by Jake Cross
He watched Buzzcut approach a child of about five, who offered him what looked like a handful of coins. Buzzcut grabbed a couple, spilling others onto the floor in the process.
Then he came Nate’s way.
Nate turned away, heart racing. He stepped up to the light gun shooter and picked up the rifle, and aimed it at an elephant running behind INSERT COIN(S) on the screen. He waited for a shout of alarm, or, worse, a blow to the back of the head. Instead, amazingly, Buzzcut appeared ten feet beside him, at the phone. His desperate call had been delayed because he had no money.
Nate slipped the revolver out of his jacket.
Buzzcut dropped a coin and bent slowly to pick it up. He was as stiff and cautious as someone twice his age.
Nate put the revolver alongside the plastic rifle, finger through both triggers.
Buzzcut picked up the receiver, dropped it, and grabbed it again by sliding his hand along the cable.
Nate turned the plastic gun towards Buzzcut. A peculiar sight for anyone witnessing this, he knew. ‘Hello again,’ he shouted above the noise.
Receiver in one hand, raised coin in the other, all ready to go, Buzzcut stopped dead like a paused video. Then his head turned. There was a faint red stain on the guy’s jaw, where he had probably wiped away a trickle of blood from the needle puncture wound. His irises were big and black, something Nate recalled from his own romance with the drug.
Nate watched those demon eyes slowly trying to take him in like an old camera with a dodgy autofocus. Clarity soon came, but not recognition. Nate tilted the rifle so that both guns were visible, but only to Buzzcut, of course.
‘Put the phone down,’ Nate said, but the guy didn’t move. Except to sway like a skyscraper in a high wind. ‘You really want to call your boss and tell him the guy you were supposed to watch got away and nicked your gun?’
Then, in those zombie eyes, recognition at last. Realisation. He dropped the phone. And dropped his eyes to the real gun that hugged the fake one. His own gun, liberated from him.
‘Into the driving game, now.’
Buzzcut turned and looked at the item in question. Then back at Nate. Then he staggered over to the driving game and fell into one of the seats. Keeping the revolver against his waist, aimed at the guy still, Nate took the other seat. He put one hand on the steering wheel and jammed the gun in his armpit, short barrel just poking out and at Buzzcut.
‘I guess I got it wrong, pal,’ Nate said. ‘You’re only here to…?’
The guy didn’t get the hint. His brain was still mushy. Nate had to ask him outright: what was he doing here?
‘I should have called in five minutes ago,’ the guy said. Surprisingly, his voice was shipshape and a stark contrast to his dozy eyes and jelly body.
‘Why don’t you give me the number you were going to call?’
A quick glance down at the gun and then he recited the number. The area code was 01923.
‘So, tell me how I got it wrong?’
It wasn’t a quick process, but Nate steered the guy’s messed-up brain and got what he wanted. He got it along with a whole bucketload of shock.
Buzzcut’s orders had not been to apprehend or hurt Nate, but only to deliver a message. He showed Nate a pen scrawl on his forearm. A number and a postcode. Cube wanted to meet. Cube wanted to do a trade. Cube wanted to swap the girl for Nate.
It was a trap, of course. No way they’d let Toni go. But it changed nothing. He could not abandon Toni. So, trap or no, he had to go. Into the lion’s den.
The guy got another dose of green nectar right there in the driving seat of an F1 car. This time it took him seven minutes to go under, despite already having some in his system. Nate had to sit and wait as he rocked and grumbled like an old man on the verge of falling asleep, until he was finally out. Then Nate went for the exit.
Despite the hubbub of excited people, he knew something was wrong. Then he noticed that a larger-than-typical crowd was milled by the exit. He went over and pushed slowly through the crowd with a sorry and an excuse me. And then heard a terrible word over the chatter of a dozen people: Police.
Outside, more people had gathered, and they were all facing the same way. Nate looked in the same direction, and a lump formed in his throat.
In the distance, above the roofs of caravans, he saw a pulsing blue aura.
