The return

An excerpt of a long short story, or a novelette, time would tell. In any case I hope you'll find it interesting.

The return

"Sic Transit Gloria Mundi"

An excerpt

The shrill phone rings woke Scot Finlay with a start. He sent his right hand to the phone receiver on the dresser beside his bed, and picked it up.

'Hello who is it?' He mumbled half asleep yet, and glanced at his wrist watch, while listening to the unfamiliar feminine voice.

'Could you repeat your message please?' He asked her, he could not believe that the meeting is going to take place in some bar, and not in the agency's department office.

'You're expected at the Velvet Lounge at eleven forty five am tomorrow.' She repeated her message and hung up.

He switched on the night lamp in his darkened bed room, and had another glimpse at his wrist watch; the time was two fifteen pm. I'd better get up despite the jet lag, but I've rested enough and I'm hungry. He decided while his last's long flight home from Moscow was still embedded vividly in his mind.

At eleven forty five plus minus Scot entered the plush Velvet Lounge, and perceived his department's head and his deputy sitting next to the farthest table near the wide hall's left corner. There were just few guests except his elated superiors at that early Monday hour, and a broad vacant space existed between his superior's table and the other restaurant's guests.

His adored boss asked him to join their table and sit down, with a hint of a forced smile.

It surprised Scot that expected a more pleasant welcome from the man that liked him; he had no such expectations from the deputy whom he did not trust from the very first moment that he set eyes on him.

'Well how was your flight back?' Ray Thurston his boss asked him.

'It was okay without any problems.' Scot replied surprised, he did not expect such an opening from his rather practical boss. Morgan the deputy summoned a waiter while Scot was in mid his short reply, when the latter reached their table Morgan ordered for the three of them.

'I see and your stay over there was okay too I guess.' Thurston remarked with an obvious note of sarcasm, which alarmed Scot.

'I was followed right after I landed and with open surveillance during the last couple of weeks, and Jeff my operator ordered me to return.' 

Thurston exchanged a quick glance with Morgan, as if he was saying you're right we've heard the evidence.

So Jeff is Morgan's man, and my enigmatic mission in Moscow was under Morgan's responsibility. Scot reached with a quick thought the evident conclusion.

With the main course over and at the meal's end in fact, Thurston looked straight into Scot's eyes, and said:

'You're on leave from now on up to the end of the month. We'd budget's cuts off and your project is canceled, so you'll have to resume your career somewhere else.'

'I'm fired then…' Scot raised his voice with disbelief.

'Haven't you heard what I've told you? The agency had just recently budget's cuts off, and we've to give up your services, that's all. You'll get your Salary for the next six months plus the compensation due to your resignation, and you're free to go now.' Thurston summed the meeting up.

A shade of a smile appeared on Morgan's face, as he kept watching Scot's reactions.

It took the shocked Scot several seconds, before he stood up and left without a word.

© Haim Kadman June 2015 �" all rights reserved.