I quit Victor Kemp five years ago. When I ultimately made the decision, I did everything right. I finished my assignments, gave notice, and handed in my paperwork. Admittedly, I failed to give him two weeks. It didn't seem prudent. I packed up, cleared my desk and walked into Kemp's office with a resignation letter I placed on his desk on his desk.
“I’m leaving.”
His reaction was typical of him. A chuckle, as if he found me amusing. A sigh, as if I were a disappointing child. And not far below the surface, a simmering fury.
“What is this?” Victor pretended to read the letter, then pushed it aside. His small pale eyes bored into me. “Early retirement? It hardly seems your style. I expected you to continue to work until you were an old woman.”
Old woman. I fought not to flinch.
“I’ve been doing this a long time, Victor. I’m tired. I’ve earned my rest, and I’m taking it.”
I turned away and opened the door to his office to leave. My soon-to-be former employer stopped me, his voice like ice. “You’re still an asset, Ms. Smith. Improbably or not, you still retain skills I find valuable. I shouldn’t need to remind you that my assets don’t leave until I’ve fully realized my investment.”
“As of now, you have.” I walked out and closed the door without looking back.
He didn’t try to stop me. I didn’t expect him to, not then. After all, he'd hired me as his personal killer, exacted his punishment when I strayed, eliminated all possibility for happiness, and held onto me for decades. How much more was he going to get out of a woman he’d wounded so grievously? All I wanted to do was disappear. He should have been glad to be rid of me.
No one walks away from Victor Kemp, though. Especially not someone who sets in motion an act of defiance too big for him to ignore. Deep in my heart, I knew that. I knew that if and when he discovered what I’d done, he’d come for me. Which was why, when he finally did, I was ready.
~
My gunman is on the phone. He’s muttering in Russian. I can follow the bare outlines of his conversation: “yes . . . no, no trouble . . . easy . . . old woman.”
Old woman? I grit my teeth.
He doesn’t notice the presence of a second speck on the horizon, so faint as to be mistaken for an indolent insect. I see it, though. I know both its purpose and its target. I run some calculations in my head. How long? How fast? How far? Timing is everything.
The boat my companion has yet to register as such is moving rapidly toward the first vessel. I gauge its distance as too great to factor into my strategy. My companion speaks, his voice heavy with pleasure
“Not long now.”
I’ll show you an old woman, I imagine telling him. Instead, I gasp and clutch at my chest.
“My heart.”
If the situation weren’t so grim, his expression would be laughable. Irritation and panic fight for primacy on his face. He’s plainly torn. On one hand, I may be sick or even dying. His job is to deliver me alive. It’s not just the money: this is Victor Kemp we’re talking about. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to deal with this new development. He doesn’t know what kind of help I might need, or what might be required of him.
How will he justify his inaction? It’s nothing. She’ll be okay. Anyway, I’ve done what I was asked to do. Or maybe: she’s not worth worrying about. I can see it in his body language as he begins to relax.
The gunman has made a mistake common to many who deal with older people (that is, anyone over fifty). He’s decided I’m exactly as inconsequential as he wants me to be. He’s not surprised I’m ill or weak; it’s not his problem. He looks away.
The second he does, I fall onto my left shoulder and reach under the bench where my 9mm is taped. The move is awkward because I’m right-handed, but I’ve practiced. Roll over, reach under, roll back, and shoot while sitting up. Years of working out guarantee I have reliably strong abdominal muscles.
The side of his head erupts in a spray of bright red and dull beige. We stare at each other in disbelief, both with the same question: what just happened? I’m also wondering who fired the shot. It wasn’t me; I’m close enough that my bullet would have produced a small hole in the man’s forehead. As his lifeless body drops, I jump off the bench, searching frantically in front and behind. A rangy young man with reddish-brown hair lopes towards me. In one hand, he holds a smoking shotgun. Before I have a chance to do or say anything, he points to the water. “Look,” he yells.
Not thirty seconds later, the boat that surely carried my death explodes. A giant fireball extends straight up with a roar that echoes off the cliffs. I watch with my mouth open, as if at a fireworks display. The second boat I spotted earlier approaches the burning wreckage tentatively and circles before reversing course and coming around from the other direction. The driver repeats the maneuver. After a time, I stop counting the sweeps. It will take as long as it takes. The occupants of the other craft are being cautious, as they should be.
The young man is by my side, out of breath. I turn to deliver a fierce hug, then stand back, holding him at arms’ length. My slightly stern expression dims his triumphant look.
