Color Me Grey: Book One of the Alexis Stanton Chronicles (12 page)

I obeyed. You couldn’t say no to that finger
pointing at you.

We got to the car garage and Mr. Black’s SUV
was in it’s rightful spot. He opened my door and then stepped up
behind the wheel.

“
How’d this get here?” I
asked.

“
Mr. Brown and Mr. White brought it
down off the mountain the morning we started our hike,” he
said.

“
What’s going on?” I asked.

Mr. Black didn’t say anything. His jaw was
twitching again. I looked forward and waited to see if he would
want to tell me about it before we got back up on the mountain. I
know I hadn’t been gone but a few hours but I was already beginning
to miss the fresh air, the exercise and the solitude.

“
Are we going back up to the cabin?” I
couldn’t stand it; I wanted to know.

“
Nope. We’re on our way to do a job,”
he replied. “Mr. White wanted to leave you behind on this one, but
I told him no. On-the-job training is the best kind there is.” Mr.
Black had started to talk in longer sentences since I had started
my scuba training.

Uh-oh. I wasn’t sure I wanted to cross Mr.
White, even if I was with Mr. Black.

“
What’s the job?” I asked.

“
We need to pick someone up,” Mr. Black
said. I let a silence fall upon us and the next thing I knew, we
were in my driveway.

“
What are we doing here?” I
asked.

“
We need some info and you’ll be able
to get it from here,” he said.

We got into my place and it was just as I had
left it a month ago. Mr. Black walked directly to my computer and
turned it on.

“
I need you to hack into the office’s
computer and pick out a file for me,” he said.

“
I don’t know,” I said as I walked to
the computer. I sat down and began to
hack.
I just couldn’t
resist a challenge. In a matter of seconds I had the office system
open on my computer. Mr. Black told me the file name he was looking
for and I found it right away. I downloaded it onto my computer and
my phone rang. I jumped and logged out.

I answered it on the third ring. “Hello?”

“
Ms. Grey,” It was Mr. White. There was
a heavy silence. I waited, then said, “Yes?”

“
I’m sorry. I’m about to make a
decision that could affect the company. The job that Mr. Black
wants to take you on is for a client that specifically asked that
you not be involved,” he explained. What kind of client would even
know about me? My mind reeled. DAD! He had said that he hired White
and Associates from time to time.

“
I don’t want to do anything to
jeopardize our standing with this client, but I also don’t want my
clients telling me how to run the company,” Mr. White said and I
could tell he was frustrated.

“
I’m going with Mr. Black on this
because I will
not
be pushed around or bullied,” he said.
Then after a short pause he added, “I hear you did great at the
cabin.” Mr. White continued, “It’s hard to impress Mr. Black and
you certainly did. He told me that you made it to the cabin in just
one day. No one else has done that on their first hike. Pretty
impressive, Ms. Grey.”

“
Thank you,” I replied.

“
Mr. Black also says you’re the best
scuba diving student he’s ever had. Good thing, because this job
requires it. You have exactly one week to prepare. Make use of it.”
And he hung up.

Mr. Black had been standing and watching me.
His cooler-than-cool look back on his face. When I hung up the
phone he raised his eyebrows at me.

“
That was Mr. White,” I
said.

“
And?” Mr. Black asked me.

“
He said he wasn’t going to let a
client tell him what to do,” I repeated. “Oh, and we have a week to
prepare.”

“
Right,” he said. “We better start
then.” He sat in the chair at the computer desk and started to read
the file. “Do you have anything to eat in here?” he asked. I
scrounged around and found some canned tuna in the cupboard and
some bread in the freezer. I made us tuna sandwiches on toasted
bread.

By the time I had lunch fixed Mr. Black had
printed out the file and was sitting on the couch. I brought him
two sandwiches and sat down next to him and ate mine. He finished
his food and looked at me.

“
I want you to know you did a good job
out there.”

