Chapter 3 - Supplies - Phantom

Phantom's eyes, with some effort, slowly opened. He was slumped back in his seat, the notepad resting gingerly between his gloved hands, the pen lost completely. With his head to one side and his senses now regained he saw his own reflection in the small porthole style window of the plane. A portion of his bandages had slipped down from around his mouth, only a gap of about three or four centimetres but that was enough. A wide permanent grin of yellow stained teeth met his eyes, no lips, just teeth as if the skin simply stopped at his cheekbones. He cursed himself for his momentary lapse of weakness and hastily re-adjusted his coverings, keeping an eye out for any on lookers. Now he was more adequately covered he took in his surroundings more in-depth. The plane was still flying but given its present angle it was preparing to descend. All of the henchmen were asleep, all huddled around each other in the furthest possible seats from his location. "You're losing your touch in your old age," a gruff voice came from the seat directly behind Phantom, the smugness barely contained. "For a man currently sat on a pressure switch attached to three pounds of semtex, you seem in rather high spirits," Phantom growled in response slowly turning in his seat to face the man. Then out of nowhere, with the tension at its highest, both men started to smile which soon broke out into a laugh, though Phantoms laugh could be mistaken for the bark of a dog or perhaps a nasty hacking cough. The man was Tibalt Grimes, a professional businessman who dealt in the stock market by day which gave him the capital to become a low down crime lord by night, the type of man everyone seems to owe a favour to and no-one can ever really remember how they got in his debt. "Your boss told me you might need some help with a job," Grimes went straight to the point, he hated small talk even amongst old friends, believing you can talk all you like while you burn in hell. Phantom slowly reacted for the notepad, which had now fallen to the floor, all the time conscience that sudden movements were ill advised when dealing with this man, and ripped a page from it. The list contained several choice items needed for the job. Grimes read through the list absentmindedly, his face a picture of neutrality. Then within a split second all professionalism was gone as he winked at Phantom with the air of his usual cocky self and simply said, done. Then the small seat belt light started to flash and the plane took a sudden dive, they were going in to land.