Matt found the space to leap to his feet. He unceremoniously snatched at Gratia’s wrist and dragged her along the ground towards the barrier, ignoring her cries. They reached the edge of the double wooden structure. The bull was almost upon her. There was no more time.
He jumped over her screams. Pressing his body against the solid barrier, he used his hands to lever his body up and throw himself backwards. Matt’s feet punched at the bull’s head, just below its eyes. The beast snorted angrily as its head shifted direction from its bulk. Horns hit the ground and scraped the surface as its hooves staggered for balance, the jagged points missing Gratia by a whisker.
Matt grabbed her by the belt on her jeans and tossed Gratia like a rag doll up against the waiting hands, reaching through the gap in the barrier. They dragged her wailing frame through as the remaining animals galloped by. Matt leapt against the wooden structure and scrambled to the other side. He had no idea what state Gratia was in. Matt frantically pulled at the bodies in a desperate attempt to reach his companion.
“Gratia,” he called.
She emerged from the ground and flung her arms around him. Matt pulled her into his hold, squeezing her body tightly. She reciprocated, clinging against him while she recovered her breath.
“I’m only going to watch in future,” she panted.
He eased his head away and examined her for injuries. No limbs were broken though her arms were a little bruised and bleeding from where he had scraped her mercilessly along the ground. No matter, she was safe.
“We have to keep moving,” he said.
He helped Gratia through the throng, tugging anxiously as he tried to find his way. She stopped abruptly and pulled him towards a waiting taxi. No words were exchanged as they clambered in.
“Airport,” she instructed, and the driver brought the engine into life.
“They have an airport in Pamplona?” said Matt.
“How do you think I got here?”
Gratia pulled the mobile from her jeans pocket and pressed the speed dial. She issued verbal instructions into the machine and switched off.
“They’ll be ready for us,” she said.
Matt unfolded a paper tissue and used it to dab lightly at her injuries. Not the best piece of first aid equipment, but suitable enough to soak up the patches of red liquid at her elbows. He could feel her eyes scrutinising his face as he lightly tended the wounds.
“Once we get to the airport we’ll separate, go our own ways,” he said.
“Oh no,” she said. “That’s not going to fly. Whatever mess you have been drawn into, Schafen is involved too. I realised this as soon as I saw the diary. You knew this also, but chose to try and hide it from me. No, we’re in this together.”
“Gratia …”
“No,” she said sharply. “Just for once, do what someone asks of you.”
He was about to object when she raised a finger.
“There is no more to be said,” she said.
He moved her finger.
“You forget I’ve just saved your life.”
“No, you endangered it by not telling me the truth from the outset. Had you done so, we would have been better prepared for such an eventuality.”
“Can’t you say anything other than no,” he complained.
“Yes, except where you are concerned.”
Matt never enjoyed being told what to do. On this occasion however he decided to keep his own counsel. For some reason, his enemies had targeted Gratia. Why? How could damaging her aid their cause?
Matt felt the hand touch against his shoulder.
“Thirty minutes or so to Salzburg,” Gratia informed him.
He smiled and slid over to the window to allow her to join him. Instead Gratia elected to sit opposite, resting her arms on the table. Despite the ordeal in Pamplona she seemed at ease. This pleased him.
“How are your arms?” he asked.
“Minor contusions only, they will heal soon enough.”
“What about your head?”
She knew what he meant.
“Whatever the circumstance,” said Gratia. “I should have been prepared to listen. I’m sorry.”
“You weren’t to know.”
She smiled to say thank you. The cold demeanour she had shown him the previous night had disappeared from her gaze. After all of the mind games, the intellectual shadow boxing, a rapport of mutual respect had been established. He felt the need to apologise.
“Gratia, I never intended to place you in danger,” he said quietly. “That’s why I held some things back.”
“I know. We are beyond that now.”
He liked this version of Gratia. The non-corporate woman he had met on that first night in St Wolfgang. He wished she could always be this way.
“Where have you been anyway?” he asked.
“Thought I would fly a little,” she replied.
“You’ve been flying this jet?”
“Only a little, I have yet to secure my full licence.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
She hunched her shoulders.
“It didn’t come up in the conversation.”
The woman was full of surprises. Intellectually gifted, with a razor sharp mind, she was practically talented too boot. Yet behind the confident façade lay introspection and self doubt; a contradiction in terms? No. She was human after all.
“Are you okay?” she asked, inadvertently disturbing his mental deliberations.
“Yes, fine,” he answered with no real conviction.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” he said.
Matt stood on the balcony of the residence and gazed out at the falling sun. The air was still and calm, the evening warm. He loved this place. Johannes had told him once that being at the top of the mountain made a man feel as though he could touch the sky, yet still see what went on below. Never a truer word had been spoken. A figure stepped up beside him.
