wear it all the time, so I’m betting you are divorced, not that it matters. Pity about your kids because once I’ve killed you and hopefully only incapacitated your friend here I’m going to kill rest of your family.” She pointed a finger into his face once more. “Let me finish.
Now, if you even think for a second this is bullshit, I’ve put a . 308 bullet through the chest of a nine month old child who was in the wrong place at the wrong time so I could end the life of the man I was sent to kill. He thought it would make an effective human shield. Ask your buddy if I’m that kind of bitch.”
The leader looked to his bodyguard who remained ‘at ease’, which spoke volumes in and of itself.
“That is not how…” the leader tried to keep pace.
“Hold on,” Pamela interrupted him. “I didn’t come over to have a conversation. I came over to deliver this warning and to repay a debt.
I like Delilah as a fellow oxygen-breather, not as a friend and I have a soft spot for Welshmen too stupid to avoid government service… and I never make a hollow threat, or an empty pledge. Rees Meadows SAS: AB NEG, 29875604, Meadows, RA, CE,” Pamela recited. “He is buried under the name Martin Angelov in a tomb adjacent to the British Military section of the Orlandodvtsi Cemetery in Sofia, Bulgaria. He went missing in 1978.”
“You are finally getting around to telling us this now?” the leader grumbled.
“Honestly, talking AT you is as pleasant as passing a kidney stone. It was in the middle of the Cold War and none of us should have been behind the Iron Curtain, much less cancelling out a whole nest of very nasty human beings.
Rees, me and two of his friends went on a killing spree that lasted sixty-nine days. From the Crimea to Sofia, we racked up eighty-seven dead, most of them belonging to the Bulgarian CSS and the Soviet Union’s KGB First and Second Directorates, including the #2 Cock-sucker at the CSS’s Foreign Intelligence Directorate.”
The bodyguard gave an abbreviated snort over that assessment. The rest of them were showing Pamela a great deal more attention.
“So, Sir Isaac Newton, what was I supposed to do? Knock on the door of some consulate, or embassy and say ‘hey, I have intimate knowledge of the British safe houses throughout Eastern Europe.
I know all this because I was co-opted by British agents on a black-bag operation that was part of an illegal, covert British government directive to take retributive actions against citizens and agents of multiple rather-hostile powers on their home soil…'” Pamela smirked. “Yes, I could have stepped forward then, but I chose to stay alive instead.”
“That was thirty-six years ago,” he protested.
“What part of me confessing to 87 unsolved murders has escaped you? You, the Russians, Moldavians, Romanians and Bulgarians might be interested in what a trained assassin was doing in the Soviet Union in the first place and how I ended up coming across your lads.
There was also the small matter of the two men who got out before the end, and the belief I have that they kept their words and never mentioned my involvement with them. Besides, I retired before the Berlin Wall fell. By that time, I wanted out of that lifestyle. And I couldn’t trust you numbskulls to leave me well enough alone. Case in point,” she gave a nod to Delilah.
“Thank you,” the bodyguard acknowledged Pamela’s bestowal of the gift of ‘knowing’.
Somewhere in England a family had lost a son, brother, maybe even a father a grandfather by now. He may have been declared MIA. More likely he had been listed as ‘killed during a training accident’ with a closed casket/empty casket funeral.
“Colour Sergeant Charles ‘Chaz’ Tomorrow, Ma’am,” he made his introductions.
“Pamela Pile, assassin (retired) and knife-fighting trainer. The man over… well, the only man with us is Cael, my grandson. The rest of the ladies are all unattached, if you are interested,” Pamela shook the man’s hand. Chaz arched one eyebrow in curiosity. “If a guy doesn’t have a minimum of five scars, they aren’t a man in these girls’ estimation.
None of this ‘everyone gets a trophy’ rubbish in this crowd,” Pamela explained.
“Mr. Tomorrow,” the Brit leader said in a clipped tone. “Business. Ms. Faircloth, let’s sit down and talk.” The got into their Land Rover and shut the doors. Back to my drama.
“Hi, what can I do for the CIA?” I addressed my two man welcome wagon.