Angel and the Assassin: Be Brave

watch and got up. Mattie walked quickly
    at his side. Kael shortened his stride to accommodate her but kept moving quickly.
    “We‟ll go back to the car. You‟ll drive us back to the house. I‟ll show you the access

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    Fyn Alexander

    road around the wall and where to wait. I anticipate being in the house no more
    than twenty minutes. The only way to get the target out of the house is to
    tranquilize him, which I‟ll do, just enough to make him look drunk but still able to
    walk. You‟ll be ready to drive when I bring him through the gate in the wall.
    Understood?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “If anything looks like it‟s going pear-shaped, you‟ll get yourself out of there,
    make contact with your handler, and try to get home. What I do is none of your
    business. Take care of yourself.”
    “I wish you were straight,” she said quietly.
    Kael stopped walking, grabbed her by the arm, and looked down at the young
    woman. He was not flattered by the remark. He was angry. “Even if I was, I would
    never fuck a subordinate colleague. And remarks like that negate my sexuality,
    which is an integral part of my identity. I have never wished to be straight or
    wished anyone else was queer like me. My sexuality is not flexible, nor is it up for
    discussion.”
    “Oh God,” she moaned. “I am so sorry, sir. It‟s just that you‟ve made a few
    jokes about being gay, so I thought—”
    “I can take a joke like anyone else, and I can make a few about myself if I want
    to. But you weren‟t joking, were you?”
    “No, sir. I‟m sorry.”
    “Let‟s go.”
    In the car she continued, “Sir, that was a really stupid thing to say, and if I
    could take it back, I would.”
    “Well, you can‟t. Now shut up.”
    Mattie put the car into drive, and they left the village. “Sir. I was so stupid,
    I—”
    “Shut up and drive,” Kael said firmly.

    * * *
    The house was lit up. Music and loud voices could be heard all the way out to

    the dark, winding country road. The sweeping driveway was lined with expensive
    cars. Anyone driving past the beautiful mansion would assume a sophisticated
    party was in progress, entertaining the French elite. Who would know that sex
    slaves trafficked and threatened with violence and death were servicing men who
    should be home with their families?
    Kael instructed Mattie to drive along the access lane to the first gate in the
    wall. “Twenty minutes,” he said and exited the car. Carefully he pushed open the
    gate. It seemed no one had seen the broken lock and attempted to repair it. Settling
    into the comfortable guise of a partygoer who belonged there, he strolled toward the
    house.

    Angel and the Assassin: Be Brave

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    The party spilled out onto the wide veranda at the rear, where he had decided
    to enter. Two men speaking French were shouting at a couple of young women who
    didn‟t understand them.
    “What do the shits want?” one woman asked the other in Russian.
    The men raised their voices as if volume could overcome a language barrier.
    Kael walked right up onto the veranda as though he had been for a stroll around
    the garden. The men wore tuxedos, but still he was not out of place in his smart, all-
    black clothes. He had no choice but to walk about openly in the crowd if he was to
    locate Clement and get him out of there.
    Quietly in Russian, he said to the women, “They want you to strip.”
    “Fucking snail munchers,” one of them said and began to remove her clothes.
    The other one looked frightened and very reluctantly began to copy her friend.
    Kael walked past them into the house. Everywhere he looked there were men,
    mostly in evening dress, but some more casually attired like himself. Champagne
    bottles stood on every table for the men to help themselves. The air reeked of
    cigarettes and marijuana. Sitting on a beautiful brocade couch, two men were
    snorting lines of cocaine and forcing a young woman to do the same. “Come on. It‟ll
    loosen you up, frigid bitch.”
    Anger rose up, surprising Kael. Drugs were risky at the best of times, and he
    would never insult his physical integrity by using them. Drugs in a sexual situation
    caused people to behave in ways that were extremely dangerous, and what these
    women were suffering already was bad enough. The men and the girls were too
    distracted to notice him, but he still used the same self-effacing techniques he‟d
    used on the street.
    Clement was not in the room.
    Kael walked slowly, as though