Not Really A Blog

CHAPTER 3

2006-06-06T10:09:00.000+01:00

What persuades a person to give up everything of the life he has known to work for a man he has only just met? Six years after the fact, Brian was still not entirely sure although he felt certain that it had something to do with loss. Whereas at the age of seventeen Brian’s unkempt ambitions were unconstrained by the shackles of reality, three years later his desire was singular and uninspired. He wanted her to return.

Certainly he would never have given up the chance of a life with Nathalie, even for someone who promised him the opportunity to "save an unknowing world from an unthinkable fate."

Brian had once read of a tribe who viewed the process of falling in love as akin to pouring water from two separate jugs into the same bowl. Furthermore, they expressed this idea literally within the marriage ceremony. While he considered this idea romantic, it also made Brian contemplate the fact that he had less to offer Nathalie then she would give him. On the scales of love, his money weighed far less than her beauty. If Nathalie had tried to quantify the unquantifiable in such a way she would have reached the very opposite conclusion, but Brian would never know this since he felt expressing these thoughts in actual conversations could only be to his detriment.

Nevertheless, after two months of excruciating loneliness Brian was ready to be proactive and if fate decreed that his proactivity necessitated saving the world then so be it. Picturing his imaginary scales, Brian had estimated that saving an unsuspecting world from malign influences might well equate to the softness of Nathalie’s caramel skin, or perhaps the gentle lilt of her voice.

He did not know how the Englishman had found him, nor could he guess how he had managed to come equipped with knowledge of his experiments. Neither mattered. He simply let him in, offered him a cup of coffee, agreed to make him a cup of tea, realised he had no tea, was told that coffee was fine, realised he had no coffee, was told not to worry, sat down and listened to all that the patient Englishman had to say:

"There are over six billion people on this planet. Fewer than half a dozen of them know that which I am about to tell you. Do you believe in any conspiracy theories, Brian?"

Brian said nothing. The Englishman continued.

"Do you believe that the Apollo Moon Landings took place in a television studio? Do you believe that Oil Companies have sat upon the discovery of a fuel-source which is cheaper, cleaner and safer than any other in order to guarantee their profits? Do you believe that the Catholic Church has deliberately and systematically concealed information for the past two thousand years?"

"No."

"No? Good. The reason why the vast majority of conspiracy theories fall down is that they rely on large numbers of people being able to keep a secret. The truth is that secrecy is a skill which very few people master. If the moon landings were faked, how many of the workers at NASA would have had to have kept that secret? Just imagine how much money newspapers would pay for a scoop like that. Nevertheless there are people who can keep a secret. And there are secrets worth keeping."

The Englishman paused and studied Brian. What he saw surprised him, but it pleased him immensely. He saw hope. Brian had chosen to wallow in self-pity for sixty-seven days in a row, even though he had decided to follow the path to self-improvement after a mere seventeen days reflection. Self-improvement would ordinarily require internal motivation and self-discipline. Here there seemed to be a chance that it might just mean doing whatever the Englishman told him to do.

"Do you recognise the phrase ‘the sum of human knowledge’?"

"Yes."

"What do you take that phrase to mean?"

"Well, it means all of the information that mankind has discovered over the course of his existence."

"Does it? Would you say that the ability to make visible matter invisible ought to be included in the sum of human knowledge?"

Brian’s face had turned a whiter shade of pale at this question. He now wondered why he had let this man into his house.

"Please don’t be alarmed Brian. Your secret is quite safe with me. I was simply making the point that there are discoveries that man has made that are far from common knowledge."

"How do you know about that?"

Brian realised that his initial reaction had given him little or no chance of bluffing ignorance. He had only ever told one person of his discovery. Nathalie had reacted in the most wonderful way imaginable. She had been genuinely fascinated.

"It is better that you don’t know."

At the time, that had seemed by far the least satisfactory answer that Brian had ever received. Arguably the slap he had received from Lydia Seymour after he had drunkenly been persuaded to ask her if he could "see more of Lydia" came close, but at least that had had the virtue of being straightforward and honest. If Brian had discovered the answer, he would have known why Nathalie had to leave. Six years later he was still wholly ignorant. The Englishman continued as if nothing else had been said:

"Who do you believe keeps you safe at night?"

