#bdsiii

2017 Third Edition of the book in downloadable PDF form can be located at the following link:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0By0-uopLKbeCSml4am54WmtxTDQ

It has been revised and re-edited and includes a new picture gallery.

Enjoy

Love

Hello Y'all. Some of you have expressed frustration squinting at my Tumblr Blog and have asked can they have the book 'Special Angel Eunice Bloom' as a downloadable PDF? OK, I'm down with that, so here is the link off my Google Drive:

(replaced by Third Edition 2017 - see next blog above)

Print yourselves off a copy and by all means and enjoy reading it in the bath!

I: Pennies for the Ferryman

Rocco lumbered down the length of Pier 9 and delivered his heartfelt diatribe;

"Do angels exist? Some people reckon they’ve seen them, others they’re in constant communication with them as they watch over their mortal charges. But there’s no hard evidence for them, nothing you can wave under the nose of the scientific community and say ‘there you are, you faithless fuckers, they exist!’.

In our greatest hour of need we pray to them and hope to fuck they’re real and on hand to help us, and if they’re not, then for your own fucking sanity, you just have to create them to fill the void. You down half a bottle of whiskey to blot out the pain and desperation of your situation, flicking through all the TV channels on the remote because in your stupor there’s fuck all else left for you to do, and then from nowhere appearing on your TV screen, after an ETA of ten minutes so kindly notified by Shaymus, there she is, the real thing, so special, so fucking smart she makes smart people feel that they are retarded, coming to fill the enormous emptiness in your heart, to relieve the pain of what you lost.

So you want to talk about loss? So let’s talk about loss;

Lose your job? Get another one.

Lose your home - get another one.

Lose your lover - get someone else.

Lose your self-respect - get it back.

Lose your mind - get a grip for fuck’s sake!

Lose the great city itself in the blinding flash of a nuclear blast, cometh the angel to protect it.

Lose your life…? Well, in the great scheme of things, so much larger than ourselves, hmm.., perhaps something can be done about that too…."

Rocco strode right up to the entrance of the clubhouse and barged open the door, he passed the banks of fruit machines within the confines of the four pillars and approached the bar at the far end;

"Nicely refurbished bar-room boys!" Rocco greeted Connor and Murphy who were already seated at the bar waiting for him to arrive.

"Good man! We’ve saved a drink for you." Connor pushed the full glass of whiskey along the bar.

"We also have a drink for our friend here." Murphy introduced the other present to Rocco.

"Ah yes," Rocco picked up the glass, "do you have any ‘Select Ales or Export Beers’ our most honoured guest may wish to partake of too?" He looked at the body lying on top of the bar. It had been carefully placed, the clothes neatly buttoned up and the arms folded on the chest, nonetheless, the deceased had died violently, copious amounts of blood had congealed, forming a sticky viscous blackening mass in the effigy’s long hair.

"Boys, haven’t you forgotten something?" Rocco eyeballed the pair.

"Fuck! The pennies, get them out!" Connor barged his brother with an elbow. Murphy reached inside his coat and took out two pennies. He then carefully placed them on the eyelids of the departed.

"Gentlemen, a toast." Rocco raised his glass over the remains, "Thank the Lord for His angels, Slainte!"

"Thank the Lord for His angels, Slainte!" Connor and Murphy clinked their glasses with Rocco’s, all three emptied in an instant.

_____________________________________________

II: Twenty years in time

The young girl contemplated the hell she found herself in. So alone and so afraid, and fallen so far. Eventually she would be like all the others, hardened to it and emotionless, destroyed. But who had been that amazing lady just now, initially so kind and warm, then assertive with such irrefutable home truths. There had not been any kindness or warmth in the girl’s life for a long time now. No sooner had the lady arrived, she left, so fleeting, like a shooting star, burning so bright, then she was gone. The young girl couldn’t get her back, all by herself again and lost. She should contact her parents, she wanted to, but no, not a prayer, there simply was no way out. She looked about her world, a crummy room with a filthy well worn bed. She was trapped, nothing more than a caged animal. What was the point of life when all you got was negatives, no joy, laughter, love or anything remotely like that, just pain, pain and more pain and hating every moment. She didn’t want to have to, but that was all that was left for her. Go down to the Subway, stand on the platform, wait for the next train, peace at last, you don’t have to do anything or worry about anything any more. She began to cry, slowly at first, then the huge hopeless sobs took a vice like hold of her….

The door burst open. The girl looked up, the lady was back!, smiling down at her with such friendly loving kindness;

"C’mon you! Let’s get outa here!" A beautiful slender manicured hand was held out to the hopelessly lost girl.

Take it! Take it as if your life depends on it, grab hold and don’t let go, save yourself and let yourself be saved.

____________________________________________

III: Heidi consoles her friend

"Are you alright? Who was that bitch?"

"Some bitch from the FBI who humiliated Gorgeous and then attacked me in the laundry room. Fuck, I wet myself!"

"You pissed yourself?"

"No, stupid. I had a wetty."

"A wetty? She did that to you?"

"I’m terrified of her, she has a gun!"

"Get Kyle to tell her to fuck off."

"Christ, I’m going to have to tell him not to come round tonight. She’s coming round. I’m going to have to give her a bath, a massage and then eat her out afterwards. Fuck! If Kyle turns up she’ll shoot him!"

"Eat her out? Fuck, sounds like a real bad ass bitch, the worst sort!"

"That’s not all, she wants to stay the night and then I’ll have to get her breakfast in the fucking morning!"

"Fucking room service? Cheeky fucking cow!"

"Oh I’m so fucked. I’m stuck with her. How can I say no to someone like that?"

"Are you sure you want to?"

_____________________________________________

IV: Back to Ground Zero

Gorgeous watched perplexed from the back of the people carrier as Special Agent Kuntsler and his four assistant FBI agents were led out of the warehouse, hands zip-tied behind their backs and escorted by members of the black clad CIA SWAT force. Even though the five were hooded, he could tell it was them.

‘What the fuck has just gone down?’ He pondered as the five were put into the back of a prison van. But that was nothing to his reaction when some time afterwards he saw Eunice Bloom, hands also tied but no hood, being dragged out through the front door by the two big CIA agents he had met earlier. She was barefoot, one side of her face swollen where she’d evidently been struck, and the front of her blouse torn open. She looked in a bad way;

"Eunice!" He flung open the door and jumped out, trying to reach out and help her.

"Where the fuck are you going! Get back here!" The chauffeur up front pulled out his gun.

"Fucking shoot me, see if I fucking care!" Gorgeous shouted back over his shoulder as he approached the three. He almost got to Eunice when he was roughly pulled to the ground by two members of the CIA SWAT team who had seen his intent.

"That’s the fucking pimp we picked up earlier." Said the younger CIA agent on Eunice’s right.

"Let him go, he’s not involved." George heard Eunice appeal on his behalf.

"Eunice! What are they doing to you? Leave her alone you fucking bastards!" George writhed on the pavement as he was forcibly restrained.

"He was working for them," the CIA agent on Eunice’s left now spoke coldly, "take him in too."

_____________________________________________________

V: Smecker’s Angels

Smecker’s Angels…….. We all know the story;

‘In the Boston Police Department there were once three little detectives…..’.

Greenbeans was gone, such a lovely sweet guy, hopeless cop. Detectives Duffy and Dolly needed security in numbers, he would have to be replaced, but by whom? Detective Jacob Kiersky, everybody called him Jack, had been adopted by Greenly as his de facto assistant. Greenly had chosen him well, naturally he didn’t want anyone more intelligent or competent than himself in the post, that would be far too threatening, but with such challenging criteria, one would be surprised the brief could be filled at all. But cometh the void, cometh the man to fill it, the departmental dogs-body. As with Eunice Bloom being the protégé of Paul Smecker, then Kiersky was most certainly the protégé of Greenly.

Promoted to the rank of detective because as a beat cop, Kiersky was considered to be too much of a danger to himself and others, Jack nevertheless had big ideas about his importance and contribution to the department. He saw himself very much as a modern day Humphrey Bogart, every aspect of his life had to be a scene from 1940’s film noir so he dressed in dark suits, combined with a trench-coat and fedora hat. He often made Duffy and Dolly cringe with embarrassment during the interrogation of suspects, often coming out with B-movie clichés such as ‘Do you want your wife to remain pretty?’ He kept doing the most crass and inept things like offering cigarettes to suspects in the interrogation rooms which were non-smoking. Sometimes he would decide to play ‘good cop’ that day, another day ‘bad cop’ but he made these ploys so obvious to the suspects, they usually fell about laughing instead of taking Kiersky seriously;

"Is this dick-head for real?" They would ask Duffy and Dolly. Jack sensed there had been some sort of deeper bond between his boss Greenly and detectives Duffy and Dolly that he had not been privy to, and who was that fantastic looking FBI broad who occasionally came in to see the three behind closed doors? There was a rumour that this woman and Greenly had a thing going or at least, in an ideal world they would have. Jack remembered the first time he saw Special Agent Eunice Bloom. They passed one another in the department, as she approached she flicked him a cursory glance up and down with those lovely eyes of hers, in a split second then looked straight ahead, that was all he was worth, dismissed in an instant as she walked by. Jack spun on his heel and gazed after her, the beauty of her long shimmering blonde hair, the way her pulsing body moved under her smart professional clothes, so athletic, her hard achilles tendons driving a distinct cleft into the softer but toned calf muscles, just over those skyscraper heeled shoes. It was love at first sight.

"Hey Kiersky!" Detective Dolly called over from the coffee percolator, "Put your dick away. There’s only one Mike Tyson for that piece of ass, and he lives right through that fuckin’ door…" Jack watched Agent Bloom politely knock at the door of Greenly’s office and then enter.

Detective Jack Kiersky was useless. Detectives Duffy and Dolly decided he was perfect. They liaised with Connor, Murphy and Romeo, and also Paul Smecker to see if the proposition was acceptable to them, could Kiersky be let in on the secret and even assist on operations? As it happened, Smecker and the boys didn’t give a shit who Kiersky was, Duffy and Dolly could bring him on board if they wanted to, be it on their heads. Duffy and Dolly told Kiersky the score. He nearly wet himself with the excitement of it, he knew there was something more to the secretive meetings between Eunice Bloom and the three original detectives, such a shame she had to disappear into hiding after the killing of The Roman who she had exposed. But to be part of this underground cell he had heard so much about, so film noir, he could be Philip Marlow twenty-four-seven from now on! Jack was given the terms of joining ‘Team Saints’. No extra pay, nothing, just the satisfaction of cleansing their beloved Boston of scum. There was also the danger of being exposed as an accessory to murder and getting fucked up the ass forever and a day in The Hoag. Jack was told if he didn’t accept the offer of joining the team then The Saints would have to kill him, a lie, but Duffy and Dolly had to come up with something to convince Jack to make the right decision. But they needn’t have worried, he couldn’t wait to go on operations with them, and that he certainly did. He had heard about Agent Bloom’s modus operandi of wearing ear-plugs to help her focus during crime scene investigations so he decided to emulate her by wearing rolled up bits of toilet paper in his ears during his own investigative outings in the hope some of her genius might rub off on him. As soon as the toilet roll was produced, Duffy and Dolly tried to dissuade their colleague; "Not the toilet roll, Jack, please, not the toilet roll…" but Jack insisted that he use it. They may have wanted Jack on the team, but now he had arrived they were at a loss what to do with him during operations. They usually left it to Connor and Murphy to allocate him a role. The brothers showed a lot of imagination in finding perfect roles for him;

"Jack, drive around the block a few times while we do the hit and look out for anything unusual." and "Sit in the van with the engine running just in case we need a quick get away." or "Um.., let me see, what can you do on this, Jack? Oh I know! Keep watch on that corner of the street two blocks down, thanks mate!" and "Fuck! I’ve really worked up an appetite wiping out those fuckers, hey Jack, go and get the take-aways in for us, will ya?, there’s a good lad."

1

Chapter 1: If she's not on her way, she's already here...

It had been almost a sacrilegious act, to clip the wings of Guardian Agent Eunice, but there she was, marooned indefinitely in the Monastery of Saint Escazu, Costa Rica, with no end in sight. At the end of her tether, she called a meeting with Smecker.

"Jesus Christ Paul! I’m virtually healed up for lack of some man action!" she complained.

"Ohh-www…" Smecker gave her his usual dismissive response. Not that Eunice thought men were much to shout about. In her opinion there was too much of a roll on, roll off attitude, women should be found, fucked, then forgotten. Eunice often wondered if she should have let Greenbeans fuck her, he was such a lovely guy after all. She could have let him as an act of friendship rather than anything deeper, so sad the argument was now academic after his untimely death. But to think of the actual physicality was a bit of a turn off, she imagined his little wriggling bottom between her thighs as he panted and strained to summon up enough energy to ejaculate. Naturally she would fake orgasm out of common courtesy before doing her vulnerable little girl act whereby she would curl up asleep on his chest to make him feel all manly and protective. Well, no point in dwelling on that, he was gone, bless him. Interestingly, Eunice did not consider herself bisexual given the women she had fucked over the years, there was something about using and abusing her innate power of seduction, the chase and the capture, this was almost as good as the sex. And why not? If the target girl had a nice mouth, good tits and an inviting moist pussy, go for it! No-one could say no to Eunice, and that’s a fact! Eunice fondly remembered Erika during that initial visit to Gorgeous George at the health spa in order to put him in his place. She liked the look of Erika when she secretively took over from her massaging of Gorgeous’ back, and then signalled for her to get out. After she had humiliated Gorgeous, Eunice left him and sought out Erika. The massage therapist was found in the main salon at one of the nail bars, attending to a client. Eunice marched straight over, grabbed Erika’s wrist and pulled her away into the central isle area.

"Erika?" The client held up her unfinished manicure.

"What are you doing?" Erika protested to the law enforcement agent, "I’m with a client…"

For the second time that day Eunice commanded absolute silence from the masseur by firmly pressing a finger across her own lips, and giving Erika the stare. Eunice looked over her shoulder and noticed a door at the side of the salon. She pulled Erika with her to the door and opened it. The room appeared to be a linen room for bathrobes and towels, it would do. Erika was pulled inside, pushed up against one of the towel racks, and the door kicked closed. Erika felt her heart thumping violently in her chest. This thing that had come from elsewhere, what was it? The FBI badge, the gun, the power suit, those shoes, the southern bad-ass attitude….. And she was a beautiful woman, impeccably turned out, as a beautician, Erika could tell this was one classy lady, no expense spared.

"Look Erika," Eunice held the woman’s shoulders against the rack and was full on in her face, "let’s not beat around our bushes, how shall I put it succinctly?…. Let’s fuck!" Eunice read the shocked expression in front of her. "Okay Erika, I don’t mean here, but later." Eunice refined her intent, "In the meantime, let me give you a taster…"

Eunice reached up behind Erika’s head and unclipped her hair letting it fall on her shoulders, then keeping control of the head Eunice pressed her lips to those of Erika, massaging them at first then forcing them apart with her tongue. The door opened making Eunice break away and turn her head.

"Erika! Are you okay?" A woman stood in the doorway, aghast at the plight of her friend.

"Fuck off!" The assailant bluntly commanded, in such a way the woman felt compelled to retreat and close the door. Eunice pulled open Erika’s tunic revealing the t-shirt underneath. She cupped Erika’s left breast with one hand running her thumb over the nipple. Eunice’s other hand now began to slip inside the waistband of Erika’s trousers.

"First we let our fingers take a little walk….." Eunice began her advanced seduction techniques. Erika pushed her head back against the towels and grimaced, trying not to respond, trying to resist that rising within, but it was coming and couldn’t be stopped. "…..a little walk down through the lady garden, down and down," Eunice playfully continued, "we find and pop the hood, and… ahh, there it is, your little bullet!"

Eunice with deep satisfaction felt the nipple under her thumb rise up and go hard, so nice to know one could turn on one’s magic at a whim and have it work, reliable as the sunrise. Eunice could feel Erika’s heart pounding away sending vibrations through the breast she was caressing, then the accosted turned her head away, face contorted in ecstasy, and then gave out a violent exhale.

"Oh you naughty little girl," Eunice scolded in patronizing sing-song, "now look what you’ve gone and done, you’ve gone and wet your little knickers, mommy’s gonna have to go and change your diaper now…." Eunice, feeling there was little more to be had out of the situation as contrived, took her hands away, releasing the subject out of vassalage.

"What’s your address?" Eunice asked. No answer. "What’s your fucking address, bitch!" Eunice demanded. Erika reluctantly conveyed the information.

"Not much of a neighbourhood, Erika, but I’m no snob." Eunice appraised the prospect, "I’ll be around at eight, you can give me a bath, I’ll want a massage, then I’ll probably sit on your face." Eunice paused to let the evening’s itinerary sink in and register, "but now I want these sorted," she held up her hands, "after where they’ve been, washed, moisturised and the nails done - right now!"

George thought the super aggressive FBI agent had long gone when he stepped out into the main salon. Shit! She was still here, at the nail bar being serviced by Erika, his favourite masseur. He tried to beat a hasty retreat, too late, his scourge had seen him;

"Gorgeous! Is that you Gorgeous?" she called out from the nail bar, "Oh how kind of you to put something on and cover up that useless little piece of skin on the end of your penis, that is, your body!"

"You! Being served here!" The thought of having this woman as a regular patron caused George to pull violently at his hair with both hands.

"Hope you don’t mind, Gorgeous, but all this…." she looked down at her hands being serviced, "will all be on the house of course…."

"Eunice,…………Eunice!" she was snapped out of her daydreaming reminiscence by Smecker, "Well don’t great little minds think alike? It’s funny you should mention wanting to leave but between us and The Vatican, there may be a way back for you."

"A way back?" Eunice was enticed, "Back where?"

"Back to your old job, FBI in Boston."

"You’re shitting me!"

"No, it’s all being arranged behind the scenes," Smecker began to elaborate, "by The Vatican and the powers that be stateside. You’re not just gonna turn up like Christ on a donkey at the gates of Jerusalem and everyone bows down at your feet though, stateside are going to want something in return."

"What can I give them, a most wanted rogue agent?"

"Salvation."

"Fucking salvation? I may as well be Christ! What are you talking about?"

"Pin back your ears my smart little girl, something big is going down on the international stage, something much bigger than us, but it’s a perfect vehicle for our friends in the Vatican to get you back on operations in Boston and help their ally Uncle Sam."

"What do you mean ‘their ally Uncle Sam’? I’d like to think myself as an American, a patriot, just as you are, rogue or not." Paul ignored the last remark not willing to be put off course;

"Let me give you some background to the situation. The regime in Tehran, our would be best buddies in the middle east have for years planned some sort of nuclear attack on our homeland…."

"Fuck! Now you’re talking!" Eunice couldn’t believe the abrupt direction the conversation had just taken.

"Believe it or not," Paul continued, "The Vatican has it’s own secret service, or spooks if you like, and it has had a clandestine cell operating in Tehran for many years. This is what they have managed to uncover so far. The original plan was laid down five to ten years ago. The payload was to be delivered in one container holding eight ‘dirty’ bombs, not full thermo nuclear devices but enough to cause severe contamination of a U.S. city and the surrounding area. Once the container had arrived at the target location, the eight dirty bombs would be distributed around the city and either set off simultaneously together completely contaminating the entire city district, or set off piecemeal causing prolonged damage and dislocation of the city. As time passed Tehran managed to secretly purify and manufacture enough weapons grade material for a full thermo nuclear bomb attack, nevertheless, due to the original design and manufacturing constraints of trying to keep this all top secret, the eight cell bomb configuration design was retained even though the idea now was to keep them all together for one combined ignition, vaporizing the centre of the city and destroying much of the surrounding outskirts for maximum effect. And in what city did they wish to perpetrate this outrage? Where else but Washington DC or again New York. However, there is so much ‘heat’ in place from our own security services defending these prime targets, Tehran quickly gave up the idea of attacking these two cities. So where else?" Paul gave Eunice a questioning stare.

"Shit, you don’t mean….." Eunice realised all too quickly.

"You betcha!"

"But we’ve already suffered a terrorist attack! Those two home grown lunatics who bombed the marathon…."

"Boston is being targeted because as I’ve already mentioned, there is less ‘heat’. Also it is east coast and near to the seat of power in the U.S. Fuck it, Eunice, I can’t get inside their twisted minds, Boston it is."

"But The Saints, Romeo, Duffy and Dolly!"

"Not a word to them about this!" Smecker was immovable, "Utmost top secret, friends and family, no matter how much you love them, are not under any circumstances to be told. All that will happen if it leaks out is mass panic and public hysteria. The attack may not even happen but it must not be spoken of, only a few people at the very top at The Vatican and stateside know of this."

"So when is it supposed to happen?"

"For maximum political effect, the bomb is planned to be detonated next September the 11th at precisely the hour and minute the first airplane struck the North Tower in Manhattan."

"9-11? Fuck! That’s only six months away!"

"That‘s right, blink and we’ll be right there. This is why The Vatican wants you back home operational as soon as possible. The intention is to put all we know about the bomb plot into your head and then send you back stateside as an unofficial ambassador on behalf of the Holy See. The price for your return without being prosecuted and wiping the slate clean is the supply of top secret information. It goes without saying the CIA shall be very keen to meet and debrief you and forget all about you going rogue. But that is only stage one. From then on you will be given your old job back at Boston FBI. On the face of it you’ll be working on the usual run of the mill investigations, but your secret brief is to keep a close ear to the ground for anything looking like terrorist activity within the city, there must be an Iranian terrorist cell, if not on its way, then already there. Your CIA handlers will be in the background assisting you at every stage. It’s a big responsibility, but everyone knows how smart you are, the CIA have already agreed you’re the best person for that part of their wider operation to counter this specific threat."

"To think after everything they really want my help, this is some heavy shit, Paul!"

