KILLING KIESHA

GENRE: Adventure, Espionage

RATING: X

SUMMARY: An American CIA agent falls for a Russian double-agent.

est. reading time: 30 minutes

I

“Good Morning, Thomas. How are you doing, today?” The Barista said as she poured her customer’s coffee.

“You know me all too well, I didn’t even have to tell you my order.”

The Barista smiled, broadly. “You’ve been coming in here, everyday. Always wanting the same thing…”

“Yeah.” He said. He sat down at his favorite spot and sipped his coffee, while reading the paper.

As he flipped to page three, he began to frown…

”Hmm, hmm…” He said clearing his throat. A deep ominous rumble started in his belly.

He swiftly got up, holding his stomach and headed for the Men’s Room. There was an Out of Order sign hanging on the doorknob.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” He said. He knocked on the Ladies’ Room door…”Hold your horses! I’ll be out in a minute!”

He leaned against the side of the Ladies’ Room door and waited for it to be vacated, feeling like he might puke or shit or both.

Finally, a large brown-haired lady left, eyeing at him sharply, as she did.

“Hey Imelda? I have to go pee…I’ll be back in a few..” She said discreetly.

She removed the Out of Order sign, and used her key to open the door to the Ladies’ Room. There, she found a doubled-over Thomas, sitting on the can, with the trash can in front of his face.

She locked the door behind her.

“Whuh?” He said, pre-vomit drool dripping from his lips.

She pinched his neck between her fore-finger and thumb, pinning a vital nerve…Thomas was in excruciating pain and could not move.

“I need the key to the Grasson File, right now.”

“What?!”

“You’re not deaf.”

He began to puke…It was bright red blood.

“Tell me, or you die, painfully on the can.”

He was shaking…”You’re my Barista…What the hell?!”

“Just tell me the numbers…No one will be the wiser. I could’ve picked any number of sources, but I chose you. They won’t know who leaked it.”

He puked again.

“Fine…” He said, white, shaking, and covered in cold sweat.

“327-9875-345-REBOUND”

“Here.” She said. “Bite this.”

He did as he was told…”But you’ll never get past…”

“-Let me worry about that.”

“I know you have a conscience.” She said, speaking evenly. “That’s the only reason, you’re not dead. Do not prove this judgment a mistake or I will have to correct it.”

She washed her hands and left the stall…

Imelda looked worried. “What happened?”

“Oh, a customer was a little ill…Gross work, but he ran out of toilet paper…I gave it to him.”

“Listen” Imelda said, quietly. “ I’m really gonna miss you.”

“Imelda, there you go getting sentimental…I’ve only been here for four months.”

“Yeah, I know..” She said, sniffing a bit… “I just get attached easily.”

