Kevin's Big Moment - 6. The Soup Thickens by Camy

“You did what!” Ryan sputtered.

He was in a small, fast, and very luxurious Lear jet on his way to Dulles airport; to be followed by a hop to the Pentagon, and a meeting with the Secretary of Defence. Ryan had been whiling away the journey planning a sweet evenings revenge on Dubya and Kevin. He’d just got around to wondering which of them would choose the Donald Duck silk boxers, and who would pick Mickey Mouse, when his cell phone rang.

“Ryan.” He answered peremptorily, and then listened, his mouth opening in amazement. “I said shock, not shot you blithering idiot! Please don’t tell me that you actually shot the son-of-a-bitch!”

In a secret facility six stories beneath a dry cleaners in Langley, and owned ostensibly by a laundry company with its head office in Bejing, a besuited man listened keenly to Ryan’s intercepted call, and the muffled and rather apologetic reply to his somewhat heated question.

“So you shot him, and …,” Ryan could feel the panic welling up and hastily pulled out the rubber ball his therapist had told him would help his panic attacks, and started squeezing it. “ok, ok, so you shot him and then?” he paused, listening to the reply, and squeezing frantically. “Let me get this straight. You left him lying in the gutter, and you don’t know if he’s dead or not … I asked you to give him a shock, and you shot him … well,” Ryan giggled, close to hysteria “I guess that would have shocked him alright.”

***

“Fabulous meal GW!” Kevin whispered, and squeezed Dubya’s hand. They were in the back of Arnie’s Black Hummer. Kevin was glad the German had decided to drive them himself, and more than glad that the vehicle had a smoked glass partition between the front and back, as George’s fingers cantered up and down his inner thigh in a damn near hypnotic manner. “Fancy a post prandial snifter GW?” Kevin added, forgetting himself. The fingers screeched to a halt.

“A post whaty what? Dubya said, confusion obvious in his voice.

“Oh, sorry GW … I meant a drink. Would you like a brandy, or something?”

“’Something’ sounds good.” GW replied in his most seductive manner, licking his lips, his fingers started moving again, this time with more finesse than Kevin thought them capable of.

“I’ll just have a quick look see, then.” Kevin sighed contentedly and shuffled forward, opening the Hummer’s cocktail cabinet with one hand, the other busy batting away the amorous politician’s roving fingers. “GW, we’d better wait, don’t you think? After all, Arnie and his assistant are not five feet away.”

“That’s what the smoked glass is for you silly, silly Kevin, you … oh…,” Dubya and Kevin stared at the open cocktail cabinet, which, apart from a row of bottled spring water, a small bottle of Absinthe, and several boxes of cigars, was full of guns. “No chocolate, Kevin.” Kevin thought Dubya’s tone was sweetly forlorn, and though a swift praline crunch would have been nice, he wasn’t that worried about the lack of chocolate, as a glimmer of understanding was beginning to cut through the murk of the last few days.

“GW,” Kevin turned to Dubya, cleared his throat, and said in his most politically correct manner “Arnie has been vetted by the Secret Service, hasn’t he?”

“Um … well.” Kevin couldn’t help but see GW’s expression turn from one of his seductive favourites to one of bovine uncertainty.

“Yes, of course he has, Kevin,” Kevin spun around to see Arnie’s assistant looking at them from the front seat, the partition glass finished sliding back into its recess with a final click. She was holding a small but very ugly looking pistol in her hand, pointing, Kevin noticed, directly at his chest.

“Shall I kill the catamite, mein schatz?” The woman spoke in almost perfect English, with just a hint of a mid-European accent, and Kevin couldn’t help but admire her blouse which was, he thought, part of Vercace’s latest spring collection.

“I don’t like cats, and I don’t have a cat, so it’s a waste of time trying to blackmail me.” Dubya spoke with bravado, and smiled at Kevin, who smiled back.

“Nein, Nina, ve don’t vant to kill anyvone” Arnie pulled off the highway, changed the Hummer’s gears into low ratio, and set off up a track that seemed to Kevin, to head up the side of a mountain. “Just get me a cigar, mein liebling.”

Nina’s brief lack of concentration was what Kevin had been waiting for, as he lunged for the gun, and grabbed it from the woman’s hand just as the Hummer bounced over a larger rock on the road. He deftly turned it around and pointed it at her.

“Scheiße!” Nina and Arnie sputtered in unison.

“Yes, shit indeed. Now, if you don’t mind pulling over, I think GW and I deserve an explanation.”