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SNAFU Part 45

by Angharad

This is a work of fiction any resemblance to anyone alive or dead is unintentional.

*****
An explosion, according to my old Chemistry teacher, is a rapid expansion of gases. So what propels bullets out of the chambers of guns, is a very rapid expansion of gas, and the rifling helps to steer the piece of lead, or whatever is used these days.
The bullet can travel faster than the speed of sound, so the bang is heard after the present is received, so to speak, although human ears can’t usually detect it.

Mine didn’t nor did I feel the carpeted floor as my body slumped on it. All I was aware of was being drawn into a vortex of darkness, my body spiralling down.
I awoke, if that is the right word, wearing a linen dress and sprawled face down on a stone floor. Oh shit! I was back in ancient Egypt.

“You continue to interfere, as the ‘cat’s paw’, yes we like that, how appropriate, of our sister. We are however, tired of these games and your time as a player is over. For a mortal, you have played well, but we tire of them and you. Before we despatch to the Underworld for eternity, is there anything you would like to say?”

I mumbled something.

“Stand up woman, as a priestess of our sister, you should stand before us.”
I knew who was talking to me, Set, God of the Underworld and brother of Osiris, the good guy, but who was enfeebled like Jesus and killed. My chances of survival were zilch rising to zero on a good day. This didn’t appear to be one of those. In the presence of Set, my goddess would be unable to assist me, so my final moments would be up to me. I had nothing to lose.

One of the strange things of being reincarnated, then slammed back into one’s original body at speed, is the memories of all those other incarnations seem available. As Jamie, I could only remember bits as a priestess of Sekhmet, as my original incarnation, I could remember all of Jamie’s stuff.

I stood and continued my mumblings, repeating them over and over before the Egyptian God of Chaos. Thankful that he still hadn’t heard them.

“What are you saying, girl?”

I continued my mumbling which was actually chanting, the internal resonance was much louder than my voice.

“What does she say to us?” asked Set of one of his retainers.

“She is talking in Hebrew, my Lord.”

“What game is this you play?”

I could have said three dimensional chess, but I didn’t, instead I kept chanting and visualising the Qabbalah or Tree of Life. I reckoned I was in Yesod, where most of magic and mythologies exist, on the astral plains. I just needed to move myself somewhere else. With work unfinished in preventing World War Three, I thought Malkuth, the world of the material was quite suitable.

“Adonai ha-Arets.” I kept repeating and seeing myself back in my body.

I felt two pairs of hands carrying me and then dumping me unceremoniously in a corner. “Just leave her there, she’s dead anyway, and we only need some bits of DNA or a few teeth for them to see she was implicated. That should piss off the Brits more than somewhat. Jane Bond kills U.S. President. Ha ha.”

“So how did you kill her?”

“Magic, simply more powerful stuff than she could use. See our master is just a bit bigger than her little lioness, classic male dominance stuff, stupid bitch. Can’t believe she walked right into it.”

“Come on the President is due in the next ten minutes or so. The plane is airborne. We need to be away from here in twenty.” I heard a door close.

My body felt like I had been thrown down a flight of steps, and hit every one of them on the way down. I did manage to open my eyes, even though they didn’t focus too well.

As for moving limbs, ouch, they hurt. It was a real effort to struggle upright into a sitting position. I was still in the US Army uniform, one of my shoes was off, but had been tossed nearby. I heaved myself onto my feet, and managed to get the missing shoe on. Then I pulled the cap back on.

If I was correct, I had pulled the trigger of my gun, so why wasn’t the whole building rubble? Getting my bearings, I worked out they had carried me into a storage room next to the presidential suite.

I now peeked out the door and there were two marines stood outside the president’s apartment.

I pulled my cap off and with one hand on my head partly covering my face, staggered down the corridor towards the soldiers. “Oh, that British gal just hit me,” I said in my best mid-west accent, before collapsing into the arms of one of them.

“Where’d she go?” asked the non supporting combatant.

“Up there I guess,” pointing to the direction whence I’d come, or they presumed I had.

He went rushing off, calling into his mike, while the other one made the mistake of looking into my eyes and then seeing a lioness there. He stumbled backwards and fell over a rug. He didn’t move afterwards. I pulled his unconscious body into the cupboard from where I had recently emerged.

I went into the presidential suite and told the flunky in there that I had to check the computer for a lethal virus. He took one look at my uniform and left me to it.
I had five minutes before the President arrived and ten more beyond that before everything went bang.

I logged onto the computer using George Dubya’s password, and went into the plans of the building, I needed the wiring charts, oh hell where were they?

The clock on the bomb was ticking down, well not literally because it wasn’t a time bomb, but you get the picture.

Finally, four minutes after I started I got to wiring diagrams, fire alarms in particular. God I wished I’d spent more time listening to the one lesson I’d had in Tech Drawing. I made more sense looking at Hebrew letters.

In the end, I had to do what I should have done in the beginning, I dowsed for it. I needed the entry point for the alarm system, the live feed. There wasn’t an alarm per se here because the refurbishment had removed it except to leave fuse wires running through all the walls and ceiling.

