Read Agent finds a Warrior Online
Authors: Guy Stanton III
Tags: #crime, #suspense, #speculative fiction, #supernatural, #action adventure, #contemporary romance, #inspirational romance, #romance thriller, #christian fiction, #secret agent, #dystopian thriller
Book Six
of
The Agents for Good
Words of Action
Copyright © 2014 by Guy S. Stanton, III.
Published by Guy S. Stanton III at
Smashwords
All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any
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electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses
permitted by copyright law.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the
author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used
for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living
or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or
locales is completely coincidental.
Book Layout ©2013 BookDesignTemplates.com
Cover Designer Artist: Melody Simmons
Ordering Information:
Agent for a Cause
is commonly
available for sale everywhere eBooks are sold.
Agent finds a Warrior/ Guy S. Stanton, III.
-- 1st ed.
ISBN
Dedicated to great love
stories everywhere.
The lights passed by in a blur of color
outside the windows of the taxi. We were in the city where we would
spend the night.
Tomorrow, who knows what tomorrow would
bring.
One thing was for sure. It was bound to be
different all because of her.
I glanced away from the window and over to
Maria where she lay up against the other car door fast asleep. She
was going to change everything about my structured existence.
It certainly didn’t help any that I burned
with desire for her either. This was the hardest test I had ever
been given. I didn’t for a moment doubt that this test was of God’s
creation.
There was no other way to explain the
involvement of angels or how perfectly I had been set up to have to
take care of another, who had my similar condition of stretched out
existence.
Why was God tormenting me so?
What was to be gained by exposing me to
someone that canceled out all the barriers I had so carefully
erected over the years?
What was I missing in all this?
I thought about it and through the course of
that thought I remembered the circumstances of Job. Grimly, I
admitted to myself that I had been laboring under the assumption of
his mistake. I had thought it unjust of God to tear me down, as I
had been ever faithful to do His bidding.
It was the same with me as it had been with
Job. If God chose to build me up He could do so and if He wanted to
tear me down He could do so as well. As a creation of His
handiwork, who was I to say otherwise?
It was hard to except that my destruction,
as it felt like to me, was at the orchestration of God. What was I
to do other than to be obedient, as I had always been, even if it
felt like I was being exposed to hell.
Speaking of hell my temptation started to
awaken.
Maria straightened up blinking her eyes,
“Where are we?”
“Unimportant for you to know.”
She glanced at me, “Are you always this
cryptic?”
I felt my jaw tense, “I wouldn’t know. I’ve
never had a tagalong before.”
Maria cocked her head to the side to regard
me curiously, “You’re not happy at all to have me along are you? Am
I cramping your style?”
“Yes!” I responded emphatically.
“Good!”
I blinked, what did she mean by that?
She folded her arms and regarded me smugly,
“So glad to know that I’m a burden to you. Just think how much less
of a burden I would be to you if you’d let me keep the Agency. Can
you imagine it Elon? Going for years at a time without seeing each
other, as opposed to this up close working relationship, which I
detest as much if not more than you do!”
“Then why did you come?” I asked with
genuine curiosity.
She looked away to the city lights flashing
by her window, “Because I was asked to.”
“By God?”
Maria nodded.
I sighed and glanced out my window.
So be it then.
I turned back to Maria, “Okay some ground
rules to start out this working relationship, as you’ve termed it.
I don’t need a partner who is committed to stabbing me in the back
verbally or figuratively every chance she gets because of past
occurrences that she feels she is owed some level of revenge
for.”
She nodded, while still looking out her
window.
“Call me old-fashioned, but I require a
verbal answer to that, as it denotes the respect that I am worthy
of as a man.”
To my surprise Maria turned her head away
from the window to meet my eyes and say, “Yes Sir.”
Her eyes fell from mine as she asked, “Is
there anything else?”
“Yes, there is. In this roundtable
discussion platform we’re having on joint relations I’ve expressed
one of my desires for a better working experience together. Do you
have a request of me in regards to something you’d like to see
changed or different in my approach to you?”
Her eyes rose to mine and she softly said,
“I would appreciate it if you’d stop looking at me as if you’d like
to strangle me with your bare hands, burn my remains and toss the
ash over a cliff into the sea.”
I felt myself wince visibly. Had I been
telegraphing my displeasure with the situation that morbidly?
Apparently she thought so.
She was partially right about one thing. I
had almost murdered her. To have walked away from her at the
gravesite would have been murder, because I’d had the ability to
help her. I hadn’t walked away though and now her life was my
responsibility.
I reached my hand out to her and offered it
in the traditional form of a business partnership. She looked at my
hand held in midair closely and for a moment I wondered if she was
too much of a germaphope to shake it, but then I saw that she was
looking at the interlaced scars on my palm.
Hesitantly her slim fingers slipped into my
grasp and we shook.
Her eyes were still on my hand as I pulled
it away and she asked, “How does that work? What you did to restore
Utah and now me?”
“It’s complicated, but if you would like I
could teach you how to do it.”
She gestured to herself in surprise, “I can
do that?”
“Surprisingly yes.”
She tensed up somewhat at my words and
regally asked, “Why is it a surprise that I could be capable of
doing it?”
“Because you’re the first person in over a
thousand years that I’ve met that still had the capability to do
what I do.”
