I love this.]]>
Conard did not give head starts. To
him this was a simple rule of thumb, not a matter of debatable ethics. Conard
simply felt that to give a head start is to betray both prey and predator and
begrudge them their ultimate fate. “And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as
dead: and he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, 'Fear not, I am the
first and the last'.”
Conard liked to exercise a feeling of control. He was not a man that would exercise such blasphemy as to equate himself with the Lord His Savior, but nonetheless was fond of repeating “Revelation 1:17, Revelation 1:17” in his head while running something down. An element of control, he reasoned, was present in the Lord’s revealing himself to John, and thus, he reasoned further, could apply to his “no head starts” rule. Not blasphemy, then.
But Conard could not comprehend the small wisp of a girl crumpled on the floor. Treason, the Defense Minister had said and then promptly walked away. The single word, “treason”, was Conard’s only explanation as to why a schoolgirl was lying unconscious at his feet in the basement of the Defense Department. Normally, Conard hardly needed a reason to carry through with the tasks the Minister assigned to him, but this...this was far from normal, he thought. He scratched the side of his chin. He bent down to look at her face. She was maybe a third of his size, small and slight with mousy hair and upturned features. She couldn’t be older than fifteen. Conard made every effort not to discriminate on the job- women, children, the elderly- he knew they could all be capable of things best left unsaid. He had seen it. But this was different because this girl looked far too familiar for his comfort. And normally, the Defense Minister would not overstep his boundaries so far as to sentence a schoolgirl to what was, normally speaking, certain death. Other men he had worked for, definitely, but not the Minister. The Minister was, for a Vietnam veteran, quite a squeamish and morally conflicted man. So Conard crouched down and thought. As he thought, he heard the girl stirring. Blood had congealed on a wound on the side of her head. That bothered him as well; normally whoever he was sent was in pristine condition. Geneva Convention and all that. He let out a long release of breath that would have been mistaken as a sigh in anyone else and decided to wait until she could speak to tell him why she was here.
About three minutes after his decision, the girl opened her eyes and groaned. “Where the hell am I?” She asked in small and weary voice, looking up at the man who appeared more as a pale mass dressed in black than a real human to her groggy eyes.
“The Defense Department. The basement, to be exact,” Conard replied in a voice straightforward enough to belie comprehension. One thing he considered an even more important rule of thumb was to never let something he was chasing know he was confused.
The girl blinked big brown eyes for a minute until he came into view clearly. The pale bald man in front of her loomed large and imposing, dressed all in black with a menacing rifle at his side. She only had a second to be frightened before her rational mind took over and said, best not let him see you’re scared. Crocodile tears probably won’t work. She sat up, her head throbbing intensely.
“Why am I here?” She asked with a frown.
“I was hoping you could tell me the same thing,” replied Conard. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God, he told himself. If she could not tell him why she was here, he would have no choice but to carry through with the Deed. Conard did not like to do a job half-assed, and he was already quite in doubt of his actions.
She thought. Images resounded through her brain, and she felt sick to her stomach when she realized why she must be here. “I told the Defense Minister no.”
“No?”
“Yeah. I told him no.”
“Can you please elaborate?” Conard asked, with no measure of impatience present in his voice.
“I wouldn’t fuck him. I said no. He got angry. Until I woke up here with you standing over me with that nasty-looking rifle, I’d have counted myself lucky he didn’t rape me, really.” She almost smiled.
Conard was stunned and speechless. Something had always seemed off about the Minister, but as to whether his bosses enjoyed screwing young girls Conard had never been concerned and thus never investigated. This left him in even more of an awkward predicament.
“You know that there’s really no way I should even believe you. I mean, for all I know you are just an excellent liar,” He told her.
She thought about that. “I suppose that’s true. I mean, I do have a wound on my head from being pushed into a desk corner, but for all you know I could have done that picking up some books at school, not trying to avoid unwanted advances from a pervy old man.”
They were both quiet. Conard thought, hard, about why this girl seemed so familiar. Then it dawned on him. “I saw you.”
“Huh?” She asked.
“I saw you, with the Minister…saw you being escorted into his office and running out. That’s why you looked familiar.”
“And nothing raised any alarm bells in your mind when you saw that?” She asked dryly.
“It’s not my business,” He replied in a curt tone.
They were quiet again, and Conard let out another not-quite-sigh.
He spoke. “I suppose that lends enough weight to your story that I can believe you.”
She didn’t respond for a minute. “Does this mean you aren’t going to kill me?” She asked.
He scowled at himself, at the whole situation. “I suppose not,” Conard replied a little gruffly.
She smiled at him. “Well, you should know that I appreciate the kindness.”
Conard, though admittedly an assassin, did not altogether consider himself an immoral man. He was a clearly devout Christian, and while he believed firmly that he could in no way compare to the One True Son of God, he lived his life by a moral code he was careful to keep intact. Being an assassin hardly interfered with this because, as Conard reasoned, everyone he hunted had it coming to them in one way or another. Really, he was just carrying out the Vengeance of the Lord. So when Conard searched his mind to find justification for the girl committing any act of treason, and thus giving him a viable reason to dispose of her, he came up empty. He let out a real and frustrated sigh.
“So if I’m going to let you go, you’d better go. There’s an emergency exit to the left. I’ll disable the alarm for you.” Even as he said it, he knew that he would come to regret this. He knew his employers too well to know that the girl’s disappearance, with no body for them to see and be satisfied by, would not go unchecked.
He disabled the alarm quickly, silently thankful that the Boiler Room of the Defense Department had no cameras, and waved her through.
The girl paused in the doorway and smiled. “Thank you,” she said simply.
“I’d suggest getting on the first flight to somewhere remote. Personally, I’d recommend an Indonesian island but I know the climate’s not for everyone,” he said, nearly smiling.
She grinned. “Oh, I’ll figure something out. Don’t worry about me.” She said it with such conviction, Conard really wasn’t worried. He was, however, worried about himself. But that could be dealt with later.
She slinked out the door and disappeared rapidly out of sight of any of the windows. As he closed the door behind her, Conard felt troubled.
His fears were not unfounded. A day later, after a long day at the Defense Department and stopping at the convenience store down the block from his apartment for some milk and fruit, Conard was shot in the back of the head. As he fell to the ground he heard the screams and yells of bystanders around him and saw through darkening vision his oranges rolling into the street and the dropped milk leaking. No one had even seen the shooter. Conard thought so much for a good deed, and recited the Lord’s Prayer one last time before his heart stopped beating forever.
“And
when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me,
saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last…”
-Revelation
1:17
Passing under street lamps in my dreams
I heard you go on silent feet
A short and foreign life, one
I only brushed past in some cold hallway
The number your life was reduced to
Left me silent and afraid.
I slinked through your hospital room
But I do not remember this now.
There I shattered without sound.
It was in some dream where I was so sure
We were both awake.
