II
He lived in a gritty two-room apartment in the over-crowded migrant district of Mombasa. It was a rough neighborhood where people raised goats on the roof. With only a bottle of maze liquor for company, he had a view of a brick wall out one window and a seeming endless sprawl of roof tops below a stormy sky beyond the other. Overhead, the sky prepared for a major downpour which would turn the miraculously half-paved and poorly tarred roads of this district into a slurry of mud, dead chickens and garbage washed out of the alleys. Once upon a time the room had been populated by furniture, but that had been before the Kenyan equivalent of the Repo Service had turned up last week. His will to argue had died upon seeing the two big Nigerian men in the doorway who had demanded the surrender of the roll-top desk that he had been using to store his paperwork. The misery had only deepened as, day after day, fresh bills and job denials poured through the mail slot and added to the growing heap on the wood plank he had scavenged from a garbage bin and cleaned thoroughly before turning it into his replacement desk.
Over the past year he'd been turned down by virtually every corporation from Stark Industries and ENCOM to G.M.D. No one wanted anything to do with someone who had 'work experience' at Cobol Engineering written on their resume. MNU, its subsidiaries and their employees had rapidly become global persona non grata when the U.N. had finally come to a resolution and started hacking through the jungle of red tape surrounding the company in order to investigate the claims of Fundiswa Mhlanga. He knew it was hopeless though. The committees had bickered and quarreled for so long about it that everyone knew MNU would have had ample time to correct the mistake that had allowed Fundiswa to discover their scheme.
So here he sat, one month after giving up all hope of finding a job. Even with his friends and contacts helping all the way on every side, he was unable to leave the country because of debts that had turned his wallet into a black hole and his bank account into a joke with barely enough left of its original contents to pay the rent, much less pay for even a one Trans-Atlantic flight. Facing the horizon of his tiny world as the clouds gathered, pondering on how far he had fallen. He had lost his old apartment six months ago, along with much of his furniture which he had had to sell.
He was becoming accustomed to living on the floor and eating fast food at the horrible, greasy little shops around here which supplied mysterious stews to those desperate enough to desire them. He was not an alcoholic, but lately the open bottle of cheap wine sitting next to him on the table had become more appealing. In a desperate attempt to lighten the mood, he picked up the bottle by its neck and waved it towards the cloudy sky, as if proposing a toast.
"Here's looking at you, kid." He said hopelessly. He hesitated then took a swig of the foul stuff, forcing it down with a grimace. Then he turned back to the clouds.
"Come and drown my sorrows, you bastards. If this crap can't do it then why don't you give it a shot?" he muttered at the growing storm. Below the streets were bustling as market sellers closed up along with cafes and other establishments in preparation for the inevitable evening downpour. Every goddamn morning he awoke to the bustle of people in a variety of attire, mostly African-Natives, all speaking at the top of their voices in a variety of native tongues.
Amidst the imagined buzzing of mindless boredom and the growing fungus of full-on depression, the sound of his cell phone buzzing went almost unnoticed. Once he recognized the source of the sound, he dug through the pocket of his pants and pulled out the small device. Out of habit, he checked caller identity. The words 'UNKNOWN CALLER' flashed on the screen. That was new… He accepted the call and raised the phone to his ear.
"Whoever this is, if you aren't going to hire me, then-", he tried to say, but the strangely unnerving and cultured female voice that cut him off almost made him drop the phone.
"Good Evening, Mr. Tyrone," a woman practically purred. Fumbling for a moment to keep the phone in his grasp, Alex managed to get the device back next to his ear.
"Who is this?" he demanded, mildly annoyed with himself at being so shocked by the voice.
"Oh dear, it seems you have forgotten." she said. There was a tone of mock concern in it now, he was certain of it. He tried to recognize the accent, but his limited knowledge of which accents belonged to which countries were more of a hindrance than a help.
"Forgotten what? What could possibly-"he managed to say before the voice cut him off yet again.
"I'd be more civil with someone who's trying to give you a job if I were you."
Alex's jaw hung open for a moment, and then clicked shut.
"Good boy. Now, you are late for your appointment. If you'll remember, I sent you a letter, one year ago today. Assuming you're still interested, our operative awaits your presence at the 'Heart of the City' Hotel. If you do not arrive in six hours, he will depart and you will never hear from us again. Do I make myself clear?" the enigmatic voice inquired.
