by J B Holman
‘Yes, but is he guilty of assassinating the Prime Minister?’
‘Probably not. But I know he’s guilty of something.’
‘Yes, you said. You clearly don’t like him. Don’t let personal feelings get in the way. Are you drunk?’ She smiled at him. ‘How did you get here? Did you drive?’
‘Of course,’ she said, bleary eyed. ‘I’m in no condition to walk.’ She kissed him again, then paraded herself up and down wiggling like an over-zealous catwalk model. ‘Look what Charlie got me. It’s my trousers, reborn. I love ’em. Oh yes, and she got you a present too: revenge for your silly puzzle book gift.’ She handed him the Join the Dots book. ‘She said you’re a professional and should be able to do it. Me, I doubt it. I doubt you could join anything, especially a team. Did I tell you that you’re a rubbish team player?’
Foxx placed the book on the bedside table and picked up his jacket.
‘Are you going somewhere?’
‘Yes.’
Can I come?’
‘No,’ he said without any real feeling. She followed him out of the door and into the car.
As they drove, she asked,
‘Have you ever heard of the Zalekistani coup?’ Her brain was coming back on line as the champagne befuddlement faded.
‘Yes.’ He spoke with feeling. ‘It was bloody and it was a mess; a completely botched job.’ She googled and gave edited highlights as she skimmed Wikipedia.
‘Four hundred civilians died, the Government regained control, then there was a counter-coup and over three thousand civilians were killed over a five-week period, five hundred and sixty-two people were arrested, three hundred were executed, the Prime Minister was hung in public.’
‘Jesus!’ she said. ‘And this was only a few years ago. I thought coups were a thing of the past and mostly in Africa.’
‘There have been over sixty coups in the last fifteen years. I know: I caused three of them. There have been recent coups or attempted coups in Turkey, Italy, Spain and Greece, all in the last fifty or sixty years. And Thailand has them regularly, like moon festivals, normally in a very civilised manner. But Zalekistan - that was a filthy bloodbath. It was fuelled by corruption and greed, and oil money; it had nothing to do with politics. It was shameful that the international community didn’t intervene, but they were probably behind it!’
‘I was right, then. He was guilty of something. The charming, smiling Mr Morgan-Tenby organised it and then bought a luxury yacht.’
The anticipated outburst of condemnation from Mr Foxx didn’t come. He drove in silence, thoughts internalised. He was definitely not built to be a team player.
They parked by a Tube station and walked five streets to his flat. As they entered his block, a man across the road sitting in a car surrounded by empty coffee mugs, doughnut boxes and takeaway wrappers, picked up the phone and made a call. As Foxx and Julie entered his front door, the SWAT team was already on its way.
‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ said Julie with deep sarcasm. ‘It’s an art nouveau installation, right?’ She surveyed the mayhem. Every drawer had been opened and emptied on the floor, every cupboard stripped out, every piece of furniture searched and left in disarray.
‘Thank you. But I am thinking about changing my cleaner.’ He deftly removed the top of his hi-fi amplifier and took out a small device. ‘It’s a damp meter,’ he said, as he started searching for bugs, video feeds and recording devices. He found seven and disabled them.
The flat had been stylish and modern before its invasion. He had taste, some of it expensive. Julie restructured the scene in her mind and imagined it before heavy boots had torn it apart. Foxx scrabbled through the dishevelment, throwing things into his bag as he went.
‘I approve,’ said Julie, as five packs of new pants hit the inside of the bag. He peered out of the window.
‘Time to go,’ he said, as if packing up a picnic. Julie looked out of the window. A dozen heavily armed officers were running into the building. Adrenalin struck her heart. She was not used to this level of excitement. Champagne bravado had long since evaporated; all she felt was fear.
‘Are they going to catch us?’
‘I didn’t come here to get caught.’
She allowed herself to feel better.
‘So what’s the plan, then?’
‘Sit in there.’ He pointed into a wardrobe with a few suits and shirts still left hanging in it. All of a sudden, she felt worse again. There was a knock at the door. There were voices, boots and no doubt a battering ram at the ready.
