THE DEBT

The Debt.

Kat was drenched in sweat.

 Not the sweet sweat that followed a fast-paced jog around the local high school track or the sweat that accompanied a mattress marathon; but that sweat that came with intense terror.  Kat could smell the stench of her sweat and feel droplets forming on her brow. She had heard about hematohidrosis, the condition where people in a major crisis actually sweat blood due to intense stress; she didn’t know if this was an accurate summation or just hearsay, but if ever there was a time to sweat blood, this was it. She had never before felt the absolute terror that she felt now. Here she was, on a beautiful yacht in a tropical paradise and she faced more fear in this moment than in her entire adult life as a secret agent. It wasn’t fear for herself but for the man she loved.

Jason lay on the deck of the boat, his lifeblood spilling out of him. He rallied enough to open his eyes; his pain-filled eyes sought hers and she read all that they held. The pain,  the fear, the love … the regret. Their eyes held for a moment and then his eyes fluttered closed and he went limp.

Her anguished cry rang out and she sagged to her knees taking the two men who held her arms tightly; by surprise. They released her when they saw how distraught she was and knew she wasn’t going anywhere just now. She melted to the deck and lay sobbing, her sides heaving like a racehorse.

Gone was her usual calm and calculating self. The fearless woman who had triumphed valiantly on many a mission. The woman they called “The Intrepid.”

Long minutes passed and at last, she lay spent on the deck.  The occasional shudder wracked her body and her nerves twitched uncontrollably.

Marcus arose from his seated position under the canopy by the outdoor bar.  A smile of satisfaction on his face as he watched the weeping woman. He crossed over to the bar and leaned casually against it, looking cool and collected, just as if he had not, only moments ago, gunned down a helpless, innocent, unarmed man.

“Clean up this mess.” he motioned to Jason’s body lying on the floor.

His henchmen did as they were commanded, and lifted the inert form. A glance and a swift gesture from Marcus had them tossing the lifeless body into the ocean. He motioned to them again and they went below deck.

“ You can’t even leave me his body to bury can you?” Kat raised herself to a half-sitting position. “You are one depraved human being.” Her voice was devoid of any emotions, she felt frozen inside, her body chilled under the hot tropical sun, her heart a solid piece of ice, and her soul, if indeed she still had one, was plummeting, spiraling downward. She continued, “ How could you do that? You are totally without any feelings, you have no emotions, you’re just an unfeeling shell of a man. No, you’re not a man, you’re a…a machine.”

Marcus took a cloth from the bar and calmly wiped down the gun that he still held in his hand. The gun he had just used to gun down Jason McCoy.  Kat watched closely as he gave it one last wipe and lay it down on the bar behind him. He liked to keep his weapons close.

“You broke the cardinal rule, Kat. Lesson one. Do you not remember your first day at the agency? Spy training 101? Well, let me refresh your memory. Never fall in love with a mark. Never let romance interfere with the case you are working on. Never, and I repeat never, marry anyone.”

Marcus reached for a drink on the bar. “Why did you not remember the rules, Katrina?  Why did you marry the man?”

Kat looked him dead in the eye. “Because I loved him. Because he made me happy. I hadn’t been happy for a very long time, not since my parents were killed in that car accident when I was ten. Not since I knew I was safe, but trapped in the backseat of the car while they bled out in front of me. Jason made me feel alive again. I wanted to live again, to feel again. To enjoy simple things like flowers, walks in the park, or along the beach. To eat and laugh in a restaurant and not always wonder if the waiter was an agent or a double agent.” She pushed her long hair away from her face and wiped with futility,  the tears that tracked down her face.

“I wanted to drive down a country road and not have to wonder if there was a sniper with a high-powered telescope around the next bend. You wouldn’t understand. Like I said, you are more machine than man. You've been in this game too long and played it too well. We have been sent out on too many missions together to be able to hide things from one another.”

“Don’t be like this, so tearful, so bitter, so emotional; you were once as cold as ice, just like me. Until Jason came along. If I hadn’t been on assignment for so long in Bucharest this relationship never would have happened.  If I hadn’t been on that mission, I would have made sure that you never started secretly dating him, never got secretly engaged, and never, never married him. So don’t blame me for his death, you might as well have pulled the trigger yourself. The first time you said yes to Jason MeCoy, he was as good as dead. Such a pity that you decided to marry him. He was supposed to be simply a mark, a person that we would use to get to Polinsky, someone innocent but who, unknowingly, had information and skills useful to our mission. You were supposed to be the femme fatale; distract him, use him, get information from him about Polinsky’s offshore accounts tied to the arms deals he was making.  Your mission was not to fall in love with him.  As I said, such a pity that you fell in love and decided to marry him. It was you who forced me to kill him.”.”

