In someways he was very very tired but he was never really that tired as long as it was present, in his hand, in his ruck sack, or in his veins, especially in his veins. Through 14 foreign conflicts and the armies of four major European powers he had stayed high. It was the thing that made him different why he could lie in a hedge row in the rain with a sniper rifle for 3 days carefully controlling his timed injections of Dexedrine and morphine so he was always awake feeling no pain but never nodding. In the nod he might miss his target and making the shot was only thing that made him feel anything real if only in that brief instant of the muzzle flash and the vaporizing blood cloud around the exploding head of his intended.
His record of confirmed kills (and the whispered rumors of twice as many unconfirmed) kept the brass from wondering why he was in the infirmary getting opiates for a spinal cord injury that never showed up on xray or slowed him down in brutal training exercises. When he began freelancing for the intelligence services was when the blinds on his secret addiction were lifted and he was offered whatever opiate he wanted (pharmaceuticals were recommended as they were easily explained on expense reports) as long as the job got done his reputation preceded him and he was never without IT. Some thought they could control him with it but being forced to seek it on his own only whetted his appetite. He knew where to cop in any country on earth.
Why was he still here? Why stick around on this earth causing mayhem and death with his only purpose to stay loaded and kill the men he was sent to kill? He was waiting for a call, and one day that call came.
"Mr, Louis?"
"Who's calling?"
" We have completed the final test on the machine, we can reach the date in question, your target is John Wilkes Booth"
"Is this line secure?"
"It won't matter if you complete your assignment."
" I guess you're right. I'm on my way"
His record of confirmed kills (and the whispered rumors of twice as many unconfirmed) kept the brass from wondering why he was in the infirmary getting opiates for a spinal cord injury that never showed up on xray or slowed him down in brutal training exercises. When he began freelancing for the intelligence services was when the blinds on his secret addiction were lifted and he was offered whatever opiate he wanted (pharmaceuticals were recommended as they were easily explained on expense reports) as long as the job got done his reputation preceded him and he was never without IT. Some thought they could control him with it but being forced to seek it on his own only whetted his appetite. He knew where to cop in any country on earth.
Why was he still here? Why stick around on this earth causing mayhem and death with his only purpose to stay loaded and kill the men he was sent to kill? He was waiting for a call, and one day that call came.
"Mr, Louis?"
"Who's calling?"
" We have completed the final test on the machine, we can reach the date in question, your target is John Wilkes Booth"
"Is this line secure?"
"It won't matter if you complete your assignment."
" I guess you're right. I'm on my way"
1 comment:
Mr. Louis could do for junkies what Dexter did for sociopathic killers. ;-)
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