The Lady Wears a Wingman's Coat - Part I

Chance is summoned to London for yet another unusual mission. He is given full powers and discretion to deal with his assignment as he sees fit. He is to do whatever it takes to find and stop a Female Wingman!

 

It was around midnight when it came. Maybe it was a bit later. I was sitting in a jazz café in Prague drinking a pint of the local beer and staring at an untouched shot of absinthe. I had never developed a taste for the aqua colored toxin. I found something particularly decadent and destructive about drinking mild doses of wormwood, the poison of King Claudius (I find that a Shakespeare reference adds class to the most sordid of stories). I would have never ordered the shot for myself, but the proprietor, a particular friend of mine, prided himself in having “the best absinthe in Bohemia,” which, of course, meant that he tried to force shots on me. He had left me to go retrieve a spoon to burn sugar over the single candle that occupied my table.

 

I was mulling over ways to stop this assault on my innards, when I noticed a familiar face walk up to Staj, the owner, who in turn pointed to my table in the back of the café. Good one, Staj. Apparently this place wasn’t the refuge that I had previously believed. I silently vowed never to come back, but I knew that it was a hollow threat. I didn’t know about the absinthe, but Staj did import the best Jazz musicians available in this part of the world, and I knew that I would be back.

 

The courier didn’t say a word, but merely dropped the note at my table. He knew my face. I waited until he left and walked into the water closet with the note:

 

“Respond to London, by plane. Meet with station chief.”

 

Typical la Confrerie elusiveness. The only information that I could glean from this note was that they wanted me there quickly. No train and tunnel for me this time. Whoever drafted the missive must have known how much I disdained flying. I returned to my table where my untouched shot sat waiting alongside a fresh beer that I hadn’t ordered. I made it a practice never to consume unattended drinks, so I allowed my coat to knock over the shot, but missed the beer. I could avoid the splash of a single shot, but a whole pint of pilsner would have saturated my coat and I didn’t want to reek of beer on the plane ride. I apologized to Staj and refused a replacement, “I’m flying.”

 

As I walked into the foggy street I heard the portly proprietor’s voice following me over the din of the three piece combo: “You’re not piloting the damn plane, Chance.”

 

“Next time, Staj.” Absinthe crisis averted.

 

He wouldn’t be too upset. I had left a large tip and Staj was notorious for helping himself to a portion of his staff’s hard earned gratuities. Cheap b*****d.

 

Since I can’t imagine that anyone would be interested in the tale of me getting nauseous on a flight, suffice it to say that I arrived at Heathrow International “without incident.” At 0930 hours I reported to a nondescript tailor shop in the garment district. I can’t remember the name on the front of the store, because la Confrerie has used a clothing store front so many times that I can’t walk into a Gap without thinking that I am going to be whisked into the back and handed a dossier. It was usually peoples’ names like: “Winston and Banks” or “Lloyd and Cunningham.” Sometimes they made it a haberdashery. Pretty weak for a secret organization.

 

I walked in and gave the phrase of the week: “Pineapple buttons.” It was always a living object combined with an inanimate one in that order. If you were under duress, you could change one of the words or simply change the order of the two. You couldn’t vary it too much or any drunken idiot could come in and say two words and get himself killed. As I was escorted back to the station chief, I contemplated many sets of circumstances where some unsuspecting patron accidentally gave the phrase of the week and found himself sent on the adventure of his lifetime. It hadn’t ever happened, but the word “buttons” struck me as particularly dangerous for a clothing shop.

 

As it turns out the station chief was one of my classmates from Wingman Camp, “Numar the Nigerian. Station Chief – London.” I really was impressed. Outside of France this was one of the sweetest plums one could pick. My feelings were of sincere admiration and not envy. I had been offered Station Washington and Station Copenhagen on different occasions, but didn’t want to leave the field.

 

“I fell into the role. When the last Station Chief retired, they made me acting Station Chief against my protests and now I am stuck here,” his wide grin showed that he didn’t mind it too much. It wasn’t so bad if you didn’t mind giving up the field. Once you were station chief, you could even have a wife and kids. Life as a Wingman in the field wasn’t conducive to marriage. It wasn’t even conducive to having friends.

