May 10

"Incoming in five ..."

The voice in my earpiece is American, male and completely calm, as if he has done this kind of thing a hundred times before. It's reassuring in a weird way. I wonder about him. I wonder whether he is sitting or standing. I wonder how many screens he has open right now. Is he in the dark or watching with lights blaring? If he loses us tonight, is it going to matter to him?

I know it is. Somehow, I know it matters.

Our feet skid on the tarmac. Gravel skitters away from us. We run past shiny parked cars that trap street light and headlights and brake lights.

Behind me there is a whistling sound. I don't turn, because I already know what's coming.

"... four ..."

I throw open a rear passenger door and dive into the back seat. My partner already has the engine started.

"Let's go," he says tightly.

There's a glass partition between me in the back and him in the driver's space. I suppose that's part of our cover story. He looks the part of a driver in his black suit and and tie. From here, he doesn't look like he's just been running for his life.

I yank the door shut as orange globs of fire soar through the air, like balls of paper that have been set alight and thrown.

They fall around us, almost speculatively, like the beginning of rain.

"... three ..."

The driver puts the car in gear and pulls out from behind a stationary vehicle. Globs of fire are raining down on either side of us now. It's starting to look like we're in the middle of a firework. I can hear the fiery wads clattering on the ground, hissing and spitting because the road is wet.

"Go!" I yell.

My partner floors it and the car wheelspins up the street, weaving between lanes of traffic.

Firebombs hit the roof of the car but skitter off, sliding over the windscreen, bouncing into the street.

"... two ..."

The tyres squeal. The engine roars as my partner shifts through the gears. He drives as if he was born to do this.

I lie on the back seat.

"... one ..."

The guy talking in my ear says it like it's a question, as if he's prompting us to tell him how accurate he has been with his countdown.

Light fills the car.

Then the road shakes and we hear the thunder of an explosion nearby.

Car alarms. Screams. The engine grunting and growling along the street.

We turn a corner.

I sit up and straighten my tie.

***

At the party, a small, bald man in a tuxedo tells me that I shouldn't be here. I don't stop walking. The look on my face dissuades him from attempting to physically restrain me.

The room has been laid out with long tables covered in yellow tablecloths. The tables make up three sides of a rectangle and are laden with caviar and lobster, towers of luscious fruit in silver bowls and, of course, numerous, shining champagne flutes.

Despite the great height of the ceiling, there is a warm murmur in the room coming from the two hundred or so guests standing and chatting amongst themselves in small groups. The women are all wearing beautiful dresses and gowns, except for those who are serving, who wear black trousers and white shirts, just like the men.

The tuxedo man watches me walk through the room. He fizzles and crackles like one of those flaming wads hitting the wet road.

I snatch a champagne flute from a woman's hand as I pass.

"Thank you," I say.

My getaway driving partner is to my left. His walk seems slow and steady compared to mine, because he is the bigger guy with a longer stride. He's taking everything in, watching people for signs of stress, for tells of an explosion about to happen.

At the head table, Jared, a large man with a thick, black moustache, notices me for the first time. He looks away, collecting his thoughts. Then he picks up a sausage with his bare hands and bites the end off it, like it's a cigar. He pushes himself away from the table and sits back, as if to say:

"Okay, then. Let's have it."

Yes. Let's have it.

"I'm here," I say. I could equally have said: "I'm alive."

"I see that," he replies, looking uncomfortably from me, to my partner and then back to me again. "What do you want?"

What I really want is to climb over the table and smash his face into the silver dish in front of him. I want to pull his head off. I want to pull it right off and serve it to his guests.

Just then a guy speeds his wheelchair up to the main table.

"You son of a bitch!" he yells at Jared.

Jared looks down at the table as if he's neither concerned about me nor this new outburst. He appears to be deciding what to eat next, but I can tell that he wants to disappear. Having failed to make me disappear, he now wants to dematerialise with all his heart.

The angry young man rolls his chair into the table to get Jared's attention, shunting it back an inch.

"You tried to have them killed!"

Gasps from the guests. A crescendo of murmurs.

Jared shakes his head, but he has no words of denial. He smiles out of embarrassment, which the young man mistakes for callousness.

Jared's wife steps forward then, aligning herself with her husband. The hostess is blonde and wearing a long, glittery, silver dress that makes her look somewhat like a mermaid.

"Now, now gentlemen," she says, smiling. "I'm sure we can settle this in a calm and adult manner."

"You disgust me!" the young guy says to Jared.

"There's no need to be like this," the woman says evenly.

"Oh, shut up, mother!" says the guy. He wheels his chair back and then spins it around to address her guests. "You all disgust me!" he yells, red in the face.

Jared is folding a thick yellow napkin over and over with his head bowed. His wife massages his shoulder, but she seems to be at a loss for what to say or do as she watches her son roll out of the room, bowling into a guest. Her husband, normally so strong and even foreboding, seems to have his wish; his body is present but internally something has gone away. Like the napkin in his hands, he has folded and folded and folded himself up and tucked himself in a pocket.

Everybody in this room knows that Jared is an attempted murderer. Job done.

I glance at my partner, just long enough for us to communicate without words. When we walk out it is as a team, unlike Jared, whose celebration and family are both shattered.

Job done. For now.

Now he only has to die and I can get on with living.