‘You can’t kill him,’ Laurel yelled as she reached for Astrid’s arm.
‘What do you take me for?’ Astrid shook her head. ‘Maybe you do think I’m this Reaper?’ She turned away from the groaning security guard and peered into Laurel’s eyes.
‘No, no, I was just worried…’
‘I know what you were worried about: you thought I was going to kill this bloke.’
She reached down, grabbed his arm and pushed him into the wall.
‘What will you do with him?’
Astrid kept him pressed against the concrete with one hand.
‘We got lucky. There are no witnesses, but if we leave him, he’ll go to the police, or at least cry into the arms of his unfortunate girlfriend.’
‘So, what’s the plan?’
The security guard started to sob as Astrid dragged him towards the car.
‘We’ll take him with us for now. We don’t need long at George’s, and then we can let him go.’
She opened the boot as she finished talking. Laurel didn’t look too convinced.
‘I… guess so.’
Astrid reached into the shopping bag and pulled out a brand new pair of knickers.
‘What a lucky chap you are.’ She gagged him with the underwear. ‘If you make a sound, I’ll slit your throat, do you understand?’
He nodded, and she dumped him into the boot. She slammed the lid and strode towards the driver’s side. Laurel’s wide eyes startled her.
‘This is risky, Astrid.’
‘That’s what makes it exciting.’ She climbed into the car, and Laurel slipped into the other side. ‘I was looking forward to wearing those as well. I guess I’ll have to go commando instead.’
She grinned at Laurel as she drove out of the shopping centre and returned to the main road.
‘This is why many of us at the Agency admire you so much.’
‘Is it because of my great taste in clothes and impressive driving skills, or the fact I can lock dopey-looking blokes into the boot of a car?’
She swerved past the vehicle in front and put her foot down. The man in the back rolled to one side and made a hefty thumping sound. Laurel laughed and shook her head at the same time.
‘It’s because of your strength in the most extreme situations.’
‘You’re too kind.’
They weren’t far from their destination, coming off the main road and heading to the house. Right on cue, Laurel asked the question.
‘How many times have you been here?’
‘About half a dozen visits.’
‘How do we get in; do you have a key?’
She wondered what Laurel would look like in her new lace underwear, so didn’t hear the question as she pulled the car into the first free spot.
‘What?’
‘Do you have a key?’
‘You’ll see when we get there,’ Astrid said as they got out of the car.
Laurel peered across the road at the row of houses. ‘Which one is it?’
‘It’s none of those. We’re a couple of streets away. Did you complete your Agency training?’
‘Of course.’ Laurel sounded offended by the question. ‘Why?’
‘Have you had any active assignments?’
‘You mean apart from this one?’
‘Do you know how to recognise when people are watching a building?’
‘Yes,’ Laurel said, still annoyed.
‘Great. I’m going to need you to check the front while I go around the back, okay?’
‘What about our friend in the boot?’
‘He’ll be okay in there for one night. It might do him some good to stew for a while and think about not playing the hero again.’
‘What’s next for us?’
‘Hold out your hand.’ Astrid was amused at the confused look on her face as Laurel did as requested. She took her hand, enjoying the touch of Laurel’s skin against her own, and removed a pen from her jacket and wrote on Laurel’s palm. ‘Here’s the address. It’s a couple of streets along here, right at the roundabout and then halfway down the road. Walk as casual as you can. Use those observational skills I know you have. There’s a pub on the left; if you think everything is okay, meet me by the side of it in fifteen minutes.’
‘And if everything isn’t okay?’
‘You’re on your own.’ She walked away in the opposite direction. Laurel scowled as she followed her orders. Astrid strode back to the car and opened the boot; the bloke peered at her through petrified eyes. ‘Any noise from you, and I’ll break your neck. Do you understand?’ He nodded, and she shut the boot.
Astrid strode to the bottom of the road. She moved through the afternoon glamour of suburbia, passed the single mothers pulling their kids from the chocolate temptations decorating the shops, and glanced at the old men as they staggered in and out of the local pub. A few of the more energetic specimens of masculinity attempted to whistle at her, sounding like asthmatic steam trains rolling down their final broken tracks. She hated the suffocating constraints of the suburbs and all of their less than beautiful attractions, moving around the small dog attempting to copulate with a much larger version of its species and the middle-aged men who laughed at the canine pornography.