She hugged her briskly and finished her day.

~~~~~

Kiesha Franklin.

The perfect recruit. I’m sure you’ve seen the movies. A handsome white man or a sexy white woman, doing all sorts of dangerous, amazing, things as an agent.

In the reality, however, it just isn’t that practical. A black woman is the perfect recruit. Invisible, anonymous, underestimated, and interchangeable, looks-wise to most of the public.

Three-fourths of the world is of color. Who do you think stands out more, a slick white man in a three-piece suit or a common-place black woman, speaking like a native?

…Movies do lie.

Most of Kiesha’s work wasn’t glamorous at all…Pretending to be homeless and picking up codes and assignments in the change, her handlers gave her. Working menial jobs where all of her targets would have go to get their coffee, clothes dry-cleaned, pay their toll, buy their groceries… Everything that was taken for granted. …Where no one would give her a second glance.

Yep, movies lie, alright.

A white man in a suit? Would be dead within a week. A black woman serving coffee? Is a nobody.

Kiesha, was definitely not the first, second, or even sixty-fifth person you’d think of as dangerous. She was short, with large round, friendly eyes, and close-cropped hair, about a centimeter up from her scalp. Perfect for the various wigs she used on her jobs. And it really suited her face. With long thick lashes, bee-stung lips, and an oval shape.

Her skin was the brown midway between light and dark. And she had the compact stocky body of someone who looked soft and slightly overweight in clothes, but toned and gymnast strong, out of them. Her large toned muscles, especially on her legs were deceiving in jeans.

And she was attractive. The kind of woman, who looked like a sweet high school kid, without make-up and could pass for a sexy video vixen, especially with her bottom half, in make-up. Often, that’s exactly what she did…flew to various locales on video shoots.

They would shoot her dancing in the videos and she always made sure her back-side was the only thing the cameras got. She went on to complete her assignments, usually to kill, in the little time, they had to sleep.

Kiesha, was the perfect recruit, with a photographic memory, fluency like a native in seven languages, a gymnastics, dance, and martial arts background, and pure street-sense and guts, she had outlasted and outperformed, most all of her fellow recruits…Only one came close.

His U.S. covert name was Rick Johansson. About as ordinary as you could get.

He was the exception to the rule. …Having been a Russian spy, he was recruited as a double-agent, a few years back. He fulfilled all of his assignments. And after working in the trenches, coming dangerously close to being discovered, and saving countless American lives, he was given a job, here in the states doing the same thing.

The problem with Rick was…Well, he had been an assignment of hers.

One of her first, actually…After she was recruited fresh out of college, which she’d graduated from with her doctorate, a full six years early. In fact, she suspected, the main reason, he came over to the American side in the first place, was because of her.

~~~~

After a year of fine-tuning the skills she already had, at twenty, she had two test assignments. She survived, both, passing the final test with flying colors. Many recruits, did not. Her first official assignment was to keep an eye on him.

Her cover was Peace Corps. She knew him back then as Dimitri Petrov.

She was the warm, giggly, and naive Shelly Hanley, to every Russian and Peace Corps volunteer there. Of course, partly because of her blackness, everyone bought it, hook-line-and-sinker.

…Everyone except, Dimitri.

Dimitri, the slick, handsome Russian with straight shoulder-length brown hair, bright expressive green eyes and a sharp masculine jaw-line to contrast with his aquiline features and white skin.

She’d been watching him while with the Corps’, on their many nights at the local bar.

Dimitri was trained to notice to the little things.

He noticed her drinking, but spacing them out wide enough so she wouldn’t really be as drunk as she appeared to be. He noticed her ears prick up at certain Russian phrases and he noticed…She was checking him very subtlely. Yes, she was good to be so new at this. Her age on her passport, he’d had it checked, was the only indicator of this.

Dimitri took a drag from his cigarette and decided to test her.

“How would a few of you like to tour the little-known side of Kirav?”

She waited until a couple of the girls and one of the guys said yes, before she chimed in with her own yes…

Dimitri put out his cigarette before leaving the bar…A signal to the men stationed in and around it, in alert to a spy.

Dimitri escorted them all into his limo and gave them drinks…All, but one of them were drugged.

After they all were unconscious, he lowered the visor and turned his gun on her…

“Who are you?” He said in a perfect American accent.

She looked confused, giving him just a moment of doubt. A moment was all she needed. She lunged forward and caught the gun between her hands. She steered it towards the bottom of the far edge of the back window and forced him to fire…Even bulletproof glass has it’s weak points…

It cracked there. She elbowed him in the face and slammed his wrist down on the partition forcing him to drop the gun.

He had severely underestimated this one. Before he could think what to do next…

She had used both her legs to kick out the back-seat glass and make a swift exit…

Several men immediately surrounded her…She counted five in the open and one hidden in the alley to the side of her. All held guns…

She stood with her hands up in surrender, but she could see one of them, beginning to press the trigger…

She dropped to the ground, sweeping his feet out from under him. Smooth as a cat, she rolled under and behind him. She gripped his neck and used his body as a shield…Two slugs were fired into his body.

But she didn’t miss…

She raised her gun and fired four rounds within a second. Each found their mark and killed.

“But what about that sixth man?” She thought. “Well, I’ll just have to get him to come out…”

She retrieved a pen from her pocket…Just an ordinary pen. She threw it in the direction of the other man and he quickly vacated his spot, thinking it was a bomb.

