Crosby

[unimatrix]

Joshua Crosby sat in the office staring at a new Flash intro template for the Silver Scissors Salon website. It was a decent job working with Mr. Rollins while in graduate school. The money paid his weekend bar tabs and it was a simple job for the skilled computer nerd. He got twenty percent per job for designing web pages for some of Mr. Rollin’s wealthy clients that walked through the salon.

 

“Bring up the new client,” Mr. Rollin’s raspy voice called out to his shampoo girl and assistant. It was also the cue for Crosby to hurry up and finish the splash page before closing. Whatever Josh did, it was never fast enough for the spunky fifty-year-old man. Rollins had made millions chasing a buck, but mostly from cutting rich women’s hair.

 

The middle-aged woman sat down in the styling chair adorned with lion heads at the top of each post with leopard print cushions. Mr. Rollins began asking questions of how his new client wanted her hair done. Rollins had spent over thirty years in fashion and beauty. He spent three days a week jet setting to New York or LA for fashion shows and speaking engagements while his wife’s job as a Math professor kept him in his small rural hometown.

 

Crosby sat typing away at the computer until he heard the woman’s voice and the accent. Instantly a picture formed in his mind’s eye as his typing slowed to focus on the conversation. Josh was not positive sitting in the darkened office, but the accent was fairly unmistakable. He was almost certain he knew the voice.

 

“No color, just a cut then?” Mr. Rollins asked his new client. A consultation before any cut and color was standard with all his clients. The two began to discuss various options in greater detail before agreeing on a style. “So where are you from?”

 

“Not around here,” the Woman answered vaguely with a thick accent. “I was in town with an old associate of mine and thought I needed a refreshing look at my age. Your name was mentioned as the man to see about such things.”

 

Quietly, Crosby reached over to his laptop bag and opened the top flap pulling out his Walther P22. He always kept the weapon on him with the suppressor zipped away in an inside pocket. Joshua Crosby preferred small caliber weapons. Usually they held more rounds with less recoil. He knew killing a target depended more on where you it them as opposed to the sheer size of the bullet. Crosby loaded the magazine filled with ten rounds of subsonic ammunition and screwed the suppressor tightly to the threaded barrel. He peeked out of the door. The shampoo girl was busy sweeping the Pergo floor for the night as Crosby nonchalantly moved across the row of styling chairs and sat down to the left the woman with the pistol across his lap.

 

“Get that webpage done bud?” Mr. Rollins asked in a strained, raspy voice tired from a day of talking. Crosby glared over at the woman flicking the safety down with his left thumb. The metal chink was unmistakable as Mr. Rollins looked over seeing the pistol pointed at his new client.

 

“The Walther is unnecessary,” the Woman directed at Crosby without so much as a blink in the mirror. “If I wanted you dead, I would have sent someone.”

 

“Right, you’re an actuary,” Crosby snarled. “After the goat rope that was Hamburg, you’ll excuse me if I don’t take any chances. The only thing that is worse than damned lies are statistics.” Crosby continued his icy stare through a period of uncomfortable silence. His left ear heard the frantic pecking of a mobile keypad from the other side of the room. Josh rolled over pointing the weapon at the shampoo girl. “Put it on the floor and kick it over here.”

 

She began to shake in shock and fear as the woman glanced over her way, “Please do as he says. He’s not shy about pulling the trigger.” The shampoo girl dropped her cell phone and kicked it towards Crosby’s chair. He took careful aim and fired a single shot into the device. His thumb reached for the safety flicking the level back up to the safe position. “That is unless you really have found God at that church you attend.”

Crosby ignored the woman as he motioned for the shampoo to walk to the other side of the business. It would allow him to keep a keen eye on her, Mr. Rollins, and the woman sitting calmly in the chair.

 

“How’s your doctoral studies coming along?” the woman asked Josh. “I heard you finished in the top ten of your class at law school. Bravo.”

 

“What do you want,” Crosby growled.

 

The woman paused, “Never were one for small talk.”

 

She reached down to her oversized Coach bag and pulled out a sealed envelope. The Woman stretched out her sagging, wrinkled arm dangling the package in front of Cosby.

 

Crosby let her arm remain in mid air for several seconds before taking the package and holding it up to his ear. “Well at least it’s not ticking.”

 

The woman glanced over at Crosby for the first time and groveled slightly. “Travel documents,” the old graying woman told Crosby.

 

“Travel documents?” Crosby questioned.

 

“Yes,” the Woman said. “Bottom line is that the institute could use your help.”

