Black (Part 3)

Davis went home immediately after leaving the Greyson house. His head spun with the implications of the picture and the wife's reaction. For some reason, she seemed familiar. It seemed like Davis was supposed to know the woman, but that was impossible. He did not make it a point to fall in love or even interact with women. An experience many years ago taught him that. He was on an assignment from, he found out later, a drug cartel in Panama. They wanted him to take out a rival drug lord after his wife was dead and buried. Davis flew to Panama on a private jet hired just for him. When he landed, he immediately went to a bar to secretly gather intel on the target. As he was sipping on a glass of rum, a pretty young woman with dark black hair began to talk with him.

Their conversation covered the polite at first, but then the lady began to get invasive. "What are you doing here, Mr. American?" Her accented English was almost as captivating as her eyes. Almost. In the many recollections of that night, Davis found himself surprised at how well he kept to a single cover story. "I'm a writer for a news group. I've been put on assignment to see how the drug war is affecting the people."

She laughed quietly, but full of life. "How do you do this in a bar, Senor? The people are not all in here. Only those who participate or do not care about these things." Her laughter died abruptly as the words she said caught up with her mind.

"And which are you, Senorita? Participant? Or do you not care what happens to the people?" Her eyes burned with resentment at the question. Davis quickly back-stepped over his offensive question. "Forgive me, senorita. I am a reporter, after all, and sometimes I cannot stop the questions from leaping off of my tongue." This placated the exquisite woman enough. The fire lowered to a low smoldering.

"Senor," she said her accent thickening, "I do care, and, I try not to participate. Part of our life, however, is having to do things we do not wish to do." Davis continued the conversation, but as the alcohol began to take its effect, his thoughts became more primal.

He found himself the next morning in a run down hotel room in Panama City with the beautiful woman face down on the bed. The sheet was pulled back slightly, revealing her bare back. Davis shook her slightly. "Senorita," he whispered quietly. A low raspy voice answered him instead.

"She will not answer you, Senor. It's hard to talk when you have not been breathing for several hours." Davis' head snapped up and scanned the small room for the man. In the far corner of the room, Davis saw a man standing. The man was much smaller than Davis, but had a ruthless look about him. "Lucky for you, though, my boss wants you to know who she was before you are killed."

Davis let the surprise of the situation take control. He needed to look as if he had never been in this situation before. "K-killed?" Davis stammered. "Wh-why should I be killed? I'm no one! I mean, I just came down on assignment by my news company."

"Is this why you landed in a private jet? Or why you had a gun under your pillow?" The man confidently stepped forward and pulled Davis' pistol from his belt. "No, senor. I do not believe you are a reporter. Neither does my boss. Now, do you want to know the identity of the woman in your bed?"

Davis swallowed down the surprise. He felt no fear. No panic. His only feeling was cold callousness. A careful situation assessment played through his head. He knew he was faster than the man; and stronger. A cold unfeeling smile spread across his lips. "Please, Senor," Davis said. "Enlighten me. What wrong did I do that so offends your boss?"

"First," the other man said as he walked closer to Davis with the gun extended, "you have slept with his wife. He does not look too kindly on that. This was his favorite wife, but he does not know how to keep them on a tight leash. He has had several killed before for their disobedience." The man chuckled as though he was living the memories of these women's deaths. "Second, and most grievously, you have been sent to kill him. This, he cannot have. He enjoys being alive. Therefore, Mr. Assassin, it is you that must die." The man reached to chamber a round when Davis moved. Davis allowed the adrenaline to flow through him as he knocked the gun aside with his left hand and punched with his right. Davis' fist connected with the man's temple and he collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Davis had never let his anger get the better of him before, but this time he couldn't control himself. The beautiful woman, the wife of his target, a target herself, had been murdered. He had no right to feel for her, but he did. He cared so deeply that it surprised him. He took the unconscious man into the jungle. He stripped the man down to his underwear then tied him to a tree. He, then, slapped the man across the face to waken him. As the man came to, Davis grabbed his face. "Tell me what your boss will be doing today, and I'll make your death painless." The man laughed and spit in Davis' face. Davis pulled out his knife and made a long, swift cut across the man's chest. The man grimaced in pain, but did not cry out. "How long, do you think, before the scavengers get the scent of blood and come to eat?" Davis sliced once across the man's right leg. A slow, but steady stream of blood flowed from the chest and leg. "I really can't imagine the sheer torture being eaten alive must be." The man's eyes started to betray his demeanor. He was trying to be tough, like it didn't scare him, but each cut made his eyes give more and more away. Davis twirled the knife in his hand, then cut the man's left leg similarly to the right. The man, this time, cried out in pain.

