Unpleasant Guest
Filename: ys02.html
© 1998 Youssef R. R. Sleiman
Length: 2000
Genre: Spy/Romance
Description:
Yousseff Sleiman, author of Classified, makes another recent attempt at his emerging spy genre. This piece is about a man who is after a mysterious woman, lamely put. As noted by himself there will be a follow up story.
Unpleasant Guest
I saw her. The target was thirty yards ahead, lying with her head towards me, and holding a book in front of her face. Easy.
The moonlight barely pierced at the shadows I was moving under. Slowly, deliberately slowly, I was crawling over the grass around the poolside where the woman was laying on a lawn chair; reading. She didn’t seem to move in the ten seconds it took me to crawl under the cot she was on top of. The night’s dew had almost begun to lower on the turf, so I was only slightly wet when I positioned myself just beneath the target. They say that men think of sex every ten seconds. Then this must have been it for me tonight.
I took the needle out of the pouch in my jumpsuit and readied it. The liquid inside the syringe had a slight orange color to it, and the needle, long enough to pierce through her robe, would barely leave any marks to be noticed by the forensics. I was about to inject her just above the small of her back when she rolled over. I hate fidgets. It’s a hate that I recently acquired.
Her elbows were jabbing into the plastic lawn chair with a steady weight, and also were barely a centimeter from my face. It took me a moment to notice what she was reading: To Kill A Mockingbird. I never enjoyed that book; southern dialects were never of interest to me. Her bookmark was a stylized pen. I laughed inside of myself. That was the same pen that I had seen used for…
My eyes widened with realization as she slid the pen down with her forefinger and thumb, clumsily aiming and held the pen steady. Her long fingernail moved down the pen body to the trigger. Caught in this awkward situation, I did the most impulsive thing I could. I gingerly reached up to her stomach and poked her. She giggled slightly and dropped the pen.
My head moved to the side and let it drop to the ground with a toyish thunk. Luckily, the pen didn’t go off. I almost moved my hand up to get it, when her own hand reached between the plastic straps of the lawn chair and picked up the pen. As her hand moved back up from its errand, it stopped short and slapped me, lightly for the sake of stealth, but still with a vehemence. Naturally, I couldn’t help but take it like a flirt. So, we both didn’t want to attract the attention of her guards.
There were three men posted around her. One had gone for a soda; I know, I saw him. The other two were almost fifty feet from the pool, standing close to the homestead and clutching their weapons with a solemn duty, much like the Queen’s Guards at Windsor, or the Secret Service men that attend the President of the United States. I had an early look at their weapons: imported Soviet rifles. The clips on those weapons each held thirty rounds, and each guard carried an extra clip. So, 60 rounds per guard and then 3 guards… I did a little math in my head and came out to 180 bullets that I don’t wish to attract. And, apparently, neither did she.
Now that she had her pen back, we were back where we started. I began to formulate another plan on how to inject her. After a second, I heard the crinkling sound of the woman turning the page. I pulled the needle up to inject her when she started to move again. Given that she knows I’m here, but didn’t want to attract the guards, I had no idea what to expect. I saw her blue robe, and her dangerously close elbows, move up and away from the lawn chair. I listened for what she was doing; my restricted view could tell me little.
Above and only two feet away, I could hear her ruffling with her robe. Then suddenly her robe dropped down to a bundle next to me. What was she doing? Behind my position, I heard the guard shuffle his feet for a second. I checked between the plastic of the lawn chair; she had on a two-piece, green swimsuit. With the way her light brown hair formed around her physique, she looked good. Too bad, she was going to die.
I saw her eyes swim around the area, and for a horrid moment, I felt her staring at me. She eventually looked up at the nearest guard, the one behind me, and said she was going to the Jacuzzi. She said it loudly. Very loudly. And I’m a guy that can take a hint.
The woman walked around the pool and into a fenced-in area that was decorated with large shrubbery and plants, which I assume contained the Jacuzzi. I stayed under the lawn chair for a few seconds, deciding what to do. Finally, I put the syringe back into my black jumpsuit. She had left her book, and her lethal bookmark. I took the pen and stuffed it inside the pouch beside the syringe. And then, I backed out the way I came.
Back on the grass and this time, going around the house, I felt the dew slowly settling into a fog. And it collected over my jumpsuit, not to mention it was forming a thin blanket of water or sweat over my exposed brow. It was even beginning to seep through my hood. I was starting to hate that fidget. After a time of crawling, I was back behind the house. The Jacuzzi had a collection of thick foliage and plants outside the fence. Something to make this a little easier. The real problem was the light post. At the angle it was positioned, it shined a yellow brightness that contrasted the heavy shadow. The shadow was a narrow passage over concrete, but I could make it. Probably.
I crept easily over the concrete, wisely avoiding scraping my feet over the rough floor. As I moved along the narrow passage, it began to be not so narrow. In a few short minutes, I had traversed the concrete and felt my hands touch wet grass again. On the other side, I congratulated myself and decided the old saying was true. "If you can put your mind to it…" Well, you know the rest.