I had felt uncomfortable when Mr. White told
me this on the phone, but coming from Mr. Black, it was pure
torture. I wanted to impress Mr. Black and do a good job, but this
kind of thing was hard for Mr. Black and it made me uncomfortable
to be putting him in this kind of position.

“
I’m glad Mr. White suggested giving
you a color. As far as I’m concerned, it’s one of the best
decisions he’s ever made. But I need to know a few things about
you. I need to know how you handle yourself in a fight and would
you be able to kill if you needed to?”

This caught me entirely off guard. Could I
kill someone? I really didn’t think so.

“
I don’t know, probably not. It
depends, I guess,” I said fearing I would ruin his opinion of me
but knowing how I felt when I ended a fight by breaking somebody’s
bones.

“
We’ll have to work on that,” he said.
“Let’s go.”

He took me to a gym. It was full of big men
and women. Both sexes had muscles larger than they should be. Mr.
Black fit right in, but I stuck out like a sore thumb. Before he
took me to the cabin I had been in good shape and now I was in even
better shape, probably the best shape I could be in. I just didn’t
have the muscle mass that these people had.

There were boxing rings and mats spread all
around the building. All of them were being used by sparring
partners.

“
Hey, Black!” A monstrous black man
came up to us.

Mr. Black nodded his hello back to the huge
man. They grasped each other’s hands each with a grip that would
have crushed heads.

“
Ms. Grey, meet Helix,” Mr. Black told
me. I smiled at him and he eyed me up and down.

“
Damn! You are one
fine
lady,”
Helix said and then looked back at Mr. Black. “What’cha needin’,
man?”

“
We’d like to use one of your mats,”
Mr. Black said.

This brought a large laugh from Helix. He
threw his head back and a great big “HA!” came from deep
inside.

“
Man, you know I don’t run that kinda
place,” he said grinning from ear to ear. He looked at me from head
to toe again. “She sure is fine, don’t you think she deserves
someplace private?” He looked from me back to Mr. Black.

Mr. Black had a look that would have made me
turn and run if it had been directed at me.

“
Hey, man.” Helix backed down. “I
didn’t think you was serious, man. Sure, just let me get one
cleared off for ya.” He walked to the nearest mat and hollered for
it to be cleared.

Mr. Black and I put on sparring paraphernalia
then squared off on the mat and he said, “Let’s go.”

I said, “I never throw the first punch.”

He lunged at me. Shit, he was quick. I
managed to step out of the way, just in time.

“
Good, but you’re going to have to
start it this time,” he said. Helix was standing at the side of the
mat enjoying the show.

He yelled, “Get ‘em, girl!”

I dropped and tried the leg sweep, but Mr.
Black jumped over my leg and had me down on the mat before I could
stand up to my full height again. I heard Helix laugh off to the
side.

Mr. Black got off me and helped me up and
said, “Did you see how I did that?”

I nodded yes and he said: “Now you try.”

I stood waiting for the leg sweep. I jumped
at just the right moment and was on top of Mr. Black in an instant.
He just stood there though with me hanging off of him. Helix was
laughing so hard he started to cough.

“
I had this same problem with Army
Boy,” I said as I jumped off Mr. Black.

“
There are tricks to it. You have to
put pressure here, and here.” He touched me in a couple of places
that I remembered Chief Slade had shown me years ago.

“
Pressure points,” I said.

“
Exactly,” Mr. Black said. “Get
ready.”

“
Same thing?” I asked.

“
Nope,” he said as he came at me. He
was throwing punches and kicks and I managed to block them all. I
had achieved a black belt in karate and had done just as well in
kickboxing. I managed to grab his foot with one of his kicks and
flipped him over. He went to the mat on his stomach. He jumped up
and I saw that smile for a second time.

“
Now we’re talking,” he said and came
after me again. He had me face down on the mat. “Mix your styles
and you’ll throw off your opponent,” he said.

This went on for about thirty minutes and we
both had worked up a good sweat when I noticed the gym had become
quiet except for Mr. Black’s voice. I looked around, all activity
had ceased and all eyes were on us. Mr. Black motioned over a woman
that must have been from South America, from somewhere around the
Amazon.

