[inception] till death do us part [4/9]
‘Till Death Do Us Part (And Somehow That Seems To Be Sooner Than Expected)
Part IV: from this day forward
[masterpost]
<< [to have and to hold] previous
On Sunday evening, Arthur tells Eames he’s going to visit his parents on Monday. And Eames, in turn, tells him he’ll be going to meet the client who has the Andy Warhol paintings too. They spend the rest of the evening packing. Arthur takes care to lock his study when he packs some of his guns and gadgets for the upcoming job. His boss had said that it is a very important one and he expects Arthur to do it cleanly, and quickly. The job is scheduled to commence on Tuesday and Arthur has already started to gather as much information he can with Ariadne’s help. But he can’t do anything much until he gets into his office tomorrow and start the full research.
Eames, Arthur notes, spends a lot of time on the phone and seems to be holing himself up in his study for the remainder of the night. Arthur doesn’t think much about it when he catches Yusuf’s name as Eames passes by him, talking quickly into the phone. As far as he knows, Yusuf is Eames’ closest friend, and also his partner in managing the art gallery. The guy seems to not like Arthur so much, though.
Arthur wakes up early in the morning to find Eames already hustling and bustling around the kitchen, preparing a quick breakfast of eggs and bacon, his duffle bag already waiting by the kitchen door. Arthur discreetly brings his two suitcases-one is filled with a sniper rifle and a couple of guns, the other with clothes-into the kitchen and says he’s going to bring some work to do while he’s in his parents’ house when Eames asks why the luggage.
They eat breakfast in peaceful calmness, with only the sound of the small TV showing the morning news in the background.
Arthur takes off first, after giving Eames a quick, dry, and dispassionate peck on the cheek. It’s just for a show, Arthur tells himself, as he drives his car out of their garage with Eames waving in the background, telling him not to forget to send his regards to his parents and bring some souvenirs. Arthur huffs and shakes his head. Really, he doubt he could get Eames any decent souvenir, though, considering where he’s heading-not to his so called ‘parents’ house’ that’s for sure.
Then again, perhaps he could take some detour when he comes back home and get his husband a keychain or something.
--
After watching Arthur driving off, Eames then takes care of his own ‘business meeting’. Forget Andy Warhol, assassination is an art on a whole new different level.
Truly, the call some nights ago from his boss could not have a better timing. He’s itching for a mission, a nice and challenging mission. The one he has just had some nights ago didn’t count. It’s not really challenging to kill some drunken guy who could not even give him a good fight. Well, he had some satisfaction shooting those guys but that’s beside the point.
The new mission seems promising. And, damn, he’s getting giddy just thinking about it. He tells himself that the giddiness he’s feeling is coming from the anticipation of the new job, and not-definitely not-from how Arthur had planted a dry peck on his cheek before leaving. Because it would be so pathetic.
His giddiness turns down a notch as he thinks about it.
He scowls at nothing in particular and then shoves his hands into his pockets, turning back into the kitchen. He takes a sip of the lukewarm tea and goes to the oven, switches it to ‘CLEAN’ and waits a full ten seconds until the oven beeps. He taps a series of numbers on the touchpad before pulling the door open.
With a small hiss, the base of the oven slowly rises revealing the sleek silver alloy armoury box that a good friend of his had made and installed for him when he and Arthur first moved into this house. He watches and thinks about which weapons he’s going to bring with him as the drawers slides open one by one. The three lower drawers are keeping his small daggers set and two kinds of mini revolver sets. The middle drawer is where he keeps the larger dagger sets. He takes a pair. The upper two drawers are holding some of his most prized firearms. Two pairs of nickel H&K pistols, and a set of magazines and some .38 calibre bullets.
After getting all the weapons he needs, Eames then proceeds to go to his car and drives to the headquarters of the agency, whistling as he wonders if Yusuf has already gotten all the information they need for the job.
--
“Robert Fischer,” Arthur says aloud as he studies the profile of his newest target that Ariadne has just given him. “He doesn’t seem dangerous.” In fact, Robert Fischer looks like he couldn’t even kill an ant.
“Looks could be deceiving,” Ariadne says and Arthur smiles.
“Indeed,” he says. He turns his face to look at Ariadne. “Tell me about this guy.”
“You have everything that you need to know in there,” Ariadne gestures to the files in Arthur’s hands. “He’s with the FBI now so the mission is pretty… delicate. Our source has informed us about the route of the convoy that he will take. We’re planning to intercept him when he’s passing one of the more deserted streets.”
Arthur frowns, still studying the material in his hands. “An open convoy?” he asks, rising an eyebrow over the information. “Is the FBI losing their brains?”
Ariadne shrugs. “They seem to think it’s safe enough. And it is said that there’ll be a switch after they leave the deserted buildings area. We only have one chance.”
“So, long distance shooting for Mr. Fischer, I take?”
“Preferably,” Ariadne agrees with him. “Our client did ask us to maintain the least possible amount of exposure with our target.”
“I see,” Arthur says. In his mind, he’s already considering which one of his many weapons that might be best to do the job. He loves doing long distance shooting. It’s less messy than fistfight, that’s for sure. And Arthur loves being tidy.
“We will leave tomorrow morning,” Ariadne says. “So please prepare yourself. And good luck.”
Arthur closed the file shut and places in on his lap. Smiling to Ariadne, he says, “This mission will be fun, I just know it.”
--
Meanwhile, Eames is having similar conversation with Yusuf, regarding a similar mission and, surprisingly, a similar target.
“Robert Fischer,” Eames says, studying the profile on Yusuf’s computer screen. “That’s one funny name. He seems fishy too.”
Yusuf stares at him weirdly. “Could you please try to focus on the mission at hand and save your criticizing of the poor guy’s name for later?”
“Don’t be so stiff. And the guy is not poor, see,” Eames points at the information displayed on screen, “according to this, he’s pretty rich. Who is he anyway?”
“Yeah, but any amount of richness isn’t going to help him escape his death at your hands,” Yusuf says.
Eames pretends to preen at the indirect praise. “Why, Yusuf, you sure know how to flatter a guy.”
“Shut it,” Yusuf simply says. “I’ll print this information on the guy and I’ll give it to you. The mission is scheduled for tomorrow, ten a.m. when the guy will be crossing the street with his party, which includes those pesky guys from FBI, I’m afraid.”
“It only adds to the flavour,” Eames says. He leans back to his chair and grins. “This mission will be fun, I just know it.”
He doesn’t know that at nearly the same time, across the city, Arthur is saying the very same thing. If he knows then perhaps he would get some suspicion, or at least intuition, of how ‘interesting’ his mission will turn out to be.
--
Arthur might not be a real architect but he could still appreciate nice architecture when he sees one. And as he’s standing against the window on the top floor of an old building abandoned, waiting for his target to show up, he spares a bit of his precious time to appreciate the view.
There’s just something in the scenery-some old dilapidated buildings reaching up to the sky-that touches his heart. He wonders if Eames might appreciate the view too if he was there with him, after all, his husband is an art curator. Then he firmly tells his brain to shut up, because… really, he can’t start thinking about his husband when he’s in mission. It’s a sure death trap.
Arthur snaps his attention back to the street under him. His source has notified him that it’s very likely that the convoy that holds his target would pass through that street in-he checks his watch-approximately ten minutes from now. He taps the throat mike strapped around his neck. “In position. Give me a situation report. Perimeter check,” he says into the mike. He waits as there’s a rustle of static in his earphone.