…She shot him as soon, as he did.

She stood up and looked around. “Fuck.” She thought. “My identity’s been compromised.”

She knew what the policy was in this event, disavow, disavow…She’d be on her own, until…and if she could get herself out of this country.

She turned to run…

Dimitri had been watching the whole thing.

She ran right into him…”You’re too young to be doing this…but you’re good.”

She swung her arm to strike him but he caught it…She spun and used his momentum to flip him to the ground.

He rolled away, just as she brought her foot down where his neck would be…

He flipped up to his feet and began to circle…Both of them in fighting stance.

He drew a knife…

She drew another pen…This one, she took the top off of, revealing a long thin blade…

“…Aww, cute.”

They parried, for bit, each barely missing each other and cutting the air, millimeters from flesh, with a whistle.

In truth, he was playing a bit, testing her to see how good she was.

He was already a double-agent, but he doubted she knew this. He did it for money. He planned to take from both sides and disappear, when he was done.

Finally, after a long spar, he caught her arm behind her back, thinking he’d won.

She screamed in pain.

“AHH!!”

“See, you cannot win…You should go home, if you still can.”

She wrenched her body away, painfully dislocating her shoulder in the process and caught him in the groin, with her knee. Always effective, no matter what fighting style you use.

He groaned, but kept fighting.

Her arm hung at her side uselessly, but she still looked fierce.

He was impressed.

“…Stop playing and fight me!” She said through gritted teeth.

She used the time to yank her arm back into place…She shuddered from the pain but kept to her feet, keeping an eye on him.

Suddenly the whole sidewalk began to spin and she knew he had somehow drugged her…

