ShadowShot : L'enfant Guerrier Read online

  Off I went. I was inserted as usual without any problem, strictly on a social basis. I attended cocktail parties and so forth as an American traveling and experiencing Europe and Scandinavia. I still hadn’t come up with a make on whether he was a spy or not. I was told that I needed to go deeper. He had started to come on to me in a very mild manner. I knew he was interested. When he finally did broach the subject I took him aside.

  “I am honored that you would be interested, but I’m really not into that. I find you to be an attractive person, and would like us to be friends. So if it doesn’t make you uncomfortable spending time together, I would like that.”

  Actually, all the gays that I ever met were usually smart, witty, with a great sense of humor and fun to be around as long as they respected your straightness, and he was no different. He seemed all right with that and we did start to see more of each other at parties and a few dinners. I wanted to finish this job. The climate here was not exactly to my liking.

  However, I did find some time to experience some very nice looking blond ladies, one was in the line of duty. She was Scandinavian and a friend of my new friend. The night that we spent together, after a couple of drinks too many, she let something slip. She indicated that our friend was also friendly with the Russians. That was my first break.

  One night the diplomat invited me to his house. It was a nice place outside of town. I said, “Okay. I will follow you back in my car.” I knew that he was probably going to make a pass at me but I figured I could fend him off. I needed to get some more information from him.

  We were sitting in his living room having a couple of drinks when the phone rang. I could see the muscles in his face grow tight. On the phone he said in French, “Are you sure? I understand. Thank you I’ll take care of it.” I couldn’t hear what the caller was saying, but whatever it was it was in French and it upset my friend a lot. He didn’t know that I spoke French. He put the phone down, looked at it for a moment, then walked over to dresser and pulled out a pistol and pointed it at me.

  And said “You fucking spy, you’re working for the Americans. I thought you were my friend. We could’ve been lovers and had a good time together. All you wanted was to betray me.”

  This was a bad situation. I had a very pissed off guy holding a gun on me; I was out in the middle of nowhere; nobody would even hear the shots. Someone had just called him and ratted on me. I had to think fast. I remembered once hearing that gays couldn’t pass up a piece of ass. I doubted that it was true, but it was all that I could think of at the moment. I had to use this to my advantage. Even straight guys did most of their thinking with their dicks.

  “I very calmly said, “Why are you are telling me this.”

  He said, “That call, that call condemned you.”

  I said, “Really, and why would you believe that? I don’t know anything about that and I would like you to put that gun away. I came here with the expectation that tonight was going to be our night.”

  “You said you weren’t interested, remember.”

  “I’m here alone with you. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  He still was pointing the gun at my chest but he seemed to calm down a little.

  “Do you know who it was who called you? Maybe someone was jealous of us, one of your past lovers. You were speaking French weren’t you? Did you have a French lover?”

  He didn’t say anything but he was listening. I went over to him. I had to get to my ankle holster. There was no other way to get out of this. He was not going to put the pistol away.

  I laughed and said, “Sounds like a classic case of a pissed off ex-lover to me so let me show you my intentions.” I got close to him but he didn’t move the pistol. I went down on my knees. I was that much closer to my 9 mm. Only a little bit more. I had to go for it. I took one hand and undid his zipper. Slowly the barrel of his pistol followed my head down and I had an insane thought Jesus to be shot in the head while holding some asshole’s dick; that can’t be the way I end this life. I reached into his pants, worked my way into his underwear, and started fishing around for his cock. It was working. He was thinking more with his dick than his brain. Even if he got what he wanted, I doubted that he was going to let me go or believe me. No matter he wasn’t going to get what he wanted. All in one motion, I dropped his cock, grabbed his gun and twisted it out of his hand and put three slugs up in his groin. He went down fast. But just to make sure, I put one in his head. The door burst open and a commando team piled in the room. I dove behind a couch not knowing who they were. I heard. “Jack its okay it’s me George. Everything’s all right. Come out of there.”

  I peeked over the top of the couch. It was George smiling as always.

  “Jack we have to go right now. These men will cleanup.” He took me by the elbow and led me to a car outside. “They will take care of your car. Don’t worry give me the keys.” I handed them to him and he threw them to one of the men.

  There was a pile of snow on the driveway. I stuck my left hand into it, to symbolically cleanse it. If there had been a fire, I might’ve done the same thing. Yuck. I got in his car and we took off.

  “What the hell just happened back there?”

  “That guy was a Russian spy and he needed to be taken out. You were the man to do the job.”

  “Was this another one of your setups? You knew this all along. That’s why you gave me a pistol. You son of a bitch! I should cap you right now.”

  “Take it easy Jack. Let me explain. He was spying for the Russians and indeed needed to be taken out. And you needed to start earning your salary.”

  “You mean to say I haven’t been earning my salary?”

  “Well not really. Crawling into bed with beautiful women is hardly what you’d call work.”

  “George I was in there. I had pistol pointed at me. I had to touch his cock.”