“Perimeter is clear. Target is approaching in four twenty two seconds,” Ariadne says.
And Arthur waits.
--
Eames kicks the door open and walks to the edge of the building, head hopping into the beat of the music blaring from his iPod. He pushes up his black shades and adjusts his cap. He looks around and up the area, assessing the situation. The sky is perfectly clear and it’s not so windy. He has clear vision of the road and there will be no problem spotting good ol’ Mr. Fischer.
He kicks the briefcase he’s brought; it skids right to the edge of the roof. He takes off the iPod earphone and switches it with a wireless earphone that’s connected to his phone. Yusuf picks up after the first ring.
“How much longer?” Eames asks, taking his time to unwrap a bubblegum candy he brought just to have something to do with his mouth. He pops the square pink square into his mouth.
“Five minutes,” Yusuf answers shortly. “And please stop munching on that bubblegum, Eames. You’re working.” And then he hangs up.
Eames pouts at the phone and he shrugs. He blows a bubble and pops it before spitting it out. He replaces the bubblegum with a toothpick. He’s not nervous, really. It’s just that he can’t not do anything with his mouth. He has stopped smoking four years ago, and Yusuf has never approved of eating while working-or in the case just now, munching on bubblegum-so he only has the toothpick to occupy his oral fixation. It’s just to kill some of the boredom as he waits for the convoy to arrive.
--
Arthur checks the Heckler & Koch G3SG/1 sniper rifle he’ll be using for the job, making sure it works perfectly. He takes the digital binoculars-wired in to his laptop on the side, sending the surveillance record back to the office in New York via satellite-and looks around the vicinity, waiting for his target to appear. The waiting part was the element that he both loves and detests in the whole assassination business. He loves it, because it gives him the thrill-to be alert and on guards for the perfect time to strike. But he also detests it because… well, it gets boring.
Arthur’s travelling gaze suddenly catches sight of movement and he feels himself go rigid. He fiddles with a couple of buttons and the binoculars zoom in.
Focusing his gaze, he becomes aware that there’s someone walking on top of the building across the road. He takes notice of the man-he’s pretty sure that the stranger is a male, judging from his posture-and feels like cursing.
A civilian, he thinks. What the fuck is a civilian doing there? Why hasn’t his team cleaned up the area? Sure, the area is a public one but it’s his playground for the moment. No civilian should be there.
“Damn,” Arthur curses softly.
“What?” Ariadne asks. “Problem?”
“There’s a civilian in our perimeter,” Arthur says, moving the binoculars into the man’s general direction and zooms in. “Are you getting this?”
“Affirmative. Could just be a birdwatcher.”
Arthur’s not so sure about that. He keeps eying the man’s movement through the binoculars. The man is hunched over something black and square, Arthur can’t really make out what it is.
Then he sees the commotion from the far end of the road and realizes that his target’s party is close to crossing over the street. And the man is still there, now standing in the shadow.
Fischer’s convoy is advancing ever so steadily and Arthur finds himself having an internal debate. He’s an assassin, true, but he’s never one to take innocent bystanders.
--
Eames fishes out a pair of binoculars from the briefcase and looks down to the road, where he sees a cloud of dust rising from the corner of the street.
“What is he? Royalty?” he mumbles to himself as he sees the convoy nearing-just a shy two hundreds metres away. It is time for the job to commence.
He takes out the Blaser R93 LRS2 sniper rifle out of the briefcase. He quickly assembles the aimpoint and the bipod stand, places it right over the edge of the roof and starts scouting the area.
That’s when he notices him--a dark silhouette standing against the window near the emergency staircase on the top floor of the opposite building, watching over Fischer’s procession through a pair of binoculars. He clicks his tongue and uses the rifle’s aimpoint to take a clearer look of the man. There’s nothing much to see as the man is partially hidden behind the window, but Eames can make out the shirt and black tie. And the rifle perched on the window, pointed directly to where the convoy is coming any moment.
Thinking it must be one of the FBI’s scouts, Eames points his rifle to the direction of the window and prepares to eradicate the intruder. It wouldn’t do to have someone shooting you after you’re finished doing your job after all.
--
As Arthur’s busy with his contemplation, he watches Fischer’s convoy getting into the perfect place for his execution. He curses and leaps to his spot behind the rifle. He can’t do it here. He can’t endanger the civilian. He must…
Then he sees the ‘civilian’ move. He sees him holding something that resembles a sniper rifle. He sees the ‘civilian’ point the weapon to his general direction and his eyes go wide.
“Fuck,” he curses, not caring if his voice might be carried by the wind. “Ariadne. Ariadne! Not a civilian!”
Just great. Whoever told him to get concerned with the civilian’s live anyway? He’s not even some fucking innocent and he’s now pointing his weapon at him and, God, can’t he be any stupider and Fischer’s party are advancing and someone’s trying to kill him.
He’s still holding his weapon in his hands. He could shoot Fischer now and risks being shot by the fucker. He could shoot the fucker and risks missing the time to shoot Fischer.
At times like that, self preservation wins and Arthur finds that his hand is already trained to aim for a shot toward the not-so-much-of-a-civilian. Without pausing even for a second, Arthur readies his rifle and shoots. Three times.
--
Eames is starting to think just which God he has managed to annoy today when pain blooms in his chest. Three times to boot. It’s not the first time he ever got shot when he’s doing mission but, God, having three points of impact against his bulletproof vest certainly hurts like hell.
Fucking sharpshooter!
He groans and curses more when he realises that the sound of the shot has alerted Fischer’s party to something fishy going on as the convoy starts moving faster.
Fuck, his chest hurts! Thankfully he still has enough common sense to wear a bulletproof vest under his shirt. He doesn’t dare imagine what would have happened if he didn’t wear one.
The mission obviously is not going to have a pretty end, Eames thinks as he tries to catch the sight of that sharpshooter who has just shot him. His eyes widens in surprise as he found him aiming his weapon at Fischer’s party. Well, fuck. Apparently, the man’s not an FBI scout. He’s out to kill Fischer too it seems.
“Tough luck, Mister,” Eames says with a grin. The guy might be a good sharpshooter. He might have shot him and taken him down, but he’s never-never-going to take his mark.
Eames takes one hand grenade from his fully supplied briefcase, pulls the pin and throws it to the building’s direction. He silently thanks his friends back in university days who kept on dragging him for some baseball practice. He hated the sport because it was just too American for him. Surprisingly, he has a talent in the pitching field.
The hand grenade flies directly into one of the windows of the top floor-just a couple of windows away from where the sharpshooter intruder is. The grenade explodes and all the windows of the top floor shatter. Eames watches how the guy ducks away-or blown away-from the explosion with glee, and in a moment of childish revenge, aims his rifle at where the annoying sharpshooter was standing before and shoots.
“Thank you for the shot,” he shouts to the air, and then he mutters, “Bloody arsehole.”
--
Arthur can only grab his rifle after the explosion. He keeps cursing under his breath and winces when he realises his right arm is bleeding. Cursing his luck, the fucking not-really-a-civilian, and the universe, Arthur crawls in the direction of the emergency exit. It wasn’t really a big explosion, but it’s enough to make the old building shake dangerously. He’s not going to waste any more time and he has to get out fast.
When he reaches the emergency exit, he stands up and jerks it open with one hand-his right hand cradling the rifle into his chest. He runs a quick escape route through his head and remembers Ariadne has said there will be a helicopter waiting on top of the building behind the one he’s in at the moment. Arthur’s jaw is clenched tight as he looks at the emergency stairs.