The world went black.

~~~~

She awoke in a clean bed…Stripped down to her underwear…

She crept to the closet and retrieved several wire hangers… She bent them and formed a claw-like weapon…She crept out and saw Dimitri sitting on a couch, casually watching Jeopardy, with Russian subtitles.

She crept up behind him and yanked his hair back, the weapon’s edges grazing his throat.

“Don’t move.” She said, calmly.

He clicked his mouth and looked above her…She followed his gaze. There was a mounted remote gun attached to the corner of the ceiling angled directly at her.

“They’re on this control.” He said.

She followed his gaze to the remote in his hand.

“If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.”

“Well, then what do you want from me?” She said harshly.

“Well, first of all, I want you to put these…Hangers, are they? Inventive…Put them down.”

She hesitated and but did as he said.

“I’m sure you’ll be wanting to get dressed…Your clothes-“

She cut him off. “-What’s the point?..You’ve already seen me naked.”

“I know the procedure, for American spies… Thorough cavity search.”

He smiled. “I assure you, no such violation has occurred.”

“Your clothes are over there…”

As she padded to the corner where they were folded, he watched her closely. “Pretty girl.” He thought.

“How do I know you didn’t put anything in the fabric?”

“-You don’t.”

“Then I’m fine like this.”

“My, you are stubborn…There’s smart stubborn and there’s dumb stubborn. You are the former.” He looked all around her face as if searching for the source of all of this.

“Why don’t you join me? We need to talk.” He patted the sofa, beside him…

“I like Jeopardy…One of the few mentally stimulating American shows…But I’m sure all of these answers come as easy to you, as the do for me. There is the rare stumper, though.”

She hadn’t moved.

“You don’t trust me…I understand.”

“Look” He said, raising the remote.

“I’m putting it down…Just don’t try anything stupid.” He said seriously.

She stood there, looking at him.

“…Or you could just stand there all day.”

He sighed.

“You should ask yourself, why the CIA sent you here to watch me. The Cold War is long done.
What could I possibly do to threaten U.S. National Security, from here?”

“-Plenty…arms deals, hacking-“

He cut her off.

“Then why didn’t they send you to kill me?”

She didn’t flinch. “-Doesn’t matter.”

“Wow, they’ve trained a good little robot.”

He stood up. She backed up, her eyes alert her muscles tensed, ready for a fight.

“You’re unique.” He said. “You’re not the first agent they’ve sent over here to spy on me…If they sent you along too, they thought you were expendable.”

She frowned.

“Ten in all. …All dead.” He said flatly.

“Not my fault, really…but the men upstairs would get suspicious if they were allowed to live. They just died much easier than you would.”

“You killed them.”

“The men did…Their men did.” He said, approaching her…

“Stay, where you are.” She said, fiercely.

“Okay.” He said, smiling a bit more. “The only reason the men upstairs haven’t killed you, is because they think I’m having good roll, with you…”

“WHAT?!” She said, angrily.

“Well, I am charming…” He said, his eyebrow raised. “And you are the first woman they’ve sent, out of all those agents….And you are a pretty little gir-”

“-Where are the volunteers?” She asked, cutting him off.

He clicked another remote…They were on several screens, most of them working in their centers.

“The drug I gave them causes missing time.” He explained. “They assumed that, like most nights, they’d drank a bit too much.”

He inched closer… “You know…The men upstairs could be watching, at any time…”

“You’re lying.. And you’re not slick.” She said, eyes narrowed.

She knew this technique…Spies, played mind-games all the time, anything could be used as weapon, especially sex.

Suddenly the doorknob began to turn…He closed the distance and began to kiss her, his body flush against hers on the wall.

A few men, entered….

He turned and yelled fiercely in Russian. “Can’t you see, I’m busy?!”

They backed out of the room, sly smiles on the lips. “Apologies…”

“You know…Their orders are to kill you, after I’m done.” He said his eyes wandering over her body. She looked away…

“It would be…” He trailed his hand along neck between her breasts. “In your best interest to allow yourself, as long a pleasure, as you can bear…”

She didn’t know what to do. He was most likely playing games, but if he were, she’d have to play along. She’d been trained to expect this too.

“fuck!” She whispered under her breath.

“-I intend to.” He said his eyebrows raised.

He reached between them and began to rub her sensitive spot through her panties… He kissed her neck as he did…

“See? Not so bad.” He said huskily.

“Fine.” She thought… “This is how you want it?”