Police. And he knew, just knew, they were at his caravan. The cops had found the dead hitman.
The throng started to move in that direction, already voicing claims of murder. Nate stepped out of the moving sea of people, but froze when a cop car with a flashing light but no siren turned into the car park out front of the entertainment complex.
Quickly, he forced his way into the moving mass of excited people and fought against the current and reached the door and pulled himself back inside FunUniverse. Other people were headed for the exit, having sensed some excitement occurring outside, but most were still at their electronic fun. He sidestepped bodies coming at him like cannonballs and quickly got back to the quiet corner with the racing game and the unconscious Buzzcut. He kicked open the fire exit. An alarm blared. Two seconds later he was outside, on a path running between the rear of the building and dark woods. He looked left, looked right, decided that cops could come from either direction if they assumed that a dead guy in a paramedic’s outfit and a fire alarm were connected, and bolted into the trees.
He had time only to wonder if running into dark, unknown woods was a good idea, and then he emerged into open land again. Beyond a wooden fence at the treeline was sloping scrubland and then a beach. A black sea lapped at it. No sunbathers at this time of night, of course, but he saw a number of loving couples strolling with clasped hands and people walking dogs.
The trees stretched off to his right, but to his left gave over to a housing estate some hundred or so metres away. He could see a wooden pier cutting through the sand and assumed it was accessible from the housing estate. Which meant a way out.
The pier led into a small car park with a locked gate, and beyond that ran a road between two rows of semi-detached real estate. The way out. A car sat before the gate, bright headlights washing the tarmac. Nate came at the gate from the side to avoid being lit up like an exhibit. As he vaulted the gate and rushed into the road, the car started to reverse and turn. Cars clogged both sides of the road at this end, most doubtless owned by visitors who were determined not to let a locked gate stall their sex-on-the-beach fantasies, and this driver was trying to back into a space.
Nate could hear sirens some way off. The cops might have sneaked into the caravan park, but there was no treading softly now they’d found a body with its throat slit. They’d cordon off the park, but they’d also throw out a wider net, and Nate had to get a move on if he wanted to avoid being caught in it.
The driver had his head turned so he could watch the reverse. Some old guy, his old wife in the passenger seat, a dog in the back. Amazingly, it was another Ford Kuga.
He yanked the driver’s door open, which caused the old guy to jerk in shock and jam the accelerator. The Kuga leaped backwards and hit the car behind. Nate wondered if he was going to be undone by a trail of alarms like musical breadcrumbs. The shaken dog started to bark.
‘Out,’ Nate hissed. Actually hissed, just for effect. Showed them his teeth, too. Like a cat trying to look dangerous.
The guy got out, and the woman got out, and Nate got in. He twisted the wheel and slipped the Kuga neatly out of the space. Then stopped. The old couple were in the street, just staring. Nate dropped his window.
‘Get your dog,’ he snapped.
The old lady rushed to the back, lifted the hatch. The dog jumped out, and all three scampered away. Nate had to jump out to shut the hatch.
Ten feet ahead was the locked gate and there was no room to turn in the road because of the parked cars. Lights came on in bedrooms, and in lit living rooms curtains twitched, and at doorways bold owners appeared. They watched a car racing quickly in revers
e down their street.
A car turned into the road. There might just be room for two to pass, but Nate wasn’t going to waste time slowing down to attempt such a tricky manoeuvre in reverse. He kept going. The other driver seemed to realise Nate wasn’t going to stop. So he stopped. Nate kept coming. Soon, in a scene that was surely comical to witnesses, two cars were reversing quickly down the road.
Towards the other end of the road the parked cars thinned. Nate found his way clear as the other driver curved into the side of the road and laid on his horn to show his annoyance.
This time of night, the main road bore little traffic, and Nate slipped backwards into it without problem. He turned, stopped, got first gear, and was away. He drove well over the speed limit until he couldn’t hear the sirens anymore. But even after that, he could not relax.