"I’d like to give you a few more technical details about the plot. The bomb delivery to Boston is planned to come in via Malaysia, west coast of Canada, then east to the Great Lakes, then across those into the country and on to the city. Keep an eye out for anything unusual, or anything at all that you have suspicions about coming through those routes. Technical details about the bomb are still sketchy but our operatives in Tehran have managed to obtain a few tantalising bits of data. The bomb once delivered will have to be armed and timed to detonation. There is a separate arming electronic key which must be inserted into the bomb and a secret nine numeric code keyed in to make the bomb live. There is also another abort or disarming electronic key to interrupt the countdown and render the bomb harmless, so it can’t be re-armed. This also works by keying in a different secret nine numeric code to instigate the abort. So why would the Iranians want to abort the detonation? Well, it could be for any reason, political, diplomatic, economic etc. Naturally they want the arming procedure to be easy and straight forward, and the disarming procedure to be more complex, they would not want the U.S. security forces making kids play of neutralising their carefully concocted device. How the abort or disarming process will be made more complex than the arming process we do not know yet, but our people in Tehran are working on this as top priority. What we do have is some cryptic clues. Something may have been lost in translation from the Persian but here it is as far as we can make out: The overall plot we believe is called ‘Operation Billion’. We can’t imagine why this this name was chosen, you would think it would’ve been ‘Operation Retribution’ or ‘Operation Holy Jihad’ or some such like. But this name has been chosen possibly because they will probably massively sell millions of shares on Wall Street just before detonation and then make a billion on the ensuing collapse of share prices just like they did on 9-11. Now the nine digit arming code: Depressingly, we have been able to obtain absolutely nothing about what this could be. The Iranians have evidently taken huge steps to hide or not make any communications involving this. All we have on this is the overall operational check-digit which I shall come to in due course. On the other hand, we have obtained some coded data on what the nine digit disarming code could be. Again, subject to the translation from Persian, we have: Quarter Pi, the denominators, double 239".

"What the fuck? Say that again!" Eunice needed to hear the mess of words again.

"Quarter Pi, the denominators, double 239. Your response is not unusual, what does it mean? It can mean anything. There is however an overall operational phrase and check-digit which links the arming code and the disarming code together. The phrase is ‘Make a billion and take away’. That’ll be the billion they make on the crash of the stock market, no doubt! And the check-digit linking the two numbers: ‘0.00318318318... and 19%’. So we have some sort of repeating series plus 19%, though 19% of what? 0.00318318318... plus 19% of itself gives a meaningless jumble of numbers. But who’s to say that jumble of numbers isn’t the check-digit? And even if it is, how does it interact with the arming code and the disarming code?"

"So it is a riddle." Eunice concluded.

"No! Absolutely not!" Smecker became very agitated, "It’s not a riddle, we’re sure of that. We think these phrases and numbers are more like some sort of mnemonic to be used in conjunction with a code book to compute the precise codes without interpretation or error. But what procedures and computations should spring from these words and numbers we can only speculate. The peculiar thing about 0.00318318318... inverted or one over 0.00318318318 is that it gives 314.15. Ignoring the decimal point that’s the first five digits of Pi which has already been incorporated into another secret message. Clearly some terrorist mathematician in Tehran who dreamt all this up is head fucking with us good and proper. It all seems to be wrapped up in Pi. The best mathematical brains at The Vatican have looked at it but it all seems so vague, the information so far can be interpreted to mean anything. In all likelihood it is all complete bullshit to lead us astray and throw us off the scent!"

"Perhaps I should look into it?" Eunice suggested deep in thought, "What you need is someone fresh who’s not a math boffin and can think outside the box."

"Don’t even try," Smecker brought Eunice back on course, "just do your job and convey the information to your CIA handlers when you get stateside. You can’t succeed where the best mathematical brains in the world have failed."

"I can turn my mind to anything, that is the nature of my genius. Remember, it is because I am so fucking smart that I make smart people think that they are retarded!"

"Oh Eunice!" Smecker looked most unimpressed, "such arrogance will end up getting you shot! Tone it down when you get stateside. You’ll be a rogue agent coming back in from self imposed exile. If we want you to be an ambassador for us then please try and act the part, that is, be diplomatic! Don’t push your luck. If you don’t measure up to their expectations in the task they want you to perform, they can always bury you with what they already have on you. The Vatican’s influence only reaches so far in the corridors of power back home, and don’t you forget it!"

"My God! I’m actually going home!" The news impressed itself all at once on Eunice.

"That’s right, sweetpea, it has all been arranged bar the finer details."

"When will I go?"

"Within a week. Thursday has been pencilled in on the calendar, but I’ll leave you with your thoughts for now. You’ve had a lot to take in. I’ll see you again over the next few days to provide additional information for your return."

With that the meeting terminated after Eunice related her gratitude to Smecker with a huge hug. She was both amazed and ecstatic that her life in limbo was coming to an end and she was about to embark on a new adventure involving national security where the stakes both operational and personal could not be higher. It involved her beloved adopted home of Boston, where The Saints and all her other friends were waiting for her.

True to his word Smecker was on hand in the following days to brief Eunice not only on the finer details of the terrorist plot but also on her planned return. On a need to know basis the people aware of the rogue agent’s return would be kept to a minimum, that is, very few. Curiously, the American contacts want Eunice to come back into the Boston office of the FBI where she is to report directly to none other than Special Agent John Kuntsler who now heads up the anti organised crime unit. Only the office Director and Kuntsler have been informed she is ‘coming in’. Kuntsler will then know what to do, no doubt contact the relevant people at the Pentagon who are very impatient to debrief this particular person of interest any new data about the bomb plot gained by The Vatican. Eunice is to carry nothing but a fake passport which will get her through customs at Boston Logan International Airport. At the Arrivals desk there will be an envelope for collection containing $100 to cover the taxi fare to the office but more importantly, a FBI security pass which will give access to the building. On collection of this envelope the fake passport should be destroyed or otherwise disposed of. None of the information about the bomb plot should be written down, it must all be carried in Eunice’s head.

"Cunty? Why him of all the fucked up people!" Eunice wanted to know, "We really dislike one another!" Smecker explained that the American handlers insisted Kuntsler should be the first point of contact as he knew Eunice and they had worked together in the past.

"Okay, whatever!" Eunice shrugged it off, it was only a minor detail.

On the day Eunice was about to leave, Smecker arrived carrying some very prestigious looking boxes.

"That isn’t what I think it is!" Eunice couldn’t contain her excitement at seeing the Givenchy logo on the boxes.

"First open the card, here." Smecker pushed the envelope into her hand. On opening it, Eunice read:

‘To my beautiful child Eunice, may the grace of Jesus Christ be with you always, Godspeed.’

                                          Cardinal Carrovaldi

                                                     Rome

"Oh, Cardinal Carrovaldi sent me a leaving present!" Eunice stared down at the words.

"Well he wasn’t going to let you go without a little something, Eunice, that’s for sure. Hand tailored clothing from the Rome Bureau of Givenchy, no expense spared. He asked me what you would like so naturally I always had one eye on operational matters, that’s why on your return I thought you needed to dress to impress!"

"Oh thank you Paul!" Eunice threw her arms around him.

"Don’t thank me, thank the Cardinal, without him we’d probably both be dead!" Smecker wrestled himself free, "That old rascal, I always wondered why he had a file on all your vital statistics, it certainly came in handy then!"

With eager hands, Eunice opened the boxes. There was an ultra smart fitted two piece navy-blue suit of jacket and pencil skirt, a beautiful lightweight pure silk silver blouse, white silk underwear and black silk stockings. Eunice opened the box containing the shimmering black shoes. Again these were beautifully hand made, though disappointingly, they only had two inch heels.

"The Vatican have got some standards of decency to uphold." Smecker remarked on seeing Eunice’s frown.

"So have I, Smecker, so have I!" Eunice would refer to her own benchmarks in relation to such matters. Inside the shoebox there was also a gold plated hairclip.

"Put your hair up when you go, Eunice." Smecker advised, "The Vatican’s newest ambassador needs to be professional par excellence, remember."

"Put your hair up when you go, Eunice." Smecker advised

"No-one tells me how to be professional!" she reproachfully answered, "I was going to pin my hair up anyway, so don’t fucking lecture me. But I like that hairclip, I’ll use it." Eunice had opened all the boxes but now looked about as if something was missing. "No Givenchy bag?" She looked to Smecker;

"Nope."

"Not even a clutch?" She appealed in hope.

"Nothing but those clothes, the passport and the information in your pretty little head." Smecker reiterated the conditions.

"I can take my jewellery?"

"Yes, okay." Smecker authorised, "There’s no harm in that."

Eunice showered, got dressed in the beautiful clothes and applied her makeup, delectably understated. She then put on her jewellery, the only remaining possessions she had from home, her mother’s diamond ring, earrings and pendant necklace. Once there had been a brooch to make up the full set of jewellery but this had long disappeared before Eunice’s mother had passed them to her. Finally, Eunice dressed her hair, holding it up into place with the hairclip provided. Eunice looked at herself in the full length mirror in her room. With her beautiful new outfit, Eunice felt she could take on the world, her opulence and strength knew no bounds. Eunice said her final goodbyes to the Mother Superior and the rest of the nuns, all of which had been very good friends to her, especially Sisters Bridget and Colette who she had been fucking on a regular basis unbeknown to the Mother Superior. Eunice thought that just because she had been living in a nunnery, it didn’t necessarily follow that she had to live like one. The Mother Superior had actually said "Bless you, my child." at their final goodbye; if only she had known….

The Vatican had provided a limousine for the journey to the airport and Smecker accompanied Eunice to see her off on the flight.

"Thank God I’m coming home!" she voiced her approval as she hugged Smecker one last time before going airside.

"Go girl, Ambassador!" he squeezed her tightly, "It’s all up to you now."

Going through passport check Eunice looked at the document provided. Emma Forrest McAllister, Public Accountant. Eunice would be a number crunching bean counter for the next few hours, just until she got back to U.S. soil, to Boston, her adopted second home!

Eunice took a sip of her iced mineral water and eased herself back into the wide comfy chair in business class on the airplane. She was relatively comfortable now, head up in the clouds but there was a rising knot in her stomach;

"Lord, pass this cup from me." She thought. There was so much at stake. The Vatican were relying on her as their girl, and so was Smecker, the thought of letting him down weighed on her more than anything else. And on top of everything this threat to national security, she would be expected to do her duty and perform but apart from a very general outline, she had no idea what precisely those duties entailed. Then there was Cunty too. Was it really necessary to involve him? She couldn’t continue fretting over everything, she needed to get to Kuntsler’s office and he would bring her in from the cold. Perhaps it was better that way meeting up with someone she knew as she had this unsettling thought in the back of her mind the question of how far she had been forgiven, if at all in the corridors of power back home. Too late to back out now, touchdown in forty-five minutes.

________________________________________________________

Eunice stood outside the great edifice of the Boston FBI office building and felt dwarfed and intimidated by it. She couldn’t understand these feelings as the office was like a home to her after all the years she had spent working there. If she was indeed coming home then surely this was the most appropriate place to start? But she had been in exile for so long, could she get it back?

"Well, this is it, head down, just do it!" Eunice took a deep breath and steadied herself as she entered the main entrance of the building. Fortunately, the security guard on duty was someone Eunice did not remember so presumably the attribute was similarly returned. He waved her straight through after scanning her FBI pass.

"If anyone recognises you, just keep walking and tough it out." Eunice reassured herself. She walked across the foyer just as Agent Harry Ginsburg was passing through. He stopped in his tracks as she kept her focus on the elevator ahead and walked straight past him.

"Agent Bloom?" He questioned in disbelief.

"I need to get to Cunty’s office, quick," she urged herself, "before some fucking asshole puts a bullet in me!"

The elevator doors opened, no-one else in it, thank God. Sixth floor selected. She prayed Cunty had not moved office in the time since she’d last trod the floors there. If he had she might find herself having to deal with the dangers of asking for directions. Once she was safely in Cunty’s office she could relax, he knew the score.

Sixth floor, the Anti-Organised Crime Unit, with Cunty as the new Head of Department. Eunice purposefully strode out across the open plan office towards Cunty’s office on the far side, she couldn’t see in because its venetian blinds were drawn, but he was definitely there, as he never left the door open when he was out. Some of the faces in the open plan office were new and threw her admiring glances in recognition of her captivating image, but most of the faces were known. She ignored the gasps and stunned looks of these as she marched past. "Bloomy? Is that you!" and similar comments came to her ears but she had to reach that office on the far side as priority, explanations to her former and now to be re-established colleagues would have to wait.

Eunice walked through the door and in the centre of the room in deep conversation was John Kuntsler and…, what the fuck?…..Gorgeous George!

Chapter 6: And that gentlemen, is the sound of the fat lady singing!

Silence. No whoops of joy or anything remotely like that happened. To all in the audience, this woman may have had the devil’s own luck in disarming the bomb, but that did not make her a good or responsible saviour, far from it, her behaviour had been insanely reckless in the extreme. They could easily be dead now, along with most of Boston, hundreds of thousands of lives just because she had to have her way.

With the bomb safely disarmed, Rachel now called in the CIA special forces who had surrounded and isolated the building. They all at once stormed inside and Rachel ordered the special forces commander to immediately report to her.

Having defused the bomb, even with evident guesswork, one would’ve expected Rachel to give the order that Special Agent Eunice Bloom be lifted shoulder high by the other seven agents and carried out of the building lauded and celebrated as a god: ‘Praise The Lord! We’ve snatched salvation from the jaws of damnation!’ Unfortunately, the sociopathic brain of Rachel Harbinger did not work along those behavioural norms. She had to take control of the situation and ensure all the credit for the success accrued to her. To this end, Bloom had to be eliminated, destroyed and wiped out, but if this was to be achieved, Rachel would need to move quickly. It had been bizarrely fortunate the FBI set had pulled their guns on the CIA team, what better precursor to move against them, and especially the prime target, Bloom;

"Captain, you see these six Bureau fuckers here, arrest them, take their guns and phones. Lock down the whole area and secure the bomb."John on hearing the order that he and his agents were to be arrested, quickly told them not to resist and cooperate.

"That one," Rachel pointed at Eunice who was still kneeling by the bomb in some sort of daze, mentally sapped, "take her next door into the second office once you’ve secured her, and bring me her gun and phone."

Eunice hardly noticed such was her state of mind, the shout 'Arrest that woman!', her gun being snatched out of it’s holster, then the holster itself, her spare clips of ammunition and her phone being removed while her hands were zip tied behind her back. Quinn had his own designs on a particular FBI agent too. As soon as Renata Wolters was arrested and her hands secured behind her back he grabbed hold of her jacket lapels and raised her up in front of him so that she could barely reach the floor on tiptoe;

"Look at what I’ve caught myself here, my own little G-Woman, ‘G’ for gorgeous!" Renata turned her face away in revulsion, both Quinn and Peel were big burly men, potentially overpowering. She hopefully looked around for Eunice as there was no way the real leader of the FBI team would let anything like that happen to one of her girls. Unfortunately for Renata, she saw her would be saviour was already being neutralised, two CIA SWAT members were busily binding Eunice and removing her weaponry.

"Quinn! Put the kid down." Rachel became the saviour of unlikely source, "I need you and Peel with me in the second office now."

"Arrest that woman!"

As Eunice was being led to the adjacent office she saw John and the other four FBI agents being taken away, hands tied and heads hooded. Evidently Special Agent Eunice had been selected for special treatment. In the second office Rachel and agents Quinn and Peel were already waiting for Eunice.

"Agent Harbinger, you wanted the prisoner’s gun and phone?" One of the SWAT men who delivered Eunice to the office held them out.

"Yeah, thanks. You two can leave us now." Rachel took the gun and pushed it into her hip pocket; "Quinn, here, guard that phone with your life and let no other fucker touch it." She said as she passed it to him. She then circled behind Eunice and tugged hard at the zip-tie making sure the hands were absolutely secure before returning to the front. Rachel was confident that with Agents Quinn and Peel present the resources in the room at her disposal were more than adequate by a good measure. Eunice watched Rachel take off her jacket, undo the cuffs of her blouse and roll the sleeves up. Not good. Rachel once more took up Eunice’s Para LDA and swayed it up and down in her hand, testing the weight of it;

"That’s a nice little gun, Bloom, wish I had one just like it!".

She pressed the clip release catch so it fell to the floor and then kicked it away to the side. She then pulled back the barrel to drop out the chambered round.

"You got it, it’s clear, Rachel." Quinn helpfully diagnosed. Rachel released the barrel retainer and slid it off, throwing it away to her left with a thud to the floor. The weapon thus disarmed and dismantled, Rachel flung the remainder spinning trigger over butt into the far right corner where it smashed into something causing a loud breaking sound, and she made sure Eunice was watching her while she did it. After having witnessed such a display, Agent Peel now believed that his boss from thereon would do everything she could to harass and undermine the captive. It had to be a gross insult to Bloom, to disarm and break up her personal signature weapon like that in front of her face.

"Be under no illusions bitch, I break your sword over my knee, consider yourself expelled from the 7th Cavalry, an outcast." Rachel began the session, "So here we are again Bloomy, back to square one, you just can’t help being rogue can you, despite all we’ve done for you to bring you back?"

"I break your sword over my knee"

"What are you doing? I defused the bomb didn’t I?" Eunice still mentally exhausted couldn’t fathom what was happening.

"I defused the bo-omb, I defused the bo-omb!" Rachel insultingly imitated Eunice’s accent in her best Scarlet O’Hara voice, "Oh praise be Jesus! I’m alive!" Rachel first enthusiastically mocked the prisoner, then with seriousness; "And you expect us to be grateful to you after the way you just acted?" Eunice remained silent. It was obvious that Rachel would take revenge now. This woman was ruthless, she had shown that with her eye gouging plans for Vindhani. Quinn and Peel too, were ultra loyal and would carry out Rachel’s orders without hesitation. The two men stood either side of the prisoner each holding an already bound arm so she had no option but to face the main interrogator.

"Quinn, turn out her pockets." Rachel ordered her Number 2.

"There’s her FBI ID." Quinn located the first item in Eunice’s jacket.

"Retain that, I’m expelling her from this active service unit." Rachel advised.

"Her keys."

"She can use those as a weapon, throw them away."

"Won’t we need them for when we search her apartment, and also her car?" Quinn hesitated.

"No, I’d prefer just to kick the apartment door in and ransack the dump, and then we can smash her car windows and do much the same." Rachel looked right into Eunice’s eye as she said this hoping for some reaction but Eunice remained steely composed thus far, even when Quinn did as he was instructed and threw the bunch of keys away to one side. Recommencing the search, he produced an eyeliner pen, some lipstick, tissues and a packet of sugar free mints, these he dropped to the floor without even referring them to his Number 1;

"Oh here’s her wallet..." Quinn pulled it out from the left inside pocket.

"That’s a rather masculine thing for you to carry, don’t you think Bloom? Then again, I heard you had balls. Quinn, give that to me." Rachel reached out for it.

"There’s nothing in her hip pockets." Quinn completed the task. Rachel opened the wallet. There was a small amount of cash, a few $10, $5 and $1 dollar bills, and some credit cards which she skimmed away one by one onto the floor;

"Ah gentlemen!" Rachel announced with a grin enjoying the discovery, "we have some personal stuff!" Rachel took out a small piece of card protectively contained within a clear plastic holder and began to corrosively read it out for the amusement of her assistants. Firstly the following in typeface:

ST. ANTHONY’S BLESSING

May the Lord bless you and take you into his keeping; may He show you His countenance and take pity on you; may He turn His eyes towards you and give you His peace.

At the bottom in ink was written:

‘To my beautiful daughter Eunice, stay safe, love Pa’

"Awww! How sweet!" Rachel laughed along with Quinn completely subordinating all dignity as held by the private memento between father and daughter. Rachel turned the card over; "There’s more!" Rachel began to read the additional typeface;

Those that carry this about them with faith will receive many graces. It is a PRESERVATIVE in child-bearing, thunder and lightening, sudden death, falling sickness, dangers at sea and many other dangers.

By the time Rachel reached the end she was struggling to keep herself from bursting out laughing such was the irony of the statement in relation to the captive as she saw it. Quinn sniggered along with Rachel while Peel smiled wanly as a show that he too found it amusing.

"Oh Bloom, I think you’ll be needing more than St Anthony’s blessing once I’ve fucking finished with you!" Rachel dropped the card to the floor and twisted her shoe on it several times. Eunice jerked forwards as she watched it fall but Quinn and Peel reacted immediately and pulled the prisoner back into position. Rachel took out the last remaining item in the wallet, a dog-eared and badly creased old photograph of not particularly sharp focus or quality. Evidently an old family snap using obsolete bygone technology. Rachel dropped the wallet and gave her full attention to the well worn piece of photographic paper. Who was that?, was that Bloom visiting friends or something? Who were the others? Then Rachel realised exactly what the photo was. It was a family snap outdoors and judging by the clothes worn, early 1980s. The one she initially mistook for Bloom was actually the bitch that bore her, Mommy Dearest. It would appear that Bloom was every inch her mother’s daughter, Mom’s long blonde hair in a transitional style between 1970s Farrah Fawcett and the ‘big hair’ of the 1980s. Even Rachel had to admit begrudgingly that Mom was a fine looking woman. The tall man with sandy coloured hair must be Pa but he was otherwise nondescript. Their brood of three was stood in front of them, two girls and a boy, very young in the range three to seven years of age Rachel reckoned. So which one was the brat she had such issue with? There she was in the middle of the three, like a ball of blonde fluff dressed in a little denim smock all sweet and innocent like, as if butter wouldn’t melt? Wherever it was, it was a nice warm day and the smiling Bloom family looked very contented without a worry in the world. ‘Ahhhhhh, pass the sick bucket’.

"There’s no known negative for this, is there Bloom?" Rachel held up the object for Eunice’s attention. Eunice knew exactly why the question had been asked. The best option would be to remain silent and be inscrutable but ultimately any option was futile, Rachel had her.

"If there was you’d have a better copy." Rachel deduced and then signalled her evil intent by holding the top of the photo in the centre between the finger and thumb of both hands.

"Look Rachel," the intention forced Eunice to speak, "Hate me if you must, but for pity’s sake please leave my family out of it, your argument is with me, they’ve done nothing to you!"

