The fight hadn’t lasted long, but he was left dazed and out of breath.
He leant against the wall in the corner of the room, exhausted, looking down at the gun in his hand. They had come here in the dead of night, to kill him. He was sure of that. He put the gun down and surveyed the room. There was broken furniture and items toppled from shelves, now scattered across the floor, and of course, the bodies. Two huge men, who despite their failure, had obviously been well trained for the job. The agency would have to be told. No one had foreseen this. He turned a chair upright and sat with his head in his hands. What a mess! The agency would have to send the cleaners in. He knew he shouldn’t touch anything.
He stood up, still feeling groggy, still hearing gunshots ringing in his ears, still smelling the gun smoke that seemed to fill the room. In his head he replayed the scene. Each of them had managed to get shots off before he took them down. Had he not heard them coming up the hall he would be dead. Being forewarned, he had his weapon ready and fired from under the desk. This would all have to be spelled out in precise detail in his report. The agency was always strict about this. He was running all this through his head when he became aware of a distant voice, somehow familiar. It broke his chain of thought.
He stepped over the bodies and moved towards the door. It was partly open and a different aroma came up through the hallway.
The call came again. “Ready!”
He left the room.
The short story writer just loved the way she did chicken cacciatore.