‘That’s your plan? Hiding in a wardrobe, hoping an army of armed men don’t find us?’
‘Pretty much. Now get in.’ She obeyed seconds before the front door flew off its hinges and the flat was stormed by a team intent on their destruction. Her heart beat so loudly, she was sure they would hear it. She counted the seconds waiting for the inevitable disaster to strike.
Foxx closed the wardrobe door until it clicked shut, then reached above his head in the darkness and rotated the clothes rail. A door opened on the other side of the wardrobe. They tumbled out and into safety. He silently closed the secret wardrobe door, turned to her and said,
‘Welcome to Narnia.’
She smiled. She was alive. She was in a flat of calm and quiet, a flat hidden by a façade, a flat unseen by the outside world. She stood in a flat that was a metaphor for the man.
He grabbed a thick wad of bank notes and a few other necessities and stashed them in his now bulging bag. They left by the Narnia front door, skipped down the grand staircase right down to the basement, as they had done in Berkeley Heights. Exiting through the bin door, they hurried along an alley and into the back door of a large building, went up the lino-covered steps, through a door and into the carpeted splendour of a five-star hotel lobby.
Across the lobby was a large revolving front door, but just before they reached it they descended a wide staircase to the left, pushed open a glass door and found themselves in the familiar walkways of the London Underground. Passing the ticket office on the right and the barriers to the left, they exited the station on the other side. As they re-emerged at street level, they took ten steps and arrived at the car, five streets away from Foxx’s front door. They got in and drove away.
‘A quick dinner and then early to bed,’ announced Foxx.
‘Oh good,’ she said, enjoying her lust and celebrating the fact that she was neither dead nor arrested.
‘Maybe I’d better lock you in the bathroom again!’ He smiled at her and spoke softly. ‘We’re on an op tomorrow. The PM will be there, alone, at 6.00 a.m. We have to be there before him. He will be an easy hit, an assassin’s dream and we have to stop it. We’re not calling the police, because this is the PM’s personal secret, but if we get it wrong, it will be the last thing he ever does.’
Two hours later, Julie was sleeping in his arms, sated. He lay awake, as he so often did. He felt the pressure.
If I get this wrong Julie dies, my dad dies, the country loses a leader and the trail will go cold.
He hugged her warm, naked body and felt cold rush through his veins. He cursed himself for writing such a comprehensive document. He had to beat his own best planning. He had to beat the assassin at their own game.
He had to win.
He had no choice.
21
Grave Danger
The Prime Minister kissed his wife. This morning, he didn’t feel like a Prime Minister, he just felt like a dad; any dad who’d lost a child. He never said where he was going. He didn’t have to. She knew. He wouldn’t let his only daughter down on her birthday.
‘Give her a kiss for me. Tell her I still miss her.’
‘I will. I always do.’
He stepped lightly down the stairs, leaving the lights off. They were in their own home, their cosy house in the country. He slipped out of the side door, down the side of the garage, round the back of the coal shed, under the fence and into next door’s garden. Borrow
ed keys in hand, he slipped into the driving seat of his neighbour’s old Mitsubishi estate car. He was two miles down the road, before he doffed the cap from his head.
He drove slowly and carefully, his head full of memories and empty of thoughts. But it was not sad, not totally. He felt a smile when he thought of her face and how she’d gripped his fingers so tightly. He remembered the happy days like they were yesterday. She’d only been three when they’d lost her and the decades had slipped by. She would be a doctor now or a lawyer or working for the United Nations. She could be anything he wanted, in his mind, in his memories, in his aspirations.
It was a clear, blue-sky morning. The birds would be singing when he arrived, the dew would still be moist on the ground and tranquillity would be all around.
It made him feel alive.
He just had to stay that way for the next hour.
Foxx and Connor were at the Garden of Rest long before the Prime Minister’s alarm clock woke him. It was dark, as black as a bible and so quiet you could hear the moon set. Foxx was alive and alert. Julie was in the passenger seat, still coming to terms with the morning. He’d given her the gun, bullets and instructions. She’d clicked open the cartridge and lodged in the bullets with her thumb, then clicked it shut - her fingerprints left on every part.