He gives the door a vicious kick to close it. He swears to himself as he runs down the emergency staircase, he will find out who the intruder is and make sure the guy will pay for what he has done. No one ruins Arthur’s mission and then lives to tell the tale.
“What do you mean there’s someone else?”
Eames downs the lukewarm coffee in one gulp and slams the cup down, almost shattering it to pieces. He doesn’t even like coffee and now he’s downing the cheap awful kind that Yusuf keeps in the back office of the gallery. That speaks quite clearly of how stressed he is. He spent the two hour journey back to New York bristling and replaying the botched up job over and over again in his mind.
“I told you someone else is after Fischer as well,” he says to Yusuf, peeling off his t-shirt and then the Kevlar vest. He throws them away not caring where they land. “Double commission. The boss didn’t tell me about this bloody double commission.”
He takes a bottle of mineral water from the fridge, making sure the content is indeed water and not one of Yusuf’s mysterious compounds. He needs to have Yusuf separates his compounds from all other drinkable substances in the fridge. If not, one day he could end up killing himself drinking a poison thinking it was water.
“A fucking sharpshooter too. Fuck!” he curses after he washes his throat from the awful taste of coffee with the water.
“You know who it is, then?” Yusuf asks.
“How can I bloody know?” Eames stomps towards the washroom at the back. “A shrimpy young looking man, that’s all I could make out.” He washes his face, fills one of the plastic cups on the porcelain basin and then leans over to pour the water onto his head.
“You’re saying you had your arse handed to you by a shrimpy kid?”
“I think so. But he’s a pro.”
“You’re a pro too. Uh and… Eames?” Yusuf suddenly calls out to him, his voice is muffled but Eames can still hear what he’s saying. “A message from Boss.”
Eames groans at that, or maybe it’s because he has just accidentally rubbed on the bruises on his chest and torso. “What is it?” He pokes on one of the bruises and winces. He hopes the bruises will fade soon and Arthur will take no notice of Eames wearing too much clothing in their bedroom when he usually never bothers to put on a shirt.
“It just says, ‘48 hours. Find and kill’,” Yusuf says when he comes out of the washroom, and gives him a look. “Well, did you get any other details on him other than he might be just a kid? I hope you know how to find that hitman, Eames. Boss never takes it well when a job fails.”
Eames raises an eyebrow to the statement. It is as if Yusuf underestimates his ability. “I’ve got a laptop,” he says, smirking.
“What?”
“Laptop.”
“I know you have a laptop, too many of them I must say, but…”
“Not mine! It’s the fucker’s.”
Yusuf looks at him over the top of his glasses, the look is accompanied by the unspoken question of ‘how?’. But Eames only gives him a smug smile. Yusuf doesn’t need to know that retrieving the laptop from under the debris almost killed Eames in the process. It’s almost unsalvageable but it’s the only thing Eames could get his hands on before the roof collapsed completely.
“And that helps you, how?”
“Time to give old boy Charlie a visit, eh?”
--
Arthur is pissed off. No, that is not the correct term to describe his current mood. He is furious beyond words. Never in his whole seven years career as the Organisation most deadly assassin has he ever failed in completing his mission. Not even during the earlier years. Yes, there are times when a job turns south and he ends up with a nasty gunshot, or broken bones, or gashing wounds. But he always finishes them. He never leaves any on-scene witnesses.
But this time his job has been jeopardised by another person, most definitely another assassin. The target is off the hook and now he has to find man who has caused all of this.
“I want to know who that person is and what he was doing on my patch,” Arthur seethes, “I want that fucking asshole dead. Find him!” Everyone in the office flinches and scrambles to start their search.
Arthur rips his covered-in-soot-and-blood shirt off and flings it away, leaving only his undershirt on. It was quite a scene when he jumped off the helicopter that had taken him from the site back to the roof of his office’s building, stomping his way down the emergency stairs to the thirtieth floor.
But Arthur doesn’t even care how everyone is staring at him at the moment. He knows how he looks like right now; his hair in disarray, nasty scrape on his left shoulder, a couple of inches long bloodied gash on his right forearm from where a splinter of glass from the explosion slashed it, and his face has a permanent scowl etched on it. He has lost his usual calm and collected demeanour. His head feels like it’s going to split in two and he can practically feel his blood boils to an alarming degree.
If he doesn’t find the intruder soon, he thinks he might start killing everyone in the vicinity. He paces back and forth from one table to another, barking out orders and demanding everyone to start to analyse all the records from his fucked up job. He may have lost all of his weapons and gadgets in the explosion but he still has the satellite recording.
He is just going to grab a seat and start analysing the last surveillance record, where he shot the intruder straight in the chest, when Ariadne drags him back again with two tiny hands on his shoulders. “No, Arthur, seriously! Stay still!”
Arthur winces as Ariadne dabs some disinfectant to his wound. Another girl whose name he doesn’t remember is stitching up the gash on his forearm. He doesn’t really care about his wounds at the moment but if left untreated they will leave even more prominent scars and Arthur will have to weave another bout of lies for Eames if he sees them, so he lets Ariadne do whatever she wants.
As Ariadne patches his wounds up, Arthur stares at the monitors replaying the surveillance records. The quality of the records is not as high as he wants it to be. It’s a little bit blurry and distorted at some sequences but he has to make do with what they have. Once they get a clear face, Arthur will be able to use all of his sources and information database to track the bastard down.
“Arthur…”
Arthur doesn’t respond, his eyes are still locked firmly on the screen, showing the faceless intruder.
“Arthur!”
“What?” he snaps, shooting icy glares to Ariadne. Ariadne doesn’t flinch but she looks unimpressed with his snapping. She is young, too young to be in the business-which is why Arthur has requested her to be his assistant before throwing her head first into the field-but she is a brave one.
“It’s Father,” she says, handing him a cell phone.
Arthur grits his teeth and takes a deep breath, readying himself for his boss’ wrath. He takes the phone from Ariadne and answers it. “The FBI secured the package, sir. There’s another player.”
“Then you know what you should do, Arthur. You know the rules.”
“Yes, I know.”
“We do not leave witnesses. Clean the scene, Arthur. Clean the scene.”
“I am already on it.” He glares at others who are staring at him.
“You have forty eight hours,” his boss says. “Remember, forty eight hours, Arthur. Don’t disappoint me.”
The ‘or you know what the consequence is’ is not spoken but implied quite heavily. Arthur never knows what fate awaits an assassin who fails to do their job, because he has never failed before. Whatever it is, Arthur doesn’t want to know.
“Yes, sir.”
As soon as he said that, the line is cut off and he snaps the phone shut, giving it back to Ariadne. He looks around, let out a sigh warily and snaps at everyone, “We have a new target. Let’s find out who he is.”
--
Charlie is one of Eames’ oldest acquaintances in New York City. He’s a master hacker, tech geek, and the one Eames turns to whenever he has problems with the gadgets he uses for his job. Charlie is also the one who customised Eames’ kitchen and installed all the hidden compartments and cabinets. So Eames thinks Charlie will be the very best person who can help him with the laptop he found.
The bored look on Charlie’s face when Eames arrives in his little den at downtown New York with the laptop isn’t surprising however. They may have a sort of tight friendship after almost eight years of knowing each other, but Charlie never really likes it when Eames asks for his help because more often than not, it always involves the Company. If he can help it, Charlie will never want to have any business with a group of assassins.
“What now?” Charlie yawns, still typing quickly when Eames enters his working space. “Need help with your toys again?”
