Chapter One: Assignment
The blonde, blue-eyed, slim beauty stared at the gun in her face, wondering where she had gone wrong. She had been so careful, so perfect. Trained by all the finest agents and it all came down to nothing, now that she'd been discovered. How had the bitch found out?
Iris held her finger steady over the trigger, her gaze unyielding as it remained locked with the woman before her. Dark hair framed her gorgeous face, with blazing green eyes that were set in a death stare. Around her breathtaking eyes was a daring display of makeup. It was dark makeup, like charcoal and it covered a great portion of her face. Little streaks of red complimented the dark colors, yet it all took an eerie shape. The shape could be nothing other than a Black Widow, the deadliest of all spiders.
The blonde woman almost laughed out loud at the irony of Iris's makeup, yet couldn't help but tremble at the fate she knew she was doomed for. She had to accept it. Embrace death. No need to be petrified in her last seconds of life. But she had to know...
"How did you know it was me?" she asked.
Iris looked her coolly in the eyes and replied, "I always knew."
The sound of the fired gun echoed down the alleyway and the pretty blonde dropped to the cold ground. Bright, shimmering blood emerged from her forehead, where the bullet had struck and gone straight through to the wall behind her. Iris knew the girl was dead, but could never risk that slim chance of life. She fired three more times in the chest for good measure.
Three people surrounded Iris; her crew. They each held a gun and aimed it at the lifeless body. Awaiting their leader's orders, they stood absolutely still, never even flinching as her gunshots were sounded. Iris turned to them, nodding.
"It's done," she said flatly. Then the sirens came. They echoed through the streets, making their way to Iris' ears. Fright did not strike her, no, not even alarm. She simply turned and ran out of the alley, her accomplices trailing close behind her. They were soundless as they disappeared into the night.
"Damn it," Parker spat as he stared at the pictures on his desk. "Another one. Is this endless?"
"It seems to be," Warren nodded. "This cat is at the top of her game."
"And she's prowling in the darkest of alleys," Parker growled as he stood from his desk. "She's like smoke, so impossible to catch."
"Why don't we have an agent just kill her? End it as quickly as the shot of a gun."
"If only it was that easy," Parker sighed. "This bitch has set up groups of assassins all over the country. The country, damn it. If we took her out, we'd never be able to get to all the others, we'd have no clues, no resources… Do you know how secretive she keeps everything? The only way to figure things out is to get people close to her. But all the agents we send are discovered in a matter of weeks, sometimes days. She kills them all. And she just killed another."
"Damn," Warren said, shaking his head. "And that Kelly Walker was a fine chick, too."
"I know; that's one of the reasons I sent her. Iris is a dyke."
"You're shitting me."
"Nope, that's the whole truth. So I'm sending Emma this time."
"Emma?" Warren repeated. "Raymore? But why? She's one of the best we have."
"I know; and she's okay with being a chick lover, too."
"But Emma should be getting more important jobs," Warren protested. "She's capable of doing bigger and better things."
"This is important," Parker replied. "Right now, it seems that Iris has the capability of destroying this whole organization. As soon as she figures that out, she might just try it. Dozens of agents have been killed trying to bring her down. If Emma is the best, I'm gonna send her."
"It's murder," Warren said quietly. "If the others were found out, what keeps Emma from being discovered?"
"She's better than the others. Let's hope she's got whatever it takes to deceive Iris. Bring Emma in here, would you?"
"She's in Sydney."
"Sydney?"
"Working on a case."
"Well bring her back. We'll send someone else."
Emma Raymore walked briskly through the halls of the hotel. Her manner was casual, like a lucky girl that was late for her date. No need to attract any attention. She had to get in there and get out. She had to take out the notorious nuclear weapon dealer, George Vasquez. The CIA had been watching him for quite some time and his last buyer was a major terrorist.
No more watching; time for action.
Emma skillfully lock-picked her way through the door leading to the target's room. Her slender, flexible body moved with grace across the room and she held a 45mm steady before her. She expected the two henchmen at the front and took them out by using her black-belt martial arts. No need to kill them. They were just doing their job.
She anticipated the men that would be guarding Vasquez and got ready for a fight as she entered the bedroom. As soon as the door opened a crack, Vasquez ordered his men to kill. Emma saw five men and decided there were too many. She would have to stop playing nice. She shot all five down, as quickly as a snake striking a predator. A very stupid predator. She managed to avoid their bullets, mainly because only two men had been able to fire at all.
