by Tony Moyle
“Yes, sir, how can I help you?” answered the receptionist in a bright, foreign accent.
“Has Mr. Stevens checked out?”
“No, sir, but he did leave in a taxicab about three hours ago. There were quite a lot of photographers down here, as you can imagine,” replied the receptionist.
“Thank you, Miss,” Herb replied, replacing the receiver but quickly picking it up again to dial a number he knew by heart. The phone was eventually answered by a deep, male Irish voice that danced out of the speaker like an enchantment.
“Dr King? It’s Herb.”
“Hello, Herb. It’s been a long time. What can I do for you, my dear friend, after all these…all these…you know?” croaked Dr. King, gasping for the end of his sentence.
“Years,” prompted Herb. “Yes, it has been a while, but you always said to call if I ever needed you. One of the band has got some issues that I think you might be able to help with. How quickly can you get to London?”
*****
When the taxi finally pulled up outside Heathrow Airport, John jumped out and made quickly to Departures. He was going to buy a ticket to a place he knew little about or why he felt so compelled to go there. The nearest sales representative, whose impossibly stretched smile was neither welcoming nor dismissive, wore a pristine outfit daubed in the brash corporate colours that she represented. The name on her lapel read, ‘Sandra Wheale’ in fancy bold black print.
“How can I help you, sir?” she asked, before John had even reached the counter. Painfully, her perfectly manufactured toothy grin competed with those of her colleagues to see who could be the first to break their own jaw yet still hold an effective conversation.
“Yes, I’d like to check some flight times,” responded John vacantly. It was obvious to anyone that he was distracted and fascinated as to how this woman’s face managed to stay vertical under the weight and layers of the make-up that she wore, single-handedly propping up the sales performance of the cosmetics industry.
“So, where would you like to go?”
Where was he going exactly? He knew very little to be sure of his destination. All he knew was he had to find Laslow and the last time he’d seen him he was in a huge, metallic sphere somewhere in the heart of the Swiss Alps, a mountain range that ran for more than a thousand miles from west to east. How on Earth was he going to find the right spot in only three months was anyone’s guess. Anywhere would be a start.
“Geneva,” he eventually replied, thinking that he might as well start from one end.
“The next flight to Geneva leaves in three hours, sir,” replied Sandra.
“That’s fine, thanks. Can I get two tickets please?”
“Absolutely, who else are you travelling with? I need to take both your details down.”
“I’m sorry, did I say two tickets? I meant one. I’m a little confused today, been working far too hard,” replied John, finding it difficult to separate himself from the other passenger on this journey.
“I know,” Sandra replied. “I saw your concert last night. Amazing effects at the end, although I think everyone was a little concerned when you collapsed like that.”
“Yes, that part didn’t quite go to plan,” replied John, thinking about Edward for the first time since he’d left Hell.
“It’s a shame I’ve met you here. If I was anywhere else I’d get you to sign my breasts,” she whispered, giving him a sly, suggestive wink.
John stared back at her, paralysed by this character’s chameleon-like ability to appear so prim and proper at first but then degenerate into a slutty groupie. John felt the temptation to misuse his current position in order to have sex with hundreds of ordinary but beautiful women, an opportunity that might have been possible if John had been dealt a different set of priorities. It was going to be a constant battle against flirtation without any chance of getting more than a raised eyebrow. John shook himself back into life.
“How much will one ticket be, please, Sandra?”
“£249, if you take the supersaver. That means you have to return on a Monday between four-thirty and six in the morning.”
John placed his hand inside Nash’s leather jacket and pulled out his wallet. Inside was an array of credit cards and a gold frequent flyer card. After prevaricating over the choice of cards, he placed the gold card and an American Express onto the counter.
“Okay, Mr. Stevens, you’ll be able to access our first-class lounge and all I need from you is your PIN number in here please.”
PIN number? A signature he could have forged but a PIN number gave him no chance. Well, actually it gave him three chances, which was as good as none given the millions of possible four-digit combinations. Motionless he stood for a moment as he scanned through Nash’s brain desperately seeking answers. Although he had possession of Nash’s emotions, he could not tap into his knowledge. He concentrated harder to reveal the information but nothing happened.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Stevens?”
“No, not really. I have so many cards. I’ve gone blank as to which PIN goes with which card. Just give me a couple of minutes and I’ll remember it,” he lied, turning his back from the desk and walking away a few paces. Sandra watched intently as he muttered incoherently to himself.
“Nash, I need your PIN number for your Amex card,” thought John to himself. Nash had been altogether silent for the last few hours as the tranquillisers had numbed his senses and John had developed his ability to control him.
“I’m not giving you my PIN until you give me back my body.”
“Look, the quicker we get this done, the quicker I’ll be gone.”
“Then give me back some control or we’re going nowhere.”
“OK, but no messing about,” demanded John, temporarily loosening his mental grip on Nash’s brain and drifting to the bottom of his head. Walking back to the bewildered Sandra, Nash pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket and slid it across the desk.
“This isn’t your PIN number, Mr. Stevens.”
“I know, but if you’re still interested in getting your breasts done you can use that number. You’ll get much more than a plane ticket, you’ll get a trip of a lifetime, I can promise you,” replied Nash with a wink.
