Come home

Another massive chapter, which took me a while. Apologies for that.

12/7/98

"Water." Fiona said quietly to the bar tender. "But if you make it look like gin and tonic, I'll pay you for that instead." The youth looked at her in amazement, then complied. She picked her drink up and paid him, then walked away to a far corner of the bar, keeping herself visible.

"Delta to all units." Zaffar's voice sounded in her ear. "Bull entering the ring. Repeat: Bull entering the ring." Fiona knew better than to look. Her target was here.

"OK, Mr. Younis." Adam's voice, completely calm. "Job done down there, get back up here and stop bothering with call signs."

"Copy."

"I said lose the call signs."

"OK." Zaffar corrected himself. Fiona smiled and shook her hair back , raising her glass to her lips and starting to count silently. When she got to a hundred and fifty, she'd look.

She cast her eyes around the hotel bar, quiet tonight, almost devoid of women. Hardly surprising. All the lone women booked in to the hotel had been told that the bar would be closed tonight. Sarah was another lone woman, but apparently engrossed in a business discussion over the phone. Her target was standing by the bar, downing a vodka shot. His second, judging by the glass by his elbow. He looked nearly twice her age, greying hair, cold, black eyes. She stared at him with appraising eyes. One of the two bald men next to her target stared aggressively at her. She ignored him, keeping her eyes on her target, until she saw him notice her stare. She turned before he did, raising her glass to her lips again.

"OK, start the clock." Sarah's voice in her hear, only a whisper. "That's contact.

"4:22 to beat, Fiona." Sam said, from another room, upstairs somewhere. Fiona smiled to herself. Honeytrapping was almost a competitive sport in this unit. She knew there were bets riding on this, not to mention the arms contract her target had with the Taliban insurgents. She looked back at him and met his eyes calmly, raising her eyebrows a fraction. They held each other's gaze for a moment, then Fiona flicked her eyes over his body, shifting in her seat, allowing him a better view of hers. His eyes lingered on her breasts, which she thought looked better than usual at the moment, then slid down to her hips. She wasn't showing yet. The way he looked at her, that greed-filled, lust-filled, claiming stare, turned her cold inside, but she didn't look away. Their eyes met briefly once more, then he drained his glass and walked over to her, his two huge bodyguards just behind.

"I do not believe I have seen you here before." He said, voice bearing just a trace of his native Slovakian accent. "Have you just arrived?"

"No." Fiona replied languidly. "My hotel is half a mile away, but the bar is full of Chinese students tonight, all either girls or intolerably ugly." He laughed. "I take it you are staying here?"

"Forgive me," He said, extending his hand to her. "my name is Peter Ivanski. Yes, I am staying here." Rubbish. His name was Ivan Daureitch for a start.

"Jasmine Francis." She offered her hand. "I am here because I'm... very bored." He lifted her hand and kissed it.

"I think there we have something in common, Miss Francis. I am also very bored. Perhaps we can help each other." She tilted her head at him.

"Perhaps we can."

"What if I told you that I have a master suite upstairs, private, secluded."

"Double bed?"

"Of course." Fiona glanced at the bodyguards and leant in to her target.

"Mr. Ivanski, are you offering me a foursome, a little... adventurous, even by my standards, or are you going to ask these gentlemen to excuse us." The target smiled at her and looked up at the bodyguards.

"I do not think I am in any danger tonight. You may leave now. Here." He drew a few notes from his pocket. "Have a drink." The men took the money and walked away back to the bar. Ivan Daureitch leant in close to her, resting a hand on her leg. "Satisfied?" She smiled.

"Are you one for small talk, Mr. Ivanski?"

"Please, call me Peter, Miss. Francis, and no. Are you?"

"I'm going to insist that you call me Jasmine, and up to a point."

"What point?" Fiona hesitated as if thinking.

"About half a minute ago." Daureitch laughed.

"Well then, unless you fancy a walk to your hotel, may I suggest that we retire to my suite?" Fiona hesitated again.

