Chapter 2

The Package

There was a knock at Elise’s door. She quickly places her toast on a plate as she hurries for the door. “Who is it?” Elise says as she gathers herself together. Concentrating on putting on her housecoat, while at the same time running her fingers thru her hair. Thinking to herself and wondering who the hell is at her front door this early in the morning.

She hears another knock at the door. She speaks in a loud and more aggressive voice, saying to the person on the other side of the door, “I SAID HOLD ON, JUST A SECOND. I’m COMING!”

A voice on the other side of the door finally responds replying, “Ok. I am sorry, ma’am.”

Elise makes her way to the door in a rush; she opens the door. There standing in the doorway was a tall skinny white man, wearing black-and-white biker short speedos, a white helmet. On his face he was wearing black square lens glasses, resembling a Harry Potter and Peter Parker combination, a look-alike if you can imagine that.

He reaches inside of his beat-up western antique brown leather satchel, resembling a long and forgotten past, most likely an artifact given as a gift from a highly respected elderly family member. He pulls out a package to hand to Elise saying, “I have a package for Elise Bishop.” The messenger hands her his clipboard and asks, “Can you please sign here and initial here?” Then he hands her a small box-shaped package about the size of a small DVD player.

She tips the messenger, thanks him, and sends him on his way. Elise shuts the door. But before she could walk away from the door, there is another knock at the door.

Elise yells out, “WHO IS IT NOW?”

A soft-spoken male voice replies, “It’s Sherif, your landlord, ma’am.”

She opens the door trying to hide her frustration. There standing in the doorway was a five feet, seven inches, 140 pounds Indian man with very dark skin like bronze, wearing silver rimmed glasses, shaggy curly hair, button-down shirt, blue jeans, and some worn-out leather sandals, reeking of dipping snuff and incenses.

She replies, “Yes sir, Mr. Sherif, how can I help you?”

Mr. Sherif replies, “You’re not ready yet, Miss Bishops?”

Elise replies, “My name is not plural. It’s Bishop, not Bishops, but whatever, ready for what?”

You could see it in his eyes he was confused by her remarks. Sherif looks at Elise, slightly puzzled, saying to her, “Didn’t you read your memo? I put it on the door yesterday morning.”

Elise says to Sherif, “Memo. What memo?”

He says to Elise, trying to hold back his frustration. At that very moment he looks down and sees that his yellow memo paper was on the floor in the hallway, sitting next to the trash can. Then Sherif speaks in a forgiving tone to Elise, “I’m sorry about that. I guess it fell off your door.”

Elise replies, “What’s it about?”

Sherif says, “We are replacing all the hot water heaters in the building to save energy. The boss is going green.”

Elise standing there, for a moment she paused, then says, “OH, ok. Well, as you can see, I’m not ready.” So Sherif says to Elise, “I’ll come back to you last on this floor.”

Elise replies, “Thank you, sir. I really appreciate that. Sorry about the mix-up. I’ll be out of here within the hour.”

Sherif replies, “No problem, no problem, Ms. Bishop. You have a good morning.”

Elise replies, “You do the same, Mr. Sherif.” And she closes the door.

Elise walks away from the door, goes to the kitchen, and picks up the plate with her toast on it. She walks to the dining room table and takes a seat.

Curious to see what was inside the package she had just received. As she starts to open the package, the phone rings; she stops to answer the phone. In a frustrated manner she says, “HELLO, WHAT!” She says to whomever it was on the other line.

The person on the other line replies, “It’s me, girl! Foxy.”

Victoria Denise Robertson, code name Foxy Roxy, a.k.a. the Carmel Queen mean about that green. She is six feet, one inch tall. Her skin is smooth and dark, like a crispy caramel chocolate Hershey’s bar, if you can imagine that. She is a marble of wonder; she is a living, breathing, walking, and talking conundrum. A unicorn, a true-blue caramel black bone. She has a very, very, very large natural afro and always wears huge jewelry. Nothing but the finest for her. She has a gold tooth on the top front left-side of her mouth. She looks like she just walked out of a ’70s Vogue Magazine.

