The Three Tasks

I have worked for the Harow Group for about 2 years, but I still don't like the way security watches me. They look down on me, not only because I'm just over 5 feet tall and they are a towering 6'2, but because they think they are better than me. I'm just the cleaning lady and they are the top security officers to the most powerful man in the country. A man no one has ever seen. If all the rumours are true. I went online after accepting this position. The news calls him a revolutionary as he paves the way to new medical developments that help the world, but the whispers say the opposite, the whispers call him a murderer, a criminal, and someone who takes what he wants without any thought of the people it harms. After spending a few hours online and talking to my mother I was hesitant to go in on my first day, but in the end, it's just a job. There weren't many many rules here; show up on time, do your job, and never enter the boss's office. For the last 2 years, I made sure to follow them very closely, often wondering what went on behind the large black doors I wasn't allowed to go through.

Today started the same as every other day, but little did I know this seemingly normal day would end in ways I never believed it would. I listened to my music and tried to do my work while ignoring the men, until one of them approached me. I felt a tap on my shoulder that startled me and made me drop the duster I was using. The tall man looked down on me and told me he had a new task for me that comes directly from the boss and handed me a little black book. I tried to decline, but he just pushed the book at me harder until I took it. Before I have a chance to open it he had already walked away and into the elevator followed by his partner. I started to ask what I'm supposed to do as the doors closed and the man points at the book and tells me to read. Once they are gone and I'm alone I open the book. There is a key taped to the inside cover and an address. On the first page there are instructions:

1 – Go to the house and enter using the key provided.

2 – Retrieve the black bag containing your new identity and the items required.

3 – Once you have the bag, find the cell phone and click send to the pre-written message to receive the first of 3 instalments of $20,000, the next 2 after completing a task.

4 – You must complete the tasks in order or you will not receive the next instalment and we will be forced to find a new person, no loose ends.

5 – Remember the rules if you want to live.

6– We are watching you all the time.

I close the book and put it in my purse and take the elevator to the main floor. I don't have a car but as I pass through security I am handed a key and directed to a brand new SUV out front. As I get in I put the address into the navigation system and I'm off. I don't know what to think as I drive to a suburb about 20 minutes away and park in the driveway. I look around before taking the key out of the book and quickly entering the house. The furnishings are simple but nice and lived in, but there are no photos or anything indicating anyone lives here. I walk through the rooms until I find the black bag on a small bed, in a small bedroom upstairs decorated in pink with flowers and butterflies painted on the walls. The contents are far from what should be in this child's room; there is a gun, new clothes, 2 envelopes, and the cell phone the book mentioned. I quickly get changed and take out the phone to send the message that simply says “send.” Once it's sent a message comes back telling me to check my account. I need to see if this is real or if I'm being played, but sure enough, I see $20,051 in my bank account.

Now it's time to check the first task in the little black book. It seems easy enough; take the case in the back of the SUV to a designated spot back downtown, deliver it to a Mr. Greene, and using the phone provided message when it's been dropped off and I'm back in the SUV. I grab the bag and look in the back of the SUV and see the case. Soon with the destination in the navigation, I'm on my way to completing the first task. I can do this, this isn't so bad. Within 15 minutes I'm in front of a large warehouse. I do as instructed and go back to the SUV to send off the message. I think about how easy that was when there is the loud sound of an explosion behind me. Half of the warehouse is gone and the other half is on fire. People run out choking on smoke as debris falls around them. What have I done? The text comes within a few seconds telling me to move on to the next task.

I'm fighting back tears as I turn the page to the next task that brings me back to the building I work at and to the security office. The little black book doesn't give me much detail, just a badge number that I have seen almost every day for the past 2 years. It's the badge of the man who gave me this book and the task is to hand him one of the envelopes I found in the bag. I notice it's sealed as I hand it to him and watch him open it with a serious expression on his face. I have never seen his face in any other expression until today. Today the shock almost makes me take a step back as he yells at everyone else to leave the office. He looks at me with an expression I'm more used to and demands to know where I got this. Of course, I don't tell him about the task I'm here to perform and take a step away from him. He looks at the documents in the folder again and storms out without another word.

I look to the third task to see that it is the final and worst one. Inside the envelope, I retrieved from the small house is a picture of a man and my task is to kill him. I have never thought about killing anyone, I feel bad about bumping into someone when it was them who walked into me. How am I going to kill this man? A man I don't even know. Again and for the last time, I put the address in the navigation and drive to my target. This time it's a nice house, almost a mansion, and ring the doorbell. Soon it will all be over. When the man opens the door he looks at me and smiles an uneasy smile and invites me in for a drink. I'm surprised when he says my name and tells me how tragic it was for me to lose my parents at such a young age and I know that I don't have to keep up with the charade and I can be myself. I didn't think he would recognize me after all these years. But I never forgot his face. The night he came into my home I was with my mother in my small pink room surrounded by the flowers and butterflies my mother painted for me before I was born. I was 5 at the time, but as I heard the loud crash and when my father yelled up to my mother to hide I knew something was wrong. My mother hid me in my closet and went to block the door, but it was too late and the man who I'm now sharing a drink with walked in. Before he shot my mother she turned towards me and without a sound worded “I love you.” I watched from the closet as she fell, her lifeless eyes staring back at me, but did not move. Soon the sound of the men was gone. My father's friend, Martin came in and took me away from the house. He raised me and I haven't been back since, until today. I created this company to help people and have thrived ever since, but there was the man who killed my parents who still needed to be dealt with.

This man is the reason people think of me as a tyrant. He acts under my name to scare people into doing what he wants. It was so hard to find him, he is a shadow in the wind, but I knew there was someone within my company who did. I gave myself this job. It was easy since no one knew what I looked like and spent the last 2 years listening and waiting. My main security man, the man I trusted my life with was the one to give me that last piece of the puzzle. I gave him a way out for himself and his family. His sweet little daughter who will never have to know her daddy was a monster who helped an evil man torture and kill people for the sake of money. His wife who looks up to him to protect them won't have to know he also protected a man who destroyed the lives of other families like their own. I spared his life and theirs as well by giving them new identities in a new area of the world where he will never come in contact with me or my company ever again. I even gave him some start-up money and an excuse to take his family away with no warning. My chief of security and I used to want the same things when I hired him, through phone calls and text messages. His family was threatened and he was generously compensated which caused him to turn into someone I no longer recognized.

Now here I am having a drink with him. He knows this is the end, but he is not trying to stop me, just casually sits and asks me how my day was. I smile and take the seat to tell him how I destroyed everything he built using my name and influence. My first task was to destroy the warehouse that provided terrorists with the weapons they needed to murder thousands of men, women, and children and I have to say the explosion was magnificent. My second task was to get rid of his inside man, and how my final task is to take control of this ongoing problem. He finishes his drink and I do not hesitate to shoot him in the head. For the innocent people his weapons killed. For the corruption, he brought to my company. And most of all for my parents whose idea pissed off the wrong person and got them killed. An idea that shaped my company and the woman I am today.

The tasks are now complete. People will still not know my name or my face or what I have done. But I will and now without this man I can get back to the real work. The little black book made for me by my father's friend Martin before he died. He was the one to give me my first $20,000 to start my company in honour of the goals my parents had all those years ago.