I wrote this after I wrote Crimson Hawk, and I still don’t like that name. The first paragraph in this one is a disaster, I know.
She stepped out of the plane, gazing down the steps and across the runway, following the other passengers across the concrete sea. The night was cloudy and starless. As they reached the airport terminal, the passengers could see a churning mass of people waiting in the line to reach immigration. “Welcome to China” the sign above the door proclaimed in as many languages as they could fit in such a small area.
As they entered the building they were immediately immersed into the line. Although the size of the line was rapidly decreasing ahead of her, she still had to wait half an hour before she reached the front, and was pointed to the nearest empty booth.
“Passport, please.” The immigration officer said in a thick Chinese accent. She handed her fake American passport over. He ran his finger over the top edge of her passport, while still looking her in the eye. He seemed to find something wrong, he looked down at the passport, opened it up and held one of the pages up the light. He still seemed unsatisfied. He stood up warily, keeping his eyes on her the entire time.
“Is there a problem, sir?” She asked.
“Please come with me,” Again with the accent.
He led her to an empty office, he looked around and said something in Chinese that she couldn’t understand.
“Stay here,” the simple words were hardly recognizable through his accent.
He walked out of the room, glancing back every few seconds as he walked away. She contemplated what to do. She could stay, but then she’d get jail time and dirt on her spotless record. She could run, but they’d catch her, and then there would be even more dirt. She chose the lesser of two evils.
A man walked in, American by his looks, but wearing the same uniform as her immigration officer had. He had her passport open in his hand. He glanced down at it.
“So, Alison Fuller, is it?” Flawless English. He glared at her.
“Yes, that’s me.” She let out a wide, pleasant, utterly false smile. “Is there a problem, sir?” She stared at him innocently.
“This is a false passport. Where did you get it?”
Her eyes got wide, looking as innocent as she possibly could.
“Sir, its not false. I would never try and travel on a false passport. I’m appalled that you think I would.” She walked towards him, reaching into her purse. She slid her fingers around a cold, hard, molded object.
She pulled the knife out, and skipped forward before the uniformed man could react. She held the knife against his neck, gazing into his eyes, relishing in his terror, and slit his throat. She quickly jumped back to avoid the majority of the blood pumping out of his newly unoccupied body as he fell to the floor. She licked the blood off her hand, and then the knife.
She put the knife back in her purse, and walked out of the room, plucking her passport out of his hand and walked out. Her walk took her to baggage claim, she picked up her bag, and calmly left the airport.
After checking into her hotel, she pulled off her blond wig, picked up the phone, and dialed.
Ring, ring, ri- “Hello?”
“The passport didn’t work. Why didn’t the passport work.”
“Uhh… Well… I don’t know.” The voice on the other end pleaded.
“Yeah, right, you don’t know. I should have gotten what I paid for. I paid for an authentic American passport.”
He sighed. “You’re always in this mood after you’ve killed someone. Who did you kill?”
“Vladimir, I killed an immigration officer.”
“They know its you?”
“Probably.”
“Shit.”
“You got that right.” She said.
“Anya… I’m sorry. Any way I can make it up to you?”
“Go jump off a cliff.” She hung up.
She pulled a hand gun out of her luggage, and walked out of the hotel room.
The first person she saw was a cleaning lady, she walked by, gun in plain sight. The next few people were just as unimportant. When she reached the lobby there was a police officer talking to someone behind the desk. She shot them both.
People started screaming. She was hyper-aware of the sound of her shoes, the echo off the walls, click, clack, click, clack.
More police officers came in running. Bang, bang, bang, click, clack, click, clack, bang. Six people dead in five minutes. She felt accomplished. A child was crying, SWAT would be here soon. She walked towards the door, and put the gun in a dead cop’s empty holster as she walked out the front door, she got in to a waiting taxi.
“To the airport, please.”
Yet again, a story I only half like.