“I hate you, Marcus,” her voice was steady but raw with emotion.

“There you go, getting all emotional again.”

“ Yes, I’m emotional. I’m filled with emotions now. Are you jealous?  You didn’t have to kill Jason, he would never have ratted you and me out, or told anybody about this Polinsky case, or what he saw.  So don’t tell me it was for national security that you gunned down the man I loved. Or … was it for another reason.” Her eyes narrowed, “were you jealous Marcus? Jealous of what Jason and I had.”

Marcus laughed, a sound that held nothing but derision in it.

“I see it in your eyes, Marcus, it wasn’t for the sensitive information that Jason was privy to or even the love that Jason and I had, it was what you think you and I could have had. I’ve known for a long time. We’ve been on too many missions together for me not to know all your tells. The way you sometimes look at me when you think I am unaware that you are watching me. The longing, the desire …  the lust.  But it’s always after a kill. Isn’t it Marcus? That's the only way you can feel anything. A woman knows these things. Is that the real reason why you killed Jason?”

“It's nothing, I feel nothing. Never have, never will.”

“Like I said Marcus, a woman knows these things.”

“ What did you ever see in him anyway? An accountant, a techie, for heaven's sake, a completely normal, boring, dull guy..”

“That's what I liked about him. The predictability. I knew I could always count on Jason.  There were no surprises, no hidden agendas. He was my safe haven, my rock. Jason is,” she paused, “was, all that is good, all that is worthy. He looked down deep within me and he saw something… something that he deemed worthy and I wanted to become deserving of his love. To give up all the madness, the chaos that you and I have both lived in for so long. And now he’s gone.”

“You think you know everything Kat. You think you know what drives me. You think you know all about the feeling I get after I have killed someone, but you don’t. You’re only an emotional woman who can’t get the job done and kill the mark. McCoy was expendable. So what if occasionally my testosterone bubbles up to the surface? You look in the mirror, and you know what other men see; your gorgeous body, perfect face with the fragile features that hide the steel that is the real you.”

“It's not the real me though, that's what Jason showed me. He taught me that I could have a  different life, a  new life with him.”

“Katrina, that life is not for us. We were born to serve our country in whatever way we can. We both lost our parents when we were young, tragically, before our very eyes. I admit it, it might have warped us, made us what we really are, and made us hard, and strong. Killers, yes, we terminate terrorists and assassins, but we are not monsters .” 

“Are we not?” she asked. “ What kind of man can only… feel…like a real man, after he has killed someone. Your adrenaline starts pumping and your testosterone levels get elevated only when you smell the scent of blood. Blood that you have spilled. In this case, the blood of an innocent man.”

“ You should thank me. You owe me a debt, a debt of gratitude for ridding you of the millstone around your neck. He was a liability Kat, pure and simple You were once brilliant at your job. My finest protege.  You can't see it now, but you eventually would come to realize it. Like I said, You owe me a debt. For cleaning up your nasty little mess.”

He stared at her as she lay still sprawled on the deck. He ran the tip of his tongue around his lips. His breathing became heavy.

 Kat raised herself to her feet and shook her hair out in a golden cascade around her. “That's when you start to feel it, isn’t it Marcus?  The gun lying close … close behind you on the bar. The pull of the trigger,  the feel of the recoil.  The smells, yes Marcus, the smell of gunpowder mixed with the smell of blood. It stirs you, Marcus. Fills you with lust. Like now Marcus.” She started walking slowly towards him as he stood beside the bar, her hips swaying with every step. Marcus licked his lips and watched her, his eyes half shut. She reached him and ran her hands up and down his arms and then pressed her body into his, wrapping her arms around his body, touching his back.

“Is that what you are feeling now Marcus? Are the fires starting to rage?  I see what you are saying, Marcus. Thank you for enlightening me. 

 His eyes closed as her body and her words overwhelmed him.  A veil of confusion closed around him and he became distracted by her presence. Her hands touching here, touching there, moving around his body.

 “You are right Marcus, I do owe you a debt … a huge debt … and I always pay my debts

Bang! 

The cold black gun was smoking in her hand as his body sagged against her. His eyes searched hers, filled with pain, filled with lust, filled with … surprise.

“Was it good for you Marcus?” She crooned as she held his dying body close to her. “It was good for me!  Like I said, I always pay my debts.”

Marcus took one last breath and his eyes closed.

She dropped his now lifeless body on the deck.

“But you never answered my question, Marcus. Was it good for you?”