SearchThe white van was crawling about a hundred yards behind me. It had been with me for about an hour. I stopped and bent over to tie my shoelace. There they were sitting in the front seats. The handlebar moustaches and thick black lenses sunglasses left me in no doubt. It was G-Division. Shit.
A gleaming white Zenith with gold trimmed wheels pulled up next to me. I might have known. It was Sylvia Speers. She opened the door for me. “Get in Mr Fist.”
“I’m retired.”
“Nobody retires Turk. Didn’t they tell you at orientation?”
She still looked the part. All blonde heir and ermine, an overlong cigarillo parked liked penis envy between her diamond white teeth.
“Come on Turk… Just get in. Save the 118 boys having to drag you into that van.”
I nodded and got in. She was probably bluffing but if G-Division wanted you they'd get you at some time or another. The car smelled of leopard skin seats, fake tan and nicotine. I forgot that government servants aren’t so bothered about safety belts or road safety and felt a jolt from the sudden impact of Sylvia’s turbo speed driving.
“Enjoy your little break in the far east.” She smiled sucking hard on her smoke.
“Very much. I was planning to get back as soon as possible.”
“I thought all those cheap whores would be to your taste … But I'm afraid it's time to pay a little visit to the real world though. There’s work to be done.”
“Work? I can't say I like the sound of that Sylvia. Me and work just don't get on. Why don't you give it to the Jason King clones.”
“I thought I’d give it to you. Make you earn some of that pension money you've been living on so nicely.”
“You mean my pension money as in my not-quite-retirement pension. I thought I wasn't doing the Queen's business any more.”
“We all do the Queen’s business Turk. It’s just that some of us enjoy it more than others.” She smiled at me and stroked my cheek with her long orange fingertips. “And you used to enjoy it well enough if memory serves me. Once a killer always a killer. Well, now we have a situation and I’m afraid we need your particular talents to take care of it.”
“My particular talents.”
“Yes. We did invest rather a lot of money in your training.”
“Is that the Royal we?"
"Could be if you want it to be."
"I’m not storming another embassy.”
“Of course not. That was a very messy business. You should never have been involved in all that. No… This is nothing so vulgar… We need you to take care of a rather more conspicuous target than some foreign diplomat.”
“Thanks for bearing me in mind and all but, to be honest, I'm not sure I have the right edge any more.”
“Don’t worry Turk…” Her smile got darker and dirtier. “I’ll soon whip you into shape.”
The Zenith squeaked into a parking space in front of the façade of white terraced Georgian houses. Sylvia got out and flung her cigarillo, only half finished, to the pavement. I followed her with a grudging sense of nostalgia for the old days. The smell of old leather and new carpets greeting me the second I walked through the door couldn't help giving me back just a small tingling sensation that this was the business I belonged to. I also noted, for a fraction of a second, that Sylvia was wearing cotton white trousers that hugged her shapely figure so firmly that she might as well have been wearing nothing at all.
Sir Miles was waiting in his mahogany bookcase lined office with his back to the roaring fire.
“Ah Turk… Sorry to bring you in like this… Know you’re supposed to be retired and all.”
Sylvia plumped herself down in a well upholstered leather chair and lit another cigarillo while Sir Miles handed me a large scotch. Single malt perfection. That’s what a title got you.
“The thing is Turk," he started. "It’s a bit of an awkward matter.”
“Awkward. How awkward?”
“We need someone… Dead.”
“Naturally. But as I told Sylvia… I really don't do that any more."
“I think you’ll make an exception in this case. You see we want you to kill Gordon Brown.”
“Oh… Yes… That is an exceptional situation. You need someone to kill the Prime Minister. I forgot you had such a good sense of humour Sir Miles.”
Sir Miles met my eyes with steely gravity that made something turn over in my stomach. Miles had the greyest eyes of any man I’d ever met in my life. And however much his face had been ravaged by war scars and his three bottle a day whisky habit he radiated authority that could be perfectly benevolent if you were on his good side but which there was never any doubt of at any time. “Trust me Turk my sense of humour is at an all time low.”
Sylvia sang her way into the conversation “You see Mr Brown has turned out to be something of a liability. He’s been training up a little death squad to take care of the kind of individuals he feels are not a benefit to the country. And he’s been involving himself personally in a few executions. He’s quite the surgeon. You should see the mess he’s made of the bodies.”
Sir Miles reclaimed the briefing “Obviously we’ve been able to keep his activities a closely guarded secret. The last thing we need to do is destabilise things further. But someone is going to have to remove Mr Brown before he does any more damage. You’ve been out of the scene for sixteen years. None of the New Labour boys know a thing about you. You stand a better chance than anyone of being able to get close enough to do the job.”
I finished the whisky. Sir Miles took my glass and refilled it.
“So let me understand you correctly… I’m expected to somehow get close to and assassinate the Prime Minister?”
Sylvia got up and gave me a hug from behind… I could feel her significant cleavage pressed against my back. “I knew we could count on you Turk… “
“Who knows about this?”
