The Crimes and Punishments of Miss Payne by Barry Jonsberg Page B

was bothered by just one thought. I felt somehow that it was important to write down everything I was feeling, to record my thoughts in case they appeared stupid in the morning. Or, even worse, cloudy and insubstantial.
    Sometimes diaries are a really good idea, you know. It was a shame I'd thrown so many away.
    Year 6, First Term
    You are pinned up against the school fence. You're scared, but try not to show it. As you look up into the boy's face, your eyes blink nervously behind large, multicolored glasses. He is taller than you and a lot heavier. He has a stupid face, leaden and cruel. As he leans toward you, he prods you painfully in the shoulder with a blunt, dirty finger.
    “You need to watch your mouth,” he says. “You think you can say what you like about me, is that it? You think I won't hit a girl?”
    He pushes his face farther into yours and you can smell stale tobacco. His face buckles into anger as you say nothing. His right hand, cocked behind his shoulder, clenches into a fist. You close your eyes and wait.

Chapter 10
Every dog has its night
    FBI Special Agent Calma Harrison stepped from the shower. She got dressed quickly, paying no attention to the thin scar that ran down the side of her stomach. A memento of a fight in Beirut. Just before she had broken his neck, he had slashed her across the abdomen. Later, she had stitched herself with a sharpened twig and a length of twine she had fashioned from local native grasses. A neat job, even more remarkable because she had no anesthetic. She preferred to bite on a bullet. One time, she had been sewing her ear back on in Botswana when she bit too hard and shot a passing antelope.
    Her eyes flickered as she detected a sound in the corridor outside her hotel room. Nerves on full alert, she whipped her Walther PPK semiautomatic from the holster and with catlike grace backflipped acrossthe room, pressing herself against the wall There was a knock on the door.
    “Who is it?” she breathed.
    “Room service,” came the reply.
    Calma registered the voice and instantaneously processed its accent. Despite the attempt at disguise—good, but not quite good enough
—
she placed it within a second. A rarely heard dialect from the East Bank of the Mezzanine Strip. A tiny village called B'Gurrup. The owner of the voice lived three streets down from the butcher's shop. Maybe four, Calma thought. She hadn't been to B'Gurrup in over fifteen years.
    Her mind raced. Who had connections with the Mezzanine Strip? It was a filthy, dangerous place, a hotbed of mercenaries, hit men and used-car salesmen. The answer was clear. Only one person would think of employing the specialist skills to be found in B'Gurrup. Her archenemy. The Pitbull.
    Calma did a forward roll and in less than three seconds, two hundred rounds from the Walther crashed through the spy hole in the center of the massive oak door. She opened the door and examined the bloody mess on the doorstep. The would-be assassin had a small ground-to-ground heat-seeking missile launcher in his right hand. In his left was a Kalashnikov rifle, a cluster grenade and a Swiss Army knife. This man had come prepared for action.
    “Too bad, buddy,” Calma growled as she stepped overhim and headed for the elevator. Curiously, she felt a sense of relief. She still remembered that incident in Miami when she had accidentally blown away the night manager of her hotel. She had been certain that his accent was from a small Shiite community that had ordered her death through a high-level fatwa. It turned out that he had simply had a bad head cold.
    Calma stepped from the hotel onto the bustling streets. Kiffing was waiting for her at the agreed park bench, idly kicking a small Pekingese dog that was trying to attach itself to his trouser leg.
    “News?” said Calma.
    “The Pitbull is here. We're not sure why, but we think it might be connected to next week's UN Assembly. The word on the street is that there is to be an assassination