Eames sighs dramatically as he plops himself down on the rickety chair in front of Charlie’s desk. “Have you met Arthur?” he asks as he puts down the bag with the laptop on the desk.
“Your snobbish husband? Just that one time when I installed that oven in your kitchen. Why?”
“Because I think his sarcasm has rubbed off on you.”
“Tch! Makes me wonder how you could survive five years of marriage without him killing you then.”
Eames doesn’t dignify it with a response and just pulls out the wreck of a laptop. “Help me out with this?”
“What in God’s name have you done to this piece of crap?” Charlie asks, flabbergasted at the state of the laptop on his table.
Eames shrugs, “Bonfire?”
“Bloody hell, Eames.” Charlie picks the laptop and squints at its state. “Even I can’t repair this shit.”
“No, no, I’m not asking you to repair it,” Eames says, waving to a girl passing over the door who he recognises as one of Charlie’s assistants. “Just give me anything you can get from this.”
“There’s nothing I can get from this.” Charlie has already started to pick apart the laptop, separating the pieces of broken case from the motherboard. “It’s burnt to a crisp and it’s clean. No serials.” He plucks a piece of chip from the remnants of the laptop and uses a magnifying glass to check it. “Whoever built it really wanted it to be untraceable.”
Eames bites his lower lip and scowls. “Shit…”
Charlie raises an eyebrow to Eames and shakes his head. “I said they wanted it to be untraceable. I didn’t say it was.” He shows the small chip to Eames and grins. “Extra RAM module. And it’s been upgraded.”
“Excuse me, but you know the reason why I come to you is because computer is never my strong subject. Translation?”
Charlie rolls his eyes, yet another quirk Eames recognises Arthur loves to use on him when he thinks Eames only pretends to be stupid. Charlie starts typing on his other computer after spending at least ten full seconds squinting at the chip. “Aha!” he exclaims suddenly.
Eames stands up from his seat and goes behind the desk to see what Charlie has gotten on his monitor.
“Chip’s Chinese, imported by Dynamix, New Jersey, retailed by Microworld, part number 090122,” Charlie reads. He taps another series of keys, and then some new lines of text appear. “Pulled up Microworld invoice from Talisman Anti-Theft network. It’s purchased on September ninth last year for eighty five dollars. Paid by AMEX blah blah blah. Now all you need is a billing address.”
Eames looks down to Charlie who doesn’t try too hard to hide his grin. “Well, can you get them then?”
“Couldn’t possibly. It’s illegal.”
“Fuck you!” Eames curses and shoves a hundred dollar bill into Charlie’s pocket.
“Business is business, mate.” Charlie starts tapping again and this time another tab appears. “Yep. Found it. Card’s registered to a company address. But no name. Here, see it yourself.” He sidles away to give Eames room so he can look closer.
Eames leans over and reads the lines of address on the monitor. It’s an upper town New York address and he has the feeling he has seen the address before. After noting down the address and giving Charlie another hundred dollar bill, Eames sets out to find the location.
After deiving around the New York city roads for half an hour, Eames finds the building where the address is located. He stands in front of it and gets a bad feeling about it. It’s the same building as Arthur’s architect firm. He knows Arthur’s office is located somewhere up in the thirty storey building and has visited a couple of times. But after a surprise visit gone wrong a couple of years ago (that resulted in Eames getting stuck in the elevator for three hours until the technician came to help him and Arthur had to postpone all his work that day to make sure his stupid spouse got out alive), Arthur forbid him from even enter the building.
Eames has no choice but to break the rule and steps into the building. He just has to be discreet and make sure he gets out before anyone from Arthur’s firm recognises him. He casually strolls in and goes straight to the information board where there’s a list of all the names of the companies and which floor their offices are located in the building. He pulls out the small note with the address from his pocket again and scans the board.
The address states it’s on the twenty-fifth floor of the building. His eyes turn to the bottom of the list and then back to the note again.
30th Floor 5503
On the board, 30th Floor 5503 belongs to one architect firm. With the name Arthur E. as the owner.
Eames can feel the headache starting to bloom from the back of his head and faintly, a small tugging in his chest that he will never admit [to] as the feeling of his heart cracking slowly.
“Fuckfuckfuck!” he grunts as he fishes out his mobile phone quickly and enters a series of number. He just hopes this is all just a coincidence and Arthur has nothing to do with everything that has happened.
--
Mal knows everything. She was one of the best information gatherers of The Organisation, until she decided looking for information on how to raise a baby was far worth her time than ruining someone’s life by providing information on what’s the best way to kill them. While Cobb was the one who taught Arthur how to not break any rules he had created himself (Arthur always wonders how Dom could survive ten years in the business without cracking himself up in the head with all the crazy stunts he did before he married Mal), it was Mal who taught Arthur how to dig deeply into a person’s life and end it in the most effective and efficient way.
So it is not a surprise when Arthur gets a call from her in the middle of going through the dossiers about Robert Fischer for the nth time, trying to figure out any loopholes. It seems, this time, she got the information about Arthur’s failure from Ariadne (who has once told him Mal is her idol).
“Are you sure you are all right, Arthur?”
“Yes, I am. And please, tell Dom to not pull himself out of retirement just because of a botched job, Mal. I can handle it.”
“You really sure about that? This is the first time, right?”
“Yes, it is. But it doesn’t mean I can’t handle it. I have it under control.”
Arthur hears Mal sighs on the line and can make out James’ gurgle. “Don’t worry about it, okay?” he assures Mal. “I’ll get the job done in no time.” He waves the girl who is analysing one of the surveillance tapes away and sits on her seat, starting to tap a series of keys; the screen now shows the recording from three different angles and another one with the recording from his binocular.
“And how about Eames? You sure he won’t be suspicious of your injuries and you being out in the office for three full days?”
“It’s okay,” he says absently, still going over the record from one screen to another and “He’s on a trip trying to get his hands on some Andy War-”
Arthur pauses and leans closer to the screen, eyes fixed close to the footage from the binoculars. The image is blurry but he can make out the man’s profile.
“Arthur, are you still there?”
“I’m… I’m going to call you later, Mal,” Arthur says to Mal before shutting his phone and starts to work on the footage. He zooms in the image and tries to make the image clearer. The bastard’s wearing a bright orange shirt with hideous pattern, a cap, and the black shades that cover his eyes so Arthur can only look at half his face. His eyebrow raises when he sees the man’s lips start move and seem to be chewing on something as he procures a sniper rifle Arthur recognises as Blaser R93 LRS2.
The footage ends at that because that was the moment Arthur realised he was not a civilian. He replays it again, and again, and concentrates on the man’s every movement. He is so engrossed in his own thoughts and wondering of how he thinks he has seen those pair of distracting lips and weirdly familiar gloves before that he doesn’t realise Ariadne has been calling his name.
“Arthur!” Ariadne shouts loudly, breaking Arthur from his thoughts though he still doesn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“What…?”
“It’s your husband.”
Arthur blinks. He looks away from the screen to Ariadne, who is holding up a phone.
“Eames says he’s back from his trip and asks you what time you’ll get back for dinner.”
Once again Arthur turns back to the screen, thinking and wondering if it’s really possible. He looks at the blurry profile again, the more he sees it, the more he thinks he recognise the figure. “Tell him… Tell him I’m on my way and will be home at seven,” he says after a few moments of silence.
“You sure you want to go home in the middle of al-”
“Just tell him, Ariadne.”