Alex's thoughts raced. He remembered a letter on the day he had cleaned out his office. It had stuck out because of it's ludicrous job offer and the very fact that it was the only snail-mail he had received since the letter notifying him of his father's funeral, which had arrived a week after Alex had attended it. At the time he had been certain that whoever had written the job offer had watched old Mission Impossible movies too often, but now…
Eventually he realized that he had been silent for over thirty seconds and then managed to say 'Yes'.
"Excellent. I look forward to working with you in person…should you choose to accept, of course." The voice said with a tone of happy approval. There was a decisive click from the other end and then nothing but the soft buzz of dial tone.
He sat motionless as outside the sky continued to darken, promising a heavy rain later that night. Kind of a sexy voice, he thought, while the rest of his mind compiled a list of reasons for why he should call the police instead of take the job. His sense of desperation, and a growing curiosity about the face that went with the voice, overrode the fear.
'Screw it, man,' he rationalized. 'You need money. No one else will give you a break, so stop being a picky beggar AND GO CHECK OUT THE DAMN JOB…besides, that voice… you haven't been laid in a long time. We could be looking at a fascinating new opportunity here."
Alex had never been one for long-term romantic relationships. Love had always struck him as bit ethereal and soppy, unlike kindness, which was solid and easier to appreciate. However, this hadn't stopped him from having three or four girlfriends while passing through college and another one briefly after graduation They had all been intelligent girls who shared his interests which made hooking up so much easier. The breakups had always been mutual, civilized and understanding, which was a mercy because he would've hated to be haunted by the screaming and yelling and accusations that would have accompanied a poorly conducted parting of ways. In that, at least, he considered himself lucky.
One thing he had prided himself on while in his relationships was never letting the sex get boring. Humanity's first favorite pastime, when he had had a partner to share it with, was something he worked very hard at
He jumped out of his chair and grabbed his coat and umbrella, both of which hung on a row of simple wooden pegs driven into the wall by the door. Many thoughts went through his brain as he took them down, but hovering just under the surface was 'I am so going to regret this…'
Night had fully fallen and the clouds were letting loose their contents with a vengeance. Alex had absolutely no love for the weather in this country. There were only two seasons around here: the dry season, where it was so hot you might expect to get a sunburn after ten seconds of exposure, and temperatures rose high enough to broil the average American tourist, and then the wet season, where looking up with your mouth open during a rainstorm could give you a close call with drowning. The rain thundered down in a never-ending torrent that had long ago soaked him despite the cheap umbrella. Apparently no expense had been attempted in the thing's creation and it was more 'cheap' than 'umbrella'.
Alex walked as fast he could through the now empty streets. The darkness was broken by street-light pools of illumination. It was almost creepy how great the contrast between daytime Mombasa and nighttime Mombasa was. The streets were packed from dawn to dusk, but at night, the streets were virtually deserted, making his quiet passage all the more easy, and dangerous. Above, the gutters gargled and tried uselessly to spit, their mouths stuffed with years of built-up filth. He watched the darkness for muggers and thieves, but he knew deep down 'modern' Mombasa was not accustomed to a storm as strong as this one. Global warming in recent years had exacerbated the problem of frequent storms coming in off the Indian Ocean. It was wet enough tonight to drive the usual thugs indoors.
Since his accounts had begun to dwindle, he had watched the streets more and more for entertainment because there were often fights that broke out over accusations of stolen merchandise. He had sworn never to become underemployed, but the 'Help Wanted' sign in the window of a fruit shop across from his apartment had become steadily more attractive with each day without pay.
Alex managed to track down the 'Heart of the City' Hotel on his phone's GPS. It was in a deserted area on the edge of the city's warehouse district. By the looks of things it hadn't seen service in over a decade. The windows were all dark and smeared with the grime of days gone by. The main entrance was occupied by a pair of those glass-sliding doors you saw in old supermarkets which helped keep out most of the insects and none of the dust. Upon testing it, he found the motion-sensor eye above the doors to be offline and the doors themselves to be locked. Not one for breaking and entering even an old dump like this, he stood there in the inexhaustible waterfall from on high and wondered what to do next.
