by Tony Moyle
“How do you feel?”
“Normal,” replied Faith through chattering teeth.
“She’s perfectly well,” added Dr. Trent, deflecting the hidden criticism.
John’s outstretched finger pointed at the chemist, as malice flamed in his eyes and his body shook with fury. “You have done enough damage here. Although you may not be responsible for this crime, you are accountable for your part in it. You must seek forgiveness from your soul. Be grateful that you still can. In future think about answering your own conscience, rather than your orders. Leave.”
She had no intention of going very far. She had been warned that an unnamed person might come to disrupt her work and she had been told what to do if it occurred. These orders had come from a high authority, although she never guessed that she would have to use them against an even higher one.
“What can you tell me, Faith?” asked John.
“It’s cold and dark. I feel the shadow upon me.”
“Are you frightened?”
“I’m not sure what that is.”
“Do you feel anger?”
“What is anger?”
“It’s what I feel now,” replied John. “It’s the burning in your blood, rising in your veins. It makes you want to lash out and fight when the very worst has been done to you.”
“No, I do not feel that. My body feels heavy, like I am carrying a great weight. The shadow fills me from my toes to my head, influencing my thoughts. I don’t have the will to fight it,” Faith replied.
“What about Nash? Do you remember Nash?” asked John trying to find any reaction that might be described as an emotion.
“Yes, I remember Nash.”
“How do you feel about him?”
“I feel nothing. He is a man I know,” came the dry and soulless response.
John fell to his knees, tears now flowing freely from his eyes, bouncing like raindrops onto the flagstone tiles. John had felt some excruciatingly painful things in the time since his death. His father’s screams, the desolation that awaited him, newborn babies ripped from life in front of his very eyes because of where they were born in the world, were all amongst the worst. But this, this was the most desperate thing he’d witnessed yet. What made it worse was that he did not know how to fix it. Throughout his journey he’d believed he still had some element of control. That destiny was still something he was able to define and direct. The reality was quite different.
“I’m sorry, Faith,” he cried as he hugged her legs, rocking back and forward like a scorned child seeking forgiveness.
Faith stood unmoved and unresponsive. After several minutes of self-indulgence, John got back on his feet. Faith was gone, but he’d stop this happening to anyone else. That was what mattered now.
“Father, there is something different in your eyes.”
“Those are tears, I doubt whether they are something that you will ever experience again. At least you won’t feel the sadness that I feel now,” he sobbed in response.
“I didn’t mean the tears. There is something inside you that I do not remember. You are not the man that I knew. The shadow can see something bright that fills your mind, not something …someone. The shadow can see you.”
John had no idea how she appeared to be talking about John’s soul buried deep inside Byron’s body.
“I think it is time that we removed you from this place, Faith.”
He led Faith away from the hospital wing and back up through the tunnel. As their surroundings grew darker, Faith placed her hands out in front of her to feel her way through the darkness, describing as she went in a controlled and unemotional manner the thickness of the shadow that surrounded her. When they reached the end of the tunnel uninhibited, John found two people he recognised. There, waiting for their release, were Fiona Foster and Violet Stokes. Both had to be immediately restrained by their guards.
“If I ever find you,” blurted out Violet, “I will put you in the same condition that you so willingly subject on others.”
“I did what you asked of me,” replied John. “I released you when I had the power to throw away the key.”
“It will not be forgotten,” barked Violet. “That debt will be repaid in full.”
“Very well, do what you will to me. In return for pursuing me I ask something of you, Miss Stokes. I am putting my daughter into your protection, so that I can no longer be a danger to her. I trust you, Violet, to do the right thing. Take her far away from this place. Keep her safe and keep her hidden. Then if you feel the need to wreak your revenge on me, you will know that you have in your possession the one thing that will cause me most pain, and that will be revenge enough.”
“Why would you do that?”
“If you can keep yourself hidden from me for so long, then you can also keep Faith hidden from me. I know your compassion and I know no harm will come to her.”
“What if I won’t do it?”
“Then I will send Agent 15 to hunt you down, and this time I won’t give him any restrictions. He will use his own instincts and you really don’t want that. I’m prepared to do anything to keep Faith away from me.”
“Then I have little choice.”
“Thank you. One final thing. If you see me again, use everything in your power to protect yourselves. She must not be allowed to see me, and I must not be allowed to see her. Is that understood?”
“It is,” replied Violet.
Holding Faith’s hands in his, he relaxed his control of Byron’s frontal lobe to allow Byron one last glimpse of the daughter whom he underappreciated.
“I want you to see what you have done to your own flesh and blood. One of the most beautiful souls that I had the pleasure to meet,” thought John.
Byron’s eyes, that for so long had been occupied by John’s, saw the outside world for the first time in weeks. There in front of him was the shadowy and dour shape of his daughter, grey and bland.
“See what Emorfed has done to her, Byron. I hope it is the last thing you ever see. I hope you will repent it every second of whatever life you have left.”
Then as quickly as Byron had seen it, it was gone.
- CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN -
DOWN THE DRAINS
Agent 15’s heightened sense of suspicion had been burning with the ferocity of an industrial blast furnace even before he’d received the phone call. Something didn’t feel right and, in his insatiable desire for control, that was unacceptable. Why was he being asked to do a job that anyone with half an ounce of wit would be capable of? As he drove the wagon around the more than necessary number of roundabouts that was Hemel Hempstead, the fragmented pieces of intelligence he’d pieced together did cartwheels around his mind.
This meaningless job had been assigned to him on the pretence that the Prime Minister needed someone to ‘take responsibility.’ That single word bothered him because it had two possible connotations. One demonstrated the unwavering faith that the Prime Minister showed in him. The alternative suggested Byron needed a fall guy if the plot didn’t go to plan. But which one was it? Byron’s long-standing loyalty to him could not be overlooked, yet neither could Agent 15’s belief in his own judgement. The recent changes in the Prime Minister’s behaviour had fertilised a suspicion that permeated through Agent 15’s nervous system to the very tip of his trigger finger.
One piece of intelligence that stoked the fires of his distrust radiated from the election. Why had Byron called it so soon? Governments went to the electorate when they were popular. They had at least another year to improve on their dismal approval ratings before going to the polls. Agent 15 had assumed that the effects of implementing Emorfed would reduce the nation’s inclination to vote for change anyway.
Another piece of information was of even greater concern than the election. Only an approved handful of people knew Agent 15’s real name. What was Byron trying to achieve by using it openly in front of others? It was totally against protocol and potentially dangerous to both of them. Yet, B
yron had revealed it to someone outside of the government. Someone, by all accounts, who was seriously lacking in scruples. If Dominic Lightower was willing to betray his nation, surely he’d have no problem betraying him? If Byron hadn’t used one of his fake names then there must have been a motive for using the real one?
The phone call from Dr Trent had sealed it. When she’d described the Prime Minister’s attitude to the effects and use of Emorfed, Agent 15 was convinced he knew what ‘responsibility’ really meant. Now time was his primary enemy. Every mission had to be flawlessly planned, every eventuality simulated to ensure success. It was his job to leave no stone unturned. If stones were found they were generally interrogated, analysed and subjected to waterboarding before being turned over, usually three times. Minutes from his rendezvous, none of the normal preparations were possible. He’d have to use his training, wits and intuition. Screw it, he always had his gun. As the main gates approached, devoid of security checks, he made one final phone call.
“Agent 12, I have a small job for you,” he bellowed into the speaker.
“Where are you, 15? We’ve lost your position, your tracking device has been deactivated.”
“That figures. Look, I want you to put a trace on someone for me.”
“No problem. Who do you want us to follow?”
“The Prime Minister.”
“You must know that only one person can authorise that?”
“Yes, I know, it’s the Prime Minister. I recognise the absurdity. What Prime Minister is likely to authorise someone to spy on himself. It doesn’t matter, I have a higher level of permission,” replied Agent 15.
“Oh yes, what’s that?”
“I’ll shoot you if you don’t do it,” replied Agent 15 calmly. It was the kind of response that would be very hard to ignore. Everyone knew that if Agent 15 wanted to shoot someone, he shot them.
“Okay, consider it done,” came the response after a brief pause.
Agent 15 pinned a named security badge to his navy blue overalls as he alighted from the truck’s cabin. Stripped naked in black, bold font his real name announced itself to the world. In an instant this single act destroyed years of misinformation designed to keep him in the shadows. Now only the gloom of night-time hid him. As he accustomed himself to a new environment his attention was drawn to the top of the water company’s service vehicle.
As statuesque as a lion prowling its prey, his eyes pierced the gloom, convinced that his ultra-sensitive ears had picked up an unusual rustling noise on the roof. When you’ve been trained to the level of Agent 15, you weren’t like ordinary people. In this situation most people would jump at every patch of dark or imaginary noise. If Agent 15 thought he’d heard something, then it was fact. There were no coincidences in his world.
“Victor Serpo?” came a quiet voice from the shadows, as a fully suited Dominic Lightower shuffled forward tentatively to greet him.
“I’d prefer if you referred to me as Agent 15,” he replied gruffly.
“Yes, the Prime Minister said you might. Although given the gravity of what we are doing here tonight, I think it might be folly if I introduce you to the other workers using your Secret Service moniker,” replied Dominic. “Don’t you think?”
“He seems to have thought of everything,” replied Agent 15 sarcastically, confident that Byron had not considered what Victor was capable of.
“My money?” hinted Dominic, straddling the pathway in an awkward mix of defiance and false bravery. The two eyeballed each other for a split second, analysing their relative strengths.
“In the van. All cash, all unmarked.”
“Good,” said Dominic, rubbing his hands. “Shall we get on, then? I have no desire for this to go on any longer than necessary.”
“Sure you don’t want to check the money for yourself, Dominic? I’m told that I have not always been…reliable with the truth, particularly when I have ulterior motives,” offered Agent 15 with a weak smirk.
“I’d like to say I trust you, but I don’t. Yet neither do I have the luxury of the time needed to quench my curiosity or challenge your authenticity,” he responded, waving at a group of burly shadows in the distance. “These gentleman will unload for you, Victor. Let’s make our way to the laboratory and delay no longer.”
