Code Name Orchid

Chapter 2

       He sat in a leather lounge chair in a darkened room watching the news on television.

A man was found shot dead in a street in Washington last night. He is yet to be identified, but CCTV footage from a street camera showed him leaving a popular restaurant two blocks from the scene in the company of a woman ten minutes before his body was found.

The TV cut to a grainy clip of a man and a woman with long hair walking out the front door of the Lafayette Restaurant.
Police are interested in talking to this woman. If you have any information....

He pressed the live rewind button on the remote control, then leaned forward looking closely at the man and woman in the video clip, then he picked up his phone speaking briefly to the person on the other end.

"I want you to find out everything about the murder of the man near the Lafayette Restaurant in Washington last night. Get back to me tomorrow."

He sat back and took a sip from his glass of wine, smiling as he muttered out loud. "So, Orchid, have you moved to Washington?"

*****

Michael finished unpacking his suitcase at the cheap motel he had checked into and turned on the television. Halfway through the news the story came on about the murder near the restaurant in Washington. Now he was sure. Hannah was here. But what was his next move? This was a large city, she could be anywhere. How would be find her?

His phone chimed.

"Detective Richards? This is Chantelle. I called you the other night about your wife."

"Chantelle? From the Fairmont in Vancouver?"

"Yes, formerly. Detective, have you seen the news. Your wife killed a man two nights ago. He was at the restaurant where I saw her. I don't want to go to the police, your wife threatened me not to tell anyone I saw her. I don't want to be her next victim."

"Don't worry, Chantelle. Hannah only kills for money. I doubt she will come after you. Oh and please don't call me detective, I was fired from the force. I'm a civilian now. Call me Richard."

"Okay, but there is one more thing. As I told you the other night when I saw her in the restaurant she said she would see me again soon. That's why I'm so worried now that I know she killed someone on the same night."

"Hannah always follows through with anything she commits to. But why would she want to see you again?"

"I don't know, she didn't say."

"Chantelle, if she makes contact with you, or even if you just see her somewhere, please call me immediately."

"What will you do when you catch up with her? Arrest her?"

After he finished the phone call Michael sat down on the couch deep in thought.
Chantelle had asked a good question. What would he do if he caught Hannah. Turn her in? Deep down he still loved her. They had been together for eighteen wonderful months in Vancouver. He couldn't believe it had all been a sham. She still had feelings for him too, he knew it.

*****

She sat back in the soft cushions of the couch in her apartment. It was an expensive apartment in an upper class part of the city, but paying three thousand dollars rent a month didn't bother her, she could afford it. She logged into her Swiss bank account on her laptop computer. The client had paid right on time. Her fee was high, one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars up front, and the same again when the job was done.

Hannah had only been in Washington a week when one of her contacts had found her a job. A businessman was causing problems for a prominent, but unidentified, politician who wanted him eliminated. Hannah had arranged to be at the businessman's regular bar one night. They met and he asked her out to dinner the following evening, the last evening of his life.

It was almost a month ago now that she had decided to move to Washington. She had boarded the train in Miami, sat back in her first class seat and relaxed. No police, no FBI checking passengers. Much safer to travel this way than to fly and risk being spotted at the airport. The train pulled out of the station right on time at 11.40am for the twenty seven hour trip to Washington.

As she watched the changing scenery outside the window she thought back to what had happened two nights previously when she had arrived back at her Miami apartment to be confronted by an assassin waiting for her in her living room. The Organization had sent him to terminate her. They must have found out that she was in the process of preparing a new identity for herself with a fake passport so she could leave the country.

He was quick, but so was she. They both fired at each other at the same time, his bullet missed her left ear by a couple of millimetres, her bullet found its mark.

She had quickly packed her belongings into two suitcases and taken a taxi to the other side of the city where she stayed in a hotel for two nights. Things were too hot for her in Miami. The police, the FBI and The Organization were all after her. She still had her fake driver's licence from Vancouver so she used it for ID to buy a one way train ticket to the Capital. She had contacts there, and when The Organization caught up with her, as she knew they would, she would be ready for them.

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