A few yards ahead, a wooden fence separated a large field. She climbed it before dropping onto the grass on the other side. The director’s home was two hundred yards away as she ran past the empty cider bottles on the ground. Dogs barked in the distance behind her as she reached the building and peered over the fence. The garden was overgrown as if nobody had paid attention to it for months. Weeds punctuated the gravel path, and an unkempt lawn greeted her feet as she climbed over, glancing for any sign of life.
The house was in darkness as she crept towards the window on the back door, eyes piercing the glass and finding nothing inside to concern her. She pressed against the glass for a minute, her ears tuned to the ambience inside the house, picking up no sounds at all: it was enough to convince her it was empty.
She ran back to the fence, placed her left hand on top of the damp wood and leapt over it with ease. It was a short jog back to the other end of the field and another jump into the car park at the back of the pub. The baying dogs and humans had disappeared, replaced by a hopeful Laurel Lee sitting on the wall and ignoring the leering loons inside the alehouse.
‘Another couple of minutes, and I’d have been inside the pub and smashing glasses over their heads.’ Weariness and irritation combined to make a heady cocktail in her voice.
‘Did you miss me?’
A mischievous smile danced across Astrid’s face and pirouetted towards the younger woman as the sound of somebody murdering Dancing Queen on the karaoke escaped from the pub. Laurel bounced off the wall with newfound energy.
‘There’s nothing suspicious outside the front of the house unless you count the three-eyed raven statues sitting in the neighbour’s garden.’
‘Great,’ Astrid said. ‘Are you good at climbing?’
She didn’t wait for an answer, and was back over the fence in a flash. Laurel mumbled something under her breath before following her on to the path. She got over in time to see Astrid disappearing over the other side of a fence down the other end of the field.
‘I hope you have a key?’ Laurel scrambled into the back garden of the missing Director Cross.
‘Will a code do?’
Astrid punched the six digits into the electronic keypad hiding inside the small black box on the wall. She kept invisible fingers crossed inside her head and hoped her friend hadn’t changed the code. She let out a tiny sigh of relief at the sound of a small clicking noise before pushing the door open.
Getting into his house was no problem. Jack Chill was the easiest of them to manipulate. Somebody who traded secrets to all and sundry had no qualms over who they took money from. There was no hesitation from him when I said we should meet in Budapest. I’d promised him a substantial fee, half upfront, for all the Agency’s dirty little secrets. It was an offer too good for him to refuse.
We met near the citadel, the day after I’d followed her up the same path. The dark glasses and large hat I wore were perfect protectors from the sun, as well as keeping my features away from prying eyes. The oppressive heat had tracked me to Budapest, forcing natives and tourists to seek shelter wherever they could. Hundreds of people flocked towards the calm waters of the Gellért Thermal Baths as I trudged upwards, wishing I could join them.
The two hundred and thirty-five metre walk took me past the peoples of the world as tribes of tourists went by me in all directions, my gaze and strength focused on getting my body up the hill in one piece and to my rendezvous on time.
A crowd gathered around the Liberty Statue, taking selfies and spending more time staring at their electronic devices than observing the beauty and history surrounding them. I moved past them, taking a brief second to look at the monument to those who fought the Nazis and resisted the Soviet occupation. Just around the corner was where I needed to be.
There was a stall selling souvenirs on the right, and to the left, some ambitious entrepreneur had set up a mini archery stand. Chill leant against the citadel wall. He didn’t recognise me as I approached, but he saw the hat I wore, adorned with a small badge of a monkey’s grinning face, which was the symbol to let him know I was his rendezvous. No words passed between us as I handed him the electronic code with the account details containing the rest of his payment: money he’d never be able to spend. He spent a minute checking the information on his phone before handing me the data stick with the Agency’s hidden files.
I slipped the stick into my pocket as he left in the opposite direction, descending into the heart of Budapest. He’d forgotten about me as I waited thirty seconds before following him, moving down the hill towards the Elizabeth Bridge and through the Garden of Philosophy.
He was just ahead of me as I contemplated what I was about to do to Jack Chill.