"Oh they’re fair game." Rachel fundamentally disagreed, "If through them I can hurt you, I’ll do it, fucking bank on it!" Rachel peeled one side of the photo down halving it. She watched the hurt spread over the face of Eunice as she did so. She placed the two halves neatly together and did the same again, quartering the image. This time the head of the captive dropped and went down, much to Rachel’s pleasure. The four strips were put together, turned to the side, torn in half and then let go, finished.

"Don’t let your head go down so quickly," Rachel spoke chillingly to Eunice, patting and stroking the underside of her chin, "I ain’t even started yet. Don’t you know how long I’ve waited for this moment, Bloom?" Rachel brushed Eunice’s hair away off the front of her shoulders behind. Then to show manifest insincerity, with delicate fingers she tweaked each end of the pretty silk bow at the front of Eunice’s buttoned up blouse collar and wiped away an imaginary piece of dust from the top of her jacket shoulder, "I knew it, sooner or later you’d go off the rails and do something like this. I thank the Lord you’ve done it now so I can deal with you appropriately. I never trusted you, your handlers back at the Pentagon told me they believed in you and I was assigned to watch your back."

"Oh, a Guardian Agent? I’m not unaccustomed to the concept." Eunice contemplated her own role in relation to The Saints.

"But I decided I wouldn’t be that, not for you. I took it upon myself to expose you for the fake that you are, and once rogue, always rogue, isn’t that it? That’s more or less what you’ve been up to here today. By exposing and destroying you, will that be the making of myself?"

Rachel took Eunice’s face in her hands. Bloom was extremely fit, strong and athletic, her sprint up the staircase earlier on had been proof of that, but the face felt fragile in Rachel’s hands, soft skin over brittle bone underneath. Rachel pressed her hands hard against the sides of the face;

"What is inside that fucking brain of yours, Bloom?" Rachel demanded through clenched teeth, "Are your eyes the windows to your soul?"

Now Rachel let her thumbs wander centre and brush Eunice’s eyelids closed, resting over them applying light pressure. Bloom froze, her breathing shallow and quickening, was that trembling all of a sudden in that perfectly honed body? Rachel knew Bloom wasn’t frightened of anyone or anything, but she was clearly petrified now.

The face

"Oh my Lord Jesus, why have you forsaken me?" was pleadingly whispered, almost inaudible from the lips between Rachel’s hands.

"That's right, pray to your plastic Jesus, for all the good it'll do you, even He can't help you now..................... Ah-ha-ha-ha!" Rachel suddenly laughed out loud, wiping the flat of her hand over Eunice’s face and pushing it away, "What are you like Bloom?! I’m not going to poke your fucking eyes out, you stupid bitch, what do you take me for?" Bloom seemed to be relieved but Rachel sensed she had been badly shaken by the threat, game or no game;

"Do I frighten you?" Rachel queried expecting a pathetic lie in return.

"Yes."

The reply gave Rachel a slight start. She hadn’t expected that. She had expected Bloom to come out all ‘Fuck you, I ain’t scared of nuthin!’ but instead she came straight out and admitted it. No attempt to bullshit and maintain a facade? That was one thing about Bloom you could rely on, she didn’t stick to the script. Nevertheless Rachel would settle for the answer, and it pleased her that the Bloom woman was well and properly terrified of her;

"I do? You certainly know who you’re up against now, you’ll find I’m no pushover like all the other fuckers who’ve been taken in by your bullshit. What were you doing on the roof?" Rachel’s tone hardened, "My sharpshooters have told me you were acting strange as if trying to conceal something. Who were you in communication with? Who gave you the code? Who the fuck are you working for?! I mean to get it out of you!"

As she had previously suggested, Eunice was just about ready to ‘Curse God and be damned’. She had defused the bomb!, and yet she appeared to have fallen into the hands of this evil sadist. Was this to be her reward? Perhaps the bomb had gone off after all and unbeknown to her she’d descended into hell?

"Whatever you do, don’t leave a mark on me." Eunice still shaken by the eye gouging feint, said without thinking and right away realised a foolish provocation had been made.

"Don’t mark you?" Rachel smiled, "But surely that only relates to people who have some sort of access to due legal process, or legal representation if you like? Why should I be worried about marking you? You mean…. mark you like this?" and karate chopped Eunice across the right cheek knocking her backwards so Quinn and Peel had to stop her falling. "Remember Bloom, you’re the one with the unsavoury record of resisting arrest. Still haven’t learnt your lesson? To be beaten up once is unfortunate, but twice, well, that’s just being plain careless! I heard what you said to Cunty, about the first man that hit you would die," Rachel smirked, "Well, if you don’t mind me a little bit of sisterly licence!"

"He had my hands tied behind my back too, what is it with you people, what are you afraid of?" Eunice asked defiantly.

"Ah, but you see in that respect he’s not totally fucking stupid. I like having your hands like that, nice and secure where they can’t do the devil’s work, you’re a real Miss-Adventure, aren’t you? But cynicism aside, I certainly am glad to be alive," Rachel continued, "I’m so glad to be alive so I can keep on having my fun…."

With that Rachel ripped out the silk bow at Eunice’s collar, put her hands inside it and pulled it open popping off the buttons, then tore open the front of the blouse halfway down reaching the bust line when Peel interjected;

"Rachel, shouldn’t we wait and continue interrogating the prisoner back at the Pentagon?" Rachel stopped what she was doing and turned to Peel;

"Oh I don’t think so, no time like the present!"

She then returned to her task, tearing the blouse open all the way down, pulling it apart out of the skirt waistband, exposing Eunice’s bra and bare stomach underneath. First tracing the outline of the ribcage with her fingers, Rachel then placed her hands on either side of Eunice’s ribs and with her useful thumbs prodded the top of the stomach, seeking out the base of the sternum. Eunice looked at Rachel confused and unable to fathom her intentions, what was she up to? Then to her disbelieving horror she realised what was coming and Rachel savouring the moment knew she knew. Eunice tensed her stomach muscles;

"Relax your guts!" Rachel slapped them hard with her hand, "Don’t let me catch you doing that!" Rachel was wise to the countermeasure being attempted. Eunice’s heart sank and with it her attempt to protect herself;

"That’s where it is, boss," Quinn availed his expertise by prodding his fingers into the tip of Eunice’s sternum, "you want just slightly under it to be most effective, there, I think you’ve got it."

"There?" Rachel sought assurance.

"You got it." He confirmed. "Right there, and also, you need to strike upwards not straight on."

"Thank you Quinn," Rachel appreciated good solid advice like that. She had one last piece of preparatory advice for the prisoner too; "Good girl, you know when it’s time to take your medicine, don’t you? Boys? Release her so I can put her down. Now you keep nice and still for me, d’ya hear?" Rachel made it plain, flexing her arms and shoulders as she limbered up. Eunice just stared ahead out into the distance, there was nothing else she could do but wait, try and get through and beyond it.

Rachel sank her left claw into Eunice’s shoulder, making as secure an anchor as she could for the force to be applied and concentrated fully on the task at hand. Thus suitably readied, she struck her right fist up under the base of Eunice’s sternum as hard as her strength would allow. Eunice did all she could to fight the excruciating pain of being punched so hard in her solar plexus, she defiantly tried to stay on her feet, tears falling out of her eyes with the exertion. Rachel stood in front, enjoying the result of her work;

"My dear, you really need to double up, and get yourself down on the floor." Rachel helpfully suggested. Eunice could fight it no longer, the pain, the very breath knocked out of her, she collapsed in on herself and fell forwards against Rachel’s hip. It was with great satisfaction that Rachel let the broken Eunice slide off it onto the floor where she continued to writhe and contort in her agony with no relief forthcoming.

"Oh, you dirty bitch," Rachel lectured self-righteously, "that’s the last time you denigrate me, your fucking people pulling their guns on me and my friends, I ain’t gonna let it slide. This time there’ll be no way back for you, I’m going to see to it, and you will tell me who gave you that fucking code. And another thing, you know how everyone hates a smart-ass! Agents Quinn and Peel, aren’t you going to congratulate me? Didn’t you see how easy she was to take down? She asked us what are we frightened of? Well, who’s afraid of the big bad Bloom now?"

With one huge final spasm, Eunice rolled onto her back on top of her bound arms and then fainted, her head rolling to one side. Momentarily in silence, the three CIA agents stood around the unconscious woman on the floor, looking down at the fruits of their labour;

"Fuckin’ A, Rachel!" Quinn suddenly couldn’t contain himself, "You knocked her out! Whoo-hoop! You did it, what a punch!"

"So much for ‘The real thing’ Bloom, supposed to be so hard and tough? Who’s the real thing now? You bitch!" Rachel poured out scorn unchecked, "She thought she could take it and wouldn’t go down, the dumb-ass fuck! That’ll show the Southern country bumpkin I can cow-punch as good as any of those fuckers down there!"

"Shit, I think you really hurt her…" Peel considered what Rachel had just done as lethally dangerous even against those well trained for such an event. Hadn’t Houdini died from such a punch? Although knocked out, he hoped Bloom’s constitution was strong enough to get over it, not that Rachel was remotely interested;

"Jesus! I wanted to hurt her, but to actually knock the bitch out, that’s the icing on the fucking cake! Gentlemen, report back to the Pentagon; ‘Scratch one FBI Special Agent!’"

"Agent Harbinger?" The SWAT commander entered the office and at once was struck by the sight of the collapsed woman on the floor, "My God, you’ve given her some!"

"What is it captain?" Rachel betrayed her impatience.

"My team has secured the site, we await your further instruction." A highly experienced special forces captain, he felt repulsed by the scene. There was something deeply abhorrent about knocking someone senseless. Normally he wouldn’t care but the girl was so pretty! He couldn’t help noticing when his men arrested and disarmed her. No two ways about it, she was an attractive woman. He thought he’d offer to pick her up as he didn’t like the prisoner laid out like that with her blouse ripped open, all her possessions strewn around and were those pieces of what looked like a torn up photograph? Then there was the ugly red mark rising up on the woman’s cheek where they had evidently struck her, the bastards;

"Do you want me to pick that girl up off the floor?"

"No! That’s none of your concern, we’ll deal with her!" Rachel wouldn’t relinquish the quarry. It needed to be tightly kept under control. But the captain wouldn’t be so easily fended away, the woman was lying on her back crushing her bound arms behind. He reached down and pulled the woman onto her right side and brought her left knee up to put her in as near a coma position as he could manage. Then he lifted her chin and checked her throat to make sure the airway was not blocked.

"Didn’t you hear me, captain? I told you to leave that there!" Rachel was determined no compassion be shown, "Get back outside and be ready to liaise with our nukes people who are just arriving."

Once Rachel was sure the captain had gone and would not be returning she went over to the prisoner and used her foot against Eunice’s shoulder to push her over again onto her back, much to the great amusement of Quinn. Peel couldn’t believe how dangerous his colleagues were acting. With the prisoner’s head rolled over in that position, her tongue could easily drop back and shut off her air supply. He wanted to do something but was too timid to do so in front of Rachel.

"Gentlemen, once she’s regained consciousness, get her outa here!" Rachel wound up her present dealings with the fallen.

Rachel stayed on in order to complete the securing of the site while Quinn and Peel manhandled the barely recovering Eunice to the awaiting prison van outside.

"What about it, U-Blu?" Quinn began to tease the prisoner, "You, me, Peel….., internal rendition, just like old times!"

______________________________________________________

The perceived bomb plot had been well envisaged and briefed for, but when it actually happened the Establishment seemed as if almost in shock and unable to react quickly. Fortunately, any details of the plot and how near the nation had come to catastrophe had not leaked out thus far, so time could be taken to decide how the heroes of the hour were to be rewarded, and the vanquished to be punished. The nation should thank God for giving them Agent Rachel Harbinger and her small team operating from the Boston office of the FBI. Not only had she led the team to finding and defusing the bomb, she had skilfully stopped a rogue member of her team from sabotaging the operation. Details relating to the nature of the sabotage were incomplete at present but it appeared that this double agent may have been working for the Iranians. Agent Harbinger was continuing to investigate and would be providing her own conclusions about this saboteur in due course. They had this rogue agent in custody and in time she would be punished with the appropriate level of severity for her crimes as the nation demanded. Whereas Agent Harbinger, this brilliant courageous heroine could never be officially recognised for the great service she had done for the nation, as reward she would be fast-tracked into the higher echelons of the CIA and held in the highest esteem throughout the corridors of power.

There still remained, however, the pressing need to punish the regime in Tehran for their intended diabolical atrocity. Regime change? With the uncovering of the bomb plot, the Establishment had a good enough excuse for this but the ignorant general public had no such grounds and certainly no stomach for intervention after the misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead it was decided to remove the direct physical nuclear threat and put the wheels in motion to bring this about. The Americans gave their ally the Israelis the go-ahead to bomb the Iranian nuclear infrastructure to oblivion and make sure it could never arise again. The Israeli airforce was provided with all the finance, and better still, all the ordnance it needed to carry out the air-strikes which they did with relish as they had been itching to do this for years. Officially, along with the rest of the international community, America condemned the Israelis for their excessive and unprovoked use of force, the loss of life, etc, such is the way these things are played out. _________________________________________________ 　

 The six FBI agents and Gorgeous George were separated and detained at the Pentagon. There would be no four star hotel room or a suit of clothes provided for Eunice this time, she got a plain orange boiler suit and a five by nine holding cell, ‘back to square fucking one’.

As soon as Doctor Christine knew Eunice had returned to the Pentagon she paid the prisoner a visit. She was saddened to see the state of Eunice, the side of her face bruised and swollen, forlorn and abandoned to her fate in the common prison cell. Eunice held out her hand to the doctor through the bars but Christine refused to take it.

"Eunice, oh Eunice, what am I going to do with you?" was all she could say before promptly leaving.

The debriefing of all the prisoners began, but gradually everyone apart from Eunice was sort of let go, but suitably gagged under national security regulations with regards the consequences of what had nearly happened. First Gorgeous was released, then the four assistant FBI agents.

Before John was let go, his final debriefing session was conducted by Rachel. She was looking for as much evidence against Eunice as possible. Gorgeous and the four assistant FBI agents had refused to help her, too loyal, but in Kuntsler Rachel knew they had history and hoped he could be persuaded to participate in destroying his Number 2, even after he had supported her at the Shelton warehouse.

Rachel was wrong, he steadfastly refused to sign the affidavit in front of him condemning Eunice, pushing it back across the table to Rachel opposite.

"What’s the matter John? I heard you didn’t like her? Everything in the affidavit is true, she was insubordinate and reckless in the extreme, it’s not as if I’m asking you to lie."

"Yes, she was all that," John admitted, "She was insane, no-one can get inside that fucking head of hers, no-one can understand her!"

"Then why won’t you sign?"

"Because, fuck it, I owe her! Oh God forgive me for what I did!"

"John, you don’t owe her a fucking thing. It is she that owes you everything including her life. I ain’t happy about you Bureau people pulling your weapons on my team but if you hadn’t we definitely would’ve gunned her down like the mad dog she is, no two ways about it. So in the light of that, sign!"

"What do you take me for? If you gunned her down we wouldn’t be sitting here, we’d be bits of radioactive dust, your argument just doesn’t square, no!" John refused point blank.

"Okay, so you’re feeling a bit guilty because you beat up on a rogue agent who arrogantly turned up in your office looking to wipe the slate clean, how else were you supposed to react?"

"I didn’t beat her up!" John quickly corrected, "I merely roughly manhandled her."

"Roughly manhandled her?" Rachel laughed, "She looked a lot worse than that when she was first brought here, I remember the state of her in the room we provided for her. Anyway, what are you frightened of? I gave her a slap or two. I thought her weak with no ability to take even a light punch."

"You hit her? Fuck you! I’m not cooperating with you. I don’t suppose you untied her hands before you hit her?"

"I don’t remember…"

"Right, well next time why don’t you take her down to the gym and face her on the judo mats, then untie her hands."

"Oh, talking from actual experience, John?"

"Actually, I am!" John confirmed, "Or better still, leave your IDs behind, each of you take a gun to the Boston docks and let’s see who comes out."

"Pistols at dawn?" Rachel lampooned the scenario.

"Forget it, don’t give her a gun, but by all means take your own for all the good it will do you. I know who my money would be on!"

"She has no special abilities as far as I can see, only the talent of bullshitting and getting others to believe in her."

"Don’t ever underestimate Eunice, I did that for years like a blind idiot. I won’t make that mistake again. You’re young, you just don’t see it, do you? The immense abilities of the woman you’re trying to take down."

"Okay, she’s a bit smart upstairs, but she’s no smarter than I am. I saw through her right away, trying to front it out when she couldn’t work out how to defuse the bomb, in the end she just guessed it, nearly killing us all and the whole of Boston in the process! She has her little girl charms but as soon as I came on the scene, the real real deal, I exposed her for the worthless chancer she is. From here on in, she can consider any luck she has as well expended."

"There’s only one worthless chancer I know, she’s sitting right here in front of me!"

"Well Cunty, not only are you a fucking hypocrite, preaching to me about untying Bloom’s hands, but you and the rest of your Bureau assholes have been a huge disappointment to me. What is it with you FBI fuckers? You’re supposed to help us CIA guys, but it feels like drawing teeth most of the time just to get any cooperation, I give up on the lot of you! Here is the chance to bury once and for all this fucking rogue who is totally unfit for public office, and none of you will do it out of some sort of misguided loyalty."

"No, not loyalty. It is our love for her. Even I too have grown to love her. My department can’t function without her. I can’t function without her! The bad-ass and the bravado, it’s all for show really, underneath she is the most decent person I know, and also her capacity to forgive."

"Alright little man or little mouse or whatever you are, you’re no use to me so you can scuttle back to the Boston office of the FBI and immerse yourself with investigations such as Gorgeous George and the other fucking shit you deal with of no consequence, but there’ll be no Bloom to hold your hand from now on, go on, fuck off, get lost."

_____________________________________________

 Eunice didn’t even have the benefit of debriefings, her sessions were more like interrogations, hour upon hour alone in a room where the phrase ‘Who are you working for?’ was repeated endlessly over the loudspeaker. It was mental torture designed to grind her down despite all her training to resist such methods. Behind the large mirrored glass on the wall, Eunice knew Rachel was there watching her. Why didn’t she have it out with Eunice head on, what was her game plan? Once Eunice did bang on the glass and said she wanted to talk. This managed to produce a nondescript interrogator who entered the room.

"Who are you working for?" he asked.

"You know who the fuck I’m working for!" Eunice angrily replied, "I’m an unofficial ambassador representing The Vatican, but you know that doesn’t divide my loyalties. I’m still a patriotic American, a law enforcement officer, a public servant! I just want to do my duty!" The interrogator did not answer. He about turned and left the room.

"Who are you working for?" the loudspeaker started up again.

After such endless sessions, Eunice was returned to and dumped in her cell, worn out. For the whole of Eunice's incarceration, since she was not let out to do exercise, she had kept up her fitness regime, press-ups, sit-ups etc, and endlessly paced up and down the nine foot cell to get the required number of steps each day. But after two weeks she had to give that treadmill up, to pace up and down like that hour after hour was the actions of a caged animal, she had seen mentally disturbed animals in zoos do the exactly same thing. Eventually the days not interrupted by interrogation were spent lying on the bed imagining herself far away having happy times with friends and family, however, she knew such prolonged escapism was the first step on the road to insanity, soon she would refuse to return to reality and be lost. She was rarely let out to have a shower, denial of such basic hygiene to the woman was cruel, the tiny washbasin in the cell was better than nothing, but inadequate, just like the food. This was half rationed and revolting, almost inedible. The guards constantly taunted and threatened her:

"Hey U-Blu, what happened to the fitness regime? No ten thousand steps today? Ha-ha-ha!" Eunice lay on the bed with her back to him, so he couldn’t see the tears spilling out of her eyes.

"U-Blu! Have you got dirty hair?" He was correct, "Have you got lice?" She didn’t have, "I think we need to shave your head, what about it? Would you like that?" The suggestion to destroy her hair she knew was no idle threat, Rachel was quite capable of ordering it. Such threats constantly weighed down on Eunice, the thoughts of which made her curl up in the corner of the cell, arms across her face in an attempt to blot it all out. Occasionally the old fire within Eunice to resist came out such as the time when Agent Quinn paid a visit in order to get in on the act of taunting her. He leered through the cell bars at the wasting woman;

"Look at the fucking state of you, Bloom. Just think, if you were a dog in that way the vet would need to have you put down."

"After the way you sexually harassed one of my girls on the team, if you were a dog you’d be castrated!" The cellblock guard on duty couldn’t help himself but laugh at the response of the prisoner, embarrassing the would be bully.

"You’d better learn to show me some respect, you little bitch," Quinn came right back, "I’m the Number 2 to Rachel Harbinger, the lady who led the team that defused the bomb, and yet I don’t think you even know my first name!"

"Well as it happens I don’t know it, but if my first name was ‘Shit-for-brains’ I’d keep quiet about it too." The guard had to force his hand over his mouth and turn away to stop his rising hysterics on hearing this.

"Ah, you’ve got all the smart answers, haven’t you, Bloom. Just you wait till the impeachment hearing arrives. You’re going to need some pretty smart fucking answers when Rachel starts on you, believe it!" Then he quickly walked out not wishing for a protracted verbal argument with one better than himself.

Such small tactical victories may have been welcome but did nothing to alleviate Eunice’s overall strategic catastrophe. Rachel’s instigation of Internal Rendition with the inherent lack of human rights was gradually grinding Eunice down. The tell tale signs were becoming undeniable. Regardless of the threat to shave her head, Eunice’s hair was self destructing anyway. She had managed to coax out of one of the women guards a tiny mirror and a comb. But by this stage the comb was inflicting a lot of damage, clogging itself up with many loose strands as she tugged it through the brittle tresses. She fearfully inspected her scalp using the mirror which confirmed her worst fears, thinning both in the look and the feel of it. Eunice could also feel her teeth loosening in her upper and lower jaw bones, her muscles began to waste, and with the realisation this hell might continue for the rest of her life, Eunice’s mind was heading the same way. Internal Rendition II? You could get used to anything, couldn’t you?