“It is a beautiful night,” said Gratia.
“Sumac Pacha,” he replied.
“What?”
“Sumac Pacha,” he repeated, “an old saying of the native American peoples. Roughly translated it means Beautiful Mother Earth.”
“They are so right.”
The sound of someone stepping on to the balcony caused them to turn.
“Gerhardt and I are retiring for the night,” said Martha.
She approached and pecked their cheeks, smiling at Matt in the way proud mothers do to an only child. Martha felt like a mother to him. Gerhardt made an appearance to say his goodnights too, motioning with his head towards the blankets on the two sun lounges placed at the side of the balcony.
“In case you wish to take in the sunrise,” he said, with his normal strait-laced expression. Matt noticed a greater degree of warmth between the two women. Soon, they were alone.
“Are you ready to begin?” she asked.
He nodded and they returned to their seats. Matt poured the red into the glasses and looked across. Her welcoming smile did its best to put him at ease. Try as he may, however, he couldn’t help but feel uneasy.
“My current existence is all courtesy of Catherine Vogel,” he started.
“Catherine Vogel?”
“You know her then?”
“Everyone knows of Catherine Vogel. She is a class act, one of the greatest European political figures of our or any other generation.”
“Well, it’s all down to her.”
Gratia was fascinated.
“I think you should start from the very beginning.”
He looked away to try and gather his thoughts.
“I began life as Michael Daniels, born in the North East of England,” he said. “I told you of my parents the other night.”
“Yes, go on.”
“After a few years working in the public sector I decided this existence didn’t offer enough of the good things in life, and so started my own business. The work is irrelevant. All you need to know is the company
was successful and made a tidy sum of money. Wealth affected Michael Daniels however. He became arrogant and distant, prone to flaunting his good fortune on material things and women, women in particular.”
He glanced across. Her gaze hadn’t moved away from his face.
“One day an old girlfriend approached and asked for help with a local money lender, a vicious guy called Bridges. The man was too strong for Michael Daniels and so he agreed to leave the area for a short time with this woman, using false identities. As it happened she worked at The Passport Agency.”
“This is how you became Matt Durham?”
He nodded.
“Before leaving, an old friend asked to meet at an obscure location. He had sent me a computer memory stick in the post. Soon after I arrived at the venue other people turned up. They tortured the poor sod to death in an attempt to find out what he had done with the memory stick. Just before he died, he gave them my name. Now they were searching for Michael Daniels, and would likely kill him too.”
His sideways glance revealed her interest in his story.
“So Mike sorted out the problem with the money lender, by selling his top of the range Mercedes, and left the area alone. He had no idea what was on the memory stick but flew in fear to Canada, as Matt Durham, and travelled across the country in a bid to find a place to hide. It was during this time I met Rosa Cain for the first time, briefly, in Toronto.”
He paused to collect his thoughts.
“I was hopelessly lost by the time I got to Victoria. Money was short and I didn’t know anyone. The one positive was that I believed I had evaded my pursuers. By chance I met a man called Jack, Jack Carter, a local entrepreneur. We hit it off immediately and he offered me a seasonal job. He also helped me find accommodation and evening work, at a local pub restaurant.”
He hesitated.
“That’s when I met her, a woman by the name of Grace Amanda Fox.”
He saw one of Gratia’s eyebrows rise.
“I spent three deliriously happy months there, closing my eyes to the reality of life and preferring to ignore the fact I still had the memory stick. Jack taught me how to fly, and showed me the true value of friendship. We were like brothers. It was as if I had been given a second chance, like I was growing up all over again.”
Now came the difficult part.
“Somehow, the people looking for the memory stick found my general location. Rosa appeared from nowhere to warn me and I ran again. Only this time I ran with Grace, believing she was also now in danger because we had lived under the same roof.”
She watched as the muscles in his face tightened.
“Continue,” she said.
“Grace turned out not to be the person I understood her to be. Her real name apparently was Sandra Hayes. She used to work for the people searching for the memory stick, and they persuaded her to rejoin their cause. I tried to talk her out of it, nearly succeeded. In the end she betrayed me. Rosa intervened to save me from the intended outcome.”
“Save you?”
Matt took a couple of deep breaths.
“Grace had been instructed to kill me. She had the chance to complete, never quite managed it. I still don’t know if …”
His words tailed away. Another deep breath and he was ready to continue.
“Not long afterwards, her colleagues came again. They murdered Jack horribly, and his girlfriend, Holly.”
As the memories returned, Matt felt emotion building. He decided to stand at the edge of the balcony. Confident he had regained control, he related the remainder of the story.
“That’s when I decided I had to fight back. Rosa and I came up with a plan to get the memory stick into the hands of the Authorities. We chose the EU as it was more accessible to outside contact. We needed help and she enlisted Johannes. He didn’t have to get involved, he wanted to, because of Rosa.”