His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out without much surprise and opened it up. There was a new text message on the screen: 'Come 'round the back. Code is 1126.' Letting out a huff of annoyance, Alex clicked the phone shut and went to the alley that bordered the building's left side. This was becoming all too like some ridiculous 1920's gumshoe-detective novel. The dumpsters backed up against the building's wall were virtually overflowing with refuse and the rain had only made the stench of their contents that much worse. In an area like this, where everything that wasn't nailed down was open game for scavengers, it was easy to see why the dumpsters had been passed over for collection. He had to tread carefully not to step on any of the crap that had fallen out of the rusting containers which looked so decrepit that one kick could probably have put his foot through their rusting metal sides. The plastic lids however were no longer present, probably having been salvaged by some excessively desperate homeless guy in an attempt to create a makeshift shelter from the unreasonable weather conditions.
After a bit of blundering around in the dark and banging his foot against one of the dumpsters, he made it to the back of the alley where the building's brickwork was interrupted by a small door with what looked like a small number-pad lock grafted to the handle. It was hard to tell in the dark that pervaded the small area. He had used many such devices in the corporate offices he had once served, but never in public and certainly never in a back alley. Finally understanding the second half of the text message, he pressed in the code given to him, but had to do it three times, once because of the rain coating the device and once because of the darkness of the alley. There was a click and the door slowly swung open. Alex half-expected it to creak, in accordance with the current condition of the building. The fact that it didn't made it all the more ominous.
Upon entering the dry space beyond, he was immediately struck by the smell of decaying plaster and all the other things you might expect to find in an abandoned building like this one. As he forced his uncooperative umbrella closed and looked around by the light of a few still-functioning fluorescent lights overhead, he realized he had entered the hotel from the rear fire-exit. He looked down to shake the umbrella dry and noticed the wires hanging from a hole in the nearby wall which indicated that both the fire and burglar alarms had long ago been removed. Something inside him, possibly the bubbling voice of dread, urged him closer to inspect the rift in the wall at close quarters.
Alex wasn't an expert, but if you wanted to officially disconnect an alarm system, didn't you turn it off at the source? He was sure you didn't just cut a hole in the wall and clip the wires with a bolt-cutter. And that was another thing: the hole didn't look like it had been cut. It looked like someone had smashed the wall open, leaving a jagged hole in the rotting plaster. What they had used was beyond him but it sure looked heavy-duty. The plaster had been backed by rows of thin wooden beams that had shattered upon impact and now lent the hole the look of a mouth full of jagged teeth viewed from an angle.
Carefully, he inspected the opening with a finger and pulled back as a splinter came away and lodged itself in his finger. He swore at himself and pulled the thing out as a little bead of blood formed at the point of entry, dripping onto the faded and cheap white carpet underfoot. He clenched his fist and squeezed it to stop the flow. He'd have to wash it out later. In a run-down shit-hole like this place God knows what he could catch.
Keeping the injured finger in a fist, he proceeded forward into the dim not-quite-light of the sickly fluorescent beams overhead. It was clear now why he hadn't seen them from the front; they barely cast enough light to keep him from tripping over his own feet every few meters.
Eventually he made it to the small lobby area where a receptionist's desk sat in decrepit ruin near the main door. To its left was an elevator door and a set of stairs whose first, third and fifth landings were half-invisible behind the elevator. The elevator itself was of the sort you saw in office buildings of the early part of the 20th century. The cables and machinery supporting the small metal cage were visible through a metal grille that encased the elevator as a sort of open-air shaft around which the staircase was wrapped. Not trusting the ancient machine with his life, Alex opted for the stairs.
The first landing revealed that the hallways to the suites themselves on each floor were placed on the left of each landing that the elevator concealed. Alex had stayed in enough hotels to know that the room he was needed in was on the third floor because of the suite numbering system that all hotels seemed to share. He ascended carefully in case a sudden groan might warn of an impending collapse.
In spite of his grim expectations, the ascent was totally uneventful. He walked down the hallway on the third floor more freely, each step on the ragged carpeting underfoot sending up puffs of dust which made him hold his nose in an attempt not to sneeze. He reached the end of the otherwise bare corridor and turned left into the main hallway where ancient and paint-stripped doors led to the suites themselves.
