Bella Ch. 02

In the four seconds it took for the remaining five to realise that a shot had been fired she spotted another armed man standing side-on and the Glock coughed again as she put a single round through his head. With the powder flash having exposed her position again, she crouched low and moved smartly four steps back to the right.

It was essential that she got the third man before he could discharge his gun and with the lighters having been hurriedly extinguished she pulled the monocular down over her left eye. In the silvery green image she saw her target drawing his pistol and looking in the direction of the second flash. She shot him through the head before his gun arm was fully raised and the weapon tumbled to the carpet.

Four minutes and twenty-three seconds had now passed and five men had been eliminated without audible gunfire.

The remaining three men were shouting in panic but despite the acrid smell of burnt gasses from the Glock, it was unlikely that anyone upstairs or in other parts of the house was aware of the ongoing slaughter.

She could hear Bidaya bellowing from his room for someone to start the generator and turned her attention to the three men still remaining. One had made it to the front door and was groping in the dark for the handle. Another was on his hands and knees and crawling in the direction of the pool room. She heard a click from the toilet door as the third man locked himself inside.

The man at the front door was nearly twenty metres away and she dropped to one knee while gripping the Glock two handed with her elbow firmly on the raised knee to steady her aim. He fell forward and slid slowly down the door when she put a single round through the back of his head.

Her view of the crawling man was only his butt, so she stepped quickly towards him and looking down finished him with a shot through the head from close range.

The man in the toilet was a problem. There were three rounds left in the magazine and she needed to see her target to be sure of despatching him efficiently. To blaze away through a closed door in the hope of success left too much to doubt and it was unprofessional. Every man left alive was a threat to the completion of her assignment and had to be eliminated.

Then she heard the front door opening. The guard who had been patrolling outside was trying to enter but the body slumped at the foot of the door was preventing him from doing so. Bella was well aware of the XM8 in his possession and the danger it presented if he started spraying it around. But she also wanted him to come inside rather than run off somewhere on the loose.

He had succeeded in squeezing through the available gap but the bad news was that he had a flashlight. He was gaping in bewilderment as he shone a cone of light over the bodies.

Apart from the confused shouting, the executions had been carried out in relative silence but now she could not avoid making a noise. She moved swiftly to the toilet door and kicked hard with the sole of her foot. Through the jagged hole she created she pumped a single round into the chest of the man cowering inside.

She turned her attention to the guard and he was in the act of directing his flashlight in the direction of the wood splintering sound. As his flashlight illuminated her an explosion of brilliance flared in the monocular. The vision in her left eye became a glowing white disk as the magnified light burned itself onto her retina. Now she was also in the dark.

The guard's flashlight fell to the floor as he grabbed his firearm and Bella rolled quickly to the right. There was no time to switch the lens to her right eye so she flattened herself to the carpet.

In the dark she needed him to expose his position and he did so when his weapon erupted with a deafening clatter. The room flickered in the light of fire spurting from the barrel and her target was clearly illuminated. She squeezed off two rounds and plaster cascaded from the ceiling as he fell backwards still gripping the trigger.

The only sound that remained was the ringing in her ears.

Two men still remained alive and one of them was her ultimate target. The gunfire had destroyed her advantage of surprise so there was no longer any need for stealth. It was time to hunt down her quarry and complete her assignment and there remained thirteen minutes and six seconds in which to do it.

She dropped the empty cartridge from the Glock and snapped in the full one. The silencer was now unnecessary and she removed it. The sight in her left eye was slowly returning but it was still obscured by a faint blur. Waiting for it to clear would waste precious time so she switched the monocular to her right eye.

She climbed the stairs carefully but in the eerie silence every creak was like a pistol shot.

Near the top she flattened herself to the last few stairs and peered cautiously along the landing. All of the doors were closed. It was unlikely that Bidaya had left his office to hide somewhere else but there was one certain way to be sure. His door was the first one and the handle was on the side furthest from her.