When they reached the rear entrance to the facility, Dominic swiped his security card to enable a large, open aired[PP6] gate, positioned within eight-foot-high barbed wire fences, to swing forward and reveal a dozen sewage tanks. As they walked along the gantry the rotating steel arms of each tank slowly swirled its contents, each exposing a uniquely different odour. To the untrained eye the tanks transformed gradually from ones that appeared totally pure to those that would make the average man immediately retch on the introduction of the aromas to their nostrils. Due to familiarity and sheer bloody-mindedness, neither of them reacted.
In the middle of the facility a side walkway led them towards a sizeable yet out of place Portakabin. The dwindling lights from the building were involved in a desperate struggle to escape from its grubby windows. One of these windows rattled shut suddenly as the metal catch was released from its hook.
“Just the wind from the turbine,” offered Dominic, noticing Agent 15’s immediate interest. “Happens all the time, I wouldn’t let it worry you.”
Stepping inside the cabin, Agent 15 was grateful to be away from the stench, not that he would have let on. In the cluttered disorganisation of the lab, three employees busied themselves amongst the test tubes, Petri dishes and condensers. They operated with the tenacity of worker bees, none of them in the slightest bit interested in acknowledging their visitors.
“Welcome to the lab, Victor. Not a particularly impressive part of the tour, I’ll admit. Over there are our three lab rats. No one knows what they really do, but I’m told someone would revoke our licences without them.” Dominic chuckled, failing to suppress a vacuum of empathy for their total insignificance. The scientists continued to ignore them.
“Okay, listen up, you lot. This is Victor Serpo from the Environment Agency. As you know, he’s come to audit our processes and from now until he leaves this is his domain. To put it more bluntly, on your way please,” barked Dominic at his lab rats.
They rose on cue and two of the three marched out of the cabin, stooping as they went to avoid eye contact. The third approached Dominic subserviently, as if he was not really allowed to converse with someone of a higher rank in case it resulted in instant dismissal.
“Excuse me. Is it possible…you know if it’s not too much trouble…if we’re allowed…I wanted to ask if we could get pest control in here again.” The man trembled his request, visibly shrinking on every word.
“This isn’t the time,” replied Dominic, pointing suggestively towards the door.
“It’s just…I think I saw a rat in one of the corners over there.” He saw Dominic’s unsympathetic expression. “Well, it’ll probably be all right. I mean, who doesn’t like rats? I love them.”
His voice disappeared with him as he left through the door backwards, expelled by Dominic’s disdainful stare.
Agent 15 was already down on his knees, searching around in the corner highlighted by the man’s pointed finger, convinced that he had seen a pair of eyes glaring back at him from under the dusty bench. His attention was diverted from this quest as the door of the cabin opened again and a scruffy man stuck his head inside.
“The barrels are out on the gantry. We’ll wait for you to verify them and then lob them into tank number nine,” said the man. The door closed again, leaving Dominic and Victor alone inside.
“Let’s get these certified and be done with it. I need you to sign these,” stated Dominic. “If they see my name they’ll immediately be able to trace the contents. If they trace you, well they’ll never find you, will they?”
“I’ll make sure of it.”
He wasn’t entirely comfortable signing these documents. Not because his name was traceable: it had been
removed from all existence by his employers many years ago. The real issue was he didn’t have a signature. It wasn’t something he needed. Checking to see if there were any CCTV cameras that might place the name of Victor Serpo and him in the same place, he proceeded to invent a signature for himself and repeated it on twenty-four separate pieces of paper. A newly invented inky squiggle was all that was needed to incorrectly certify that the contents in the barrels were folic acid.
“Good. I’ve backed up the certificates by adding a real sample of folic acid to the sample racks over there. That will verify the contents if anyone does try to trace them. It’s quite incredible how simple it is to poison a nation,” remarked Dominic.
“Are we done here?” replied Victor, clear that he had no intention of drinking anything out of the tap in the next month.
“Not quite. I thought we should watch it going in, just in case,” replied Dominic. “We wouldn’t want to disappoint our employer, would we?”
They left the Portakabin to discover that twenty-four large barrels, accompanied by four burly men, now occupied the narrow gantry. As Dominic closed the Portakabin behind them it seemed to act as a signal for the four men to start working. They simultaneously put out their cigarettes, one or two of the butts ending up in the nearest tank below.
“Oh well, if Emorfed doesn’t do it, at least some of them will choke on a fag end,” replied Dominic scathingly.
Victor Serpo wasn’t listening. His attention was yet again intensely focused on the side window of the cabin.
“What is it?” asked Dominic.
“The window that slammed as we came in.”
“What about it?”
“It’s open, and on the catch. We didn’t do it and neither did the scientists,” added Victor, who was now over by the window examining it.
“You’re quite jittery for a secret agent, aren’t you?” whispered Dominic. “It’s a window, get over it.”
“What your underutilised, peanut-sized brain can’t fathom is that observations like that don’t happen by chance. I have survived fifteen years in this job because I notice things. I’d be dead if I didn’t. You may find out how that feels before sunrise if you continue to ridicule me.”
