License to Kill

We weren't going either way. Too obvious, I supposed. That's where the building security was? I mean, what the hell did I know?

"Help me," hissed Clarissa to the man with the gun, urgently.

"Why? Leave him. He's slowing us down. We have the mission to consider," the man with the gun said, glancing at me and looking at her.

"No, we have to... don't argue, Major."

"Over there," he gestured again, hurriedly, and then grabbed my other arm and half dragged / half walked to me to the door.

He tried the handle and the door opened and I was manhandled into the room, the man with the gun closing the door behind me, and then jamming a handy chair against the handle.

"That won't hold them long," he said, grimly.

We all looked at the room we were in. Some kind of smaller office. Large window, desk, chairs, very small round table, walls with shelves full of books.

"They won't come immediately. They don't know how armed we are, yet. But they'll get spotters and work it out," he said. Clarissa nodded, and then pushed me down into one of the other chairs.

"What a cluster fuck," she said, bitterly. She looked at me, then shook her head and then squatted down to look at my leg. It hurt like hell and that wasn't helped when she tore the leggings I was wearing to get a better look. Then she felt around the back of my thigh, and then, nodding at the other man, she said, "It's not too bad. Through and through, in the muscle, missed the femoral, thankfully. But he's not going to be running anywhere, or walking much, either."

The Major sighed, then walked over to the window. "Well, we can get out of here. There are enough surface features for us to climb down and look, there's only the wall over there and we are out in the open. We can go. I suggest we go now, while they are still hold up outside, judging our strength and armament."

"We can't just leave him?" Clarissa protested.

"Can't we? He's the mark. Well, one of them anyway. He's not the mission. He's in the way. He's not going anywhere, and we can. We should NOT sacrifice our mission for him. You know those are the rules. Acceptable collateral. If need be, we should shoot him ourselves. Be sure he can't pass on any details."

"I'm fucking married to him," she hissed.

"No, you aren't," countered the major, glancing at me with a stone-cold face. "You know as well as I do that it wasn't legal."

"What?" I said, weakly. "Clarissa, what...?"

She looked at me, a look of anguish on her face.

"I..."

"Oh,for fucks sake, Risa. We. Don't. Have. Time. For. This. I should just shoot him now and we can go."

"No!" she said, hotly, moving between me and the Major.

He glared at her. I could still see his face around her shapely bottom.

"What is going on?" I asked again.

"Your wife is an MI6 agent, you dumb idiot," the major said, contemptuously. "You are just too stupid to see it."

"Major, another word and..." Clarissa said, standing upright.

"You'll what? We are about to get into a firefight brought on by this moron here, the mission is totally compromised, and we need to get out of here. You can court-martial me later, if we survive, but right now, we won't, if you don't move your arse. And you know it."

"Clarissa... is this true? Are you...?" I toned almost listlessly. I could feel the blood pumping out of my wound. The loss of blood and the news I was getting was just... too hard to handle.

She turned and looked at me. Her stare was glassy but hard.

"Look, I... yes, I'm a field agent. You've gotten caught up in something... I don't even know how you are here. You should never have been able to get within a thousand yards of this place. Or why you are here at all. This does not concern you. Or us."

"What us?" I spat, painfully, rubbing at my leg as though pawing at it would help it hurt less.

"Yes, you are a patsy," said the major, looking out the window, not even looking at me. "You were specially selected because you trust and are naïve and gullible, and she could lead you around with your nose, and you would never think to even ask why. You are perfect cover because no one would ever believe you are married to a field agent. You are collateral and now expendable, and holding us back. We. Need. To. Go," he reiterated.

"You are just trying to hurt him, Major," intoned Clarissa, swinging back to face him, anger on her face. "Just trying to rile him up so he gets angry with me."

"No, I'm trying to let him know the facts of life," replied the Major, now trying the window lock, trying to push it open.

"Here's the thing, Ma'am," he said, putting special contemptible emphasis on the 'ma'am' part. "I'm leaving, with or without you. He's not going anywhere. So you can stay here and die with him, or come with me. You know what you have to do."