She crawled swiftly past the door and then reached for the handle and twisted it quickly. It was locked and as he would not have locked it after leaving he had to be inside. No shots had been fired in panic when she had tried the handle so it was possible that the guard was holed up in another room.

There were now eleven minutes and twelve seconds remaining.

Kicking the door in was not a problem and she could demolish a brick wall if necessary, but it would frame her briefly in the doorway. Even in total darkness Bidaya would know where the door opening was and the probability of being hit was too high a risk. There was no choice but to shoot the catch off.

She still had the mini-torch but the light from it would have shone through the door crevices like a beacon.

Keeping her body away from the door she moved her head level with the handle and peered through the gap between the door and the frame. In the monocular lens she could see the catch and placed the tip of her left forefinger to mark its position. Then she put the gun muzzle on her fingertip and slid her finger away. With the discharge blocked there would be a violent recoil so she held the pistol loosely and winced in anticipation.

When she squeezed the trigger the silence was shattered by the ear piercing crack and the Glock catapulted from her hand and hit the wall behind her. The door opened but the hail of bullets that smashed into it caused it to swing close again.

She wondered if her wrist was broken and gingerly flexed her fingers. She was relieved to feel that it was still intact although a dull pain in her forearm indicated that the tendons had been stretched to the limit.

She had counted seven shots and they were from two separate guns so the guard was also in there. One of them was the unmistakable yap of a Norinco nineteen-eleven and that was the gun she had seen in the guard's holster when she first left Bidaya's room. He had fired four of the shots which meant he had three rounds remaining. The other gun sounded like a Beretta M9 and if he was using a standard magazine Bidaya had twelve rounds left.

Her pistol was lying behind her and she rolled past the door and retrieved it. She flexed her right trigger finger and it felt stiff from the recoil. That was of no great concern because she was equally proficient with both hands but it meant that if she was going into the room with the gun in her left hand she needed to stay to the right of the door.

With her left foot she kicked the door wide and stepped away from it. Five more bullets hit the wall behind her in rapid succession and two of them were from the Norinco. The guard had one round remaining.

Her left eye had cleared completely but she left the monocular over her right eye and tightened the strap. She always felt more comfortable when it was over the eye opposite to her gun hand.

The time was down to six minutes and fourteen seconds but she had her plan. After a slow deep breath she silently mouthed, "Here I go."

She entered the room crouching low and at a run. The position of every piece of furniture had been memorised and she wanted to be close to the table where she had seen a bottle and glasses. She knew both men would be behind the heavy desk because there was nowhere else for them to hide. The obvious place for each would be behind one of the separate drawer pedestals.

She fired a single shot on the run to keep their heads down and then launched herself in a dive to the right and flattened herself to the carpet. She finished in the perfect position and the small table was directly above her. She reached up and removed the bottle.

In the tense silence that followed she waited twenty valuable seconds to stretch their nerves to the limit, and then tossed the bottle through the gap under the centre of the desk.

When it clattered through to the other side the result was inevitable. To the men something almost certainly dangerous had arrived and their instinctive reaction was to back away from it.

Bella was at forty-five degrees to the desk and when the guard lurched back in panic she had a clear view of him. She fired twice into his upper body and he slumped onto his back and remained motionless. Although she had no doubt that Bidaya would also have jumped back in alarm he was still hidden from sight.

Just four minutes and eighteen seconds were remaining.

Keeping low she moved silently forward until she reached the front right of the desk and crouched on one knee. In the local language she said, "Hello Mister Bidaya, this is Miss Henderson and I've come to continue where we left off."

Until that moment he would not have known the identity of his assailant and her purpose was to disorientate him with the shocking realisation.

The most strategic position is to be behind a quarry so she moved silently across to the other end of the desk and around to his side. In the lens she saw him on his knees staring blindly in the dark towards the direction that he had last heard her voice.

A kill must always be effected without hesitation when a clear opportunity is presented, but for the first time she disobeyed that rule.

