AWOL 2

by Andrew Lane

  Kieron’s discreet earpiece suddenly poured static into his ear, followed by a woman’s voice saying, ‘… now landed at Newcastle International Airport. The temperature outside is seven degrees Celsius, with a good chance of rain.’

  That pretty much summed up Newcastle, Kieron thought.

  ‘Please do not unfasten your seat belt until the captain has turned off the signs. Thank you for flying with us, and we look forward to seeing you again.’

  ‘Not if I can help it,’ Bex’s voice muttered.

  ‘Bad flight?’ Kieron queried.

  ‘Cramped seat, tasteless food, babies crying, but I had a lovely chat with the woman beside me … Kieron?’ Bex said. ‘Are you at the airport?’

  ‘Is that Bex?’ Sam asked. ‘Is she there? Say hello for me.’

  ‘Sam says hi,’ Kieron said. ‘Yes, I’m here. We’re both here, in arrivals.’

  ‘Great. I’ll be out in a few minutes, assuming there are no queues at passport control.’ She hesitated. ‘How are you? Recovered from what happened at the … place where you … did that thing?’

  She was being careful in case anyone was listening, but Kieron knew what she meant. She wanted to know if he’d recovered from setting fire to a base used by neo-fascists and electrocuting one of them before the man could shoot him. That place, and that thing.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, and actually it was the truth. It wasn’t as if his mind was pretending it was all a dream or something; he knew what had happened, and he knew what he’d done, but he was proud of it. The memories hadn’t caused any mental trauma that he could detect. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Really good, actually.’

  ‘And Sam?’

  Sam had been caught up in it as well – taken prisoner by the fascist organisation Blood and Soil in fact. ‘He’s OK. Just a bit grumpy.’

  In his earpiece Kieron heard the voice of the stewardess say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you can now –’ The rest of her words were lost in the sound of several hundred people all trying to stand up at once and open the overhead luggage bins.

  ‘– Bradley?’ Kieron heard Bex ask.

  ‘Sorry – I couldn’t hear what you said.’

  She raised her voice to be heard above the din in the cabin. ‘I said, “How’s Bradley?”’

  ‘He’s … OK.’

  ‘Just “OK”?’ He could hear the worry in her voice.

  ‘Headaches, some blurriness of vision. Oh, and the blackouts of course.’

  ‘I need to see him straight away.’ Bex had stood up now, and was wriggling her way past other passengers to get off the aircraft.

  ‘We assumed you would. It’s twenty-five minutes back to town on the Metro, then a forty-five minute bus ride to Sam’s sister’s place. We can’t use the van,’ he added apologetically. ‘If Sam gets caught driving it, we’re really in trouble.’

  ‘I am not taking the train, or the bus,’ Bex said firmly, walking out of the aircraft into the connecting corridor that led to the terminal. ‘I’ll hire a car. Something anonymous.’

  ‘Oh,’ Kieron said. That hadn’t occurred to him. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have bought return tickets.’

  He and Sam gravitated towards the barrier that separated the new arrivals from those greeting them. Every now and then he heard excited squeals as people who hadn’t met face to face for years suddenly saw each other. His eye was caught by a young guy, hopping from one foot to another in anticipation as he scanned the faces of everyone coming through. As Kieron watched he saw an Asian girl come through the arch. She saw the young man, and the adoration on their faces as they ran towards each other made Kieron’s heart burn. Would anyone ever feel that way about him?

  ‘Do you think she might buy us something from that duty-free shop?’ Sam asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bex. She’s got to go past all those bottles of spirits before she gets to us. Could you maybe ask her to pick us up a bottle of amaretto? I mean, surely we’re owed something for saving the world?’

  Kieron shook his head in disbelief. ‘Of all the things you could ask for, you want amaretto?’

  ‘Yeah. So? It tastes like marzipan. I like marzipan.’

  ‘I am not asking her to buy us drinks, but if I did it would be something more sophisticated than amaretto.’ He wondered what a freelance agent working for MI6 might drink. ‘A ten-year-old single-malt whisky maybe.’

  Sam snorted. ‘You wouldn’t be able to tell good whisky from the blended stuff they sell at petrol stations.’