Clarissa looked around at me, eyes pleading.

"It is true?" I persisted, gritting my teeth against the increasing pain in my leg. It was really starting to throb now.

"It's complicated, Rich. It's not..."

"I see. It is then. An easy mark. I see. Well, you lasted four years I suppose. More than I ever had before," I said, bitterly.

Then I nodded at the Major. "Give me the gun." I demanded, holding out the hand that wasn't clutching my leg.

He looked at me, stopping trying to open the window. We could hear people moving around outside the door. Time was getting shorter.

"Why?" he asked, guardedly.

"So I can cover you. They come in if you've just gone through the window, they'll get you before you've gone ten feet. Give me the gun, so I can cover you. You are obviously right, I'm not going anywhere, but you can. Give. Me. The. Gun," I demanded one more time.

"Rich, I can't..." Clarissa started.

"Oh, for fucks sake. Be honest for once in your life, will you? Just go do whatever it is you are supposed to do. I'm just local dressing and I clearly don't matter or you wouldn't have lied to me for four fucking years."

The Major walked over to me, and handed me the gun, looking me in the eye the whole time, judging me to see if I'd just turn the gun on them.

I took it and nodded, and gestured at the window. "Go. Now. Take super-spy here with you. For what it's worth, Clarissa, you did a really good job. I really did love you. Now, just fucking go."

I turned my head and body and faced the door, holding the gun out, and hoping my arm didn't shake too much. I heard her say, "I'm sorry, Rich. The mission...." And that was the last thing I heard Clarissa say to me.

I heard the glass shatter as the major gave up trying to open it the normal way, and just threw something at it. At the same time, I squeezed the trigger of the gun, blasting a hole through the door, aiming high to dissuade people from coming through too early, and stopping them from escaping.

I have no idea if they made it. I think they did. I fired two more shots, all high so they wouldn't hit anyone outside, and held out for almost three minutes. Then the door exploded in and some kind of grenade popped in, hit the floor, and there was a massive explosion of light and sound and pressure, and I was officially out of it.

I woke up three days later, apparently, in what I later found out was the sub-basement of the Saudi Arabian embassy, where I was burnt, beaten, waterboarded, electrocuted and otherwise tortured for the next week, while the Saudi security services tried to find out who I was, and what I was doing there. I had decided immediately I wouldn't lie, and I told them the truth of who I was, who Clarissa was to me, and why I was there.

Of course, they didn't believe me, and that's why I am now mostly one ear less, can barely see out of one eye, my nose is crooked from being broken so many times, I have no molars, I can't raise my left hand over my shoulder, my little finger and ring finger don't bend anymore and also will never grow fingernails back and I can't walk correctly because the bullet hole in my leg was never treated beyond a crude patch-up job. At one point, during the initial interrogation, they kept throwing Arabic at me, to see if I understood it. They had me sitting in a chair, and the man in front of me delivered a speech, and then the guy behind me jabbed his knife in my arm, quite deep too. Took weeks to heal. I think the guy in front was telling me what the guy behind me was going to do, and if I reacted, they'd know I could understand them.

I'm frankly amazed I'm still sane, if I was at all. It was hard to tell anymore. I was so far from reality at this point that the Teletubbies could have tortured me and I'd have just accepted it.

I've been held here, in a small cage in the basement, for the past, well, it's been at least a year. Probably more. I don't know anything for sure, anymore.

I am a bit of an embarrassment and a problem to the Saudis. Apparently, I interrupted what was attempting to be some kind of swallow operation that British Intelligence was running on them -- at least that's what they called it. Clarissa was supposed to seduce one of the group who had tried to send us wine at The Dorchester, and then get something from him, I don't know what. I'd walked into the middle of it, she'd blown it by recognizing me and using my name, the Major had seen security walk up to me, thought they were going for her and so he'd reacted and protected her by blowing away the security guy, and then exchanged fire with another guard, who'd targeted me because I wasn't firing back. I just didn't know enough to get out of the way.

