The Henchmen's Book Club

by Danny King

  No, the more I thought about it, the more it worried me.

  I stayed for another hour, chewing my fingernails off and worrying about unseen demons before leaving to go home.

  And that’s when things really got fucked up.

  20.

  IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO DILATE

  The night was quiet and the weather chilly. One or two cars were veering around the town’s tight bends but there were precious few people about on the street itself. I pulled my collars up around my ears and lurched in the direction of home.

  I was halfway along Station Road, just past the mini-roundabout, with the bright lights of Petworth on my back, when a black Transit van screeched to a halt beside me and flung open its doors. Two burly bruisers leapt out as I tried to flee, grabbing me by the lapels and repeatedly flapping a cosh against my head until they found the switch.

  Lights out.

  I’ve been knocked out a few times in my career so these days I’m able to judge just how long I’ve been unconscious by the size of the headache when I awake, and this one throbbed away like billy-o, telling me I’d only been under a matter of minutes.

  My first sensations were rocking, as Bruiser-A threw the van around the twisting country lanes of Sussex, while Bruiser-B tore through my pockets. They were talking, discussing my fate as though I were a bag of compost, though I was barely able to make out the specifics because of the grinding split that ran down the middle of my senses. When I finally did manage to feel past it, I heard a third voice barking orders at the others and this one caught my attention; a female voice – harsh and authoritative, yet alluring and self-aware. I didn’t even need to come around fully to know it was Glory Days.

  “Give me his cell phone. And pull his wallet apart, he may have the key in the lining.”

  I groaned without meaning to, tipping them off that I’d just joined the conversation and Bruiser-B immediately reached into his pocket to sing me another lullaby, but Glory granted my brain a stay of execution.

  “No, not yet. I want to hear what he’s got to say first.”

  “Onnhh, my fucking head!” was the first information they got out of me, followed by an off-the-cuff observation about their heritage and what they could all go and do to each other.

  Glory shoved Bruiser-B aside and laughed in my face.

  “You’ll talk, just see if you don’t. Oh yes Mark Jones, you’ll talk alright.”

  Bruiser-B leered at me as if his bonus depended on it, so I decided not to invite him to join book club and instead told them I wasn’t working for anyone at the moment. I propped myself up on my elbows and tried appealing to my brother Affiliates.

  “You’re probably both Agency boys,” I implored, nausea all but clogging my throat. “Check the waiting lists with them, short and middle termers. I’m not signed up with anyone at the moment.”

  “Agency? The Agency? I don’t hire through The Agency,” Glory Days spat. “I want lions, not donkeys.”

  “We’re RS,” bruiser B informed me, meaning Regenschirm Stellenvermittlung, one of The Agency’s every growing number of petty rivals, employing mostly ex-Stasi men.

  As discouraging as it was not to be in the clutches of fellow Affiliates, it did offer me a chink of light, so I told Bruiser-B to give my respects to his disabled grandmother the next time the RS got together for Christmas and sure enough he clobbered me up the side of the head.

  “Arhh, you fucker!” I gasped, curling up into a ball and clutching at my face with both hands.

  Bruiser-B just laughed and made a few disparaging remarks about the manliness of Agency pansies, but like most great apes he didn’t know what he was talking about. Agency Affiliates were the most professional, most loyal and most disciplined soldiers-of-fortune in the business. If anyone were lions it was us, not those fucking knuckle-draggers from the RS or Executive Elites or los Hombres de Guerra. It was just our misfortune that more often than not we were employed by donkeys; donkeys like Thalassocrat or Jed Choo or Hope Verity. Fucking narcissists who could take an audacious plan, a dedicated following and a winning position and throw it all away over the merest slight to their egos.

  But then paradoxically, it was the loyalty of Agency Affiliates that more-often-than-not allowed them to do this. How’s that for irony?

  Still, that was by-the-by, and none of it was going to help me out of this van, but there was one other thing Bruiser-B failed to realise about us Agency boys. Besides being the most professional, most loyal and best-disciplined soldiers in the game, we were also the best equipped.

  “There’s more where that came from,” Bruiser-B assured me, slapping my hands away from my face.

  When I looked up, Glory Days recoiled in horror.

  “Oh my God, you knocked his eye out?” she gasped, but had little chance to expand on her revulsion as a deafening crack suddenly blasted out the rear doors and sent Bruiser-B tumbling into the darkness.

  The blast dumped Glory flat on top of me, so I headbutted her in the kisser, kneed her in her perfectly-formed clump and threw myself headlong into the night as Bruiser-A parked the careering van halfway up a Scots Pine. I hit the ground running and fled into the darkness, only to tumble straight over one of the larger bits of Bruiser-B.

  Glory Days and Bruiser-A finally got their act together and came after me as I scrambled to my feet. The first whizz of hot lead told me the interrogation was over and that this was now about payback. See what I mean? So pointless.

  More shots buzzed my ears, chasing me through the night like angry hornets and I ducked and dived this way and that, desperate to dodge that terrible sting of death for as long as I could, only to be suddenly blinded when a set of car headlights clicked on just ten feet in front of me.