 

“Okay, do you want to tell me what I’m doing here?” I sat down in a leather chair in front of his oak desk without being asked. “Or did you just want me to put your tailors to the test?”

 

“God no! I wouldn’t let those blind fools hem your pants.” Of course. Like every other la Confrerie front. It’s the way we keep foot traffic to a minimum. Bad service, shoddy products, etc. Then no one wants to come back. Sooner or later word of mouth spreads and no one will patronize the establishment. He yelled from behind his desk in a deep mildly accented voice, “Hey, boys. Chance Ransom wants you to make him a suit!” There were a few feeble laughs from outside office.

 

“Okay, I get the point. What’s the job then?” I began becoming a little impatient, but tried not to let it show.

 

“Yes, yes, the old Chance as I knew you before. Down to business. Sorry, but I do get bored here.” He opened his desk and tossed me a dossier. I caught a glimpse of what looked like the butt of a revolver and a bottle of rum lying on its side.

 

“Sorry, Numar, I just got off a plane.” Typically all assignments started like this: I would receive a folder or envelope depending on which supplies were readily on hand that would contain every piece of data about my principal that could be obtained. Everything from whether or not he smoked, health history, color charts for clothing, psychological profile, taste in music, clothing sizes, etc. You might not know whether or not you had an Oedipus Complex, but before you became my principal, I would. You might know that you are afraid of heights, but la Confrerie would know why you were afraid of heights. We had to know everything, so that we could serve our principals. It bordered on fanaticism.

 

This profile was different. It contained two sheets of paper. It was the application that all principals had to complete prior to contracting a Wingman. There were a lot of blank spaces. “What the hell is this, Num?” I said not looking up from the paper.

 

“It’s not a normal assignment, Chance.”

 

I continued to read, while waiting for a more satisfying explanation: 5’08, athletic build, brown hair…

 

“We’ve had some unusual activity in this area. I asked for you because I’ve heard that you are…how should I say this…accepting unconventional assignments these days.” As a station chief, he would have been cleared to know about the double sanction in Buenos Aires.

 

“You heard wrong.” … brown eyes, Latin, 20-24 years of age, “The principal wouldn’t give you his exact age? What the hell is this? Wait this is a female?” I had never seen the “F” box checked off on an application before, so I normally just skimmed past it. I barely caught it this time.

 

“Yeah. Look, Chance, I don’t want to play games. She’s not a principal. She’s a threat. About a year ago we started hearing rumors around town that there was a female operator working primarily in the Piccadilly Circus area.”

 

The fact that I thought that he was making a joke must have been apparent to Numar.

 

“I am deadly serious, Chance. There have been reports of a woman matching that description, using the techniques of la Confrerie, albeit crudely.”

 

He gave me a moment to read the rest of the application. There was not a lot of useful information.

 

It was called the Norton-Fallsburg Experiment. In the early sixties, several years before the women’s rights movement was in full swing, William Norton and Johannes Fallsburg hypothesized that women could be trained to be Wingmen. The idea being that they had certain attributes that were conducive to the mission of the organization. The first and only group was recruited in 1962. A separate site was established exclusively for the training of women. They were tested through the early phases of the same training that the men received at Wingman Camp. The experiment was disbanded after three months. The women began seeing the mission as a betrayal to their own gender. Several of the subjects were quoted as saying that it was wrong to use manipulation and subterfuge to seduce women. I always thought that was strange.

 

We studied it in Wingman camp. Because of careful protocols, none of the female subjects knew enough about la Confrerie to be of any significant threat. Of course, from time to time, male recruits have over-identified with targets, but that is rare and the trait is usually detected in the early phases of training. Norton-Fallsburg was a progressive idea, before a time that would never come.

 

“Jesus, Numar…”

 

“The description is vague because no member of la Confrerie has seen her first hand. She is obviously way too young to have been a part of Norton-Fallsburg. Besides, we have pretty much tracked the entire test group. As could be expected, most of them are successful professionals. One’s a U.S. congresswoman…”

 

“Pretty much? Not all of the group was tracked?”