His gun arm was extended ready to fire and her foot lashed into it above the elbow. His pistol disappeared into the darkness and clattered against a wall. Her stiffened left hand chopped into the side of his neck and he fell to his right. With her full weight she put her right knee into the small of his back and levered up his right arm beyond its maximum elevation. He screamed in agony when the tendons snapped as it was ripped from its socket.

She spoke quietly. "Before I put an end to your evil life I just want you to know that I have taken a personal dislike to you and obliterating your existence will give me great satisfaction. Maybe it's the knowledge that you have destroyed the lives of many children when I can't have any of my own. Whatever the reason it really doesn't matter."

His muffled voice pleaded, "I can make you rich just tell me how much you want?"

"Unfortunately you won't live long enough to discover that I have already hacked your bank accounts and drained them into mine."

With venom in her voice she spat, "It would give me malicious pleasure to stay and inflict more pain upon you but sadly there isn't enough time."

She stepped back and squeezed the trigger twice.

As she strode towards the cover of the trees, the clock in her head continued to tick and she murmured, "Three, two, one, bang."

The flashes from behind cast a long shadow of her and a millisecond later the silence was rent as four mines detonated in unison. Each one had been placed at the foot of a load bearing wall and she turned to watch the house slowly collapse inwards. As the gas main ignited, a yellow flame leapt above the dust cloud and illuminated her expressionless face.

She turned and disappeared into the darkness.

******************************

Martin opened his door of his apartment and Bella stepped past him with, "Pour me a large vodka Darling I'm going to take a shower."

As she walked away he enquired, "What did he say when you saw him?"

"He offered to make me rich."

Martin poured the vodka and placed the glass on a side table. He thought for a moment and then tipped some whisky into a glass for himself. He walked to the bathroom door carrying his glass and raised his voice above the hiss of the shower. "Why did he say that?"

"I think it was because he wanted to stay alive."

"And is he still alive?"

"No."

He froze and stood motionless. His hand clenched tightly around the glass and he raised it to his lips to gulp down some of the scotch. He returned to the lounge and sat down slowly. When Bella came in he was staring into space without expression.

A towel was wrapped around her when she settled into the sofa opposite him. She reached for the vodka and a third of it disappeared with one swallow before she sighed and said, "Now I feel better."

Then with an impish smile, "As I am naked under this towel it would be fun if you came over here and did naughty things to me."

Martin stared at her in disbelief and gasped, "Are you asking me to make love to you when you've just killed a man?"

"Several actually."

"You killed others as well? Jesus Christ I'm sorry but I can't handle this. I'm just an ordinary guy living in an ordinary world but you don't come from this planet. You're a beautiful sexy girl but I couldn't get it up right now if you pumped me full of Viagra. You scare the shit out of me, but what frightens me most is that I am now an accessory to fucking murder."

Bella gazed at him with a calm expression and replied, "In the first place they weren't murders they were executions. And secondly the trail is cold and you know nothing about it. I'm sorry that you've lost a client but you can keep all the money."

She took another sip from her glass before continuing, "Let me explain something to you. There are two of me. This is the real me and the one that disposed of Bidaya and his merry men was the other me. The other me doesn't love and doesn't hate and has no soul; she is just a machine that has been programmed to kill without emotion or fear. Each me is an entirely separate entity and they are never in this body at the same time.

The real me needs to be loved just like any female. Please Martin I've had a hard day's night and I desperately need someone to love me."

Martin's mind was churning in confusion because he became aware that the bizarre situation was thrilling him. He was in the company of a beautiful young female who was appealing for his affection, and yet she was a cold blooded killer. He was frightened of her but at the same time she excited him.

He arose from his chair and crossed over to hers. As he settled beside her she placed her hand on his cheek and turned his head so that their lips were close. She murmured, "Forget about the other me, she's gone back to Hades and she won't disturb us."