"Well, the police."

It sounded wrong as Brian said it, but he had a feeling that obvious yet incorrect answers would please the Englishman more than if he had answered ‘Secret forces with secret powers of secrecy.’

"They play a part, of course, as do the security services, but they are not alone. There are those who operate away from the mainstream. They aim to disrupt the normal workings of society in ways that are subtler and more insidious than the regular security services could possibly imagine. The purpose of the organisation that I run is to ensure that these forces fail. I believe that you have a role to play in our team."

Sitting in his parents’ house – it was technically his now although he still felt no sense of ownership – Brian lacked the stomach to move on with his life. His moment of clarity was not based on a desire to make a difference, the promise of a state of the art laboratory or the opportunity to harness his talents for the forces of good. Rather it was based on a profound belief that, with no knowledge of when he might hope to see Nathalie again, he was unlikely to ever find the motivation to go outside ever again unless he did as the Englishman suggested and joined his organisation.

*****

Helena stared at the man who had removed her freedom and tried hard to reconcile his actions with his personality. She had seen plenty of films in which a witty, urbane Englishman had kept hidden his diabolical character behind a sophisticated mask of charm and yet such a stereotype did not sit comfortably on this man’s shoulders. He spoke matter-of-factly. Having decided that he required her for a job, he had done what was necessary to have her brought to him. His tone was not threatening, but respectful.

"Why me?"

"You had the right profile."

"What sort of profile?"

"You’re a woman. You’re highly secretive. You hold a preference for utilising knives as opposed to guns, you have no previous agenda –"

"- And you’re white."

Helena turned to see the six foot four inch black man whose entrance she had failed to notice. She recognised him as the man who had shot her. She had not initially realised quite how physically imposing he was. He was smiling. Helena was reminded of the last time she had seen that smile. Clearly this was a man who loved his job.

"I’m white. So what?"

"Well, you see my dear, the invisibilisation process –"

The Englishman pursed his lips slightly as if to indicate that he found ‘invisibilisation’ to be a grammatically ugly word which he chose to avoid using whenever possible.

"- that we use does not work for those with black skin."

He spoke delicately, as if anxious of causing offence. Evidently murder and kidnap were less troubling to his conscience than a perceived racial slight. The next voice was more confident:

"Do you know what melanin is?"

Helena nodded.

"It’s the pigment that causes black skin to be black."

"Right. Melanin blocks the process. Seems that it acts as a counteragent. That’s why we needed you."

*****

Three Months Earlier

"I still don’t like it, sir."

"You’ve registered your objection, David. I accept that bringing her in will be a risk, but I believe it to be a worthwhile one. We must have that information. Without it all of the work that we do here would be for nothing. The COA cannot possibly be allowed to gain any further ground."

"I agree, sir, but this cannot be the only option. Are we absolutely certain that we have exhausted all other possibilities?"

"There are no other options."

It was so rare for the Englishman to raise his voice that David found himself momentarily taken aback.

"I’m sorry David, but I have made my decision. Once we have made the other arrangements we will bring in this woman, persuade her to help us and gain the information we need. It must be done."

*****

Thirty-six Hours Earlier

David lay flat on his stomach, looking down on the small, blonde woman as she prepared her escape. He still did not entirely approve of the plan but as he had been unable to devise a better alternative, he was fully committed to it. It had been his idea that Helena should dispose of Brian’s impersonator. There was a pleasing symmetry to the idea. On the same day that Helena was to be brought into the fold, another ‘temporary activist’ would be removed. The timing was right.

When Brian had joined the organisation, the Englishman had decided that it would be productive for ‘Brian Taylor’ to remain an active member of mainstream society. Thus Brian’s first job was to train the man who would take his place. It was helpful, from the Englishman’s perspective, that Brian’s parents were dead and that he had very few friends. Moving city would be quite enough to ensure that he was unrecognised. Brian had protested that his face was a matter of public record, but the Englishman had quietly explained to him that no one would assume that the man who began work at Neurocorp was anyone other than Brian Taylor:

"People only start looking for something when they’re given reason to believe that there is something to hide."