"STOP! Please!" Tears filled the man's eyes. Davis took pleasure in the fact that he made this man cry. It brought an intense satisfaction to his mind. That's for the senorita, he said to himself. She didn't have the chance to cry and beg for her life.

"Where will I be able to find him today?" Davis asked again. The man closed his eyes tightly. He exhaled shakily and said, "I am the man you seek. I always see to my wives' and their lovers' punishment personally." Davis felt his anger rise again. He slashed his knife quickly four more times. The man's arms and stomach each had a new cut on them. The fourth knife stroke found the man's cheek. Blood seeped from each wound and Davis could hear the animals starting to gather. There would be no mercy for this man. Davis pulled out his gun and chambered a round. He raised it at the man's head, giving the look of keeping his promise. "What was her name?" He pressed the cold steel against his forehead. "Francesca," the man whispered. "Her name was Francesca." Davis lowered his gun and drug his knife across the man's chest and stomach vertically from the base of the throat to the band of his underwear. Fresh blood flowed from this deeper cut and the man howled in pain. Davis cleaned his knife, holstered his gun and walked to the jeep. The last sounds he heard were the man calling out curses and obscenities to Davis for not fulfilling his promise, followed by a wild roar and ear shattering scream as the animals found the source of the fresh blood.

Once Davis returned to his home in America, he found an e-mail waiting for him. His employer was not happy at his tactics. It was not done the way it was asked for. For this, Davis received only a quarter of the payout. The last line of the e-mail was, "Next time, follow the rules."

Since that event, Davis had stayed away from all female companionship. Everyday, his heart ached for the dazzling beauty Francesca, but he would never have her and he would never compromise his life like that again. Still, he couldn't shake the idea that he knew this Mrs. Greyson. He brought the mental picture he had of her back to his focus. He studied her face, trying to locate something, but couldn't. Her hair was blond and her eyes were green. Davis turned his attention to his latest drawing. He started to see himself as the man struggling up the mountain and the sun was laughing at him. He would never accomplish his dream, nor would he figure out this new mystery. He glanced at his watch. The assignment was to be completed in eight hours. He sat down hard on his bed. He would figure this out before tonight. He had to figure it out. He had no room in his life for coincidence. Davis rose as soon as he sat down, grabbed his coat once more, and headed back out to the house. He would figure this out.

He thought back over the details of the case under the boat. He played the scene back through his head, all the way through where the woman came into the house. After years of being in this business, he had almost perfected the art of perfect recall. He could remember everything. Every sight, every sound, every smell. He got to the end where the wife called out her husband's name. Davis froze. A sensation all too unfamiliar to him flowed through his veins: shock. No, it couldn't be! He saw her dead body! There was no way it could be Francesca! The hair and the eyes were all wrong, but her voice. Davis clung to the memory of Francesca's voice as much as her eyes and hair, and there was no mistaking. This woman had Francesca's voice. The same accent, the same tone while confused. It was the same tone that she used when they met all those years ago in Panama. What are you doing here, Mr. American? Davis pulled off the road as this realization crashed over him. There was no way he could kill her. He couldn't kill Francesca...