Rachel sought regular updates from the guards about the state of the prisoner. It was working, Bloom was buckling.

It came to pass that Rachel felt she was ready to instigate impeachment proceedings against the prisoner, a brief she had applied for and was given by Eunice’s five CIA handlers. Rachel was pushing for rendition to Guantanamo Bay without trial, and for life with no chance of release. Rachel was confident she could arrange that for Bloom and that confidence had grown as the day of the impeachment hearing grew near. Rachel had done her homework and made a convincing case against the accused. She briefed Quinn and Peel on the main thrust of her prepared condemnation of the prisoner she planned to present at the hearing. Quinn was all enthusiastic and gave Rachel his unreserved support. Peel on the other hand felt at this stage at least, there was room and time to air concerns. He thought it was wrong to participate in such a one sided hearing whereby the accused was not allowed to call any witnesses on her behalf, but for the sake of his own neck, he was coerced to do it. After all, Rachel was the daughter of Congressman Henry Harbinger IV and being the member of such an established and influential family on Capitol Hill she had been duly fast tracked into a senior operational position within the CIA. Nevertheless, why were they bothering with the hearing at all? Just imprison the woman and throw away the key. This hearing appeared to be all for show, something for the great and the powerful to make them feel good about themselves. Certainly Rachel thought the hearing was important. As leader of the team that located and defused the bomb she was in line for further promotion and a special commendation. However, in order to secure and consolidate this, Rachel first needed to complete the destruction of Bloom and a good performance at the hearing would ensure she obtained those well deserved rewards. But Joe Peel, after he read the resume of evidence prepared by Rachel against Bloom, plucked up enough courage to voice his concerns;

"Don’t you think we are going a bit too far with this Rachel? I mean much more evidence like this and you’ll have that girl up facing a firing squad. It’s getting too much, you wouldn’t want that to happen, surely?" Rachel thought on whether she minded or not momentarily;

"Fuck her!" And that was that. Joe didn’t want to be part of this investigation any more. He shuddered at being party to such a grotesque act that incredible day, the three of them standing in a circle looking at the unconscious Bloom on the floor, the other two pouring down scorn and laughing at her. He didn’t understand Rachel, or for that matter Quinn, why this pathological hatred of Bloom, it didn’t sit right. It went over and above prosecuting a rogue agent, Rachel was a terrible bully, she was addicted, yes, that’s what it was, she was addicted to hurting Bloom.

A week previous he had been getting some lunch in the canteen when he came across Rachel and her entourage of sycophantic friends. She was bragging about how she had suppressed and arrested Bloom, the rogue upstart;

"She can’t take a punch, I tell you. She went rogue again and came at me all fists and feet flying. I says to her ‘Girl, it’s about time I put you on the floor… ’. In pure self defence, just as a parry, I pushed out my fist towards her and caught her on the chin, knocking her clean out. She’s fucking useless, no punch resistance, nothing!" Then on seeing him, "Hey Joe, you were there, that’s exactly how it happened, didn’t it?"

"Um, yeah, spot on…" He hated himself for it, but what else was he supposed to say?

"So there you have it, everyone, I went one better than Cunty, I knocked her out!" Rachel continued to bask in the collective adoration, "There’s no way back for Bloom now, she had her chance and she blew it, yeah, that’s what we’ll call her from now on: ‘Blew-it-Bloomy!’ Thank fuck I’m not in her shoes, six inch heeled Pradas or not!" Everyone laughed.

Now here Joe was, a couple of days before the hearing in Rachel’s office reading this obscene dossier;

"Rachel, why do you hate Bloom?"

"I don’t hate her, I just severely dislike her. There’s something about her that gets right on my tits. The accent, the 'fuck-me' shoes, the flirting with all the men like a dirty slut. This hard-boiled classy broad act, I’ve no time for it at all. Above all, her criminality, an accessory to murder, now I’ve got her banged to rights on that, no excuses."

"Yes I know, it’s just I’m so uncomfortable with the depth of the condemnation. Have we nothing good to say about her?"

"What the fuck are you on?! No credit must accrue to this criminal rogue agent, that’s just wrong and contrary to all that justice is supposed to be about. It must all accrue to us, the people who really deserve it. It will be the making of our careers! I hope to follow my father into Congress you know, think about what’s at stake, what can be ours as long as we don’t fuck it up! Help me wipe her out, you know in your heart we’re only doing what should’ve been done in the first place. I’m relying on you Joe, you’re my man! Do this for me and I’ll see you right for the future, I guarantee it."

Joe left the office with a heavy heart, torn between his loyalty to Rachel and the fact he knew he was doing something wrong. He didn’t know who to turn to so he confided in the only one he considered available, albeit inadequate, Quinn;

"Andy, I don’t know what to do. This impeachment hearing is such bullshit, the whole thing has been concocted by Rachel with the sole aim of destroying Bloom. Why does Rachel need to do this? She already has a great career and probably a shining future in politics. I don’t want to give evidence at the hearing but if I don’t, the ramifications against me could be terminal. What can I do?"

"Keep your head down, read the script and stay the course." the advice of the older man was uncompromisingly plain, "Do exactly as she tells you and never antagonise her, remember I know her a lot better than you do so listen up. I tell you, Joe, with the backing of her father on Capitol Hill, she’s got more fingers in pies than a leper on a cookery course…"

__________________________________________________

Impeachment Hearing day. Eunice was brought into the room with the long table. The original five handlers who would sit in judgement had not yet arrived but Rachel was already there, waiting;

"Here you are dear, have a seat, just like old times," Rachel grabbed a seat from the wall and put it in front of the long table, inviting Eunice to take it, "nothing much is going to happen, just an informal chat."

"Shouldn’t I stand?" Eunice questioned, drained and seeming to lack focus.

"You’re in no fit state to stand, remain seated at all times, I insist, don’t go fainting on me!" Rachel put a hand on Eunice’s shoulder pressing her to take the seat.

Three minutes later the panel of five entered the room from the door behind their side of the table. The Chairman immediately gave the prisoner a filthy look as soon as he saw her:

"What are you doing sitting down!" he boomed, "How dare you show such disrespect to the panel!" Before Eunice could react she felt herself being roughly hauled to her feet out of the chair. It was Rachel;

"Mr Chairman, if she is unwilling to show you respect by standing humbly before you then it is only right she should kneel…" Rachel advised The Chairman before putting her foot into the back of Eunice’s left knee, breaking the lock and forcing her to kneel.

"I think your opinion is perfectly reasonable, Agent Harbinger," The Chairman gratified the presentable young woman, "the prisoner shall remain in that position for the duration of the hearing."

Rachel retreated and left the prisoner kneeling and isolated in the centre of the room, debased and off to the perfect bad start with the panel who would decide her future. In the following five minutes the panel accessed the wi-fi for their tablet computers and shuffled their paperwork amongst other settling in activities in readiness for the hearing proper. Eunice’s knees were already hurting, the hard floor becoming harder second by second. Eunice noticed the woman panellist on the far right get up from her seat, approach The Chairman and whisper in his ear. As she did so The Chairman looked directly at Eunice, degraded and centre stage. He nodded and the woman returned to her seat.

"Bloom, just because you are insolent, infantile and have no breeding, it does not follow that we on this panel should sink to your base level. This hearing is not to be conducted as some sort of game." It was a game, "You may thank us that we shall allow you to stand before us." Eunice gratefully carried out the Chairman’s instruction and got to her feet:

"Thank you Mr Chairman." Eunice said with her head bowed and hands folded respectfully behind her back.

"Mr Chairman, I don’t think the prisoner in the light of what just happened…." Rachel tried to object to the prisoner escaping from the punishment so well designed.

"Agent Harbinger, be rest assured the gross disrespect of the prisoner to the panel has been duly noted and shall be taken into account in our final judgement. Everyone can see she has already suffered and rightly so, one cannot expect America to be kind to it’s enemies." The Chairman mollified the ambitious accuser, "If you please, can we get started and hear your evidence."

The session was not a court but it had all the feeling of being a trial. The panel of Eunice’s five handlers sat behind their long table in judgement, there were guards stationed at the door and at strategic points around the sides of the room, stenographers to record the discourse, Rachel as prosecutor, and the orange clad prisoner with nobody to defend her but herself. There were also about twenty others seated in the room, Eunice did not know why they were there, presumably participants unwilling to pass up the opportunity of such a spectacle.

Eunice had tried to make herself as presentable as possible for the hearing but it was very difficult to do so with what she had. Everyone present when she was delivered to the hearing had been shocked by her half starved and dirty appearance. Prolonged absence of exposure to natural light had made her complexion grey and wasted, the half rationed prison food such as it was and the consequent loss of weight had made her face drawn and gaunt. Eunice asked one of the women cellblock guards if they had any spare hair ties so she could wear her hair tidy in a ponytail, but nothing could be done with the orange boiler suit, it was degradation personified.

Rachel was now ready to present the evidence against the prisoner. First as a warm up she called Agents Quinn and Peel to give their prepared evidence to the panel. Agent Quinn did not need to be persuaded to condemn the prisoner in the strongest of terms. Then it was Agent Peel’s turn. Robot like, he read out his prepared section of the condemnation and then sat down. The next witnesses Rachel called were the sharpshooters stationed on the surrounding rooftops of the Shelton warehouse. They confirmed the accused had been acting strange, crouching down as if trying to conceal what she was up to, then accessing her phone. The last witness Rachel called was the commander of the CIA SWAT team. The captain confirmed that the prisoner had refused to relinquish the bomb and had violently resisted arrest, the ensuing fight causing the damage to the side of her face and base of her sternum which had been noted in the original incident reports. If any of them were sympathetic to the prisoner, they refused to show it in public as such luxuries of conscience have to be set against the risks to one’s career and pension. What was the point anyway? Bloom was all but destroyed, this hearing was the final nail in her coffin, Rachel Harbinger had seen to that, if not executed for high treason then Bloom would certainly die in prison. She was fucked. One by one they all trooped in and toed the required line, condemning Eunice without reservation reiterating their damning evidence already contained in the dossier compiled by Rachel who now was ready to give her own invective against the prisoner, evidence and summing up all rolled into one;

"After the original criminal act of exposing The Roman leading to his murder at the hands of vigilante thugs, the so called Boondock Saints, Bloom ran away abroad into hiding but that did not stop her instigating the prison break of the Boondock Saints out of The Hoag. Clearly the woman was a dangerous menace even in exile. The Boondock Saints since escaping from prison have been implicated in the murder of hundreds of persons involved in organised crime, there is no justification for this, or the circumvention of due legal process. All these persons would be alive if it were not for the criminal Bloom. Specifically in relation to the Iranian nuclear bomb investigation, Bloom was insubordinate to her Number 1 Special Agent Kuntsler, and also myself who was in overall command of that section of the counter terrorism operation from the Boston FBI office. On the day itself, when I took the decision that in the absence of any developments to that point we should carry on with day to day FBI work and go and visit the informant George Pappalardi at his health spa, she just wanted to sit around in her office and waste the available time. I reluctantly brought her along as it sickened me to have such a time-waster on the public payroll. She interfered with and blocked my commands as much as she could at every stage of the investigation, such as destroying state evidence on George Pappalardi’s computer by shooting her gun into it to the endangerment of all those present including members of the public. She then threatened to shoot the said informant, pulling him to the ground and striking him several times with her gun for no apparent reason. She refused to carry out specific orders and absconded to the roof at a critical time she was needed. She grabbed my gun when I had it trained on the terrorist Vindhani causing it to go off unintentionally and fatally wounding him. This is why ballistics showed that my gun had fired the fatal shots…"

At this point Eunice noticed wry smiles appear on the faces of some panel members. This ambitious young CIA agent had not yet ascertained the subtle boundary of acceptable bullshit, and that which lay beyond it;

"... She advocated the use of torture, and specifically eye-gouging to extract information from the wounded Vindhani so that myself and Agents Quinn and Peel had to physically stop her from carrying out such an abhorrent act. I wish the panel to note that that I have sought an expert psychoanalytical opinion on this and it has been reported back to me that anyone who contemplates such behaviour is a psychopath of truly bestial proportions. She wilfully and recklessly decided to defuse the bomb herself using nothing more than guesswork in direct contravention of my orders. I had instructed those present I would defuse the bomb using logical and set procedures as far as I could, but she confiscated the Iranian deactivation equipment and in refusing to surrender it she recklessly wasted valuable time almost letting it run out, there were only four seconds left till detonation on the bomb timer in the end. But even worse than this," Rachel paused to enhance the gravity of her next statement, "was that she pulled her gun on myself and my assistants, Agents Quinn and Peel. When we tried to persuade her to hand over the deactivation keys and restrain her, she threatened to kill us. With only about thirty seconds left on the bomb timer, we bravely decided that her guesswork would be better than nothing at all so under duress we let her carry on at that late stage. On return from exile, she refused to accept Special Agent Kuntsler’s seniority over her and she violently attacked him leading to her arrest. Similarly, she resisted arrest at the bomb crime scene. It was only with the help of Agents Quinn and Peel who I’m recommending for special promotion, I was able to arrest and suppress her. On both occasions necessary force had to be used such is her violent and unstable disposition. To sum up, what we have in Bloom is a highly dangerous, criminal, egocentric psychopath, blind to all reason and conscience, devoid of all decency and humanity to the exclusion of everyone else. I do not wish to question the judgement of the panel, actually it is very laudable the way you gave this rogue agent a second chance to prove her loyalty, but sadly she has betrayed your trust in the most disrespectful and callous manner imaginable, and I leave it to you now to pass the appropriate judgement, if justice is to be seen to be done, she must pay in proportion to the crimes committed."

Rachel sat down, pleased she had made a good case against the accused, no witnesses could be called by Bloom, it wasn’t that sort of hearing. Ultimately it was Bloom’s word against her's. Who in the CIA or at the Pentagon would take the word of a rogue FBI agent against Rachel Harbinger, their rising star? There was a ten minute break while the panel deliberated on Rachel’s discourse.

Eunice watched them intently discuss what had been presented, nodding their heads in agreement and exuding satisfaction that the arguments had been well put. The man to the right of The Chairman spoke a bit louder than he intended;

"Shall we bother letting her speak, can’t we just go straight to sentencing?" Eunice picked out over the general hubbub.

At last The Chairman called the room to order, then he addressed the prisoner;

"Okay Bloom, it is a pretty damning indictment we have just heard. We have virtually decided that you will be cashiered and imprisoned indefinitely. Nevertheless, we brought you back and are partly responsible for the consequences of your misadventure. In the light of this, I think we are owed an explanation?"

"There’s something I don’t quite understand," it was the woman on the far right of the panel who spoke before Eunice could answer, "we are all familiar with the configuration of the device and how it was to be disarmed, and I can see how Bloom managed to guess her way to the ignition bomb, but what I don’t understand is how she guessed the abort code, that is nine digits long, it’s impossible!"

"Yes Bloom," The Chairman took up from his colleague, "how did you know the abort code? One part of our investigation into this affair is that someone gave it to you when you were up on the warehouse roof. We have already heard you were acting strange, why were you crouching down? What were you hiding?"

"No concealment. If you must know," Eunice momentarily reflected while closing her eyes, "I was actually praying." This was met with many large guffaws and laughter from the audience.

"What? You have religion, Bloom?" The Chairman sarcastically sought clarification with a broad smile.

"That’s a question never put to me and one thus far I’ve not had to consider," Eunice frowned, "I’d never have thought, but it looks like I do…"

"Have you ever heard anything so obscene?" Rachel raised her objection to the information, "Talk about being top of the class at 'Satan's School for Girls', if you put that demon seed anywhere near a church, she’d burst into flames!" More laughter broke out.

"Harbinger, don’t say any more statements like that." The Chairman warned the prosecutor, "And you Bloom are treating the hearing with contempt, for the last time, was there a code, and if so how did you come by it?"

"There was no abort code!" Rachel interjected, "Our computer technicians have gone all over the bomb and key circuitry and there is no trace of an abort code, it never existed, and she knew all along and wouldn’t tell us!"

"Be quiet Harbinger! Let Bloom speak!" The Chairman restored order. The room waited. Did the washed out beaten figure have a reply? Did she have anything to say?

"There was an abort code." She said barely audible even in the intently silent and all listening room.

"There was an abort code?" The Chairman questioned, "Well, what was it? And try to speak up!"

"It is 5-2-4-1-2-8-8-0-0."

"Oh really?" The random list failed to inspire anything within The Chairman, "Then why didn’t you tell us?"

"I was never asked, Agent Harbinger has ran all the interrogations since my return here, this is the first time I have been allowed to speak."

"She was never asked!" The Chairman and the rest of the room once more broke into laughter at the preposterous comment. "Do you think this is some sort of farce, Bloom?"

"Who gave the number you?" The woman panellist on the right spoke again.

"No-one, I worked it out myself. Haven’t your own mathematicians been able to compute it from the Arming code left at the scene and the check-digit? I mean only nine numbers, that’s one billion combinations, a large but not an infinite number. Any half decent computer should be able to churn through that in a few seconds and find the nine digits which correlate to the Arming code and the check-digit via inverse tangents. Anyway, I never thought of raising the Abort code during interrogation because I presumed the brilliant math people at your disposal here during all the time since the bomb was defused, would’ve computed it just as I had."

The panel looked to one another blankly and somewhat confused by the perfectly reasonable but unexpected question from the prisoner. There followed a minute of much muttering, shaking of heads and pulling of faces amongst the panellists. With no end to the private deliberations in sight, The Chairman brought his own people to order, there unlikely to be any information immediately to hand in answer to the point raised;

"Now look here Bloom," The Chairman’s ire had been raised due to the fact the prisoner had made them look slightly inept, there was something about this woman, who and what exactly was she?, "we ask the questions, not you!"

"What was that number again?" The woman panellist was determined to get to the bottom of it, "How exactly did you compute it?"

"The Abort code is 5-2-4-1-2-8-8-0-0. Like I said I worked it out from using the check-digit and the Arming code which Vindhani foolishly wrote down when he activated the bomb. I worked it out when I was up on the roof using my smart phone to access the internet and it’s internal scientific calculator. I don’t know how I managed it, some sort of divine inspiration at work, perhaps the extreme time constraints and unbearable stress of the situation forced it out of me, I don’t know, but I shall reconstruct the computation for you now if you wish. Do you have a flipchart or a marker board that can be brought in?"

"She wants to teach us some math!" The panellist on the near right raised a laugh, "It’s too late for you now Bloom to try this as a second career, School Marm!"

"Get her something to write on so she can show the Hearing what she’s wittering on about." The Chairman ordered the guard by the door.

Eunice waited for the media to be produced. As a young girl she had always wanted to be a teacher, now she was to get her chance. Perhaps she had chosen the wrong profession? To think she could be in school right now, the young children all gathered around her as she read them a story…. Hmm..… Eunice let her mind drift….. Are you kidding? Not to be a Special Agent of the FBI? There was no other life worth living! To let this life, her life be destroyed in this hearing was unacceptable. She had to fight back, fight for this life and get it back at all costs. It had been hard enough work to get it in the first place.

The guard returned wheeling in a blank flipchart on a trestle, throwing the marker pen at her feet, refusing to hand it to her. Eunice picked up the marker pen and gathered her thoughts, where to begin? She would have to start her explanation somewhere, start at the beginning:

[FLIPCHART 1]

"We were all aware that there was a heavy emphasis within the Iranian intercepts that the Abort code was related in some way to Machin's formula for computing Pi using inverse tangents, to quote ‘

Quarter Pi, the denominators, double 239’ etc

Here is Machin’s formula, I’ll write it out for you:

Pi/4 = 4 arctan 1/5 - arctan 1/239

The denominators of the inverse tangents give the following numbers: 5239 but that’s not nine digits. Double 239 you get 5239239 still two short. The best your maths boffins could come up with was the possibility that ‘double’ meant ‘squared’. 239 squared gives you 57121, then add this to the original four denominators you get 523957121.

This was the default code I was given by your maths people to use for lack of anything better coming to light. However, you can’t compute Pi with it and they spent valuable weeks putting it through their computers to find a correlation with the check-digit ‘0.00318318318... Plus 19%’ to quote it, no correlation was found at all. I prayed I wouldn’t be called upon to use 523957121, I rightly had no confidence it was anywhere near correct. But up on the roof, what had changed? For one I had the nine digit Arming code as an additional piece of data the Abort code could be correlated to along with the check-digit. I’ll write these out:

Arming code           475871200

Check-digit       0.00318318318.… plus 19%, the inverse of the repeating sequence gives the numbers 31415 which are the first five digits of Pi.

I wasted about two minutes on my phone multiplying, dividing and generally messing about with the above numbers in a blind panic, as if that was going to help, but by just looking at them, ultimately I knew that was not going to give me anything definitive. I needed to somehow involve the computation of Pi, but how? In desperation and hopelessness my mind started to wander. For some reason I thought about the day and the fact it was the anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York. Then it came to me, your maths people had substituted the word ‘squared’ for ‘double’, could I in the same way substitute the word ‘twin’? ‘Double 239’ could mean ‘Twin 239’?

Your maths people had already told me the number 239 had special properties such that it is a prime number, what else could I find out about it? Before I continue, I’d just like to warn the panel that everything in a crazy two to three minutes up on that roof began to cascade and click into place. I don’t know how or why but divine inspiration or not, that’s what happened.

I accessed the internet on my smart-phone and typed in 239 on a well known search engine. The first line that came up was the website of an also well known internet encyclopaedia, which gave the low down on the number 239. It reiterated it was a prime number, and in that area of the number line primes tended to come in pairs or twins!

And the prime number twin of 239 is?……241!

Can Pi be computed using arctan 1/241? Let’s try and do it on the chart:

Is Pi/4 = 4 arctan 1/5 - arctan 1/241 ?     