Brian was not to know that the COA were behind Neurocorp and that over the last six years, the Organisation had been able to benefit greatly from having a man on the inside. Nevertheless, it would now be even more useful if Brian Taylor did not officially exist and so the move was made.

Gaining sight of the blonde for the second time, David was able to affirm to himself that he liked the way she moved. Then he shot her in the shoulder. Given the range, visibility and necessary accuracy of his shot, David allowed himself a quick surge of pride. Having fired two shots at the fire escape – in order that Helena should not realise that his real task was already complete – he quickly packed away the tools of his trade.

*****

At close quarters, David considered that Helena was indeed a very fine looking woman. It would be a shame to have to kill her, but his boss was right. It must be done.

CHAPTER 2

2006-05-13T23:42:00.000+01:00

Brian continued to consider the ramifications of his death. He was twenty-seven years old and his most depressing realisation was that nobody outside the confines of work would care and the only reason that ‘work’ was any different was that the people at work knew that he was, in fact, alive.

Brian might have reminisced about the time when his life was simple, but his life had not been simple for a good ten years now and he could not truthfully claim that he had preferred it when it was. Brian had been a gifted child, but by the time he became a gifted teenager he had decided that he would have preferred a different gift. It was not that he didn’t enjoy being intelligent, but he couldn’t help but feel that being good looking would have been more fun.
Brian’s mother often told him that girls would appreciate his intelligence and good manners when he was older but this lie had held little comfort for the horny teenager. In reality Brian was not hideously ugly but he lacked self-confidence and his failure on numerous occasions to be bitten by a radioactive spider meant that this had not changed throughout his time at school.
However, his time at High School had not been a complete waste of time. When Brian was sixteen, his doting parents had allowed him to turn their basement into a laboratory, even though their house was not large and there was a distinct lack of storage space. When he was seventeen, Brian had discovered the secret of invisibility. Brian was sorely tempted to share this discovery with the world and reap the fame, fortune and females that fate would then inevitably throw his way. He was also tempted to watch cheerleaders shower. Luckily he resisted the urge to render himself invisible since it took him two years – and an awful lot of rats – before he was able to reverse the process. By this time Brian had decided that unleashing invisibility unfettered onto the world stage might well lead to global anarchy and, while being a lecherous pervert still held a certain attraction, it was now more of a fallback position rather than his first choice. The reason for this was that Brian had recently met Nathalie and, to his continuing amazement, she appeared – to all intents and purposes – to be very much in love with him.

To Brian’s mind, Nathalie surpassed him in pretty much every way imaginable. Of course, she had not invented a process by which organic matter could be made invisible to the naked eye, but this was not an insurmountable obstacle for their relationship. Brian realised that the odds were very much against his ever finding another woman on a par with Nathalie and thus he determined that he would carefully conceal any and all aspects of his personality that might prove irritating or unattractive. The corners of his square peg needed to be carefully filed off in order that he fitted her round hole. When deciding upon this stratagem, Brian had considered this very metaphor and, after several minutes of giggling at its lewd connotation, had added "finding accidental sexual imagery amusing" to his list of personality traits to be excised.
Many men would have found such a course of action emasculating and would have soon found that they resented the very woman who had inspired their conversion. Brian did not feel this way, but only fell more deeply in love with the woman who he knew he would be with forever.

It was shortly after their relationship ended that he was recruited.

When Brian discovered how to render organic matter invisible it had quickly become the focus of his life. Despite applying to MIT and Harvard and receiving offers from both, Brian ultimately chose to decline both. Although the idea of access to state of the art facilities was appealing, his desire for secrecy meant that he would be best served by continuing to work in his parents’ basement. From a financial perspective, Brian’s parents were relieved that he didn’t continue his education beyond High School. Any disappointment they felt at their only son’s decision to abandon the academic world dissipated once they resolved to spend his college fund on a world cruise.