 

“Bottom line?” Crosby quipped. “Is that all you really think about. After all that is what the institute pays you for and frankly I’m surprised the Institute wants anything to do with me after Hamburg.”

 

“Hamburg was an unfortunate mistake, but you did get the wrong man,” the Woman blasted.

 

“I seem to remember reading about a time when mistakes were even erased. Letting the man go was the mistake on your end,” Crosby noted looking over the forged passports and bundles of cash.

 

“You’re far too young to remember the cold war,” the Woman blasted at Crosby. “But there was a time before politics ruled. And letting him go was not our call.”

 

“But old enough to read about it,” Josh countered. He took a few moments to thumb through the seven bricks of 100-dollar bills, two thousand per brick. “So why me and why now?” Crosby demanded.

 

“Dimitri Aleksandrov,” the woman coldly said.

 

“Doctor Aleksandrov?” Crosby questioned instantly recognizing the name and photo. “What did he do to warrant a visit from The Institute?”

 

“We don’t pay you to ask questions, but while we are on the subject what do you know about the new Soviet premiere?” the woman asked Crosby not catching the slip of the tongue.

 

“Former KGB and the new Iron man of Russia. His critics seem to disappear,” Crosby answered. “Just like in the good old days of the Kremlin. Although I think the term Soviet premiere is a bit…melodramatic.”

 

“Since when did you start being so damned politically correct?” the woman sniveled.

 

“Since I started graduate school with a department full of bloody liberals…and not the good European kind,” Crosby smirked. “So you’re sending me because I had him for two classes in undergrad.”

 

“And he’s the one who recommended you to the institute. We have reason to believe that your former professor is on the hit list. Your job is simple: get to him before the Russians and extract him,” the woman ordered. “You don’t have a lot of time.”

 

“Back up?” Crosby asked. The woman hesitated a moment. “Great,” Josh lamented. “And I suppose the local assets...”

 

The Woman interrupted, “You are the local assets. Don’t screw this one up. There is a car waiting for you downstairs and a plane on the tarmac.” Crosby calmly walked back over to the office, gathered his things and began walking past his boss and the shaking shampoo girl.

 

“And the two loose ends?” Crosby asked looking at Mr. Rollins and the shampoo girl.

 

“Let the actuary deal with them,” the Woman smirked. “Oh, and Joshua, don’t screw this one up. It’s your only chance at redemption.” Crosby nodded as he exited the building. A single ash grey Toyota Camery was idling in the parking lot with a driver waiting for the young man to enter.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I working on the remainder of the story tonight and tomorrow. Hopefully will have something ready. C&C welcome.

[Wyvern]

I like this story so far, Unimatrix. :-) The way it starts out seemingly innocent and down-to-earth and then quickly turns into something more racey and suspenseful is very well done. The dialogue between Crosby and the foreign emissary is witty and informative, and reminded me of some of the finer moments of James Bond. My favorite part of this post is when Crosby first pulls out his Walther P22, as it caught me off-guard and kept me guessing as to what he was going to use it for. The setting of the story is very nice as well, though I would have liked to have seen a bit more of a reaction from Mr. Rollins upon seeing Crosby with a gun... nothing elaborate, just a facial expression or exclamation that shows how he feels upon learning his website designer's true identity.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing where this story takes Crosby next. Nicely done, Unimatrix. Welcome to the Pen. :-)

[unimatrix]

The Camry halted on the tarmac of the small private airport a few miles from the college town. It housed the school's small aviation program as well as several private planes. A single King Air 350 sat with both props thumping through the air on idol. The small ladder hanging off the aft of the cabin reminded Crosby of the small ladders on the back of a boat. He felt like he should be curled up into a ball getting ready to leap out of the water like carp rather than hopping into the back of the waiting plane.

 

The cabin was dark save for the dull, soft, blue light emanating from the cockpit. Crosby quickly ascertained there was another body in the dark. The sweet smell of perfume or cologne hung in the air. He took one of the seats in the back of the plane. There was one other figure in the cabin, occupying one of the front four seats. Crosby noticed the cockpit had two pilots. Considering there were two in the cockpit, this plane had to be rental, not an Institute plane. Normally Institute aircraft flew with a single pilot.

 

Quickly Joshua fastened his seat belt and placed his laptop back in between his seat and the empty seat to his right. The whine of the propellers increased as the outer door was shut. Crosby watched the security guards dash back towards the car. They would probably head back to the Salon and pick up the old woman. That was assuming she had reached a reasonable deal with Mr. Rollins and the shampoo girl. If not, there would be a tragic accident reported in tomorrow's paper.