She resisted her thoughts. He’s setting me up. He’s come here to kill his father and lay the blame on me.
‘Tell me something about you, Mr Foxx,’ she said, still sleepy in her voice. They had a long drive and she didn’t want to think about what would be there when they arrived.
‘Like what?’
‘Your most and least favourite pastimes, out of bed and outside work?’
‘Most favourite; being on the southern plateau of Mount Kei in the Denali National Park, Alaska. It’s a fifteen mile hike through unspoilt temperate rainforest, a clamber over lose rocks for a couple of miles, then a glorious free climb up a 2,000 foot cliff onto the plateau shelf. It’s like you’re in heaven, totally alone. Unbelievable, life-affirming, ensconced in nature; wonderful.
Least favourite . . . bridge; a game that’s mind-numbingly boring, for those in their late-nineties waiting to die. It’s the only way these people can make three friends - futile, desolate and inexplicable.’
‘Not keen on card games, then?’
‘If I were playing bridge, whilst sitting on a bridge, I would jump off. ’
‘Not keen on bridge players either, then?’
‘NQOK darling!’
‘What?’
‘Not Quite Our Kind!’ he said in his most superior and mock condescending voice. ‘What about you? Favourite thing to do, money no object?’
‘Tonga. There’s a private island there. It costs £10,000 a week, maybe more, but you get a house with total privacy, your own pool, chef, cleaners, power boat. You could see no-one for a month or you could go to the mainland and enjoy local life. I’d stay there for as long as funds lasted, doing pottery, learning the viola and making love, day and night, to Duncan, if he were still here.’
‘And who would you take now, if not him – a new boyfriend?’
‘Not you for a start! No,’ she thought for a moment. ‘No boyfriends. I’d take a girlfriend – twice the fun and none of the trouble.’
They chatted, Julie hiding her fear, Foxx hiding his frustration with the triviality of the conversation; both doing what they had to do to prepare for whatever was to come. They arrived in deep lush agricultural farmland and parked on an area of wasteland overshadowed by a hedge.
Foxx locked the car and they stepped through a gap in the hedge to a footpath that circled a small hill that rose ahead of them. The path to the left led to the back of the hill. They went right and followed it for half a mile, through a small woodland, then along a hedgerow, no doubt unchanged for centuries. The hillock rose up to their left. The Garden of Rest appeared before them in the distance, dark and down to the right. They approached, found their vantage point and sat in silence. Waiting.
‘Over there,’ he whispered. Her heart jumped, frightened for the first time by the reality of meeting the assassin. ‘That’s where he’ll be.’ He pointed up the hill at the perfect sniper’s vantage point. It was a clear unimpeded sight line between hide and graveside. The trees around the Garden of Rest broke at that point. The target would be in the open, unprotected, unmissable. There would be a single crack in the countryside silence, then the father would fall, spilling blood on the resting place of his child. It was the only spot where a shot would work - unless the assassin entered the cemetery, walked past the gravestones and took out the Prime Minister by hand or by sidearm. They waited on the side of the hill, facing each other, Foxx watching the empty nest above, Julie watching the empty graveyard below.
‘Ahead of us,’ he whispered, familiarising her with military jargon, ‘is twelve o-clock. The entrance to the cemetery is at two o’clock.’ He pointed about sixty degrees to the right. ‘The path we came down is at four o’clock and the sniper will be behind you at six o’clock.’ He turned and pointed. ‘Keep your eyes on everything from nine o’clock to three o’clock and I’ll take the rest.’ Silence fell again and she gazed through the morning twilight, waiting.
Gravel crunched under slowly turning tyres. The car stopped, the engine turned off. The door closed almost too quietly to hear, the footsteps over gravel dying away in the breeze. And there, alone, but observed, was Foxx’s adopted father. He was alone in his thoughts, alone in the morning, alone with his lost love. He knelt, talked, prayed, lay flowers, then sat on the edge of her marble graveside, like it was her bed at home; in a world that was hers and his alone.