Having decided to forgo the college experience to work on his discovery at home, raising money quickly became Brian’s key immediate objective. His process was not cheap and despite working two jobs since he was sixteen, his funds were not high. In his impatience Brian had believed that his intelligence should allow him to increase his funds rapidly, but his forays into share trading had only taught him that it was far quicker and far easier to lose money than to earn it.

Once he graduated, Brian got work as a lackey for a firm of building contractors. After shovelling cement for nine days straight his body ached. After thirty-seven days he began to notice muscles appearing in places they had never been before – like his arms. After six months he had built up an impressive pot of money and more than a few admiring glances. However he had barely made any progress on his pet project – the pet of the moment being a rat called Boris. Boris had been invisible for nearly two months and there was no sign that Brian was any closer to reversing this state of affairs than he had been with any of Boris’ predecessors.
Brian’s progress was further arrested when his legs were shattered in the car accident which killed his parents. While in hospital his employer continued to pay his salary in return for some occasional bookkeeping. He also had steel plates inserted into both his legs.
His nurse was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen and by the end of his recuperation she was also his girlfriend. Nathalie was striking, statuesque and many other complimentary words beginning with the letter ‘s’. The only reason that Brian could find to explain why she might like him was that she enjoyed being able to look after him. As Brian’s recovery threatened to be a quick one he gave serious consideration to deliberately breaking another limb. To his amazement Nathalie continued to love him even when he was fit and healthy.

When they walked down the street hand in hand, Brian delighted in the envious looks that he attracted. The idea of someone else wanting to be in his position was a novel experience. Brian loved it. His life was not perfect however.

Brian recalled a specific occasion when he had traced his finger over her naked form as she slept. He had tried to imagine designing a more attractive human specimen and had given up, unsure whether his mind was simply too in thrall to her beauty to attempt creative thought or if she really was perfect. He had felt her shiver and had pulled his duvet over her before gently shifting his body next to hers, feeling sure that he could warm her with the nervous energy that was crackling through him. He slowly drew his lips to hers and kissed her gently. She murmured. He leant over her and breathed warmly over her left ear before delicately flicking her earlobe with his tongue. Then the thought struck him. It had hovered at the back of his mind ever since they first kissed, but here it was blocking out all other responses.

"If it wasn’t for the crash we would never have met."

Brian lay back down, suddenly cold. Nathalie slept on. That which scared him was not the karmic symmetry of the best thing that had ever happened to him springing forth from the worst. It was the fact that if he had been in a position to choose, he would have allowed exactly the same chain of events to play out.

Breathing deeply, Brian blocked the thought from his mind. There was no need to choose. Fate had dealt him this hand and no more thought, deliberation or contemplation was required.
Two years later she left him. There was no big argument, no confrontation, no gradual drift apart and no hint that Nathalie was in any way dissatisfied. There was just a letter. It was not elegantly composed, but scrawled in haste and left on her pillow. It said simply:

Darling,
Nobody could have made me happier than you have made me, but there are aspects of my life that I’ve ignored for too long.

Don’t try to find me. When I’m ready I’ll find you. Don’t show anybody this letter. In fact, best to destroy it.

All my love, Nathalie xxx

Two months later Brian had a visit from an elderly English gentleman. Over the course of a single afternoon the Englishman explained that he knew about Brian’s project and he persuaded Brian to leave behind his current life and instead work for him. Brian agreed.

*****

"She should wake up at some time in the next half an hour or so, sir. The tranquilliser’s effect is normally pretty consistent, but there may be some variation."

"Variation?"

"Yes sir. Based on weight, physical fitness, stuff like that."

"You’ve fixed her shoulder?"

"Yes. It should be good as new."

"And you’ve amputated her arms and attached bionic replacements?"

"What?"

The older man laughed. Helena was not a skittish woman, but she had failed to keep up the pretence that she was still comatose when she heard the Englishman suggest that her arms were no longer her own.

"I believe our guest is awake."