 

Carl looked at his watch. The hands were barely visible with a dull ghostly pale green arms. It was just past seven in the evening and it was dark outside as the plane taxied to the runway. Seven hundred miles at just over three miles per hour meant they would be at the target by 10PM. That was assuming the plane was fully fueled and there were no other pick ups on the flight schedule.

 

The four blades on each engine began clawing for the air in front of them as the pilot gave the craft full power and released the brakes. He could feel the acceleration gently nudging him in the back of the plush, but well worn, leather seats. They were comfortable, certainly better than commercial, but felt more like his high back office chair than anything.

 

From inside the cabin, the props sounded reminded Crosby of the Stuka dive bombers from documentaries on the History Channel. Probably because they used the same archive of aircraft sound effects, but still that was the image that came to mind as the craft lifted into the air. He enjoyed waiting for that moment when lift and gravity struggled to dominate the aircraft until lift, hopefully, won out.

 

He kept his head cocked towards the window, but his eyes trained on the figure hiding in the front seats. They were comfortable in the air and at their cruising altitude of fourteen thousand before the figure got up and walked back towards Crosby. The movement instantly caught his attention. He flicked the safety down on the P22 still in his pocket. The silencer was in the bag, but he did not need to be quite here.

 

The figure was silhouetted by the light from the cockpit blocking out just enough that Joshua bet himself that it was a woman walking back. If so, she was about his height, maybe taller, and a trim build. He noticed the hesitation in each step and wondered why as the figure sat in front of him.

 

"I know your name," a slightly raspy, dry, voice told Crosby.

 

He paused a moment has his mind scrolled through it's database. It was extremely familiar as he responded, "Auf Englische order Deutsch?" He offered with a confused look. The switch to German was on instinct as he tried to place a face with the voice. He was bad with names. Partly due to his training to look at faces, memorize every scare, pore, lash, for instant recall. That was his training. Names were not important and often times it was best not to know the name, just the face. Names were easy to forge, but faces required a little more work with a knife.

 

"We'll stick to English," the voice answered. The sounds of a paper shuffling filled the cabin as she reached over to the side of the aircraft and extended the small table. It was larger than a tray table on a commercial airliner, but not by much and certainly not for two.

 

"So the summer at Middlebury wasn't for the benefit of reading Herr Nietzsche?" Crosby offered with a mild grin. "And the doctorate in philosophy?"

 

The familiar voice finally clicked. It was Alyssa Acevedo, a PhD candidate he knew vaguely from the weekly Stammtisch at the Central Diner. Her German experience consisted of the summer program at Middlebury in Vermont and a semester of a 300 level grammar class. Yet, she spoke the language better than Crosby and Crosby was the one with a German Major as well as more than a year working in the country.

 

"It has come in handy," Alyssa said reaching up for an overhead light. "The Germans are so much deeper..."

 

"Than us in the western hemisphere," Crosby cut the woman off. "I know, we've had this discussion before. His holiness Immanuel Kant, Hume, Hegel, et. cetera."

 

"You know something about Phenomenology?"

 

"Not really. The first time I heard you say that was your area of study, my first thought was the Ghost Busters," Crosby admitted. "Is there anything to drink on this plane?"

 

Aylssa sat with her elbows on the table with a blank look on her face for several seconds. She was not exactly sure how to answer to his remarks. Her exposure to him had mostly been through his dossier, a few conversations at the Stammtisch, and some run ins at his favorite local coffee shop. "There is a fridge up front. They have a selection of soft drinks, cookies, nuts, and liquor in the little bottles."

 

"Wonder how much those cost," Crosby grumbled sliding out of his seat and walking up to the front of the plane search for the fridge. He bent over to open the small micro-fridge and look at the selection of drinks. The yellow-green can was a Sierra Mist. He preferred Sprite, but this would do. Just before he shut the door, his eyes caught the little bottles of Sutter Home Merlot. He grabbed two and a plastic juice glass from the dispenser above and walked back to his seat.

 

He set the cup in front of her and tried to pull off his best impression of an European waiter. "A wee bottle of Merlot fur die lady?" Crosby smirked pouring the cup half full before screwing the lid firmly back on the bottle and setting it on the floor before sliding back in his chair.

 

"Thank you," Alyssa gazed up at Crosby's steely gray eyes. If eyes were truly the gateway to the soul, than his was a solid wall of graphite. It sent a chill down her spine. She remembered one the statements in the brief about Crosby: Four Kills, without hesitation. "Are you sure..."