Julie felt her heart beat faster. Foxx felt the grip on his gun tighten. A second was a lifetime; a minute was forever. The man was open, vulnerable. One shot and he was dead.
Julie watched the graveyard. She dared not blink, scanning for movement, watching every rustle of branch, every sway of twig. She watched, on edge, on guard.
Then movement.
Imagined at first.
Julie tensed and tapped his knee. He swung round to see a shadow behind the leaves at the entrance of the Garden of Rest. He took aim with his pistol. The shadow moved slowly. The form in the graveyard moved closer. There was no clear shot. Should he shout, should he run, should he shoot?
He held his nerve. The shadow became a person, the person had been kneeling. She stood, she walked towards the PM. Foxx had her in his sights. She was the killer. This was it. If Foxx had a rifle, she would be a dead shot; with a pistol, success was not so certain. He raised the gun to his eye, ready to take the shot. He had her, he could take her down. The figure knelt again, not taking position to shoot, she knelt in prayer. She removed her Laura Ashley headscarf: she was old, she was praying, she was not the threat. He relaxed his stance, but kept the pistol high.
‘Watch her,’ he whispered almost silently, as he took vigil on the sniper’s nest. Two minutes. Five minutes. Twelve minutes, both on high alert, adrenalin pumping, heart thumping a relentless beat in Julie’s ears. The old lady stood. Julie nudged her companion and she took vigil on the non-existent sniper. Foxx followed the old lady with the barrel of his gun. She walked slowly, she walked solemnly, but she walked away. The PM was alone once more.
Minutes ticked. Twenty minutes, twenty-five, twenty-eight, twenty-nine. Foxx wanted an enemy he could see. If he could see him, he could kill him. Invisible, he was an incalculable and uncontrollable danger. Twenty-nine and a half minutes. Foxx pointed the gun hard at the nest, waiting to see the rifle barrel appear. Thirty minutes. Julie jumped. A bird flew from the branches, wings flapping. The PM stood up and slowly – so slowly – walked away.
Foxx waited for the crack to split the silence, the gunshot to end the mission; but the PM left unharmed through the ornate arches and headed for his car. Foxx sprinted across the hillside to get a view of the car park, to see if the killer had improvised, changed plan, switched tactics.
The Mitsubis
hi engaged drive, the PM swept gracefully out of the car park and was gone.
Foxx returned to Julie, who was still watching the empty graveyard, dutifully intent. They looked at each other. Anti-climax or relief? They walked together down the long, straight, bumpy path, along the hedgerow, back to the car.
‘No show,’ she said. No reply.
‘Again,’ she said. Again no reply.
‘There have been three possible attempts,’ she continued. ‘The one when you weren’t with me did happen; the two when you were with me didn’t happen. Is that a coincidence?’
‘Well, it wasn’t me, so if it was one of us, it was . . .’
She kicked him hard in the back of the knee. He buckled. She pushed him down. The gun fell from his belt. She scrabbled and grabbed it. The shot missed as it whistled past Foxx’s ear.
Foxx had not seen it. He couldn’t have done. As he answered Julie’s last question, a red laser dot appeared on the back of his head. Julie didn’t think, she reacted. She kicked him down. The rifle cracked a shot, the bullet scarcely missed his head. He raised his head to look. Another shot cracked the air.
‘What’s happening?’ she asked.
‘Someone’s shooting at us,’ he replied deadpan.
‘Take this,’ she handed him the gun. ‘Shoot back.’
‘What if it’s the Secret Service? D’you want me to shoot the good guys?’
‘Yes, if they’re shooting at me! And stop putting your head up or it’ll get shot off.’
‘Number one: shut up and do as I say. Number two: I needed to put my head up to see where he was shooting from. Number three: follow me and keep down.’ He crawled through a tiny gap in the hedge. ‘This will give us cover. Now keep low and run.’
They ran hunched and fast along the length of the hedge, until woodland obscured them from their hunter. They were within sight of the car. She caught her breath. He was as fit as a whippet, but she kept him in range. He ignored the car, turned right down the other path and kept running.