“About Brown or about us bringing you in?” Sir Miles waved his hand and continued. “A number of people close to number 10 know exactly what Brown’s up to. His views on the less valuable members of society have always gathered him a certain amount of support. Other than that it’s really just the service and the Royals… Obviously the Queen knows we’re bringing you in on this. Her majesty has always taken a close interest in your career with us.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Apparently you went to school with Mr Brown’s wife.”
“Yes. But we never met.”
“Acland Burghley. Good school?”
“A shithole.”
“She wouldn’t recognise you?”
“It was nearly thirty years ago.”
“Good… We wouldn’t want anything like that getting in the way.” Sir Miles smiled and Sylvia took me by the hand.
“Come on Turk… We want to get you fighting fit as soon as possible.”
Twenty years earlier I’d spent a week in bed with Sylvia Speers. She almost killed me then and I swore I’d never do the same thing again. She was one of those women who liked to bring men pleasure with a healthy dollop of pain. Age hadn’t softened her. Training with Sylvia was fifty percent physical exertion and fifty percent agony. The one thing I’d give her is that she knew how to keep men at the top of their game. By the time I left her bedroom this time I was back in peak condition and ready for anything.
After seperating myself from Sylvia's training I headed down to the dungeons, the science laboratory where some of the most lethal minds worked on ingenius methods of ridding Britain of her enemies. I was met by Ziggy Eldritch. Eldritch had been making biochemical weapons since the sixties. He had the most unusual eyes of any man I’d ever met. They were incapable of both focusing on the same object at one time and they tended to dart around like the eyes of a chameleon. This had been the result of a minor bacteriological infection he’d been designing for Richard Branson in the late seventies. The infection had got loose and done some strange irreversible damage to the tissue inside his skull. He didn't mind though. He was of the opinion that it gave him character.
“Ahhh… Mr Fist… I didn’t think we’d be seeing you again. Are you the one they've picked to be killing the Prime Minister?”
“I’ll be doing my best.”
“Cool. I hope you win man. That fucker makes a tailored suit look like something off the peg at Burtons. Okay… I got a beautiful disease for you. It’s adapted from dengue fever… The difference is that once it gets into your bloodstream it doesn’t just make you feel like your legs are breaking. Every bone in your body just breaks… It’s a fucking miracle man.”
“Have you got anything subtler?”
“You want subtle I got something beautiful…” Palmer held up a vial of viscous looking green slime. “This one makes all the blood in a man’s body clot within ten minutes. All you need to do is pierce his skin.”
“Is it contagious?”
“A little bit.”
“Forget it. All I really need is something that will kill him.”
“Ah… I know what you need man… My magic bullets. You don’t need a gun… You don’t need anything. You just need faith man.”
I decided that Eldritch wasn’t going to be much use. I was going to have to do this the hard way.
The first editions of the Sunday newspapers were full of Brown’s death. By the second edition the pressed had been hushed. Brown’s double was acting as Prime Minister.
“I’d just like to quash the ridiculous rumours,” He said on the Andrew Marr show careful to roll his jaw as if it was loose. “I was not assassinated during the night. As you can see I’m perfectly healthy and eager to resume my duties in leading the labour government to another five election victories.”
“But early reports claimed there were witnesses to your skull being smashed to a bloody pulp with a fire extinguisher in a Soho sex club.”
“Obviously this is a ridiculous claim. Not only have I never been to a Soho sex club but I don’t even own a fire extinguisher.”
Sylvia buried her head in her hands as we watched the show in her Hampstead penthouse suite. “Where the hell does Sir Miles get these people?”
“Does it matter? Nobody wants to know the truth. It’ll all be put down to lazy journalism.”
“Are you still heading back to Bangkok?”
“I have to… Let’s face it. Jobs like this… They don’t come along every day. And me… I have people who need me there. Bar owners. Whores. Som tam vendors. Who needs me in London?”
“Yeah… You are pretty much a useless piece of crap.”
“Still I’m not going just yet.”
The video screen on Sylvia’s wall switched from Gordon Brown’s face to The Queen. Naturally I stood to attention and saluted her.
“It’s all right Mr Fist. You don’t have to stand on ceremony.” Said her majesty. “I can see you’re in the middle of something.”
“Terribly sorry ma’am.”
She laughed gently. “That’s quite all right. It’s not the first one I’ve seen. Although it is rather a good one. Anyway… I just wanted to congratulate you on a job well done. We are most satisfied and if you’re ever in the neighbourhood you must pop in for cocktails.”
“Thank you ma’am.”
I noticed as Her Majesty was speaking that Sylvia was going to work with her silver tongue.
“Well… Please carry on.” Said the Queen. “Rule Britannia and all that.”
"Yes. Absolutely. Thank you ma'am. Pleasure to be of service."
"Oh Turk..." Said Sylvia. "Come here and service me."
"Am I still on time and a half?"
This is what happens if you drink too much coffee in the afternoon.
© Turk Fist. All rights reserved by the author.
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January 26, 2008, 21:56
Hahahahahaha! Excellent! Please drink more coffee.