He could hear an indistinct mumbling from not far away through one of the time-worn doors that lined the hallway. He turned to his left, then to his right while trying to figure out which room was the right one while in the distance the unclear voice rambled on. From what little he could make out it sounded like an argument was going on, possibly over a phone since there was only one distinguishable voice, the same one he had heard over the phone, only more agitated.
"I don't care. I say it cannot be done. It'll fail just like the others and then where-….Okay you know what, fine. You do it if you're so certain it's the right course. I've done it before and even I failed. You heard me! Me, moi, ego! And if me, moi got ego all over my facha then it cannot be done! Fine, fine, okay, OKAY! You win! Look, just-…Alright, but what about-…Look, never mind that. I have to go."
The monologue ended as Alex reached for the handle of the door on which at about head height, the outline in the dust where something had once been nailed read '31'. With cautious slowness he opened the door. Inside the room, his attention was immediately drawn to the small card table and two chairs in the middle of the room, illuminated by a standing lamp plugged into a socket on the wall.
In the chair farthest from the door sat a woman with an oriental-style cut of hair and a pair of small dark glasses which she was already folding into a pocket of her large black trench coat and a Bluetooth earpiece that she must have been using shortly prior to Alex's entrance. At a glance, her features seemed incredibly attractive, including an odd tattoo across the side of her face that, by his judgment, looked rather new until he saw her eyes once the glasses were removed. One look was all it took for him to start revising his plans for flirting along the lines that it was anything but wise to start messing with this girl. She looked up and nodded to Alex with a grim, business-like's expression, showing no sign that she had been arguing (with some very witty comebacks, he had to admit) a few moments earlier.
With one hand she gestured for Alex to take the other seat while she reached under the table into a leather duffel bag and pulled out a small manila folder which she placed on the table and opened. Alex leaned his umbrella by the door and gladly took the seat proffered to him while the woman flipped through the contents of the folder with an air of precision and unconcern that Alex was already finding annoying. A little while later, she began to drum her fingers on the table. After about forty-five seconds of this, the woman looked up.
"Mr. Tyrone, when my associates and I reviewed your qualifications, we thought that you might be the perfect candidate for the job we had in mind. If you can prove to us that you are in fact the perfect candidate we intend to help you with your monetary issues."
Alex smiled, but remained silent. It seemed safest not to say anything right now. He had come here expecting a job offer, but now it seemed he had to pass some test. He hoped it wasn't any harder than peeing in a cup or solving a cross-word puzzle.
After staring at him like he was a bug stuck on a pin, his…'interviewer' returned to the contents of the folder. Alex's certainty that he would regret having come here began to grow again.
"Should you pass the test and win employment, we would require you to transport certain…packages to and from us and our associates, as well as carry out small deeds which will better the world in large ways. For each job, you will be paid a sum of 15,000 Euros-worth of Kenyan shillings in cash. You might not hear from us for several weeks and at other times you will receive tasks daily. You will be expected to complete them with maximum alacrity. Should you attempt to inform anyone of our existence, your contract will be terminated and you will find nothing to prove we ever existed. Understood?" she said tersely, looking sharply at Alex with that last statement.
Alex, still unsure of what part he was supposed to be playing here, smiled and nodded again. "How fast can I get out of here?" he thought. In the back of his head he tried to calculate an escape route that didn't result in severe bodily harm and discovered he couldn't think of one
"Excellent. Do you wish to try out for the job?" the woman asked, a brief, not-entirely-nice smile crossing her features. He needed to ask some questions, get some answers, act like he was really interested, instead of terrified of doing anything for this mysterious woman and her 'associates'.
"I have a of questions I'd like answered before I accept." He said. After a long, nerve-wracking pause, the nameless woman nodded.
"Certainly. I'm afraid however that I cannot disclose my name, the name of my employers or our goals." She said with an air of professional joviality.
"Okay. Right." Alex wiped his sweaty palms on the side of his pants, "First of all, I'm not going to be transporting anything illegal or dangerous, am I?"
His 'interviewer' gave him a genuine smile that immediately made Alex even more suspicious.
"No. You won't be moving or doing anything illegal. You won't even have to move anything through customs. You'll simply oversee transportation of goods and execution of tasks within Mombasa. " .