Helena opened her eyes. She then swiftly closed them as the bright lights hurt. She felt her arms. They were reassuringly flesh-covered. Slowly opening her eyes for a second time, she allowed them to adjust to the light. She was lying on a bed in a smallish room with white walls and linoleum flooring. Offsetting the doctor’s surgery motif was a complete absence of visible sharp objects. No scalpels, no razors, no needles.

She might well have managed to kill both of the men without the aid of accessories but since she had no idea where she was, who they were, why she had been kidnapped or how many other obstacles there were between her and escape, she decided to bide her time.

"Good evening Helena. How is your shoulder?"

This was the elder of the two men who spoke. She could tell he was English and she was fairly sure that he was the man who had contacted her. She did not answer so he continued:

"I will not waste your time. We were very pleased by the outcome of the first job you did for us. We want you to do one more. For this, we will pay you a further five million American dollars."

"We could have spoken over the phone."

"I’m afraid not. This job is slightly different to your usual line of work."

"What is it that you want me to do?"

"We need you to steal a computer."

"I’m not a thief."

"Well it’s nice to meet a professional killer with such a clearly delineated set of ethics, but I think you’ll make an exception on this occasion."

Helena looked into the Englishman’s eyes. He returned her gaze. She noticed that the younger man had left the room.

"Why would I do that?"

"Because, my dear, you do not have a choice."

The man paused, allowing the words to settle. He had her attention.

"How do you think we found you?"

This was a good question. If Helena had had more than six minutes of consciousness since her capture she would still have drawn a blank.

"I don’t know."

"You met Mr Wait?"

"The man who was here when I woke up?"

"No. Mr Wait was the man who put you to sleep. He’s also the man who shot you in the shoulder."

"He clearly needs target practice."

"If he had wanted to kill you, my dear, you would be dead."

Helena felt suddenly deflated. The Englishman mistook her silence for confusion.

"You’re wondering why he chose to shoot you in the shoulder."

After considering this for a second, she nodded.

"I needed to speak to you face to face and this way seemed like the best option."

Helena still appeared confused, largely because she was.

"This is a very small organisation. We choose our employees extremely carefully. We’ve been tracking your progress for some time and two months ago we realised that we needed you for a very specific mission. It was time to bring you in. The problem with which we were confronted was that we had no idea where you lived. However, it so happened that we had another little job to complete and so we hired you to do it. Think of it as a test, if you will, although we were already quite certain that you were the person we wanted. By specifying where we wanted the job to take place, we were able to plant a tracking device – well, I say device, in fact there are thousands of them floating around your bloodstream. Anyway, once that was done then it was simple enough to track you down."

"But how?"

"Well, it’s quite simple really. The bullet that was used to shoot you was coated in a mild adhesive and then dipped in a tray of microscopic tracking devices. Then all our shooter had to do was make sure his bullet didn’t hit anything too vital and thousands of the little blighters were in your system. They’re quite harmless but really rather useful."

Helena was unable to prevent herself shuddering at the extent to which she was under the control of this organisation. Her life was built around secrecy. Between jobs she had always relied upon being able to disappear. If that door was closed to her then all hope of escape was lost. While she had never heard of tracking devices that were small enough to pass unnoticed through the bloodstream, she instinctively believed this man. She certainly could not conceive of any other way that they could have tracked her down.

Brian sat on the other side of the two-way mirror and watched proceedings closely. He was a little embarrassed that he had miscalculated the effect of the tranquilliser. A part of his mind was contemplating the likely effect of Helena’s arrival. However, the rest of his mind – the great majority of it, in fact – was contemplating the eight words and three letters on the note that he had found on his pillow that morning:

"Don’t worry darling. I know you’re alive. Nathalie xxx"

CHAPTER 1

2006-04-12T19:47:00.000+01:00

She strode purposely across the rooftop. She was not going to be waylaid. Her gloved hand stroked the jagged appendage at her side. Helena had always preferred knives to guns. Knives did not misfire. Knives did not need reloading. Knives left the errors up to the people who wielded them and Helena was not in the habit of making errors. Nor was she a romantic. She was also carrying a gun.

