To question such good fortune, who am I?

Mom and Sis are settling into the house less than five hours later having gotten out of their house before Dad and my brother returned. Now some of my old phobias are beginning to threaten me. It’s a little difficult to remember they haven’t a clue, at least I don’t believe so.

 © 2010 by Lilith Langtree & Rénae Dáºmas. This work may not be replicated or presented in whole or in part by any means electronic or otherwise without the express consent of the work’s Owner (copyright holder), with the exception of the private and non-commercial viewing by the reader who is also the end purchaser. ALL Rights Reserved, including but not limited to ownership of Characters, final content decision, and more. This is a work of Fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this story are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents past, present or future is purely coincidental. Any and all images which may be shown within this work are taken through license under Corel with the exception of the title image which is Photo Credit to Irina Sheik. No affiliations, involvement or gender assignations through the use of these or any images of the subject or subjects contained within those posted images is to be implied, intended or inferred.
An Aldoennetti & Langtree Original.

My fiancee would likely not let anything happen but we are faced with a few new problems with them in the house. Just to mention a couple: We cannot easily go ‘downstairs’ for our conferences and shooting practice anymore. Having the house sweep for ‘bugs’ is now far more difficult since there is someone here nearly all of the time. On the upside, since someone is here there is less opportunity for someone to be placing said ‘bugs’ in the first place, which never had happened before anyway.

For me one of the difficult problems was Mom or Sis cooking in MY kitchen. I was a bit less than gracious the first time it happened. After apologizing to them, and they to me, we came to a mutually acceptable standoff; we all would chase Tan out of the kitchen whenever he came into it. It became woman’s only domain and therefore he did not qualify.

As the days proceeded into weeks and then became a couple of months we were all getting on quite well considering everything. Tan and I had several opportunities to go ‘downstairs’ without upsetting Mom or Sis and we made one day a week a dining out night which allowed the team to come in to sweep the place top to bottom while we were out. They seemed to prefer having a schedule which they could reasonably rely upon.

Next week, though, would begin the proof of the pudding. Tan and I would be gone for a few weeks. We started out by stocking the house with everything the four of us could possibly think might be needed while Tan and I were gone, and Mom and Sis were comfortable with being ‘home’ alone. They each had a ‘panic button’ and the house now has a ‘drive by, walk up & enter’ security service minding it as well. They’re able to respond in less than five minutes to a panic button. I know, a lot can happen in five minutes but it isn’t practical to have someone else staying in the house.

Also during this period of time Sis began to ‘open up’ and I learned that she and Mom were also on the receiving end of it from Dad and our darling brother. It apparently intensified once I left home since Dad no longer had his ‘whipping boy’ around to beat on. I knew Mom had a few injuries now and again but didn’t know the full extent of what they were going through, since I had been a bit preoccupied with troubles of my own.

I’m still at odds about telling them anything now since I received no support while I was at home so odds are I would receive no support now. Still blood is thicker than water I suppose since here I am basically supporting Mom and Sis as I’m paying for all the food everyone is eating as well as the various things Mom and Sis need plus reimbursing Tan with a sort of a ‘rent’ for them. Me moving out of the old house and then Mom finally divorcing him might even be enough to shock Dad into some kind of remorse — but I doubt it. Revenge would be more his style as well as that of my dear brother.

Tan and I departed for the airport on Sunday morning, flying to our destination. Well, except for a drive of an hour in a rental car. We are back at the same ‘hotel’ where we stayed before except this time I have greater restrictions and a little green badge. It means I may go to a number of places unescorted but not all that many and almost all of them are in the ‘hotel’ or the shops in the small ‘town’ it is in. As I’m uncertain about so many of the locations I am not allowed to visit, even in the town, I believe it’s safer if I just wait until someone may guide me to my scheduled destinations. Once I make it to a basic orange badge with various yucky stripes on it then I may have greater freedom. Meanwhile, my classes have begun and my first language lessons occur in order to determine my aptitude for learning languages. The results show that I have little problem with the Romance languages, so those have been added to my list of things to learn. Lucky me.

My Dutch is determined to be passable and improving every day. I’m actually able to converse at nearly an adult level, which I guess is good since they won’t let me use any language but Dutch when I’m not in a class. My instructor/ Translator is a ‘hard nose’, too. She won’t let me get away with anything. At this rate in only another couple of years I might even sound like I actually hail from there. That’s good since it’s part of my cover in the modeling world. Russian and German are difficult. German, I feel like I’m clearing my throat all the time and at the end of the first week I wound up gargling a number of times trying to sooth my poor sore throat. The German also confuses my Dutch or vice-versa and I’m wondering what the relationship is there but haven’t the time to find out. Russian is just so different that it’s like being born and growing up all over again. I suppose they say the same thing about our use of English or American English if you prefer.