Vasquez sat dumbfounded at his desk, staring angrily at the great agent. Emma had her gun aimed at him, a somewhat proud grin on her face.
"Oh, you think you've won, eh?" Vasquez growled threateningly. "You think you've won?" His hand darted under his desk and Emma fired her gun immediately. She walked over to the now dead Vasquez and saw the gun in his hands fall to the ground. The thud gave Emma a kind of satisfaction, like a job well done.
She had destroyed her target. It was always easier to think of things that way. Targets instead of people. Missions instead of murder. After all, it was for the greater good, right? And bad people didn't deserve to live. Still, it was easier to think of it all as nonhuman.
Abruptedly, amidst the silence of death, Emma's phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and answered. "Hey, Warren."
"Hey, Raymore," Warren said from the other end. "We need you to ditch this assignment, ASAP. You've been assigned a new one."
"Perfect timing," Emma said.
Warren laughed and said, "You've completed this one already?"
"Just finished a second before you called."
"You're incredible, Emma," Warren shook his head. "I guess this next assignment is perfect for you after all."
"That difficult, huh?"
"You bet. We're sending you the plane ticket right now. Be as quick as you can." And with that, they hung up. Emma looked about her and began to clean up the mess to get rid of any evidence. She knew the agency would do it for her. But it gave her comfort doing it herself.
"Hello, Parker," Emma greeted as she entered his office.
"Hey, Raymore," Parker nodded. "You ended Vasquez, I assume."
"A bullet to the brain," Emma replied.
"Great. Now we can move on to a real bitch. Her name's Iris, also known as Tiger Lily, or at least, that's what everyone calls her." Parker handed Emma a folder containing a few papers. Nothing else. Puzzlement presented itself in Emma's face.
"No photo?" she asked, looking up from the folder.
"Nope. No one's been able to get a picture. No one's even escaped with a wire."
"No last name either?"
"She only goes by Iris and Tiger Lily," Parker sighed. "We really don't have much information on her. All we know is she murders anyone she disagrees with. Three major gangs have already been eliminated because of her."
"Then isn't she doing people a favor? I mean, I know it's wrong to say, but if all that gang violence is gone…"
"You're forgetting that Iris is a gang herself. And gangs aren't all she's after. She almost wiped out an entire police force once. And she's gone after us too."
"How many of ours has she killed?" Emma asked with a frown.
"Fifty two so far," Parker replied. Emma's eyes went wide in alarm. Gangs, she could understand. The police force was still believable. But fifty two agents? She was shocked. Agents were magicians. They could make you believe whatever they wanted you to believe. They could disappear before you even knew they were gone.
How was anyone able to kill fifty two of them?
"Why don't we just feed her some bullets?" Emma asked.
"Because it would do nothing, but make it harder for us to take her down." Emma gave Parker a quizzical look so he continued. "She made her own little agency. It would be cute if it wasn't so goddamn terrifying. Unfortunately, the bitch actually knows what she's doing. So now she has gangs set up all over the country. If we took out Iris, we'd never know who works for her or where they are or what they're planning to do. They would continue what they were doing.
"We'd be screwed." Parker sighed and stood to look out the window. "Do you know what this kind of assemblage could do? Their control of government activity has already started. With black mail and death threats... There's no way of knowing how far they could go."
"So what can we do?" Emma asked.
"You need to get close to her. Get as close to her as you can get. Hell, make her love you."
"What?"
"Iris likes girls. You don't mind fucking them. It'll work out perfectly."
Emma scowled and said, "Is that the only reason you-"
"No, Emma, we chose you because you're one of the best we've got," Parker replied. "The fact that you can sleep with Iris just makes everything a whole lot easier for you."
"Fine. How do we get started?"
"From the little information we were able to gather, it sounds like Iris goes to the club Midnight's End a lot. There's going to be a rave there this Friday, so you're going to go and get noticed."
"How am I supposed to find someone when I don't know what they look like?" Emma asked.
"We've heard she likes to wear interesting makeup. Usually, it's made to look like tiger lilies." Parker paused and looked back with a grin on his face. "Like her nickname. Tiger Lily. Get it?"