Perfect Crime
Chapter 1
Arriving fifteen minutes late at today’s briefing, I burst into the operations room. The only source of light was a projector, currently displaying a satellite photo of a suburban villa. Ignoring the judging looks of my colleagues, I made a run for the last empty chair in the room.
“What’s the matter, Kirkland? Couldn’t hypnotize the bus driver to go faster?” I physically cringed at the ‘joke’ of our HUMINT expert, slumping against the expensive leather chair and turning to face the projection. My superiors had long recognized the value of having an agent with the ability to hypnotize anyone on the spot, but on the ground, it was hard to appreciate. For that reason, I didn’t hold it against the other departments for the ridicule they subjected me to, every time we had to gather for a cross-department briefing.
When asked, I liked to claim hypnosis was a natural power I had from birth, but the reality was far less glamorous. It involved endless hours of studying and practicing in my otherwise dreadful college days, enough to make the FBI notice my skills by the time of my graduation. Since leaving college, my specialty has been manipulating suspects and extracting confessions on the spot.
“So, what did I miss?” I asked Collins, the Director of the Los Angeles Field Division who was fifteen years my senior, give-or-take.
“Not much,” the gray-haired bureaucrat replied. “We were actually waiting for you to start the briefing, James. Doesn’t make much sense to begin without one of the two agents we’ll be deploying present.”
“In that case, you have my undivided attention,” I replied honestly. As I listened to the details, I tried to get more comfortable in my chair.
“Yesterday afternoon, Laura van Beek received a call threatening her life. She made her concern clear to the Bureau, and provided us with the basic contents of the call. Our experts believe this to be a threat by the mob, and have determined tonight as the likeliest date and time for an attack. Agent Kirkland, Agent Ramirez, we will be dispatching you to her residence to ensure her safety.”
As Collins droned on about the details of the mission, Laura van Beek’s face was plastered on the screen in front of me, next to the satellite footage which was almost entirely covered in markers and arrows. Taking a closer look at her, it hadn’t taken long for me to recognize her as one of the actresses that had recently enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame. If I was to judge by her long, dirty blonde hair and her deep blue eyes, her looks had certainly played a role. Collins wrapped up his review, and it was my turn to ask questions.
“Alright, if this is a typical VIP protection mission, why was I assigned to it when there’s no hypnosis involved? Do you really consider this to be an efficient use of my skill set?”
Director Collins gave me a stern look. “Kirkland, the reason we trained you to be an agent and not just a specialist is to partake in this exact kind of live mission, instead of arriving in your trench coat the next day to interrogate a suspect who’s already disappeared. Plus, I actually thought you’d appreciate being the foot soldier for once, instead of partaking in the dangerous ops every other week. You will be taking the northwest corner of the house, Ramirez will be taking southeast. Good luck.” He closed his notepad, turned off the projector and got up. I had a mission to prepare for.
Arriving at van Beek’s front door with my colleague, we both had our badges open and facing her as our way of saying ‘hello’.
“Oh, thank you so much for coming,” she said with a light European accent, wearing jeans and a beige sweater. “I was really shaken up by this whole ordeal, and I hope it’s nothing serious, but you understand…” The more she spoke, the more I realized I was ignoring her words and focusing on her statuesque figure. At the cost of her labeling me a weirdo, I stared intently at her face, iring her beauty even without all the makeup she would wear on TV. Her perfect facial features, her piercing blue eyes… I had never watched her as the star of a movie, but one thing was for sure: she was even more beautiful in person.
“Is that alright?” Oh, she had been talking this whole time. “Uh, yeah,” I mumbled. “We’ll make ourselves invisible, just get comfortable.” The actress nodded, waved at us and went back inside. Just as instructed, me and Ramirez took our assigned positions on opposite corners of this luxurious house. Mine oversaw a crossroads, which I was supposed to constantly overlook for any suspicious activity. As time went on, however, it was looking like the greatest challenge in this mission would be resisting the temptation Laura offered. But I was here to protect her. I had to not forget.
Minutes turned to hours, and by midnight, the task of a security guard had turned into a dull, meaningless one. Holding my position in the northwest, I was glancing at my watch when a noise from behind scared the living daylight out of me.
“Hey, I brought you something to eat.” Mercifully, it was no one else but Laura, dressed in a lavender nightgown and holding a plate with a freshly-baked croissant.
“Jesus Christ, Ms. van Beek, please be less stealthy next time!” I complained, soon regretting my words to the gorgeous actress.
“I assumed you must be pretty hungry… And if your job is to protect me, then I ought to keep you well-fed, right?” She finished her sentence with a chuckle, and it was so contagious I had to share her laugh. God, her presence was intoxicating. I could see how she had made a name for herself in the cutthroat business of acting, and to add to that, her nightgown was subtly highlighting all her best features… I merely took the croissant in my hand and nodded in appreciation, as Laura left me to continue my guard duty.