We have one British English speaker teaching here and he is constantly upset over the ‘bastardizing of the English language which you Colonials bring about as a matter of course.’ He has us reading some Shakespearean Sonnets to try to ‘gain a feeling for the soul of the language’. If some of our people didn’t need to be able to speak like the British during some assignments... “Be it resolved, English should remain spoken solely by the English while you Yanks should find another language of your own.” I need another Aspirin.

At least my shooting is improving. Well... most of the time. I hate those pop-up target thingys with pictures of people holding guns. I take too long to decide if the person holding the gun is supposed to be friendly or not. I finally began shooting anything that moved except the people that weren’t holding guns, but that upset my instructors as well.

“Shooting good guys is NOT an allowed activity, Miss Van Derholt.”

“Neither is dying, so you need to decide which I’m allowed to do, I can’t seem to do both and since I’m rather fond of staying alive I’m going to shoot everyone who has a gun until I have the time to sort them out.”

I think they’re upset with me as they throw their hands up or look up to the sky and try not to say nasty words directly to me, but they manage to say quite a few as they walk away and loud enough that I hear them.

They keep telling me I would be shooting expert if I could refrain from killing the good guys along with the bad ones.

“Can’t you put something on the good guys pictures so I will know they’re good guys? I mean, trying to remember who’s a good guy and who isn’t when I’ve only seen their pictures once is a little difficult. Besides, I have fifteen bullets in the weapon and there are only ten of them all together so I may even shoot some of them twice. Although I don’t believe I could kill someone twice so that’s a bit of a waste.”

“Miss Van Derholt, how can you be so good with the firearm and not be able to tell a good guy from a bad one?”

“Well, if you made all the good guys look like models with whom I’ve worked or perhaps like Tanner or Irina or the few of you which I know, then I would know not to shoot them because I know them.”

“Please Miss, the whole idea is you don’t know these people but you must work with them and have only just been introduced to the team and to the photos of the bad guys the team is going after.”

“Why do they all have to look so much alike?”

“Because they’re working undercover and must look the parts they are playing.”

“Oh. I don’t suppose they could wear white or something while we are working together?”

“It doesn’t work that way Miss Van Derholt. Perhaps if we have someone else do the shooting and save you for the emergencies. Once you start shooting all of our people could just stay down until you are out of ammunition.”

I don’t know if he meant that or if he was being facetious. Somehow I don’t believe he was complementing my shooting ability. We cut off training early that day and shooting was dropped from my subjects for the rest of the week.

Tan and I had most evenings together and we managed to get off to a musical during one of those. I enjoyed that; and the late night dinner that followed. He mentioned something about some instruction to improve my recognition skills but for now I was wowing my instructors.

“Yes. All except Mr. Brown at the range. He thinks I’m hopeless.”

“Not really, Kat. He says you are one of the best natural talents he has seen come through in a long time. His only complaint is, you kill everyone.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“Only if you want to make me happy. There are times when I would have preferred to kill everyone as well.”

“In that case, I’m your girl.”

“You want to make points with Bi... Mr. Brown? Let him put you into a shoot-off with some of our top shooters. He’ll try to be certain there are no ‘good guys’ for you to shoot. If you beat our shooters and he is betting on you then he stands to make some serious money and that always makes him happy.”

“Betting? On whether I can shoot better than some people who have been doing it for years? You’ve got to be joking, Tan.”

“Not really. You’re good and don’t be surprised if he asks. When he was talking with Tony today he mentioned it might be a good experience for you. Sort of an off-the-cuff experience.”

“And do you think I could win?”

“I think you could give them one hell of a run for their money.”

“And if I don’t win?”

“Brown will probably hedge his bets by stipulating a point spread. If you come in better than that then he makes money. All you need to do is the best you can do. Even if you are at a lower score than our shooters, he could still make money and be happy. Of course the better you do, the more money he stands to make but just shoot; don’t try to win it all. You’re presently listed as a third week who is shooting close to eighteenth week levels; but you really are shooting like you’ve been doing it for a couple of years so he stands to win money even if you just show up and hit a couple dozen targets. Of course a kill is better than just a hit but don’t worry about it.”

