"He is late!" Tessa exclaimed for the third time. "This is unacceptable! Can we not hire someone else?"
Ashley was rooting through the messages on her phone. The freelancer agency had sent her a profile of the security expert.
"I had been assured he was the best in the business," she contended. "Why go with anybody but the ace?"
"Is it normal for the best in the business to bail on his clients? Perhaps another billionaire made him a better offer, which he accepted?"
"That is not likely, Tess," Ashley asserted. "The agency does not allow any back-channel recruitment. His arrangement with them mandates he cannot take up another client until the present one has canceled the task."
"It appears that he did not follow the mandate," Tessa said, making air quotes.
"Wait, let me go through his profile again. Can I project the documents on your monitors?"
"Sure."
Ashley shared the agency files on the triple monitors of Tessa's workstation.
Name: CHEVALIER DE GUISCARD
|Experience|
----A total of 23 deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria.
----Security attaché to 74 dignitaries, including Governors and a Supreme Court Justice.
|Army ranks and missions|
----Classified
|Mission specializations|
----Conduct counter-drug operations.
----Fight terrorism.
----Protect oil rigs.
----Guard political dignitaries.
----Guard business magnates.
----Train security personnel and police forces.
----Develop security plans for private organizations.
----Provide operational and intelligence support.
----Conduct intelligence analysis.
----Assist in drone missions.
----Organize foreign armies.
----Defeat rebel forces.
----Lead Bomb Disposal Squads
|Combat Training|
----Brazilian jiu-jitsu
----Tae kwon do
----Aikido
----Wushu
----Muay Thai
----Karate
----Judo
----Krav Maga
|Technical Training|
----Bomb Disposal
----Radar and Communication Systems
----Standard Aviation and Military Siege Weapons and Tanks
----Minor Surgery
"Whoa! He can fly planes, jump off buildings, and is a killer machine. This guy is the fucking terminator!" Tessa said, blowing hair off of her face.
"Yeah, it seems like he is. And more."
"A late terminator, though," Tessa, who was a movie buff, added. "He is like- I WILL BE BACK! BUT NOT ON TIME!"
She tried to make a celebrity impression from the movie and giggled. Ashley rolled her eyes.
It was time to give up on the ace security guard.
"I reckon I should call the agency and cancel, as he has clearly not showed up," she muttered. "Let us go to the window garden. I need some air. Your clothes are a little tight for comfort, you know."
Ashley was wearing a wrap blazer around a business suit. However, the set belonged to Tessa, who was a teenager. While the waist fit well, her bust and hips were uncomfortably tight. The attire pressed against her without mercy.
All she had to do was take a lift to the top floor and retrieve clothes she had left in Jake's place or have a handyman get them for her. However, she was not prepared to face Jake yet or let him know she was hatching an unrelated conspiracy on the day before their engagement.
"Can we get a drink?" Ashley asked Tessa. The latter nodded, grinning.
"Dwi! Two long island iced teas!" Tessa told her secretary through the intercom.
The duo walked to the window garden. It was a beautiful piece of architecture, discrepantly named so. The garden was a hanging balcony made in the shape of a window. It was ten feet wide and fifteen feet long with a sill that had steps. Once you climbed on the sill, you were surrounded by plants on three sides. Golden pothos, maidenhair ferns, boat lilies, creeping figs, peperomias, Feng-shui bamboo, English ivy, and philodendrons were the main attractions. There were encircling patches of ryegrass and corkscrew rush. A few cockatiels and canaries chirped from narrow standing cages.
It felt like walking into the wilderness.
While the rest of the office was futuristic and avant-garde, the window garden was in sharp contrast, a retreat into nature.
A staff gardener was spray watering the plants.
The floor butler arrived and served them the fancy alcoholic beverage.
Ashley took a few quick sips and felt better almost immediately. Tessa winced as she sampled her drink.
"Come on," Ashley teased. "It is an iced tea. With, umm, some vodka, tequila, rum, and gin. Completely harmless."
Tessa giggled. "Yeah, but I like beer better."
"Make the call," she added. "Let us hire the second best and third best security guard from the agency. The more, the better."
Ashley nodded and picked up her smartphone.
“Qui court deux lièvres à la fois, n’en prend aucun.”
The girls looked up to locate the speaker.
It was the gardener, whose watering can hovered over a path of flowering plants. He was an ugly man, middle-aged and slightly bent. A large nose with blackheads was set over a pimple-riddled face. His uniform was the standard green trousers of the maintenance staff and olive dungarees. The gardener's voice was raspy and guttural.
"One who runs after two hares at the same time, catches none," Ashley translated. French was one of her majors at Cornell University. "What is your name?"
"What is in a name, ma'am?" the gardener replied, without turning towards them. He was digging the soil around a stem with a trowel.
"Okay, no name!" Tessa voiced, offended by his indifference. "Why exactly were you listening in to our conversation? Are you new here?"
"The world is constantly changing, ma'am. Everyone is new. However, you were loud enough for people outside the office to hear," he replied rather rudely. "I did not have to 'listen in'."
"Ah, a cheeky gardener is the last thing we need right now," Tessa mumbled angrily. "I think it is fair to say that you are fired," she added with finality.
Tessa got up to drag him off, but Ashley stopped her. She made gestures at the girl, indicating danger.
Tessa looked confused for a moment, and then it finally dawned on her. She had never seen the guy before in the building. True, the staff changed sometimes, but the Head Butler made sure the staff was regular most of the time.
The man turned around, placed the water can on the floor, and blocked their exit from the garden.
"Ah, so you noticed," he murmured, more to himself than to them.
The strange gardener had a sharp trowel in his hand.
Tessa gave out a whelp. She was almost paralyzed with fear.
"If you shout, I will throw this trowel at one of you. The unlucky one will be dead before she hits the floor," the stranger warned.
The man was not bluffing. He twirled the tool between his fingers with expertise. He looked like someone who could carry out threats of murder.
'Calling for help would be stupid,' Ashley thought.
She looked around, and the only thing within her reach was iced tea.
A distraction would not be helpful, and an attempt to distract might have fatal consequences.
'I could take off my clothes like last time," Ashley suggested to herself. "There is no element of surprise, however. The man is not hanging from a building."
The best she could do was keep him occupied.
"Who the hell are you?" Ashley asked.
"The more important question is, what am I doing here, ain't it?" the stranger replied. "And the answer is, considering the circumstances, I am here to kill you."
"I don't want to die-," Tessa whimpered.
Ashley gritted her teeth. There was something she could do.
Offer him money?
He stepped towards them slowly, making sure there was no room left to escape.
The faces of the girls turned pale. They clung to each other in terror.
'Not again,' Ashley prayed.