Her jaw fell open in complete astonishment
and I took a moment to enjoy how completely I’d just unsettled her,
with a glimpse as to my length of days upon the Earth. Good, maybe
she wouldn’t question my judgment calls so much from now on.
Somehow I doubted it, because at heart she
was a very independent woman, which was likely going to cause
problems between us, as I only took orders from a Higher
Authority.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Maria stared out the window at the passing
scenes of the city. Who had she gotten mixed up with?
Over a thousand years!
That meant he was older yet and she had
thought that her condition had been a strange one!
The things he must have seen and done!
How old was he and why of all the women in
the world had she been picked to be his companion?
No answer from heaven was forthcoming to her
question. She glanced at him to see him studying her with a small
smile playing about his lips. She quickly looked away back out the
window. Did he have to be so gorgeous?
Everything about Elon was attractive and now
he was as mysterious as she was on top of it all. She didn’t want
this!
She didn’t want where she thought this was
all headed. She’d never wanted anything like that!
Okay that was a lie.
There had been a time, but that time was no
more. But what was the worst of it though was that she sensed that
there would be a forced surrender on her part at some point and
alarmingly she had the feeling that she would like it.
It started to rain and she inwardly groaned
at the sound of water hitting the taxis’ roof. She had to visit the
restroom so bad!
Maria’s face flushed, as she realized that
Elon had interpreted her shifting about on the seat, in correlation
to the sudden downpour outside.
“Give me your hand.”
Maria glanced at Elon mortified, but obeyed
with his request.
His big fingers pressed and pulled
rhythmically in and around some of her fingers and the abrupt need
to go was gone suddenly. The need to go was still there, but the
urgency was not.
“Maria?”
She looked up into his eyes from where his
fingers worked upon her hand and he said, “Don’t let your pride get
in the way again. When you need something ask me. When you have to
go or need a rest tell me. If you’re in pain let me know and if
you’re hungry and so on and so on. Don’t try to be a tough girl or
else this relationship isn’t going to work for you as well as it
could.”
Maria studied him closely. His eyes weren’t
mean, rather they were sincere. This relationship that was forming
almost felt like a marriage in terms of how much was to be shared
and in turn jointly trusted.
Swallowing slightly she nodded.
In a small way she had just submissively
agreed to give away a part of her precious privacy and she didn’t
like it, but it was what was best for the relationship.
They reached the hotel, which was a nice one
and quickly dashed in out of the rain, after Elon paid the taxi
driver a tremendous sum of money for driving them on a two-hour
trip from one city to the next. Elon then directed her to the front
desk clerk and gave a fictitious name and a 14 digit security
code.
The clerk nervously nodded and handed over a
passkey to what appeared to be a single room.
Maria saw a restroom, but she passed it up
even though her need was dire.
Before she knew it she was in the elevator
alone with Elon. She lifted one foot up anxiously and caught Elon
regarding her with humor. His features lightened by humor were
quite eye-catching.
Maria glanced away, but then spoke as she
figured that she owed him an explanation according to her new
tell-all agreement with him, “I passed up the restroom
because……”
“Because you’re a germaphobe and the option
of a more personal choice of facilities, as opposed to a facility
frequented by the often unwashed masses is a more desirable
alternative. Am I right?”
Maria looked down smiling slightly and
nodded.
“I never imagined you for a germaphobe. With
your immune system it’s doubtful that you’d fall prey to any of the
normal bugs that you might encounter in a restroom.”
Maria’s voice was tinged with anxiety as she
responded, “Believe me right now I wish I wasn’t a germaphobe!”
Elon’s hand claimed hers and his fingers
were pressing on hers again, as he had done in the taxi. It helped
once again and before she knew it Elon was holding the room key
card up in front of her face, “Room 703 on the left.”
The doors of the elevator opened and Maria
took off.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I leaned back against the wall as I waited.
I felt at the smile on my face with the fingers of one hand. I
really needed to stop smiling so much, but it was hard not to.
Maria had always been such a mystery to me,
partially because there were few mysteries I wasn’t somehow partly
aware of. In the last several hours I had learned a wealth of
intangible knowledge about Maria and I had only grown more
fascinated with her, which was very bad.
I heard my name called and I stepped forward
to rap the door lightly with my knuckles. The door abruptly jerked
open and Maria stood there looking embarrassed. In fact I had never
seen her so embarrassed before.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t realize that I’d locked
you out in the hall. I……”
I held up a hand and she stopped and I
waited for her eyes to raise up to mine. “Your world has been
turned upside down. A man as close to you as a father has departed
from your life leaving a big hole behind. You almost died and now
you’re alone with a stranger in a partnership that you don’t want
or understand and you’re not sure what’s going to hit you next. Am
I right?”
I saw her lean into the door slightly, as
the emotion of everything that she was dealing with seemed to catch
up with her.
“You’re tired Maria. It’s all right if your
actions don’t seem to make much sense right now and that you’re not
your usual controlled self. You are after all only human. So this
is going to be the way of it. We’re going to see what is of use in
that pack that you were given and while you get a hot shower and
relax a little I’ll make reservations for us to have dinner. We’ll
go out and eat and then come back. You’ll camp out on your bed and
I’ll camp out on mine and we’ll amicably fight over what we want to
watch on TV, not that there’s anything worth fighting over.”