 

Pssst. The can released a burst of air quickly followed by the familiar click-clack of a soda can popping open. The lime green can came into sharp view on the table.

 

"...That we should be drinking?" she finished her thought.

 

"Are you armed?" Crosby asked.

 

"No!" Alyssa answered slightly taken back by the question. "I've never even shot a gun." She hated guns. Part of the reason her parents came to the United States was to escape the gun violence in central and south America.

 

"So what is it, exactly, that you are doing here?" Crosby answered. "You aren't working for The Institute, so who is it?"

 

Alyssa slowed leaned back in her chair fading from the glow of the overhead lamp. Her eyes darted back and forth behind her thin glasses as her heart began to flutter slightly. "What do you mean?" She asked genuinely confused. When offered this job, it was during a family retreat back in their home country. A friend of her father's offered her the chance to attend graduate school with tuition and living expenses paid.

 

"Well," Crosby said taking a quaff of his soda, "For starters you know my name."

 

"Yes," she said. "You introduced..."

 

"What is my name?" Crosby asked staring directly into her eyes. He couldn't see them in the shadow directly, but glared where he thought they should be in the darkness.

 

Alyssa gulped. She had a bad feeling about this as she meekly gave, "Joshua Trent Crosby."

 

Crosby cocked his head slightly, "So it is."

 

"What is The Institute?" Alyssa asked.

 

Crosby snorted. This was not the first time he had ran across these types. Throwaways he called them. People hired for observations at a distant, informants, spies, not actual agents. Often they worked for other agencies, usually three letter agencies ending with 'IA'. The first consonant changed depending on the week.

 

Crosby sat there and shook his head, "NOCs."

 

"What?"

 

"Nevermind," Crosby stated. "What do we have about the target?"

 

"Okay," Alyessa answered opening the first plane folder. In contained a picture of Crosby's former professor and several documents. The one on top caught his eye as he snatched it. "Itinerary," Alyssa said. "He usually wakes at six in the morning and is at the University by Seven on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Nine on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

 

"What about grabbing him tonight?" Crosby asked. "We should land by ten."

 

Alyessa shook her head, "The FSO has his house staked out."

 

"Really?" Crosby said squeezing his clef chin. It was an instinctual motion for him, especially with something was perplexing. And this fit the bill as the look on his face shifted to one of concern. "How do we know this?"

 

"FBI has been watching them," she said pulling out a memo allowing Crosby to glance at it for just a brief moment. "Then why haven't they done anything," she asked sensing the question was on the tip of his tongue. "They are..."

 

"Diplomatic security of a foreign nation. Under immunity until they actually do something wrong," Crosby said. "And they know the FBI must be watching them else they would have placed a couple bullets in his head already."

 

"You sure?" Alyessa asked.

 

"Yes. Quite. They've been rather efficient at the past year or so. Knocking off reporters for printing bad press against the new premiere," Crosby said.

 

"You mean president?" Alyssa corrected.

 

"How about Iron Man of Russia," Crosby smirked. It was all semantics. "The only thing the KGB replaced was their initials," Crosby carped. "He's former KGB, back when they were still called KGB, and runs the Kremlin like the good old days of Iron Russia," Crosby told the young woman. "So they need someone like me to go in there and get the professor out of the cross hairs."

 

Crosby picked up the schedule of the professor and studied his projected itinerary for the next day. He was beginning to get a really bad feeling about this operation. There were a lot of red flags, not the least of which were the fact that the target was being watched by both Russian and US Federal Agents. One waiting on the other to make a mistake. Not to mention the fact that walking onto his alma mater was not the wisest of ideas. While the all the students he knew were long since graduated, there were still more than a few professors he knew around the hundred acre campus.

 

It was a small private liberal arts college, now a liberal arts university after a recent name change, and it was nice to walk around campus with professors addressing you by name. But now, that intimacy was a liability. Run into one of his old professors and suddenly the local authorities had a face and a name. Another reason why he began to question this operation.

 

"Okay then," Crosby said looking at the professors teaching schedule for that Wednesday. "We'll extract him at Zero nine zero nine." Crosby quickly formulated a plan in his mind.

 

"In the middle of the morning?" Alyssa questioned. "While he is teaching a class?"

 

"Yes," Crosby answered. "I'll go to the campus at eight forty, get off at University Park and walk to the building. There should be a gob of kids walking to class. I'll use them to blend into the campus. The car will drive around and arrive out front of the building at nine fifteen where we'll tuck him into the back of the car and drive back to a waiting air plane at the airport. Then it's off to where ever."

 

"Simple," Alyssa said.