Now they had me, they would normally just disappear a problem like me, but after the massive issues with the American Journalist who they'd literally cut up and dissolved, the main Saudi Prince had declared that I was not to be killed, in case I was needed at a Get Out Of Jail Free Card later. But they couldn't let me go either, and there was no way they could get me out of the embassy without British Intelligence catching on, so... I was stuck. In the basement. In a cage. It was at least large enough for me to stand up, held a cot and a chemical toilet, that was emptied once a day. I was fairly sure we were in the Saudi Embassy, but not certain. Hell, I wasn't certain of anything, up to and including which day of the week it was.

I was tortured for a week, gave them the same answers all the time, and by the end of the week, they'd confirmed my story. Clarissa McDonald / Livingston no longer existed, apparently. She'd been reported dead, in the same accident that I apparently died in, so I was told. I had been officially abandoned by my own government. Collateral damage indeed.

The Saudis didn't know what to do with me, so in the basement, I stayed. Occasionally, they would try new forms of torture on me, just for kicks. One week, I wasn't allowed to sleep. Another, they played Muslim religious music at me for a week. They tried hypnotizing me, but I was so traumatized at this point that the hypnotic stuff just bounced off.

They couldn't understand the motivation to hold them off so the wife who had lied and manipulated me for years, - who probably never actually loved me at all, - could escape. I tried to explain it, but true romance for the sake of romance was just not in the lexicon of experience of the people who were questioning me, so I gave up.

The only one who was even remotely nice to me was one of the three permanent guards, who watched me twenty-four, seven. His name was Saad, - he was the only one to actually introduce himself to me. He had a little LED portable TV he brought in at night, probably against the rules. He'd never watch the news, but I'd catch episodes of something or other while he watched. He brought me scraps of food from his home on occasion, giving them to me when no one else was watching, at least until I heard someone yelling at him, then that stopped. The food otherwise was bland and barely enough to keep me going; I certainly lost weight, to the point where there was no chance of me overpowering anyone.

I used to stare at the wall, and wonder what Clarissa was doing now. Who she was doing it with. Whether her name was still Clarissa, - probably not. I wondered what name would suit her instead. I wondered if she ever thought of me, if she had any clue I was still alive. I wondered why I'd been so blind, analyzing every part of our lives together, looking for clues I'd missed, or constructing elaborate theories to explain things that had happened in our lives together. So many questions. Was that her real name? Was her mother actually her mother? She'd gone alone to sort out her estate, -- had she really done that? How many people had she killed? Would she have killed me, if I had confronted her any other way? Did she love me at all? Was it all a lie? How had they targeted me? What was the problem inside me that I could never hold an actual relationship? The only one I really had and it was all based on a lie in the first place.

At a certain point, I gave up. I stopped waiting to be rescued, since it was clear my captors were never going to let me go, and at some point, the admonishment from the Crown Prince to not kill me would just lapse, and they'd just come in and cut my throat or strangle me or drown me. I started to wonder which one they do. To rate them in terms of pain, and ease of suffering, and quickness. To actively desire one over the other.

I honestly think I started to go insane. That's what happens when you put ordinary men in no hope situations like this. They lose it. And no one was more ordinary, or more of a loser, than me. My wife's betrayal of me had led to far worse things, and I was powerless to stop it. I mean, was she even my wife? From what the Major had said, it didn't seem like it. I was a disposable front for her, and had been used for that purpose and discarded. Although what an agent would need a front like me for, in the first place, was a mystery to me.

To the entire world, I was dead. No one was looking for me. I was just something to be politely but pointedly ignored by everyone.

Not that the Saudis didn't harp on that point. I think they were trying to turn me, but then, why bother? It's not like I was worth anything. No one from the group Clarissa worked for would come near me regardless, and if I did get out, what then? I couldn't be allowed to talk; that would be too much of a problem for everyone, so why they even bothered to relentlessly point out that I'd been abandoned I don't know. I guess they must have been bored too and needed their amusement.

I started losing weight. More than already, I mean. While I was eating, I wasn't really even trying much anymore. What was the point, after all? They were going to kill me at some point, no matter what, and I wasn't getting out of there voluntarily on their part, so, why bother keeping it going? Harboring hope?

