Читать книгу Female Snipers - Greg Pius - Страница 7

Hannah Feelgood was in a moment of bliss but it was mental not physical. The national assessment test results had come in and her little refugee class scored the top band for literacy. This made up for all her long nights of lesson preparation. All the unrelenting stream of marking creative writing stories was now well worth her lost social life. Using her own phonetics teaching system Hannah had been able to overcome all her students' literacy problems. Now she was in the United Nations Refugee Camp's Education Center talking to the unit director. There was a lot of jealous comments coming from local state school teachers. They were ganging up on Hannah because their own classes had received poorer literacy assessment grades. The unit director was a teacher from Africa who knew all about the pettiness that could occur in these situations. Her name was Zeida Emem! She told Hannah that her last name meant 'a person of peace". Living up to her surname Director Emem said in a conciliatory tone of voice,

"You must remember that your students are less distracted by alternate activities. The country children around here go to school but live for the country lifestyle. Instead of doing vital homework they are more likely to have volunteered for extra chores on their parent's properties. Children respond to success more readily than they do to compulsion. Most country kids are not going to let phonetics homework stop them from their pony club activities."

Knowing that they were alone in the Director's office Hannah laughed before saying in a resigned tone of voice,

"These teachers just cannot see the benefits of my teaching system. But it really does produce the results if you stick to the pursuit of constant improvement."

Director Zeida Emem was a big fan of Hannah's teaching system. She had contacted the headquarters of the United Nations World Literacy Task Force. Four members from the African branch of the WLTF had arrived to study Hannah in action. Gorata Funaha the African Director, Tiego Maagi the group's statistician and Jabori the group's theoretician all had flown in over eight days ago. They were impressed with what they had witnessed and stunned by the results of separate testing modules. So Director Emem felt she was on solid ground when she said in a confident tone of voice,

"Your teaching system could be used as an accredited world's best practice benchmark."

Stunned by this news prediction, Hannah tried to be modest, shifting most of the credit for those excellent results back onto her students. She said in a delighted and proud tone of voice,

"After you teach them the basics it is the students not the teacher who sets the standards. All I do then is hold them up to the standards they set for themselves. Its their own efforts that make those necessary leaps of practice to obtain those literacy skill levels!"

Zeida thought that Hannah was being too modest so she said in a impressed tone of voice,

"You do not give yourself enough praise for what you have done with those students. I have sat in on one of your classes. It is obvious to the most casual observer that all your students love you and will do anything you ask of them. This is a great achievement just by itself."

Now Hannah was blushing but could not help feeling very proud of her students. If they did love her then the feeling on her part was mutual. So she said in a caring tone of voice,

"They are all special students. Each one has a unique approach to solving their own literacy problems. I am just their resource person."

Not buying that modest assessment for one moment ,Director Emem said in a determined tone of voice,

"If only more of my teaching staff were as dedicated as you. We would have the very top numeracy and literacy grades! Thank you again for all your remarkable efforts."

Whist Hannah was displaying all the instincts of her profession in helping her students to be successful self-motivated individuals, the civil war continued around her. Back in the harbor city, three commando snipers were meeting to plan their next black op. assignation. As the oldest sister by a mere three minutes, Major Otrera Doras took the chair. He sister Antiope with her brunette hair down to her waist was impatient to get away on this new mission for the President. On the other hand her sister Penthesileia' s golden blonde hair hid her high intelligence but could not hide a strongly felt apprehension about the risks involved in their latest mission. All three young women were exceptionally fit, sharp eyed, steady of hand and experienced snipers. But political assignations tend be fraught with severe blow-back ramifications. So there was much heated debate between these three siblings.

Otrera tried to get back control of her sisters by bluffing them into the thinking that everything was simple and straightforward. She said in a confident tone of voice,

"Look all we have to do is wait for the two of them to leave the harbor-side official residence. They have to walk out onto the street as no cars are allowed in except the President's own car. When they go to their car two of us take them both out with one shot each. The third sniper will then kill any secret service guard who seems to be ready to return fire. In the proceeding confusion we make out escape via the ferry wharf. I have arranged for a fast bait to meet us there so we can clear any roadblocks or perimeter security clampdown."

Penthesileia could see the flaw in this plan straight away. Not convinced by her sister's bluff she said in a disbelieving tone of voice,

"A good plan except for two small details. The secret service will have a helicopter covering the motorcade. The water police will also have a support police launch. What about those apples in your simple pie Otty?"

