Page 10 of The Fixer and the Fugitive

“Well, that was unexpected,” she said. To no one, apparently, since the man seemed to be sincere in his faint. Or at least he appeared so.

Now what?Part of her wanted to kill him and have done with it. She so didn’t need this headache now, in her new town, in her new life. She had left trouble behind forever, or so she hoped.I’m country now.Country people didn’t kill intruders in the middle of the night. Did they? She sighed, annoyed as she thought through the ramifications of taking him out. She couldn’t, obviously. In the army she had lived her life by one rule:I don’t need to know the why, but I have to know the who.They had sent her to take out various people in variousplaces over the years. She never asked why, never, not once. But she never, ever took out a target without verifying his identity. The de-sensitivity training had worked wonders on her. Her conscience remained untroubled as she did her job. Someone told her where to go and she trusted they had a good reason; she didn’t feel the need to know it. But she always, always,alwaysverified her target’s identity. If she had any anxiety or remorse over her job, it was that she would inadvertently take out the wrong person, deprive some child of a mother or father incorrectly.

And that was why she couldn’t eliminate the man on her floor. It didn’t matter why he was there, only who he was. Without knowing his identity, she couldn’t assure herself he was on the wrong side. So she remained frozen a cautious thirty seconds, gun trained on his inert form, before carefully inching forward. Once she was close enough, she toed him a few times, giving him a couple of light kicks that received no response.

When it became clear it wasn’t some ruse to spring at her and attack, she let her gun go slack as she crouched and frisked him. He wore a holster, with a gun—American made—and it was loaded. She took it, along with a wicked looking knife from a sheath attached to his ankle. Only after he was safely disarmed did she make an inspection of his body. And then she sucked a breath and gripped her gun again, bringing it to his temple.

He was Middle Eastern. And that was why his voice had pinged on her radar. He had the precise accent of someone who had learned English as a second language, and not from television. Someone had taught him and taught him well. In her—admittedly slanted—experience, terrorists were the ones who did that. And she’d killed more than her fair share of them. Was this man coming for retribution? They had long memories and liked to hold grudges, not resting until the debt had been repaid: a life for a life. Celeste figured she had more than one bountyon her head, a head which would likely be displayed on a pike if they ever got hold of it. The misogyny of the culture had worked in her favor. The men she’d killed had believed her to be an idiotically naïve tourist, someone with a fledgling social media following who wandered into hot spots while taking selfies. Few of them ever realized how vastly they’d underestimated her, and by then it was too late. Thankfully no one had ever learned her true identity, thanks to The Colonel’s many layers of camouflage. But it was a fear she’d live with for the rest of her life, the certainty that someone out there would find her, would finally come to collect a long-held debt and avenge whichever friend or family member she’d killed.

With the new knowledge in mind, she searched him again, this time looking for better clues. He had a wallet, but it was clean. No ID, no money, nothing. He smelled like sweat and dirt but not the particular spices she’d come to associate with the culture. If he’d left his tribe in pursuit of her, it hadn’t been recently. He was either rogue or had been working alone for a while.

She was making her final pass when she felt something taped over his heart. With her own heart thumping, she retrieved it, giving a yank to unstick the tape stuck to his hairy chest.Good thing you’re asleep, pal, because that would have hurt,she thought. The card was blank on one side, but when she flipped it her heart stopped completely because she saw something she recognized, something she’d carried for as long as she’d worked as an assassin, a sort of SOS that could be used in any country at any time to contact one man and one man only.

She inspected the guy’s face again, her own clouding with puzzlement. Whoever this guy was and for what reason he was there, one thing was certain: he’d been sent by The Colonel.

Chapter 8

Celeste scrambled back a few paces and fell over, landing hard on her bum. Such was her faith in the man that she didn’t believe for a second The Colonel was trying to have her killed. If he wanted it done, he’d be more likely to do it himself, realizing correctly that he was one of the only people who could successfully carry out such a mission. But hard as she tried, she couldn’t come up with a reason for this man’s presence in her new life. When her brain failed to provide an answer, she decided to find one.

He answered before it even rang. How did he do that? No one knew.

“Did you get my package?”

“Yes, but it arrived damaged,” she said, almost smiling when that gave him pause. It was always a thrill to stymy a man who’d seen in all.

“In what way?”

“Shoulder shot.”

“Will he live?”

“Unless I kill him for kicks,” she said, which earned one of those rusty laughs. She wanted to ask if the guy was all right,if he was trustworthy. But she refrained because The Colonel wouldn’t have sent him otherwise.Blind trust.He’d earned that much and then some over the years, first by mentoring her and then by occasionally rescuing her from some scrapes, once personally in Morocco. The sight of the downed man sent shivers of remembrance through her, though. Most of the targets she’d taken out over her career had looked an awful lot like the person now lying unconscious on her floor. “What am I supposed to do with him after he wakes up?”Ifhe wakes up. How badly was he injured? Maybe he would die on his own, which would be both a relief and a worry because then she’d have to deal with the cleanup and no one wanted that sort of headache.