"And I'm not allowed to ask why you need me to do this, right?".
"Correct.".
"But am I the perfect candidate for this job? I'm not exactly the fetch and carry sort of guy.".
"Mr. Tyrone, do you want the job or not?". The voice now carried an edge of impatience like a wind of made of razors. Alex chided himself for being so stupid as to ask such a question in a job interview.
"Yes." he said.
"Good. Now, if you're done asking questions...". Alex held up a finger.
"Just one more question..." he said. Inside, he knew this was pushing his luck, but then again, he couldn't sleep at night without knowing...
"Okay. I don't want to be insulting, but if you are some sort of…" Alex had to force the next words out, "-terrorist cell, then if something goes wrong then it won't get traced back to me, will it?"
Alex half-expected the woman to reach into her coat, pull out a pistol and blow his brains onto the wall behind him. It was therefore a relief when her only response was to give him a mild look of puzzlement.
"Whatever led you to think we were terrorists, Mr. Tyrone? True we operate in cells across the world but we are not terrorists. Terrorists are extremists and zealots who have no place in a proper society and usually seek to disguise their violent actions with rhetoric and religion when in fact It's nothing but a quest for their own selfish, personal gain. More often than not they have no interest in improving society and do not care about collateral damage." She said in a tone of moderate confusion. She paused for a moment, then continued.
"The point is, Mr. Tyrone, terrorists do things with little or no efficiency for all the wrong reasons. WE, Mr. Tyrone, do them for the right reasons and with maximum efficiency. I will admit, there IS the possibility that violence MIGHT be involved in the achievement of our aims, but we take every means at our disposal to minimize it." She finished.
"So that's technically a 'yes' it can't be traced back to me, right?".
"Yes. You will be safe from any repercussion that should occur. If you should be discovered, then simply call us. An untraceable number will be provided with your employment package. Should trouble ever descend, we will answer your summons, no matter where or when it should come." Alex's mind fought with itself. On one hand, he needed the money and as long as it wasn't anything violent then it was probably safe. On the other hand, the whole secrecy of this thing was making him highly suspicious. Eventually, after wresting with his conscience (and getting metaphorically kneed in the eye for his trouble), his desperation overruled his paranoia.
"Okay. Then I guess, if that's all cleared up, I accept."
"An excellent choice, Mr. Tyrone." She said and flashed him her genuine smile again. She stretched out her hand for Alex to shake. Alex tried to relax and force down the certainty that he had done something immensely foolish by coming here.
He shook the woman's hand, making sure not to let his gaze wander to her maddeningly hot figure. She had a firm, strong grip, the kind you expect an honest person in a business field to have, and that just made Alex all the more suspicious.
"So, what do I have to do for this 'test',?
"You may call me Runner. If you pass the test, I will be your go-between with the rest of the Agency." She reached for the bag under the table and handed it to him. At his questioning look, she gave a small smile.
"Inside you'll find half of your first payment. There's no need to sign anything. You'll also find some supplementary materials for your use and a list of tasks. If all goes well and you carry them out by the deadline expressed at the bottom of the list, then I hope to see you here at an hour similar to this on the due date, but in the basement, if you please."
Alex shakily walked down the hallway and out the back door of the Heart of the City. The rain had stopped and the cloud cover was breaking up, showing a gibbous moon among the stars beyond. He looked down at his watch, amazed at how much time had gone by. By correlation, he must've spent over two hours in that building, even though it had felt like a quarter of that time. His clothes were damp with sweat beneath his coat, which was something he did profusely when nervous. He was glad to be out in the cool damp air. As he walked away from the building he forced himself to not run. The reason he didn't have to sign anything was obvious: they would be watching him, CLOSELY. And if anything went wrong or he broke a company rule or he screwed up…well they had a lot of replacements presumably lined up in case of that.
Back in the barren room, the woman sat for a while in silence while her recruit walked into the light of the rising sun. Eventually her Bluetooth attachment came on with a buzzing noise. Slowly, she stood as a smile spread over her features, then pressed the 'answer' button.
"Well?" said a voice from the other end of the connection.
"I think we've got him."
"He received the full pre-employment package?"
"Yessir. He displayed exactly the responses we predicted. Everything is falling into place.".