Well, given 241 is not 239 then logic tells you it won’t be but something within me told me to persist with this so I computed the product of the above formula. Can someone on the panel please compute it for me on their computer so I can write it down?

(At this point the lady panellist on the right offered up the use of her tablet computer, passing it to one of the guards so he could hand it to Eunice.)

Thank you Ma’am. Let me take a few moments to compute the figure…..

And…… here it comes…..                             0.785432885

Which as expected is not a quarter of Pi.

Again, working on blind intuition,

I wanted to know the difference:   Pi/4 =       0.785398163

A repeating number like 0.00318318318!     0.0000347222222

I knew I was on to something but it wasn’t clear yet what it was. We used inverse tangents to compute Pi, so working in reverse what is the tangent of 0.000034722222..?

Well, given that represents such a thin angle in trigonometry the tangent of this gives you virtually the same number 0.0000347222...

So what is the inverse or the arctan of this number? Hit your 1/x button and you get…….     28800

Therefore computing Pi using arctan 1/241 you should use the following formula, here it is:

Pi/4 = 4 arctan 1/5 - arctan 1/241 - arctan 1/28800

By all means check the computation, it is correct.

Extract the arctan denominators and you get: 524128800

That’s nine digits!

However, is that the Abort code?

Without correlation to the other data it is no better than 523957121, the number I had no confidence in. I was immediately struck by the two zeros at the end of the number just extracted. Where had I seen something already like that? Of course, the Arming code, let’s write it out again:

Arming code                                                    475871200

Abort code?                                                     524128800

The two endings 200 and 800 are just

    asking you to add them together!              1000000000

Which is?…….. One Billion!

(There was a huge audible gasp in the room as the biggest buzz word in the whole bomb plot investigation was computed as an actual number.)

The intercepts repeatedly mentioned about ‘making a billion’ so there we have it, one billion made! But the check digit ‘0.00318318318 plus 19%’ how does that fit in?

Again, for some reason intuition told me to look once more at the inverse tangent computations. If using the proposed Abort code in the format 4 arctan 1/5 - arctan 1/241 - arctan 1/28800 gives Pi/4 then using the same format what does the Arming code give?

4 arctan 1/4 - arctan 1/758 - arctan 1/71200 gives:   0.978581347

Make a billion so add this to Pi/4                               0.785398163

A meaningless figure:                                                1.763979510

But wait a minute, the intercept talked about ‘make a billion then take away’ Take away or subtract?

                                        0.978581347

                                       -0.785398163

                                        0.193183183.…

The intercept in relation to the Check-digit mentioned 0.00318318318... Plus 19%.

Well 19% in it’s decimal form is 0.19, add this to the repeating sequence and you get 0.19318318318...

The above number!

At that, all numbers, intercepts and buzz words were correlated and reconciled. 524128800 was the Abort code, it had to be!

If you’re finding all that too complex to follow through, then let me summarise on the flipchart - in a nutshell!

1) The intercepts lead us to Machin's formula by mentioning Pi/4 and the ‘double’ of number 239.

2) Machin's formula is Pi/4 = 4 arctan 1/5 - arctan 1/239

3) The Prime number twin or double of 239 is 241

4) To compute Pi using arctan 1/241 you rehash the formula thus:

    Pi/4 = 4 arctan 1/5 - arctan 1/241 - arctan 1/28800

5) The arctan denominators of this are (The Abort Code)   524128800

6) The Arming code as used by Vindhani was                    475871200

7) Add together to ‘make a billion’                                     1000000000

8) The Arming code in arctan formula format is:

     4 arctan 1/4 - arctan 1/758 - arctan 1/71200

9) Which computes to:                                    0.978581347

10) The Abort code in arctan formula

       computes to Pi/4 which is:                       0.785398163

11) ‘then take away’ or subtract, which

       gives the Check-digit                               ‘0.00318318318.…

        plus 19%’ as a decimal figure                 0.193183183...

That completes my explanation on how I computed the Abort code and verified it. Whether I could ever perform at that level again is debatable but that is what happened up on the roof. It was just me, my phone and the internet, but chiefly me, alone."

The panel were stunned and unable to give an opinion at first. It was evident that two of them were using their tablet computers to check the computations written down.

"What evidence do you have that this number was the actual Abort code?" The man to The Chairman’s immediate left spoke.

"None other than it has to be. It’s the only solution to the Persian intercepts as translated that fits. Talk about lost in translation, your people coming up with ‘double’ instead of ‘twin!’ There is nothing abstract about the phrases used, they are literal in their nature! ‘Make a billion then take away’, and ‘0.00318318318... plus 19%’, you looked for the chimera that wasn’t there, how could you have overlooked it? Up until that point how could have I? I knew it had to be the code so I used it, that was the exact sequence I entered into the Abort key after I slotted it into the front of bomb number 3."

"That’s a lie!" Rachel jumped up from her chair, sensing her greatest career triumph starting to slip through her fingers, "There never was a code! There’s no evidence for one!"

"Sit down Harbinger! I will have order here!" The Chairman’s interest was well drawn now. It seemed the Bloom woman would have her day after all. They all knew the translated intercepts, and Bloom’s number seemed to tick all the boxes, no other proposed number so far had been able to do so. The Chairman noticed that the prisoner’s voice towards the end of her presentation was getting quite hoarse, the months of not using her vocal cords much had made them wear out quickly with the sudden increase in output. He thought he had better do the decent thing and tell one of the guards to get her a drink of water.

She gratefully gulped it down and appeared much refreshed, thanking him genuinely and unconditionally. But there was something else he observed. Bloom had seemed to start from a position of defeat, beaten and lacking confidence. But gradually as the figures were written down and more importantly, as she began to interact with the room, she started to come out of herself, gaining in confidence and outgoing self belief, feeding strongly off the human contact. And it was two way, the room seemed to reciprocate the prisoner’s goodwill and magnetism, they felt the pull. The Chairman couldn’t suppress his unease, could this upbeat extrovert be so terrible as in the evidence laid out against her? She was doing something to him, bringing out his paternal protective instincts. He wouldn’t show it for a moment though, his hostile trial of the prisoner would continue, for now at least.

"We will get our mathematicians to check your figures Bloom, but I can’t confirm anything at this stage." The Chairman defensively was noncommittal.

"What about your reckless guessing of which of the eight bombs was the ignition one? What do you have to say about that?" It was the man to The Chairman’s left again. The panel could sense the sea-change but they were reluctant to pass up so easily their earlier amicable decision of what the outcome of the hearing would be. Rachel was reassured somewhat, at least they had got Bloom on this one.

"There was no guesswork at all." Eunice began slowly, choosing her words carefully, "Initially I worked along the same lines as the rest of the team on site when Vindhani managed to destroy one of the three ignition bomb locator keys. We could get down to two bombs and make a 50:50 choice, a choice between salvation and oblivion. Someone at the time actually mentioned it as a bomb disposal cliché, do I cut the red wire or do I cut the blue wire? As your wire cutters close over the red wire with only seconds to go on the bomb clock, you suddenly have a change of heart and hastily cut the blue wire. It doesn’t explode and you jump about shouting ‘It’s the blue wire! It’s the blue wire!’

Well to hell with all that, leave that for the movies. I’m not risking thousands of lives and my beloved second home of Boston to the proverbial flip of a coin, no thank you!"

"You talk of cliché, Bloom, but there was only four seconds left on the timer. A pretty fine margin wouldn‘t you say?" The Chairman was quick to suggest a tinge of hypocrisy when comparing the woman’s discourse against the facts.

"I know, but what I’m trying to explain is that odds of 50:50 were just inconceivable to accept, even a 1% chance of setting the bomb off was still too high for me. I wanted, I demanded certainty, zero chance of detonation."

"She’s insane! I told you!" Rachel was out of her chair again, "How are you to achieve that with only two locator keys, I ask!"

"Quiet, Harbinger! I’ll have you removed if you interrupt again!" The Chairman was becoming very irritated with the prosecutor, as he had increasingly warmed to Bloom he had experienced the matching opposite in relation to Harbinger. He couldn’t wait to hear what the accused had to say now and he believed this was the case with everyone else present, all apart from Harbinger.

"On the way down from the roof it came to me, in those thirty odd seconds as I descended the stairs, divine inspiration working overtime again, if you like. I discovered a flaw in the Iranian logic. On the face of it, their set method is very logical and efficient, 8 bombs down to 4, 4 bombs down to 2, 2 bombs down to 1, by use of three locator keys. What they overlooked is that it is possible with the way the device was configured to locate the ignition bomb using only two locator keys. Let me explain…"

Eunice flipped over the sheet she had last written on to start with a fresh piece of paper.

"We are all aware of the configuration of the bomb and the functions of all the component parts?" Eunice checked before proceeding.

"We have the details etched onto the surface of our brains, get on with it, Bloom!" The Chairman urged the prisoner. Eunice began to write out the following logical procedures. As she began The Chairman thought the handwriting of the prisoner was typically feminine, very rounded and neat, despite the rush to get it down on the paper.

[FLIPCHART 2]

Eunice was about to embark on additional information about the overall procedure when the man to The Chairman’s left thought he saw a fatal flaw in the woman’s logic. He was very impressed with her ascertainment of the Ignition bomb, however, he believed there was still an element of luck involved, specifically, a one in four chance of being annihilated. This may have been better odds than evens, but by the woman’s own standards any chance of detonation was unacceptable. With satisfaction he looked at the faces of the other four panellists, they appeared to have swallowed it whole with their silly expressions of awe and wonderment, just because on the day it had very fortunately panned out as the prisoner had written. Didn’t they realise how easily the woman’s flawed logic could have led to disaster?

"Can I mention something Bloom?" He raised a point of order.

"Thank you, sir, but if you please, I’m not quite finished, there’s something …." Eunice apologetically replied.

"That’s all very well and good Bloom," he cut her off, "But there’s something I really need to say first." Just before he launched his attack to knock down her written postulate, he paused, in anticipation of savouring the look on everyone’s face, and especially Bloom’s when he delivered the next devastating line;

"What if the Ignition bomb was Number 1 or 2?"

What he expected was a stunned silence in the room, Bloom would be hamstrung, totally lost for words and then crumble into mediocrity before everyone’s eyes. He would be a god before all.

It didn’t happen. Instantly on hearing the line, Bloom with a little shrug nonchalantly said she was just coming to that matter which totally wrecked the devastating effect the line was supposed to have. She turned to the flipchart and began to write once more.

[FLIPCHART 3]

At this point Rachel sprang out of her chair and ran across the floor to Eunice, grabbing her shoulders and pressing her mouth near to the prisoner’s ear. The Chairman should have intervened but didn’t. There was a resigned air of inevitability in the room. They weren’t certain what was going to be written next but everyone had a feeling how it was going with the self assured scribbling coming quick-fire over the paper, Bloom was going to do it.

The two women were locked together in the centre of the room in their own world far removed. There was intense whispered interaction going on between them. The whole room strained in silence to pick up anything, but couldn’t.

"Fucking hell Bloom! What do you think you’re doing?!" Rachel demanded an explanation. Eunice looked puzzled, her train of thought suddenly broken by this other woman’s unexpected arrival;

"What am I doing? I’m only doing what the panel has asked me to do…"

"Think about what you’re doing to me!!" Rachel sank her nails into the shoulders causing Eunice to wince. Rachel’s suit was new, dark and crisp, hair soft and beautifully styled, her hands slender and manicured, the sweet perfume, her make over at perfection and ultra professional, so young. Eunice was that woman once…. Eunice could not reject outright the closeness of her nemesis, she let her cheek rest against the pretty young woman’s soft waves of hair, there was cleanliness, dignity and a recognised human being behind it.

"It’s my job," Eunice whispered keeping the interaction private, "You know, following orders and all that shit. I still consider myself an officer of the law even if you don’t. They’ve asked me to explain so I’ll do it." Then after a brief pause; "I don’t care anymore, you can have me shot afterwards if you like Rachel, I’ve just about had it with everything…."

"Agent Harbinger, please…" The Chairman spoke quietly but sufficiently audible. He wasn’t angry, merely yielding to what had to be, "let Miss Bloom finish, for pity’s sake, please let her continue…"

‘Miss Bloom? Miss! So that was the way it was going, was it?’, Rachel took in the unsettling thought. She let her hands fall away from the almost vindicated, turned and shuffled back to her chair, flopping down onto it, crushed.

Eunice turned to the flipchart for one last time:

[FLIPCHART 3 CONTINUED]

Eunice, having completed the written part of the demonstration, turned to address the panel;

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the panel, all I have written, the entire procedure will work with any selection and de-selection of bombs, locator test switches and samples, as long as the proportions are kept the same. Please feel free to test the above algorithm as desired.

Additionally, as a necessary point of clarification, the computation of the correct Abort code and the ascertaining of how to find the Ignition bomb with only two locator keys, with only minutes to go forced me to pull my gun on my fellow agents when they tried to stop me. There simply wasn’t enough time to explain all I’ve written down here today and there was no way I could let them take that 50:50 chance when so much was at stake. Dire straits call for extreme measures, I had to do it." Eunice looked at the faces of the panel, they were awestruck combined with pained regret in that they had been party to such a disgraceful showpiece.

"Miss Bloom….I…….I think…." The Chairman needed to say something as it was supposed to be his show, but he had no words to say.

"For Christ’s sake, Max, call an adjournment!" The woman on the right whispered far too loudly so everyone heard.

"Let’s…. let’s adjourn the hearing……, for half an hour." The Chairman bumbled the decision out, "Bring that flipchart into the deliberation room."

The panel filed out into the adjacent room as quickly as they could to escape the uncomfortable atmosphere hanging in the Hearing room. Deliberate it as they must, due to the computations Bloom used having to be checked as it was impracticable to take in and understand them first time, everyone watching the unfolding presentation nevertheless had the horrible stomach churning feeling that the logic stood up. This realisation had particularly impressed itself on Rachel. She was intelligent enough to appreciate the methodology of what had been divulged, and intuitively she knew it was correct and would stand up to subsequent scrutiny. Therefore she had no option but to sit in the chair as every atom of her screamed out in denial "No! No! No! No! No! Oh God help me!".

This one time rogue agent by use of logic and reverse logic, and thinking completely outside the systematic 8, 4, 2, 1 process, had saved a city. The panel and everybody else on the other hand, had got it totally wrong about her. For Rachel to dig herself out of this one would now take some doing.

"Miss Bloom?" Eunice turned and saw that it was one of the guards offering her a chair. She thanked him and sat down, totally spent and thinking of nothing.

Rachel was now in tears, completely destroyed by the prisoner’s evidence. The ultra ambitious CIA agent had invested everything in wiping out the prisoner, and now such heavy investment would reap the requisite return. She got up and went over to go one on one with her resilient adversary;

"You fucking bitch," Rachel wretchedly accused Eunice, "look what you’ve done, you’ve destroyed everything!"

"I didn’t destroy you Rachel, you destroyed yourself. Terrible, really. When you offered me breakfast in that room on my first morning here, I thought that girl is here to help me, I am with such decent people now, yes, I thought you were my friend, and all the time you were working to destroy me, shocking."

"But what am I supposed to do now?" Rachel held out her hands, beseeching the new power enthroned in front of her.

"You? You were the one to suggest eye gouging to get the code, not me, and in the circumstances, given what was at stake, you may have been justified, but it says a lot about you, Rachel. After I had defused the bomb and saved the city, saved your sordid life and the lives of your two thuggish assistants, you arrested and viciously assaulted me, why?"

"Kuntsler attacked you too! And you can hand it out yourself, I read a report that you hit George Pappalardi with a wooden sign in the spa!" Rachel was quick to dilute the blame.

"What John did was wrong, no two ways about it, but there were mitigating factors that made him unhinged, me turning up like that unannounced for one. The crux of what happened, is that I became a golden opportunity for John to take all the woes of his life at the time out on someone, a most wanted rogue agent. Let’s face it, he was virtually on the edge of having a nervous breakdown at the time. But John Kuntsler, fundamentally is not a bad man. As for George, we have always had a peculiar relationship, he knows I can be a bitch but ultimately I am fair. He is also in love with me, I can tell, but would never admit it, the fool. But you? At my most vulnerable moment to rendition me and use all that is in your power to destroy me, you’re the psychopath, not me."

"But Eunice! We can be friends now all this Hearing nonsense is over and I know what really happened. If I knew then what I know now, I would never have acted in that way. Fuck it Eunice! We were all out of our heads that day, the pressure cooker of trying to function within yards of an armed and soon to detonate nuclear bomb! The pressures of the job are enormous regardless of that situation anyway, we are all chasing our careers, you know the score. We are basically the same, you and I Eunice, we have the right to be ambitious."

"Ambition? There is so much of myself that I see in you Rachel when I was your age. But there is also so much of myself I don’t. By all means arrest the FBI team if they have misbehaved on the assignment, but then to single me out for such animalistic treatment the way you did had no justification whatsoever."

"But that’s all in the past and best forgotten. Why dwell on it, development of a short memory can be so good for you. Oh please say a good word for me to the panel when they return, I always liked and admired you but I was too proud to show it." Rachel was suddenly all upbeat but it wasn’t fooling Eunice, the young woman was very fearful for the future, "Come on Bloomy! Do you remember at Shelton’s warehouse, we walked down that isle shoulder to shoulder, guns out blazing away at Vindhani? What a team! We were like sisters… you were my big sister I could admire and look up to. I want us to be like that again!" Rachel reached out and stoked the top of Eunice's head to show empathy but immediately pulled her hand back when several hairs came away between the fingers.

"Oh yes," Eunice allowed herself a bitter smile, "You’d love to turn the clock back, wouldn’t we all? You, me, friends? Sisters? The last time you called me your sister you karate chopped me across the face, and then shortly afterwards punched me as hard as you could, smashing my lungs right up into my heart. I may have survived it but I’m in no way indestructible. To think you could have the gall to put yourself on par with my own beloved sister Clarice! You hurt me Rachel, both physically and mentally. Look at me, a ruin of a woman, you did this to me. What sort of sisterly behaviour is that? Indeed, what sort of behaviour is that from one woman to another? Sisters!"

"So I’m the first woman that struck you? So what are you going to do?, kill me like you promised Kuntsler if he hit you? You may as well kill me now in the light of what you’ve done today. When I’m in such dire need of your help, on the very basis of your humanity, surely you can’t deny me?"

"You weren’t the first woman that struck me. That particular honour belongs to somebody else. But you can be rest assured I’m not going to kill you Rachel, I won’t facilitate you an exit strategy. In matter of fact, the idea of one killing another has some bearing on the big question you have failed to ask me so far. It’s there in the back of your mind so why don’t you ask me?"

"Okay Eunice, all this needn’t have happened, your imprisonment, this stupid fucked up hearing, the waste of everyone’s time and efforts, if you had just told me on day one what you’ve just told the panel now. You could have been back in Boston months ago, a heroine, an FBI superstar amongst all your friends. And I too would have been part of that, a famous team member who defused the bomb. By withholding the information you’ve brought us both to within an inch of disaster."

"I am a law enforcement officer. You were in ultimate command of the team and as such I had a duty to divulge my methods of defusing the bomb to you, even after you arrested me. But you see I don’t think there is anything normal about our commander and subordinate relationship, in this respect I have to act smart. What would you have done once I had given you the information?"

"What sort of question is that? I would have had you released right away and explained the situation to the panel and all the other powers that be. It would have been me kneeling down in front of the panel, not you, beseeching them to exonerate you."

"Oh no," Eunice shook her head in contradiction, "it would have been me kneeling down with you behind, the barrel of your Glock in the back of my skull. You would’ve had me murdered or like I said, done the deed yourself. You see I know what sociopaths like you are capable of. Telling you that information would be tantamount to putting my head in a noose and pulling the lever myself. The people present were right to laugh when I said I didn’t divulge because I wasn’t asked, I withheld the information out of pure necessity, self preservation!"

"But you lied to the panel! You didn’t explain yourself as you were duty bound to do so, not because you thought they’d already worked it all out themselves, but because of some crazy idea I would kill you? Oh please! Me kill you? You think I’m capable of murder? What crazy talk is that!"

"Oh yes, I know you," Eunice said through gritted teeth, "definitely!"

"Oh ha-ha-ha, how could you say that about a fellow agent, ridiculous!" Rachel nervously tried to laugh away the damning accusation and decided she had to try and steer the conversation in the direction of her objective; "Now look, I know we’ve got off to a bad start but going forward we need to rehabilitate our working relationship. You saved my life and a life saved is a life owed so I owe you one Eunice! Forget Kuntsler, I want you to be my Number 2 in charge of the Boston FBI anti-terrorist section going forward." Rachel tried the futile tack of pulling rank, even now, "I so much appreciate all you have done under my command and may it continue. You said so yourself, I am your boss and you have to submit to my command. So how about it, Eunice, Kuntsler’s job all yours with me in overall control. Do you see the way I can fast-track your career for you? We’re both going to have such a great future working together. Do the right thing Eunice! Please can we simply move forward from the past, please forgive me. Wasn’t it John himself who told me you had tremendous capacity to forgive..."

"John told you that? Oh…" Eunice reflected on what her Number 1 had said about her, momentarily touched.

 "Christ Eunice! He nearly pistol whipped you! Surely what I did was no where near as bad as what he did and yet you forgave him. Show you can do it again for someone who comes to you genuinely sorry, contrite and a friend. You can do it, be reasonable Bloomy!" Rachel puffed and rolled her eyes pretending this was just a temporary misunderstanding and everything could be retrieved as long as ‘Bloomy’ would stop her silly girl attitude and see sense. Eunice knew different;

"You are very much a victim too but not in the way you think, blaming me and the way circumstances moved against you at the end of this affair, you’re a victim of your own wickedness, you never asked to have a corrupted evil brain in your head, did you? At the warehouse you asked me if you frightened me? I didn’t lie because yes you do. You’re dangerous Rachel, and very bad. I hear you have political ambitions? People like you shouldn’t be let anywhere near the corridors of power, you’ll end up casting this beloved country of ours into the abyss. When I have the misfortune to contemplate you, I think of the dread arrival of the Anti-Christ."

