Johanna's POV – Jo's thoughts are abruptly broken by an unexpected visit
The bedroom was elegant and modern. The bed was king size and there was a huge tv screen just in front of it. Jo badly needed some diversion but she didn't dare to turn it on, she was quite sure that 87
87! I'll never get used to calling him like that
was a light sleeper.
She took off her shoes, socks and jeans, and lied down on the bed – those ingrained parental teachings…
Don't lie on the bed wearing your trousers! You can never know where you've been sitting and you want your linen to be clean!
She pulled the sheets over her legs, curled and uncurled her toes and tried to relax but no, no way, she couldn't possibly even think of sleeping. The moment she closed her eyes all the events of the last four hours came back to her.
Her head was full of that man.
A genetically modified soldier! Something to drive you crazy!
And yet she was sure he'd told her the truth. She'd seen him move, a supernatural agility. Sometimes she'd seen videos of parcour athletes doing unbelievable things… but what he'd done on that roof! She had struggled to keep pace and many times he'd had to help her or wait for her. Jo wished she'd trained more and better. She'd been too lazy!
And to think that he'd said that physically he was a normal man, so his prowess was the result of hard training!
Unbelievable!
And when he shot! A real marksman.
Really unbelievable.
And yet, there he was, sleeping in the other room. There was enough to loose one's mind.
Not to think of all the rest, of the fact that a horde of potentiated operatives was trying to kill her because she'd been snooping around where she shouldn't.
The fuck I shouldn't! They killed Tommy! I had all the right to find the truth!
The rage that swept her was the first real emotion she felt: until that moment the enormity of the pool of shit she'd fallen into hadn't struck her. It was so big that it felt unreal.
She had been used to being a target, there on the front, but she was comforted by the awareness that the entire US army was watching her back.
Now there was only one man between her and her death.
Well, from what I've seen, alone he could face up half a battalion…
Jo felt a surge of anxiety crawl up from her stomach to her throat and she found herself gasping for breath. She really needed to find a diversion and stop thinking otherwise she might fall apart.
No tv, no smartphone, no pc. She ended up reading the Bible she'd found in the drawer of the bedside table. She hadn't opened that book since she was about sixteen when she had decided that no, that whole God idea really didn't suit her. She had started caressing the dream of becoming a doctor, she was reading scientific articles, first aid manuals, books…
What was the title of that book? Something like The Woman with the Worm in her Head. That was great stuff! Telling the bacterium from the smell of the pus… She remembered trying to share her enthusiasm about it with her mum….
Epic fail.
It was in that period that she had realized that miracles, life after death and other stuff like that really weren't for her. Her mother was deeply distressed that her daughter had decided to become an atheist. She'd understand it more if it was a lazy giving up of the Sunday mass or an angry refusal of the taboos and restrictions. But this rational weighing the Lord and finding him wanting, that was really too much for her.
She was convinced that her mum would probably have been less shocked if she had known that the whole school drama company was actually an excuse she'd made up to smoke pot and drink booze with her friends. Perhaps, but she'll never know. Her mother had died two years later, of cancer, and was still regretting that she hadn't managed to see her daughter act in a play. Jo felt like shit every time she thought of it.
However, she remembered that some of the Bible was ok. She opened it and started jumping from page to page, the Genesis, the Gospel, the Exodus, the Revelation. Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, Sodom, the parable of the prodigal son, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. It was soothing, like watching an old photo album. Memories of her childhood started popping up, the afternoons playing in the courtyard after the Sunday school, the Christmas mass, the night prayers before going to sleep with her grandma in England.
She was not sleepy but she was starting to feel less tense when a sudden noise brought her senses back to the alert mode. Someone, more than one, was outside their door, they weren't walking, they were just standing outside, as if hesitating.
That's not good.
She opened the door to call 87 but she found him already up, near the door and holding a gun in one hand and a knife in the other. He immediately said in a whisper "Go back inside! And hide".
She went back in, took the gun she had put in her bag and hid in the closet.
After a few seconds they broke in, she heard noises of fighting, someone thrown against the wall, a chair breaking, and then she saw, through the wood battens of the closet door, a man entering the room. The man was holding a gun and the moment he turned his back to the closet she shot him in the head.
He fell down, with the head on the bed and the knees on the floor. She pushed the door open, stepped over the dead man and rushed into the other room. The fight had already ended. Four men laid dead on the floor. Johanna couldn't help exclaiming "Fuck, that was fast!"
87 had just killed the last man with his knife, he took it out from the man's chest and, getting up quickly, asked with urgency: "Where's the fifth?"
She didn't answer, she was looking at the dead men on the floor, trying to decide if she should check their pulse and, in case, treat them, but indicated the bedroom with a gesture of her hand.
He ran inside the bedroom, saw the dead man and went back to her. He looked at her. She was in her knickers and t-shirt and for a brief second a shameful, unsuitable thought formed in her mind
Thank God I got my legs waxed yesterday
"Get dressed. We need to leave, instantly".
She just nodded, she couldn't think straight. She hurried on her jeans, socks and shoes.
The shower and the Bible had given her the impression that she was coming back to her senses but now she was again in a shock. She'd killed a man.
A few hours before
what time is it?
she was choosing the shoes for the party and now she'd just shot a man in the head. There was enough to make her want to throw up.
She was glad she wasn't in charge. That was why she'd loved being in the army. She'd never had issues with authority. She liked taking orders from her superiors.
As long as they really are "superior".
Those few times she'd had an inept chief it had been a real mess. At Fort Benning, under chief Wayne it had become impossible to go on. Because she also had no problems in taking the lead when needed. And if the chief was not up to the task she couldn't help stepping in.
But this was not the case: this Agent, this sort of super-soldier, looked like he perfectly knew what he was doing. His orders were clear and sensible. Obeying him was natural.
"Were they Agents?" Jo asked while she put on her shoes.
"No" he replied, with a sneer, as if she'd asked something very silly "We'd be dead if they were. They were freelance. Apparently, there is now an open contract on your life. And on mine too".
They went out of the room, took the elevator and he asked: "How long has it been since you last killed a man?".
The question brought her back to herself.
I must be looking really upset if he's noticed.
She tried to resort to a classic joke: "I'm a doctor, I kill people every day"
but he would not take it. He didn't smile, he didn't change expression, just kept watching her. She gave up:
"It's been a while" a moment of hesitation, then she added "Never from so close".