Chapter 146

"Good to see you too Helen." The Brit turned to me. "Sylvia meet Helen now play nice and when we get in the car we will talk." he said.

"Hello Sylvia nice to meet you, I hope." she said with resignation in her voice.

"Me to," was all I could manage.

Helen had a much nicer travel bag than I. Once we had it and her in the car. we began driving into the country. "Hey Brit, You promised we would stop at a hardware store," I said.

"I did better than that," he said handing me a plastic bag. "If these won't do, I'll take you anywhere you like."

The bag was filled with box openers and even a metal handle utility knife. I left it in the bag, while I looked at the others. One of them was the six inch long, inch wide blade, which meant it was for large boxes. I put it in the pocket of my cargo pants. A further search provided a much smaller version of the same snap off blade utility knife, but with a thiner narrower handle. It would be much easier to conceal, if it came to that.

I threw the rest of the blades out on the side of the road. I looked out the back glass until the car behind us drove past the spot. "You are pretty damn strange," Mikey Spillman said.

"You don't have to mention that again. This ain't a marriage Mickey," I said slightly worried that he took caution as quirky.

"So Brit, whats your story?" I asked.

"Sorry love, unless you have permission from the boss to interrogate me, I would prefer to just live in the moment." he said.

"Just making conversation," I said. Of course I wasn't. I wanted to know, if I needed to watch my back, when he was behind me. "You did say we would talk in the car."

"You will know everything you need to know, when we got to the F.O.B." he said.

"Forward Operating Base," Mickey explained. I had a feeling it was more for Helen more than me.

In the darkness of the car I could make out Helen, but really couldn't tell much. So I relied on my memories from the airport. She certainly didn't look like a warrior, not that she appeared particularly soft. Her body was indeed soft, but there was something in her eyes. It along with her soft body told me she might kill me, but she wouldn't chase me through the wood to do it. "What happened to your hand," she asked while I was still musing.

'Splinters," I said.

"Shrapnel damage can be terrible," she said.

"It was wood splinters not metal," I said. "Metal would have taken the hand off as much as I got hit with."

"Yes it probably would have. You must have had a good surgeon to save it," she said.

"I had two operations on it within the first 24hours. I expect that is why I have as much movement as I do." I said.

"The first one probably was a battlefield butcher, and the second a first class plastic surgeon," she guessed.

"ER in a small local hospital. then a big time hospital, when they had me stable and could chopper me out I'm told." I said.

"You were very lucky," she said.

"I was a little lucky. If I had been very lucky, I would have been standing somewhere else." I said.

"Right you are," she said.

"You are a specialist too?" I asked. "A contractor like me?"

"I am a consultant," she said with a laugh. "Actually a retired trauma nurse."

The driver of the car, The Brit, spoke again, "Okay since you now know about Helen, here Helen." he said handing her a plastic bag. The bag contained a small .38 revolver like mine at home, but mine didn't have the scars where the serial number had been ground off it.

Helen took it flipped the cylinder out very professionally. I noticed that it was loaded with five rounds. I would bet my ass they were hollow points. I noticed that she wore surgical gloves, when she handled the pistol. She dropped it into the large purse she carried with her. She perhaps felt my questioning look, anyway she explained, "If five shots won't do it. I'm not going to have time to reload."

"So this isn't your first rodeo," I said.

"Sorry I don't know all your American Slang yet. I'm fresh off the boat as it were," she said in the accent again.

"Right," I said. I guessed from that exchange, that she had been either a missionary, or a field hospital nurse in someplace hot and sandy. Everyone who went to movies, or watched American TV, knew what 'it isn't my first rodeo meant'.

We traveled on to a old house a few miles out past the New Orleans city limits. It was early in the morning, I had tried to sleep all night on the plane, but I was still dead tired. The nurse and I were sharing a room. I finally got a good look at her.

She was fortyish with badly bleached hair. She wasn't tall, nor was she short. She was really kind of average in every way. I did wonder why we needed a nurse, since we hadn't needed one before.

"You have about an hour," The Brit said. "So do what you can.

Fuck him, I thought. I was going to run the whole fucking hour. I quickly dressed and took off alone. I carried the smaller box opener in the pocket of the sweat suit. I ran out to the main road then ran another twenty minutes away from town. Then I ran back to the house. I had been gone 58 minutes. When I entered the bedroom assigned to me and removed the knit cap, I was proud that I was back in under and hour. Even so I had still managed to work up a good sweat.