Ishtar, after transforming into a complete hint of maturity, held a handbag around her lower left arm and paused infront of a mirror.
"Um, not nice!"
She removed it in a blink and swung it away, down to the floor.
According to how she wanted to disguise for the mission, simple and strategic, a handbag didn't seem to bring out the best appearance she need to see herself. That is when she got her eyes on a newspaper booklet which was laying clean on a coffee brown table, waiting for anyone to explore it's pages.
Another brilliant idea clicked in. With ease, and a smile, she reached out for it.
"Well, I guess I found a perfect companion for the job."
With newspapers rolled well like a small pipe in the hand, it was high time for her to get out of her hotel suite, to commit bad habits. When she confidently got the door handle and stepped out, first thing, Ishtar stood for a few seconds before taking further steps that led her to her mission destination. She turned the head and looked left, and then right in the long red carpeted corridor of the grand hotel.
After getting a clear sense of direction, then she began to move on the left, upto mounting the elevator. In this ninth hour, all alone in the elevator as it glided to higher levels, her mind calmly recalled the instructions.
"Ebony dude, 6ft, suite number 256".
Then she raised her face and looked up at the orange light numbers which ascended in order of each floor level the elevator reached. The building was high enough that she had to give the elevator time.
"Beep!"
A loud one that indicated the arrival at her destination floor.
Elevator doors parted open instantly. Head up straight, majestically Ishtar matched out, walking through the quiet air on an elegant long corridor with a red carpet design, similar to that on her floor.
Like a visitor showing up for an appointment, that's how Ishtar stood, boldly with a sweet smile on her face, by the door, outside hotel suite number 256. Decently, according to the plan, twice in a row she knocked. But to her instant wary, slightly the door extended inwards.
It was already open.
That was way beyond from what she came expecting: a humble knock as she had done, then her target from inside comes to open - she strikes at him immediately he opens and the rest is history.
But now, her calculation was inconvenienced by the uncertainty. As a skilled assassin who was prepared to execute, now she had to find her way inside, more careful with a different set up plan, regardless.
Corridor cameras were watching, and this she knew.
Neither afraid nor panicking, Ishtar slided her foot slightly and the nose of the shoe she was wearing touched and pushed the door more open. Then, at an instant, she lifted her head high, widened her eyes, displayed a happy face to pretend that someone from inside just opened for her and both are indeed happy to see eachother.
"Hey!"
Calmly, she welcomed herself inside and then closed the door behind her.
However, having found the door open, with instinct, deep within she felt something might be wrong somewhere.
Inside, lights were brightly on, and the air was filled with a heavy silence. Carefully, avoiding to emit any kind of sound, Ishtar unrolled the newspapers which she was holding, and here she had put a short blade together with a wire gauze _ the weapons she prepared to use, for her mission to be a success.
After all, with her amnesia condition, taking lives of people was the only work she knew best to do.
Ishtar equipped herself ready to sting like a bee. In a dress code which wasn't her style but part of a make-up disguise, with great vigor, she began to glide her feet on the floor like a cat that doesn't want to scare away its prey. She keenly moving her eye around the place, prepared to take down anyone who appeared in 6ft.
Ishtar expected to find her target sprawled on the bed, snoring through another tired night.
Instead, she froze. Amidst the disarray of the room, her target lay motionless, his face pale against the pillows, a thin line of crimson staining the sheets.
Ishtar didn't scream. But Instead, she walked forward, closer to him.
As she reached, the reality of the scene gave her a two second tremble. The man laying on bed with his eyes closed was the same man Bob Lee was talking to the time she checked in, in this grand hotel.
Moment later, Ishtar was back to her suite.
All overwhelmed, she grabbed the wigg off her head which was disturbingly hot now. She dropped down on buttocks on a coach where she disappointedly leaned and relaxed her back. Having found her target unlived, as an expert assassin, she felt so much cheated.
In the mind she was very unsettled.
"Why do I feel haunted?"
By instinct, Ishtar fought the urge not to just sit in overwhelming thoughts.
Quickly, she got up from the coach and went to find her suitcase. From inside, she fished a laptop. With a sense of urgency, she sat right there, down on the floor. Using her laps as a table on which it sat, she opened it, clicked in an unfamiliar application where she began to write to Mr Beard.
"Mission sabotaged. The target was already eliminated when I got there. Do you know who did the job?"
Mr Beard replied:
"He's a new client. Maybe he doubted our services!"
Ishtar was of a view:
"If the client is in Paris, then I think we need to pay him a visit and showcase our capability."
"Have you forgotten the rules of the game?"
She answered:
"Not really, but this careless mistake needs to be corrected before it's too late. However, I know that our clients need not to see my face and I won't give him that."
She added:
"Client's name and photo, please!"
And in just a micro second, an inbox popped up on the upper side of the laptop.
"Bingo."
Mr Beard replied:
"You have 48 hours to get it done."
Ishtar didn't wait to open the inbox.
"His name is Bob Lee."
Looking at the photo, he was the very man whose images kept flashing in her head while both of them are dripping wet on a wide bed, as she screams and yearns affectionately.
In her panicking thoughts:
"Goosebumps again! This man is like a tumor eating my brains not to function well. Wont let this slide."
Ishtar's amnesia condition played a big role in making her think of a man she was married to, as a stranger she never met, who appears in her head, just to make it spin restlessly. About the way goosebumps raided her skin whenever this mysterious man 'Bob Lee' came in picture, Ishtar got increasingly wary.
More challenging thoughts piled:
"Even if it needs me to tempt him into laying down with me for my head to clear, then be it.
Then another one clicked instantly:
"No, I think killing him will be a better option _ yes, if that's how these stubborn images will vanish off my brain!"