“Easy for you to say. You aren’t the one doing the shooting. All right, but against my better judgement.”

“We leave Monday so he’ll probably want to set it up for Saturday or Sunday.”

“I have three language lessons Saturday.”

“What time?

I have to think about that, “8:00, 10:00 and 2:00, I think. I’m not certain. I don’t remember the schedule but I could tell you as soon as we go back to the hotel.”

“I’ll have him bring up your schedule and check.” Tan pulls out his cell and hits a speed dial.

“HI. It’s Tan... Pretty good. She okay’d it tentatively but says she has classes Saturday, could you pull up her schedule and check the times?... Yeah, I’ll wait... Yeah, I’m still here... 8:00, 10:00 and 4:00? You certain?... Hang on a sec.”

Tan turns to me, “you heard?”

“Yes. I could have sworn my last lesson was earlier than that but okay.”

“What about 1:00 for the shoot-out. It will last about an hour or so. You should be okay for your 4:00 class. That would allow you noon to 1:00 for lunch.”

“If I can eat anything. I’ll be nervous as a cat.”

“Okay KAT, that make sense.” He turns back to his cell as I scowl at him for a moment.

“She okay’d 1:00 for the shoot-out. Yeah. Sounds good to me. Try to keep the number of good guys to a bare minimum if any. Remember, shooting a good guy disqualifies the shooter. That sounds better, no good guys. What about tomorrow, do you think you could give her a quick run through so she knows basically what to expect? What does her schedule look like? Clear after 5:00? Any hour free during the day? 10:00 to 11:00? That sounds better. I’ll come along so she can see a little better how it’s going to go down. Yeah. I’ll pick her up at the end of her French class and we’ll be there less than ten later. If it’s all ready to go then we could begin almost immediately. Twenty minutes to half an hour should do it. Good, we’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.”

“Okay, Kat. I’ll pick you up right after French and we’ll drive over. He’ll have the computer set up and ready to go. We’ll each take a crack at the course with the computer doing the scoring. I’ll go first so you can see what to expect then we’ll get an idea of how you can do. He’ll probably give you a few pointers before you do the course and you’ll have a spare magazine because there will be twenty five targets. Just remember you can’t shoot twice at everyone or you will run out of bullets at fifteen targets.”

I suppose I don’t look all that confident as he puts his arm around me, “Don’t worry Kat. You’ll do great.”

What I did great at was Italian and French. The range was another story.
I hit all twenty five targets and killed fourteen of them. Tan killed all twenty five. I had one bullet remaining and Tan had five. I’m not so certain about this shoot-out thing now but Tan and Mr. Brown seem overjoyed.

I wash my hands and Tan takes me to lunch then to my next class. By the end of the day I’m too tired to even care about that stupid shoot-out.

Saturdays classes demand a skirt so that means I’ll be going to shoot while wearing it. Wonderful, since I should kneel for some of the shots. I’ve been wearing my pistol (unloaded) and the holster under my suit jacket but everyone knows it’s there anyway and there are quite a few who also know about the shoot-out... including all of the instructors, unfortunately.

“Good Morning, Miss Oakley. Good luck on the range today.”

See what I mean? “Thank you.”

I wish it was all over and perhaps somehow time could shift and it could be six months from now. I really would like to take those classes in photography and cinematography, they sound really cool. I’d also like to be able to use all of the resolution my new camera can provide without needing to look over my shoulder to see who’s watching. Tan was looking at some of my shots and he thinks the detail could easily rival 35mm and possibly the medium format 120 (?). I look at him like he’s crazy. Except for the 35mm the 120 means nothing to me. The only reason I know about the 35mm is because I used one in school along with a small press camera which used sheet film and was a two and a quarter by three and a quarter.

Tan tells me, “The 120 is about a 2&â…“ by 2&â…“ inch negative.”

Okay, so it’s bigger than 35mm and smaller than the press camera. I’m still in the dark.

“Never mind, Kat. It just means you can take some really detailed pictures.”

“I already knew that.”

When Tan and I pull up at the range I find there are four men there who are going to shoot in the competition. There is also an audience in the bleachers... about a hundred people or so. The men were going to allow me “ladies first” but the range master called for lots and we eventually wound up drawing straws which placed me last for some reason. I think the range master just wanted to give me the time to become really nervous.

Each of the men goes through the range with varying degrees of success but much better than I did yesterday. They all end up with five spare bullets and most of them kill all of their bad guys. The worst shooter wounded two bad guys.

