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[*just a quick note. I'm not chauvanistic or anything, and this is not a dismissal of feminism in any way, as some have suggested - its just me having a go at the irritating eternal smugness of those stupid coffee ads and their 'in your face' attitude] The unmarked land rover pulled up to the warehouse, dredging up a cloud of red dust behind it. Two figures stepped out into the sweltering sun. This had to be the Kenco people. Foreigners always stood out like a sore thumb in colombia. Their fashion sense or lack there-of was a dead giveaway. "And so it begins" he said under his breath, as he took the first brisk step toward the buyers. Ms Kenco looked around her surroundings. It was more heat than she could really bear, but she had to put on a show for the benefit of the company. Her assistant stepped up to greet the approaching colombian. The colombian spoke. "You must be from Kenco!" he chimed. The assistant began to reply "Yes and this is-" "Step this way" Continued the colombian, before he could be introduced. "These are our instant coffee beans" he said, bringing them to the prepared product. Ms Kenco was curious about a seperate batch though. "What are those?" She quizzed. The colombian was getting nervous. All was not going to plan. He mentioned something dismissive about the finest beans not being for instant coffee. "We'll take all you have of these" Chirped the naive woman. Fuoco. No way out. Unless... "I think I'd better clear that with the boss" he said, gesturing towards her male counterpart "You just have". Nobody could say he hadn't tried. She had signed her own death sentence. His hands were tied. As she strolled proudly away he drew his chrome colt 45. It was an old but nonetheless effective weapon, which he had pryed from the fingers of a deceased adversary he had stabbed with a fork. He aimed squarely for the back of her head. Her assistant saw the gun. As he ran to try and save his boss, he got it in the neck, and again twice in the chest to shut him up. The colombian turned back to the woman, now facing him, pale as a sheet... "But... you wouldn't shoot a woman.. would you?" Pleaded the buyer "I'm here to kill the boss - man or woman its all the same to me". A sly grin came over his face. Funny he thought. How she had so quickly abandoned this girl-power attitude in a desperate attempt to save her own skin. The sting in her right shoulder was her collarbone snapping as the lead slug drove its way through her flesh. Only then did she hear the deafening clap of the gunshot. Her ears rang with silence as she lost her balance and began falling in slow motion towards the dusty earth. Her life flashed before her eyes. No amount of posh schooling or horse-riding, or playing tennis with upper class boyfriends who drove BMWs could have prepared her for this. At last she triumphed over her own ignorance and realised she was not cut out to run her fathers commercial empire, bequeaved to her when he had died of heart failure in the throes of passion with some nameless brazilian lingirie model. She considered all this and more as the ground crept up and smacked her in the back of the head. She no longer worried about her new company, or about her distinctly uninteresting fiancé, or even her own life. She just hoped it would be over soon. |