However I was pleased with its first TV incarnation. [Peta Wilson! rawr]
This new series is not a remake, but a sequel, with Nikita now on the outs with 'the agency' and waging a war against them. And this show seems as hard edged and complex as the original movie. It lifted my spirits.
And it got me back to my previous conclusion that The Temple will need a core of women like Nikita. Yes, I am fully aware she's a fictional character, but 'stories' guide and shape us. Let us then refer to her as a Template. And below is one way I have interpreted such:
~Janel was nervous to the point of nauseousness. At least, she called it 'nervousness'. Truth was, her tumble of emotions – fear, excitement, rage, guilt – was too much of a cascading mess for her to sort out any single one for more than a moment.
So she started cleaning the house again.
Mara watched the skinny raw boned brunette as she vacuumed the living room. At half past one in the morning. For maybe the tenth time in the last twenty four hours. She laughed a bit. “Coping,” she thought.
Mara was doing the same thing in her own way, a drop cloth spread over the kitchen table, her Ithaca 37 12 gage military model pump action disassembled neatly, each dulled gunmetal piece getting loving attention. Again. At half past one in the morning. She grinned to herself.
Cassie was asleep in the back bedroom. Mara knew she didn't mind the sound of Janel's relentless cleaning. “Maintenance noise,” she called it, said it reminded her of Camp Anaconda back in Iraq and she found that comforting.
But no matter what Janel was doing, or not doing, either Cassie or Mara was awake. This operation was in its final phase. Randy, Janel's ex, was on the road.
He'd tracked her down before, three times in the past five years since she'd taken their two daughters and left. Left the yelling and threats and beatings and drunken rapes.
There'd been cops and restraining orders and battered women's shelters. And he never gave up. Janel knew that one day Randy would kill her.
When she'd wound up in one of The Sisterhood's battered women's shelters and told them her story, they agreed with her conclusion. And offered a final solution to her problem.
So now, two months later, Randy was on the road.
He'd gotten a call at his job three states over. “You cunt ex wife is fucking some nigger,” the 'black sounding' woman's voice said in a growl. And gave him an address.
The Resolution Team tracked his truck's GPS, giving regular up-dates to Mara and Cassie. Mara was Inside on this one, Cassie was Outside.
Janel vacuumed. Her girls were hundreds of miles away in the desert learning how to ride horses. Hundreds of miles away from this two bedroom ranch style in a cul-de-sac, the place where they would soon be released from their past. They still woke up screaming these days, though less than before.
Cassie trotted into the kitchen in a t-shirt and boxes, poured herself some coffee. She looked at Janel pushing the vacuum back and forth, smiled.
“My old master sergeant would fucking love her,” she said. Mara laughed, slipped another well cleaned piece into place.
“I was thinking of getting her some whitewash.” They both laughed loud enough for Janel to notice. She blushed, turned off the vacuum, wandered into kitchen.
“I wonder where he is?” she asked no one in particular.
“An hour or so away with a Glock and a bottle of Jim Beam,” Mara said dispassionately. Janel jumped as Mara worked the shotgun's slide a few times.
Cassie pulled out the chair next to her, patted its seat. “Sit down and breath, Janel. Don't want you crashing before show time.”
Janel smiled wanly, sat down. Cassie rubbed her shoulders. “This will all be over soon, honey. And then you and your girls will be free. Now take some deep breaths.” Janel did so and began to relax just a bit.
Forty minutes later Cassie sat in the van parked in the driveway, once again wishing she still smoked and grateful that she didn't. She patted her own pump action, a near twin of Mara's, a short barreled, folding stock, pistol grip baby.
A voice whispered in her ear, ” This is Sky Box. The subject's vehicle just turned onto Dorado Drive, going north bound.”
“This is Top. Copy that,” she said.
“This is Bottle. Copy that,” came Mara's voice on the push.
After a few minutes, a pick up truck drove into the cul-de-sac, then stopped a couple of houses down, turned off its lights.
Cassie checked its plates with a night scope. “This is Top. Confirmed subject's vehicle has arrived. Repeat, subject's vehicle has arrived. Over.”
“This is Bottle. Copy that,” said Mara.