“You’ll enjoy this…All you have to do, is relax.”

“-Cocky, son-of-a-bitch.” She said, harshly, though his rubbing was damping her panties quite a bit.

He laughed “Still fighting…Your body wants it.”

“This unbelievable, jack-ass!” She thought… “Okay, let’s see how he likes it…

She ripped his shirt open and pushed him down on his floor, behind his sofa…

She slipped out her panties and took off her bra…She ripped his pants down his legs and straddled him, angling his hard dick into her wet pussy…

She began to ride him…

She rolled her hips, causing him to throw back his head, his eyes, fluttering closed…

“This is what you want, huh?” She said, as she rode him faster.

“Auuah!” He moaned, as his hands curling into fists…

“You…Are..Ahh! Talented…” He said as traced his hands up her chest, lightly grazing her nipples…

“Stop talking…” She said and picked up the pace….

She grabbed his hands and pushed them to the floor over his head.

He raised his head up to kiss her, but she kept out of his reach.

“Nuh Unh…”

“You get my sex…but that’s it, lover.”

She gripped him with her slick walls…Eliciting a “fuck!!” As his eyes rolled back in his head.

Oh, her trainers were right, kegels, are a good extra weapon to have.

He smirked and brought his leg up around her ankle, flipping her onto her back…

He began to fuck her..Thrusting, with shallow rapid thrusts, bumping her g-spot…

“Ahh, Ahhh, AHHH!” Her gasps came out before she stop them. It did feel really, really good. …Jesus.

“I told you…You’d …Enjoy…This..” He tried to kiss her again…She turned her face so he kissed her neck instead…

“Fine.” He thought.. “I’ll take that.” He kissed her all around her neck…

He lifted her legs so her ankles rested on his shoulders and began to really fuck her in earnest.

Kiesha, knew she’d be getting carpet burns from this…dammit.

He pounded her pussy, making wet-slapping sounds with each thrust…

“Let go my sweet, it’s okay…You can come.” He whispered in Russian.

“You first.” She said back, also in Russian.

She gripped him again…He groaned and increased his pace…It was a war of the wills…

And they both lost…

They came, close and hard enough that neither could tell who had, before the other…Afterwards he grabbed her face and forced her to kiss him…After a struggle, she kissed him back… “Damn him!”

After a few moments lingering in that kiss, he said. “You could stay here…I know you’ve been disavowed.”

“-No!”

She said…”Get off me!”

He allowed her to roll him off while she retrieved her clothes and held them to her chest, ashamed that she’d let him…let him…-What? Get her off?!

“Shit!” She said rubbing her hand over her head…

“I promise I’ll help you get out of Russia…”

“What? And why would you do that?”

“Because I’m a double-agent…I work for your government.” Half-truth…

“That’s why you’ve been sent to watch me…To make sure I’m being a good boy… Which means.” He said looking her over lasciviously “…You’ve failed you’re mission.”

More knocking on the door. “We’d better keep this up…” He said grabbing her and pulling her down.

She frowned….She now understood, what her trainers had meant. Sex is the most effective weapon. She would be his captive in this way, for as long as he saw fit.

…Not that that was a completely bad thing… “Oh, god…” She said as he plunged his skilled fingers into her sopping pussy.

She’d just have to..have to… He was flicking a nipple with his tongue. ”Damn!” Keep her head.

…Right.

II

Kiesha sat quietly in the briefing room with her boss Mrs. Yasmine Butler, an Arab woman who had been instrumental in the finding of Saddam Hussein, and several agents, including “Rick”.

“Good work securing the key, Ms. Franklin, but you’ll need help obtaining the crucial data.”

Yasmine paced the room, looking over each agent.

“We know where it’s being kept, but between the security and the amount of people surrounding it, it will be difficult to retrieve.

…As you know, The Grasson Files, contain the true identities and backgrounds of several at large terrorists, who have so far evaded capture. These men are not Arabs. They are Americans, homegrown and sympathetic to doing whatever they can to kill other Americans. Though, the law and official evidence is on their side.”

Yasmine sighed and leaned on the long conference table.

“We suspect, that they may be members of a racist militia group, like Timothy MacVay…Which is why…” She turned to face Keisha. “Rick, is going be your back-up. I suspect your talent for covert operations will be hindered by your race, in this instance, Kiesha.”

Keisha’s heart dropped, but she showed no emotion.

“I understand.”

“Rick has been working his way into the KTM. The group we are certain our men come from. Once we’ve secured the files and confirmed their identities, you will execute them.”

