Jonas Saul - The Kill

He dialed Special Agent Greg Stinsen’s number and waited. On the third ring, the time zone thing hit him. Three thirty in the afternoon would be nine-thirty in the morning in Toronto. Would Agent Greg even be at the office yet?

On the fifth ring, Agent Greg picked up.

“Yeah?”

“Hi, Greg Stinsen?”

“You got him. Who’s this?”

“Darwin.”

“What? The Darwin? Our resident hero? How the hell are you? How’s life treating you?”

“Not good. I’m lucky to be alive.”

“What? What’s happening? Talk to me.”

“You know the man I killed with my Mustang?”

“Of course I know him. Go on.”

“His family is hunting me. They have tried to kill me twice in the last four days and stopped the highway traffic this morning to try to get to me. They actually kidnapped me hours ago, but there was a car accident and I was the only one to walk away. Two men are dead. I need your help.”

“How come this is the first I’ve heard of this? No one has told me about any renewed activity-”

“That’s because it isn’t happening in your jurisdiction. I’m in Rome.”

“You mean Rome, as in Italy?”

“The very one.”

Darwin looked around. No one paid any special attention to him.

“What the fuck are you doing in Rome?”

“Rosina and I came here to get married-”

“You have Rosina with you? And they still tried to take you out? Are they going after her too?”

Greg sounded incredulous.

“I don’t think they’re too worried about her. I need your help.”

“Tell me everything. Wait, you’re on a pay phone right?”

“Yes.”

Darwin started with the attempts on their life and finished with sending Rosina off to Greece and the accident in the van in more detail, leaving nothing out.

“You bit the fucker’s ear off? You are one crazy bastard. But you are one alive crazy bastard. I always knew I loved you, Darwin.”

“I got lucky, Agent Greg. I could’ve been killed.”

“I know. Listen. Call me Greg. No more Agent Greg, okay? Now, I’ll catch the next plane out. Don’t do anything without me. Stay low. Do not go anywhere more than once. Check into a ritzy hotel. They won’t expect that. Stay away from the cops. They could be on the payroll. Stay low until I get there, okay? Don’t do anything without me.”

“Got it. How do we get in touch again?”

“You have my cell number, don’t you?”

Darwin looked at Greg’s business card.

Fucking dummy.

“Yeah, it’s here on your card.”

“Good. Call me this time tomorrow. I should be on Italian soil. But be prepared for resistance.”

“Resistance? What are you talking about?”

“I’m FBI, Darwin. I work for the American government. I had special clearance in Toronto to work the Fuccini case. The FBI isn’t a global police force. When I get to Rome, I’m going to have to ask for clearance. It is a professional courtesy. If they deny me, I’ll be just like you, a tourist. I’d have to have some serious shit on the Fuccini family to be able to pursue them in Rome. Serious shit does not include your word that they’re trying to kill you. Get it?”

“Got it.”

Everything sounded good until that. Things seemed to be going downhill fast. Did the Fuccini family have to kill him to get on the police radar?

“Okay, stay low and stay alive. I can’t have my resident hero dead because I couldn’t get there fast enough. We cool?”

“We’re cool.”

Darwin hung up, discouraged. Sure Greg was coming to Rome and it only took a phone call to get him there. But the chance that he had no power over here, and Rosina was alone in Greece, made him feel like he had failed. Things were all wrong. He didn’t have a plan. He had no idea what the next step was and yet his life hung in the balance.

Sorry, Rosina. Some man I turned out to be.

Rosina rolled, tossed, and turned to a splitting headache. She lay on a small mattress on the floor of an adjoining office. Two men were posted outside her door. The room had no window, or at least it was boarded up. The only light came from a small lamp beside her mattress.

They’d left a couple bottles of water for her, but so far, she had difficulty even looking at them.

It had dawned on her how close she had come to being tortured and killed. What kind of men were these people? How could they all look at her as they had? She was a real person and yet, some kind of mob mentality had set in. They didn’t see her as someone’s daughter, as someone’s friend. They’d seen her as a piece of meat. Was that really the way human beings were? Had they’d shown her a level of debased humanity?

What was going to happen to her? Would someone come for her?

She dabbed the tears off her cheeks as she wept, her thoughts caused her to feel even more paranoid. How could she have been so stupid? She knowingly walked into their grasp. She could’ve been in Athens. She could’ve been far from these people. But she walked off the plane and right into their hands.

She did it for her husband. She had to remember that reason and stay as strong as she could, because there was a very real chance that these men would capture Darwin and bring him there.

She would need to be strong for him. She only hoped she’d get to see her husband one more time before she died.

She rolled into a ball on the mattress, wrapped her arms around her legs and cried.

What a fucking honeymoon this turned out to be.

If she ever got the chance, she’d take down as many as she could before she died. Even if that meant throwing herself out the window. She’d grab a few of them as she went.

A knock on the door startled her.

Before she acknowledged the man at the door, he was already opening it. Light spilled in from the hallway. The door shut behind him and the light got cut off.

What now? Personal interrogations?

“Dinner,” he said.

The man walked over and set a large plate of steaming lasagna down beside the lamp.

“I’m,” she paused to clear her throat, “I’m not hungry.”

“Doesn’t matter. Eat. You do not want to piss off the boss. If he says eat, then you fucking well eat.”

The man walked over to the wall and leaned against it. As far as she could tell in the dim light, he stared at her.

“What?” she asked. “Are you supposed to stand there and watch me eat? How do I know it isn’t poisoned?”

The man pulled something out of his pocket and started twiddling it in his hands. She waited. He didn’t respond right away.

He pushed off the wall and walked back to her mattress. She unrolled her body and edged away.

He squatted, clutching a rosary.

Religious bumfucks. Who knew?

“There isn’t any poison in your food. Didn’t anything that happened to you today give you any insight?”

“What are you talking about, insight? The only reason they stopped was to keep me in good condition in case my husband proved difficult. So I’m still meat, just a different kind. Bait.”

The man shook his head back and forth and flipped his rosary in a circle around his palm.

“No, there is a blood debt that has to be collected. Poisoning you means you don’t bleed.” He stopped, contemplated something, and then said, “Well, I guess there’d be bleeding on the inside, but that wouldn’t do. The boss wouldn’t be able to see it.”

“Hmmph,” she mumbled.

“Anyway, whatever. I’m here to take you to the bathroom too. Can’t have you soiling your pretty panties. Not with what’s coming. Get it, coming?” He laughed.

What a horrible sound.

“I don’t have to go.”

“Oh yes, you do. Man, aren't you defiant? I’m here to take you to the bathroom. That’s it. I have a job to do. I do it. No questions asked. You’re supposed to go to the bathroom, so you go. Whether you shit or piss makes no difference to me. But you’re going. Got it?”