Deleted Scene: The Removal of the First Team
Context: Allen is meeting with the current team. They have failed to
produce what his employer needs. (Sorry, trying not to create a BIG spoiler
here.)
The room was immense, the size of a large gymnasium. There was a coldness about
the place that had nothing to do with its polished concrete floors and lack of
furnishings. The only furniture was a gray metal desk and chair and a beautiful
Japanese screen in the very far left corner. The screen was painted with bold
black symbols on a red and white background. It stood out in sharp relief to the
dull gray walls. The room’s coldness, however, was more attributable to the man
sitting at the metal desk. He was staring down a group of men fidgeting in front
of him.
“Gentlemen, I find this all unacceptable. Get out and collect your paychecks.”
The men shuffled about as they left, but Allen noted the grumbling was kept to a
minimum and no one, not one of the nine, complained – at least not in this room.
This was not the place to voice any kind of dissent. They were getting a
paycheck, not a bullet. He hoped they knew they were lucky.
As the door closed behind them, Allen rose from his desk and walked back to the
corner where the Japanese screen stood. He stopped in front of it and kept his
eyes fixed on one of the black symbols. “What do you think?”
“Were they all in
“Yes.”
“Kill them all and hire another team.”
“Right away.” Allen left the room as fast as a dignified stride would take him.
Standing in the anteroom, he removed his glasses and gave the lenses a cruel
cleansing with his handkerchief. Once he had not needed these. Once, before his
soul was sold . . .
He felt Bienn before he saw her.
“Make arrangements to have the last team expunged.”
“All of them?”
“Yes, all of them. Put together a new team. We’re running out of time”
“Understood.”
“And Bienn, kill them quickly this time. Nothing messy. I don’t want a trail
leading back to
Bienn nodded and left the room. Today she wore her own face. She was a petite
woman with short blond hair and even shorter skirts. She cultivated the look of
the airhead, the blond bimbo, but she was a talented and extremely intelligent
woman – MIT graduate, biochemist, and lethal. She loved for people to disregard,
underestimate or stereotype her. It was a great intelligence-gathering tool.
People said things because they thought she was too stupid to understand.
They generally lived to regret it.
He looked at his watch. There was less than one month left until the solstice.
They were running out of time.