  The translucent image in Kieron’s ARCC glasses indicated that Bex was heading towards what might be the arrivals arch as viewed from the other side. He moved to the far end of the barrier so he could catch her eye as she moved into the main arrivals area. He’d seen her a couple of times, in mirrors and windows, so he knew he’d recognise her.

  For a few seconds his brain was paralysed by a bizarre double vision – he could see the faces of people coming towards him, looking tired from the flight but happy to have landed, at the same time as he was seeing the backs of their heads in the ARCC image. He struggled for a moment to make sense of what he was seeing, and where he was actually seeing it from. And then the people moved left or right, creating a gap, and he found himself simultaneously looking at a young woman who was looking back at him quizzically and looking at himself through her eyes. Or her glasses.

  The ‘him’ that he saw shocked him – a skinny teenager with an acne flush on his cheeks and nose and black hair that hung in a fringe across his eyes. Did his clothes really hang off him like that? Were his boots really that clompy?

  With an effort, he stared through the image at the girl. She was as tall as him, with brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, startlingly green eyes and a smattering of freckles across her nose. She had a rucksack slung casually over one shoulder and she towed a small, wheeled hard-shell suitcase behind her. She came to a halt in front of him. The corner of her mouth twitched into a half-smile.

  He wanted to say something important, meaningful, but nothing came to mind. ‘Hi,’ just wasn’t going to do it. Instead he found himself dredging up half-forgotten English lessons, and saying: ‘Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.’

  What? He couldn’t believe he had just said that. And to his horror he could see a look of disbelief appear on Bex’s face. What had he done? But then her disbelief turned to a broad grin. ‘What, jealous Oberon!’ she responded. ‘Fairies, skip hence!’ After hearing her voice through an earpiece for so long with a background of static, he was surprised at how rich and deep it was.

  Kieron took a deep breath. He hadn’t blown it!

  Sam, standing beside Kieron, frowned. ‘Is that some kind of coded talk?’ he asked.

  ‘Just breaking the ice,’ Bex said, removing her glasses and taking her micro-earpiece out.

  Kieron extended his hand awkwardly, not knowing if she would expect to shake hands, but instead she abruptly stepped forward, let go of the strap of her rucksack and the handle of her suitcase, and gave him a quick hug. Her cheek pressed against his: warm and soft.

  ‘I feel like I know you but don’t know you,’ she said, stepping back.

  ‘Long-distance relationships …’ he said. Over her shoulder he saw the English guy and the Asian girl still wrapped in each other’s arms. ‘Hey,’ he went on, forcing a casual tone into his voice, ‘are you hungry? Want to grab a bite to eat?’

  ‘As long as I can get a coffee and maybe a croissant from some takeaway place, I’ll be OK.’ She glanced at Sam, then stepped closer and gave him a brief hug too. ‘You must be Sam. Thanks for all the help you’ve given us, and the risks you’ve taken.’

  Sam shrugged, staring at the ground. ‘Hey, no problem.’

  ‘Let me take your suitcase.’ Kieron took the handle and started pulling it towards a coffee kiosk. It took just a few minutes to get Bex set up with her coffee and croissant, then she led the way to the car rental desks. There were four of them, all different companies, lined up in a row. Kieron wondere
d why there had to be so many. Surely they were all offering cars for the same price – otherwise the more expensive ones would have gone out of business.

  Arrangements complete, Bex headed towards the car park with Kieron and Sam in tow. Kieron caught up with her. ‘False identity?’ he whispered.

  She instinctively looked around to confirm that nobody else was close enough to overhear them, then nodded. ‘I have several. This one isn’t known to my employers at SIS-TERR. I don’t particularly want to alert them to the fact that I’m back in-country. Not until I’ve sorted things out, anyway.’

  Sorted things out. A neutral way of referring to the fact that someone in the Secret Intelligence Service’s Technology-Enhanced Remote Reinforcement team was a traitor, working with the extreme fascist group Blood and Soil. Bex obviously wanted to find some way of dealing with the traitor before letting SIS-TERR know that she was back. As far as Kieron knew, she was actually a freelance agent, along with her partner Bradley Marshall. Security-vetted and highly trained, but not officially a member of MI6, she and Bradley could do jobs for MI6 as needed and then conveniently disappear. A cheap and efficient way of managing an increasingly fractured and dangerous world, as far as Kieron could work out.