She really does not have any family that she knows of. She grew up in the system as an abandoned child, left on the steps of the Montgomery fire station just outside Houston, Texas, in Conroe, Texas. Then taken to an orphanage when she was two months old. She does not know who her real family is or where she comes from. She floated from foster family to foster family until she was seventeen years old. She does not think about her real family too much anymore. But she likes to believe it made her stronger.

She graduated from the Aldine High School in Houston, Texas. She also attended and graduated from Prairie View University with a bachelor’s degree in science and English. She served four years in the air force, two years in the army where she learned how to use explosives, weapons, and has an intricate knowledge of Black Ops counterterrorism strategies, using Sun Tzu, The Art of War. She got a job working for the CIA when she was twenty-six years old.

She met Elise and Silva at the CIA Academy. They kicked it off almost immediately. They helped each other to stay focused until their graduation day.

Foxy Roxy became close to Elise’s family. Soon after that, they considered her family.

Getting back to the phone call when Elise figured out who was on the phone. Elise’s facial expression turned to instant happiness in a matter of seconds.

Foxy says to Elise, “Well, good morning to you too, bitch!”

Elise quickly responds to Foxy, “Aw, girl. I am sorry. Rough morning. I got a package in the mail. Every time I try to open it, I get interrupted.”

Foxy replies, “Aw, my bad. Just calling you to let you know that me and Silva are downstairs waiting on you. The Boss needs us in early this morning; they say it’s urgent, girl!”

Elise says, “It’s that time now?”

Foxy replies, “Ah, yeah.”

Then Silva speaks out, screaming into the phone trying to speak to Elise before Foxy hangs up.

Hearing Silva on the phone, Elise tells Foxy to tell Silva, “Good morning to you too, bitch.”

Foxy face smirks with laughter when she turns to deliver the message to Silva. Silva heard her on the phone before Foxy could respond Silva replies, “Ditto, bitch.”

Linda Kay Lopez, code name Silva Tongue. She is of Puerto Rican descent. She is five feet, ten inches, with a dark red tan, long straight black hair, and dark brown eyes. She is very fast-talking, MAMACITA, with a heart of gold.

Like Foxy, she too was part of the system. Only because her family was all killed in a boating accident. Her mother, father, aunts, uncles, and her brother Javan who was nine years old at the time. No one knows what really happened on that tragic day.

Silva was with her grandmother when the authorities walked upon her grandmother’s porch to give them the bad news that her entire family was in a horrific boating explosion. The police investigation concluded that it was faulty wiring that caused the accident. She was five years old when this happened back in 1975. Her mother and father were in their early thirties when they had Silva.

Her grandfather passed away before she was born. He was seventy-five years old. The only thing she knew about her grandfather was what her grandmother had told her. He was in the army and that he fought in WWII.

Her grandmother took care of Silva until she passed away three years later. Silva was only eight years old. Silva has always believed her grandmother died from depression and that she could not bear the pain of losing her entire family. She believed her grandmother held on as long as she could.

All Silva remembers is she died on her deathbed with Silva holding her hand as she was surrounded by nurses and the chaplain at the hospital.

Silva remembers looking down into her grandmother’s face, holding on tight to her. Her grandmother looked up into Silva’s eyes, barely breathing, she tells her grandbaby, in a whisper, to give her some water because her throat was so dry. Silva, trying to hold back her tears as she turns around, saw one of the nurses standing behind her reaches to hand her a cup of water.

The nurse says to Silva, “Go ahead, baby. I know, I know. It is hard. It’s going to be alright.”

Silva looks up at the lady nurse with a mean stare, thinking to herself in a very rude and irate thought she better not say out loud. She grabbed the cup of water very aggressively, without saying a mean word to her. Silva’s physical gestures toward the nurse was worth a thousand words.

The chaplain puts his hand on Silva’s shoulders and says, “Ok now that’s enough. Let’s focus on your grandmother; this is what’s important.” Silva looks up at the chaplain, shaking her head in agreement and replies, “Ok, sir.”

She helps her grandmother lean forward. She...