A Short Story By Jack Mint
She takes one glance over her shoulder before she ducks into the alleyway. Her coat tails are the last wisp of red the camera catches. Her heart beats as loud as the echo of her boots but she doesn’t look back anymore. Because there is no turning back now and no reason to look back when so much change awaits the day. A man in the street she left reaches into the trashcan and fishes out her phone, the one she smashed with her boot. He presses a finger to his ear and walks away.
A door at the end of the alley opens and she whips in like a red wind. Her father closes the door and asks if she was followed. She shakes her head and goes straight to the kitchen table. She pushes aside the laptops and security logs with abandon to open her briefcase.
Carolyn, you must go, says the father, I can hear them outside.
She tells him to lock the door with the regret of knowing he will die. He knows this too as he hears the approaching footsteps in the alleyway. He shuts his eyes with the lock pinched between his fingers. Slowly, slowly he turns it until the final click. A vicious knock shatters the silence. She almost drops the vial back into the briefcase. She can’t fumble now, not when they have come so far in the name of the revolution. She pulls the plunger of the syringe down and the purple liquid fills the tube. The knocks are surrounded by angry shouts. Authority, order, justice is calling for their arrest. She doesn’t look back at her father, her love is breaking her heart but it’s too late to turn back. She slides the needle into her wrist and the cold purple goes into her body.
The door flings open and throws her father back. They see the bat in his hand and shoot him. Other officers are already through the back door. The captain steps over the man’s body and into the kitchen. The woman is gone. Just an open briefcase and a broken syringe on the linoleum floor.
A sergeant tells the captain the house is clear, no sign of the suspect in red.
The failed captain says the woman is now a million miles away and the president is as good as dead.