"Eunice, how can you say such cruel and hurtful things?, as Jesus forgave, follow Him, please do the same…"

"Those transgressions I choose to forgive shall be set aside, those I choose not to won’t be. What should I care about you now? I did my job to the best of my ability and managed to save a city and it’s inhabitants. You want my advice? Don’t be here when the panel comes back in, leave…, oh, I don’t know, go and throw yourself in the Potomac."

Was that it? Rachel looked at the woman seated in front of her. Wasn’t she going to offer anything? She was staring away to one side, as if even denying the existence of the applicant. It was finished. Rachel began to walk away, then suddenly broke into a run and burst out through the exit.

Presently, the panel of five returned, but they did not take their positions at the long table, they came and stood in a semicircle around the exhausted woman. Out of respect, Eunice made to stand up.

"No, stay seated!" The Chairman held up his hands, a wall to stop her. Moments passed. Eunice appreciated that as The Chairman was looking down at her with such genuine compassion, she knew then she was saved.

"Is this," The Chairman spoke to all assembled, "how America treats it’s heroes?"

He then went down on one knee and taking Eunice’s hand, kissed it. Retaining her hand he got to his feet, drawing Eunice up out of the chair and into his arms.

The room at once erupted into rapturous applause. Eunice buried her face into The Chairman’s chest and began to cry uncontrollably, her shoulders jerking violently in his arms. It was over, the nightmare and injustice of her life had been vanquished.

"Where is she being kept?" Eunice heard The Chairman speak over her head to one of his ADCs.

"I think in the cells." came the nervous response.

"Good Lord no! Put her in one of the guest suites, and get her out of this damn boilersuit! Have her measured for a new wardrobe, and get your best beauticians in, make her beautiful, an image fit for a heroine!"

"Right away, I’ll get on it…"

"My dear child," The Chairman spoke intimately to the woman in his arms, "is there anything we can do for you?"

Eunice through her tears thought for a moment, then;

"I….I want my life back! My old job in Boston, I want to go home!"

And that gentlemen, is the sound of the fat lady singing!

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 Dear reader, to find out what happens next in Part 2 go to:-

Happy birthday Julie!!

Chapter 14: Find your inner angel

There was great tribulation in the Firmament about the unprecedented resignation of an angel. Eunice was not one to spread her business about but she did tell Poppa, Rocco and Greenly her reasons who then made sure they told everyone else, such was their outrage at the injustice of her treatment. Opinion was split right down the middle over Bloomygate once news broke about the affair. One side thought The Man should destroy the woman on the basis to provoke Him was the last thing they wanted, the consequences of His thankfully none too often rages were terrible indeed. The wrath of God descending down on all their heads?, it was better the Bloom woman be destroyed than having to suffer that. They already had Lucifer to contend with, they didn’t want another one, even if in relation to the matter at hand this was no longer possible since Eunice had given up all her divine powers.

The other side was generally supportive of Eunice, not only because they were dismayed by The Man’s appalling act of killing the woman, but also their complete disgust on finding out He was regularly watching them having sex.

Eunice still spent time hanging out with the gang at Rocco’s Bar, with Poppa, his sons, Romeo, Greenly and of course, Rocco himself. She laughed and played around as before but somehow it wasn’t the same, her resignation hadn’t really helped, she was still so unhappy with her existence, even her ancestors couldn’t lift her malaise.The gang also did their best. Poppa had always taken the view until then that as all four Guardian Angels had unfortunately suffered violent deaths at the hands of criminal thugs, there was nothing for it but to accept it and get on with their new role of working for The Man. But now things were different, the wrong done to Eunice was unforgivable.

"Don’t worry about that Guy, Eunice," Rocco put his arms around her, "His Son’s alright but The Man Himself, He’s a total fucking wad!"

But supportive acts such as this did little to relieve their dear friend. _________________________________________________

 Gabriel sought a meeting with The Man. He entered the throne room, genuflected once, moved forward, genuflected again, moved forward some more and was about to genuflect a third time….

"Cut all that bullshit out, will you?" The Man was completely fed up with it, "Come here and speak to Me, damn it!"

"My Lord, You mentioned to me before, the small matter of closing down Rocco’s Bar? I have duly procured boarding up materials and a contractor to do the task. All I need now is Your go-ahead, oh magnificent One!"

"Rocco’s Bar?" The Man had clearly forgotten, "Oh that, don’t worry about it now, we’ve got more pressing problems than that."

"My Lord, really, such as?"

"Are you a complete fucking retard? The Bloom problem!"

"But surely that’s easily solved, My Lord, she's just a little bitch, destroy her and be done with it."

"If only it were as easy as that."

"What could be more simple than that, My Lord?"

"I’m unwilling to tell you, I have my reasons, but you can be rest assured, the whole situation is completely fucked!"

"Don’t destroy her then, just merely replace her. Didn’t you see how well Caitlin de Sousa performed up on the roof that day, if you would kindly remember, a lady put forward as recommended by me specifically for the task. Caitlin would make a great little Guardian Angel for You My Lord, it is high time she was promoted, I mean You can’t keep her as a lowly standby Utility Angel forever?"

"I don’t want de Sousa! I want Bloom!"

"I don’t understand why You think Caitlin could not perform as well as Bloom as a Guardian Angel, but that aside, My Lord, You really must shut down Rocco’s Bar and I’ll tell You why. It’s directly linked to the Bloom problem."

"Go on…." Gabriel had really grabbed The Man’s interest now and he was determined to feed it with his well thought out disinformation;

"Your elite band of Guardian Angels and Bloom are plotting against You. The plot is for Bloom to form her own primary firm in much the same way Lucifer has. Il Duce, Rocco and Greenly are all going to defect with her."

"There are only two primary firms, Heaven and Hell, so what’s this other going to be called?"

"Blutopia."

"Oh I see, ‘Blutopia’, how clever. In Heaven we have the Saved in paradise, and in Hell we have the Damned in eternal torment, so what will be the purpose of Blutopia?"

"I’m not entirely sure," Gabriel frowned, "all I know is that Rocco’s Bar is going to form the basis for it but they will extend the site to make room for additional souls."

"And then what?"

"And then, from what I’ve heard, as it is now they’re going to use it as a facility for mortals and immortals to meet up."

"Okay, for what purpose?"

"Well, to indulge in the craic twenty-four-seven, that is, to be on the piss all day listening to Nuevo-Grunge music, get into fights and occasionally shoot up the bar, a bit like the Wild West."

"The cunts! You mean they prefer that to worshiping Me in My shining opulence?" The Man quickly showed His ire.

"You must smite them, My Lord," Gabriel gave what he thought was wise counsel, "act now and show no mercy to those who would turn their face from You, ‘The Glorious Omnipresent Light of the Firmament!’."

"Yeah, thanks for that, you always have to taste the contents of My colon don’t you?"

"I only aim to serve You, My Lord."

"Yeah, right, now fuck off and find out when they are next meeting. Hmmm, yes, I think it’s about time I paid those fuckers a visit at the bar and showed them who’s boss!" The Man decided on his next course of action.

_____________________________________________________

 Eunice hadn’t yet arrived but all the rest of the gang were at Rocco’s, another night on the craic. The Barman Rocco, Poppa, Greenly, Connor, Murphy and Romeo all waiting for her arrival.

The "Craic" 

The "Craic II": Fill 'em up again Barman!

‘Cloff…Cloff …Cloff…’ The sound of horse shoes approaching.

The nose of the horse pushed open the saloon doors and on in it came, the pale head, the neck, forelimbs, Eunice ducked her head low under the door beam and then sat upright in the saddle;

"Hello y’all!" She was wearing the uniform of a Union 7th Cavalry Captain, black Stetson with crossed swords badge and gold acorns, deep blue shirt with the bright yellow bandana around her neck, light blue breeches with the yellow stripe, black riding boots and white forearm length leather gloves. Her weaponry; standard issue, Army SA pistol in a flap over holster, army sabre, and 1873 Springfield carbine in the saddle holster. The horse also looked every inch the part, pure white and marshal with it, dark blue and gold edged cavalry sheet under the shiny black saddle.

Connor, Murphy, Romeo and Greenly all swarmed around the beautiful horsewoman.

"Whoop! You look amazing, Eunice!" Connor took hold one side of the bridle and patted the horse’s nose.

"I’m not so sure about the uniform," Murphy took the other side of the bridle, "Shouldn’t you be a Confederate Cavalry officer?" He remarked in jest.

"Oh I think this is the uniform for me, Murphy," She said from up high, "Someone once told me she was breaking my sword and expelling me from the 7th Cavalry. Well here I am, sword intact!" Eunice slapped a gloved hand on her scabbard, "Mr Romeo, are you going to let a lady sit up here all day and not lend a hand to help her down?"

"Yes Ma’am, Captain Bloom!" Romeo eagerly obliged, taking her hand, and with his other hand providing a step for her boot to use. The Guardian Angel Greenly watched the mortal Mexican help the lady down, was that an element of jealousy in his eye? Eunice placed herself facing the horse;

"Go on Silver, park yourself outside." She stroked his nose. Silver dutifully about turned and passed back through the swing doors, "That’s my party piece for the night over!" Eunice announced to everyone’s great amusement.

She went over to the bar and took off her gloves and cumbersome sword and placed them on the bar before selecting herself a stool. The craic commenced as usual, the lady holding court at the bar with Connor, Murphy, Romeo and Greenly huddled around her. Rocco busied himself behind the bar keeping the drinks well supplied to the patrons. Poppa stood at the bar slightly apart from the little group of friends watching them talk, laugh and drink. How sad for Eunice, the uniform and the horse, it was all a show put on for the boys to try and convince them she was alright, her happy face, but Poppa could see through it, she was acutely unhappy and it wounded him deeply knowing her true state of mind. He knew she could only fake this happiness so many times, eventually she would stop coming to the bar and retreat inside herself. He felt so useless, was there nothing he could do to help her?

 _______________________________________________________

 The Man approached Rocco’s, yes, Gabriel had been right, the lights were on, they were inside. Outside there was even a fucking horse! Whatever next? As The Man approached the door He felt Himself fully take on the body of a mortal although much of His divine power remained, interesting that, the unique properties of Rocco’s Bar. By that time the bar had already acquired a bit of a bad reputation, fights, shootings, unauthorised wing displays, all day and night drinking sessions, brain numbingly loud music, and the Barman himself was something to contend with even at the best of times.

The Barman himself was something to contend with even at the best of times

The Man barged through the swing doors, Rocco behind the bar gaped in shock and Il Duce dropped his drink, but the group of five seated at the bar with their backs turned didn’t notice, such was Taylor Duffy’s ‘Plastic Jesus’ being played at nearly the full 32 decibels.

The Man walked over to the jukebox and ripped the power cord out of the wall. The five abruptly ceased chattering and turned around. Deathly silence.

"Who the fuck are you?" Connor challenged the gatecrasher.

"Connor!" Poppa snapped.

"Is this the landlord, Rocco?" Murphy queried, "I’ll teach him not to fuck with your music, shall I put my fist down his fucking throat for you?"

"Murphy! Silence!!" Poppa virtually screamed at his son.

"Jesus Christ, we’re fucked!" Greenbeans all at once became the prophet of doom. Eunice stared at the brothers and made sure she caught each of their eye in turn, and assertively shook her head as a clear signal ‘Don’t’.

"What are You doing here?" Rocco asked The Man, "You can’t gatecrash in here uninvited."

"I’ll fucking well invite Myself thank you very much Mr Rocco!" The Man threw back, "Il Duce, would you like to introduce Me to the three mortals present if you don’t mind?" Poppa took a long pause before dealing with the request, given the magnitude of the information to be revealed;

"Boys, Romeo, believe it or not, and you’d better believe it, this is the Avatar personification of God, the Father of Jesus Christ who’s image you wear on your backs." Poppa watched the changing expressions on the faces of the three men, disbelief, amazement, awe, but finally resentment. They had been told and could not forget that The Man was responsible for murdering their beloved Eunice. They too were just as torn up as the remaining Guardian Angels in the group between loyalty to the Supreme Creator and supporting their friend.

"How is My operation in Boston?" The Man addressed The Saints directly but they just looked elsewhere avoiding eye contact.

"With our help it’s going just fine." Poppa spoke on their behalf.

"I wasn’t asking you, shit-head!" There was a palpable shock from all observers present as The Man had never spoken to Il Duce in that way before, a dangerous line had been crossed, "What are you three fuckers doing here anyway?" He now addressed the angels present, "Why aren’t you at work on My assignments?"

"We don’t like the work, we thought we’d come here instead." Poppa advised.

"Oh did you now?" The Man acknowledged the response with a threatening tone. It was obvious that they loved that bitch more than they loved Him! The heavy confrontational atmosphere now pervading the bar caused the resident cat to jump off it’s stool and bound for the door.

"Fucking pets!" The Man watched the cat leave, "Who’s is that?"

"That’s my cat." Rocco answered.

"And the bird?" The Man looked at it in the cage at the far end of the bar. "That’s Eunice’s parrot." Rocco kept the information coming.

"When you think of all the time and effort I spent setting up this facility for you people and look at the way you’re running it?" The Man looked up and down the bar-room, "We have a horse, a cat and a parrot, all we’re missing now is a fucking dog, but since she has resigned I guess Bloom fulfils that role now?" The Man couldn’t resist trashing the one who had advised Him where to put His job, and after all, wasn’t she the primary target, so why not get started on her without further delay? Her friends all went rigid at the remark, their non-verbal affront to the attack on her dignity so readily apparent, "Barman, where’s My fucking drink?"

"Make Yourself at home, take a seat with the crew here…" Rocco gestured The Man towards the seated.

"I’ll sit by Myself if you don’t mind." The Man went down to the far end of the bar. As He sat on the stool Joey piped up;

"You’re a fuckin’ asshole! You’re a fuckin’ asshole!"

"We are truly elephant dick pounded in the ass, no reach around jungle fucked now!" Greenly was virtually weeping into his glass at the bird’s learned but inopportune utterance.

"What will it be?" Rocco asked The Man.

"Vodka." The Man provocatively answered knowing The Saints had issues with the Russian Mafia in the past.

"I don’t serve vodka here, I never stock it." Rocco declined.

"You do now, look behind the bar where you keep your best Irish whiskey." The Man instructed.

"Oh You fucking ass-wipe!" Rocco had opened up the relevant cabinet, "By all means turn fucking water into wine, but my fucking whiskey into vodka? You bastard!"

"I’ll have a bottle of that now and a glass." The Man laughed.

Rocco yanked out a bottle and skidded it down the bar to The Man on it’s base, he then grabbed a shot glass and flung it in the same direction so it rolled and tumbled all the way to The Man.

"Why thank you, how considerate of you." The Man remarked laden with conceit before pouring Himself a drink, "Bloom, hey U-Blu…." The Man noticed the four seated men protectively huddled closer to the new focus of His attention, "So this is how you’re spending your time as an ‘ordinary’ soul? Fancy dress and a pantomime horse? What a fucking joke you are, but then again you always were, weren’t you?" He noticed the sneaky bitch was wearing a gun even after supposedly handing in all her weapons upon resigning. Eunice remained silent, she did not want to argue with The Man, she just wanted to be left alone. The Man emptied his glass, swallowing the contents whole and then He refilled it, His own brew, the best.

Now He had begun working on the woman He wouldn’t stop carrying out something He had thought up in the last few minutes. He would challenge her to a duel. As He walked outside He would tell her to follow Him. In order to save face she would comply and in support her little cabal of friends would also come out. Then He would shoot her down, not dead, that wasn’t possible since she was already dead, but such to the extent that it destroyed her vital image as held so dear by her friends. Then they might finally see sense, fall into line and get back to fucking work! But what if she was faster on the draw than He was? Oh, He’d thought of that. When it came to the draw, He would run Rocco’s Meantime including Bloom at half speed, He would operate at normal speed, that ensured He would be quicker on the draw and be first.

"Nobody drinking?" The Man derided the stone dead atmosphere, "Barman, fill everyone’s glass, I wish to make a toast." Rocco refused to budge, "No? Then U-Blu here will have to make the toast. Wakey - wakey Bloom, party piece time, but not one of yours, one of Mine! Start reworking that algorithm we went through in the throne room the other day in that monkey brain of yours, you know the one, the one with the unassailable logic to it, that’s right, you remember? No time like the present, get off your fucking ass, come here and kneel!, and say to Me the acclamation." The Man noticed Bloom bodily slump forward onto the bar needing support.

"Don’t kneel in front of Him, Eunice." Connor whispered.

"I have to, my love," She whispered back, "It’s the logic, you see, the logic." She got up from her seat.

"No!" Romeo grabbed her belt and tried to pull her back down.

"Stop it Romeo! I have to do this." She prised away the fingers and released his grasp. She walked over and stood before The Man.

"Take that fucking hat off when you’re in front of Me! I will not take such wanton insolence from you!" The Man didn’t really mean that, it was more for the consumption of her friends, especially the newly introduced mortals.

Eunice took off her cavalry hat and threw it away. After a few moments to prepare herself, she got down on one knee and then the other. To The Man, this was pure gold, to have this happen and with all her friends watching!

Eunice ran the algorithm in her head, it was necessary to do this to protect herself;

The cold beer shared with her family on the homestead porch in Etruria, standing up in the front of the Mustang with the wind in her hair, Route 66, Smecker at the wheel, the craic with The Saints, …… beautiful young boy Carl making such pure and sweet love to her…..

"My Lord, I respect, love and worship You unconditionally, as The Supreme Creator." Eunice said loudly enough so that everyone could hear.

Poppa fearfully watched the reaction of his boys and Romeo, they were literally quivering with a scorching rage to outdo even the fires of hell. They exchanged knowing glares, no, they weren’t going to let this slide for much longer. Rocco was leaning back up against the bottle dispensers with his eyes closed, Greenbeans had his forehead pressed to the bar unable to look up. Poppa now turned his face away from this macabre circus, the continuous bullying and humiliation of Eunice by The Man was too much to bear. As the Supreme Creator they were supposed to love Him, but He seemed hell bent in His determination to make them hate Him.

"Voila Gentlemen! You can always rely on Bloomy for a great party piece, can’t you!" The Man raised His hands in conquest for the benefit of the audience. Eunice slowly got to her feet. "Where are you going? I didn’t say you could get up." The Man sought clarification.

"My Lord, the logic does stand up and You have every right to ask me to recite the acclamation as many times as You wish. However, after so many times there will inevitably come a point where I will tell you to go fuck Yourself."

"Whatever. The rules are simple in life, death and the afterlife, get what you appreciate or appreciate what you get, this is the hand I have dealt you in My infinite wisdom."

"I got what I appreciated and it was criminally taken from me, but I have every intention to get it back and keep it this time!"

"Yeah, that’s right, trying to get you to concede any ground is like the proverbial blood out of a stone, you don’t give much away, do you, you tight pussied bitch!" The Man outdid her indignation. Poppa sensed everyone, including himself, wanted to rush over and punch The Man’s face in. Not only had He shown gross disrespect and degraded the woman, He had also uttered a manifest lie, Eunice was most generous and beautiful with it. Nevertheless, Eunice kept fighting on her own behalf for now;

"That was a shocking thing to say to me, but that’s it, isn’t it? All you theologian fuckers are the same, you can’t tolerate any woman who defiantly takes control of her own body. Why am I such a threat to you? What are you frightened of?" As The Man had no ready answer, He continued trying to steamroll right over Eunice;

"One last chance, Bloom." The Man gave His final terms, "You’ve got to find your inner angel, get your ass back up to that throne room, pick up your wings where you left them, your badge and your Colt Walkers. Then get the fuck back to Rome and look after Cardinal Sartini like you’ve been booked to do on the assignment roster, capiche?"

"No."

"No? Right then, you leave Me no option. I’m going through that door and if you’re not out in three minutes after Me, I’m coming back in for you."

"No! Don’t You do that!" Rocco shouted at The Man, "Nobody gets called out in here, I won’t allow it!"

"You shut the fuck up and keep out of it. It’s between the caller and the called out, and nobody else, that’s always been the rules." The Man had no intention of complying with any of Rocco’s bar rules, "You’re another bastard I’ll have to deal with later too."

"But You don’t have a gun." Eunice remarked on The Man’s deficiency for the task.

"Oh so I don’t." The Man made play by looking down at His belt, "I’ll just have to make use of that rifle on that flea-bitten nag of yours outside. You like powerful guns? So do I, I’ll blow you into a parallel fucking universe with it. Is that thing you’re wearing there loaded?" Eunice looked away unintentionally betraying the fact that it was. The Man got up without finishing His drink and made for the door, "Three minutes!" He reminded Eunice as He walked through.

The six men immediately rushed over to Eunice to give her what moral support they could, everyone was shouting advice at her all at once;

"Don’t go out Eunice!", "Give me the gun Eunice!", "I’ll go out and face Him for you, Eunice!", "I’ll jump Him when He comes back in.", "I’ll grab His legs and then Romeo, you hit Him with a stool from behind!", "Boys, stop and think for Christ’s sake!" and "We’re fucking doomed!"

She couldn’t tell who was saying what, and wasn’t that interested anyway.

"Everyone, everyone! Shut the fuck up!" Poppa restored order, "Be quiet!" Everyone turned to hear some sage advice, all apart from Eunice, quiet and reflective.

"Eunice, don’t go outside." Poppa put his arm around her.

"Oh no, I’ve no intention of going." She replied heedlessly, "I’ve played along with His infantile rants for long enough, but no more."

"Then, my dear, what are you going to do?" Poppa needed to know the alternative.

"He can come back in, and then He can destroy me."

"No Eunice, no!" Romeo sank to his knees and clasped himself to her. Under the enormous force of his arms she felt as if the small of her back was about to snap, but by that stage it didn’t matter, she didn’t care anymore, she had accepted her confirmed destruction.

"Oh my dear child, no." Poppa pulled her head onto his shoulder.