And that's how it was, until that one day, when things did change, in very unforeseen ways.

There was a riot.

I could hear it starting up, outside, even through the thick walls and ceilings. Raised voices. Chanting. Thumps of I don't know what. Voices getting louder. A few shouts, some screams.

Saad was on duty at that time, and I could see him keep going to the door, unlocking it, opening it and looking upwards, then closing the door again and locking it again. He kept trying to raise anyone on his hand-held radio too, unsuccessfully. At one point, he looked at me, and then pulled a pistol out of his jacket. I don't know if it was for me or whomever was upstairs, causing a nuisance. Both, probably. There was no way they could afford to let me out alive, not after what they'd done to me.

And then the door blew in, and the pressure wave ruptured my eardrums, and blew me to the edge of the cage. It killed poor Saad outright though, since he was next to the door at the time. Just as well, since he didn't have time to kill me first.

The people poured through the door, although I was only barely aware of it, having my senses scrambled. Young. Angry. Looking for trouble.

Afterwards, I discovered it was an Arab Spring kind of thing. The Saudis had been involved with some new atrocity, and for once, the local people in London had had enough, and stormed the embassy. In the process, they'd found me. Why they had explosives and were blowing open locked doors was never explained at the time.

At the end of the day though, I was found, by people who didn't want to use or manipulate me or hurt me, for a change.

An ambulance was called, and I was carried out by jubilant young men, all with beards and screaming catchphrases in Arabic.

I ended up at Imperial College, where they dealt with my malnutrition problems, and did their best to help with the results of the torture. They took some flesh from my thigh and fashioned a new ear out of it; it looked okay I guess, but it was purely cosmetic and it never looked totally believable. My fingers were re-broken and reset, this time correctly. They still wouldn't have the range of motion they used to have, but it was better than never being able to bend them at all. Stuff like that. There wasn't much they could do for my eyesight, but they did manage to get my arm to rise above my shoulders again. Something about a frozen muscle needing relaxing and exercise.

And, of course, I was interviewed almost nonstop by the 'security services'. They never identified themselves in terms of exactly who, that meant when they came to interrogate me, just "We are with the security services." I asked, but no one would give me actual identification.

From what I understood, I had everyone from Special Branch to MI6 come talk to me. Ask me about my experience, who interrogated me while I was held, what questions they asked, and so on, on and on and on.

At no point was any media allowed near me, nor I allowed near them. I didn't even get to watch TV. I was as much a prisoner in the hospital as I was in the Saudi Embassy. A grateful government, my arse.

They clearly had no clue what to do with me, and I sat there for almost a month, before I was declared Fit To Convalesce, which basically was hospitalese for 'We'd like our bed back, please.'

At no point did Clarissa show up, not that I expected her to. For all I knew, she was dead. I mean, don't field agents not have a long shelf life? No one I spoke to would acknowledge that she still existed or anything beyond the events leading up to that day. I asked, but was given stone stares by everyone. No one wanted to talk about her, or that Major character, either.

The day came, and I was wheeled out to a waiting blacked-out SUV, out the back of the hospital, and taken to yet another nameless room, in some government office somewhere.

I was shown into a room with high ceilings, wood paneling, and one, very large desk in the middle, in a pool of light from a standing lamp. I was placed in a chair in front of the desk, and sat at the convenience of the evidently busy man sitting behind the desk. Nice suit, if rumpled. Collar open at the neck, tie loosened, hair starting to grey and thin on top. The desk was awash with papers and folders and there was no computer to be seen either, nor a desk phone, and he was methodically going through each folder, reading each page of every paper in each folder.

Eventually, after a few minutes, he sighed, sat back, and then shifted forward and cracked his back.

"Such a tedious waste of my time," he murmured, gesturing at the papers, while looking at me. "Needle in a very wasteful haystack. Still, we must cross the t's and dot the i's. Have to be sure we've looked at everything," he said, conversationally, as though I had a clue what he was talking about.

"Well, Mr. Livingston," he said, looking over his glasses at me, as he leant back and steepled his hands together, "we do appear to have a quandary here. What to do with you?"