Arthur closes his eyes and clenches his fist. This cannot be happening to him.
[for better for worse] next >>
Part IV: from this day forward
[masterpost]
<< [to have and to hold] previous
On Sunday evening, Arthur tells Eames he’s going to visit his parents on Monday. And Eames, in turn, tells him he’ll be going to meet the client who has the Andy Warhol paintings too. They spend the rest of the evening packing. Arthur takes care to lock his study when he packs some of his guns and gadgets for the upcoming job. His boss had said that it is a very important one and he expects Arthur to do it cleanly, and quickly. The job is scheduled to commence on Tuesday and Arthur has already started to gather as much information he can with Ariadne’s help. But he can’t do anything much until he gets into his office tomorrow and start the full research.
Eames, Arthur notes, spends a lot of time on the phone and seems to be holing himself up in his study for the remainder of the night. Arthur doesn’t think much about it when he catches Yusuf’s name as Eames passes by him, talking quickly into the phone. As far as he knows, Yusuf is Eames’ closest friend, and also his partner in managing the art gallery. The guy seems to not like Arthur so much, though.
Arthur wakes up early in the morning to find Eames already hustling and bustling around the kitchen, preparing a quick breakfast of eggs and bacon, his duffle bag already waiting by the kitchen door. Arthur discreetly brings his two suitcases-one is filled with a sniper rifle and a couple of guns, the other with clothes-into the kitchen and says he’s going to bring some work to do while he’s in his parents’ house when Eames asks why the luggage.
They eat breakfast in peaceful calmness, with only the sound of the small TV showing the morning news in the background.
Arthur takes off first, after giving Eames a quick, dry, and dispassionate peck on the cheek. It’s just for a show, Arthur tells himself, as he drives his car out of their garage with Eames waving in the background, telling him not to forget to send his regards to his parents and bring some souvenirs. Arthur huffs and shakes his head. Really, he doubt he could get Eames any decent souvenir, though, considering where he’s heading-not to his so called ‘parents’ house’ that’s for sure.
Then again, perhaps he could take some detour when he comes back home and get his husband a keychain or something.
--
After watching Arthur driving off, Eames then takes care of his own ‘business meeting’. Forget Andy Warhol, assassination is an art on a whole new different level.
Truly, the call some nights ago from his boss could not have a better timing. He’s itching for a mission, a nice and challenging mission. The one he has just had some nights ago didn’t count. It’s not really challenging to kill some drunken guy who could not even give him a good fight. Well, he had some satisfaction shooting those guys but that’s beside the point.
The new mission seems promising. And, damn, he’s getting giddy just thinking about it. He tells himself that the giddiness he’s feeling is coming from the anticipation of the new job, and not-definitely not-from how Arthur had planted a dry peck on his cheek before leaving. Because it would be so pathetic.
His giddiness turns down a notch as he thinks about it.
He scowls at nothing in particular and then shoves his hands into his pockets, turning back into the kitchen. He takes a sip of the lukewarm tea and goes to the oven, switches it to ‘CLEAN’ and waits a full ten seconds until the oven beeps. He taps a series of numbers on the touchpad before pulling the door open.
With a small hiss, the base of the oven slowly rises revealing the sleek silver alloy armoury box that a good friend of his had made and installed for him when he and Arthur first moved into this house. He watches and thinks about which weapons he’s going to bring with him as the drawers slides open one by one. The three lower drawers are keeping his small daggers set and two kinds of mini revolver sets. The middle drawer is where he keeps the larger dagger sets. He takes a pair. The upper two drawers are holding some of his most prized firearms. Two pairs of nickel H&K pistols, and a set of magazines and some .38 calibre bullets.
After getting all the weapons he needs, Eames then proceeds to go to his car and drives to the headquarters of the agency, whistling as he wonders if Yusuf has already gotten all the information they need for the job.
--
“Robert Fischer,” Arthur says aloud as he studies the profile of his newest target that Ariadne has just given him. “He doesn’t seem dangerous.” In fact, Robert Fischer looks like he couldn’t even kill an ant.
“Looks could be deceiving,” Ariadne says and Arthur smiles.
“Indeed,” he says. He turns his face to look at Ariadne. “Tell me about this guy.”
“You have everything that you need to know in there,” Ariadne gestures to the files in Arthur’s hands. “He’s with the FBI now so the mission is pretty… delicate. Our source has informed us about the route of the convoy that he will take. We’re planning to intercept him when he’s passing one of the more deserted streets.”
Arthur frowns, still studying the material in his hands. “An open convoy?” he asks, rising an eyebrow over the information. “Is the FBI losing their brains?”
Ariadne shrugs. “They seem to think it’s safe enough. And it is said that there’ll be a switch after they leave the deserted buildings area. We only have one chance.”
“So, long distance shooting for Mr. Fischer, I take?”
“Preferably,” Ariadne agrees with him. “Our client did ask us to maintain the least possible amount of exposure with our target.”
“I see,” Arthur says. In his mind, he’s already considering which one of his many weapons that might be best to do the job. He loves doing long distance shooting. It’s less messy than fistfight, that’s for sure. And Arthur loves being tidy.
“We will leave tomorrow morning,” Ariadne says. “So please prepare yourself. And good luck.”
Arthur closed the file shut and places in on his lap. Smiling to Ariadne, he says, “This mission will be fun, I just know it.”
--
Meanwhile, Eames is having similar conversation with Yusuf, regarding a similar mission and, surprisingly, a similar target.
“Robert Fischer,” Eames says, studying the profile on Yusuf’s computer screen. “That’s one funny name. He seems fishy too.”
Yusuf stares at him weirdly. “Could you please try to focus on the mission at hand and save your criticizing of the poor guy’s name for later?”
“Don’t be so stiff. And the guy is not poor, see,” Eames points at the information displayed on screen, “according to this, he’s pretty rich. Who is he anyway?”
“Yeah, but any amount of richness isn’t going to help him escape his death at your hands,” Yusuf says.
Eames pretends to preen at the indirect praise. “Why, Yusuf, you sure know how to flatter a guy.”
“Shut it,” Yusuf simply says. “I’ll print this information on the guy and I’ll give it to you. The mission is scheduled for tomorrow, ten a.m. when the guy will be crossing the street with his party, which includes those pesky guys from FBI, I’m afraid.”
“It only adds to the flavour,” Eames says. He leans back to his chair and grins. “This mission will be fun, I just know it.”
He doesn’t know that at nearly the same time, across the city, Arthur is saying the very same thing. If he knows then perhaps he would get some suspicion, or at least intuition, of how ‘interesting’ his mission will turn out to be.
--
Arthur might not be a real architect but he could still appreciate nice architecture when he sees one. And as he’s standing against the window on the top floor of an old building abandoned, waiting for his target to show up, he spares a bit of his precious time to appreciate the view.
There’s just something in the scenery-some old dilapidated buildings reaching up to the sky-that touches his heart. He wonders if Eames might appreciate the view too if he was there with him, after all, his husband is an art curator. Then he firmly tells his brain to shut up, because… really, he can’t start thinking about his husband when he’s in mission. It’s a sure death trap.
Arthur snaps his attention back to the street under him. His source has notified him that it’s very likely that the convoy that holds his target would pass through that street in-he checks his watch-approximately ten minutes from now. He taps the throat mike strapped around his neck. “In position. Give me a situation report. Perimeter check,” he says into the mike. He waits as there’s a rustle of static in his earphone.
“Perimeter is clear. Target is approaching in four twenty two seconds,” Ariadne says.
