Inglorious Exchange

Chapter 8 : Contract to kill

After the call with Bruce I slept again for a few hours and woke up at five in the morning. I needed to clear my head in order to focus and decided to take a jog at the pavement of the Abe Memorial. Wearing my running gear I did some stretching first and started running. The morning air is breezy, fresh air is quite a commodity nowadays as busy traffic won't start before eight or nine in the morning. Running along the concrete pavements I felt freedom as very few people is doing the same route as I did. My running route consists of roughly three or four laps on the pavement between the Abe Memorial and the Washington Monument. 

With an earphone plugged into my left ear I ran beside the large pool of water separating the current pavement I'm running on and the one on the opposite side. The people recognized me as I ran past several of them but none of them know my routine jog. The sounds of someone running is heard behind me and the jogger caught up to me. "Man... it's really... hard... to catch up... with you..." said President Reagan, nearly out of his breath. 

"This is my normal speed. You expect me to sprint?" I asked him. "If I ever sprint you're going to need a lot of effort to catch up." 

"Are you a triathlon?" he asked, his panting breath can still be heard. 

"No I'm not sir." I said. I turned to look behind him and saw Barrowman catching up behind his boss while Timothy is running beside him, talking to each other. 

"You braided your hair?"

"I'm not going to start my jog routine without tying my hair up." I explained. "You never jogged sir. Not in my view to be honest."

"I jogged on the treadmill."

"I prefer fresh air." I said. We jogged past the Lincoln Memorial and several Secret Service agents standing by in workout gear joined the run behind our principal Secret Service agents. "I still have three more planned out, you down?" I asked.

"Three more?!"

"Training route okay? This is a warm up." I broke into a sprint upon reaching the Washington Memorial, leaving the entourage in the dust but Agent Brock and several young agents managed to catch up with me. "Military product gentlemen?" I asked. I maintained the speed of my sprint and finished the three remaining laps, leaning against a pillar of the Abe Memorial to take my break. When they finished their lap everybody looked fine because they also had military training same as me but I just ran a little faster than them. 

"Felt like I'm back in the desert again." Agent Samuel Mackenzie said. "Good workout ma'am."

"I trained several times a week." I said, drying the sweat with the small towel I brought along. "But I don't exercise excessively." Brock tossed me a bottle of clear water and I downed a quarter of it as the President's entourage made their way towards our location. Instead of standing the President slid down to the floor, panting for breath. "You okay sir?" I asked.

"No problem Madam Vice President. I'm rusty already." he said.

"You're not that rusty sir. You need more practice." I said.

"That was YEARS ago." he said. "Later at eleven Chancellor Merkel will be arriving for a state visit, be on your best as Vice President of the United States."

Moscow, Russia 

Aleksei Ivanov's silhouette loomed across the body of Angela Mercier as blood slowly pooled from her body. Smoke is still leaking from the barrel of his gun used to end her. Ivanov is the head of the infamous drug trafficking ring The Skull and what he didn't know is that the woman he has shot is a French agent deep undercover to destroy his business. If not for the anonymous tip he wouldn't know who is the one who ratted out the details of his dealings to the authorities. Enraged by the betrayal he ordered her to be tortured and he executed her when he's done with it. Looking at the chair, still slick with her fresh blood his cold eyes showed no sympathy for the woman who had once been his legal advisor. Entering his office he sat on his chair, toying with his gun as he recalled the information he had obtained from his private eye when he received the news of her betrayal. 

"She is an agent working for the French Intelligence community but the information wasn't obtained from the French. The department received their information from the Americans in the FBI provided by the Vice President of the United States. She was the Black Bird, one of the American's top agents." the words came from his private eye in his memory. "I wouldn't recommend you to kill her." Instead of listening Aleksei snapped back from his reverie and fired his gun, the bullet lodging deep in the photo of the Vice President.