Reina sat moodily looking out the small airplane window, refusing to look at the man seated across from her.
"Are you really going to ignore me the whole time?" he asked with an amused smirk.
Yes, she answered mentally.
"Oh well," he sighed, reclining into the plush leather seat. "It's a long way to Germany; you'll have to talk eventually."
No I won't, she retorted with a slight frown.
The angry silence was broken by the sound of heels on the carpet. The man turned his blonde head towards the new comer, but Reina kept her eyes trained out the window. A woman cleared her throat, trying to get her to look; but failed.
"Don't try," the man said; Reina could hear him rolling his eyes. "She's not going to talk any time soon."
"Not to him I'm not," she corrected, fixing her eyes on the woman standing next to her seat. "I'll talk to you, though."
"Good to know," the woman drawled, crossing her arms. "Any particular reason as to why?"
"No, none that I can think of," the man answered quickly.
Reina narrowed her eyes behind the dark lenses of her sunglasses before turning back to look out the window. There was a reason, but she wouldn't tell. If he couldn't remember then he didn't deserve to be forgiven!
"Well, she's going to have to get over it," the woman said, "because you two will be working together."
Reina snapped her head to the side so she could give a proper incredulous stare to the woman, though it was not like she could see it.
"Why?" she demanded.
"Well, the last time I checked you didn't speak German," the woman fixed her with a look of her own.
"Psh, you don't know me," Reina muttered under her breath as she crossed her arms and turned back to the window.
"That's what you think," the blonde man whispered into her ear, leaning in close.
Reina frowned and slapped him away, resisting the urge to snap at him.
"Yes, well," the woman sniffed as she pulled two manila folders from her brief case. "I know you're well acquainted with the target, La Reina," the man glanced at her quickly but the woman cut off any comments he might have made, "but Mr. Pelletier isn't, so I want you to tell him everything you know about him."
"Don't argue," the woman cut Reina off when she opened her mouth to protest. "The basics are in the files, but there's more than what's been documented."
"And that's where our Espangnol a Augmenté comes in," the man said, eyeing Reina as he accepted a folder from the woman.
"Dōngxi tā quánmiàn de yănjīng," Reina muttered as she glared out of the window, watching as the runway began to flit by.
"Yes," the woman nodded with a knowing smile, "you better apologize quickly Mr. Pelletier, it's a long way to Germany."
Guy Pelletier was confused in more ways than one. The most prominent being what the girl sitting across from him had to do with the man he was reading about. From what he could tell there was nothing to connect the two in any remote way. La Reina would never associate with the likes of the man on the paper; he was the kind of person she would turn in just as soon as look at him. Maybe that was it, he mused, perhaps he was a target that got away.
That had to be it! Why else would she be so angry? Other than the fact that she always seemed to be angry around him lately…
"Will you please tell me what I did wrong so I can apologize and we can move on with our lives?" he groaned, rubbing his temples tiredly.
"No," she said, staring out at the passing clouds.
"Then will you tell me what I need to know?" he asked with a sigh.
"No."
"What if I give you my cut?" he tried to bribe her.
"No."
"Oh, come on!" he growled in frustration; she was annoyingly secretive in the best of moods, but now she was just plain insufferable.
He looked back down at the file in his lap, trying to glean any information possible from the papers. Soto, Hitoshi: scumbag number one. Wanted for manslaughter in multiple countries; the selling of secrets, both government and mafia alike; the list went on. He lazily scanned the list of countries that had set a price on this man's head and a light bulb turned on in Guy's mind.
"Is this because of what happened in Columbia?" he asked, looking up at the brunette. He took her silence to mean "Yes" and carried on. "I'm sorry I pushed you out of the plane without warning you first," he sighed, not quite believing he was saying this. "But for the record you did have a parachute and we were going to crash into the jungle."
He could feel the Secretary's amused look on him as he waited tensely for a response. How this woman was able to make him feel like he had done some great wrong by saving her life was beyond him. Actually, how this woman was able to make him feel anything was beyond him.
"He's also a thief," she said so softly that he almost missed it. "He steals children away from their families and then throws them to the dogs not three years later."
Guy heard the roughness in her voice and decided not to press it. He could guess which child Soto had kidnapped and then abandoned. Instead he studied her closely. She had short, straight brown hair today, though he couldn't tell if it was a wig like she usually wore. He decided that he liked the way that it settled against the lightly tanned skin of her neck which turned into the gentle slope of her shoulders that seemed to beckon to him. He tore his gaze away before his thoughts could take him anywhere else and stared out the small window with more concentration than necessary.
A few seats away the Secretary watched the two with interest. Two of the best that the Association had to offer; and one of them was a freelancer. A wry smile crossed the woman's face at that thought. Yes, La Reina was a wild card; unpredictable at best. Who knew where her loyalties lay? If she was smart they didn't lie anywhere near the people she worked with, but perhaps they would shift after this job was completed. They did, after all, have it on good faith that this was the job that La Reina had been waiting for her entire career, and good faith didn't come cheap.
Translations:
Espangnol a Augmenté - (French) Spanish Rose
Dōngxi tā quánmiàn de yănjīng - (Chinese) Stuff if round eye