Holding my hand before me, I began to ask my body to show me where the alarm power feed came in. I expected a ceiling job and wondered how I’d affect it, when I discovered to my surprise, it fed in near the door.

Grabbing the expensive and lethal looking paper knife from the ornate rosewood desk, I began digging at the plaster on the wall by the door. I could have done with more strength, then remembered the gun tucked in the back of my skirt. I used it as a hammer.

“What ‘hell are you doin’ Captain?”

“Keep out of the way, this whole room is one big bomb.”

“What the fuck, are you nuts, they only just decorated it all.”

The flunky grabbed my one arm and pulled the other around my shoulder, dragging me away from the wall. We staggered backwards against a table dislodging a vase.
“That’s a priceless antique, now you’ve made me mad, you stupid bitch!”

We rolled on the floor, wrestling with the gun and the paper knife. The skirt was too tight for much leg movement I made a mental note to complain when I saw the president.

The flunky grabbed for the gun, and I grabbed his nuts and twisted hard and violently. He screamed, unsurprisingly and lashed out at me unfortunately driving the knife into his chest. He stood up staggered backwards and fell onto a presumably priceless chesterfield.

I picked up the gun and realising the President was now in the building, did all I could do now to save her, fired a single bullet at the site where the wiring came in.
I waited for the huge bang, but nothing, only the fairly loud one of the pistol discharging and the smell of cordite – horrible.

Footsteps rushed into the room and I put the gun down and raised my hands.
“What the fuck is goin’ on?” said the marine who entered first.

“Aren’t you supposed to salute an officer?” I asked, these youngsters had no manners.

“Get on to your superiors, there is a single engine aircraft on its way here now, it needs to be stopped, it has a bomb on board, get the President out of the building as quickly as you can.”

“Are you fuckin’ nuts?”

“As a chat up line, young man, that sucks, now do as I say.” He looked me in the eye and suddenly turned and ran back out of the room.

An NSA man rushed in, “Help him, he’s been stabbed,” I said pointing at the groaning figure on the sofa.

He walked over to the injured man and spoke into his microphone. I holstered my gun and was walking out of the door when six more of them appeared and behind them the President. Oh no, don’t they ever listen?

The drone of an aircraft sounded overhead.

“Oh shit!” I mumbled to myself. Life in the fast lane does have its disadvantages, although the restaurants are very good.Two secret service men grabbed me and started to pull me away from the entourage.

“Get the President away from here, it’s a trap,” I screamed until they pushed me face down into the carpet.

“You dirty scumbag,” one of them called, pushing my face against the floor.
“Get her away, it’s a death trap. Hurry! Umph!” I shouted until somebody hit or kicked me in the side. God that hurt.

“What is going on?” said cultured female voice.

“Sorry Madam President, we’ve been trying to apprehend this woman all day, we think she’s an assassin?”

“Who are you?” She looked at my face, my nose was bleeding and so was my lip. “I know you, don’t I?”

“Please, Mrs Carlton, get away as fast as you can, that plane has a bomb on it.”

“What?”

“Please just getaway! Now, run for it!” I struggled with the two clowns who were holding me.

“It’s probably a trick Madam President.”

Just then the plane sounded to be in a dive and the engine noise was getting louder.
“Get down, everybody down!” I shouted.

The sound of gunfire outside made the men holding me loosen their grip enough for me to pull free and throw myself on the President, knocking her flat and against the wall. A split second later, a deafening blast flashed though the door way sending a wave of glass and other projectiles down the corridor and around us.

The fire alarms began to ring and I waited for oblivion, it didn’t happen. My shot at the wiring had worked.

I lay there for a moment, “You okay?” I asked her.

“Yeah, messed up this suit though,” she replied.

Hands dragged us upright. I was taken off for interrogation, whilst the President was helped up and taken to safety, presumably to the bunker in the basement.
Thrown down in a seat my hands were handcuffed behind my back, although the blood had been wiped from my face.

“Okay Miss Would –be- assassin, what went wrong?”

“For me, well I broke a nail yesterday morning...”

“Cut the bullshit, now we can do this the easy way and you tell me what I want to know or I beat the crap outta ya?” He paused, presumably for dramatic effect.
“How d’ya wanna play it?”

“I prefer gentler laxatives, so if you’ll sit down and listen, you’ll learn something.”

“You sonofabitch!” he went to strike me when someone behind him obviously stopped him.

“I’m a woman in case you didn’t notice, and my mother is a respectable middle class woman, not a bitch. We don’t have bitches in Oxford, they’re lady dogs.” I said this in the most plummy voice I could, although my thick lip didn’t help.

“Very funny Miss Curtis, or should I say Captain Curtis of the British SIS. Release her hands.”

The cuffs were removed.

“Hi I’m Robert Storey, The President’s Security Advisor, she sends her thanks for possibly saving her life.”

“Check out the walls of that room, they are lined with semtex.”

“Are they now, how do you know?”

“I’ve been tracking a gang for weeks, we glean bits and pieces. You have insiders here who set this up. I can’t trust anyone, I’m sorry, not even you.”

