As Carla stepped out from the laboratory entrance, she spotted a heavy set man of about 40, opposite. She did not know him, but he had been waiting for her to appear.
She changed her phone sim card. He casually kept pace with her and dialed his phone. Carla’s phone rang and she answered it.
“Hi Carla, call me Tim. Sam sent me. I am your second opinion.”
“Hi Tim. I am on my way to a park bench and I will be sticking a micro SD card to the underside of the seat. The person following me will follow you, when you take the card. They want to know who you work for and where you will deliver it. You will need to sort out the answers with Sam. Let them catch you and get the answers they want. Give up the chip and get away.
“I suspect they have murdered one man already, so watch your step. I was picked up by a man called Mark Goodwood and taken to some down town offices. They were aware I was screen printing the data and believed I was passing it on. They think I am a cooperative bimbo and have turned me, as a double agent.
“Tell Sam all this, and mum can let me know what to do when she phones me tonight at 7.00pm. In the meantime, I will try and find out who Goodwood and his crowd are.
“Tell Sam that I want to end this mission; I think it has gone as far as it needs to. Pharma are running scared with the current results and now would be a good time to pull the plug on them.”
“OK Carla, be safe.” He closed the call, but Carla carried on with the pretense of having a conversation.
She had no particular park bench in mind and could have used several over the next 10 minutes. Tim needed enough time to contact Sam to put help in place. She found an exposed bench and sat down. A few moments later, Tim approached and as he walked by, said “Ok!”
Carla got up and hailed a cab, back to Goodwood’s office. It was obvious this was a dead end lead. The name on the door had been removed and the room had bare furniture, waiting for the next user to rent the space.
She took a taxi home and waited for mum to phone, exactly at 7.00pm. After a few minutes of routine talk, the call ended.
Carla left the house and phoned Sam using the same sim card she had used with Tim. In her mind, it was essential the sick mum cover was maintained, in case Goodwood had the ability to tap Rabinowitz phone.
Carla spoke to Sam who agreed that the mission could end on Friday afternoon. “Pharma Inc. will be told to abandon all work on the drug. All records and test materials will be seized, before they can steal anything of value.”
Sam had not heard from Tim or the two muscle men he sent to assist him if things got ugly. He said he would text Carla on this number, as soon as he had any news.
At 8.00pm, during her evening meal, the news reported four men were found dead in an alley, down town. It looked as though they had been thrown from the roof of a 10 story building and because their faces were pulverized, identification would take time.
Moments later, Carla’s phone vibrated. A text appeared. “Come home now.”
Her blood ran cold. Mark Goodwood and his crowd had murdered again, she thought. “I need to find out what this is all about, and put it right.”
She carefully selected her clothes for the following day. Clean white undies, short sleeved white blouse, open at the neck, with a flared grey knee length skirt, red pumps and matching short leather jacket. She took her red leather hand bag, containing her phone, money, credit cards, tissues and a pack of large, flesh colored, breathable plasters, to complete her ensemble.
“Fail to plan, plan to fail,” she thought.
Hurriedly, she packed her remaining belongings, asking Mr. Rabinowitz to send them on to her mum, if she did not return. His face fell as she told him. He guessed she was in trouble and was leading it away from his home.
Carla went into the city by taxi and took a room for the night at a small hotel. She believed their basic client confidentiality would hinder any probing from Goodwood and his men, until morning. They would get her then.
Carla carefully laid the rest of her plans. She would be most vulnerable outside the laboratory, in Goodwood’s hands. She then considered the most likely way they would handle her. Last time, they picked her up outside the lab. and whisked her away in a car. Surprise was on their side then, so this time they would need men in place, to prevent her running off when the car pulled in.
She would undoubtedly be searched for a weapon, phone or wire. They would suspect a link with the three dead men, and that she was trying to expose Goodwood and his group.
Even if the three men had been made to talk before being murdered, they would only have known they had to pick up the chip from the park bench and tell the cover story Sam had given them. Goodwood would torture them for information they did not have. Carla shivered at the thought of the agony inevitably leading up to their deaths.