~~~~

Kiesha’s eyes were narrowed in a post-climax haze. Her whole body tingled. They were both covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

“Ms. Hanley…If you are…as spent” He panted. “…As I am, I think we could both be due for a bite to eat.”

…And the truth comes out.  Sex wasn’t the only thing keeping her alive. She’d suspected, but at least she’d gotten the best lay of her life, out of this lie.

“Coffee, eggs, and toast for me please.” She said, smiling.

Dimitri rolled over in his bed and depressed a button. He spoke in Russian.

“Send brunch, eggs…” He glanced at her.

“-Scrambled.” She replied.

“Scrambled, with toast and coffee.”

“-Yes, sir.”

He leaned his head against his hand and stared at her.

“You don’t seem to be angry that I’ve fibbed…just to keep you in my bed…” He leaned in, planting kisses on her exposed shoulder.

“No.” She said… “I’m not. It was not entirely a selfish act, for you.”

“Oh, I assure you…”  He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. “It was.”

“While, we wait for our food, let me show you, why your government sent you to watch me…”

He got up and slipped out of the room. She tried not to stare at his unbelievable physique.

He came back with an accordion filing system. She laughed.

“What…No blackberry?”

“Just, look.”

She thumbed through the system and found several I.D.s, passports, and VISAs, from different countries…They were official. She’d been trained to spot fakes. These could only have been issued with the approval of the higher-ups. She’d never seen or heard of anything like it, unless…

“My God…” She said, whispering in Korean in case they were being listened to. “You’re not even Russian.”

He shrugged and smiled. “Niet.”

“I’m here because I helped the U.N. capture some very dangerous people. Those who know them and are still at large would love to have my head…I wasn’t always this pretty.”

She rolled her eyes.

As the realization of who this must be dawned on her, her eyes widened. “Jesus” She thought, “It’s T1.”

“Oh, I know I’ve become something of an urban legend within covert operations, an example of what to do and what not to. It’s quite flattering.”

There was a knock on the door.

“I’ve managed a life here…Illegal, yes but this way provided the most protection. The men I work for are horrible, but honorable, a necessary paradox.  I still provide vital information to your government. Though, let’s just say, I haven’t been in touch, lately.  They use and provide, but only if you stay on their leash.”

Dimitri opened the door and thanked the man. He took the steaming hot plates of food…They looked delicious.

Smiling, he sampled her eggs and then his own, winking.

Relaxed at the confirmation that it was safe to eat, she did…She was starved.

“May I ask how old you are?” He said as he swallowed a gulp of coffee.

“Age is inconsequential between adults, but I’m genuinely curious.  You did really well, yesterday. You look young, but those skills and instinct… Older and presumably wiser were killed in your place.”

Her eyes widened.  He laughed. “-I don’t mean to offend.”

“-Twenty.”  Now, it was his turn to look shocked. “And there’s nothing funny about fellow agents, dying doing their duty.”

He, himself was just shy of forty. “I assure you, that was not my intent. You look young, but that can be deceptive.”

As she finished her meal, he leaned over and kissed her.

“You can leave whenever you want…but, I’m guessing headquarters will assume this operation will take quite a bit longer than you’ve had here, so far.”

He nuzzled her neck.

“I enjoy your company. I’d love for you to stay.”

“Mmm, so you can tend to my wounds?” She gingerly lifted her formerly, dislocated arm.

“Yes.” He said, seriously.

“No” She thought. Any other answer would be really, really stupid.

“O.K.” She said.

~~~~~

Rick was a cleaned-up version of Dimitri. Where the Russian was oily and slick, Rick was clean and sharp. His hair was now neatly cropped short, making his expressive green eyes and sharp features stand out even more. He had traded in his gaudy Russian suits, for the smooth highly tailored American ones, his fellow agents wore.

The day he simply strolled into C.I.A. headquarters and offered to join, the whole building was alert, curious, and in awe. The legendary, T1  had appeared.

Years and years of world changing covert information coming from an unnamed source, only known as T1, and here he was in the flesh…Very much alive and very handsome.  The female agents were almost visibly drooling.

“What, Daphne, what is it?” Keisha asked, frowning.

“Check the monitors.”  She said, fanning herself… “It’s the one and only T1, no lie.”

“Shit.” Keisha replied.

~~~~

Yasmine finished her briefing.  “You both stick to the books. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“We can always make another try at this, if you fail.” She said, gritting her teeth, “…but we can’t replace two agents, as gifted as you both are.”

Keisha and Rick stayed late at headquarters studying the map of the facility.

“If we go in through two different points, here and here…they’ll be less of a chance of both of us being caught. One of us will fulfill the mission.”

She said.

“But that entrance won’t work, cameras, guards, and a voice-key-“

“-Why are you here?!” She blurted.

He sighed. “We don’t have time for this. Both of our asses are on the line.”

“Yeah.” She said folding her arms. “They are, which is why I’m asking.”

“I’ve taken all the tests, I’ve been assessed as completely loyal. That should be enough when it comes to doing our job.”

