Page 140 of Theta

My heart is slamming against the cage of my ribs like a lion pawing at the bars of an old-timey zoo. I'm sure he can hear it. How can he not? It's deafening to me, my pulse thundering in my ears. My hands, however, are steady as a rock, as ever.

I will my pulse to slow, and it obeys a little bit. I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth in a steady, even, slow rhythm until my pulse gets on board and calms the actual fuck down.

Now.

Get the target—don't get caught—get out.

Easy.

Just like I’ve done a thousand times.

Except this isn't like the other thousand times.

The mark wasn't supposed to be here. He was supposed to be in the air en route to Hong Kong for a meeting. I was supposed to have all night to get the thumb drive and make my escape. No armed guards on synchronized patrols, no savage, snarling dogs, no vicious, murdering, reputed-to-drink-the-blood-of-his-enemies Romanian warlord.

Except a thunderstorm canceled his flight at the last minute and he turned around and came home unexpectedly, and nearly caught me with my hand in the only somewhat proverbial cookie jar.

Now, the aforementioned possibly blood-drinking Romanian warlord is pacing his office, cell phone to his ear, jabbering in a dizzying barrage of languages. I've a bit of an ear for languages myself, what with my…um…unique upbringing, so I hear Romanian, Czech, German, and French, with the occasional English variation of ‘fuck’ thrown in there for good measure.

He's pissed.

I'm not, like, fluent in any of those; I just recognize the sound of them and a word or phrase here and there—enough to know that the meeting he missed was very important to him and he's irate as fuck about it. Whoever is on the other side is getting the ass-reaming of a lifetime in half a dozen languages for something beyond his control, the poor bastard.

Probably good he's not here, or he'd be dead.

“Just get me a fuckink flight!" he shouts in English. "NOW!" He cocks back his arm to hurl his phone at the wall but thinks better of it at the last second, and carefully sets it down on his desk with exquisite precision, as if only just barely controlling himself.

And my god, the desk.

You could land an F-18 on it. Four computer screens—the curved, Too-Much-Important-Business-For-One-Monitor kind. Papers in precise stacks. A mug full of Montblanc pens. A solid gold letter opener with a roaring lion's head as the pommel and rubies for eyes. A crystal ashtray. A box of Cubans. An electrum-plated Desert Eagle .50cal handgun lying angled on a stack of invoices.

I nearly took the gun on a whim, and thank God I didn’t. Can you imagine? He'd know I was here. That's for sure the gun he uses to dramatically blow the brains out of a poor lackey's skull after a minor fuckup. Probably after turning and pretending to walk away, and he definitely does the brains-blowing-out with a pleasant smile that doesn’t reach his cold, lifeless eyes.

There is no such smile on his admittedly handsome face at the moment; it’s more of a rictus of pure, unadulterated rage.

He slumps heavily into the Herman Miller deck chair, toying with the gaudy weapon as if wishing there was someone he could shoot with it.

He wiggles the computer mouse and spends a few minutes doing who-knows-what, and then sits back with an irritated sigh, muttering under his breath in Romanian.

"Fuck this,” he says in English, and then picks up his phone and hits a speed dial. "Yes, it's me. No, it was canceled." His English is superb, with only a slight accent. "Is anyone available? Oh, very good. Have Uri bring her to me and wait in the car outside. No, just her. Very good. Thank you. No, I am waiting for Gregor to find me a new flight. Not until tomorrow, I think. Okay, yes. Goodbye."

Shit.

I do not like the sound of that. It sounds like I'm in for a long wait, and probably an eyeful of something kinky.

I find a more comfortable position amid the leather jackets or whatever it is in this closet—and my god, who needs so many leather jackets? I settle in to wait. Turn the brightness on my phone all the way down and hide the dim glow inside my jacket as I tap out a text to my boss.

me:

Ionescu came back

me:

im trapped

MeanieHead:

Can you still complete the mission?