Her mouth closed over his and as she kissed him she dropped the towel from her breasts. She drew back far enough to whisper, "I love having my tits played with."

He raised his hand to gently cup a breast and her nipple was a firm protrusion pressing into the palm of his hand. He caressed it gently and she gave a tiny gasp. A beautiful girl who was capable of killing him with her bare hands was sexually aroused by his touch.

She leaned further back and it was an invitation to nuzzle her breasts. He took each hard nipple into his mouth in turn, sucking and gently nipping with his teeth and she breathed, "That feels nice."

The towel was across her lap and he tossed it away and placed a hand on her thigh. Her legs opened invitingly and his fingers crept upwards and gently twirled in her pubic hair. The scent of bath oil was mixing with the acrid aroma that was arising from her impatient vagina and he greedily sucked in the animal smell.

He felt her hand pull at his zip and delve inside and she withdrew his stiffened penis.

Her thighs opened wider and she moved her hips impatiently as she waited for him to caress her tingling crevice, but he continued to move his fingers around it. He looked down and her engorged vaginal lips were protruding with excitement. She muttered, "If you don't stop teasing me and stick your fingers in my cunt soon I'm going to rip your dick out by its roots."

He decided not to test her threat and slid his finger into the sopping folds and searched for the sensitive spot. He found the tiny rough area on her vaginal wall and caressed it gently with the tip of his forefinger. She reacted instantly and arched backwards with a groaning, "Oh yes."

He continued to finger the spot and bent his head so he could suck a nipple at the same time. Bella was squirming in ecstasy and released his penis to clutch his wrist with both hands. Her voice was uneven as she pleaded desperately, "Don't make me come, I don't want to come yet," and then in a shriller tone, "Oh fuck it's too late so don't you dare stop."

From the back of her throat came a desperate moan and Martin felt her drenched hole tighten on his finger as her body jerked and twisted with delicious agony. Her orgasm lasted several seconds but eventually she slumped limply in the chair. Martin withdrew his finger carefully and as he did so Bella lifted it to her lips and sucked the stickiness from it.

Her eyes were heavy and black when she said softly, "You certainly know your way around a girl's pussy. You must have had a good education."

"My wife was born in this country."

His answer was sufficient and she gave a satisfied nod. She had recovered her composure and announced, "One of us seems to have too many clothes on so kindly remove all of yours."

He stripped quickly and Bella got on her knees and shuffled between his legs. He still had an erection and she surveyed it admiringly. "You certainly weren't at the back of the queue when they were handing these out."

Martin closed his eyes as her tongue slithered down and around his stiff organ and the situation quickly became critical. Bella was aware of it and lifted her head to say, "Okay the choice is yours; missionary, doggy, up against the wall, you name it."

He replied in a calm voice, "I'd like to rape you."

Bella blinked in surprise and Martin saw that for the first time she was lost for a reply. Eventually she said, "Do you think I will let you?"

"I was hoping you might co-operate and promise not to kill me."

In a chiding tone she said, "So rape is your fantasy you naughty man."

Martin replied indignantly, "No it isn't, but you raped me and I'd like to get even."

She stared at him in silence for several seconds, and then her expression slowly changed from confident to one of apprehension. From her kneeling position she sat down on her bottom and began to shuffle away from him. Her voice was tremulous when she whimpered, "Why are you looking at me like that? I'd like to go home now, please let me go home?"

Martin climbed to his feet and stood over her. She was cowering away from him so convincingly that for the first time he felt in control. He put a snarl into his voice and growled, "Open your legs and show me your cunt."

She was still shuffling backwards with her knees pressed tightly together and pleaded, "I don't want to and please don't hurt me. Let me go home and I won't tell anybody about this."

Martin was beginning to enjoy himself and knelt in front of her. This time his voice was menacing when he said, "I told you to open your fucking legs so open them."

She continued to back away from him until she came up against the other sofa and could go no further. Her knees were still pressed tightly together as she whined, "I thought you were a nice man, why are you being so horrible?"