 

“You weren’t around for the 70’s budget cuts. Before your time. Apparently they lost a couple back then.” Numar saidthis as though he was a much more veteran Wingman that had survived this tumultuous time. Give some people a title and it goes straight to their head.

 

“I want what you have on those two.”

 

“What’s the point? The one thing that we do know is that she is way too young…you think maybe an offspring?

 

“I have no idea, Numar. I don’t really have a starting place for this. What the hell do you want me to do if I do find her?”

 

“Your assignment is to identify and eliminate the threat.”

 

At that I sprung to my feet, “Listen, you f**k. I don’t care if we have matching class rings or what the little name plate on your desk says; I am not sanctioning a woman. I’m not doing another sanction. Period. Get me another assignment or I’ll be back in Marseilles before the door shuts behind me.”

 

The enormous Nigerian stood up to match my move. I measured the man to have four inches and a well carried forty pounds on me, “This is not the Shriners, Ransom. You will not raise your voice in my office. Now sit down.” I stood there matching his gaze. It was at that time that I remembered some advice that the Frenchman once gave me. “Chance, never try to fight the Nigerian. He will destroy you.” Well, that was pretty clear advice, I suppose. Besides, I didn’t want to fight Numar. For all of his scariness, I liked the man. However, a line had been drawn in the sand.

 

“It is not a sanction, Chance,” he let out a sigh and took a half a step back, “Now, please sit down.”

 

It was what needed to happen to defuse the situation, “Sorry, Numar. B.A. is still messing with my head.” No Wingman had ever had to perform a double sanction before that time.

 

“Understood. You have absolute discretion in how you want to deal with her up to and including a sanctioned kill, but it isn’t required. I will have those files delivered to your room. Do you need anything to get started?”

 

“A decent tailor. Most of my wardrobe is in Antwerp and the rest in Prague.”

 

“I’ll send my man to your room, tout de suite.”

 

When I exited the shop, I walked a couple of blocks to a street where I could hail a taxi.

 

“Head to Mayfair, Driver.”

 

“Do you have an address for me?” As a matter of course, I never give the driver the address until I am close.

 

“Piccadilly and James. Around there.”

 

“Heading to the Ritz, Governor?” Damn. Not only did he guess where I was going, but he must have mistaken me for a public figure. It wouldn’t matter, but I rely a great deal on anonymity. Resembling someone famous is a liability. I pulled the brim of my hat a little lower and told him that I was not who he thought. Apparently, that did it, because he knocked off the small talk.

 

Once I got cleaned up at the hotel, I sat down at the desk in my room to figure out how I was going to find this female Wingman. I know it’s an oxymoron, but I really didn’t know what to label her.

 

I wasn’t thrilled that my hotel was so close to the target zone of Piccadilly Circus, but it did make for a short walk. I had no clue what I was searching for. The profiles on the two elusive members of Norton-Fallsburg were thorough, but the trail went cold on both in the mid-70’s.

 

One of them appeared to have been destined for a fairly conventional life: husband, pregnant at the time, community college, etc. The other had gone the beatnik route. Carol Louise Jillian was an American who took the trouble to change her name to “flowersonnet” in 1968. The lack of capitals or word spacing is no accident. Her name is actually “flowersonnet.” Flowersonnet began joining radical elements of late 60’s society, which were to be found in abundance. Some of her causes actually conflicted with others. She marched against the Vietnam War in Washington, but joined a group that advocated nuking the north. She was a vegetarian, but wanted to unionize the workers at a pork rendering facility. She was a card carrying member of the American Communist Party and a member of a nameless group that promoted anarchy. Jesus. How did she get past the initial psyche for la Confrerie?

 

Numar was wrong about one thing though. The Brotherhood didn’t lose track of her because of budget cuts. They lost track of her during one of the many IRA bombings of 1974. It was suspected that she may have been involved with the terrorist organization. An unidentified female was killed in the blast. It was believed to be Jillian aka flowersonnet. Another inconsistency. Flowersonnet’s mother was Chilean and her father was from Uruguay. Absolutely no connection with Ireland.