“Okay, check out the walls – CAREFULLY!” he said to someone else behind me.
“So there would have been a real big bang?”

“How was the chap on the chesterfield? He tried to stop me disabling their bomb.”

“He died.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

“He’s twice the size of you, I’d ha’ thought it would’a been the other way about.”

“Perhaps I was lucky he fell on the paper knife I was holding.”

“Oh that didn’t kill him, the two foot piece of glass stuck through his neck, killed him, along with three secret service guys and several more injured. Why didn’t ya let us know about the plot?”

“They would have known we were on to them. I did try to get a gun ship to protect the building, but my superiors didn’t believe me any more than you lot would have done.”

“I hear your methods are a little unusual?”

“No more so than all the high tech you have.”

“Why are all these guys telling me about lions and tigers, are they off their heads or just victims of meeting with you?”

I went to turn to meet the voice, but it was prevented.

“I don’t think so, Jamie, stay facing forwards, I don’t want to retire with mental health problems just yet and that seems to be a consequence of looking into your eyes.”

I heard him chuckle behind me. “We appear to have some woman who thinks she’s a teapot, and two happily married men who are ‘so in love with each other’.”

“It seemed better than hurting them. It’s only temporary. There it’s stopped,” I said shrugging my shoulders.

“You can stop them from whatever you did to them just like that?”

“Not quite, but essentially yes.”

“Jee-sus Aitch Christ! You are like a secret weapon, you don’t got an ‘S’ on your vest do ya?”

“No just Miss Selfridge on the tab.”

“Ha ha.”

“If I promise not to hurt you, please stand before me, I won’t frazzle you with my X-ray eyes.”

“I got some kryptonite anyhow.”

“Trusting sort, aren’t you?”

“Me, I don’ trust no one, I even have my mother checked before she comes to stay at Christmas.”

He walked around in front of me, a man in an expensive suit and tie, wearing very dark sunglasses. His energies were okay.

“I think I can trust you, Mr Storey.”

“I’m glad to hear it, by the way how long ya been in the US Army?”

“It was a very short commission.”

“You realise I could have you charged with impersonating a US Army officer?”

“Yes I do, but you need me to track down the bad guys in case they try again, because they will.”

“How d’ya know?”

“They have to, they want chaos, it is what their lord and master requires and it’s about the only way they will escape, by plunging the world into a major war.”

“Okay, so who’s the big guy at the top?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you?”

“Try me, you said lord and master, sounds occult, so this is Satan or Lucifer, right?”

“Right idea, wrong pantheon.”

“What?”

“This isn’t Judaeo –Christian, it’s older than that, this is a spat between Egyptian gods and goddesses, or two in particular.

“So how do you fit into this, how does a little girl from Oxford-shire get involved with Egyptian gods?”

“I appear to have been involved for about four to five thousand years?”

“Jeez if you look this good at that age, my wife will want your secret.”

“Very good, Mr Storey, a Yank with a sense of humour, a very rare animal.”

“Hey you jus’ cut that out, there are three of us in this building alone, not countin’ the President.” He smiled and I chuckled. “Damned Brit superiority, we’re not the colonies now, ya know.”

“No, if you were things would be better run, however, back to the story, Storey. I believe I am the reincarnation of a priestess of Sekhmet, who died around four to five thousand years ago, when agents of Set, plundered her temple and attacked the priestesses. I apparently swore to serve my Mistress forever and it seems to be true, although in a very twenty first century way.”

“You really want me to believe that?”

“You can believe what you like, but we need to catch these people or they’ll keep trying, and one day I might not be here to stop them.”

“Oh, right, oh I’m so sorry to waste your time, Miss Egyptian Priestess wonder woman. Stop patronising me, without my help, your ass would be in jail for ever and a day.”

“Without mine, you’ll be out of a job and needing a new President, although I forgot, you guys have a spare, as long as it’s not Dan Quayle. Now if you’ve finished with me, I’d like to go home, take a bath and sleep.”

“The President wants to see you and you’re staying here, until this is over. Message from your boss, coded as ‘G’, says, ‘To stay on the case until it’s finished, and well done,’ end of message.”

“I hope you can find some clothes to fit me, then. I only left the army to get out of uniform.”

“That ain’t what your record says, says you were seconded on account of your special skills with electronics and deception. Also says, ‘A trained nurse, with several awards for gallantry in Iraq and elsewhere.’ Having seen you in action, I can believe it. So maybe James Bond ain’t such a fantasy after all, maybe all you Brits are superhuman, although it musta happened after you lost the colonies,” he chuckled to himself.

“Go and have a bath and change, then come and see The President, have some dinner with me, and we’ll start catching the bad guys, how does that sound?”

“I’d like to bring in my own team as well, if that’s okay?”

“How many?”

“Two or three.”

“Two or three? We’ll be using two or three hundred, if not thousand.”

“Well you did say we were special in this Sceptred Isle, guess we’ll be about even then.”

Before he could retort with something rude, he was called away and I was led up to my room by a woman clerk.