She closed her eyes. “-Not for me, it’s not. I know you too well, for that.”

~~~~

After days, spent with him, she’d finally relaxed a bit.

She felt she could almost trust him, but she had to continually remind herself that that was the sex talking and her growing…fondness for him.

So, when he escorted her into the office of Ivan Zerkof, the horrible, but honorable Russian mob leader he worked for and introduced her as the American agent that had been giving him trouble, she was not shocked.

Disappointed? Yes.

A very tall, very fierce-looking blond Russian was busily chewing gun, like a cow.

“Good work, Dimitri.” He said in Russian, smiling.

He chuffed. “She’s black.” He said, but not quite as nicely.

“Fuck you.” Keisha replied, also in Russian.

He laughed. “Oooh, feisty. I like her. I see why you had fun with her, before bringing her here.”

Keisha lept at Ivan landing a sound punch across his jaw, knocking him to the floor.

There was an audible click of several guns in the room, as twenty of his men trained their weapons on her. Dimitri held her while Ivan held up his hand.

“Niet!” They lowered their weapons.

“Bitch!” He spit out blood. “Too bad…” As he got to his feet. “I don’t do sloppy seconds.”

“All American spies have access to at least two million euro, in case of emergencies…I would say this is one, No?”

He licked the wound at the corner of his mouth. “You can save yourself some pain, if you simply show me where it is.”

Her expression remained neutral.

“Bring it on.”

“Take her to the interrogation room!” Ivan yelled.

As they drug her out, she locked eyes with Dimitri, her lips tightly pursed.

She could have sworn she had read real concern in his eyes.

~~~~

She was strapped to a chair…A tiny old man began to circle her.

“You know what we want to know. I won’t barrage you with the same question over and over.”

He picked up several long thin needles…

“What I will do is insert these needles into key pressure points on your body, causing you immense pain.”

“I must admit.” He said laughing. “My job gives me great pleasure.”

Kiesha screamed bloody murder as he pushed the first thin needle into the bottom of her right foot…

He continued to insert the needles for longest hour of her life.

~~~~

Another thing that movies lie about is the strength of spies being tortured, withstanding it like it’s nothing.  No, it hurts regardless of one’s so-called tolerance. Holler or not, it doesn’t matter to the enemy.

Only the information matters.

In fact the screaming she did, actually helped her…For while she did that, the old man closed his eyes, getting his jollies off. He didn’t notice her loosen the screw beneath her hand and palm it.

She knew, he would eventually get to her hands. She had some knowledge of acupressure, herself.

He would have to unstrap her hand, to inflict the kind of pain, he wished…

And so he did.

“Please, please…” She cried.

“This will hurt.” He said as he turned her palm around.

Before he could blink she’d driven the screw into the side of his neck…

His artery sprayed blood all over her…

She didn’t have much time.

She undid the other fastenings with her free hand and teeth. Her feet were still strapped in, when two men scrambled into the room.

She quickly scooted the whole chair around. And they fired their bullets into it.

She pushed back the chair, hard, knocking over and pinning one of the gunmen.

The other one aimed the gun at her face. She clapped it between her hands and knocked it away. It went off when it hit the ground, narrowly grazing her temple.

She punched the gunman in the groin, dropping him to his knees. Once he was on her level, she grabbed his head and broke his neck….

She pressed the combined weight of herself and the chair onto the other one, until he suffocated.

She finished unfastening her bonds and got out of the building. She slipped in and out of nooks and crannies until she’d made it to the U.S. Embassy.

That was the last she saw of Dimitri, until now.

~~~~

“You betrayed me.”

“-I didn’t.”

“Then what the hell do you call it?”

“I notice you didn’t tell your boss about us…” He said, shifting subjects. “You would have had to also inform them about my treachery and I wouldn’t be here.”

She briefly looked away.

“Do you care for me?” He asked, only slightly sarcastically.

“You selfish ass. You turned me over to be tortured by your people.”

“They knew about you. If I hadn’t turned you over, someone else would have, and they would have killed us both.”

She sighed, dismissively. He grabbed her shoulder and forced her to face him.

“I knew you would get away. Their amateur operation, was no match for you.”

“That flattery shit may work on other people, but you are daft if you think.-“

“I’m serious.” He sighed.