And Arthur waits.
--
Eames kicks the door open and walks to the edge of the building, head hopping into the beat of the music blaring from his iPod. He pushes up his black shades and adjusts his cap. He looks around and up the area, assessing the situation. The sky is perfectly clear and it’s not so windy. He has clear vision of the road and there will be no problem spotting good ol’ Mr. Fischer.
He kicks the briefcase he’s brought; it skids right to the edge of the roof. He takes off the iPod earphone and switches it with a wireless earphone that’s connected to his phone. Yusuf picks up after the first ring.
“How much longer?” Eames asks, taking his time to unwrap a bubblegum candy he brought just to have something to do with his mouth. He pops the square pink square into his mouth.
“Five minutes,” Yusuf answers shortly. “And please stop munching on that bubblegum, Eames. You’re working.” And then he hangs up.
Eames pouts at the phone and he shrugs. He blows a bubble and pops it before spitting it out. He replaces the bubblegum with a toothpick. He’s not nervous, really. It’s just that he can’t not do anything with his mouth. He has stopped smoking four years ago, and Yusuf has never approved of eating while working-or in the case just now, munching on bubblegum-so he only has the toothpick to occupy his oral fixation. It’s just to kill some of the boredom as he waits for the convoy to arrive.
--
Arthur checks the Heckler & Koch G3SG/1 sniper rifle he’ll be using for the job, making sure it works perfectly. He takes the digital binoculars-wired in to his laptop on the side, sending the surveillance record back to the office in New York via satellite-and looks around the vicinity, waiting for his target to appear. The waiting part was the element that he both loves and detests in the whole assassination business. He loves it, because it gives him the thrill-to be alert and on guards for the perfect time to strike. But he also detests it because… well, it gets boring.
Arthur’s travelling gaze suddenly catches sight of movement and he feels himself go rigid. He fiddles with a couple of buttons and the binoculars zoom in.
Focusing his gaze, he becomes aware that there’s someone walking on top of the building across the road. He takes notice of the man-he’s pretty sure that the stranger is a male, judging from his posture-and feels like cursing.
A civilian, he thinks. What the fuck is a civilian doing there? Why hasn’t his team cleaned up the area? Sure, the area is a public one but it’s his playground for the moment. No civilian should be there.
“Damn,” Arthur curses softly.
“What?” Ariadne asks. “Problem?”
“There’s a civilian in our perimeter,” Arthur says, moving the binoculars into the man’s general direction and zooms in. “Are you getting this?”
“Affirmative. Could just be a birdwatcher.”
Arthur’s not so sure about that. He keeps eying the man’s movement through the binoculars. The man is hunched over something black and square, Arthur can’t really make out what it is.
Then he sees the commotion from the far end of the road and realizes that his target’s party is close to crossing over the street. And the man is still there, now standing in the shadow.
Fischer’s convoy is advancing ever so steadily and Arthur finds himself having an internal debate. He’s an assassin, true, but he’s never one to take innocent bystanders.
--
Eames fishes out a pair of binoculars from the briefcase and looks down to the road, where he sees a cloud of dust rising from the corner of the street.
“What is he? Royalty?” he mumbles to himself as he sees the convoy nearing-just a shy two hundreds metres away. It is time for the job to commence.
He takes out the Blaser R93 LRS2 sniper rifle out of the briefcase. He quickly assembles the aimpoint and the bipod stand, places it right over the edge of the roof and starts scouting the area.
That’s when he notices him--a dark silhouette standing against the window near the emergency staircase on the top floor of the opposite building, watching over Fischer’s procession through a pair of binoculars. He clicks his tongue and uses the rifle’s aimpoint to take a clearer look of the man. There’s nothing much to see as the man is partially hidden behind the window, but Eames can make out the shirt and black tie. And the rifle perched on the window, pointed directly to where the convoy is coming any moment.
Thinking it must be one of the FBI’s scouts, Eames points his rifle to the direction of the window and prepares to eradicate the intruder. It wouldn’t do to have someone shooting you after you’re finished doing your job after all.
--
As Arthur’s busy with his contemplation, he watches Fischer’s convoy getting into the perfect place for his execution. He curses and leaps to his spot behind the rifle. He can’t do it here. He can’t endanger the civilian. He must…
Then he sees the ‘civilian’ move. He sees him holding something that resembles a sniper rifle. He sees the ‘civilian’ point the weapon to his general direction and his eyes go wide.
“Fuck,” he curses, not caring if his voice might be carried by the wind. “Ariadne. Ariadne! Not a civilian!”
Just great. Whoever told him to get concerned with the civilian’s live anyway? He’s not even some fucking innocent and he’s now pointing his weapon at him and, God, can’t he be any stupider and Fischer’s party are advancing and someone’s trying to kill him.
He’s still holding his weapon in his hands. He could shoot Fischer now and risks being shot by the fucker. He could shoot the fucker and risks missing the time to shoot Fischer.
At times like that, self preservation wins and Arthur finds that his hand is already trained to aim for a shot toward the not-so-much-of-a-civilian. Without pausing even for a second, Arthur readies his rifle and shoots. Three times.
--
Eames is starting to think just which God he has managed to annoy today when pain blooms in his chest. Three times to boot. It’s not the first time he ever got shot when he’s doing mission but, God, having three points of impact against his bulletproof vest certainly hurts like hell.
Fucking sharpshooter!
He groans and curses more when he realises that the sound of the shot has alerted Fischer’s party to something fishy going on as the convoy starts moving faster.
Fuck, his chest hurts! Thankfully he still has enough common sense to wear a bulletproof vest under his shirt. He doesn’t dare imagine what would have happened if he didn’t wear one.
The mission obviously is not going to have a pretty end, Eames thinks as he tries to catch the sight of that sharpshooter who has just shot him. His eyes widens in surprise as he found him aiming his weapon at Fischer’s party. Well, fuck. Apparently, the man’s not an FBI scout. He’s out to kill Fischer too it seems.
“Tough luck, Mister,” Eames says with a grin. The guy might be a good sharpshooter. He might have shot him and taken him down, but he’s never-never-going to take his mark.
Eames takes one hand grenade from his fully supplied briefcase, pulls the pin and throws it to the building’s direction. He silently thanks his friends back in university days who kept on dragging him for some baseball practice. He hated the sport because it was just too American for him. Surprisingly, he has a talent in the pitching field.
The hand grenade flies directly into one of the windows of the top floor-just a couple of windows away from where the sharpshooter intruder is. The grenade explodes and all the windows of the top floor shatter. Eames watches how the guy ducks away-or blown away-from the explosion with glee, and in a moment of childish revenge, aims his rifle at where the annoying sharpshooter was standing before and shoots.
“Thank you for the shot,” he shouts to the air, and then he mutters, “Bloody arsehole.”
--
Arthur can only grab his rifle after the explosion. He keeps cursing under his breath and winces when he realises his right arm is bleeding. Cursing his luck, the fucking not-really-a-civilian, and the universe, Arthur crawls in the direction of the emergency exit. It wasn’t really a big explosion, but it’s enough to make the old building shake dangerously. He’s not going to waste any more time and he has to get out fast.
When he reaches the emergency exit, he stands up and jerks it open with one hand-his right hand cradling the rifle into his chest. He runs a quick escape route through his head and remembers Ariadne has said there will be a helicopter waiting on top of the building behind the one he’s in at the moment. Arthur’s jaw is clenched tight as he looks at the emergency stairs.
