Excerpt Eighty-Nine:
Beware of Whom You Call Gretchen
Viktor had reached his Alamo-cum-Saigon-Embassy moment. He was holed-up in a small alpine motel, oddly called the Beach Motel and Foot Spa, where the only other guests were agents who were waiting for the signal to bring him in or take him out. The new staff members who’d come from outside the area were either more agents or extreme coincidences. The next three accommodatory establishments, as a crow walked, were housing various agents, and various agents slept in various vehicles in various spots in the locale surrounding Viktor’s Last Stand. The area had never seen so much tourism from so many countries.
There was a knock on Viktor’s door, a sound tens of ears and an unknown amount of listening devices homed in on, waiting for the continuance of the saga it introduced; are you sitting comfortably, then I’ll knock…
Viktor had not eaten for days and his tap-water fast was becoming oppressive and began talking back in languages only demons could understand. Compromise put on its shirt and travelled the painful distance from the comfy bed to the dangerous doorway and levered it partially open…Viktor slowly tagged behind and without thinking about consequences anymore, in a mindset of capitulation, he opened the door wide while correcting the new depths of the slouch he had been slowly adopting, into relatively less of a slouch.
‘What?’ He croaked.
The doorstep invading aggravation set something off in Viktor, something fireworky, explosionary… She was good, she looked good and no doubt would smell good in a number of situations and positions. Viktor wasted no time objectifying her and placing her in useful scenarios that would greatly benefit himself, ‘I will only have dealings with this agent,’ he shouted out to no one within sight; barking like a man who had just returned from a heavy night out doing karaoke and werewolfing.
‘We are in the area,’ the woman said, apparently oblivious to the shouting, ’and we are knocking on people’s doors.’
‘And?’
‘We are on a quest to find someone.’
‘Who?’
‘We are people browsing at the mo, when we find the right person we will know. But, till then it’s…’ She regarded Viktor in a mysterious way that was the result of acting talent deficit syndrome, but, lucky for her it didn’t register, ‘You might be the one, Mr Flabikoff. I am sure we have found our man.’
‘How do you know my name and how did you pronounce it correctly?’
‘I am with the FBI, Viktor.’
‘Never heard of them. What is the FVI?’
‘Ef, Be, Ai.’
‘As long as you are not the CIV. Have you got any food?’
‘Grapes. What’s the CIV?’
‘They’ll have to do. I meant the CIA…what did I say?’
‘CIV… But we want something in return.’
‘What?’
‘A way of opening a line of communication with the Lab.’
‘You’ll have to have a word with Peter about that.’
‘Yes, that is all we are after at the moment. Listen, this is my last day on the job. I start my new job on Monday.’
‘Who are you working for on Monday?’
‘My new employers are the CIA.’
‘Well, good luck with that. I’ll need more than grapes to have any dealings with you after today.’
‘I’ll get you a proper meal, snacks. Get a shopping list going and I’ll get it to you before I clock off this afternoon. I’ll see to it it’s delivered, okay?’
Two thoughts wrapped round each other and tangoed incongruously: The delivery was going to be a bullet in the face; and, the grapes were fucking delicious. And even if they were poisoned…well it was too late to factor that one in. And those feelings: he felt like he’d been run over by the love machine; and as soon as the grape rush had slowed to a shuffle his passion would rise and start thumping its chest. He felt himself warming to the idea of a deal with the CIA, an organisation he once told his mother he would kill her rather than do any dealings with them. His hatred for the CIA became petty and he blamed it on his upbringing and something he’d watched on TV once, in black and white in the stark apartment in Vladivostok.
Monday morning remained so near but so far until it turned the corner and ex-FBI, CIA rookie walked through the door Viktor opened before she had a chance to knock on it, which was the agreed interdepartmental, inter-organisational, inter-nationally agreed signal.
‘What wood is this?’ she asked Viktor knocking on it for clues, ‘It’s not pine. You’d expect pine in an alpine region.’
His uncle had been a carpenter so Viktor knew what wood the door was made of, ‘You have nice hands and wrists and arms….Miss?’
‘Call me Katie.’
‘Is that your name?’
‘No.’
‘What’s your real name?’
‘It is not important. You can name me, for this interaction.’
‘I…’
‘Go on, it’ll be fun. You can name me. No one else will ever know my name. It can be something we can share together.’
Roberta had been briefed with psyche-manipulation tactics. It had been suspected that Viktor would respond well to giving her a name that was just between the two of them, and it worked. Viktor was semi-aware but past managing the situation so let it slip to the floor to make its own way among the jungle of synthetic fibres.
‘Let’s get this party started. What can I do for you, Viktor?’
‘Assisted suicide, Gretchen.’
‘Ah, who’s Gretchen?’
‘You are. I am serious. I need help to end it all. I’ll give you everything you want in return, Gretchen.’
‘I don’t have a problem with that. It will be a boon. I have been ordered to kill you, so, assisted suicide will be upgrade city limits.’
‘Kill me?’
‘Honestly, Viktor, I am not going to kill you.’
‘Why not.’
‘Because assisted suicide is not killing in the illegal or biblical sense…’
‘You’d be doing me a favour.’
‘I’d be doing everyone a favour as long as we have some kind of control over Peter and the lab.’
‘Oh, crap, you don’t understand. You think I have any control over Peter? Peter is making all the decisions and holding all the power cards, Gretchen.’
‘I hate that name.’
‘I know.’
The listening ears and processing brains whirred like a super computer and end games came into play and forks in the road needed to be chosen. Peter was in charge. Where did that place Viktor in the still life of Humanity? The answer was: it painted over him.
Gretchen pulled out her weapon and shot an unsurprised Viktor in the head, first a graze, then a superficial, yet bone cracking shot and then a central brain coup de grace…
‘Man down. Target eliminated.’
Any ill feeling Roberta contained about Viktor’s killing went on Gretchen’s tariff… Her first day on the job and Roberta got all the accolades and a new departmental name: Psycho.
The brakes had been let off her career, which was picking up speed, rolling down the valley; heading towards the River of Opportunity and the Sea of Providence.
Only Peter stood in its way…
