I was in a small neighborhood plaza in Seville when a painter at his easel caught my eye. He was painting a woman sitting on a bench with a small fountain behind her. She was dressed in white and was surrounded by pigeons, she looked fabulous. She also looked sad, resigned to her fate.
She had a white cane at her side, she was blind.
I walked up to the guy painting her and told him, "Muy bonita," in broken Spanish.
"Ah, American right? The painting is for sale and will be ready soon."
"I will buy it. Who is the lady?"
"Her name is Paloma, the wife of a candidate for mayor."
"He commissioned this?"
He laughed and said, "Yes he did."
I knew her name was not Paloma but a reference to her being a sitting pigeon. I took pictures of him and the painting then pictures of the lady and the man to her side.
I had noticed that there was a man near her keeping an eye on me. Like the painter I could see he had a concealed weapon. He was nervous.
I also noticed that the painting was finished and that the painter was waiting for a call, he had an earpiece.
I stood by him and asked him why he had not painted any of the other faces. He said the other people did not matter; only the lady did.
I asked him how much for the painting and he said, "One hundred euros."
I reached for my wallet and pulled out the euros and heard "Cuando puedas," (when you can) on his earpiece.
He handed me the painting and I walked to the lady pretending to get a pen out of my coat. I saw the guy by her side look at the painter with wide eyes but I already had my gun out and shot him just as a bullet went over my head. He was shooting at me first so he must have made me. The other man had just drawn his weapon and only managed to shoot the ground as he died.
I held my gun behind the painting and hustled the lady out of the area. I gave my baseball hat to a kid on a skateboard and assumed a somewhat concerned persona when I approached a policeman.
I said, "I think two gentlemen behind the fountain over there took shots at each other. Please check."
The lady translated for me and the officer ran towards them calling it in. I led the lady towards the hotel behind the plaza, went in a side door, then out the front.
"Sonrisa por favor," I whispered to the woman. She smiled and pretended to be sighted as she held my arm. I got the attendant to hail a cab for us and we got in. I spoke to her in English as we rode and she nodded she understood. I had him take us to one of the better hotels in town then hustled us into the front door then to a side door, walked two blocks and went into my hotel.
Once in my room I asked her, "Porque te quieren matar?"
"I see your Spanish is very good, I thought the difficulty you had speaking to the assassin was fake. To answer your question they want me out of the way to make my husband a martyr for the election and to keep my knowledge of his backers secret."
Neither her excellent English nor her British accent surprised me. I thought about what she said for a few seconds then got my video camera out.
"You will be a target until you talk. I have a camera trained on you, compose your thoughts and tell all. I will send the video to the authorities and to the media then we will go away until they are locked up. Start by telling your name and your husband's name. Give names, dates and locations if you are sure of them."
I busied myself making arrangements for our exit out of Seville and packing.
About five minutes later she said, "Lista."
I turned the recorder on and she gave her name as Eugenia de la Cruz then added that her husband was Rafael de la Cruz, a candidate for mayor of Sevilla.
She described the incident of that day and gave enough information to be able to verify the plot and the persons involved. She then revealed that her husband had sought and accepted the backing of a man that was fronting for a human trafficking enterprise. She gave names and places.
She said that she thought they ignored her presence because she would not be able to recognize them.
"Their plan to kill me however was not because they worried I knew what they were. They hoped my death by foreign agents would boost my husband to victory. I am saddened to say that plan to kill me came from my husband."
She added that in the end one of her would be assassins must have changed his mind and shot the other. A man she did not know had hurried her away and taken her to an unknown location where she was being interviewed. She added that if they did not see her again to please pray for her soul. It would mean she was dead."
I stopped her there and used my laptop to send it out.
She asked me if I was going to kill her.
"I said, "I am going to rape you for days then eat you raw."
She smiled and said, "I think I would like the eat me raw part."
I saw a smile and somehow sensed she saw mine. She knew I was bluffing.
