This is a pretty fast update for me, wouldn’t you say? J Well, I wrote this chapter this afternoon, and I’m very happy with it. Well, not completely happy with it. Nothing ever turns out the way you had it in your head, you know? But still. I like it. And I finally get to introduce Charlie, who’s one of my favorite characters (I know, I have favorite characters even though they’re my own). But you’ll have to wait a little longer for my most favorite character, Jay. Just wait…. You’ll love him… I hope, anyway. So anyway, enough blabbing. Here’s chapter four!
Gracias!! <3 vb123321
Chapter Four
♥ Astrid ♥
It felt nice, being a team again. As much as I pretend to hate being a spy for Delta – and sometimes it’s true – I have to admit that I would die of boredom without some adrenaline rushes now and then. Plus, being a spy makes you so much more romantic.
Well… Maybe not.
The day hadn’t gotten any cooler in the half an hour we had been inside. My feet were starting to get hot inside my boots, but I wasn’t taking them off. Those boots could save my life. They held my gun, a knife, and also had a false heel in which I stored a few, ah, personal items.
Josh held the map that Young had thoughtfully provided for us. We were standing outside the motel, and he scanned it. “It’s about an hour away from here,” Josh said after a moment. “Outside of Marseilles, and near this big canyon thing.”
“A canyon?” I repeated skeptically. “I wasn’t aware that we were in Arizona. Although,” I added, glancing up at the blazing sun, “it’s hot enough to be.”
“It’s more of a gorge,” Josh explained. “Or like a large fissure in the earth.”
I exchanged a look with Pierre. “You lost me,” he said.
Josh sighed. “Look, it’s like this big crack right about two hundred meters in front of his manor, very conveniently able to keep away intruders. There’s this rope bridge across it over here,” he tapped the map, “that supposedly will lead you near his very own doorstep.”
“Which we want to avoid?” I asked. “Or do we want to introduce ourselves and stay for tea?”
“Preferably the former,” Pierre said grimly. “This guy has loads of bodyguards, all of which are armed with AK-47s and who knows what else.”
I scoffed. “They’re no match for me.” But Pierre’s face was deadly serious so I quickly said, “All right, I get it. Are we going now?”
“In what, exactly?” Josh demanded. “Do you see any method of transportation? Other than a taxi?” he added, as I opened my mouth. I swear, sometimes that boy read my mind. It could be very irritating.
“A taxi?” Pierre said blankly. “Why would you take a taxi?”
“Well,” I said, in mock patient tones, “you say it takes an hour to drive to his manor, so you think maybe I don’t want to walk?” Josh laughed.
Pierre looked strangely at me. “Well, duh, I understand that,” he said. “But why can’t we just take a car?”
“A car?” I repeated, looking incredulously at him.
“And where are we supposed to find this car?” Josh asked skeptically. “That’s why we took a taxi here in the first place, because we didn’t have a car.”
“I got one.” Pierre’s tone was completely casual.
I exchanged a look with Josh, raising my eyebrows. “You mean you rented one?” I said carefully.
“Nope.” Pierre sounded very smug. “It’s my own car.”
“You have your own car?” Josh repeated in astonishment. “You’re in France, you’ve been here for maybe three days, and you get your hands on your own car?”
Pierre rolled his eyes, thrusting his hands in his pockets. “Well, Delta set up the contract for me, obviously,” he said in a superior tone. “And I’ve actually been in France for a week.” He looked at Josh. “Come on, think. Doesn’t Young usually supply us with a car?”
Josh scowled at him. Truthfully, his question had been reasonable. Generally we had to rent the car… which didn’t always work out that well because sometimes the car would be in, well, a slightly worsened state than before when returned. Let’s just say life could get a little dirty.
“Well, where is this car?” I said, coming to his defense. I was amazed that he had one, and wondered just how close Pierre was to Young. I hadn’t been aware of this special relationship between them…
Now Pierre openly smirked. “Follow me.”
He led us to the parking lot behind the motel, where several cars were parked. I spotted a Porsche, which was quite obviously very new and could have cost no less than fifty K. This was to my surprise, because the motel wasn’t exactly the snazziest place in town. I looked around for a minivan or something as such that we would probably have. While Delta wanted us to do our best, they weren’t always the most generous with their money loans, so I didn’t expect us to have a Mercedes.
Although it would be nice.
Pierre stopped at the Porsche. “Here we go,” he said breezily, pulling the keys out of his pocket. I stared at him.
“You’re kidding me, right? You managed to get your hands on this car?”
He smirked at me. “You know me,” he said cockily, and I glared at him. “Come on, get in.”
“Let me drive,” I begged, opening the driver’s door and dropping my bag on the floor. “Please?”
“Sorry,” Pierre said in a very satisfied voice, “driving age here is eighteen.”
I took a leaf out of Josh’s book and rolled my eyes. “Please, I’ve been driving since I was twelve, and that was in the States! Come on, Pierre, let me, please… I’ll never bother you about anything else, seriously!”
Josh was laughing as he slid into the back seat. He wasn’t even going to bother arguing with Pierre. “Astrid,” he said, “what if they ask to see your license?”
