As with the second chapter, this third installment into the missions of the Temporal Management Agency's most unusual agent is more story than sex. But I hope you will still enjoy.
***
This is the night,
Dylan thought as he moved through the crowd in the ballroom. Every step he made was deliberate, calculated to keep him within range of his charge. The weight of the pistols seated rather comfortably beneath his belt at the small of his back reminded him constantly of the deadly and serious nature of his mission. He could not fail, he knew. There was no option for it.
Louis Armstrong grinned on the stage as he swayed on his feet, powerful lungs belting out a guttural rendition of "Heebie Jeebies," replete with the requisite and rowdy scat. Women danced in 'flapper' style; the young and spoiled guest of honor, 'Kitty' Hutton, was getting quite a bit of attention from her antics. Dylan might have let himself enjoy the moment, had he not been so devoted to his mission.
All day long, he had been tracking Mr. Michael Craig, virtually watching the man as a tiny blue dot on the screen inside his cigarette case, watching the red Walkers as they remained close, but never too close; it was akin to being a passive voyeur in a slow-moving video game. Waiting for the moment to jump in and turn the tide.
That moment was nigh, Dylan felt. His nerves were on edge. Adrenaline was pumping steadily, but not to excess, keeping him alert and ready to act. It was that sense of 'delicious anticipation' that he always relished. The fierce, yet quiet, calm before the maelstrom.
He spied Betty, making her rounds as expected, small round tray topped with flutes of bubbly balanced upon a fine-boned hand. She remained close, yet not obviously so; she had learned quickly, Dylan felt, or perhaps she simply had an instinct for subterfuge. Her eyes caught his, briefly, and she smiled slyly. He gave her a quick, almost imperceptible nod, her silent cue. Betty's smile remained, albeit with some anxiety, and she set down her tray.
She enjoys this,
Dylan thought, watching Betty slipping from the room.
Stepping into the fantasy of a dangerous life, living out the melodrama that had only been shown to her on a shimmering, black-and-white screen. For her, the truth of the matter is of no consequence. It is only the fantasy.
"Dear friends!" shouted a middle-aged man, stepping up onto the stage after Satchmo had finished his song. He waited out the applause heaped upon Armstrong with an amiable grin, shaking the stocky black man's hand. "Dear friends!" he cried again, and the hubbub faded. The eyes of the man – Mr. Hutton – glittered with mirth. "And not so dear friends . . . ."
Scattered laughter drifted through the crowd as everyone faced the stage. The debutante herself gave her father an annoyed look, coupled with a forced, expected smile as she clapped lazily. Dylan, however, was not watching the deb's father; he kept his eye on Michael Craig, who beamed with false effulgence. The foppish man's bodyguards lingered several steps away, preoccupied with plates of food from the buffet. Dylan doubted they had been hired in their capacity for any other reason than for their size.
Mr. Hutton continued: "In all seriousness, folks, I am very touched that you all turned out for my little girl's debut. Kitty, come up here! Come on!"
More applause sounded, but it fell like an inconsequential shower around Dylan. His eyes darted from Craig for a moment, to the cigarette case he slipped from within his jacket. His eyes narrowed, jaw set in stone as he read the numerous red blips of the Walkers moving closer. Dylan snapped the case closed, returned it to his pocket. He was able to guess where the Walkers were in the crowd, and spotted a few of them rather easily. Their expressionless faces and blank stares gave them away.
Dylan did not think about what he was doing. He reacted on instinct combined with the intricacies of his training and experience, already visualizing what was about to happen even before it occurred. Pushing his way through the crowd, he felt for one of the pistols, fingers curling around the butt of the weapon.
Tactically, Dylan marked the positions of the Walkers, even though he could not see them all. If Craig was at his twelve o'clock position, then the Walkers approached from two, five, and ten. And they were approaching fast.
"Mr. Craig," Dylan said, stepping before the slender, effeminate man, blocking his view of the stage.
Michael Craig frowned, looking almost disgusted. "
Excuse
me, sir, but—"
Dylan grinned crookedly, slipping the pistol free. "Get down," he said in a calm voice, quickly settling a hand on Craig's narrow shoulder. The weapon he produced made Craig's eyes widen in fear and shock, making it easier for him to fall to his knees as Dylan pushed down. Around the two men, women shrieked in fear and startlement, men gasped and stepped back, pushing their wives, mistresses and lovers behind them.
As Craig dropped, Dylan sighted along the slide of the .45, aiming for the closest Walker. The man stumbled a moment, then reached inside his jacket. Dylan did not wait to see what the man would withdraw; he squeezed the trigger once, resulting in a thunderclap that made those around him wince, cry, and shout in alarm.
The target of Dylan's deadly aim shuddered once, his blank face grimacing a moment before it fell. He expelled a single breath, wavered on suddenly weak legs, then glanced down to his chest. Hands ripped open the vest beneath his jacket, revealing a dark hole in the middle of his crisp white shirt, around which was rapidly growing dark red stain.
The man looked back to Dylan, eyes suddenly wide and wondering. He emitted a single grunt, then collapsed to the ground, already dead.
Chaos erupted, then, as Dylan had hoped. The uproarious cacophony that filled the ball room made for better cover than a bodysuit of kevlar as Dylan scooped up Michael Craig and casually hoisted him upon his left shoulder. As men and women ran in all directions, confounding the other Walkers' attempts to reach their target, Dylan stepped over the corpse of his foe, heading swiftly to one of the service exits. He kicked open the swinging doors, startling a young man on the other side, whose eyes flew open wide.
"Get out," growled Dylan. The kid – maybe seventeen or eighteen – almost tripped on his own feet before darting past and into the ballroom. The doors swayed and flapped behind him as Dylan increased his speed, almost breaking into a jog. Craig, he figured, was either monumentally submissive, or – more likely, judging by the way the man's arms flapped against his butt and legs – had passed out.
As he rounded a corner within the service hallway, Dylan nearly trampled a rotund man in a chef's uniform. "What the Devil-oh!" the man exclaimed, stumbling back.
Hard eyes stared into the chef's. "The door to the loading dock," he said with a hard edge in his voice. It was a command, one the chef – of appropriate age to have served in the Great War – quickly responded to. A quivering hand pointed the way, through stainless-steel swinging doors.
Dylan's mouth twitched for a moment in what could have been a smile. "Thanks," he said, then headed toward the doors.
"Hey!"
"Stop right there!"
Dylan reacted with quick, almost inhumanly fast movements, whirling around and extending his arm, sighting down the slide of the .45 toward the two hulking, burly men that bumbled on their feet in the corridor. They stopped about thirty feet away, fear and wonder on their faces, holding pistols that seemed too tiny in their beefy hands. Michael Craig's ineffectual bodyguards. Dylan gave them a look of disdain.
Amateurs
.
"Put the irons on the floor, gentlemen," Dylan growled. "I won't ask twice. Take a shot at me, and you'll not only kill your boss, but get your next paycheck delivered to a pine box."
The two brutes hesitated, sharing anxious looks.
Dylan cocked the hammer on his pistol. "Three . . . two . . ."