Matt rested against the rail of the balcony and looked down into Gratia’s face, lit up by the moonlight.
“Rosa, Johannes and I were together here in St Wolfgang when they came once more. Johannes was killed, Rosa badly wounded. I managed to find a safe place to hide us both away and took the bullet from her body.”
He paused for a few seconds.
“Once Rosa was out of danger I left her here in the village to recuperate, and travelled to Brussels to seek out Catherine Vogel’s help. While I was away they returned again, this time for Rosa. Fortunately, I got back in enough time to stop them. Soon after, Catherine helped us to get the information to the right people and put an end to all the carnage.”
She sat back in her chair and sipped at the glass of red.
“When it was over, Catherine used her political influence to ease the path for me to live in Victoria. She gave me the opportunity to resume my life as Michael Daniels, but I declined.”
“Why did you decline?”
“The experience changed me. I had grown to dislike Mike Daniels. Jack Carter had left his estate to Matt Durham. That’s who I was now, as far as I was concerned.”
Gratia’s gaze remained constant, unerringly steady.
“I’ve lived quietly in Victoria ever since, until all this erupted.”
“Explain what has erupted precisely,” she said.
“I’m not sure I know what it is. It all came completely out of the blue. First, I discovered money was being siphoned out of my business account. Then, one of our floatplanes had to ditch in the sea after being sabotaged. This coincided with a friend of mine being attacked and badly injured. I uncovered a clue, which brought me into contact with the diary. The rest you know.”
“Is it possible the present is connected to your past?”
“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “I don’t believe so.”
“Why?”
“It couldn’t be. When I left for Victoria, Catherine told me most of the villains chasing after me had been taken into custody. That was a long time ago.”
“Most, but not all,” she responded immediately.
Matt paused to consider.
“No. But if there were any still free and intent on revenge, Catherine would have sent a message. This is different. It has to be.”
“You do not know this for sure?”
He took a while to mull over what Gratia had said.
“No.”
“You said this man, Ted Kendricks, left you the diary. Did you not seek to question him?”
“He wasn’t in a position to answer any questions.”
The surprise on her face was evident.
“You killed this man?”
“Not me, someone else.”
“But it is through this past adventure you learned to kill?”
“Yes,” he replied immediately. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have survived.”
“And Rosa also?” she asked, after a short pause.
“Rosa too,” he confirmed. “She taught me. Rosa used to work for one department or other within the British Secret Service.”
Gratia never blinked.
“And you say Michael Daniels was not a nice person.”
It was a more than reasonable observation. Matt glanced at Gratia as she deliberated. He could almost hear the mechanics of her thought processes. After he had re-told his story, got it off his chest as it were, the tale began to resonate differently in his mind. He had believed this to be a fresh episode of his life, a new chapter. Now he wasn’t sure. All he could be sure of was that knowing Matt Durham had the effect of changing people’s lives, and not for the better.
“Matt Durham is ultimately responsible for the chaos that entered your life. Because of him Johannes died and Rosa was left alone. If I were you, I would seriously reconsider getting involved with someone like him.”
She ignored his statement.
“You have told me what happened but not why. Who were these people and what was on the memory stick?”
Her focus was relentless.
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said.
&nbs
p; “Yes it does,” she insisted. “I want to know everything.”
Reluctantly, he continued.
“They were a group of powerful, highly connected public officials representing each of the G8 countries plus China and maybe India. The stick held details of a plan, codenamed The Milieu Principle, developed to try and resolve the world’s population crisis.”
“It is a topical issue, one which almost every Government on the planet seeks to address. Why was this one, particular, plan so different?”
“It was a little extreme.”
“How extreme?” she asked.
“They believed there was no political will to address the problem and that, even if there had been, the process would take too long. So they sought to chivvy things along a bit by releasing a deadly global virus and, in the process, murder two thirds of the world’s population.”
Now her expression changed. He explained further.
“They had been clandestinely analysing the public records of registered citizens around the world for many years. These people reviewed everything available on people, from medical to criminal records, including the smallest of misdemeanours; from financial details and employment records to electronic communications and travel patterns. They applied a series of what they considered to be objective assessments, in order to identify those individuals deemed suitable to be retained within a smaller civilisation whilst the remainder would perish. Apparently their new world was to be inhabited by the intellectually and morally gifted, specimens free from hereditary disease.”
“But how could they ensure this?”
“An antidote had been developed, made available only to those designated for survival. The remainder of the population would be injected with ineffective placebos. Those with the temerity to be naturally immune to the virus were to be hunted down and terminated.”
He could see alarm in her face.
“Why has no-one heard of this conspiracy?”