“Babysit him until I figure out where to stash him next. He’s stirred up a hornet’s nest, so eyes out. Someone might come looking.”

She wriggled a little. Every time The Colonel bestowed faith in her, it had the same effect. If he thought she was good enough to babysit this guy and handle anyone who came looking for him, then who was she to doubt herself or her abilities? “Can he handle himself?”

“A bit. Not as well as you. You’re in charge here, don’t let him tell you different when he comes to.”

“I won’t,” she said so deadpan he gave another rusty laugh before disconnecting without a goodbye. “Let’s see how bad you’re banged up,” she said to the guy, rolling him onto his back so she could make her inspection. As he’d said, he’d been shot. A clean hole through his upper right shirt, which had become so saturated it was hard to tell much else about it. Had this happened nearby or far away?

With that thought came the next pressing need: if someone was after him, she’d better make certain they hadn’t already found him. She secured her weapon and stood, staring down atthe unconscious man. “I have to do a perimeter sweep. Don’t move.” He didn’t, of course. She smiled at her dumb joke, then winced.Don’t lose it when you’ve made it this far. A few weeks off the job and you’re already talking to a guy in a coma. Pull it together, woman.

Stealthily, she eased out of the house and made her way around the building, sweeping outward in concentric circles toward the barn. Everything was calm, settled, undisturbed. The animals in the nearby wilderness made their usual nighttime noises. No alarmed cawing of birds, no startled scrambling of paws or hooves. No tracks around the house, no sounds of a car or ATV nearby. Everything was still and silent as it should be, as she had come to expect in a shockingly short amount of time. She paused, absorbing that thought. For a lifelong city dweller, she’d come to accept the peace of her new rural life with relative ease. In fact, it soothed her. No engines roaring, cars honking, metal clanging, people yelling. It was…nice.

Shaking off the introspection, she went back in the house, gripping her weapon in case her houseguest awakened and had ideas.

He hadn’t, though. He lay in the same place she’d left him. Still, she crept close and frisked him again. Being careful was the only way she’d survived to the ripe age of thirty three. She wanted to make it to fifty at least, which might be some sort of record for assassins, The Colonel being the exception to every rule. No one knew exactly how old he was but people took bets on the possibility that he was part of some experiment that brought him forward in time from some warrior age and only modern science kept him living. During those occasions when she’d been holed up with special ops teams, they’d had a bit of time to ponder. Perhaps too much, based on the insane theories they’d come up with.

“All right, let’s get you patched up. Don’t make me kill you later because I don’t like having to undo work I’ve already done,” she groused as she cut off the man’s ruined shirt and peeled it away. He had hair on his chest, a pleasant smattering shaped like a T. She stared at it, wondering if she should shave the portion around his wound. Would that trap bacteria or keep it away?Nature put it there, who am I to disagree?Plus it felt weird and creepy to shave someone while he was unconscious. A bit too serial killer for her tastes.

With that decided she readied a bowl of warm water and soap, along with a clean dish towel, the only makeshift sort of bandage she had on hand. In her line of work, she should really have a first aid kit available. She added it to the list of things she needed, which so far consisted of a first aid kit because she had no idea what she needed in order to survive, let alone keep house.Cleaning supplies, probably.Not being a total slob, she would need to give everything a good scrub at some point. The only items in the house had expired long ago.More food.She would soon run out of what she’d bought from town, for certain now that she had an extra mouth to feed. What else? She had no idea and that frustrated her because it pointed like a beacon to her abnormality. Other people, people who had grown up in a family with parents who taught them things, probably knew exactly what they needed to function, to make a house a home. Celeste was as clueless about it as she was about everything but taking orders and killing people.

“What a spectacular resume I’ve developed,” she whispered as she worked over the guy. Her glance fell to his face. He was handsome, she supposed. If you liked that type. If you hadn’t spent the last fifteen years killing that type. “You’re dull company. I’ve had better conversation with corpses.” She had, actually. So much of her career had been solitary that she’d developed the habit of talking to her victims, post mortem.Her way of finding closure, she supposed. She had never gone so far as to apologize, but she had assured them their bodies would be retrieved and taken care of properly, wouldn’t be left for their enemies to abuse or parade. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Respect, The Colonel had taught her, meant a lot, both in life and in death. Under his tutelage she’d learned to respect herself and others, something she certainly hadn’t learned during her chaotic childhood.

She finished cleaning him, pressing a clean towel beneath the wound and on top. It wasn’t bleeding too much anymore. But it had clearly bled a lot. Loss of blood was likely what had led him to lose consciousness, but he also didn’t appear to have lost enough to send his body into shock. “You’re being kind of a baby about this, actually. You got off lucky. I’ve seen worse. I’ve dealt worse,” she told her visitor as she knelt next to him and wondered what to do next.

When he woke, he would probably do so in a panic, not knowing if he was her prisoner, if she still intended to kill him. That was how she would feel, at least, if she woke up gunshot on a stranger’s floor. She would have to leave him a message to assure him he was safe and she wasn’t hostile. What, though? She dared not write something. He had spoken English, but what if he couldn’t read it?

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