Sometimes her job was difficult. Tonight it would be easy. She smoothly unclipped the rope from her belt and unsnaked it from round her waist. She took the small crossbow from her back and attached the end of the thin rope to the arrow. She fired across the gap to the next building. She could see the concrete into which the steel-tipped arrow had sunk. It was not how she planned to escape, but she had learned long ago that you could never have too many exit strategies.
Helena tied the rope securely and moved quickly to the hatch that would allow her entry to this "impregnable fortress". Although she was prepared to force it open, the cigarette butts that surrounded it testified to the fact that the office smokers used it regularly and she was not surprised that it was unlocked. Lowering herself into the pitch-black corridor, she pictured the plans that she’d memorised. She inched forward to the far wall and turned right.

Security was minimal. As she found the warm glow of a light seeping under the shut door that marked her target’s office she allowed herself half a smile. Two minutes and twenty-three seconds later Helena was on the fire escape. Inside the building she had left exactly one dead man gushing blood onto a green carpet that had already needed replacing. If Helena had understood why the man had to die, she might have anticipated the sniper who was waiting for the chance to end her life, but probably not.

Helena was dressed all in black. The fire escape was the same colour. This alone would not have presented a problem. The true difficulty lay in geometry. The twisting structure obscured a clear view of either the head or the heart. When the shot did come, it crunched Helena’s shoulder against the wall and she felt her legs give way. She assessed her options. She could stay where she was and try to return fire; she could continue to ground level; she could re-enter the building through the fire exit one floor up or she could use the fire exit one floor down. She chose the final option. As she hurtled downwards two further shots rang out. She slid the door open with her knife and crawled in.

She left a broken red trail between the fire exit and the bathroom that she swiftly located. She was glad that she had memorised the lay out of the entire building even though she had only intended to operate on the top three floors. How long had she got? How long before the scream that would accompany the discovery of the body? She felt the twin wounds that neatly bisected her shoulder – her left arm was definitely out of action for the immediate future. That was unfortunate, but one arm would be enough for a rooftop escape. She could head downwards and aim to escape via the parking lot, but she would do well to avoid all four of the security guards who were currently sweeping the building. Helena would have backed herself to eliminate them, even with an arm out of action, but mass murder is rarely the path of least resistance.

She checked her watch. Helena knew the routes that each security guard habitually took and she still had eight minutes until the body would be discovered. She left the bathroom and headed for the stairs. Her mind flicked onto the question of what was so important about this job that meant that her employer had decided to go to all the trouble of having her eliminated so soon after she had completed it. She set the question aside. Her subconscious could puzzle over that if it wished. Meanwhile she would concentrate on staying alive long enough to do something about it.

Upon reaching the roof without meeting anyone, Helena was thankful. For one, she drew a moral distinction between disposing of pre-acquired targets and killing people who get in the way. Two, mass casualties were untidy. Leaving a pile of bodies behind is the professional assassin’s equivalent of shoddy craftsmanship. It looked bad and it would make people less likely to use your services again. "Being killed in the middle of a job would have the same effect," thought Helena ruefully. She carefully fitted the instrument over the rope. Then, putting her right hand through the noose and twisting it tight, she flicked the catch and felt her right arm take the weight of her body.

Seconds later she was on the adjacent roof. There were no fresh bullet holes in her. She was happy to be on the roof of this building, because this building was abandoned. This building was scheduled for destruction in a week or two – as soon as the final permits came through. Five minutes later Helena had left via the ground floor. Twenty-five minutes after that she was in her hotel room.

Amongst the finest hotels on the planet there are many which pride themselves on luxury. They aim to have the largest beds, the softest sheets, the most extensively stocked mini-bars and the most fragrant masseuses. There are other hotels that pride themselves on their discretion. This is not the discretion of keeping private the names of the guests from any interested parties. Any hotel worth a bean will do that. The level of discretion that these hotels offer is of the "anything goes" variety. The clientele pay huge sums to ensure that anything and everything that takes place within the walls of the hotel and within their room in particular will remain within those walls. Helena could have saved those customers a lot of money. Her room was located in a dive in the seediest area of New York she could find. No one would say anything about a black clad blonde with a bullet wound in her shoulder because it was unremarkable. The various sexual depravities of celebrities and politicians would have equally gone unmentioned, but they paid their high prices uptown.