“I had a clear shot, Michael.”
“So did I.” He’s gone serious. “I didn’t want you to be the one to kill him. Former assassin, right?”
“But—”
“It’s done. Besides,” he can’t resist a small smile, “it was a bloody good shot.”
My son looks so much like Brian, I’m afraid my heart will burst. I thank whatever gods I fitfully acknowledge that Victor Kemp was never able to take from me what I most love. “You’re my hero,” I tell him.
“Hope your mother doesn’t mind spreading the hero worship around a bit. Unless she thinks that boat blew itself up.”
The voice is a more mature version of Michael’s and as comfortably familiar as the shawl I’ve wrapped around myself to ward off the chill. The speaker stands at the bow of the boat like a heroic Celtic figure. Copper and silver strands of hair catch the sunlight above a pair of emerald eyes. The man jumps like a boy into the water.
“You did a fine job, son. Couldn’t have managed without your help. As for you—” He plows out of the shallows, reaches for me with both arms and envelops me in a bear hug. “I’m just glad you’re all right.”
I sink into the warmth of my husband’s chest, suddenly shaky. I ignore the sea, the sky, the fire, my son, and the body of the hapless lackey who chose to work for Victor Kemp and ended up dead on a beach in Wales.
“Are they gone, Brian? All of them? Even Kemp?”
“Every one of them, Suzie. I saw five people board a chartered boat in Bristol, Kemp included. No one else got on or off in the interim. The gunman Michael neatly dispatched was hired strictly for this job. Only a few confederates even knew about this operation. Kemp kept his interest in your whereabouts hidden from many of his most trusted advisors, you know. He was afraid to appear foolish or impaired by poor judgment. Nothing brings out the jackals like a leader weakened by a personal vendetta.”
A personal vendetta. To end me. I shudder.
Two more men jump out and wade to shore. One of them is Charlie Campbell, MI6’s favorite chameleon. To call him a colleague of Brian’s does their relationship a disservice. Charlie has known Brian for thirty-five years. He’s been savior and protector of my family for decades, even as the two of them tried to push through the investigations into Victor Kemp’s various criminal endeavors. Kemp's band of lawyers successfully derailed every effort to bring him to justice.
I’m still galled that his attempts to kill an agent of Her Majesty’s Government didn’t prod the authorities to issue an arrest warrant. Supposedly, there was never enough evidence to act. Even in the world of spies and secrets, bureaucracy moves slowly, if at all.
I give Charlie a hug that nearly crushes him. He leans back, his ruddy face wreathed in smiles.
“You're strong for such a small thing.” Charlie's brogue is thick as a Scottish mist at dawn. “Nice work, by the way. You too, Michael.”
He claps Brian on the shoulder and they embrace, two old friends who have always had each other’s backs. Michael comes over and hugs the master spy whom he loves like an uncle. The man who’s accompanied Charlie hangs back until he is waved over. More backslapping.
I stand back to observe the timeless ritual of male bonding. I also marvel at the loyalty on display, loyalty that has saved us all once again.
“Okay,” Charlie says. “If you’ll excuse us, we've got a bit of work to do here. Let's at it, Fred.”
He and the other man pick up the body on the beach and roll it in a tarp before depositing it in the boat. He promises to return at dusk. I invite them for supper. All very civilized, considering recent events.
The three of us climb the ancient steps to an old stone cottage, past a small gravestone. We laid Brian’s mother to rest there last year. When we reach the back patio, he goes inside to make a few calls. My son pulls out a cell phone and telephones someone, probably his girlfriend, Kate.
I take a moment to study his face and glance back at the fire that sends black plumes skyward. The flames are smaller, more contained. The authorities will have received reports. I expect to hear a helicopter before long.
For now, all is silent, save for the soft sighing of the waves that lap the shore.
I turn back to the cottage just as Brian exits. He looks tired. What a toll this ordeal has taken on my little family. How utterly resilient they all are. We all are, I tell myself.
Michael disconnects and we embrace, a group hug that lasts nearly a minute.
It's over, I think. I note the uncertainty in that thought and will it away. Brian feels it and pulls me to him.
I glance over his shoulder at the waters as they push the blackened shell of the boat this way and that. Bits of the mast have broken off; a portion of the hull collapses into the water as if exhausted. A tiny piece of what appears to be debris breaks off from the wreckage. The movement seems almost deliberate, as if the fragment is self-propelled. I shake my head to free it from its nightmare. “It’s over,” I say aloud. Then the three of us walk arm in arm back to our home.