"Indeed you may." She got to her feet. He followed, laying a hand on her back just below waist level, to lead her away. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to slap his touch away.

"3:56." Sarah said in to her microphone. "New personal best, Tash's record still stands."

"We are on an op, Sarah, keep it professional." Sam said coldly.

"Just because you lost." Adam added.

"You really aren't one for small talk, are you?" Fiona said, as Daureitch led her in the lift.

"No. You said that you weren't either."

"Well, silence can get a little uncomfortable. If I were to remark that... the decor of the lift is a poor match for that of the rest of the hotel, you could remark on the decor of the hotel in general." Usually a good way of keeping a target from being too forward in the lift.

"There are other ways to pass this time, Jasmine." He said, turning to her and leaning closer. Fiona leant back away from him. He grabbed hold of her waist. "I think you know what I mean." She forced a laugh.

"What, in a lift where anyone could walk in on us?" He pressed his mouth to hers. She jerked back. "Do me the courtesy of listening to me at least." He drew back, breathing melodramatically hard.

"I am sorry, Jasmine, but when a woman like you is so near, it becomes... hard to resist. I am a man. I cannot help how I feel." Mercifully, the lift doors opened at that point. Fiona stepped out, smiling.

"Flatterer." He followed her and gestured to lead her again, hand even lower this time. She'd have mock-slapped Adam's wrist if he'd done that in public. She forced herself not to shy away. She was nearly there. She could drop the act in a minute. Daureitch stopped outside a door and drew a key from his pocket. Room 196. The right one. He closed the door behind them. Was that the toe of someone's shoe sticking out from behind the curtain? Daureitch grabbed her and pushed her back against the wall, kicking the door closed. She turned her head away so he couldn't kiss her and laughed. Daureitch didn't see the response to her signal, the three armed men emerging and levelling pistols at his back, Sam and Adam crawling out from under the bed, the rest of Zaffar following his shoe out from behind the curtain.

"Get your hands off her." Adam snarled. Daureitch jumped round, shouting what Fiona presumed was a curse in Slovak. Fiona darted out from behind him. Daureitch made a grab for where her neck had been. Sam laughed.

"Hands above your head." Daureitch didn't move. "Come on, there are three of us, and you've given your bodyguards the night off." Very slowly, Daureitch complied.

"You were going to use me as a shield, weren't you?" Fiona asked calmly. "You didn't know if I was with them, but you would still have put me in harm's way." Daureitch spat at her, then spoke to Sam.

"You keep bints for this? Or you found her on a street corner?" No one rose.

"Beta, give your gun to Matrix and search him." Fiona walked round behind Zaffar and Sam to Adam, who gave her his gun and complied. No names in front of the target. Daureitch spat at Adam as he was searched, but otherwise offered no resistance. Adam pulled a mobile from Daureitch's jacket pocket and took its battery out, then threw what looked like a radio tracker on to the bed.

"Finnished?" Daureitch spat, as Adam started on his legs.

"No." Adam replied, pulling a folding knife out of Daureitch's pocket, then cuffing his hands behind his back.

"You will never get away with this. I have many powerful friends." Adam punched him hard in the stomach. Daureitch cried out and doubled over.

"Beta..." Sam growled in warning.

"That's for calling her a bint."

"You care for the whore? Don't let her see or she'll charge you-" Adam hit him in the guts again.

"Shut up, if you know what's good for you." Sam chuckled at Adam's remark. Zaffar grinned.

"Delta, check our escape route." Zaffar turned to the window, opened it and stuck his head out.

"Clear."

"Go then. Matrix, gun back to Beta, and follow Delta out. Be warned, it's a jump." Adam walked back to Fiona. She shook her head at him, smiling, and handed him the gun.

"Honestly."

"Honestly what?" He grinned back. Fiona shook her head and went to follow Zaffar out of the window. It was a jump, ten feet at least. Zaffar was looking up at her.

"Hang and drop." He said. "I'll catch you." Fiona hesitated. There had to be an easier way down, but she couldn't see it. "I'm not fifteen. I won't look up your skirt." She smiled and lowered herself out of the window.