He gives the door a vicious kick to close it. He swears to himself as he runs down the emergency staircase, he will find out who the intruder is and make sure the guy will pay for what he has done. No one ruins Arthur’s mission and then lives to tell the tale.
“What do you mean there’s someone else?”
Eames downs the lukewarm coffee in one gulp and slams the cup down, almost shattering it to pieces. He doesn’t even like coffee and now he’s downing the cheap awful kind that Yusuf keeps in the back office of the gallery. That speaks quite clearly of how stressed he is. He spent the two hour journey back to New York bristling and replaying the botched up job over and over again in his mind.
“I told you someone else is after Fischer as well,” he says to Yusuf, peeling off his t-shirt and then the Kevlar vest. He throws them away not caring where they land. “Double commission. The boss didn’t tell me about this bloody double commission.”
He takes a bottle of mineral water from the fridge, making sure the content is indeed water and not one of Yusuf’s mysterious compounds. He needs to have Yusuf separates his compounds from all other drinkable substances in the fridge. If not, one day he could end up killing himself drinking a poison thinking it was water.
“A fucking sharpshooter too. Fuck!” he curses after he washes his throat from the awful taste of coffee with the water.
“You know who it is, then?” Yusuf asks.
“How can I bloody know?” Eames stomps towards the washroom at the back. “A shrimpy young looking man, that’s all I could make out.” He washes his face, fills one of the plastic cups on the porcelain basin and then leans over to pour the water onto his head.
“You’re saying you had your arse handed to you by a shrimpy kid?”
“I think so. But he’s a pro.”
“You’re a pro too. Uh and… Eames?” Yusuf suddenly calls out to him, his voice is muffled but Eames can still hear what he’s saying. “A message from Boss.”
Eames groans at that, or maybe it’s because he has just accidentally rubbed on the bruises on his chest and torso. “What is it?” He pokes on one of the bruises and winces. He hopes the bruises will fade soon and Arthur will take no notice of Eames wearing too much clothing in their bedroom when he usually never bothers to put on a shirt.
“It just says, ‘48 hours. Find and kill’,” Yusuf says when he comes out of the washroom, and gives him a look. “Well, did you get any other details on him other than he might be just a kid? I hope you know how to find that hitman, Eames. Boss never takes it well when a job fails.”
Eames raises an eyebrow to the statement. It is as if Yusuf underestimates his ability. “I’ve got a laptop,” he says, smirking.
“What?”
“Laptop.”
“I know you have a laptop, too many of them I must say, but…”
“Not mine! It’s the fucker’s.”
Yusuf looks at him over the top of his glasses, the look is accompanied by the unspoken question of ‘how?’. But Eames only gives him a smug smile. Yusuf doesn’t need to know that retrieving the laptop from under the debris almost killed Eames in the process. It’s almost unsalvageable but it’s the only thing Eames could get his hands on before the roof collapsed completely.
“And that helps you, how?”
“Time to give old boy Charlie a visit, eh?”
--
Arthur is pissed off. No, that is not the correct term to describe his current mood. He is furious beyond words. Never in his whole seven years career as the Organisation most deadly assassin has he ever failed in completing his mission. Not even during the earlier years. Yes, there are times when a job turns south and he ends up with a nasty gunshot, or broken bones, or gashing wounds. But he always finishes them. He never leaves any on-scene witnesses.
But this time his job has been jeopardised by another person, most definitely another assassin. The target is off the hook and now he has to find man who has caused all of this.
“I want to know who that person is and what he was doing on my patch,” Arthur seethes, “I want that fucking asshole dead. Find him!” Everyone in the office flinches and scrambles to start their search.
Arthur rips his covered-in-soot-and-blood shirt off and flings it away, leaving only his undershirt on. It was quite a scene when he jumped off the helicopter that had taken him from the site back to the roof of his office’s building, stomping his way down the emergency stairs to the thirtieth floor.
But Arthur doesn’t even care how everyone is staring at him at the moment. He knows how he looks like right now; his hair in disarray, nasty scrape on his left shoulder, a couple of inches long bloodied gash on his right forearm from where a splinter of glass from the explosion slashed it, and his face has a permanent scowl etched on it. He has lost his usual calm and collected demeanour. His head feels like it’s going to split in two and he can practically feel his blood boils to an alarming degree.
If he doesn’t find the intruder soon, he thinks he might start killing everyone in the vicinity. He paces back and forth from one table to another, barking out orders and demanding everyone to start to analyse all the records from his fucked up job. He may have lost all of his weapons and gadgets in the explosion but he still has the satellite recording.
He is just going to grab a seat and start analysing the last surveillance record, where he shot the intruder straight in the chest, when Ariadne drags him back again with two tiny hands on his shoulders. “No, Arthur, seriously! Stay still!”
Arthur winces as Ariadne dabs some disinfectant to his wound. Another girl whose name he doesn’t remember is stitching up the gash on his forearm. He doesn’t really care about his wounds at the moment but if left untreated they will leave even more prominent scars and Arthur will have to weave another bout of lies for Eames if he sees them, so he lets Ariadne do whatever she wants.
As Ariadne patches his wounds up, Arthur stares at the monitors replaying the surveillance records. The quality of the records is not as high as he wants it to be. It’s a little bit blurry and distorted at some sequences but he has to make do with what they have. Once they get a clear face, Arthur will be able to use all of his sources and information database to track the bastard down.
“Arthur…”
Arthur doesn’t respond, his eyes are still locked firmly on the screen, showing the faceless intruder.
“Arthur!”
“What?” he snaps, shooting icy glares to Ariadne. Ariadne doesn’t flinch but she looks unimpressed with his snapping. She is young, too young to be in the business-which is why Arthur has requested her to be his assistant before throwing her head first into the field-but she is a brave one.
“It’s Father,” she says, handing him a cell phone.
Arthur grits his teeth and takes a deep breath, readying himself for his boss’ wrath. He takes the phone from Ariadne and answers it. “The FBI secured the package, sir. There’s another player.”
“Then you know what you should do, Arthur. You know the rules.”
“Yes, I know.”
“We do not leave witnesses. Clean the scene, Arthur. Clean the scene.”
“I am already on it.” He glares at others who are staring at him.
“You have forty eight hours,” his boss says. “Remember, forty eight hours, Arthur. Don’t disappoint me.”
The ‘or you know what the consequence is’ is not spoken but implied quite heavily. Arthur never knows what fate awaits an assassin who fails to do their job, because he has never failed before. Whatever it is, Arthur doesn’t want to know.
“Yes, sir.”
As soon as he said that, the line is cut off and he snaps the phone shut, giving it back to Ariadne. He looks around, let out a sigh warily and snaps at everyone, “We have a new target. Let’s find out who he is.”
--
Charlie is one of Eames’ oldest acquaintances in New York City. He’s a master hacker, tech geek, and the one Eames turns to whenever he has problems with the gadgets he uses for his job. Charlie is also the one who customised Eames’ kitchen and installed all the hidden compartments and cabinets. So Eames thinks Charlie will be the very best person who can help him with the laptop he found.
The bored look on Charlie’s face when Eames arrives in his little den at downtown New York with the laptop isn’t surprising however. They may have a sort of tight friendship after almost eight years of knowing each other, but Charlie never really likes it when Eames asks for his help because more often than not, it always involves the Company. If he can help it, Charlie will never want to have any business with a group of assassins.
“What now?” Charlie yawns, still typing quickly when Eames enters his working space. “Need help with your toys again?”