The gate to the Jacuzzi was only a few more feet and obviously left unlocked, the idea being that I would take notice and just dance right in. I noticed alright. I moved up to the door, careful not to move it; in case she was waiting on the other side with a ready gun. She’s going to kill me, too. I guess that slap wasn’t all I hoped it was.
Thinking, I formulated a plan. Instead of going in the front door, I’d creep in through the back. So, I sidestepped into the bushes, making almost no sound. After a few more minutes of creeping in a tight, wet, and potentially the loudest possible passage on the third time this trip, I was on the opposite side of the fence as the gate in. Chances were, she was looking expectantly the other way.
I unwound my crouch slowly as I crept my eyes over the five foot fence. The chances were right. She was sitting with her back to the gate and her neck craned to see when I would finally open the wooden door to the Jacuzzi. The pool was about eight feet in diameter, shaped in an octagon, and probably deep enough for one person to sit in hiding with comfortable leg room for everyone else. She was facing me now, but her head turned the other way. This was so good. With the taller foliage covering me from behind and any other important angle that would attract the guards, I silently went for the do or die move. I took three deep breaths, hopped the fence, and settled to the bottom of the Jacuzzi. With my eyes still wide open, I watched her from under. Her neck was still turned to the gate.
I was surprised she didn’t notice the water shift when I got in, but when I looked around, although the jets were running at a low rate, she was sitting in front of one. It didn’t matter to me, she just didn’t notice. Her arms were laying outside on the rim of the pool, and her legs were crossed underwater; she was in a position similar to the models on television. Did I mention, I thought she looked good? I almost reached for the syringe again when I noticed her leg was kicking.
She was an unpredictable fidget. Her ankle was moving with increasing rhythm and soon her whole calf was kicking dangerously close to my own jumpsuit. And before I could move out of the way, her toe grazed the thick nylon on my arm. Her head didn’t jerk around to face me, like I thought it would. Instead, I noticed the muscles in her neck moving like she was talking, but I could hear her slow laugh underwater. Who else could hear it?
I twisted the dial that increased the outgoing pressure of the jets. Larger bubbles were moving around me, distorting my view of her short brown hair as she turned her head to face me. When I could barely make out her eyes staring at me, I decided to make my grand entrance.
I slowly raised my head to the surface, again, deliberately slowly, letting the water run off of my hood, and brought my eyes into view. I could now clearly see her smirk and slightly amused stare. I raised my whole head up and kept my shoulders low in the water. I reached and pulled the bottom of the mask up to let me take a clear breath of air.
She raised an eyebrow. "Feel better?" Her voice was muffled in the air by the loud thrum of the jets. I doubted the guards could hear her now.
I took a moment to reply. I had no idea what my face was showing through the mask. To my knowledge, I wasn’t making any faces, but I answered coldly, "Yes."
Outside, the thirsty guard was sipping a Pepsi when he stepped in a puddle. That’s funny, he thought. As he looked down the pavement, the whole side of the walkway was wet. And if he let his shadow out of the light, he could see handprints in the puddles. His slow mind worked rather quickly this time. The guard waved to the second and the third to come here.
They all looked at it, lowered their guns, and followed the tracks. Around the house, to the lawn chair their woman was sitting in, and it stopped there. Curious. Then, one of the three stooges guessed they were following it backwards. So, they went back around the house, following the trail of rustled grass.
She picked up a thread of grass that I had tracked in here and held it up in question.
I answered, "There were a lot of obstacles before getting here. It’s not that I could just walk in."
"Ah," she replied thoughtfully, "So... what do you do now?"
"You hold still." I had the syringe in my hand and was about to stick the needle into her upper leg.
"I don’t like that plan." And she pulled a Glock 9mm with silencer up from her outstretched arm. Must have hidden it behind the rim of the Jacuzzi, but now she pointed it a few inches from my face.
I sat tight, and with the cover of the bubbles, I exchanged the syringe for the pen, expecting her next words: "Both hands up above the water." I raised them and the pen came into plain sight. But she didn’t recognize it, thank God.
"You snuck here with an ink pen...?"
I don’t know if she saw my smile, but it would have been classic comedy to see the scene. And I played it as one.
"I once heard the pen was mightier than the sword."
"A wise man, too?," she laughed again.
I clicked the pen to reinforce the moment. I glanced to see the pen’s only bullet raised to it’s barrel, disguised as the broad point of the pen.
She smiled. "What do I do with you?" I didn’t have an answer for her, nor did I need one.
I don’t know why at that moment, but she took a harder look at the pen. And, damn it all, she recognized it. She asserted her aim with the gun, and I turned the point of the pen at her, both weapons fairly close together.
"I’ve got the superior gun." Her poker face had just surfaced for me to see the first time. But, she was right. Unless…
I jammed the barrel of the pen into the barrel of her gun, and winked. I could tell she was about to laugh again when the gate of the fence burst open. The three guards were standing there, guns poised and ready.
"Unpleasant guest, Miss?," asked the first stooge whose gaze was solely on me and the pen. She pulled back her gun and I gripped the pen to unfasten it from its lodge. Then, surprisingly, she turned the gun to face the goon. I followed suit and futilely pointed the pen at the guard.
"No."
At her response, the guards backed away, looking oddly at me and my weapon of choice.