And then Toni’s phone rang.
Unknown number, of course. But he recognised the first seven digits. The number that Buzzcut guy had part-stored in his phone.
He answered the call, but didn’t speak.
‘You got to another of my men, then,’ said a voice he recognised. It seemed like a lifetime ago that he’d heard it. But it was one he’d never forget. The guy on the bike. The blond guy who had tried to kill him. The guy whose presence had made Nate realise he was in much deeper shit than he’d thought. The guy possibly behind everything.
Lazar.
A flicker of fear ran up his spine, which he immediately felt embarrassed about. The guy was on the phone, not right in front of him with a gun. Nate clutched the phone hard to his ear, more out of anger at himself than at the man who might have killed his brother. After all he’d been through, and here he was getting scared by a phone call.
‘I’ll get to them one by one, until they’re all gone,’ Nate said. ‘How did you get this number?’
He already knew. Toni. And the guy confirmed it a second later. Said she had willingly given it up because she knew what was best. And she had self-preservation. ‘And she knows how good I can be at inflicting pain, too.’
Immediately he had a tactic. Do not show he cared about her. And how could he, really, since she had started out as one of the enemy? Pretend she was nothing to him, and force Lazar to abandon her as a bargaining chip. ‘She got away from me, so well done. You saved her life – for now. She’s one more that will end up in the ground when I’m finished.’
Laughter. Real, not an effect. Nate knew his trick hadn’t worked. ‘Don’t play games, Nathan. She’s got a pretty face, and a nice thing three feet below it that can get us men all weird inside. Weird enough to suddenly care about them, even though the night before they might have been ready to chop us up and bury us. You want to help her live?’
No use denying things now. Besides, if he somehow did convince this guy that she meant nothing, they’d have no use for her and she’d end up in the ground anyway.
‘What do you want, Lazar?’
A pause. He could almost hear Lazar wondering how Nate knew his name. Wondering what else Nate might know, and how damaging might this information be.
‘Come on in and we’ll sort this problem of ours out. Maybe you’ll get a chance to punch me in the face. I’m sure you’ve dreamed of that. I’m guessing you found the postcode if you took down my man.’
‘Maybe. Maybe I’ll come and bring the police with me. I’m sure they’d love to know that I didn’t get on a plane at Heathrow after all.’
Another pause. Nate knew he had to be careful. If he showed that he had too much information, it might make these guys do something wild, or even slip underground and out of reach.
‘You’ll come alone, Nate, because the police are not on your side. Trust me on that.’
‘Will you feel so confident after they hear my story?’
Lazar laughed. ‘You’ll be alone, trust me. Be there at midday tomorrow.’
He hung up.
Thirty-five minutes later, the phone rang again. No, not that phone. The new, unused one found in the car he stole. The one nobody should have the number to except a few people in the 0161 area code.
He answered without speaking. A voice said, ‘Who is this, please?’
Nate said nothing.
‘My name is Detective Sergeant Alan Wright, with Kent police. You need to talk to me. I need to know how you got hold of this phone.’ He sounded urgent.
Nate hung up. So much for a clean phone. He broke it apart, sim card also. Out the window the pieces went. The owner must have given the number to the cops after she found her car missing, knowing it could be a way to trace the thief. But what didn’t make sense was why a simple car theft would have gotten the cops so worked up so quickly.
Worry sat in his gut like a bad meal.
Considerate traffic let him make good time and he got back to London at close to one in the morning. He found a side street and parked between two RAC vans, then climbed in the back and put his jacket over himself. If any sleep at all came, he would think himself lucky. Because, for sure, Toni would be getting none. Unless she was already in eternal sleep. He wanted to convince himself that she deserved it. Live by the sword and die by the sword, and all that crap. But he couldn’t help thinking that her life was not one she’d willingly chosen. Besides, he’d started to like her a little bit.