Now it’s my turn to produce for whatever it’s worth.

When I finish I have four bullets left. One target didn’t go down when I shot it so I had to shoot again. In checking the scoring, either one of my hits should have killed the bad guy so it was chalked up as a glitch in the program and I was allowed the bullet. I killed twenty one and severely wounded four with ‘five’ spare bullets. Not as good as the men but Mr. Brown seems very happy. In fact, so does Tan who comes over to me a few minutes later and says, “Dinner’s on me tonight, Kat. Anywhere you want to go.”

I think that means he won quite a bit.

“How much did you bet on me, Tan?”

“Not a lot.”

“How much is ‘not a lot’?”

“Twenty...”

Oh. That’s not too bad.

“Each.”

“Twenty dollars on each person? That’s a hundred dollars!”

“Each target.”

“Each target? I don’t understand.”

“It’s a little like a handicap, Kat. There were twenty five targets. We had to stipulate that you could kill just over half of them or fourteen. Every target less than that I would have to pay out the difference of the average kills for the guys and your kills times twenty dollars. For every target over that each bettor had to put twenty in the kitty to pay those who bet on you to exceed your handicap points. You killed twenty one which was seven over. That meant the losers, which isn’t just the shooters, had to pay more into the overall pot and all the winners shared the pot in proportion to the money they put into it. Short story, I collected two hundred and two dollars from the pot and I think your Mr. Brown did a bit better than that.”

“How much is a ‘bit’?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a thousand.”

I turn pale, “Dollars?”

“Sure, dollars. Relax Kat, at the moment you are his favorite pupil. We would have collected a bit less except the shooters wanted a recheck of your scoring and that’s when the double tap on Mr. Kelly proved to be two kill hits. All your kills were valid and your non-kills were good enough to take the bad guys out of the action. Good going, Kat.”

I still don’t understand how I could provide a win for so many people when I didn’t do as well as the men but I’m not going to argue.

That evening Tan and I go out to supper and I’m wearing a borrowed evening gown. The school has an extensive selection of clothing. The evening gown I’m wearing is styled more like that which I should be wearing had I really been from Europe. It isn’t strapless but I think the strange cut makes me look a bit mysterious. Is she or isn’t she? European I mean...

There is a dance floor but the dances are a bit fast for me so I opt out despite Tan’s attempts to entice me onto the floor so he may hold me close. I gave him a kiss on the cheek in compensation, which turned into a kiss on the lips. I’m not certain he didn’t take a little more compensation that I had originally intended. It was nice, however.

Sunday was rather uneventful and all we really needed to accomplish was our packing. We spent a couple of hours discussing new photo jobs which he had either accepted or was considering. Three of them involve me while most are going to the other girls. My next couple of weeks will be busy. We also discussed a couple of jobs which will involve photography amidst other things. No I can’t tell you more. In fact I’m not certain I’m even supposed to know as much as I do about the jobs. Am I a spy yet?

It’s about this time I remember that I’m going to have Sis working at the studio again since she is basically doing the job I started out doing. I’ve graduated to modeling or assisting Tan by taking pictures of my own or running the computer to display the results to the clients.

Tan has decided to take another overseas shoot. Yes, this is a cover for one of those jobs I didn’t tell you about. This time he is thinking of taking the computer driven cameras along. That makes the purchase of the Lithium batteries a necessity. They, at least, will be lighter and slightly smaller than the lead acid batteries they will replace. New chargers will also be needed and this time he will obtain one for each battery so they are all able to be charged at the same time.

The information about the batteries, which we found on the Internet, indicates the charge time from dead to fully charged is just under four hours, with the proviso there is an electrical outlet of sufficient capacity to allow it. Since the chargers are “smart”, they measure the incoming voltage from the outlet and adjust the charge rate based upon the drop in the supply voltage from static voltage prior to charge and that to which the supply voltage drops once they begin consuming current. I have a vague idea what this means but can’t visualize how they could prevent the breaker for the outlet from popping but the information seems to indicate it is unlikely to occur. The charge time will simply become a bit longer to compensate for the reduced charge rate.

You know what’s scary about all this information? I think I’m beginning to actually understand it. As it turns out, when we first tried the charging sequence once we had the batteries, we plugged three of them into the same outlet box and it took nearly thirteen hours to charge the batteries. One, alone, did just fine at a little under four hours, and no, the breaker didn’t pop, either time. How do they do that?

to be continued