When I’d accepted that leaflet at graduation from the man in sunglasses, I had also accepted never feeling the warmth and kindness of women like her. As an agent not on the books, it had been made clear to me that long-lasting relationships were out of the question for as long as I was working in the field. Period. Even though the job was far from the glamorous, exciting 007-work I was promised at my graduation, that was still the greatest downside I could find to it.
Ever since my first year as an agent, the thought had always nagged the back of my mind that with the right starting point, I could drop everything FBI-related and start over from scratch, with my skills as a lifeboat to make some quick cash. And, by God, was Laura a hell of a starting point. It wouldn’t be legitimate, I told myself, but I could definitely get used to her bringing me croissants every day and night in a gown. Or even less, for that matter.
I checked the roads that intersected in front of me for the last time, ensuring there were no suspicious luxury cars with tinted windows ready to kidnap our VIP. Once I was positive no such vehicle was hiding in the cover of the darkness, I turned on my heels and headed straight for Laura’s bedroom with great confidence, abandoning my post.
Most ordinary people would have gotten lost in the maze-like hallways of Laura van Beek’s residence, each leading to a different restroom or closet. Thankfully, I had carefully studied every room and possible route inside Laura’s house as part of my preparation for the mission. The same mission I was putting in jeopardy by… definitely not protecting the actress from mobsters. At least, I could rest assured that Ramirez was still maintaining his post in the southeast, and would be clueless as to what I was about to orchestrate.
Looking to minimize noise, I opened the door to Laura’s bedroom at a painfully slow speed. There she was, lying on her personal king-sized bed, deeply asleep, oblivious as to any plots against her. As I stepped on a loose wooden board, however, the creak was enough to wake her up.
“Nghhh… What is going on? James?” Laura turned on the nightstand’s light, illuminating both our faces.
“Shh… Everything is alright. I just need your attention for a bit.” In a normal mission, a stopwatch or a metronome would come into play right about now, but this was a far cry from a normal mission, so I had to improvise. “Just focus on my hand, concentrate on its movement and how it rhythmically moves in circles.” Given that she was just waking up, the earlier I could do the induction, the easier it would be thanks to her drowsy state.
“Why should I focus on your … hand?” She looked puzzled, and as someone who has trouble waking up, I could understand.
“Don’t think, just act. Keep your eyes glued to my hand, moving in circles, and following my lead in the same repetitive motion.”
“I… Okay…” Her head was now doing small circles of its own, following only slightly behind my own mesmerizing movement.
“Begin to feel your eyelids grow heavy, yearn to return to the sleepy state they were in just a minute ago.”
“It was kind of better…” she itted in a low voice.
“Don’t think, just act. Counting down. Three, oh-so exhausted and eager to sleep.”
“Three…”
“Two, eyes starting to close back to their natural state.”
“Two…”
“One, eyelids shut close in a blissful state of relaxation.”
“One—”
“And sleep,” snapping my fingers emphatically.
Rarely did I see subjects fall so quickly and so effortlessly into a trance without any tools to assist. But Laura’s trust in me and her having just woken up were both key ingredients that were usually missing from the criminals I had to deal with. Now, only the bed’s headboard prevented the entranced actress from losing her balance.
“Laura, open your eyes but remain in this state of deep trance.” She complied, and those glassy eyes opened once more. Though they were aimed in my direction, it was as if they looked straight through me, as if I wasn’t there.
“Listen to me. You know that my duty is your protection. So, from now on, you will follow every command I give you because it is what’s best for you.”
“Yes… Master.” What did she say? For once, I wasn’t putting words in her mouth. This was her subconscious bubbling to the surface, and I would have to later check if she had starred in any films involving a hypnotized damsel. For now, her agreement had spurred some arousal within me, and so I found the most obvious outlet: Laura’s small, yet still beautiful breasts. I groped them with both hands, playing with them to reinforce her programming as I delivered her next orders.
“Here is what you will do. These are the keys to my safehouse in Van Nuys.” Momentarily taking my hands off her chest, I removed one rusty key from my keychain and left it on her palm. “Write a note explaining why you left on your own volition, leave it in the kitchen, and exit the house in the most discreet way you know. Take a cab to 13521, Fulton Street. I’ll you shortly.”
Laura didn’t hesitate. She moved like she was sleepwalking, clenching the keys in her fist and heading to the kitchen. I watched her equally mesmerizing ass sway for a few moments to make sure she was obeying, and then returned to my post at the southeast corner.
A few minutes later, I caught a glimpse of her leaving through a fence gate in the backyard, and just like that she was gone. Somehow, I was already anxiously anticipating the next time I would see her.