  Once in the car park they headed for the area reserved for hire cars. All of them gleamed as if they were freshly washed – which presumably they were. Kieron stared enviously at the sleek black executive cars that they passed, but Bex stopped by a white Kia.

  ‘Ooh,’ Sam said. ‘No Aston Martin for us. Agents in a Reasonably Priced Car.’

  ‘Just get in,’ Kieron growled.

  Inside, Bex turned to them. ‘Right – bearing in mind I’ve never been to Newcastle before, which one of you is navigating?’

  ‘Me!’ Kieron and Sam said at the same time.

  Bex sighed. ‘OK, it’s like that is it? No fighting, children. Just tell me where I’m going.’

  ‘My sister’s flat,’ Sam said from the back seat. ‘That’s where we’ve stashed Bradley.’

  ‘Is your sister in?’

  ‘No, she’s at work.’ He paused. ‘She doesn’t know what Bradley really does. She thinks he works in IT. We told her that he got beaten up when he was trying to rescue a girl from being attacked in a park.’

  ‘That’s good. It’s the kind of thing he would do anyway.’ Bex started the car up and gave the controls a quick once-over. ‘Didn’t you say she was a nurse?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Kieron said. ‘She’s been looking after Bradley – making sure there wasn’t any permanent damage from the attack and the … the beatings.’

  He was watching Bex’s face as he said the words. There wasn’t any change he could put his finger on – no wincing, no frown of concern. Maybe it was some shift in the light shining through the car’s windows, but whoever was responsible for hurting her friend ought to watch out, he thought. She would be coming for them, and she would not be polite.

  Except that Kieron had already electrocuted one of them, which ought to get him some brownie points. He smiled to himself.

  ‘I appreciate what your sister has done, but I need to get Bradley out of there as quickly as possible,’ Bex said. ‘While I was waiting in Delhi and Dubai airports for my connecting flights I did some hunting around on the Internet. I’ve leased a flat in the city centre. We’ll use that as a base for the time being.’ She glanced sideways at Kieron. ‘And by “us”, I mean me and Bradley. We appreciate what you guys have done for us, but I can’t put you at risk any more.’

  Kieron’s heart sank. He had known this was coming. ‘Can we still visit?’ he asked.

  She smiled a soft smile. ‘Yes, you can visit. But no parties, OK? I know what you teens are like.’ Turning her attention back to manoeuvring the car out of its bay and then out of the car park, she added quietly, ‘After all, it wasn’t that long ago I was a teenager myself, although sometimes it feels like centuries.’

  Between them, Kieron and Sam managed to navigate their way back from the airport to the side of Newcastle where Courtney lived. Bex was a good driver – not too fast, but aware of everything around her and able to take advantage of gaps and changes in traffic speed. She kept looking at the rear-view mirror and the side mirrors. Kieron wasn’t sure if she was just driving cautiously or whether she was actively looking for anyone who might be following them. Maybe a bit of both. He suspected that the things agents learned in training became second nature after a while. They lived their lives perpetually watching out for things that were out of the ordinary: warning signs that their world might suddenly turn upside down.

  A bit like being a greeb or an emo in a city that didn’t like people who dressed or acted differently, he thought bleakly. Both he and Sam were well used to watching out for signs that any nearby teenagers might suddenly decide to pick on them, call them names, chase them down the street, confront them.

  Eventually Bex parked at the side of the road, a few hundred metres past the block where Courtney’s flat was located.

  ‘Come on then,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘Let’s see how he is.’

  Sam led them inside and up the stairs to the flat where his sister lived. He delved into his pocket and pulled out a bunch of keys. Kieron watched incredulously as he sorted through them, trying to find the right one.

  ‘Just out of interest,’ he said, ‘how many places do you live in?’

  Sam shot him a dark glance. ‘Just my flat and this place.’

  ‘So what are the rest of the keys for?’

  ‘Just – things I’ve picked up along the way. Don’t judge me.’

  He finally found the right key. Opening the door, he entered. Kieron and Bex followed.

  ‘Bradley?’ he called. ‘It’s Sam. I’ve got Kieron and Bex with me.’

  No answer.

  ‘Bradley – are you there?’

  Still nothing.