 

Although all of this insanity was interesting, it did not necessarily mean that Jillian had anything to do with this fraudulent Wingwoman. However, there was the photo. The last existing photo pictured flowersonnet in a peasant shirt and bell bottomed dungarees. She had a braided Native American headband crowning her dark hair. Even with the ridiculous outfit, one could see that she was a Latin beauty. Other than the era and the age range, she could fit the general description of my target. Maybe.

 

Three weeks met with almost no results. I say almost no results, because I had gained a few things. For one, I was becoming familiar with the staffers at every pub and club within three clicks of Piccadilly Circus. Additionally, although this was not really productive work, I found that my signature drink, the Bomb Wick, had gone out of fashion. None of the bars even stocked the proper type of Slim Jim. One bartender made a valiant attempt with a local brand of beef jerky, but to no avail. Some things just weren’t meant to be classics, I suppose. So, it hadn’t been a total loss, but my overhead was running somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 pounds sterling a day and it was a particularly tight budget year.

 

It wasn’t until almost a month to the day from the night at Staj’s place that I caught a break. As usual it was Fortune’s decrepit old hand that played a part. I know. Everyone thinks that Fortune is a graceful lady, but to me she has always been a hideous b***h goddess…except this time.

 

I had been following a routine of hitting the busiest places on their respectively busiest nights. That was a mistake. Assuming that my thesis that the Wingwoman was the offspring of flowersonnet – or at least trained by her - was correct, she would never hunt the busiest grounds. A Wingman survives on his anonymity. If you go to the busiest places and see the same faces, people will remember your game. Like snipers, we never hunt the same ground. That is why my first break came when I broke my routine to grab a late night snack of fish and chips at Ku De Ta over on Regent.

 

I was staring through the amber liquid in my pint at the remaining piece of fried fish, when she walked in. Had I had any of the beer in my mouth, I would have probably spewed it out in shock like a human atomizer. As it were, I had the same general reflex, but just blew out a stream of warm fishy air. Bravo, Chance!

 

She had a dark crown of shiny straight hair cut in a fashionable medium straight haircut. I had been seeing a lot of women around London wearing their hair that way recently, but none to such acclaim. Her skin was as close to a mixture of olive and porcelain as any alchemist would dare attempt. However, it was her eyes that were her most remarkable feature. They were dark and deep and piercing. She appeared tall and lithe, but it was hard to tell beneath the classic beige trench coat. Incidentally, aside from being fashionable, the coat met every la Confrerie prerequisite, save one: it was worn by a woman.

 

She was beautiful, but my contempt for what she represented overshadowed any attraction that I may have felt. I was the point man for la Confrerie, and I would do whatever it took to stop her. That would start with me going into the bathroom and freshening my breath. Two orders of fish and chips, are rarely a harbinger of good things to come.

 

I waited to see if she ordered a drink to make sure that she wouldn’t leave. I then cautiously backed my way into the gentlemen’s lavatory. Once inside I selected a large water closet that had been remodeled from the original ancient wood to facilitate the disabled. I was glad to see that the ancient bar had a modernized bathroom. It would make my job easier. People often ask me if I wear a coat because it looks so cool and mysterious. The answer to that is obviously “yes,” but there is more to it than that.

 

Inside my coat I carry a small bag; larger than a wallet, but not so bulky that it could any way be interpreted as a purse, at least that is my most profound hope. In any event, it is completely concealed. Inside it is a small supply of grooming items. You know the kind of thing that you would find in any hotel vending machine: deodorant, a small flat comb, hand lotion, a few vials of cologne, some shaving cream, a nail clipper and file, hand sanitizer, a liberal supply of condoms of different sizes (I’m a Wingman; they are rarely for me), some general hair products, folding toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, mouthwash, a sewing needle and thread. I also carried a straight razor loose in my coat pocket.