Amazon Woman came forward and stepped onto
the mat. She came toward me slowly then lunged for me. I
sidestepped and she hit the mat. I jumped on top of her and applied
pressure to one of the recently remembered pressure points. She
pounded the mat until I let her up. She stood back up and started
throwing punches. Not one of them hit their mark. She did connect
with my body, but never where she had been aiming. I went after her
with punches and kicks and backed her off the mat. We both knew the
etiquette of fighting so as soon as she stepped off the mat I
backed away. She got back onto the mat and tried the same thing as
I had just done. I found her hand with one of her punches and had
her down on her knees in a matter of seconds, being careful not to
break her wrist.

Mr. Black came up to us and told her,
“Thanks.” Then he waved over a guy that looked like he lived in the
gym. I had noticed him in one of the boxing rings when we first
came in.

He started the boxing dance. I didn’t
understand that. To me it was a waste of energy. I stood and waited
for him to make a move. He danced around and waited for me to make
a move. I finally gave in and went after him with punches. He
counteracted with a kickboxing style that I had never come across
before. He was so fast that I got confused as to where he might
strike next. He dropped to the floor and used my move. He swept my
legs out from underneath me but I jumped right back up and made my
move. As I came up off the floor I jumped into the air and did a
round house kick at his head. I knocked him cold. He fell to the
floor and a couple of other guys came to his aid. They shook him
awake within seconds, but he bowed to me and left the mat.

Mr. Black came up to me and said, “Not bad,
but you should NEVER be hit. Let’s go.” He nodded his thanks to
Helix whose bottom jaw was practically touching the floor.

When we got back into Mr. Black’s SUV I said,
“What exactly is this job?”

“
Mr. White has been contacted by a
client that we have done business with before. We’ve been asked to
collect a certain someone. The man we will be picking up will
not
want to come with us. This client is a part of a public
entity that cannot be involved with this kind of action. We have to
sneak in and do this without anyone being the wiser, including the
crew.”

“
The crew?” I asked.

“
Yes, Mr. Brown will drop us about a
mile from a boat that will be transporting our target. We will have
to swim to that boat, board it without being seen and get the
target off without alerting anyone to our presence,” he explained.
“All you need to do is follow my lead.” We pulled into my driveway
again.

“
Take the rest of the day for
yourself,” Mr. Black said. “I’ll be here first thing in the
morning.”

I jumped out of the black SUV and walked into
my place as he drove away. I made some show of going inside but as
soon as he was out of sight I took off for the main house. What the
hell was my dad’s problem? I was going to find out.

Dad was in his office, as usual. I put my
knuckles to the door and knocked, then went straight in. I didn’t
even wait for the “Yes?” to come through the door after I
knocked.

“
How long have you been back?” he asked
with enthusiasm.

“
I just got back not too long ago,” I
said.

“
So, how’s the new job? What have they
got you doing?” he asked.

“
Not bad. I’m in training right now.
Chief Slade was tough, but not this tough,” I replied. If he was
going to be sneaky, so was I. Dad knew I wasn’t stupid, but
sometimes he didn’t think I would figure things out. I actually
wasn’t sure beyond any doubt that Dad was the “client.”

“
You were gone a month and all you did
was train?” he asked raising his eyebrows.

“
Yep,” I said.

“
Mr. White throw anything your way
since you’ve been back?” he asked.

Okay Dad, I thought. Now I
know
.

“
Nope. He recalled Mr. Black though,” I
said.

“
Hmmm,” my Dad said. “Do you think
he’ll be putting you on any kind of job any time soon?”

“
Maybe, but I’m not sure. Who knows, I
could be shipped off any day for any thing,” I said. “Mr. Black
leaves in a week and he’ll be picking me up to train until then.
Then I think I’m to go somewhere else and complete training,” I
lied. “I think I was supposed to go out on this job with Mr. Black,
but something must have happened,” I added and the implication was
thick.