 

"Simple is always better," Crosby said. "At least in the planning stages," Joshua said adding under his breath, "It's the execution where everything goes wrong."

 

"I thought you would want to scope the place for a day or two," Alyssa shrugged.

 

"Why? I spent almost every day of my life on that campus for four years and a summer. I remember how it was," Crosby answered.

 

"Was being a key word," Alyssa sternly shot back.

 

"Maybe so, but this reduces the chance that anyone makes me," Crosby said pulling out his cell phone. He scrolled down the list choosing M. Bower from the list.

 

"What are you doing?" Alyssa challenged. "We can't use those..." Joshua made a mouthing motion with his free hand has his phone connected. She snarled at the man about two years younger than the twenty-nine year old graduate student. "Who are you calling!" she demanded. Crosby continued to ignore her.

 

"Martin, this Josh Crosby." Crosby nodded as Alyssa could hear the sounds of an excited voice on the other end. It was just gibberish to her thanks to the noise of the two props. She could not make out what the voice on the other end was saying, only Joshua's side of the conversation.

 

"Well, I'm coming in tonight," Crosby told his old friend. "No, one business. Still remember your Blackweather stuff?"

 

Alyssa sat in her chair completely out of the loop. What was blackweather? Some code word? She had been approached to send a monthly report to an email address about Crosby. At the beginning of the semester, she got an SMS message with an address to send her tuition bill too. So far it was a different address each semester, but a few days later she would check with the business office to discover the bill had been paid in full.

In addition, she sometimes found a plain envelope in her mailbox at the Philosophy department filled with several hundred dollars in cash.

 

"Right, Six. Yeah, just a second," Crosby said pulling the handset away for a moment. He looked over at Alyssa, "We have reservations?"

 

"Car and Hotel," she answered. "University Plaza."

 

"Thanks," Crosby mouthed silently before returning the small, black, candy bar style phone to his ear. "University Plaza...yeah, across the street from Darth Vader tower. Midnight or will the Misses let you out?"

 

"Darth Vader tower?" Alyssa said softly aloud.

 

"Right. Can you make five AM at Koffee Haus?" Crosby asked the man on the other end. "I don't plan on it, but I smell a goat rope."

 

"Who was that?" Alyssa asked.

 

"A friend," Crosby asked.

 

"A friend? How can you trust?"

 

"Simple. He has a bigger price on his head than mine. Plus he was executive protection. I'm not," Crosby told Alyssa. "In fact I really have a hard time figuring out why they picked me for this assignment."

 

"And Blackweather and Goat rope?"

 

"Blackweather is a PMC, private military company," Crosby explained. The institute preferred ISI as their contractor of choice on certain operations. But the PMC's tended to be big and messy sledgehammers. This situation required something smaller and more useful like a claw hammer. Something that could be carried anywhere, not draw attention, and pry into things as well as be a blunt striking tool if required.

 

"Mercenaries. I remember reading about them and Katrina," Alyssa said.

 

"Read The National I take it?" Crosby raised an eyebrow. Alyssa shook her head in awe. Crosby had read the same article in graduate level military policy class. But she did not need to know that. It kept her off kilter and that is what Crosby wanted.

 

"Well they provide private security services. I had a friend that was once employed as a bodyguard in executive protection. He has experience trying to prevent what I'm going to attempt to do," Crosby explained.

 

"And goat rope?"

 

"Let's hope you don't find out," Crosby answered.

Edited March 21, 2007 by Unimatrix

[Patrick]

First off: welcome to the Pen Unimatrix!

 

I'm liking this story so far, and looking forward to more of it. Nicely stopped at a cliffhanger, making us want for more.

[GeldrinHor]

I have to agree with Patrick on this. Excellent start and good placeholding for the continuations. Other than a few gaffes in punctuation/grammar and spellings, extremely good storyline.

 

In the early part of this last installment, I believe you made a big mistake calling the character "Carl" when referring to "Josh", but otherwise, the story carries along quite nicely. Please do continue.

 

 

 

Edited March 25, 2007 by GeldrinHor

[unimatrix]

Carl is a main character in another set of stories I'm working on to submit to Writers of the Future contest. Since I normally write from about 11PM to 1AM after a long day of work, I got things cross ways in the brain. Real Life has been busy the past couple weeks. I sold off my old laptop and got a new one and it's taken a while to get everything I need installed and transfered from DVD backups. Now with a fresh install of pages....

[unimatrix]

The next installment can be seen here:

 

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhc4ww8g_0c696h4

 

Fair warning that it has more R rated language.