“According to Catherine, Governments were concerned that making this public would likely cause international panic. It was considered better for the culprits to be brought to justice discreetly, out of the public eye so to speak. I guess there is a certain amount of logic to the notion. It’s the way politicians do things after all.”
Her head shook slowly from side to side, in disbelief as much as anything.
“How could they possibly hope to succeed? There would have been international chaos. Nothing in everyday society would have got done. No food produced, no energy generated, no goods manufactured. How did they plan to manage that?”
“Storage,” he countered. “In addition to developing a virus and earmarking two thirds of the population for certain death, they also had plans to transport vital goods and commodities to secret locations around the world. Once the virus took hold these reserves would be discreetly brought into play.”
“To secretly transport goods around the world, on the scale you suggest, would be a giant undertaking. Such an operation would require the co-operation of a vast logistics enterprise, a company as big as … Schafen Industries.”
“No,” he said instantly. “Don’t even go there. Johannes wasn’t part of their plans. And anyway, it ended months ago. Catherine saw to it.”
“How can you be sure? Do you know what happened to these people? Has Catherine, or anyone else, told you what has happened since?”
“No. Catherine did offer to keep me posted but I declined. Maybe I’ll touch base with her when she returns from China.”
“Why did you not keep in touch?”
“At the time I just wanted to put it behind me, forget.”
“But you find it hard to forget,” she said more in statement than enquiry.
He paused.
“Yes,” he admitted. “Too many good friends were lost to me. I can’t forget.”
She was silent for a moment.
“I did not realise what you had been through,” she said.
“Hell, lady, it was a dirty job but someone had to do it,” using his best American drawl.
The humour was wasted on her.
“So if it has ended, who is intent on hurting us?”
He didn’t know.
“Mathilde said her father had been told by someone I was coming for him. Likely the guys in Germany, Italy and Spain had got the same message. Chances are those three thugs entered your suite looking for me, thinking we were sharing the same room.”
“Who has told them this? And why would they believe you would be coming for those people?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I really don’t know. Maybe I’ll find the answer in Russia, seeing as we were hustled out of Pamplona.”
The conversation lapsed into silence. Both sipped at their glasses of red before settling back into their seats, wrapped up in their individual thoughts.
“What was she like?” asked Gratia
“What was who like?”
“This woman, called Grace.”
“Do you mean the person I thought she was, or the person she turned out to be?”
“I have a choice?” she said. “No, the woman you believed her to be.”
He would have preferred not to think about this.
“She was small and delicate, with dark hair and pale skin. I found her to be warm and caring. Everyone in Victoria had nothing but good words to say about Grace.”
He paused.
“And she was always smiling, constantly smiling. If she did hold any unpleasant thoughts about others she kept them well hidden, out of view. It was impossible to dislike Grace.
“Did you love her?”
“How can you love someone who tried to kill you,” he joked.
“Did you?”
Matt took his time to reply.
“I guess I was drawn. When you live and work together under the same roof for so many weeks it becomes easier to form an attachment.”
“And Rosa Cain?” she asked.
“We’re war buddies,” he said eventually. “Rosa and I went through a lot together. There will always be an unspoken bond between us because of what happened, an unavoidable legacy of our past. It could never be anything more.”
She was silent for a while.
“When you talked before about growing close to Rosa, you slept with her?”
“No … yes … sort of,” he said.
“That is pretty unambiguous then.”
He glanced at her concentrated face. For some reason this was important to Gratia.
“On my return from Brussels I discovered three assassins had chased Rosa up here, to the Schafberg. How she found the strength to hike up the mountain, I’ve no idea. She hid in the pig sty so as not to bring attention to Martha and Gerhardt. By the time the assassins were beaten off Rosa couldn’t lift a finger in anger. She was wet through, physically exhausted and worryingly cold. I took her into one of the hotel rooms, washed her in the shower and then got into bed alongside to warm her through, body heat and stuff.”
“So you slept together, naked. And never made love?”
“Yeah, peculiar sort of tale isn’t it? Rosa was half dead and I was so battered and bruised just breathing made my muscles ache. Even if we wanted to it was physically impossible.”
“And did you, want to?”
“You ask a lot of questions. Legal training I guess.”
She smiled briefly.
“I told you, we’re war buddies,” was all he said.
Gratia returned to momentary silence. He had been more honest than intended, and could see her trying to rationalise all he had recounted. Every few seconds her eyebrows would lift in reaction to the many images forming in her head.
“Rosa has come to terms with what happened. Yet you are unable to escape the ghosts from the past.” she said.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess not.”
He saw her nod in agreement, through the corner of his eye. They sat quietly for a few more minutes.
�
��It is late and I have an early start tomorrow,” she said. “I will retire for the night.”
By now, Matt was completely embroiled in his own reflective thought.
“Good night, Gratia.”
Chapter Nineteen
The China Key
Milieu Dawn Page 18
