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Timing

Posted on February 19, 2007
Filed Under The Stories |

It all came down to timing. Robin knew how important timing could be. Her mistimed bid for Karthik’s affections had cost her dearly. Apart from losing the one man she had imagined being able to grow old with she also lost out on an important career advancement. Another woman had emerged victorious on two counts. She had been able to celebrate publicly that she was engaged to Karthik and privately when Robin was instructed to resign voluntarily for seeking a romantic relationship with a co-worker. Robin knew everything about timing and how important it could be. She was determined to time the jump just right.

The trouble with leaving the armed forces without an adequate excuse was that it left a girl with few choices other than going into the private sector. Robin chose the other alternative. Within hours of having resigned and stepped off base, she was approached by a man. He told her about his unit, one of several the government mobilized on a weekly basis to protect the nation’s interests, both at home and on foreign soil. He used a term she had only ever read in comic books before – he called it Dark Cover.

For a solider at her level to be granted DC status she had to undergo a series of tests and workouts that stripped away ever ounce of fat, both physically and mentally. The team captains didn’t seem to ever tire of stressing that DC unit members worked hard and played harder than any other solider, no matter their division or rank. Through brutal trials and sophomoric errors she and her team mates had learnt that they were being tested everywhere, at all times and in the most unflattering conditions.

Robin’s failure came when she was on a break, off campus and making a connection with an incredibly handsome man who reminded her a great deal of Karthik. It bothered her slightly that she didn’t seem to be properly over Karthik because even she could see the resemblance her latest consort bore to the man who got away. In her alcohol-addled state she thought it was because she hadn’t consummated her connection with Karthik that she felt the need for residual closure over that chapter in her life. She had accompanied the man, whose name she had already forgotten, to his room and proceed to kneel before him before he was completely undressed.

Deep in the throes of fellatio the lights went on in the wall to her left and she was treated to the sight of all her team mates watching her technique with frankly open mouths while her team captain glared at her from a corner of the viewing station. That’s when she finally understood that there was no ‘off campus’ in DC. The man whose name she had long forgotten smiled at her and said two things, “Karthik only wishes he was this big,” and “for what it’s worth, I think he missed out on something with you.” And then he dressed and he was gone and she had to endure the ignominy of the teasing that usually followed the exposure of a teammate’s vulnerability.

She tried to push the thoughts out of her mind as she focused on the task at hand. This was not her first mission and she didn’t want it to be her last. She had to time the jump just right. A young woman’s life, two kilograms of plutonium and Robin’s own ability to walk again depended on her being able to time her jump correctly. She had gone over the variables in her head endlessly. Wind direction, altitude, the time and how much longer she had to wait. She could have checked her watch but she didn’t need to. She knew exactly what part of the clock the second, minute and hour hands were on. Besides she didn’t want to have to let go of the bridge for even a second more than she had to. The key to the proper jump was for her to be completely balanced before it was time for her to let go.

3…2…

She let go and flexed her knees slightly, spread her arms wide and her legs pumped furiously so that she hit the tarpaulin covering the chopper in a dead run. Her knees buckled but held her up and she slid down the side between two rotor blades onto the platform the bird was parked on. She entered the main deck without meeting any resistance. There was a guard outside the girl’s door and she dispatched him to the next life with a few simple but effectively executed stores of the knife that had appeared in her hand the moment she saw the guard. It wasn’t even a full out ballet of death yet. She expected, without dread or enthusiasm, to kill several more men before she had completed her mission. Another guard appeared around a corner, right into the path of her slashing blade that caused his neck to erupt in a geyser of blood before he hit the floor without so much as a croak.

With no more resistance in sight she let herself into the room and hoisted the blindfolded girl onto her shoulder in a fireman’s lift. The girl didn’t move. Robin headed for the roof and within moments she had the girl inside the helicopter and both chopper and girl under an undisturbed-looking tarpaulin. If their intel continued to be accurate she knew exactly where to find the plutonium.

She took the stairs one level down and turned the corner, opened the door and walked directly into the barrel of what could only be described as a cannon in human hands. It wasn’t a gun she had seen before and it also wasn’t one she was about to forget anytime soon. Not since there were six pointed directly at her and it was clear that they didn’t need to be accurate to do her harm. The men behind the guns possessed sneers worthy of the best B-movie villains. The man who spoke from beyond the weaponry said, “in situations like this it’s better to go for the radioactive material first Agent. A single girl would have been an acceptable casualty, don’t you think. When compared to the thousands of lives that could be lost when this plutonium is weaponised?”

For a flicker Robin’s knees weakened, “is this a test sir?”

“No Agent Lingam. This is not a test. Do not pass Go. Do not collect 200.”

Those guns were going to be a problem, small but potentially deadly. She figured she had to get beyond the guns to take possession of the plutonium so she sneezed, catching everyone by surprise. Among the individual particles of flying spittle she also released tiny darts that were stored in tiny capsules she had hidden in her mouth. The darts got five of the six shooters and her knife found the throat of the sixth one. The man who had made his pronouncement from beyond the arc of lead was much shorter than he sounded and the gun he was carrying was much easier to deactivate. She broke his wrist and then his neck, grabbed the briefcase and returned to the main deck, slid the tarp off the whirlybird and climbed into the cock-pit.

Unlike the movies it wasn’t until she was nearly a mile away in the air that the first gunmen turned up on the deck of the ship. By then it was too late. She had to keep an eye out for a potential RPG or missile attack but as far as she could tell she was home, free and clear.

She considered giving well-hung Karthik a call when she got back to base. She remembered she still didn’t know his name. She cursed under her breath and focused on getting back to friendly shores.

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