While he lay there, he used Toni’s phone. It died as soon as he lit the screen up, so he ripped the new battery off the back and was soon back in business. First, he typed in the 01923 number that Buzzcut had given him, and was shocked to find it belonged to a police station in Watford.
Buzzcut had tried to call the cops? What the hell? And Watford had been the home of HyperX. A connection? Sure. Had to be. But how?
He turned his attention to himself. Nathan Barke. A search on the name brought up more new stories and he read them voraciously.
The ‘dangerous fugitive’ was now believed to be out of the country, despite a police claim that no CCTV footage had shown him sneaking on board a plane at Heathrow wearing a fake beard. They were still seeking camera shots of his BMW’s journey that night, but no joy yet. Understandable, Nate thought. Heathrow was west of his home, so their eyes would be on a sliver of the country that included Feltham and Twickenham and Hounslow and Richmond and Isleworth. But the car hadn’t gone west from Putney Village; it had gone north to the warehouse in Enfield. Maybe somewhere in Parsons Green or South Kensington or Regent’s Park or Camden Town there was a camera that had caught a clear image of a woman and a man who wasn’t Nate in his car. He could help the police with a little phone call. But he didn’t want to do that. It might muddy the waters some, but he didn’t think it would help his cause.
He got back to the news stories. There was a feature in a Wandsworth paper on his life, as told by some people who knew him. Two neighbours, and the guy who ran the local pet shop, where Nate sometimes dropped by to pet the rabbits – his answer to how to have a pet without spending a penny or cleaning up a single piece of shit. All three people were shocked that such a thing could have happened in their community. It was almost a feel-good piece, as if he were a recently departed charity worker instead of a suspected killer.
One of the neighbours, though: not that shocked. Never trusted his eyes, she said. He figured he knew who she might be, even though no names were published. Bitch.
He flicked through others. Rehashed theory and ground already covered. He almost yearned for a terrorist attack just so people would focus on something else. Nothing caught his eye, and then something did: the word ‘mum’.
It was a link under ‘more on this story’. He jabbed the link so hard he nearly knocked the phone from his hand.
Fugitive’s mum begs for son to give himself up
He couldn’t believe what he was reading. Some asshole parasite with a microphone had tracked down his mother, and even though she lived in Scotland, the bloodsucking dick had hopped in a car and gone to visit her. She had declined to comment, thankfully, except to say she hoped her son would return alive
and well. The reporter had obviously performed a kind of small-world experiment with a thesaurus to determine that she had actually meant ‘surrender’ when she said ‘return’. If a reporter had been to visit her, Nate had to assume the cops had, too. First port of call for a killer on the run, of course: mummy’s apron strings.
Nate’s heart sank. He hadn’t considered his mother even nearly enough since this nightmare had hit the headlines. He hoped she was doing well. He wanted to call her, give her his version of events, but knew he could not do that. A call might help her to know he was okay, but maybe it would instead increase her worry. He didn’t know, but he couldn’t risk it.
Nate no longer wanted to read about his supposed exploits. He just wanted to sleep. There was still a chance he could wake up to find that the last few days had been a bad dream. Hell, he’d happily wake as a snotty-nosed toddler who’d dreamed the last forty years if it would make his problems go away.
‘Note to future self: stay in the damn army or pick up a McDonald’s application form the day you leave school,’ he said to the empty car, and closed his eyes.
Given time to think on ways his life could get worse, he probably would have chosen disease: Police have reported an update in the Nathan Barke manhunt. His GP has released files that prove Barke is terminally ill with AIDS, and admits he withheld this information from his fugitive patient.
Next might have been the revelation that Nate found himself faced with when he turned on the car radio after waking the next morning: ‘In an explosive new twist to the manhunt following the discovery of a body in a house fire in Wandsworth two days ago, police have announced that the fugitive Nathan Barke is wanted in connection with a separate incident that occurred in Kent…’
Kent. His heart sank. He knew what was coming. The police had been called to Sunny Dream Leisure Park, where they had found the body of a man in a caravan, with his throat cut.