Carla realised this made her Goodwood’s prime target. He would believe she knew much more than she had let on during their first encounter and make her pay dearly, for the way she had fooled him.
To interrogate her successfully, he needed an isolated place, where her screams and pleading would not be heard. She would leave DNA evidence to be cleaned up afterwards, or perhaps an intense fire would do the job. A good fire was one of Carla’s favorite clean-up techniques - quick and easy if you are in a hurry.
She psychologically braced herself for the pain and suffering she knew would follow. The choice of red leather went some small way towards concealing blood loss. The white blouse and grey skirt would be ruined though, but Carla chose them for a special purpose.
She called Sam, setting out her plan, which was well received and he would have support in place by the morning.
Her final phone call was to a local all-night store. She wanted their cheapest phone delivered immediately, to the hotel reception, where she would leave cash for the courier.
After breakfast, she took a taxi into work. Carla had decided, by being visible, someone would make a move on her. If it happened in Pharma, then they were implicated. If it was out in the street, then Goodwood might be working for someone else - but who?
The day in the laboratory was uneventful, but that evening, Goodwood and several other men were waiting for her. She spotted three goons straight away, loitering around the entrance of the laboratory. Goodwood and the driver pulled in to the entrance as she emerged.
The goons closed in. Goodwood leaned back over the passenger seat and held open the rear door of his car. He grimly ushered her in, somewhat surprised she was apparently unconcerned. She climbed in with a goon either side of her.
“Give me your phone,” demanded Goodwood.
“I don’t think so,” replied Carla indignantly.
The man on her left punched the side of her face so rapidly she had no time to react. It was rare for her to be caught out. She fell unconscious.
As the car glided away, the goon on her left proceeded to search Carla. He tipped out the contents of her bag, pocketed the cash and cards, and smashed the phone.
He pulled off her leather jacket and carefully searched it for tech. It was clean. He tore open her blouse and searched inside, running his hands over her bare skin, even her armpits offered no hiding place. With her body slumped forward, he checked her head and ears. Pushing her upright again, he peered into her mouth and felt with his fingers, wiping the saliva on her skirt. He undid the waistband of her skirt and pulled it free to examine it. Again - nothing.
He pulled up her skirt revealing bare thighs and flimsy, white panties, continuing on, to run his hands down the front and sides of her bare legs - just because of the thrill it gave him. Now he forced one hand between her legs and under her bum. The other hand slid down her back, inside her knickers and under each buttock, until his fingers met. Satisfied that nothing was concealed there, he pulled off her shoes and examined them thoroughly. He felt the soles of her feet.
“She is clean, Mark, unless she has a tracker inside her,” confirmed the goon.
No one spoke again, during the short journey. Goodwood had her. Either she was stupid or feigning bravado. He did not care which. She was about to be interrogated and thrown from a speeding car, under a bus.
Carla regained consciousness just as the car pulled into a large warehouse and stopped. The third goon drove his car alongside and the roller door rapidly closed behind them.
Carla quickly got dressed.
“Ah! The deserted warehouse scenario,” she said out loud, fear building inside her. A positive outlook is necessary when you’re in the shit. She believed, if you worry about pain and death, you will miss opportunities if they occur.
Everyone got out of the cars, including Carla. She was bundled into a large, bare room. Bare that is, except for a sturdy metal chair fixed to the floor, in the center of polythene sheeting pooled with blood.
The men had their guns out, though what sort of threat she posed for them, was hard to imagine. Best to be on the safe side; they felt in control, that way.
“Do take a seat Miss Walters, or whatever your name is. I regret the blood spatter from the three men who sat there before you. There’s no point in clearing up until we have finished with you.”
Carla appeared more concerned about it spoiling her shoes, than her immediate future, as she stepped carefully through the gore. She pulled a tissue from the pocket of her jacket and wiped the seat of the steel chair, dropping the tissue into a blood pool. She slowly sat down, noting that she was surrounded by goons, around all sides of the polythene - no one yet willing to spoil their shoes.