"You can tell a lot from voice inflections I see. How long have you known you were going to be murdered?"
"A few weeks. I did not run because I trusted my assistant to keep me safe. She was the one that led me to the plaza and abandoned me there. How long have you known?"
Wow, she was good.
"Since just yesterday. I have been trying to find out who your husband was dealing with and overheard the plot for today. I recognized the painter as a pro and noticed his helper who wasn't. I switched guns with him afterwards."
She said, "I knew the first shot came from in front of me to me at some distance, then the second and third shots from right in front of me. The fourth shot came from near me to my left.
I heard you run away briefly then come back and hustle me away. I figured you had likely traded guns so I added that little story at the end."
Thank you, Lets go. We have a plane to catch and I would prefer it happens before the video is playing everywhere.
I got a cab and we sped to the airport. We were hustled to the tarmac and got on a private plane to the Canary Islands.
She received a new identity and passport and I used my own name and passport instead of the alias and we flew to New York as a returning tourist couple.
She was debriefed and the following day she was taken to the "artists" and they changed her appearance and gave her a new wardrobe.
I was debriefed and was told her husband had apparently committed suicide. His contact with the cartel was found dead in his hotel room, also an apparent suicide. The three men she had named were also victims of suicide. The brass at the agency concluded that the lady was going to need protection for a while.
I volunteered.
When I saw her next she looked like an American woman. She looked a bit older but I chalked that up as lack of sleep. I was mostly a zombie by then myself,
A day later I took her to the sights of New York and described them to her as she took in the sounds and the smells.
She asked me what her new name was.
I apologized and for not telling her already and told her the Department had chosen her name as Alicia P. Rosas y Colingsworth, born in Puerto Rico and therefore a U.S. citizen. She was a resident of Texas.
She asked me what the P stood for and I answered nothing in particular.
"It stands for Paloma. Please call me by that name." she said.
I was impressed that her hearing was so good she could hear her painter call her that. I also wondered why she would choose a name given to her by the would be assassin.
Nevertheless I called her Paloma from then on.
Three days later I took her home to Texas and to my small coastal town. We were playing husband and wife.
We moved into our safe house and she began her new life. So did I. I finally got the chance to get her another white cane.
I had been assigned as the commander of a new small Coast Guard station in town. It was not a stretch as I had been the commander of a Coast Guard station when I was recruited by the intelligence agency.
I was fired and given a meritorious service medal on the same day. Getting into a shootout on foreign soil is frowned upon even though all agreed it was justified.
My new station also gave me command of the most sophisticated electronic equipment on the coast.
Paloma and I intended to keep a low profile but on our first Saturday afternoon a lot of women came over to welcome us and immediately befriended Paloma, then their husbands befriended me.
The next Sunday we were invited/abducted to a cooking demonstration and cookout at a house at the end of my street. Everyone there was a close friend or relative of everyone else there. Paloma was swallowed up in the melee and was soon being kissed by women in their twenties to women in their fifties. It was loud in there.
Some of the guys asked me to follow them and we went through a gate that went from yard to yard. The husbands were inside the house drinking beer and watching football.
One of them asked me if Paloma was bi-sexual.
"We have been married a bit less than half a year and frankly I do not know. Why do you ask?"
"Because she is in the company of a throng of bisexual and lesbian women and she will soon be aware of that."
"I guess I better let her know," I said and went back through the yard. There were naked women everywhere and I quickly saw that it included Paloma.
No one gave my presence a thought as I walked to her.
She was on a lounger with the hostess eating her pussy. I was going to retreat but thought better of it and walked up to Paloma and kissed her, our first kiss.
"I came to warn you about the voracious ladies but, nevermind."
I kissed her again and she wrapped her arms around my neck and extended the kiss.
I returned to the neighbors and said, "Too late, she knows and seems to appreciate it."
All laughed and raised their beers to me.
The owner of the house was signing to one of the guys to tell me about the side effects.