  “I am sorry for that, but the pistol was not a problem. I’ve had his place bugged for sometime. We had already been in there tonight and removed the firing pin from the pistol. Plus we were outside, and we had a sniper that had a clear shot in the window. If it looked really bad, he would’ve been taken out.”

  “Damn it George! I don’t like you anymore. I’m not your friend anymore.” George laughed and said, “So tell me what did it feel like?”

  “Which part? Thinking that I was going to have to hold his cock, or pulling the trigger?”

  “Pulling the trigger.”

  I hesitated for a moment. Pulling the trigger, I liked it. It was exciting is that what you wanted to hear?”

  He just smiled. “You proved yourself. There is a plane waiting to take us back to Paris tonight.”

  “All right George what’s next?”

  “We want to upgrade you as an agent, put you into more meaningful missions and assignments. Some of them could be dangerous. There may even be situations where you’ll have to take out the bad guy. They won’t be high-level assignments. But we want to know that if the situation arises, you will be able to take care of it, and of course will be paid a lot more.”

  “I don’t know I have to think about it.”

  “Of course you do Jack. I have here some tickets for southern France. Take a couple of weeks and relax. I’ll meet you down there and we’ll talk about it some more.”

  And then out came the envelope. There was always the envelope. Vacation money and a fat bonus, that was the hook, but it wasn’t just that. It was the adrenaline rush, and knowing that I was taking out the bad guys. This, however, would be a whole new game. I needed to think carefully about it.

  The next two weeks were peaceful. I had a lot of time to think. By now I knew George well enough to know that there was a lot more to what they wanted than just a slight upgrade. He wanted me to be an assassin. Maybe a low-level one, but nevertheless that’s what he wanted. I always had a process for making decisions. I stacked up the pros on one side and the cons on the other. Then I asked myself what was the right thing to do.

  The pros
were I was serving my country, making a lot of money, traveling all over the world. And yes the excitement. I might not have a problem with this kind of work. The cons were taking lives. I had to be making a lot of enemies, which always meant that they could surface at any time. So I would be having to look over my shoulder all the time, and of course could just get killed, or worse. The right thing to do was I guess somebody had to do this job. World War II was supposed to end all of this, but no sooner had it ended than our allies had become our enemies. It wasn’t even about armies anymore. It was about the bomb. One wrong move and missiles would be launched from us to our one-time ally, and from them to us. Half the planet would be destroyed in a blink of an eye. What was left probably couldn’t even sustain life. That was the cold war. How did that happen? How did we come to that? This wasn’t like the lark of deciding to become a Merck. This was far more serious and deadly.

  I knew I’d have to have an answer for George when he got back down there, but I had two weeks to think about it. I wasn’t going to rush. By the end of the first week, I knew what my decision would be. George came down as he had said he would. It wasn’t until the Grand Marnier came out that he said, “Well Jack, what did you decide?”

  “I’m yours George but with some conditions.”

  “Oh what conditions would that be?”

  “First, you can line up the jobs, but I pick them if I want them or not. I’m not doing Americans, French, or English! And I want to continue to get my monthly salary plus keep my apartment etc. As far as the jobs go, they’re negotiable. Of course I will keep working in my usual capacity as an information gatherer, and I trust that you won’t send me out on anything that’s over my head.”

  “Well Jack as far as picking your own jobs, I had a feeling you might want that. You really have your standards. There’s nothing wrong with that. No not in the least. But that means Jack that you’ll be freelance. I don’t think that they’ll want to pay you a monthly as well. Also people in your new profession usually prefer to keep low key, which you certainly haven’t been doing up to now.”

  “George listen, I am not nocturnal. I am not going to be living in the closet from one hotel to the next. If I do this, I have to continue the way things are. Just think of me as the Scarlet Pimpernel. They seek him here, they seek him there they seek him everywhere.”

  “You are a romantic my boy. But I see you do know some literature.”

  “More than you might think George.”

  He played with his Grand Marnier for a moment holding it up to the light. Then he said, “Alright Jack, you got what you want but on one condition. That you exclusively work for us. That is a must.”

  11

  MOTHER

  Once again, when things were just moving along smoothly, I got word that my mother had taken seriously ill. I could not forgive myself for not being there when my grandmother passed, and I wasn’t about to let that happen if my mother needed me.

  I told George I had to go back to the States. He understood and booked a plane for me. My mother with her usual stoic and secretive nature had divulged that she was ill, and that she wished to see me if she could. She didn’t say what was wrong, and didn’t really ask me to come home. I knew how to read between the lines and knew this was serious. Something was very wrong. I let her know I was coming home immediately and that I loved her and missed her. I had been away from home too long. I had a really bad feeling about her condition. I had never felt such anxiety as I did on the plane ride home.

  I took a taxi from the airport. As we pulled up to my mother’s home, I could see that there weren’t any vehicles in the driveway. I didn’t know if that was a good sign or not. The door was unlocked. I yelled, “Mom I’m home.” No answer. I tried again and went upstairs to her bedroom. The door was closed. I knocked and stuck my head in. For a moment I was afraid that she was dead, but she was just sleeping.

