Chapter 2
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Chapter 2Posing as another agent, and using the pretext that I had an urgent message to deliver to her from Sir Gillian, the guard planted in front of the door of her suite let me in after checking my CIA ID. The name I used then was Antoine Gironde.
“What do you want?” Talya asked brusquely as I came in without knocking. The evening sunlight was streaming through her bedroom window.
Once the local police had come and gone, Talya had been pacing her suite for hours. I had killed the man she had loved. She looked haggard and lost. Maître Hassan Sangor had been the legal advisor in West Africa for Talya’s company, Carmine Resources. The shooting occurred a few miles from Dakar’s airport and outside the Canadian embassy house.
Watching her as she stood by the window, I knew she had only one choice now, and that was to evade Osnoir – a skilled French drug lord with whom I dealt on numerous occasion – until the French authorities would put their hands on him. He was still in Paris, probably, where she had had the displeasure of making his acquaintance. He had made her life a misery since she met his underling, Mr. Rasheed, a few months earlier. Rasheed was now in prison awaiting trial for attempted murder, drug trafficking, and a long list of other related offences. His cohort, Mr. Savoi, was in the neighboring cell, charged with embezzlement of her company’s funds, fraud, and other felonies. Even though my two collaborators had been burned, I fully intended to pick up where they left off. The only person who was still barring my passage to greatness was Ms. Talya Kartz.
Her eyes red, her arms crossed over her chest, she barely turned when I walked into the room.
“Good evening to you, too, Ms. Kartz.”
Talya stared. “Good evening. But my question was: what do you want?”
“I came to keep you company for a while, that’s all.”
“What are you talking about?” Talya looked at me dispassionately. “You know..., I was supposed to meet Hassan...” The words died in her mouth.
I had not introduced myself yet, but she had seen me working alongside other agents on the grounds of the hotel. “It will be okay,” I said reassuringly. “Khalid is outside; do you want to see him?”
Talya stepped to the window again. “NO! Not now and maybe not ever again.”
“And why not? He’s the one who got you all out of trouble. You owe him.” The acerbity in my voice was undisguised.
“Owe him what? For persuading Hassan to walk into a trap? No, Agent – whatever your name is – the day I’ll see Khalid again will be the day they’ll put me in a grave.”
“Agent Antoine Gironde, at your service, ma’am.” She frowned. I went on. “Is that what you want me to tell him? That vengeance is all you can think of? Or would you want me to tell him that your love for him was all a sham? Or maybe you would like me to tell him that you won’t rest until he gets killed himself?”
“Shut up! I don’t want to hear this,” she shouted to my face.
“If you don’t want me to speak, then I won’t. But I’ll ask you a question: what are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to pack my bags and get away from this place. And if I don’t set foot on this continent again, I’ll be the happiest woman on Earth.”
“Where will you go? And what about the mining projects? Are you going to leave those, too?”
“Yes, I am. James can take care of them. He doesn’t need me. As he said to me once, ‘You have to face facts,’ and that’s what I am going to do.”
“And what ‘facts’ are those?”
“The fact that I am the next target in Osnoir’s little black book and the fact that if I stay here he’ll kill all of you one by one, until one day he’ll succeed in getting me killed.”
“So you want to make yourself available to be killed, is that it?”
“Maybe yes... or maybe I just want for all of you to be left alone to get on with your lives.”
“But we...”
“Enough, Mr. Gironde. I have made up my mind. I am getting out of here.”
Inwardly I was very happy with her decision, but outwardly, I had to keep up with the pretense. “Well, if that’s your decision, I’ll leave you and say good-bye. Have a great life, Ms. Kartz.”
I then strode out of the bedroom without another word, slamming the door behind me.
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