Eames sighs dramatically as he plops himself down on the rickety chair in front of Charlie’s desk. “Have you met Arthur?” he asks as he puts down the bag with the laptop on the desk.
“Your snobbish husband? Just that one time when I installed that oven in your kitchen. Why?”
“Because I think his sarcasm has rubbed off on you.”
“Tch! Makes me wonder how you could survive five years of marriage without him killing you then.”
Eames doesn’t dignify it with a response and just pulls out the wreck of a laptop. “Help me out with this?”
“What in God’s name have you done to this piece of crap?” Charlie asks, flabbergasted at the state of the laptop on his table.
Eames shrugs, “Bonfire?”
“Bloody hell, Eames.” Charlie picks the laptop and squints at its state. “Even I can’t repair this shit.”
“No, no, I’m not asking you to repair it,” Eames says, waving to a girl passing over the door who he recognises as one of Charlie’s assistants. “Just give me anything you can get from this.”
“There’s nothing I can get from this.” Charlie has already started to pick apart the laptop, separating the pieces of broken case from the motherboard. “It’s burnt to a crisp and it’s clean. No serials.” He plucks a piece of chip from the remnants of the laptop and uses a magnifying glass to check it. “Whoever built it really wanted it to be untraceable.”
Eames bites his lower lip and scowls. “Shit…”
Charlie raises an eyebrow to Eames and shakes his head. “I said they wanted it to be untraceable. I didn’t say it was.” He shows the small chip to Eames and grins. “Extra RAM module. And it’s been upgraded.”
“Excuse me, but you know the reason why I come to you is because computer is never my strong subject. Translation?”
Charlie rolls his eyes, yet another quirk Eames recognises Arthur loves to use on him when he thinks Eames only pretends to be stupid. Charlie starts typing on his other computer after spending at least ten full seconds squinting at the chip. “Aha!” he exclaims suddenly.
Eames stands up from his seat and goes behind the desk to see what Charlie has gotten on his monitor.
“Chip’s Chinese, imported by Dynamix, New Jersey, retailed by Microworld, part number 090122,” Charlie reads. He taps another series of keys, and then some new lines of text appear. “Pulled up Microworld invoice from Talisman Anti-Theft network. It’s purchased on September ninth last year for eighty five dollars. Paid by AMEX blah blah blah. Now all you need is a billing address.”
Eames looks down to Charlie who doesn’t try too hard to hide his grin. “Well, can you get them then?”
“Couldn’t possibly. It’s illegal.”
“Fuck you!” Eames curses and shoves a hundred dollar bill into Charlie’s pocket.
“Business is business, mate.” Charlie starts tapping again and this time another tab appears. “Yep. Found it. Card’s registered to a company address. But no name. Here, see it yourself.” He sidles away to give Eames room so he can look closer.
Eames leans over and reads the lines of address on the monitor. It’s an upper town New York address and he has the feeling he has seen the address before. After noting down the address and giving Charlie another hundred dollar bill, Eames sets out to find the location.
After deiving around the New York city roads for half an hour, Eames finds the building where the address is located. He stands in front of it and gets a bad feeling about it. It’s the same building as Arthur’s architect firm. He knows Arthur’s office is located somewhere up in the thirty storey building and has visited a couple of times. But after a surprise visit gone wrong a couple of years ago (that resulted in Eames getting stuck in the elevator for three hours until the technician came to help him and Arthur had to postpone all his work that day to make sure his stupid spouse got out alive), Arthur forbid him from even enter the building.
Eames has no choice but to break the rule and steps into the building. He just has to be discreet and make sure he gets out before anyone from Arthur’s firm recognises him. He casually strolls in and goes straight to the information board where there’s a list of all the names of the companies and which floor their offices are located in the building. He pulls out the small note with the address from his pocket again and scans the board.
The address states it’s on the twenty-fifth floor of the building. His eyes turn to the bottom of the list and then back to the note again.
30th Floor 5503
On the board, 30th Floor 5503 belongs to one architect firm. With the name Arthur E. as the owner.
Eames can feel the headache starting to bloom from the back of his head and faintly, a small tugging in his chest that he will never admit [to] as the feeling of his heart cracking slowly.
“Fuckfuckfuck!” he grunts as he fishes out his mobile phone quickly and enters a series of number. He just hopes this is all just a coincidence and Arthur has nothing to do with everything that has happened.
--
Mal knows everything. She was one of the best information gatherers of The Organisation, until she decided looking for information on how to raise a baby was far worth her time than ruining someone’s life by providing information on what’s the best way to kill them. While Cobb was the one who taught Arthur how to not break any rules he had created himself (Arthur always wonders how Dom could survive ten years in the business without cracking himself up in the head with all the crazy stunts he did before he married Mal), it was Mal who taught Arthur how to dig deeply into a person’s life and end it in the most effective and efficient way.
So it is not a surprise when Arthur gets a call from her in the middle of going through the dossiers about Robert Fischer for the nth time, trying to figure out any loopholes. It seems, this time, she got the information about Arthur’s failure from Ariadne (who has once told him Mal is her idol).
“Are you sure you are all right, Arthur?”
“Yes, I am. And please, tell Dom to not pull himself out of retirement just because of a botched job, Mal. I can handle it.”
“You really sure about that? This is the first time, right?”
“Yes, it is. But it doesn’t mean I can’t handle it. I have it under control.”
Arthur hears Mal sighs on the line and can make out James’ gurgle. “Don’t worry about it, okay?” he assures Mal. “I’ll get the job done in no time.” He waves the girl who is analysing one of the surveillance tapes away and sits on her seat, starting to tap a series of keys; the screen now shows the recording from three different angles and another one with the recording from his binocular.
“And how about Eames? You sure he won’t be suspicious of your injuries and you being out in the office for three full days?”
“It’s okay,” he says absently, still going over the record from one screen to another and “He’s on a trip trying to get his hands on some Andy War-”
Arthur pauses and leans closer to the screen, eyes fixed close to the footage from the binoculars. The image is blurry but he can make out the man’s profile.
“Arthur, are you still there?”
“I’m… I’m going to call you later, Mal,” Arthur says to Mal before shutting his phone and starts to work on the footage. He zooms in the image and tries to make the image clearer. The bastard’s wearing a bright orange shirt with hideous pattern, a cap, and the black shades that cover his eyes so Arthur can only look at half his face. His eyebrow raises when he sees the man’s lips start move and seem to be chewing on something as he procures a sniper rifle Arthur recognises as Blaser R93 LRS2.
The footage ends at that because that was the moment Arthur realised he was not a civilian. He replays it again, and again, and concentrates on the man’s every movement. He is so engrossed in his own thoughts and wondering of how he thinks he has seen those pair of distracting lips and weirdly familiar gloves before that he doesn’t realise Ariadne has been calling his name.
“Arthur!” Ariadne shouts loudly, breaking Arthur from his thoughts though he still doesn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“What…?”
“It’s your husband.”
Arthur blinks. He looks away from the screen to Ariadne, who is holding up a phone.
“Eames says he’s back from his trip and asks you what time you’ll get back for dinner.”
Once again Arthur turns back to the screen, thinking and wondering if it’s really possible. He looks at the blurry profile again, the more he sees it, the more he thinks he recognise the figure. “Tell him… Tell him I’m on my way and will be home at seven,” he says after a few moments of silence.
“You sure you want to go home in the middle of al-”
“Just tell him, Ariadne.”
Arthur closes his eyes and clenches his fist. This cannot be happening to him.
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