  “Jack you’re home. I am so glad you’re here.” She didn’t look good. “I was sleeping I thought I’d take a nap. I was hoping you would get here this evening.”

  “Well I’m here now Mom. I’m going to take care of you.”

  She just smiled and said, “Be a darling and go get me some tea, will you?”

  “Mom first tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Please some tea, then we’ll talk.”

  I knew I should start bracing myself, as she had a yellow tint. Why wasn’t she in the hospital?

  “Now my son tell me all about what you’ve been doing,”

  “Mom please, I have a lot to tell you. We have so much to catch up on, but please tell me what’s wrong with you.”

  She just looked off into space and said, “I’m afraid darling its cancer of the liver.” She squeezed my hand, “It’s all right.”

  I tried to be brave but what I really wanted to do was break down and cry. I had to wipe a couple of little tears away, “Why aren’t you in the hospital. Have they given you treatment?”

  “At first yes,” she said, “But when it became apparent that there was no cure, I didn’t want to be in a hospital any longer. I wanted to just die at home.” She just smiled and said, “My son, we all have to go some time. I had a long and wonderful life. I’m ready. I only wanted to see you first.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve come sooner.”

  “Because there was nothing you could do. It would have been harder on both of us if you had been here. Besides, I miss your grandmother and Frank.”

  For a moment I didn’t know what to say. I just took her hand and held it close to my face, “I miss Grandma and Frank also. Isn’t there anything they can do for you?” What does old Doc Benson say?”

  “He has been wonderful. He really has. There was nothing he could do. He begged me to get hold of you, but I wouldn’t tell him anything about where you were. So if you see him don’t blame him please. I finally had to tell him to stop coming around every day but he still calls and I tell him I’m still here, I promised to let him know when I’m not home. I practically had to run him off with a shotgun.”

  “I don’t believe you Mom.”

  “Well, now listen to me my son. There is much that we have to talk about. I usually am not awake very long before I can’t help falling asleep. So let us use our time well. Now first off tell me what you have been doing and don’t tell me that you’ve been working in the movies because I know that’s not true. You cannot deceive your mother.”

  “No Mom I never was able to do that. I don’t know if you’ll like the truth”

  “Jack, just the truth please. A mother deserves that always. Go on, just tell me.”

  “I worked as a mercenary in the Congo.”

  “Yes I read about that. Bad things were happening there.”

  “And then I met some Americans and went to work for them. They work for the government.” Before she could ask me what I did for them, I said, “My job is to gather information in the field. It’s actually a pretty easy and soft job; parties and gatherings, diplomatic affairs, that kind of thing.”

  “Is it dangerous Jack?”

  “No not really. And the money is good.”

  She sighed “Jack you don’t work against the people of France?”

  “No Mom. Not at all. I love France as I know you do.”

  “Jack the house and everything in it is all paid for. If you want to keep it it’s yours to do with what you wish. If you don’t want it, you can sell it.”

  “I’ve made arrangements for my cremation. Grandma is over there in that urn on the dresser. She left instructions as to where she would like to have it opened and her ashes thrown to the wind. I would’ve done it already myself but I’ve known for some time that I would be following her soon enough. I thought that perhaps if you don’t mind, you could do them both at the same time. Of course you know we would both hate to think of ourselves sitting on a dresser.”

  We both laughed, “No Mom, you’ll be flying in the wind with Grandma. You’ll be together as you’ve
always been all your lives.”

  “There is a folder over there with all the deeds, documents and paperwork that you’ll probably need. I’m afraid there’s not that much money in the bank but you should be all right if you sell the house.”

  “Mama I’m making good money. I don’t need to worry about that. It is not important.”

  She started to take another sip of tea but her hands were wobbling. I helped her hold it while she took a sip. She seemed so weak and fragile. We talked some more. I wanted to lighten the conversation. She asked me if I had fallen in love. I told her,” Sort of.”

  “I always hoped that I would be a grandmother someday, but you’re still too young to be thinking of those things. Do you really love France and Paris?”

  “Yes, it’s strange but my heart really is there. Something about Paris, well actually all of France, just makes me feel like it’s a second home.”

  “Yes I understand. It was that way with your grandmother and me. We loved being there. They were such gay and exciting times, but then the war changed all that.”

  “I always wanted to hear more about that. You never seemed like you wanted to talk about it.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It was difficult for both of us toward the end. It was a hard time.”

  “Tell me some of that now.”

  Then she closed her eyes I thought she was going fall asleep but she opened them again. She said, “Yes Johno, and then she said, “Jack, Jack, yes of course. I’m sorry. We should’ve told you everything. Now it’s too late.”

  “No it’s not Mom. Tell me now.”

  “I’m afraid it is Jack. She took my hand, “I’m not afraid son. Your grandmother and I, we faced death before. Your father Jack, he was a very good man.

  “I know Mom. I loved him too.”

  She looked me right in the eye and said, “Yes Frank was a good man, but I’m talking about your real father.”

  “My real father? I don’t understand.”

  “What I mean Jack” as she started to cry, “Please forgive me.”