“Oh for God’s sake, I avoided that temptation, you tosser. Can’t you focus on anything else other than your libido?” added John. As he circulated around Nash’s body he found a region that clearly showed he couldn’t. John moved on rapidly.
“That sounds like fun,” replied Sandra, blushing and leaning forward across the desk. When the two of them were within a few inches of each other, Nash whispered into her ear.
“You have to help me. I’m being held against my will.”
“But,” she replied, “you’re on your own.”
“For God’s sake, Nash, just buy the ticket or I will poke you in the eye with your own finger,” thought John.
Nash picked up the machine and reluctantly entered his PIN.
“You are joking, aren’t you? You have a PIN number 2666. To 666, to the number of the beast!” John proclaimed.
“What’s significant about that?” replied Nash out loud.
“Can you stop answering me verbally? It’s starting to scare people. Just think it and I will hear you.”
This was indeed the case. Sandra now looked at Nash with a sense of worry rather than lust. She passed him his ticket and pointed the way to the gold members’ lounge. A gaggle of cameramen and photographers charged noisily across the vast departure hall in their direction. They jostled each other for position like some insane horse race where jockeys whipped each other rather than their horses. As flashbulbs shattered the serenity and their shouts drew closer, the general public were being drawn to the commotion.
“I think we should run,” thought Nash.
“That’s the first time we’ve agreed on anything.”
Together they put all of their focus and energy into Nash’s tightly clad, skinny legs and forced them to
bolt as fast as they could in the direction of the members’ lounge.
“Call me!” Sandra shouted out, quite against company policy, as they sped off into the distance.
In the sanctuary of the quiet lounge, Nash slumped into the nearest sofa, unconsciously picked up a newspaper and read the front-page headline. ‘The truth about Tavistock, by Fiona Foster.’ As Nash read the article, John tried to figure out what his next move should be. The words that Nash read floated aimlessly in the background of John’s mind, until a name stopped it in its tracks.
“Nash, read that again,” thought John.
“Read what again?” replied Nash to the whole of the first-class congregation.
“To yourself, Nash, like when you’re reading,” replied John, noticing that several people sitting close by were wondering if they’d been asked the question.
“Read what again?” thought Nash.
“Now you’re getting it. The article, there was a name I heard, read it again.”
“The World Today has uncovered the shocking truth about the Tavistock bombing. The hundreds of pigeons that were killed in the explosion were being used to test a secret biological weapon being developed by the government. Even more mysteriously we can exclusively reveal that the bombing was carried out by a faction within the government itself. CCTV footage recovered from the site has identified a vehicle with plates that are not listed at DVLA, and it is our belief that it was being used by the security services. With the strange disappearance of the Minister of Homeland Security, Sandy Logan, still unexplained, The World Today is unable to verify the vehicle with the authorities…” read Nash.
“There you are, Nash, now you know. That’s the person I need to find,” thought John.
“What, Fiona Foster?”
“No…Sandy Logan,” corrected John. “I know why they haven’t been able to find him. He’s dead, or at least his body is.”
Nash pulled an unusual expression, as if a lemon had just exploded in his nostrils, completely befuddled by the concept.
‘That explains it. Sandy was killed in the bombing. He’s back to his old tricks again. The timing’s right, it’s in context with his character and undoubtedly he would have had Ian with him as well,’ John thought to himself.
“What old tricks?” replied Nash unexpectedly.
“Sorry…I didn’t say that to you,” thought John. “I was just thinking to myself.”
“I know, but I’ve been concentrating on you over the last hour and I’ve discovered that I can infiltrate your thoughts, just as you can mine.”
This worried John. With his brief successes since the hotel, he thought foolishly that he was now able to control Nash without consequence. It was clear that they were both becoming entwined with each other. John suspected that possession might actually damage both of them in the long run.
“If your thoughts are true, John, then I do need to help you, otherwise who knows what will happen.”
“Passengers for flight 237 to Geneva, please proceed to border control,” announced the loudspeaker across the lounge.
“There is one thing that I can’t figure out,” thought Nash.
“I know what you’re going to say. How are we going to find two souls that could be in any kind of animal, anywhere on the planet, and then how on God’s Earth are we going to encourage them out?”
“No. I was thinking how are we going to get on the flight without my passport?”
John panicked. All he constantly thought about was what was happening at that immediate point. After all, there was a hell of a lot to think about. How were they going to get past border control without a passport?
“I’ve got an idea, leave it with me,” thought Nash.
Nash walked nonchalantly up to the immigration desk with an air of utter confidence about him. When he reached the desk, John felt Nash’s self-belief evaporate. Behind the desk stood a burly, grumpy jobsworth, whose only purpose in life was to annoy other human beings. The type of person who revels in the disappointment and pain of others.
“What’s the matter?” thought John as Nash stopped in his tracks.
“I was very much placing my hopes on it being a sexy bird that I could charm.”
“Passport?” grunted the man from across the desk.
John needed a miracle. Standing against the lounge doors, keeping watch over the rich and famous that were lucky enough to afford the luxuries that first-class offered, was spotty young security. There was a tinge of blue in his eyes.