Helena peeled off her black top unflinchingly. She had a doctor who would sort out her shoulder once she returned to London. Her gaze settled on the scar midway between her belly button and her left breast. That knife wound had punctured a lung and yet she’d still killed the man who had created it. He’d died gurgling blood with a mixture of awe and disbelief etched across his face. He had been 6’1. She was 5’4. He was dead. She lived. Her body held other scars, but not many.

As she cleaned her wound and made herself look more like an international businesswoman and less like a career assassin, Helena wondered dryly what would have happened if some cleaner had found her body lying in a pool of blood on the marble floor of the executive washroom. A forensic investigation would have discovered that she had killed Brian Taylor. Her body would have been checked for evidence of who she was. It would not have been found. Her fingerprints would have been taken. There were no records of them anywhere on the planet. Her scars would have been noted and compared with records in criminal databases first in New York, then the rest of America, then possibly the rest of the world. There would be no matches. It would probably end there. Although any security guard or policeman with a modicum of intelligence would follow the trail of blood and find the bullets on the fire escape, or at least the evidence that shots had been fired, they would probably discreetly ignore them. They had caught the woman who had committed murder and she was dead. The police would know that the chances of capturing the sniper were non-existent and so they would follow the need for prioritisation of resources and just leave it. Helena would not leave it. She could not leave it. The people who had tried to kill her would not stop. She would have to kill the sniper and she would have to kill the person who ordered him to kill her. That might be enough. Frankly she doubted that it would be.

Helena surveyed herself in the dirt-lined mirror. The smart suit that she wore gave no indication that it concealed a couple of gaping shoulder wounds. She held up her passport. It said she was Swedish. That was not too many miles from the truth. It said she was a businesswoman. Well, she was a trouble-shooter of sorts. Her name was not Victoria Lindstrom and she was a good three years younger than the age that this particular passport suggested.

Her flight was uneventful. As the plane touched down at Heathrow, she felt glad of her seven-hour nap. Her shoulder ached. Two more Ibuprofen provided a temporary solution and a trip to her locker to retrieve her British-based arsenal increased her confidence. Airport security being what it was, Helena had long found it convenient to have a bag containing the tools of her trade in a locker at every airport to which she travelled. At this point in time, she had guns, bullets and knives in a locker at virtually every major airport in the world.

London was a sensible base of operations for today’s career hitwoman. Helena had always found it to be a good bridge between Europe and the United States and, although she had apartments in a number of cities, London now felt like home. Although her mother still kept her bedroom for her, she hadn’t spent more than five nights there in the past nine years. Home, for Helena, was a place that no one else knew existed.

*****

Three Weeks Earlier

At 10:46 a.m. the phone rang. As always, Helena let the machine answer it. The slight crackle of static indicated it was one of her special calls. An English voice left a name and a number. That was all. Helena received two types of phone call. The first was rare. The second even more so. A select group of people had her actual phone number: her mother, her brother and Sophia. The other number that could be used to reach her was actually the number of a warehouse in Cleveland. If a caller did not know the correct extension, they would end up speaking to a manager, a cleaner or a security guard depending on the time of day that they rang. If they did dial the correct extension then a computer would bounce them around the world a dozen times until they reached a machine which would suggest that they had exactly six seconds to leave a message before being cut off. At random time intervals throughout the day the machine would ring Helena’s apartment and leave her any messages that it had received.

Her first telephone conversation with "Ben White" – she assumed it was an alias – was fairly typical:

"Ben White?"
"Speaking"
"You left me a message."

Helena’s voice was carefully modulated. She found voice distorters tacky, but she left no hint of her Icelandic origin.