“Seriously?” I asked him, amused. “I have a license that says I’m eighteen, so I’m covered. Come on, Pierre…”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
I decided it was time for drastic action. Pierre thought I hadn’t noticed, but I had seen how he had subtly checked me out inside, and now I put that to my advantage. I half-closed my eyes, moving closer to him. “Please,” I whispered, playing with his hair and looking right in his eyes. I put a hand on his chest and widened my eyes slightly, giving him the Bambi eyes. “You know I would love to…”
He groaned. “Astrid, please don’t do this,” he said uncomfortably. Jeez, what a baby. He’d been trained for all this crap, and yet he couldn’t take it from me? I put my face very close to his, parting my lips slightly.
“Come on, pretty boy,” I said softly. “You know you want to…”
“All right,” he said, giving in with a groan. “You win.”
I grinned. “Thanks!”
Moving swiftly out of slutty mode, I plucked the keys from his hand and slid into the driver’s seat. Pierre shook his head, as if he didn’t know how this had happened, and sat resignedly in shotgun, looking like he was trying to ignore Josh, who was roaring with laughter.
“Dude, she’s got you wrapped around her pinkie finger,” he said, shaking his head and putting his feet up on the seat.
I glared at him in the rearview mirror, but it turned into a smile. “Want to see how well you’ll do?” I asked him sweetly, and he shook his head fervently. I grinned, and pulled out of the parking lot. I loved the car already: it was perfect, a smooth drive, swift brakes, and everything a car needs. Pierre sat a little sulkily in the seat beside me, and the air conditioner was blasting. In other words, the world was perfect. We cruised down the road in relative silence.
After about forty-five minutes, we started to come into a country area. Well, not that there were any farms around, but it definitely wasn’t a city. There were no large buildings, and only a few scattered homes. So it was kind of a rural suburban area. It soon became clear where Decrioux lived.
The large crack/gorge/fissure/whatever that Josh had mentioned was about twenty meters away when we pulled to a stop. I parked the car under a large tree, hopefully out of sight of the mansion that we could see in the distance. It rose up from behind the gorge/fissure/…you get the idea. It looked a bit like an old-fashioned manor from the 1800s or something, but you could tell it was updated to modern technology. There were telephone and electric wires around it, and the walls that hid the grounds from view very obviously were electrocuted.
I stepped out of the car, walking towards the bridge cautiously. I had already taken the gun out of my boot, holding it loosely in one hand behind my leg, out of sight. Josh and Pierre were just behind me, and I could see them scanning the landscape. I stopped at the very edge of the bridge.
It was made of wooden planks and ropes, very rickety looking, and swaying even in the slight breeze. I gulped slightly at the sight of it, even though I had managed to get a grip on my fear of heights years ago. It hung almost precariously over the gorge, and I didn’t like the looks of it. I picked up a stone lying nearby and dropped it into the gorge. For at least a minute, there was no noise.
So an endless gorge as well. This was just getting better and better.
“You think it’s electrocuted, too?” Pierre said quietly. I shrugged, glancing around for something to test it. Lying near a tree was a dead bird, which had obviously fallen from its nest. It was almost like a movie, how the bird was conveniently lying there, but hey, if Mother Nature wanted to be supportive, I wasn’t going to say no. So I picked it up and glanced at Pierre.
“Wanna test it?”
He shrugged, and I flung it out onto the bridge.
There was no loud bang, no explosion of sparks, no smoke swirling up to the sky. The bird lay passively on the wooden slats. “Guess not,” I concluded, taking a step forward.
Josh put a hand on my arm. “There has to be some sort of trap,” he said, looking around. “It doesn’t feel right.”
I looked around, but saw nothing. “I’ll go for it,” I said confidently. “You’re just feeling the effect from that house. It gives me the creeps too.” I glanced up at the glass windows, which were the kind that people could look out from the inside, but people on the outside couldn’t look in.
I took a deep breath and stepped onto the bridge. Nothing happened. “That was dramatic,” I said, unable to help myself. No one laughed. The tension was still in the air, and I continued forward.
The bridge swung as I walked, sending a plummeting feeling to my stomach and making me feel a little dizzy. I looked straight ahead, forcibly telling myself not to look down. Josh and Pierre from behind me were walking slowly as well, gripping the ropes on the side.
It seemed to be a mile long, but at last I came to the other side. I let my breath out, only then realizing that I had been holding it. I shot a grin at the boys as they came to stand next to me. “Well, here we are,” I said, as brightly as I could. “What now?”
The mansion was still, as Josh said, two hundred meters away. I could see the walls surrounding it, guards standing in front and on top of them. It all felt a little… I don’t know… Robin Hood. King Arthur. I felt like I was an intruder in a foreign land, trying to get into a castle.
Which really wasn’t far from the truth.
“Listen,” Pierre said quickly, “if someone starts firing at us, we run. Period. We don’t have enough time or ammunition for a full on fight, understood?” He looked directly at me. “So if things get rough, you scram. We’re not trying to break into the mansion today, so keep that in your freaking skulls and for crying out loud, don’t do anything stupid.”
“All right, all right,” I said, irked. “No need to look at me.”
