toothpickmoe

67. Travelers
As Angel's boat touched the shores of Africa, Jes' plane set down in Amsterdam. While Jes went from hash bar to hash bar, Angel traveled south, deeper into the Dark Continent. When Jes caught a train out to Paris, Angel caught a caravan traveling through the greatly diminished Sahara. As Angel entered the deep jungle and lived off what she could kill, Jes attended cabarets and drank fine wine. Angel hacked her way further south, through the thickest trails she could find. Jes jumped over to Vienna and spent a long hard day taking in the city's beauty. When both women reached their final destinations; for Jes it was Prague, for Angel the deep African jungle; both experienced some unexpected changes in their travel plans.

Jes caught a cab from Prague's main airport to Old Town Square. She had done an extensive amount of reading up on the city before she had come here. Her traveler's guide, long ago memorized, sat in her bag. She wouldn't need it now. She wandered around the city on the first day for hours. Around early evening, just after she had walked across the Charles Bridge into the Lesser Quarter, a name unwelcomingly familiar to Jes, she became hungry.
Stepping off the bridge by way of a small steep staircase, she happened upon a quaint cafe hidden beneath an arch of the bridge. She stepped inside and sat at one of the tables beneath the stone arch, the water of the Vltava River rushing by the outdoor seating. She ordered a pilsner and some fried chicken in broken Czech and sat back to enjoy the serenity of it all.
She was served her food and beverage speedily. The food was simple but tasty, the beer perfect. She sighed happily and lit an American cigarette.
"Excuse me," a man said from her left, his voice thickly accented.
"Yes?" said Jes, squinting into the setting sun at the shadowed man who addressed her.
"This is for you." The man placed a small envelope on the table next to Jes' beer.
Jes looked from the package to the man. "Thanks," she said.
"It's from Ms. Allan," the man said, struggling a bit with the pronunciation of the name.
Jes raised an eyebrow and let out a stream of smoke. "I see. Do I tip you?"
The man seemed slightly confused and then shook his head. "No, you do not."
"All right then. Thanks." Jes waited for the man to leave. He did not.
"Read the letter please," the man said.
Jes shrugged and thumbed the envelope open. A single sheet of paper was inside, covered in Ms. Allan's clear, concise script:
J,
Return home immediately. You and A are needed. The man with you is named Jan, pronounced 'yawn'. He'll see you two safely home.
J.A.

Jes crumpled up the paper and threw it into the Vltava. She looked up at the tall Czech man in front of her. "Nice to meet you Jan. I'm Jes," she said, extending her hand.
Jan took her hand and shook it. "Jes, yes, nice to meet you."
"Do you have a plan?"
"Yes, if you please. Follow me."
Jes stood and threw some money down on the table. Jan glanced at it. "Why do leave leave so much for beer and chicken?" he exclaimed.
"Is that bad?" Jes asked.
"When your friend Angel meets up with us I will take you two out for a good Czech meal before we go."
"Uh, there's a problem there," Jes said as the two left the cafe. "Angel's in Africa."
"Oh, no problem. We know. Ms. Allan sent someone to get her. She should be here in a few hours."
Jes raised her eyebrows. She had no idea that Ms. Allan was this connected. She followed Jan to a tram stop where they took one of the small, shaking cars to the Metro. They took the Metro to Wensesclaus Square and were picked up by a large black Caddy. The car took them to a hotel, at which Jan had booked a room to wait out the allotted time until Angel arrived.

Angel rested on a thick brown root. Four hours ago, she had left a base camp for some random explorers and gone off on her own, hoping to find something interesting. And had she found it. Ten minutes ago, she had seen the oddest thing in her entire life.
Dr. C had been standing in the middle of the jungle, in front of some ancient tomb, reciting something in some odd language. Angel knew Dr. C, he was one of Ms. Allan's high placed advisors. He'd even helped out on a few of her own jobs. She knew he was a little wacky, but what the hell was he doing here?
She observed as Dr. C seemed to read the rough rock walls of the tomb. She watched the rock itself creak open like two great doors and she had seen the woman emerge. A tall, beautiful, athletic, black woman, completely nude. Angel started to get real tripped out when the woman lunged for the doc. She watched the entire exchange happen. The anger, the pleas, the realization, the helping. What the hell had gone on? Who was that woman?
After Dr. C had given everything he had of value on his person to the woman, she plodded off into the jungle, hacking at vines the way he had shown her. Dr. C sat down in the clearing after she had disappeared, naked and vulnerable. Just as Angel was contemplating walking into the clearing, a horde of men ran into the clearing, lifted up Dr. C and carried him off through the jungle. At the end of it all Angel couldn't think straight. She had to rest. So, she was on the root.
Her training told her that she should run after the doctor, attempt to save him. But after four hours of traipsing through deep jungle, Angel's body wanted nothing more than rest. As her mind worked a hundred miles a minute, Angel started off from where she had observed the odd occurrence. She went in the general direction the woman had gone, a large swath of cleared jungle left in the bigger woman's wake.
Angel stumbled along the stranger's path for a good hour or so, until her mind and body gave out on her simultaneously. Slinking off to the side of the path, she found a small bed of moss that had grown in the shade of a squat, fragrant tree. Too overwhelmed by what she had seen to care, Angel laid down on the moss and fell into a deep sleep.
When she awoke, several hours later, the face hovering inches above hers was so ugly and foreign that Angel screamed for a good while.

68. Top O' the World, Ma!
Josephine Allan sat in her newly cleaned office, all trace of the recent carnage gone. Laid out on her desk before her were the remnants of Pris' Virtua-film disk and a taped recording of Victoria's confession. Since the two important pieces of evidence had been in Bonner's breast pocket when she had been killed they had been smashed apart by the bullets. Allan steepled her fingers beneath her chin and smiled.
The newly appointed head clerk of Allan & Co. stood before his boss. A slim, quiet man, his deep blue eyes were steely and hard. His thin yellow hair was swept dramatically back from his forehead. He cleared his throat and shifted his spectacles. Ms. Allan looked up from the debris on her desktop.
"Yes, Towns?" she asked expectantly, knowing the man had something to say. He had already taken to his new position with zeal.
"I am sorry to inform you that Dr. C has be reported dead by a Central African operative," Towns barked out in an army sergeant voice.
Jo's eyebrow rose slightly The faint hiss of air being pushed through nostrils could be heard as she laughed lightly at the situation. "Pity," she finally said.
Towns shifted his weight uncomfortably. "There are bound to be some problems concerning this afternoon's events," he stated.
Ms. Allan waved her right hand at her new right hand man. "It's nothing," she breathed. "Issue a press statement. Something along the lines of an assault on my person during a seemingly innocent business meeting between Bonner and myself. The boys down in public relations are good at their jobs."
"Shall I oversee the operation?" the man asked.
Ms. Allan glared at her new head clerk. "No," she drew out the word. "You stay with me, Towns. You and I," she took her middle finger and laced it around her index, "are like this." She gave him a meaningful look.
Towns inclined his head. "On a slightly less important note, a Ms. Kona Carmen called you back. Apparently you rang her..."
"Put someone on a phone," Allan ordered, "Find her."
"Of course," said Towns. "Anything else?"
"I will tell you when there is," Jo said, looking the paunchy, balding man over. "Leave. I'll get back to you."
Towns inclined his head and left the room hastily.
Allan sat back, on top of the world. With the push of a button on her keyboard, she sent an important message to her agents in Prague and Central Africa. 'Bring my girls home,' was the gist of the order. She knew it would be carried out. She was God, her word was law. The sheer power of her position flowed through her.
"You lose," she said to the spot on her carpet where Bonner had lain.