“That honor thing? I wasn’t lying about that. I knew there would be no sexual violation, just-“

“-Newsflash. That sicko they had working on me, got his sexual kicks torturing me. Did you know that?”

He looked down. “No.”

“Well, now you do. Either way, it’s still torture, asshole. Why didn’t you just help me get away, like you said you would?”

“I’m sorry.” He said frowning.

“I don’t care about your sorry. I just want to finish this jo-“

He was kissing her.

She broke the kiss and punched him, making him stumble back a few steps.

“-Still an arrogant, prick.  You fucked up, badly sweetheart. There’s no coming back from setting a girl up with a torturing lunatic.”

“Kiesha, I-”

“-We’re done. Let’s just- do the job. And if you fuck me over, this time, I’ll make sure you end up six feet under… Legendary T1 status, be damned.”

~~~~~

“Honey, our son’s sick, you need to pick him up.”

Keisha said into the earpiece.

Rick took his cue to make his way to his position. He looked up and counted three men, two at the entrance and one on the roof.

“He had a test and two pop quizzes today. Maybe he’s just trying to get out of doing the work.”

“If that’s the case, then we’ll just deal with him, when he gets home.”

She made her way to her position, laying down on the roof and finding the other sniper on her scoped rifle. She fired a single silent bullet into his skull.

She found the other two and quickly dispatched them as well.

Rick quickly hid the bodies.

She watched him make a stealthy entrance and then she moved to a new position.  She slipped off her camouflage and revealed a cheap looking dress underneath…She slipped on a corn-rowed wig and slipped down the fire escape.

She stood on the corner and began to check her watch impatiently, occasionally cursing aloud at some guy named Derrick, for being late picking her up.

Rick got far just pretending to be important. Sometimes, being white did work for spies.
He made it to the voice-key entrance before someone finally questioned him.

“Excuse me! I need to see your I.D.”  The stocky balding man said.

They were breaking into a government facility. The same government they were working for, had kept the C.I.A. in the dark when it came to files of certain, U.S. citizens.

Rick discreetly pressed the ringer button on his cell.

-beep!-beep!-

“I’m sorry, I need to take this…My son is sick.” He stepped off to the side.

“Derrick! Where the fuck are you?!”

“I’ll pick him up, as soon as I finish up at work, honey.”

She hung up and walked away looking exasperated…

“I’m sorry, my wife, she’s a handful.”

“I.D. please.”

He pretended to search through his wallet.

“Here it is.”

He held up a card which dispensed a quick puff of something directly into the man’s face.

He dropped to the floor.

“Jesus!” Rick said. “This man needs medical attention!”

A small crowd of people ran to the fallen man. In that brief moment they were distracted, he slipped his recorder next to the key entry system and the lock popped open.

Keisha had managed to blend in with the concerned gawkers… She too, slipped back into the sealed room.

A large cluttered room awaited them.

“Wonderful.” She said aloud.

They both began moving items….Until she found the laptop. She inserted her modified flash drive and typed in the code….She then began to save every file on the computer on her flash.

They could hear the firemen loading the man on the gurney, outside the room. They didn’t have much time left.

“Done.” She said and snapped the laptop shut.

There was a large crowd of people in the hallway when they exited the room.

They thought they were home free. They hadn’t noticed the women inquiring with security about the strange black woman leaving Henry Allis’s office.

As they reached the parking garage on the ground level they heard, “Freeze!”

“Run.” Rick whispered.

“-What?”

A gun went off and Rick went down…He had taken the bullet for her.

“Godammit.”

She reached into her pocket and fired a nonlethal shot into the officer. He too, went down.

She dragged Rick down one level and stooped between cars.

“Shit!” He said wincing.

“I’m glad it hurts, Rick. You made me shoot a cop.”

“I was saving you.”

Keisha ignored this.

She pulled her keychain from her pocket and pushed a button.  Two cars squeaked.

She got him to his feet and they limped to the car…She slipped off her cornrows and used her “key” to quickly start the car.

She headed for the hold point. They had secured the objective.

END PART II

~ by Raven White on April 26, 2008.