Really, I knew he had a point. We were some of Delta’s best agents, but we didn’t have that much firepower right now, and we were treading uncertain grounds. All the same, I was pretty sure that we would come away fine.
However, remembering what Pierre had said about the guards, the first thing I wanted to do was get under cover. ASAP. There were plenty of trees all over the place, and so I began doing the classic old-time ducking and weaving from tree to tree, getting closer and closer.
The trick was to blend in with your surroundings, stopping just long enough so that someone might think it was a trick of the light. I moved easily but quietly through the foliage, looking all around me in a constant 360 with my head. The best way to spot movement is to not look directly at something.
When I was about fifty meters from the walls, I stopped behind a massive oak. Josh flattened himself beside me, Pierre a little ways away. I looked at Josh, who mouthed, What now? I shrugged, peering around the trunk of the tree. Even from here I could see the AK-47 on the guard, and a small hand grenade – at least one – at his side. I breathed, “Stay here,” in Josh’s ear, and then ducked away, flattening myself behind a bush about ten feet away.
I knew I was being reckless, I knew it was stupid because I was only armed with a Beretta, compared to several machine guns that could have their sights on me within five seconds. But what’s life without taking risks?
Even so, my breathing quickened slightly as I felt the guard look over in my direction. My hand tightened around the gun… and then I almost yelled as someone grabbed my shoulders from behind. A hand clamped over my mouth, and I twisted on the ground, ferociously biting down on the hand over my mouth. I had raised a leg to hit my attacker in a sensitive area when I saw the eyes.
Clear grey, staring right into mine.
“Holy crap, Charlie!” I breathed as his hand drew away.
Dark hair curled over his grey eyes as he gazed at me. He looked, to put it nicely, pissed. He shoved the hand back over my mouth and I swore quietly. “What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed in my ear, barely making any noise. “What were you thinking? Do you freaking realize how close that guard is?”
“More importantly, how close the AK-47 is,” I mumbled from around his hand.
Charlie didn’t smile. “Get your ass back to Josh,” he snapped, still quietly.
“You’re coming with me,” I said stubbornly. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me why you’re here.”
Charlie swore, and it suddenly occurred to me that he was on top of me. The thought almost made me blush. Charlie Gallagher, my best friend, my brother almost. Another agent at Delta, I was not aware that he would be joining us, which made me wonder what else Young hadn’t told us.
“Fine,” he said in an annoyed tone. “Now move back over there and I’ll join you in a moment.” He moved to one side, careful to stay behind the bush, and I moved quickly and silently back to Josh, who looked at me with wide eyes.
What the hell? his eyes said. I shrugged, feeling irrationally angry. A moment later, Charlie made his way back to us silently, still looking furious. “What were you thinking, letting her come over there?” he said to Josh in barely a whisper. The guard had momentarily slipped out of view.
The way he said it made me sound like a three year old. “Hey!” I protested. “You were over there!”
Charlie froze me with a look. I gritted my teeth. I hated when he did that, it drove me crazy. “Listen,” he said, deadly serious, looking right at me. “You have no idea what you’re doing here. You have to get out of here. Yes,” he said, catching my look, “I’m coming with you. Those were my orders anyway.”
I frowned. “Orders?”
At that point there was a yell from Pierre behind us. I spun around to see the guard coming towards us, AK-47 raised.
“Crap!”
Charlie dove to one side, bringing me with him. I was furious with myself. We had been so caught up in the unexpected sight of Charlie that my focus had been taken away from our main problem. Josh was already ducking away, dodging from tree to tree as bullets started flying.
“Get to the bridge!” Charlie shouted in my ear, already helping me to my feet and shoving me away from him.
“What about you?”
“I have to get something!” He was already gone, rushing off through the underbrush. At least he was moving away from the gun. I rose my own, snapping a shot at the guard, but he swerved in time, bringing up his rifle to block the shot. I swore, making a rush away from him.
We’d messed up. Big time.
Adrenaline spiked in my blood. I ran through the trees, feeling the bullets all around me. I snapped off a few more shots in his direction, not knowing whether I had hit him or not. I could see the bridge ahead: Josh was already crossing it. He turned and yelled, “Run!” As if I needed any telling.
I was almost at the bridge. Pierre was already in the car; I could see him reaching into his bag, presumably for a hand grenade or something. “NO!” I yelled. Charlie was still in there somewhere.
I was at the bridge. I slowed slightly, and that was my first mistake. The Ak-47 rattled off two more shots, and I felt at least one slam into my back.
I hit the wooden slats with a slam. I groaned, black dots dancing in front of my vision. Dimly I could hear Josh yelling; from a distance I saw Pierre’s arm ace up in a throwing position. In one last effort, I held up my gun, aiming at the guard and firing. He jerked backwards, falling as if in slow motion, and hit the ground.
I could hear more men crashing through the trees, but I knew I couldn’t fight them. Red was flashing across my vision and the world was spinning. I couldn’t feel my legs, or my arms, or my back.
Faintly I heard someone saying, “Holy crap…” and then the world tilted on its axis and disappeared into the abyss. Blackness met my eyes and I passed out.