"Yes. How do we do this?"
"First, you give me a name. I’ll call you again in twenty-four hours if I wish to proceed. If not, you’ll never hear from me again."
"The man’s name is Brian Taylor. He works for a company called Neurocorp. He’s based in New York."
"Fine. Goodbye."

Her initial investigations were straightforward. By four o’ clock that afternoon she had Brian Taylor’s life history on a blue A5 notepad lying on the table in front of her. There was nothing there to suggest why someone would pay One Million American Dollars to have him eliminated. Brian was born to Neil and Linda Taylor in a nondescript suburb of Chicago. He was an only child. Both his parents were dead. He had excelled at school, particularly in science, but did not enrol at any university. Instead he had worked upwards of ninety hours a week for nearly three years at a wide variety of odd jobs. Then, according to his Social Security record, he had simply stopped. For seven months after that he had not worked for a single day – or, at least, he had paid no tax on any earnings.

That was six years ago. In the intervening time Brian’s life had been relentlessly nondescript. He had moved to New York and begun work for Neurocorp – a small company that specialised, according to its website, in creating technology which would 'Unleash the power of the mind'. This seemed like quite an errant boast given that the vast majority of their turnover arose from fixing software glitches on PCs that were out of warranty.

The next day’s conversation was equally run of the mill:

"My fee is one million American dollars. Half immediately, the other half on completion."
"Of course. We have only one condition. Mr Taylor must be eliminated in his office. Other than that, we’re happy to leave all other details to you."
"Fine. You won’t hear from me again. I’ll proceed when I receive confirmation that five hundred thousand dollars is in my account."

Helena gave the number of an account in a Zurich bank and hung up.

None of this was untoward. Helena always kept all contact between her and her clients to the minimum – even telephone conversations. Specifying locations was not common, but neither was it particularly unusual. Some potential hits had family and her client might want to make sure that these would be spared the pain of actually witnessing their loved one’s untimely demise. Sometimes a client might want to send a message to a third party by having the hit take place in a seemingly secure area.

The following three weeks also passed without incident. The money was deposited almost immediately and Helena undertook a more thorough background check of Brian Taylor. She found nothing that might persuade her to change her mind. She had arrived in New York on Saturday 11th February. She spent four days detailing the minutiae of Brian’s daily routine. Then, on Thursday, she had killed him.

*****

Slowly, Helena made a list of what she knew, what she could reasonable assume and what her options were. Someone wanted her dead, and she felt it was reasonable to assume that it was the same people who had hired her to kill Brian Taylor. From what she knew of them, was it likely that they would pursue her, or would they believe that they had scared her off? Her instincts led her to suspect the former. These were serious people. It was not unknown to try to assassinate the assassin, but it was still relatively rare. After all, if you have people at your disposal who you can trust to eliminate a trained killer, then you must have a pretty good reason why those same people could not carry out the original hit.

The inescapable conclusion was that Brian Taylor was far more important than she had originally believed. If that was the case then he was certainly not simply a CEO of an electronics company. She silently cursed herself for not making a more thorough background check. Helena paused and started a new list. It had just two entries. 1. Who was Brian Taylor? 2. Who is Ben White?

*****

The phone rang. Helena burrowed down under her duvet and then reluctantly thrust out a hand to grab her ringing tormentor. She quickly pulled it back under the covers.

"Hello Helena. How’s your shoulder?"

She hung up. Twenty-seven seconds later she was dressed. She grabbed one of her emergency bags and sped towards the door. She opened it and found a gun in her face. The gun was held by a tall black man. He smiled. Then he shot her.

Why are we here?

2006-03-17T20:25:00.000Z

Charles Dickens published his works in installments. This approach proved hugely successful. So if it worked for him, why not for someone considerably less talented but considerably more alive?

Dickens charged a shilling for each installment of his novels. This blog will charge you nothing!

If you enjoy what you read then please tell your friends. If not, then please feel free to persuade those you hate to waste their time reading about the life, times, trials and tribulations of a woman named Helena.

P.S. She's also a professional hitwoman.