Chapter Seven – Room 326
The airport lobby was fairly crowded and Ernich Oumor was jostled around in the crowd, his Louis Vuitton luggage case almost being separated from himself at several intervals. The luggage bag contained very little luggage. Instead, five M67 grenades were wedged in between six polo shirts, a pair of jeans and a Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver. God knows how he managed to get through customs.
Enrich hated flying. The airports, the air attendants, the air. It was all wrong. Humans should remain on the ground. He'd explained his concerns to the Death Merchants before they'd flown him out here but they'd been less than understanding. In fact, Ernich seemed to remember a sawn-off shotgun playing quite a large part in their persuasion technique.
If there was one thing Ernich hated more than flying, it was amateur terrorism.
The Death Merchants were amateurs, no other word for it. This operation seemed to Ernich to be a severe case of the 'bodge-it-and-dodge-it' epidemic that was now sweeping the nation. Suddenly, everyone had decided they wanted to be a terrorist. Left, right and centre people were building pipe bombs, blowing each other up, blowing themselves up for that matter. No one seemed to appreciate the stealthy, more subtle approach of actually thinking stuff through. Ernich had worked with the most deadly of terrorists and had only had to activate one grenade. Little is more was Erinich's motto. Terrorism was an art, and Ernich had created a few great masters.
After being jostled for what must have been the hundredth time, Ernich fought his way over to a sofa and crashed down on it, next to a boy feeding water purifying tablets into a water fountain. Ernich stared at him a moment before going back to his 'Vogue' magazine.
His mobile rang and he answered it quickly, glad of an excuse to leave the crowded airport lobby.
"Yes?"
"Ah...Ernich. How are you? Your taxi will arrive in exactly two minutes. Are you having a nice time?" It was Wilhelmina, quite possibly to worst telephone operator in the whole of the Death Merchants. She often forgot about the mission briefing and drew agent's attention to other things, such as the weekly horoscopes, or modern art. Ernich wondered how many agents had died listening to the incessant rambling of Wilhelmina in their ear. There was one good thing about Wilhelmina, however. No one would ever realise she was a terrorist, unless of course she told them. Unsurprisingly, Ernich didn't put this past her.
"Ah...hello Wilhelmina." Ernich replied, glancing wearily around at the people nearest to him. "I've got to go now...bye!!!" He hung up on her just as she was asking if he'd seen Les Miserable.
So the taxi would be arriving soon. That was good news. Ernich picked himself up from the sofa and hurried along the corridor, nearly bumping into a blonde teenager drinking from a Volvic bottle. Wheeling round him, he hurried out of the airport and into the midday Mediterranean sun.
The taxi was early. He hopped into it gratefully. The driver was a lean, athletic looking man, obviously an agent.
"You know where to go I suppose..." Ernich said. The driver nodded in reply. "Good..." Ernich wasn't really ready to communicate with any other human being for another twenty-seven hours.
The hotel wasn't really that far away and he was soon lugging his heavy suitcase up the stone steps at the front of the reception. He finally hurled his bag up the last step and landed, puffing and panting at the reception desk.
"I'm here...to ...check in..." He wheezed at the receptionist. She handed him the checking in book, a look of faint revulsion on her face.
"Mr?" She asked.
"Green. Barry Green." She looked it up on her computer.
"Yes. Room 326 for you." She handed him the key. Ernich took it and signed his name in the checking in book. He was just about to hand it back to her when a name within the book caught his eye.
Gary Stephenson
The two words glared up from the page at him, wiggling around in his brain. Gary Stephenson. Those two words could only mean one thing. Micho Tenvité. Micho Tenvité was here.