“Passport?” repeated the man even more gruffly.
“Only if you say the magic word,” replied Nash, stalling for time.
“Passport. Now,” came the response.
With a nod to John, the young lad flung open the main doors of the lounge to unleash a torrent of bustling and determined journalists. Mayhem broke out. Security guards jumped to their feet from all positions, forced into unaccustomed productivity quite in contrast to the usual state of standing motionless and looking threatening. Noticeably irritated by the unauthorised disruption to his kingdom, the burly passport controller stood up and shouted at everyone and no one at the same time.
“Get them out of here at once, or I’ll start breaking legs.”
“What do you think?” thought Nash.
“Run!” thought John.
“Agreed.”
In the midst of the melee, quietly but quickly, Nash jogged down the corridor towards the gate. Before anyone had noticed, he had made it down the gangway, up the stairs and onto the plane. As the gold lounge passengers were always last to board they wouldn’t have long to wait to see if they’d made it.
Waiting at the entrance of the plane was an unnaturally constructed stewardess. It wasn’t unfair to say she was Barbie-esque as it was clear that, out of the two of them, she contained more plastic than Barbie.
“Oh, Mr. Stevens, it’s such a pleasure to have you on-board with us today. If there is anything, and I do mean anything, I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to send for me.”
“Do you get this everywhere?”
“Pretty much. It does get a bit boring after a while,” replied Nash.
“Oh yes, I can see why an endless array of beautiful women offering you their bodies without so much as a chat-up line must be absolutely awful for you,” replied John, impressed that he could think sarcasm.
Nervously they sat in their seat hoping that the flight would take off without anyone noticing their breach of security. At 6.15 p.m., as scheduled, the flight taxied onto the runway and took off into the darkening sky. It was an hour into their two-hour flight when their luck turned.
John had been calculating what to do when he got to Geneva, when ‘Barbie’ approached them. John assumed that this would just be another sickly attempt for her to proposition Nash. It wasn’t.
“Mr. Stevens. We’ve just been contacted by security at London Heathrow. It would appear that you did not present your passport before departure. I’m sure this was just an oversight because of the security breach down in the airport. If you can just show me your passport now, I can put the matter to rest.”
“Well, um…do you know…you have the most beautiful eyes that I’ve ever seen, they dazzle like diamonds?” replied Nash, turning the charm-o-meter up to maximum.
“Oh God, can a soul be sick?”
“I’m sure they are, but I still need to see your passport,” she replied, unmoved by Nash’s advances.
It was obvious that Nash was taken aback by his failure. There was an audible little bang as his balloon-sized ego popped.
“I don’t have it with me,” replied Nash sheepishly.
“Then I’m afraid you will have to be detained at Geneva Airport security when we arrive. They will have to validate your identity,” she replied before pulling out a pair of handcuffs.
“That’s more like it, baby, now we’re talking,” replied Nash, grinning as she fixed the cuffs in place around both of his wrists.
“Nash, it�
�s absolutely not what you are thinking.”
- CHAPTER THIRTEEN -
THE ARBITER
For a change the Prime Minister was sitting down for dinner with his own family. It was a change because most evenings were consumed by an endless schedule of dinner dates with dignitaries. There was always a national president, religious leader or foreign ambassador making requests for his time, and food always seemed to play its part. Why did people always want to ‘do lunch’? When you had to contend with a multitude of contrasting opinions and incompatible beliefs, perhaps eating was the one subject that people agreed on. The need for it at least, even if they often couldn’t agree on the variety of cuisine. Although at times an intensely tedious and tiring exercise, in some respects he had to admit favouring these obscure V.I.P. luncheons over meals with his own flesh and blood.
It’s a peculiar life being Prime Minister. Many of his predecessors had warned that the nature of the job meant it would become all-consuming. Byron in his naive arrogance initially brushed off this advice, declaring that he would always have time for his family. How wrong he was. In reality it became impossible not to spend every waking moment thinking about work, or to receive a phone call from someone else who was thinking about it.
When he did have a so-called normal family meal there was no subject of conversation that he didn’t have some degree of knowledge or opinion on. Any subject outside of his self-proclaimed expertise wasn’t worth commenting on. It wasn’t just his understanding of topical subjects that had changed over the last four years, his attitude to others had been equally affected. In parliamentary circles his almost unlimited power to force through his will had suppressed his sensitivity to how other people might feel about it. Anyway, they rarely complained, at least not more than once. Of course this approach didn’t go down quite so well when sitting around Number 10’s dining room table with his wife Michelle on one side and his only child, Faith, on the other.
Apart from the Leader of the Opposition, the person he found it most difficult to connect with was his daughter. Faith had spent the majority of her teenage years living in Downing Street, a ludicrously alien environment to grow up in. Arguably if there was a time in life when a daughter most needs, but least wants, paternal guidance, then it’s the teen years. A responsibility that Byron was both unable and unwilling to find a gap in his schedule for. Faith was marooned in an overprotective environment and left to work things out for herself by absorbing wisdom from a vacuum. To make matters worse, her every move, rebellious or otherwise, was being monitored, exposed and reported on.