"I’ll use her gun, Murphy, you get her sword…" She heard Connor begin to make a plan of action, "Romeo….., oh I don’t know, use a snooker cue or something. Angels, use all the divine powers you possess, six against one, we can take Him!" But the angels present remained strangely silent.

"You idiots!" Eunice pulled her face away from Poppa's shoulder, "You can’t fight The Man and win, He has infinite power to draw upon from higher planes. And even if you could win, it wouldn’t be right. The day you raise a hand against your God is the day you cast yourself into hell. Save yourselves, let Him destroy me and then that’s the end of it. That first night at the Pentagon, to experience true nothingness, I am so fucking tired, peace at last…"

"You know Eunice, if you picked up your wings again, The Man might make a special dispensation for you…." Poppa tried his hardest to search for a resolution or else everything would be lost, "If everyone can compromise then I’m sure we can work…" Suddenly he held himself in check, all he was thinking about was his precious boys and himself. Eunice should not give in, "Eunice, my dear lady, you do what you want to do. Everyone, united we stand."

"Divided we fall?" Greenbeans completed the standard oath as a question.

"No! United we fall as well!" Everyone got Poppa's meaning straight away, "If Eunice goes down, we all go down, none of us could continue with ourselves afterwards anyway! We’re all agreed?"

"Agreed!!" All the other men proclaimed.

‘Crack-off-off!’

Everyone turned to look towards the door on hearing the echo of the rifle report;

"He’s already test fired the rifle." Eunice recognised the distinctive sound of the Springfield, "Gentlemen, please don’t do this for me. It’s futile throwing your existence away for one who is already gone bar the next minute or so." Eunice pleaded with them to reconsider.

"Shut up Bloomy, since when did any of us ever listen to you!" Rocco put his arm around her waist and led her back to the bar.

One woman seated at the bar, four men also seated, two either side very close to her, one man standing at the bar watching over the five, one barman behind the bar, they watched the last minute on the bar clock tick down, High Noonesque.

________________________________________________

 Upon leaving the bar The Man passed Silver and pulled the Springfield out of the saddle holster, as He did so the horse turned it’s head and gave Him a steady gaze.

"What are you looking at?" The Man returned the stare before moving on to the open area outside the bar. He checked the weapon was loaded, so now what? The Man decided it would be best to perform a trial run of the half speed timeline trick He was going to use to ensure He would be fastest on the draw. He needed a stand-in for Bloom; yes My dear Gabriel, since she was your recommendation, who better than the little ‘twin’ on the roof? He summoned Caitlin de Sousa to avail herself instantly to hand;

"Ah, supposed to be Bloomy’s twin are you? Well, I’ve got just the perfect little ‘stand-in’ job for you…" The Man belittled the dishevelled low status angel who had been virtually ripped out of heaven to make herself present. Although shocked by such a precipitous transportation, Caitlin still tried to genuflect and kneel in the presence of the Almighty;

"Forget that shit! Get the fuck up!" The Man impatiently kicked dirt up into her face, "Stand over there opposite Me and within the next twenty seconds act as if you are drawing a pistol on Me, and make sure you do it as fast as you can." The Man told her in no uncertain terms.

Caitlin now understood with great trepidation the purpose of the rifle in The Man’s hands, He wanted her to do what?, draw on Him when He was wielding that? Try not to think about it, she had her instructions…

Stand-In; Ooh, all those nasty dangerous little shards of glass! (or NOT the real thing!)

The Man ran Rocco’s Meantime at half speed. Soon enough, Caitlin’s hand came up but to The Man’s annoyance, she was still too fast for Him to bring the weapon to His shoulder and aim it accurately enough. So He re-ran the simulation at one eighth speed. This looked more promising, as her hand came up He had ample time to level the weapon, aim accurately and fire.

The power of the rifle bullet at such close range blew the whole right side of Caitlin’s face away and a good chunk of her cranium too. Excellent trial run, this would work. After returning the timeline to normal speed The Man approached and stood over the Utility Angel’s smashed and floundering form on the ground;

"Alright de Sousa, put your brains back in and get the fuck outa here, make way for the main event, the real thing."

The Man looked at His watch, the three minutes were up. No sign of the Bloom woman or her entourage. Well, they were so fucking stupid none of them could count anyway. He gave them another minute. Still no sign of anyone. They had called His bluff, they weren’t coming out even after He had done a trial run messing with the speed of the local timeline, the inconsiderate fuckers.

He was now stuck outside with no plan B, like a prick.

This calling Bloom out plan had backfired spectacularly. He could either run back to the top floor at HQ and be humbled or go back in and face a wall of intransigence. He could destroy them but He was reluctant to do that though He wouldn’t admit to Himself why. Fuck it! He would have to go back in, though what He was supposed to do once He got there, Christ knew. He looked at the rifle in His hands. They would be waiting to ambush Him once He walked through the door. They only had one gun but who would be using it? All incumbents with the possible exception of Greenly, were excellent with a gun, but Bloom had to be one of the best. Hadn’t He seen her gun-craft at Bantams where she single-handedly took out five heavily armed thugs? She had also captured a rifle and used it to devastating effect.

All incumbents were excellent with a gun, but Bloom had to be one of the best

He looked once more at the weapon in His hands. He could try and do one of His timeline fixing tricks inside the bar to swing the ensuing gunfight in His favour but due to the unique internal nature of the premises, that might not be possible and would be too much hassle to set up anyhow. He decided to go back in unarmed, they wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man would they? Even if they did, they couldn’t kill Him, but being gunned down by His own fucking guardian angels once it got out would be the ultimate humiliation all the same, talk about making Lucifer’s day! He would have to go back in and try and save face while facing them down. Fuck everything, it was all too vague, He had no real idea what would happen now. Fucking Gabriel and his fucking half baked ideas!

The Man walked up to the side of Silver and slid the rifle back into the saddle holster. He took a few minutes to run His hands over the mane, neck and flanks of the beautiful stallion;

"What would you do, Silver?"

"That’s easy, My Lord." Silver turned his head to face The Creator, "Abdicate and give your kingdom to me, Richard the fucking Third!"

_______________________________________________

 "Hey, you in there!" The Man pressed His cheek tight to the doorjamb barely showing the tip of His nose, "I’m coming in, and I’m unarmed, so don’t shoot, d’ya hear?" No answer.

"Look, the first one that shoots Me will get cast into hell and eternal damnation, d’ya hear Me? ……… Ya fuckers!"

Still no answer. He was frightened to go in as He fully expected Bloom to come at Him like the banshee she was at Bantams, fanning the Army SA spitting out a hail of bullets.

He fully expected Bloom to come at Him like the banshee she was at Bantams, fanning the Army SA spitting out a hail of bullets

He moved His cheek forward just enough so He could get a one-eyed view of the bar. Rocco was behind the bar, Il Duce was standing at it and the other five seated with their backs to the door. The Real Magnificent Seven;

"Right, I’m coming in now and I’m not armed so don’t shoot!"

The Man pushed open the swing door, hopped inside and kept Himself low down against the wall. What was going on?, the seven were frozen like statues. Had the timeline trial outside somehow frozen time within the bar? No, obviously they were just staying still. Now The Man felt it permeating the whole atmosphere, the love these six men had for the woman was so strong He could almost reach out and grab some of it, but none of it was for Him. So much love for the woman and yet they hated Him, The Creator. Nevertheless, The Man felt greatly relieved they weren’t going to attack Him and much of His former ebullience returned. He walked over to the seven and stood behind the woman;

"So what happened Bloom, no stomach for a fight? You’re as yellow as that fucking bandana!"

"Eunice is no coward!" Rocco leapt to his friend’s defence, "And You know that, so why lie?"

"What were You trying to do calling me out?" Eunice turned to confront The Man, "Playing with peoples souls, it’s all a game to You isn’t it? Just a game!"

"Of course it’s a game you stupid bitch," The Man hit back, "Just so many pixels in a fucking machine, you know, X-Box and shit."

"Fuckin’ jerk-off with His fucking X-Box," Greenbeans whispered to Murphy, "Playstation is far superior."

"You’re in the game whether you like it or not Bloom," The Man attempted to build a usable front, "We’ll see what courage you do have…."

The seven waited for utter destruction or eternal damnation. Unknown to them The Man would not contemplate either as an option, but without these, He had nothing else to bargain with. He had no idea how to proceed. He paced down to the far end of the bar. Poppa closed his eyes and prayed ‘If that fucking bird opens it’s fucking trap again, so help me, I’ll wring it’s fucking neck!’. Thankfully, Poppa's prayers were answered and the bird remained silent.

The Man stopped, turned around and walked back down the length of the bar passing the seven statues to reach the other end, turning and retracing His steps back again. He had no idea what this was supposed to achieve. He felt like Detective ‘Popeye’ Doyle in The French Connection during the bar scene shake down with all the punters sullenly facing forwards; ‘Did you drop something?’ but who could He pull into the backroom? He had no informant, not on this team. He reached the parrot end and turned to come back again. Poppa sensed the unbearable tension within the air was about to explode, and he knew his friends felt it too. What was The Man going to do? They were all held hostage in a fixed state of paralysis. As The Man passed behind Eunice, she could take it no more;

"What the fuck do You want?" She looked over her shoulder.

"You bitch!" The Man also couldn't take the impasse any longer and lunged at the woman grabbing her bandana. Her seated friends immediately leapt to her aid.

"Don’t You fucking touch her!" Connor sprang off his stool.

"Bastard!" Murphy did the same.

"I’ll fuckin’ kill You!" Romeo tried to grab hold of The Man as did the brothers. Greenly jumped up to protect Eunice but tripped and roughly fell against her nearly knocking her off the stool.

"Boys! Boys! Respect The Man!" Poppa tried to shout some sense into them, "Know who you’re taking on!" He threw himself into the melee trying to pull everyone apart but got inextricably embroiled as well. The Man couldn’t believe it as The Saints grabbed hold of Him, His divine personification was being manhandled by mere mortals, how extraordinary, Rocco’s Bar did indeed have some unusual properties! Eunice twisted herself away from Greenly, let The Man rip away her bandana and slid off the stool;

"Stop it! Stop it you fucking bastards!" She pulled out her pistol, pointed it upwards, BLAM!!, blasting a huge hole in the ceiling;

"Aaaagh - fucking bitch!!" Everyone else immediately scattered. The Man, Greenbeans, Connor, Murphy and Romeo all dived under the nearby tables.

"Fuck me, she’s at it again!" Romeo feared for his life, Poppa leapt over the bar and crouched low. Only Rocco had remained as a statue throughout the whole incident, the bulk of the shattered plaster had fallen down on him for some reason, giving him a very distinctive snow-cap to wear. Romeo nervously looked out from under his table upwards, with fervent gratitude he saw there was no chandelier over it this time.

"Do you know I’ve only just got the place fixed up from the last time, you bitch!" Rocco glowered at Eunice. He decided that for the time being he was not her friend after all, "You hand that in over the bar." Eunice hesitated, reluctant to give up her firearm. "You hand that fucking thing over right now!" Rocco shouted at her. Seeing how furious he was, Eunice placed the weapon on the bar top.

Surrendered to Rocco over the bar, the last one

Rocco grabbed it and threw it down into one of the bar side cabinets. He then flipped up the bar hatch and gestured Poppa to go through before following him out into the bar-room. The woman having been disarmed allowed the fugitives from under the tables to begin emerging, but not The Man.

"Hey, You under there, You The Man," Rocco stood by the table, "You’re barred!"

"You can’t bar Me," The Man looked up from under it, "I’m God!"

"It’s my fucking bar and I’m the Barman, that’s as good as being fucking God! You finish Your drink and get out!"

"I don’t want to finish My drink." The Man rejected the offer and furtively emerged from His refuge.

"Then get out now then, interfering with my fucking jukebox and calling someone outside! Actually, you can all get out now!" Rocco expanded on his initial idea, "The bar’s closed for the night, it’s kicking out time!"

"Hey, now wait a minute Rocco…." Murphy tried to reason with the Barman;

"Out! Out! Everyone out!" Rocco ignored Murphy and began to usher all the patrons except Poppa, into the centre of the room so he could eject them as a group.

"Fuck you Rocco, it’s only a fucking dump anyway!" Greenly wished to remonstrate.

"Aaahh maaann!" Romeo wanted to stay and finish the evening as he had started it.

"Come on, get lost! Fucking riff-raff bringing down the whole fucking neighbourhood," Rocco pushed the group of The Man, Greenly, Eunice, Connor, Murphy and Romeo out the door, "especially you Bloom after shooting up my fucking bar for the second time in so many nights, get on your horse and fuck off!"

Rocco stood at the doorway watching all six of them leave, bickering and cursing at their treatment by the Barman, and that the whole evening had been a washout of an experience, descending into farce. Poppa came out and stood by Rocco;

"Not chucking me out?"

"No, I respect you too much, fuckin’ asshole that you are."

"Smecker was wrong about you, you’re not an idiot are you, not as stupid as you look?"

"Why, thank you for the observation, I really fucking appreciate that, Il Douche-bag!"

"But that really was a smart move of yours, I was most impressed by your quick thinking."

"Yeah, I know, when Bloomy let her gun off I immediately seized the opportunity to clear the bar and I certainly needed to act fast, your boys were playing with some serious shit, them and that fucking Mexican, they’re fucking nuts! And that’s coming from me!"

"Ah, the boys, the boys, you know what they’re like, impulsive and reckless, Jesus Christ!, they attacked The Man, I thought that’s it, we’re as good as ‘Erin Go Brag!’."

"Fucking nuts I tell you! Did you know they planned to torch a whorehouse in downtown Boston? Fucking mental!"

"Oh I heard about that, that was the night they had that bust-up with Eunice, but it was just the drink talking, my boys would never do anything like that."

"Wouldn’t they? They sank that fucking boat and wrecked the Pier 9 harbour area, that’s gotta be on par with torching a joint."

"El Nicoya and his Loreto Norte gang had to pay for the death of Eunice even though we found out later The Man was ultimately responsible. The boys were never going to rest easy till they had avenged Eunice, you and I would’ve done exactly the same, though probably not tried to kill ourselves in the process! Fucking jet-skis? Fucking lunatics! They take after their mother you know."

Rocco almost fell backwards into the bar on hearing this but just about recovered himself;

"Yeah, they’re all that, attacking The Man just now, talk about digging yourself a pit! Clearing the bar was all about saving face, and especially the face of The Man."

"I could see it just as you could Rocco, The Man was badly stuck, He’d painted Himself right into a corner with no way out, all that pacing up and down, Jesus, He needed a ‘get out of jail free card’. I got the impression He was very relieved when He left along with the group."

"Yes, I got that impression too. I thought by tarring everyone with the same brush and throwing them out as a group would somehow unite them, however brief, it didn’t matter whether you were a God, a Guardian Angel, a mortal, or just a little lost soul, you got kicked out all the same, but most importantly, with your face saved and intact."

"It was a smart move but it doesn’t buy us much time. The situation is still not resolved, The Man will be back with a vengeance, you can count on it."

"That’s all I can do, Il Duce, fire fight the flames at present. But where do we go now from here?"

"I will intercede on Eunice and The Man’s behalf, I will try and get them to negotiate."

"Well I admire you for trying and I wish you luck, but after tonight it’s obvious they fucking hate each other."

"No Rocco!" Poppa was astounded by his friend’s opinion, "Eunice would never hate The Man, her God, and He would never hate her, not truly despite such bad words being exchanged."

"But they must hate one another! He has to hate her after that fucking abominable display He made her do, kneeling in front of Him and reciting that acclamation, and she must hate Him all the more for it, in front of all her friends, fucking ripped the guts outa me watching it!"

"Yes Rocco, I had to turn away, I couldn’t bear to watch it either, but now it has sunk in, I realise something marvellous and quite wonderful went down. There was nothing forced about it at all, she willingly knelt and meant every word of the acclamation, yes, she really does love The Man. As I listened I thought how terrible of The Man to use that poor girl as a doormat to wipe His feet on in front of us, but now I don’t think it reflects badly on her at all, the fact she can do it so selflessly and mean every word reveals to us all what we already suspected about the depth and strength of her character, and of course, her intelligence. You would never comply if you were stupid and ignorant, you would kick off in order to save that word again ‘face’."

"I think I’m beginning to see it now, Il Duce, the brilliance and nobility of her soul, why does she need wings when she has all that?"

"Wings or not, and intercession or not, The Man may still decide to destroy Eunice and the rest of the team along with her; can we find a way forward to satisfy all concerned?"

"What we need is a roadmap, that’s what we need, but be sure and put U-Blu in the driver’s seat!"

"Either way Rocco, we can’t keep doing such useless crappy assignments, something’s got to give soon."

"Fuck the fucking assignments! All I want to know is who is going to fix up my fucking bar again, tell me that!"

Chapter 9: The Saints are coming!

The death of Eunice very quickly reached the upper echelons of the Establishment. Gleefully, the corrupt wing couldn’t believe their luck and it was cause for some concealed celebration. An exceptionally leaky set-up arranged using incompetent local mobsters. Even all six of the assholes sent to kill the bitch got themselves killed. Why hadn’t she smelled a rat and seen through it right away? They granted she was a hell of a smart broad, so why had her judgement completely gone out the window? They were pleasantly surprised it had worked and it was worth every cent of the $3,000,000 bounty put on her head. At $100,000 for every piece of silver, a snip at the price, but a bounty set at that level ensured there would be plenty queuing up to have a go, one of them had to succeed sooner or later, but that particular leaky plan, set up at such short notice? They had to think twice though about using their fake lines of communication to get the message through to the bitch, once blown it couldn’t be used again.

On review of the autopsy report it showed how lucky they had been to nail her. But ultimately, it couldn’t have worked out better. She had saved Boston and with it all their black market and organised criminal structures. Once she had done that they could kill her and that’s exactly what they did. They swore they would get her. Did anyone think they were going to forget it after what she did to take out The Roman, the man who was going to come back from exile and inherit the Boston operation and run it for them? Fuck no, nobody does that to them and gets away with it. Didn’t they have a reputation to live up to? In the darkest corners of the Establishment, several little high-fives were exchanged and smug congratulations were had all round. Hard copy photographs of Eunice’s bloody corpse on the bar top were obtained, passed around and well thumbed, gloated over. The wholesale destruction and violent end to the woman they hated so much was well cherished indeed.

The self-righteous wing of the Establishment took a very ‘told you so’ stance on the matter, admonishing the pragmatic centre for their folly. If the woman had been put in prison like they suggested, she may have lost her freedom but she would still be alive. Her defusing of the nuclear bomb was conveniently left out of these reflections. When the corrupt wing heard this they merely scoffed at the idea, what planet did these fuck heads live on, as if prison would protect the bitch? All they would’ve done in this scenario was order her murder at the hands of their people on the inside.

The pragmatic centre was as ever, pragmatic. The woman was a heroine, her service to duty and the nation was incalculable. Her brilliance and application to her work was unsurpassed in the modern era. Nevertheless, brilliant and useful as she was, there would be others similarly brilliant and useful. Such assets are ultimately expendable and when necessary sacrificed for the greater good.

The lookout who called in the assassins at Bantams Clubhouse reported back to his handlers who the primary target had been with and who was first to turn up in the aftermath. The corrupt wing knew of Special Agent Kuntsler, he was a useful idiot who was largely ineffective until Bloom had rejoined the team. Now without her, it was presumed he would revert back to type. Who was that guy who had entered the clubhouse with Bloom and who were the other two who had turned up with Kuntsler? An appraisal of the three pinged back right away; useless idiots of the Boston PD not worth another thought. Of course, in the background to all this, remained the small matter of The Boondock Saints. But at least for now Bloom had been eliminated, that was something that could be built upon towards the ultimate objective.

__________________________________________________

 It was reported on the TV news and in the Boston press about the sad death of the very popular and personable FBI Special Agent Eunice Bloom while on active duty. She was very well known and respected as a member of the Boston Bureau office.

The very popular and personable FBI Special Agent Eunice Bloom

The Boston Globe reported it under the headline ‘La Morte d’Eunice’ while the Boston Herald used the headline ‘The heart of Boston has ceased to beat’.

Numerous other articles and photographs about the lady were published over the coming weeks until the remembrance service could be held. There was also this crazy rumour in some sections of the press about her once going rogue and becoming a fugitive before being accepted back, but because of the all encompassing grief at the loss of one so special, no-one of any note would give any credence to such a story, the Bureau itself refused to comment on mere speculation. Neither would the Bureau speculate on what the nature of the investigation was at Bantams Clubhouse that led to Special Agent Bloom’s death.

Internally, John Kuntsler was also at a loss to explain it. He couldn’t get any sense out of Detectives Duffy, Dolly or Kiersky for that matter. All he knew was that Kiersky was heavily involved and needed to find out how much of the blame for what happened should rest at his door. Kiersky.  

John could not get the final horrific image of Eunice out of his head, the dried blood on her cheeks and in her hair, it had poured out of her mouth, poured out of her chest, poured everywhere. He needed another image, one he could hold onto, anything but that one.

After some time, John could take it no more and decided he had to go and see Eunice at the mortuary. In three days time the family funeral directors were going to remove the remains so he thought he’d better see her now before it was too late. The head-mortician on duty was very pleasant and professional.

"How is Special Agent Eunice Bloom?" he asked the woman.

"Be rest assured Special Agent Kuntsler, we have taken very good care of her. She has been washed, her hair well prepared and we have put a gown on her."

"Can I go and see her?"

"Sure, go right down and speak to Gavin who’s on duty at the moment." she stood to one side so John could make his way down.

Gavin was not so professional, he came across as bored and fed up with life amongst the dead rather than the living. He opened up the hatch and rolled out the tray Eunice lay upon. John forced himself to look at her face. They had done a good job, he could live with this final image even though she was dead, her face with that pale greyish cold look of the long deceased. Thank God they had done something with her hair. It had been swept off her forehead, gathered in a ponytail to one side and rested on the front of her left shoulder. A damn sight better than the state he had last seen it. He was suddenly struck by how delicate she looked.

"Have you seen the autopsy?" Gavin ventured being not quite sure of the reason for the visit. John said he hadn’t, but he may as well hear about it;

"How many times was she shot?"