 

I spread the contents out on the edge of the sink that adorned the wall of the water closet. I considered my options. At Wingman Camp, we train in grooming rituals. Don’t confuse this with the general grooming that you normally do to get ready for a big date. A grooming ritual is an intense time limited set of practices that condition you from head to toe with varying degrees of thoroughness. The trainees are brought into the general training room, and practice in a mirror while the instructor times them. To put this into perspective, a civilian would do what we would consider a one sixteenth grooming ritual to go to work at the office. Someone that is very conscientious about hygiene, like a model or a hairdresser would be in the one eighth grooming ritual range. No self-respecting Wingman would shovel a stable with a one eighth grooming ritual. It is what we call a substandard level of hygiene.

 

We have to have a quarter grooming ritual down to five minutes, ten for a half and twenty for a full. It would take the average human being one and a half days to accomplish a full grooming ritual. Most people would starve to death if they had to groom like we do. In Wingman Camp I had an FGR time of 17 minutes and 23 seconds.

 

I don’t know if it was hubris or dogged determination that motivated me. All that I remember is thinking about the importance of the mission and not wanting to let Numar and the boys back in Marseilles down. I decided on the full grooming ritual. Did you hear that Ransom pulled an FGR in the field? What moxie! Okay, so maybe it was ego.

 

I took off my wrist watch, set it on the sink and began my work in earnest. I made the fixtures of the Ku De Ta to be over a hundred years old. A century in Piccadilly Circus, but I doubted that those partitions had ever seen the anything like this. There were snippets of hair and fingernails flying, emulsified liquids introducing themselves to one another in the air and on my skin, clothing being cleaned and pressed without the aid of a proper iron. When I donned my watch I checked my time: sixteen minutes and forty seconds. A personal record. Of course, by now I was sweating profusely, which negated some of the effectiveness of the FGR, but perhaps she wouldn’t notice.

 

I walked out into the bar a thoroughly invigorated man. However, I was mortified to find that my quarry had eluded me. The female Wingman was gone. In retrospect, the FGR seemed a bit ill advised. I pulled a hundred pound note from my billfold and handed it to the bartender:

 

“Ever seen that lady in the trench coat before?”

 

“Eh?”

 

“The lady with the dark hair and the trench? Ever see her?”

 

“No. First time.”

 

“Did she order anything?”

 

“Yeah. Some crazy drink I never heard of. Required a bloody Slim Jim. She settled on a Cosmo.”

 

“A Bomb Wick?”

 

“Yeah! That’s what she called it.” My cover was blown. She was taunting me. A chill went down my spine, “She didn’t even finish her drink.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“A couple of big tan looking blokes came in. They all left together.”

 

“Did you see which way went?”

 

“No, sorry. Hey, you were in the bathroom for a while. Is there a mess to clean up?”

 

“Maybe just my trail of smoke.” Not too many people have ever broken the 17 minute barrier. I had the right to be a little bit cocky.

 

“Flippin’ Yanks.” I guess a pound c-note doesn’t buy you respect in the new London.

 

When I walked out into the street, I realized the futility of a search. However, I couldn’t resist the urge to make a quick canvass of the area.

 

“It’s no use, Chance.” I heard the disembodied voice call to me from an innocuous panel truck.

 

The street was virtually deserted so I broke protocol and banged on the back. The door opened and I climbed in.

 

“I blew it, Charlie.” Charlie Mason had been assigned electronic surveillance for the evening, “Did Jack pick her up on foot?”

 

“Sent him home, Brother. Figured that you had given up the chase when you went to Ku De Ta. Guess we all failed, but we did get these.” He waved his hand to a wall of monitors. One of them had a grainy image of the woman that I had seen before, “Now we know what she looks like.” The other had the two men, but their faces were not visible beneath their broad brimmed hats.

 

“Charlie, you’re a genius!” Charlie pulled into an alley and I climbed out of the van. He told me that there were no identifiers on the other two men.

 

I walked up the street a bit and found one of those cool red phone booths the likes of which allowed Dr. Who to travel time. I never used my cell phone in London. Their phone booths were just way too cool.

 

I rang up Numar’s phone, “On a pay phone, Num.”

 

“God damn it, Chance. Why can’t you just use your cell phone inside the booth.”

 

“Never mind that. Did Charlie report in?”

 

“Yeah, said you got a photo, but lost her on the street.”