She needed to play for time – it was going to be rough.
“Cuff her” barked Goodwood.
The man who had punched and searched her, walked menacingly towards her, swinging steel cuffs. He grinned as he approached.
“Are you the pig who searched me?” She asked.
He stopped in front of her and leered. “It was my pleasure!”
Carla’s right leg suddenly kicked out, her foot connecting with the large pouch of his testicles. With a loud gasp, he doubled over with pain, which was intensified by burst eardrums, as Carla leapt up and boxed them.
As he staggered, she kicked his legs from under him and his feet skidded forward. He landed flat on his back in the blood, cracking his skull on the hard floor. He lay quite still.
In that brief moment, before the guns came up, she dived for the man’s weapon that had fallen from his right hand. She grabbed it, flicked off the safety catch and cocked it. Still sliding across the gore on her back, she head shot the two other goons.
Goodwood hesitated to shoot Carla, because he needed to know who she represented.
“Don’t shoot her!” commanded Goodwood to his driver, who fired anyway, skinning her rib. The bullet hit the floor and ricocheted across the room, behind her.
She uttered a gasping scream to manage the pain and fixed Goodwood in her sights. Both men froze in horror on seeing this girl, rock steady and coated with congealed blood. Their lives were a finger twitch from extinction.
“You can only shoot one of us!” warned Goodwood, his own gun aimed at her forehead.
“It will be you Mark, so get your driver to place his gun on the floor, then you drop yours and we can talk. We both want answers, don’t we?”
There was about 3 meters between Goodwood, the driver, and Carla, forming a rough triangle. She knew she could not shoot both men. If she shot the driver first, Goodwood would kill her instantly, he had her dead in his sights. If she fired at Goodwood while he was talking it would slow him perceptibly, she might get the driver before he could aim and fire. She put the plan on hold.
Carla needed to find out who Goodwood represented, and the driver might not know enough. Carla held her position, focusing on any hint that Goodwood was about to fire. He would pick a moment when she was talking, or moving, a momentary distraction was all he needed.
She could see the driver edging away from Goodwood, increasing the angle she had to respond to.
“A clever move” she thought, “I would have done the same.” She remained focused on Goodwood.
Feeling he now had the upper hand, he decided to talk. He figured by answering her questions, her mind would be churning over facts and slowing her down.
“I am working for a consortium of four pharmaceutical companies.” He listed them and Carla had heard of them all, not major players individually but, combined and with this drug, they would be.
“Did you murder Bernard Long?” she asked “and my three men?”
“Long became greedy and your men were unhelpful, so I disposed of them. I will say your men resisted everything we threw at them, but they still managed to take one of my men, as they were thrown off the roof.”
He was about to ask who Carla was working for when simultaneously, his and the driver’s head exploded. Sam’s backup team were in place and the confession had been recorded.
Carla had taped a smartphone to the back of her thigh. The tracker for lost or stolen phones had provided the location and the open line had allowed the proceedings to be overheard and recorded. While she had been sitting in the car, the device was hidden from the search.
Carla had been sure the body search would be immediately she entered the car, not in public view in the street, or where she would be held. Her choice of clothing had allowed an easy search, and exposed her sexy body. Few men could resist such a distraction.
There was no further need for Goodwood or the driver to stay alive, so The Organization’s rescue team ended the matter.
Carla eased herself up as four men rushed over to help her. As lumps of dark blood slid off her clothes, she looked woefully at her wounded rib and the hole in her jacket.
“Would you just look at that,” she asked, poking her finger through the small hole, “it’s totally fucked! It’s Prada too, $1500 in the sale!” She wiped her bloodied hands down the clean part of her skirt and fished out a large plaster for her rib.
“Soon be as good as new,” she grinned, her stunning smile and blue eyes making the whole unnatural scene, somehow, more surreal.
The team cleaned up the crime scene, torching everything in sight. Now, Sam only had to let the consortium discover the bad data and wait for them to abandon their research.