"Hmm, I’d say about a quarter."

"Don’t fuck me about! What do you mean?"

"Forensics discovered a bullet hit the floorboards in front of Agent Bloom. The end of one of the boards had been repaired at some stage where a nail had been driven in, but not particularly well. This bullet hit the head of the nail, broke apart and about a quarter piece of it flew up and hit Agent Bloom in the upper right chest causing a fatal haemorrhage to her right lung and surrounding tissues…." Gavin pushed the collar of the gown to one side so John could see the small entry wound. Gavin began to enjoy his new role of pathologist, now he wasn’t so bored after all.

"Fuck off, don’t shit me, I can't accept that, how come such a small fragment caused so much internal damage?" John had never heard of anything so tenuous.

"The irregular shape of the fragment caused it to turn inside the lady, at least twice. But I can’t say I blame you for reacting like that Sir, the lady should be considered very unlucky, I’ve never come across anything like that in all the years I’ve been here. Just think of it, that bullet, which had already missed her, millimetres either way and it wouldn’t have hit the nail. And another thing, the bullet fragment grazed the edge of one of the metal buttons on her overcoat. If it had hit the button full on it would’ve saved her. That fragment had just enough energy left to go through her overcoat, her jacket and four inches into her chest, one fragment, just one fragment of a spent bullet. It’s margins Sir, incredibly fine margins at work."

"Yeah, those extra unused bullets in your gun would’ve been decisive, detective fucking Kiersky!" John knew where to apportion blame.

"That’s not all forensics came up with," Gavin wanted to keep the audience captive, "did you know they found Agent Bloom's prints all over the Garand? Two of the five hit squad were killed by the Garand, another by probable friendly fire and the other two from Agent Bloom’s Para LDA. She must’ve been in one hell of a fire-fight. There was powder residue all over her hands, hair and clothes, and the kick of the Garand left a noticeable bruise on the front of her shoulder."

"Yeah, that’s my girl," John nodded in appreciation, "she went down fighting all the way."

"And there’s something more. The dead asshole one block away had been shot once from Detective Kiersky’s gun."

"Ah so that explains it," the pieces were starting to fall into place within John’s mind of what had happened, "Kiersky." He spat out the name of the one to blame for this disaster. Then John was struck by a procedural anomaly;

"How come you fuckers have access to the forensics report and I don’t?"

"Boston PD, what do you expect?" Gavin shrugged his shoulders in fake apology.

"Fuck! They could’ve given me the courtesy of a copy, she was one of my agents, assholes!" John then took out his frustration with the local police on the official present; "I think you ought to go," John decided he’d tired of being in the company of this corporate drone, "and another thing, get that fucking label off her foot!"

"You what? She needs that…."

"She is not to be labelled, logged or categorised, get it off now!"

"Okay, alright, it’s procedure, what’s your fucking problem?" Gavin pulled at the string tied around the big toe.

"Go on, get out. I want to be alone." John sent him packing.

"Fuckin’ jerk-off!" John heard muttered as the attendant passed through the door.

So this was it, this would be the last time John had the privilege of seeing Eunice. Her parents were taking her south to be buried in the family plot, all that would happen in Boston would be a remembrance service and dinner afterwards, a eulogy and all the usual crap that had to be gone through. He wanted to reach down and hold her but knew he mustn’t do that, that would be gross disrespect to the remains. He did, however, allow himself to take her hand. It was small, cold and lifeless but it did give him some comfort.

"My dear Eunice," he prayed over her, "I haven’t forgiven myself for what happened like I know you asked me to, but know this, I am truly repentant for the wrong I did you. At least I have that to rely on. Rely on?" He sorely felt the loss, "I am reliant on you for everything in the department. What am I going to do now without you at my side?"

Somehow the autopsy and forensic reports he had just heard made his despair all the worse. Of all the shitty luck! She took down all the heavily armed assailants sent against her and then what happened? If only when the funeral directors came and opened the hatch to take her back home would they find it empty. It would be empty because she would be back at the Bureau inspiring all the team, just like nothing happened. When John took a peek through the venetian blinds in his office, she’d be there across the way in her own office, probably holding court to the team, special as ever. The thought lifted John’s spirits somewhat;

"Goodbye Bloomy!" he bade farewell at last, retuning the tray back in and closing the hatch, "In three days time, may you not be there when they come for you!"

_____________________________________________

 Three days passed and the funeral directors arrived to collect Eunice’s remains. At the morgue the hatch was opened and she was delivered into their care. Three days wait for John, the remembrance service. He hated these things, the endless eulogy, crass superlatives even though for Eunice they were deserved for once. It was disappointing that Eunice’s one time rogue status had leaked out to the press but since she had apparently died in the line of duty everyone decided in the interests of decency not to pursue this, more important was to mourn the passing of a public servant, a heroine. The bomb plot naturally remained buried, Kuntsler and his team sworn to secrecy. It was a shame Eunice could never be publicly recognised by the Establishment for what she had done, but if it ever got out how close the nuclear attack on US soil had succeeded, the CIA and FBI teams pulling guns on one another, the essential role a onetime rogue agent had in disarming the bomb, the public outcry would be unimaginable, heads would roll in high places.

John didn’t properly attend the service, he stayed out of sight at the back of the church, not wishing to see Eunice’s family. The sheer numbers who came to pay their respects, her extended family up from Etruria, all her friends and acquaintances from the Boston area, not forgetting all those recently acquired in DC, it really concentrated John’s mind, just how many would be attending his remembrance service and funeral?

He looked at the casket in the central isle of the church, Eunice would be back off to Dixie soon, she was truly gone, no way back, no way for John. The Bloom family had laid on a buffet fete in the grounds of an adjoining green space by the church. John and his team felt obliged to attend although he stood in a corner alone, isolated, the price one pays at such gatherings for having no friends.

"Have you seen my wife Beatrice?" The southern drawl was unmistakable, had to be William Bloom, Eunice’s father as Beatrice was her mother, John had read up on the family members. Clearly a distinguished southern gentleman, but otherwise unremarkable, it was hard to envisage such a genius as Eunice springing from that tree. One of the mourners informed Mr Bloom that she thought she had seen his wife back in the main marquee and he should try there. John remained in hiding where he was, minute by minute, why did they pass so slowly?

"Has anyone seen my husband?" Again, the unmistakable southern accent, "somebody told me he was down here looking for me?" The voice came from behind one of the smaller marquees in front of John where he was trying to hide himself from view.

Beatrice Bloom strode around the corner and straight to where John was standing. John was stunned. This was 90% Eunice. The way she walked, her face, mannerisms, everything, it wasn’t difficult to guess which side of the family’s genes were dominant. John knew she was aged fifty-eight but she looked nearer forty-five, and beautiful, like her daughter. Eunice’s American flag badge was proudly worn on her jacket lapel, Beatrice was even wearing the diamond pendent that John had arranged to repair, the one Eunice was wearing when she died.

"Ah, Agent Kuntsler? You were Eunice’s direct superior, I believe? No words to say about her at the eulogy? I wonder why…" Beatrice gave John a stern look.

"Mrs Bloom? Your husband, I believe…."

"Aw forget him, it’s you I’d like to talk to, I’ve heard a lot about you."

"Me? What about you Mrs Bloom. When you came around the corner just now, I thought it was Eunice, oh, I had to double-take!"

"Yes, that is interesting you should say that. Every time Eunice used to visit us back home and she walked in a room, all the people there would think she was me."

"I can see why!" John tried to make easy conversation and gave Mrs Bloom a broad smile.

"Agent Kuntsler, did you cynically handcuff and blindfold my baby girl so she couldn’t defend herself and so you could attack her?"

John nearly collapsed in shock. What did she say? Did she really ask that? How did she know? John knew Eunice would protect her own mother from such an awful story so how else had Beatrice found out? Janice? Or someone else from the office present at the service. Why did God hate him? The shame all at once returned;

"I….. I….. That wasn’t me!" There was denial in John’s words but also a belief that there was an element of truth too, old Kuntsler had been the perpetrator, but that crazy messed up man no longer existed. John was new, reborn, that could never happen again from him.

"Did you hurt my baby girl?" Such force from the unendurable question.

"Oh God no! No! Mrs Bloom, I didn’t!" John needed to extricate himself, otherwise he would disintegrate under the withering accusations. Eunice had pleaded with John not to hurt her, now John was pleading not to be subjected to such an examination, for the love of Christ, not this, may hell swallow him up rather than to look into her mother’s eyes, Eunice’s eyes, and face such a test, God help him;

"But Mrs Bloom, she forgave me!" John had at least that to cling to.

"That may be the nature of the good woman, but me to you?, after what you did, never! She willingly surrendered herself into your trust, a law enforcement officer, she was vulnerable and you should’ve been there to protect her and what did you do?, you betrayed that trust in the most brutal of fashions!" The words were flung in his face. John had to try something else, something! Beatrice was a mother, perhaps he could appeal to her parental instinct, turn it from protective attack to sympathetic care;

"Mrs Bloom, you are Eunice’s mother, don’t you understand, I have a mother too…" and he made to put his hands on Beatrice’s shoulders.

"Don’t touch me!!" She struck and punched his hands away with her delicate fists, "And don’t touch my baby girl!" The loathing and revulsion on the woman’s face was unbearable to behold. John didn’t deserve that, he was a good man. But along with the loathing and revulsion, there were also tears coming in Beatrice’s eyes. No, not that, please, was John that evil? She appeared to be fighting them back, John realised that out of pride she did not want him to see them. She brushed her jacket open each side and placed her hands on her hips, arms akimbo, so Eunice…

Arms akimbo; so Eunice

Oh fucking hell, Christ no! She was armed! John could clearly see the butt of the gun in a shoulder holster peeping out from the inside of her left jacket lapel. Had she come to kill him? He had left his own sidearm back at the Bureau armoury out of respect for the event.

"So you have a mother, Cunty?"

What did she just call him?

"Do you have a father?" John swayed on his feet, he didn’t understand, why was everything imploding, collapsing?, "Well you go fuck your pa, d’ya know him?"

Kuntsler ran. Within the hour he was bent over a toilet seat taking in line after line.

_______________________________________________________

 Poor Eunice, against all the odds, using all her considerable qualities, she had steered the rocky passage all the way back from Costa Rica, overcame the immense mental trial of single-handedly defusing a nuclear bomb, and survived the severe ravages and near starvation of internal rendition at the hands of a psychopath. Where she had miscalculated and fallen down was her failure to appreciate the boundless ineptitude of Detective Jack Kiersky.

There was still no way out of checkmate for the hapless detective, he couldn’t even kill himself after he had promised the angel Eunice he wouldn’t do so. The unending hell of knowing he had gotten the good woman killed, all because he selfishly wanted a Lou Reed-esque ‘Perfect Day’ with her. To make matters worse Beatrice Bloom had written him a letter expressing regret he could not attend the forthcoming remembrance service, but thanking him for being at her side when Eunice had died. How brave he must have been with only the two of them taking on so many heavily armed criminals, he was a hero. She thanked him from the bottom of her heart and he would always be made welcome at her home in the south should he ever pass that way. Sick to his core, all he could manage as a reply was a short thank you note with the usual platitudes about Eunice’s passing being quick and she hadn’t suffered.

Oh God, how he hated himself, he could barely face the shaving mirror in the morning. Duffy did a great job getting Jack out of bed in the spare room and back into work each day, and eventually back home to his wife and kids. Life had to go on, he was in it, fuck it.

The Saints, however, were less forgiving. They called him to a meeting at McGinty’s. Connor, Murphy, Romeo, and Smecker were already there when Duffy and Dolly arrived with Kiersky. Logic told him he should lie about what had happened, the consequences of telling them how it was couldn’t ever go well. But then he thought of the Guardian Angel on his shoulder and on all their shoulders. He owed it to her to tell the truth, purge his soul, a redemptive catharsis. As he related the exact unfolding of events that dreadful day, the faces of The Saints and Romeo grew darker and darker. Duffy and Dolly’s expressions were suitably horrified from the outset when they learned the magnitude of Kiersky’s deceit and betrayal, the way he had connived to exclude them from the night’s excursion. This fact alone had been sufficient to seal Eunice’s fate. Duffy felt particularly wounded, after all he had done to help Kiersky since that tragic day. Dolly in turn was sickened by the information in a different respect; that poor unfortunate woman, he remembered the night Greenbeans died and she threw herself upon his body so that Dolly had to drag her away in his arms in order that the remains could be removed.

He remembered the night Greenbeans died and she threw herself upon his body

Dolly had to drag her away in his arms in order that the remains could be removed

Smecker sat showing no external emotion, inscrutable. By the time Jack reached the point where Kuntsler, Duffy and Dolly arrived at the clubhouse, he was very tearful at having to relive the awful truth. Then he fell silent, nothing more to add. Now await judgement.

Connor got up off his stool, calmly walked over to Jack and punched him full on in the face, knocking him to the floor. Murphy now waded in, grabbing up Jack off the floor and throwing him headlong into a set of tables and chairs sending them flying. No sooner had Jack landed then Romeo grabbed hold of him in a head lock, his enormous strength almost sufficient to pull the man’s head off;

"This fucker’s neck is mine!" Romeo claimed the quarry tightening his huge arm muscles, "Christ knows I loved that woman!"

The unpalatable truth weighed heavily on the brothers and Romeo given the terrible way they had last parted with Eunice, particularly Connor;

"If I don’t leave now, I’ll shoot the fucking bitch!"

It could never be put right, someone had to pay. Duffy and Dolly were as equally shattered as The Saints on hearing the full warts and all details of what had happened. Nevertheless, the tale as told fitted the pieces of the jigsaw together, why Jack had been acting so weird. They wanted to intervene but couldn’t. In a strange sort of way perhaps being beaten up might do their fellow detective some good, he wanted to be punished and suffer for his catastrophic negligence.

"You useless, worthless fuck-up!" Murphy screamed at the throttled man, "That woman was an exceptional and irreplaceable part of our team!"

"Here, Romeo, let him go, I’ve a better idea…" Connor pulled out his crucifix with one hand and his Eagle pistol with the other.

"Yeah, let’s do the fucker." Romeo threw Jack back on to the floor.

"Boys, if I could give up my own life to bring her back, you know I would!" Jack offered up his soul in recompense.

"Great idea!" Murphy took out his crucifix and pistol and pulled Jack to his knees.

"Jesus Christ, boys!" Duffy tried to protest, but he knew The Saints, once they had decided something…

"Please don’t! There’s no need to kill the poor bastard, he’s not worth it…" Dolly too tried to intercede.

"Shut the fuck up and keep out of it!" Romeo silenced them.

"Paul! For fucks sake do something!" Duffy ran over to ethereal team player, "We can’t do this!"

"We’re turning our own fucking guns on one another!" Dolly too was now in front of Smecker pleading, "Stop them, they’ll listen to you!"

But Smecker stared straight ahead at the unfolding scene of execution, refusing to intervene.

"You’d better get your Jesus right, boy…" Connor spoke to the back of the head before him as he chambered a round.

"Yeah, for all the fuckin’ good it’ll do you now…" Murphy added, also priming his gun.

Jack felt the two silencers on the back of his skull as the brothers recited their execution prayer over him. He used the short time left to contemplate his worthless existence, surely no-one since Judas had been so detested, vilified and hated? He was unwilling to do it himself, he had promised Eunice he wouldn’t, but it was right The Saints should kill him after what he had done and they were mercifully obliging to help him out of this fix. Peace at last, he closed his eyes. The final words came soon enough;

"In Nomeni Patri, et Fili Spiritus Sancti….."

As the words were said Jack quickly blessed himself and waited for oblivion….

He waited, and waited…

The brothers looked at one another, angry and frustrated. This was no joke to frighten Kiersky, they meant to kill him and yet when it came to it they couldn’t pull the triggers.

Then came a slow hand clap echoing in the room;

"Well done boys, what a performance!" Smecker’s voice seized everyone's attention, "You should know better than to recite the prayer with no intention of following it through? It’s sacrilegious, you’re not for that, killing someone on the right side of the law? I mean, c’mon!"

In a rage Murphy floored Kiersky with a blow to the side of the head using the gun butt.

"Well what are we to do with this fucker?" Murphy shouted back at the ghost, "You heard him, it was all his fault, we have to do something with him."

"Our dear friend Eunice," Connor lamented, "of all the fucking idiots in the world, having the gross misfortune of getting involved with this one, he got her killed, the fuck-up!"

"Kiersky didn’t kill Eunice," Smecker wouldn’t hear of it and stated his own view, "It was me, I killed her. That day at FBI training college I picked her out to be my protégé, I may as well have cast her into hell the day I did that."

The Saints and Romeo reflected for a few moments on what Smecker had said, but they weren’t diverted from their conclusions about Kiersky;

"Either way, I no longer want this worthless car-crash of a man on the team," Connor was insistent, "I don’t know why we took him on in the first place. He’ll probably end up getting us killed an’ all!" But Smecker remained silent.

"Go on! Get this mutha’ outa here," Murphy instructed the detectives, "He’s off the team, only you two from Boston PD going forward."

"And another thing Kiersky," Connor stood over him, "don’t you ever darken our fucking paths again…"

Duffy and Dolly helped Jack up and escorted him outside. Duffy was in terrible turmoil. He felt great sadness for his friend but he too felt the urge to kick the shit out of him for causing the waste of such a wonderful team member so needlessly; ‘Jack, you’re gonna reap just what you sow!’.

When they got outside Jack was bundled into the back of Duffy’s car, the other two taking up the front seats. Before Duffy could start the car Jack reached forward and took a hold of each man by the shoulder;

"Boys, thank you for sticking by me," blood trickled out of his smashed mouth as he spoke between the front seats, "I’m so grateful I can always count on you guys, my friends forever, what would I do without you?"

Suitably gutted by such misconceptions, the two up front exchanged glances, with a left hook from the driver and a simultaneous right hook from the adjacent passenger, the face between them was struck with such force, the recipient was knocked backwards into the seat unconscious.

___________________________________________________

 The Loreto Norte gang had struck silver, their boss El Nicoya had made it into the big league. Incredible, with an opportunistic contract killing and three million bucks in the bank, how's that for a day’s work. He didn’t even have to pay those six idiots sent to do the deed since they all got killed. He didn’t even know who the broad was or why she was wanted dead. More importantly, he had ingratiated himself with some very powerful people not only in Boston but New York and DC too. Lucrative work and territory were now being pushed his way, all he needed to do was rise to the new challenges, things were looking very good indeed, not bad for a one time slumdog from the backstreets of Managua.

Unfortunately, El Nicoya had omitted to count in one very important factor in this bright future he envisaged for himself and his cohorts: The Saints. _____________________________________________________

 Completely unexpected, Jack received another letter from Beatrice Bloom;

Dear Jack,

I will come straight to the point. I wish to gift to you Eunice’s Mercedes car as she often said to me she had the impression you had a soft spot for it and liked going out on assignments in it with her. I believe it is the car she was using the day she died and to tell you the truth I always worried about her safety in the career she had chosen for herself. Therefore since this car was always the one she used for work I do not wish to retain it but I do want it to go to someone who I know will appreciate it and give it a good home. For my part, I’m not really one for flash cars, just give me the open road, my old Dodge pickup and my shotgun stashed behind the headrest, and I’m as happy as a roadrunner! However, one has to draw the line somewhere with one’s principles so I will be retaining Eunice’s Ford Mustang. That was her leisure car - did you ever get a ride in it? Fast and furious girl, my Eunice, I often wondered which side of the family she got it from! Enjoy the Mercedes (for God’s sake get that wing repaired!), a chauffeur will be delivering it to you in the next day or so.

Always your friend,

Beatrice

"Well didn’t God move in mysterious ways? And Eunice had a Mustang?" Jack spoke to himself bemused, "She certainly kept that one quiet!"

The chauffeur called at Jack’s apartment and handed him the car-keys. The Mercedes had been left in the apartment underground parking lot. Jack rushed down to see it and there it was waiting for him like a silver chalice, the Holy Grail.

He fearfully opened the driver’s door, being one so unworthy and peered into the sumptuous black leather interior. He looked at the driver’s seat and steering wheel, it didn’t look right, not how he remembered it. He raised the seat, brought it forward and lowered the steering wheel. Then he rushed around to the other side, got in and viewed the adjustments from the passenger seat, yes, that was it, ready for Eunice to jump in, fire it up, ram the gear shift into drive, and floor it so they could shoot off, reckless, carefree. Her packets of chewing gum were still in the central console, and the telephone…. Never to be laughed or bantered into again.

All at once his emotions began to overpower him, he couldn’t bear to look into the rear seat area where Eunice had spent her last mortal night, that night with him, in his arms. Jack reached out his hand and gently stroked the circular emblem in the centre of the steering wheel;

"Oh dear lady, what have I done?"

______________________________________________

 Etruria County, Church of The Virgin Mary and Saint Peter cemetery, Bloom family plot. Paul Smecker watched from a safe distance and waited until the Bloom family mourners had dispersed after they witnessed the casket descend into the ground and cast the usual few symbolic roses and shovels of earth upon it. He watched the grave diggers complete the task and leave the resting place with a tidy mound of fresh earth over it. Eunice was now in the care of her ancestors.

It was now safe for Paul to approach the burial place and pay his own private respects. Extraordinarily, he remembered watching in secret Eunice paying her own respects over his fake grave all those years ago. What a fucked up and crazy world we live in……., it was just that, this lady no longer lived in it, and, her grave wasn’t fake, it was the real thing. Paul keenly recognised the ‘real thing’ concept cut both ways.

The woman was smart, too fucking smart, surely as Christ already knew His fate when He arrived in triumph at the gates of Jerusalem, Eunice must have also known how her own return would end, that too after a brief period of triumph. Sooner or later someone would get her for what she did to expose The Roman. But she had to come back, continuing out in Costa Rica was as good as being dead, or in many respects worse, being the living dead.

He placed the roses on the headstone but struggled to find anything to say worthy of the lady entombed. Finally;