 

“Um, yeah.”

 

“An FGR, Chance. What were you thinking? Did you really expect her to be there after twenty minutes…”

 

“16:40.”

 

“I don’t give a flying f**k if it was ten min…16:40? Really?” Touche!

 

“Num, you should have seen me. I was on fire.”

 

“You should stop by, before you head in for the night, Chance. Marseilles has been asking for a progress report. I have been holding them off until we had something significant.”

 

“Yeah, I figured as much. Give me an hour. I want to make sure I don’t pick up a tail.” As annoyed as I was at having to meet with him this late, I didn’t want to take any risks. The brief contact tonight, made me realize that I had started getting lax. I was beginning to believe that my quarry didn’t exist. A dangerous illusion.

 

I took the tube in two unnecessary directions, before I finally took a cab to five blocks from the tailor shop front. The rest of my journey would be a careful stroll to the shop. Barring me exposing any trailers, the entire trip would bring me there approximately an hour after the Nigerian hung up with me.

 

As I got within fifty meters of the front of the store, I noticed that the lights were on. Careless and a breach of protocol. Station Chief or not, Numar was going to get an earful.

 

You would have thought that he knew what I was thinking. That is exactly what I thought as I saw him burst out the front door. Was the crafty Nigerian clairvoyant and had put up with enough of my insolence? Was he coming to give me the thrashing about which Edgar had warned me? I saw my answer before I heard it. The event went something like this:

 

A huge ball of fire began to illuminate the street from the shop front to beyond where I had stopped in my tracks. A sound followed that would leave a ringing in my ear for the next 24 hours. Finally a blast came that knocked me backward off of my feet and shattered glass in several of the buildings. I rolled on to my stomach and stood up. I ran to where Numar had been thrown. I peeled off my coat and used it to extinguish the fire that was emanating from his left calf.

 

I turned him over and he whispered something to me. I could not hear him so he grabbed my shirt. This time I was able to read his lips, despite my ringing ears:

 

“Charlie is inside!” As he tried to get up, I laid across the large man’s chest. In my mind if he moved he would die. I looked at the flames shooting out of the tailor shop. I knew for certain that Charlie was dead. Numar was questionable at best. As I fumbled for the cell phone in my pocket, I made a silent promise to myself that whoever this woman was, she would not get off of this island alive.

 

Suddenly my new record wasn’t important. Exercising my option to sanction this cancer was.

 

To be continued...

 

 

http://www.myspace.com/chanceransom

 

 

Author's Note

Sorry about the long delay. My editor was on hiatus, so she had to be replaced. Please be candid in your reviews.

Reviews

[Rain]

Excellent!!! I could see all the characters, thanks to your great descriptive writing. The whole female plot angle was catchy. It's a long read, which I often jump paragraphs, but didn't on this. I truly enjoyed it and felt a part of it. The only minor thing, and I mean minor, was your taking the reader out of the moment with your interjection of..." (I find that a Shakespeare reference adds class to the most sordid of stories).

[Flame DM]

Love Chance and his stories. The whole background on flowersonnet was my favorite part in this piece. A female wingwoman? I laughed wondering if she decieves men for women, but I doubt it. I can't wait to read the other installments and find out what happens!

Flame

[TL Boehm]

There were snippets of hair and fingernails flying, emulsified liquids introducing themselves to one another in the air and on my skin, clothing being cleaned and pressed without the aid of a proper iron

I can't tell you why but that has to be my favorite line. I guess I just got a strong visual from it. Well done. Welcome back.

[None]

What an intense way to come back with a dame in the Wingman Camp! A very enjoyable and unique story with bursts of surprises all along the way. I like your words...."It hadn't ever happened, but the word "buttons" struck me as particularly dangerous for a clothing shop."....and so many others-- too numerous to name here. I can't believe you reintroduced the "Bomb Wick" but you did it so cleverly! Your writing style is gladdening and unmistakable. I only have one wish and that's for the next chapter now! (Please).

[Beautifully Tragic xPoe..]

Little long but thats okay, kept my attention, and was a wonderfully written story. Looking forward to part 2.

Great Write.
Rayne