Annoyed that her clever sister had called her bluff, Otrera tried the big sister veto approach by saying in an angry tone of voice,

"Don't call me Otty. Dad use to call me that just before he deserted us and Mum. My name is Otrera to celebrate our mother's Greek heritage. How would you like it if I called you Penty? As for the helicopter support I have had some talk with their base commander. Seems that such support can be cancelled at a minute;s notice if there is a reported rebel attack in the city."

Now suspicious of her sister's tactics as some sort of mask for her hidden agenda Penthesileia said in a sarcastic tone of voice

"How you can even remember our father, given that he abandoned us when we were only two years old ,is beyond me. As for calling me Penty I have no objections. It certainly is better than having to spell my first name out to everyone I meet, then do it all over again because no one can remember such an ancient Greek name. Why Mum named us after the daughters amazonian warriors. Okay it was great to be named after an Amazonian Queen who was wise, brave and skillful with weapons. Even better to have been the one to kill Achilles. That is until Zeus brought him back to life to kill that Amazonian Queen. But the spelling of my name is a pain in the backside. Just like this mission will be if that police boat catches us fleeing the scene of a double homicide."

Neither sister was prepared to back down, so Antiope yet again had to come between them to mend their dispute. She said in an amused tone of voice,

"Well I love my name. Especially after Penty, say I like that can I use that all the time, found out that the mythical Antiope had babies with three gods. Then she had a baby with Hercules. When she finally stopped playing the field of Gods and godlings she married the Trojan priest who saw the trick in the Greeks' Trojan Horse. Cool name all around. But as for your concern about that patrolling police boat surely its standard practice for the secret service to keep state police forces in the dark. We can rely on jurisdiction jealousies to keep the police boat guessing until its too late to stop us escaping."

Both Otrera and Penthesileia were stunned by the perspicacity of the sister they both privately saw as the "dumb one". Still both had to admit that her insight into inter jurisdictional cooperation was correct. The secret service would tell the state harbor police as little as possible. Especially after they had failed to protect the Vice-President and her husband. Al the three of them had to do was hide their sniper rifles in their backpacks and pretend to be tourists. The secret service would be too busy with their road block and perimeter check points to spot such a simple escape plan. Procedure and habit would work in their favor of escaping capture by both secret service agents and harbor police officers. Especially as the harbor would be packed for the celebrations for Australia Day.

So Otrera was able to assume the role of "mother" and serve up the tea that awaited the end of their debate. After her sister had calmed down she said in a conspiratorial tone of voice,

"Lets raise our tea cups to the success of our latest Presidential assignment. This is the big one. After this we all get promoted. Then we can proceed to build up our own power bases. Here's to the three Doras sisters!"

The triplets raised their cups in salute both to their golden futures and to their mother's foresight. It was Antiope again who broke the awkward silences that had developed between suspicious sisters. She said in a sad voice

, "I miss our mother so much. She raised us on her own for most of our lives. Sent us to the best school she could afford. Worked three jobs to keep us fed, clothed and educated. Then she insisted we go to military university. We owe her a lot. Pity we can't hug her anymore."

All three sisters had loved their little mother dearly. These hardened trained killers now broke down as they remember edher painful and sudden death from pneumonia. Tears flowed down their cheeks as sadness griped their dark souls.

At the headquarters of the most successful business in the harbor city Madam Jill Chiu was counting her money and her blessings. Actually Madam Chiu no longer knew exactly how much money she had stashed away in various tax havens. No longer just the Queen of city brothels, Madam Chiu was now Empress of the whole sex industry in her city. Of course much of her fame was due to her skillful use of her most valuable asset. Antoine Monaco had been the number one courtesan to all the city's rich and powerful men. After six years at the top it was time for her to retire and run her own operation. This may have upset the old Madam Chiu but not the modern Czarina of sex. She was even prepared to lend Antoine the money to begin her new phase of life for a percentage of the venture of course but at low interest rates.

Now Madam Chiu was having a business meeting with Antoine but not about the future. This was about the stunning revelation made to Antoine by her lover who was very high up in President Dent's administration. Even the hard headed Madam Chiu could not believe the latest ploy of that paranoid President. She asked Antoine to repeat what she had just revealed. In a hushed tone of voice to avoid being overheard by the other girls Antoine said,

"Its true madam. The Deputy Secretary of State was here in my room telling me that a new Vice President would be needed and I quote: 'As soon as Dent gets rid of the current one and that is imminent.' that is what he said word for word!"

Trying to make sense out of this news Madam Chiu said,

"I knew that the President was paranoid but that is insane. The only way that could happen would be if the Vice President was dead."

Antoine was nodding her head as she finished up her story

"Yes that is what he implied and it will be very soon."