Getting Daureitch out was more of a challenge. He protested loudly every step of the way and, once being held out of the window by Sam and Adam, he started kicking wildly, so Fiona and Zaffar couldn't get anywhere near him.

"Look." Adam panted after almost a minute. "One of my arms is about to give way, so I'll drop you. If you don't want a broken ankle, stop kicking so they can break your fall." Then Daureitch gave in. Fiona kept him covered while Zaffar helped Adam and Sam down. Adam was holding his left arm strangely. The five of them set off down the fire escape, Fiona ahead, with the knife, Zaffar and Adam frog-marching Daureitch, Sam at their backs. Daureitch seemed to have given up the fight. They started across the ground at the back of the hotel, towards the van where Sarah was waiting.

Footsteps. Fiona turned in time to see Daureitch's body guards charging from the darkness six feet away, straight towards her. She barely had time to cry out. One placed himself squarely in the space between her and Adam, the other grabbed her and pinned her against his body, one hand on her jaw, the other on the back of her head. Fiona froze. She'd seen a man's neck broken by hands alone. This was how it was done. That was the threat she was facing. But she still had the knife.

"Let the boss go." The front bodyguard said. "or he'll snap her neck."

"Proof of life." Sam shouted at once. Fiona could give him that. She drove the point of one heel in to her captor's foot, and brought Daureitch's knife up to his wrist, driving it in, twisting it as she pulled it free, feeling it scrape bone. Her captor howled and moved as if to break her neck, but his right fingers wouldn't grip, so slid harmlessly over her hair as he pulled her jaw left. She twisted away, out of his reach. The second guard turned and made a grab for her.

"Don't try it!" Adam shouted. The second guard froze, seeming to notice he was facing impossible odds. He raised his hands above his head. The first guard raised his left hand, cradling his right to his chest, turning his shirt crimson.

"We don't need you." Sam said calmly. "Get him to hospital. Walk away. We will disincentivise you if you give us any more trouble." The men looked at each other and nodded, then retreated. Daureitch shouted something after them. They ignored him.

No one moved until the guards had passed Sarah's van by twenty metres and turned on to the road. Then, they bundled their still-protesting prisoner in to the back, where Sarah was waiting with a hypodermic needle of something.

"OK." She said, once Daureitch was still. "Fi's time was 3:56, I said 4:25, Sam said 4:55, Adam said..."

"3:40." Adam interrupted.

"And Zaffar didn't bet."

"Spoilsport." Sam accused, smiling. Zaffar raised his hands.

"You shouldn't bet on what you don't understand. I will next time."

"Stake was a tenner, so there you go." Sarah handed a note to Adam.

"Got lucky, mate." Sam did the same.

"That wasn't luck." Adam replied. "Fiona's good."

"Still not as good as Tash, nowhere near."

"No, Sam. Tash's 0:24 doesn't count."

"0:24?" Zaffar repeated. "How did she do that?"

"Cheated." Adam replied.

"There is no rule against doing that." Sam protested. "Just it usually doesn't work."

"What?" Zaffar asked, looking from one to the other.

"She walked up to the target," Adam began, "gave a really bad chatup line, sat in awkward silence for a few seconds, apologised for the chatup line and asked the target if he fancied a-" He stopped himself, leaving Zaffar to guess the last word. Zaffar grinned incredulously.

"Still a honeytrap." Sam insisted.

"It's like winning a boxing match by shooting your opponent." Adam answered coldly. There was a moment's silence.

"Who's driving?" Sarah asked.

"You can." Sam said, sitting down on the floor of the van. "We take this one" He nodded at Daureitch, "home, dump him in a cell with scary noises and leave him till the morning, so he's wired when we interrogate him.

"Then we go home?" Fiona asked. There was still something she planned on doing tonight. She caught Adam's eye. They both smiled. Sam sighed theatrically.

"Yes, you can." He said to them, them muttered to Sarah and Zaffar, "Pair of bunny rabbits."

Adam slipped his hand in to hers, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb.