An Eye for an Eye

"Now you listen to me. This is bullshit, this 'noble' decision of yours to 'protect' me from the inevitable. I don't need your protection, I don't want your protection, I want you, and all the sanctimonious crap about your lifestyle leaving no room for a relationship doesn't take into consideration the wants, or the needs, of the other half of that relationship. You said that you wanted out before it goes too far, but, get this through your thick skull, it already has gone too far, at least as far as I'm concerned. I know what you do, I've known for some time what you do, I know how dangerous it can be, and I don't care about that! I want to be with you, to help you in your work, I can help you in your work. Think about it, you claim, rightly enough, that yours is a lonely life, but then the same applies to everyone in your profession. It applies to me. What could be a better cover for you than to be a happily married man? I'm not demanding a marriage, just the pretence of marriage would be good enough, although I wouldn't say no to the other. If everyone in your line of work is a single man adrift in the world, who would suspect that a married man could be one of them? The bottom line is this; I am not going to give you up, I am not going to walk away from this relationship just because of your selfishness. You claim to be thinking of me, but you're wrong, you're thinking of yourself and the easy way out of a situation that you cannot control, and that scares you more than you care to admit. Ever since you broke into my house and disturbed my sleep, we have worked together, as a team, a good team, and yet you refuse to admit, that as a team, we achieved more than you could have on your own. If you have the intelligence that I know you have, surely you have to concede that in our case, two heads have worked better than one. The other thing that you've failed to consider is, what to do in the downtime between contracts. Wouldn't that time be better spent with me, the woman that I know you love, than with some casual, fashion accessory tart, who you'll forget in an instant once the moment has passed?"

I took her in my arms, her eyes told me just how scared she was at this moment. "I knew that you'd say that, I wanted you to say that. I have just given you an out clause and you refused to take it, and this proves to me what I knew, how I hoped you'd react." Her eyes changed from scared to puzzled. "You were right when you said that I was scared of finding myself losing control of the situation, but the more that I thought about it, the more I became convinced that the only way that I could regain control was to include you."

"You sure have a funny way of doing that. You scared the crap out of me."

"I had to be sure that you were strong enough to survive in my world before I included you in it. You did that, for which I am relieved. Now having said that, I'll make a promise to you."

"Oh yes, and what might that be?"

"I am going to ease my way out of the industry. I have a few loose ends to tie up and then I'm out of there, we're out of there."

"What will you do, and where will you go?"

"Don't laugh, but I am going to become a gentleman farmer."

"You're kidding me, right?"

"No, the loose ends involve wresting the family farm, the farm that has been in my family for generations, back from the multi-national corporation that bought it for a song from the bank while I was overseas on assignment. I didn't know anything of this until I returned home and found Mum and Dad had been evicted. It has taken a couple of years, but I can now put in place my plan to take it back. Don't worry, it's legal and involves proving that the bank had no legal right to sell the property in the first place. You see the money to pay the instalment on the mortgage had been forwarded to the bank well before the due date, they conveniently forgot to record the receipt until after the due date, so that they could record that my father was in default. The bank manager got a huge kick-back from the purchaser in return for his deceit. It took a while to get a copy of the transactions, but I have them now, and I'm going to pay a visit to the bank tomorrow. There will be blood on the carpet in the Manager's office, his head will roll, especially as I'll have a member of the Fraud Squad with me."

"Can I be there, please, can I?" Her eyes were alive again, she was relishing this moment. "I would love to see some scheming bastard cut down to size, it will be almost as good as seeing my bastard of a husband crucified and, because I missed out on that, I don't want to miss this one."

"Okay, you can be there."

I found myself flat on my back on the floor. In the past I have had to fight off strong men, and men who were experts in the martial arts, but in those cases I was prepared for the onslaught. In this case I either wasn't, or I allowed it to happen, because I wanted it to happen. Faith had launched herself at me, her arms around my neck, her lips on mine, and the full force of her body against mine. I fell under the force of it, under the force of her, and I gave up without a struggle, returning her hug, returning her kisses, returning her love and regaining my life. A life that up until I'd met her was, I now realised, was hollow and meaningless.

"Now you listen to me Mr Bren Gun, if you think that I'm going to let you just walk away from this job that you love you've got another think coming."

"What do you mean? I thought that you wanted me to get out of this and live a life of leisure with you."

"Shows just how little you know about me, and I'm going to have to do something about that, she says with a smile of anticipation on her face. I know you well enough to know that you're going to be bored out of your tree in no time, and looking for action. I have a solution to this problem, you can come and work with me."

"Work with you? I didn't know that you had a job."

"Well I do, and it's pretty much the same as yours but on the other side of the fence."

"You mean that you're a crook?"

"No mate, you're the crook and we have the evidence to prove it."

"If you mean the B & E on your house, what punishment can I expect, a slap on the wrist and told to mend my ways before it's too late?"

"We have a lot more than that, and I have the authority to make you an off that you'd be stupid to refuse."

"And that is?"

"A job with us and a clean slate as far as your previous misdemeanours."

"Go on?"

"To start from the beginning, you and I have been working on the same problem from different directions, you've been employed by a consortium to recover money paid to 'you know who' to facilitate a sell-out of certain of their assets to International interests. We, on the other hand, were gathering evidence that they were attempting to circumvent the Overseas Ownership regulations by separating these transactions into individual divisions to give the appearance that these were smaller, unrelated transactions and not one large one that would not get past the regulations. Their divisional financial merry-go-round was part of the plan to give the impression that the individual companies were performing much better than they actually were, and therefore more attractive to a potential buyer."

"Where do you fit in?"

"Some time ago we got word that this was their plan and I was sent in to work for my future husband. I went there in the full knowledge that he would most probably hit on me, and this was part of the plan. I was to get close to him and find out as much as I could about his operations. I got too close, and when he proposed marriage I went scurrying back to my boss to see if I could get out of it. I was told to go along with it, and that when it was all over the marriage would no longer exist. I lied to you when I told you that I'd been married to him for ten years, try three months, and then in name only. There was paper work involved, but nothing else, you see no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get it up. There was no sex involved. I knew this before I agreed to the whole deal, it was because of this that I did agree."

"You agreed to that?"

"I had no choice, When I was recruited I was in the same situation as you find yourself in, caught between a rock and a hard place with but one way out. We knew about you when you paid your first visit to the house, I mean, a Real Estate Valuer who came complete with a miniature radio controlled helicopter to take 'fly around' pictures of the house, especially the master bedroom and his office. I checked after you'd gone and you'd been in his safe, but nothing had been taken, moved yes, taken no."

"This explains your cool attitude when you caught me in your bedroom, you knew that I was coming."

"Well it figured didn't it, that you'd come on a night when you knew that he wouldn't be there, the fact that you didn't know that he was married was because he saw it as advantageous not to make that fact public. It would have done his image as a super stud no good if it became known that he had a little wifey waiting for him at home."

"So that was why, the first time, you introduced yourself as his PA and you were there because he was out of town."

"Yes, but I wasn't lying, I was his PA before we got married. One question that has been bothering me, you didn't take his little black book, yet you were able to make a copy of it, how?"

"I had a miniature camera, the one that was on the helicopter, I just unclipped it, took the happy snaps, and put it back on and carried it out when I'd finished."

"We've just got to have you working for us, you're good."

"We should take a trip to the marina to make certain that the 'man' goes sailing as expected, and to see who else is there. I think photos of the interested parties will lead us back to the consortium and you might be able to add attempted murder to the charge sheet."

"We might not be able to get that one to stick, but it's a thought."

"Better than a thought, I have a plan. Now you said that when this is all over your marriage will no longer exist, even if he's in gaol, and you'll still be able to marry me, right?"

"If I want to that is." She looked at me with that mischievous look of hers and then burst out laughing. "You should have seen your face. Of course I'll marry you. Now, what is your plan?"

"If we wait for him to set sail and after he's left the harbour, we can get the Water Police to intercept his yacht and tow it back to their base. This will probably cause a certain amount of consternation among those that planted the gear on board, but that's their problem, we'll get to them in due course. When the police search the boat and find the C4 and the dodgy radio equipment, I predict that when he sees that someone wanted him dead, he'll be willing to cough up the evidence that you need. We'll have no need to squeeze him financially, but that doesn't mean that we won't keep his money."

"That's right, because it is evidence."

"That's not something that I wanted to hear. You did say something about a clean slate, when does that begin, and I hope that you're going to say 'from my first day of work' because that will mean that I can keep it."

"Don't you have enough already? The last time that I looked you had enough to retire on."

"What? Have you been rummaging around in my bank account?"

"Only the one that we know of, you might have dozens of accounts spread around the world that we don't know about, and as far as I'm concerned, we don't need to know about."

"Is that official?"

"No, it's off the record, just like this interview."

"What? This has been an interrogation has it?" I was hurt by this news, really hurt.

"No, silly man, this has been us comparing notes on a case that we're both working on, in order that arrests can be made and charges laid, and a lot of nasty guys spend some time in grey rooms with bars on the windows."

"I guess I can live with that. Now we have a departure to attend. I'll wheel out the van, it'll be necessary for evidence collection."

Faith and I found ourselves parked on a street above, and overlooking, the marina. "He's just leaving his berth now." I said. I was watching him through powerful binoculars. I also noticed someone else who was taking an interest in proceedings. "We have company."

"Where?" Faith was scanning the area through her binoculars.

"He was standing at the end of the marina trying to look inconspicuous, he's heading back now. Do you see him, he's wearing a blue spray jacket?"

"Got him. I'd better get ready." I heard the rapid fire clicking of her camera with the massively impressive telephoto lens. She slipped between the bucket seats and picked up a set of earphones and cranked up the radio scanner. A minute later. "Got it, I'll put it on speaker." The van came alive to radio chatter.

"Condor to Albatross, do you read me?"

"Albatross, loud and clear."

"Party has just cleared the marina and is in centre harbour under sail and making around 6 knots in a light breeze."

"Copy that, I'll give him 45 minutes and then I'll take off on a south-easterly heading before turning north to intercept him about 30 kilometres out, then I'll do my civil duty and report an explosion on his yacht."

"Perfect, see you back at base."

"That sounds like he's going to use a seaplane to get close enough to use a radio signal to detonate the explosives. I'd love to be there when it doesn't go off." Faith said.

"We'd better contact the water police and let them know what's happening." I reached for my mobile and spoke to the Duty Officer. "We have a situation about to go down in around an hour and about 30 Kilometres offshore." I outlined what we knew and the radio message to the seaplane.

"Okay, what we'll do is dispatch a chopper to monitor the seaplane and send a patrol boat to intercept the yacht. What frequency was his radio on?" I told him. "Good, we'll monitor that channel and listen in to his conversation. You did say that the bomb won't go off, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"I won't ask how you know that, but we'll check it out when we bring the yacht back in. We'll also have a chat to the pilot when he lands and see if he has a radio device that he can use to detonate a bomb. If he does then he'll be charged with attempted murder."

"It would take nothing more than a mobile phone to set off a bomb."

"Again, I won't ask you how you know that, probably a CSI type TV show or even Wikipedia, they all have a lot to answer for. We may need to talk to you at a later stage." He signed off. I looked at Faith, both of us had that look at satisfaction over a job well done. It was now up to the police to round them up and us to provide the evidence to gain a conviction.

"It would appear that our work here is done, what would you like to do now?" I asked Faith.

"What's with the stupid questions? There's enough room in the back, why don't we make use of it?"

"I'm sure the residents of this posh suburb will be impressed to see a parked van bouncing up and down and you giving vent to your orgasms. You're not quiet, you know?"

"Oh alright, we'll go home, but you'd better be ready for some serious loving."

I was as ready as I'd ever be, but plans were placed on hold as soon as we got back to my place. A deputation from her work was waiting for us. "Well faith, how is it going?"

"Who are you and what do you want?" I had a good idea who they were but wanted them to spell it out for me.

"Faith works for us, I guess that you didn't know that."

"I know it, and I know a lot more about you than you'd like to believe. It would appear that you and I have been tackling the same organisation from different ends, and I should tell you that I have completed my end of the assignment, my involvement has turned out not to be what my contract stipulated, but then they were not entirely honest with me. As a result I have done an awful lot to make your end easier to tidy up. We, that's Faith and me, have even given you attempted murder charges to add to your already thick files on these guys. But I do have one request to make."

"What might that be?"

"I want you to hold off for 24 hours before you start swooping on them, I have a personal matter to attend to."

"I don't think we can wait that long."

"Of course you can, don't worry they can't get out of the country, at least not if you watch the airport departures and any private planes that might have accepted charter bookings from the Directors. We do have a little time because it will be some time before their minions can contact them and tell them that everything has gone pear-shaped, enough time for you to get the necessary warrants and raid their corporate headquarters. We can give you evidence of systematic fraud that will do for starters."

"Show me."

I led him inside and showed him the printouts that I'd made of his transactions. I pointed to one that I'd highlighted. "This one is the personal matter, you see they defrauded my parents and foreclosed on the family farm, my father took his life not long after, and my mother has lost the plot and is in a nursing home, probably never to emerge, I want to get it back."

"How do you intend going about that?"

"Oh it's perfectly legal, I'll simply confront the manager with this evidence and make him an offer, his head for theirs. If he agrees to drop them in for this, to tell me that he was coerced into doing this. I might go easy on him, but then I might not, it depends on how he reacts and how I feel about him."

"You've got until close of business this evening." He wasn't happy about me making demands. "In the mean time we have some work to do. Faith?"

"Sir, I need to speak with you, in private." They wandered off and a whispered conversation ensued with both of them, from time to time, glancing at me. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable under their scrutiny. The conversation completed they walked back towards me, him with a thoughtful look on his face and Faith positively radiant, she had won.

"I don't know how we're going to organise this, but I have been told that if we don't Faith is prepared to hand in her notice. We do not want to lose her so I suppose we will just have to accede to her wishes and offer you a job. Believe me, if what she has told me about you is only half true, we would be crazy not to make such an offer. She did make one demand that I'm not happy about given the current state of play, and workload constraints. She has demanded at least three weeks' vacation, it seems that she wants to spend some time with you while we arrange for her present marital situation to disappear. Somewhere in those three weeks, which doesn't leave us a lot of time, she wants to marry you. I presume that you go along with this plan?"

"Very much Sir." I couldn't say anything else for some minutes because her lips had got in the way of free speech. By the time the kiss had finished we found ourselves alone. After a celebratory bed session we cleaned ourselves up and set off to pay a visit to a certain Bank Manager. The farm would soon be back in the family, a little too late for Dad unfortunately. "I'll take you out to show you over the farm as soon as the paperwork is done, you'll love the place." I whispered to her after we'd made love again.

"I'd love that. What's the bed like?"

"Is that all that you can think of?"

"No, there's the sofa, the living room floor, bent over the kitchen sink, the list is endless."

"I hope that your boss is prepared for us doing it on your desk. You're insatiable."

"Actually I'm not. It's just that I have a little catching up to do, once I've caught up on lost time I'll turn out to be pretty boring in bed." There was that mischievous look again.

"I find that hard to believe. Now where was I?" Her hand led me back to where I'd been on and off for the past few days. I couldn't believe how much my life had changed in such a short time, and for the better I might add. I now had a wonderful woman in my life and had avenged my father's eviction in the best possible way, sort of 'an eye for an eye'. Those responsible were about to pay dearly for what they had done to him.