  ‘Maybe he’s gone out,’ Kieron said cautiously.

  Sam walked down the short corridor and pushed open the door to the lounge, Kieron and Bex just behind.

  Late-afternoon sunlight shone through the large windows, illuminating Bradley’s body, sprawled face down on the wooden flooring.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Bex gasped and pushed past Sam and Kieron. Crouching, she checked Bradley’s neck for a pulse. She could feel the blood in his carotid artery pulsing beneath her fingers, but it was slow and weak. ‘Fluttery’ was the word they used in TV medical dramas. His breathing seemed shallow.

  ‘He’s alive!’ she said. ‘Help me get him into the recovery position.’

  Kieron and Sam joined in, getting their arms under Bradley’s shoulders and turning him onto his side. Bex lifted his eyelids. His pupils didn’t seem dilated, and they reacted to the light. Part of her – the professional part – was relieved that he didn’t seem injured: there was no evident blood anywhere, or any noticeable bruising. She glanced at the wooden floor. No blood there either. Maybe he’d just passed out. Another part of her – the part that cared for friends and family and didn’t want anything bad to happen – was panicking.

  The two boys were hanging back, unsure what to do. ‘What’s the matter with him?’ Kieron asked nervously.

  ‘I don’t know. You said he’d fallen unconscious before. Maybe it happened again – not that that’s a good thing, but when we first got in here I thought he might have been attacked, or that he’d fallen and cracked his skull open.’ She glanced around at the small but neat lounge – sofa and two armchairs, side tables, large wall-mounted TV screen, bookcase. An empty cup sat on one of the side tables. ‘Maybe he got up to make a cup of tea, felt dizzy and passed out before he could sit down again.’

  ‘Should we call an ambulance?’ Sam said uncertainly.

  ‘Definitely not.’ She sat on the arm of the chair and leaned close to Bradley’s ear. ‘Bradley? Can you hear me? It’s Bex.’

  His eyelids fluttered, and his lips moved, forming words that Bex couldn’t make out.

 
She put her hand on his forehead, checking his temperature. He didn’t seem to have a fever.

  Eventually his eyes opened fully, and he rolled over onto his back. He glanced sideways to where she sat. ‘Bex? You’re here?’

  ‘Where else would I be?’ She ruffled his hair. ‘Honestly – I can’t leave you alone for a moment without you getting into trouble.’

  ‘And what about you?’ he asked, trying to pull himself up into more of a sitting position. ‘Nuclear weapons? Gunfights in Pakistan?’

  She grimaced. ‘Yeah – that wasn’t on the original travel itinerary.’ She watched him as he sipped the water again. He had more colour in his cheeks now, and he seemed to be gaining strength, but she thought his hands were trembling slightly. She turned to where Kieron and Sam were watching from over by the door to the kitchen. ‘Guys, can you give us a few minutes? We need to talk, and it has to be private.’

  Kieron nodded, and pushed Sam into the kitchen. Seconds later Bex heard the radio come on. It seemed to be some middle-of-the-road rock station playing what she thought was Chris Rea’s ‘The Road to Hell, Part 2’. Before the intro was over she heard Sam saying, ‘Oh, come on – this is old people’s music. Isn’t there some screamo or darkwave station around we can tune into?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Kieron replied. ‘It’s a digital radio – there could be anything out there if we just rescan. If we can’t find anything, I’ll just plug my phone into the audio socket.’

  Leaving them to it, she turned back to Bradley. ‘Honestly now – how are you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Sometimes I think I’m fine, but then I over-exert myself and I fall over again.’ He indicated the spot on the floor where he’d been found. Bex noticed that a mobile phone and a pair of glasses were still lying there, near where his head had been. ‘Believe it or not, I was just standing there, wearing Courtney’s spare glasses and holding the mobile up by the side of my head so I could see its screen reflected back in one of the lenses. Kieron had taken the ARCC kit so he could stay in contact with you, so I couldn’t use that, but I just wanted to see if I could manage to focus on any reflected screen that close.’ He grimaced. ‘I guess we proved I can’t. I don’t know if it’s the brightness, or the strobing, or a problem focusing my eyes, but a couple of seconds of staring at the thing and I was feeling dizzy. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor and you were bending over me.’