“This is Sky Box. Copy that,” said the 'whispered voice'.
Randy sat in his truck looking at the house where 'his cunt ex wife was fucking some nigger'. He took a slug from the Jim Beam, a big one this time. His Glock .45 lay upon the passenger seat.
He knew he was going to kill Janel tonight, if he found her, then himself. Maybe some nigger, too. He didn't think about 'his girls', but he'd probably kill them too if they were there.
He took another big slug, picked up the Glock, and got out.
“This is Top. The subject has exited his vehicle. ID is confirmed. Wait one.” Cassie peered intently into the night scope. “The subject is armed. The weapon is in his front waistband. Repeat, the weapon is in his front waistband. Over”
“This is Bottle. Copy the weapon is in his front waistband. Standing by. Over.”
“This is Sky Box. Copy that.”
Randy walked up to the door, knocked hard. “Janel! Janel!” he shouted, “Are you in there?”
A moment passed...
“Randy, you fucking piece of shit loser! Get the fuck outta here and go fuck yourself!” Janel screamed from behind the door.
Randy vaguely thought she seemed like she was purposely trying to piss him off, but he was too drunk and too angry to give a shit.
“You fucking cunt! Open this fucking door!” he screamed as he pounded on the door.
“Take your tiny pinky dick and go fuck some dog!” she screamed with real rage.
“You're fucking some nigger, ain't ya!?” he screamed through a red haze.
“Yes I am! He's got a big black cock and I suck it every night!” She was laughing hysterically now.
The red haze consumed him. He pulled out the Glock and kicked the door. It flew open and half off of its hinges with surprising ease. He rushed through the doorway, but then stopped dead in his tracks.
Not six feet away was a large blond in black BDU's pointing a shotgun straight at him.
Cassie heard the single shot, tensed.
After a beat, “This is Bottle. Code Black. Repeat, Code Black. Bottle out.”
Cassie took a deep breath. “This is Top. Acknowledge Code Black. Over.”
“This is Sky Box. Roger Code Black. Over.”
Cassie jumped out of the van and went up to the front door, watching out for blood spatter. Randy's corpse was crumpled in the doorway itself, nothing left north of his lower jaw.
Janel was about ten feet back, looking it the thing in the doorway with an indescribable expression. Mara carefully handed Cassie her radio. “Scoot,” she said, blowing a kiss.
“Ten four,” said Cassie with a smile.
Driving out of the cul-de-suc, she radioed, “This is Top. Code Blue. Repeat, Code Blue. Top out.”
“This is Sky Box. Roger Code Blue.”
Deputy Sheriff Bonita Garza sat in her black and white sipping green tea from a bottle. A large black van drove down the other side of the street, flashed its brights twice.
Garza turned over the engine, turned on the lights, stepped on the brake pedal, put the cruiser in gear, waited.
Her radio squawked a few seconds later, “All units in the vicinity of sixteen hundred North Dorado court. Shots fired. Possible one eight seven.”
Garza responded instantly. “This is Adam one seven. Proceeding north on the thirty five thousand block of Dorado Drive. Responding Code Two.”
She roared up the block, sirens wailing and light bar flashing. She knew exactly where she was going.
Two months later the case file landed on the desk of ADA Jim Dubchek. And then sat there for another ten days.
When he finally reviewed it, he was unimpressed. Randell Pinkston shot dead breaking into the house of Janel Raed, his ex wife. He had a gun and a high blood alcohol level. She had a TRO and a bodyguard, one Mara Jensen, who was the actual shooter.
Now Ms Jensen looked impressive. Bonded and Licensed security agent. Veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Ex-US Army Military Police NCO. LA County Reserve Deputy Sheriff.
The Robbery/Homicide investigation had signed off on this a 'clean self defense shooting'.
“Public service homicide,” Dubchek muttered, and dropped the file in his Decline box.
There was a small nagging part of his subconscious that wondered how Pinkston had found his wife and that it all seemed a bit 'too neat'. Dubchek was a pretty good ADA. But he stashed that nagging feeling away.
He could work that out tonight while groveling before Mistress Carmella, licking her boots, and taking her lashings. He did need to be guilty of 'something'.
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