  I dropped to my knees and turned away as a whirling click thrust two mini-guns out above the wheel arches and they illuminated the blackness further still when they began spitting out three thousand rounds-per-minute.

  To my on-going surprise, none of these rounds found their way into me, but Glory Days, Bruiser-A and that poor Scots Pine who’d never done anything to anyone all felt the full force and left this earth in a cloud of blood, sap and flames as the Transit’s petrol tanks exploded to duly cremate all three of them.

  The guns stopped firing and then trained on me with a whirl.

  I braced myself for more pain than I’d ever known, but the guns stayed silent. Instead, the Jaguar XKR’s passenger door simply swung open and a voice commanded me to get in.

  “Unless you’d rather stay and explain to Gloria’s friends what happened to her, of course,” an unmistakable smugness snorted.

  No! It couldn’t be!

  21.

  THE HOTDOGS OF WAR

  Jack Tempest peered out of the open Jag door and beckoned me in.

  “Aye-Aye, old chap,” he chuckled, presumably to make me aware that he was spelling his Ayes like “Eyes” and that this was a pun about me missing an eye. “All aboard.”

  He trained a little Beretta Tomcat on me until I’d climbed in, then tucked it away into a door holster and thrust the Jag into first. The momentum of our acceleration slammed my door shut and we sped off into the night, dousing our headlights after half a mile. Tempest flicked a few switches on the control panel and suddenly we could see again as an infrared display was projected against the windscreen.

  “I’d say her glory days were well and truly behind her, wouldn’t you?” Tempest suggested.

  At first I thought he was referring to the gadgets on his car and simply grunted, “Huh?” forcing Tempest to elaborate.

  “Doctor Days – her glory days are behind her,” he repeated, raising an eyebrow to help with the translation but still not getting the laughs he was fishing for.

  Have a bit of respect why don’t you!

  “Did you know her?” I asked in an attempt to head off any further quips.

  “We’d met… on the job,” he winked, turning my guts something rotten. “She was a brilliant scient
ist, but totally insane. Just like her father,” he added.

  “You knew her old man?”

  “Knew him. Worked with him. And retired him.”

  “Retired him?”

  “Permanently,” Tempest glimmered.

  “Oh,” I finally got. Twat. “She accused me of doing that.”

  “Yes, she accused everyone. Even me. Like I said, she was insane,” Tempest shrugged.

  “But you actually did it,” I pointed out.

  “I had to. He gave me no choice after he went over to the Mexicans.”

  “Oh Jesus, look seriously forget I asked,” I told him, in a vain attempt to head off any unnecessarily long storylines. “Just drop me anywhere, I can walk from here.”

  But Tempest wasn’t done with me by a long chalk.

  “You were one of Thalassocrat’s goons, weren’t you?” he said, turning to look at me in the glow of his dashboard, his expression all knowing. “The face is different and you’re missing a few pieces but I never forget a goon.”

  “We don’t say goon any more,” I told him.

  “No?”

  “No. It’s like calling your cleaner your skivvy or your PA your lackey. It’s kind of derogatory.”

  “I see, sensitive souls, aren’t you?” Tempest hammed, much amused with himself.

  “Well yes, I’ll admit it must sound strange to a civil servant like yourself,” I accepted.

  “I’m not a civil servant,” Tempest corrected me, his amusement momentarily holstered.

  “Well no, but technically you are,” I told him, sensing a weak spot.

  “No I’m not,” he continued to object.

  “I’m only talking about strict classifications here.”

  “I’m not a civil servant!” he bristled.

  “Well what are you then?” I asked.

  Tempest thought on this for a few sweeping turns of the black countryside. “I’m a tool,” he concluded, and finally we agreed on something. “A surgical tool of Her Majesty’s Government. I cut out society’s cancers.” Tempest fixed me with a steely glare. “With extreme prejudice.”

  “And that’s what it says on your pay slip does it?”

  “Look, I’m not a fucking civil servant, all right, you fucking goon!” he snapped, glancing down at the passenger seat ejector button. “Now I don’t care what you’re calling yourself these days; tea boy, guard dog, wet nurse or thug, you were one of Thalassocrat’s foot soldiers...”

  “I don’t mind foot soldier,” I interrupted.

  “I’m so pleased,” he scowled. “So why don’t you tell me who you’re foot soldiering for at the moment, as if I didn’t know?”

  “I’m not foot soldiering for anyone,” I told him.

  “As if,” he snorted.

  “I’m not, and that’s the truth.”

  Tempest’s eyes narrowed. “So that’s the way you want it, is it?”

  “It’s the way it is,” I said.

  “So be it,” he snarled, pushing his foot down on the accelerator to send us hurtling through the night.

  The hedgerows whipped by on either side and every now and again an alarm would sound on his dashboard advising us to take evasive action as traffic lights and other road users threatened to spoil the rest of our lives.

  “You’re going to get us both killed, you great fuckwit!” I cringed, hardly daring to look over at the speedometer.

  “Danger’s my middle name,” Tempest breezed.

  “I never said danger. I said killed,” I pointed out. “And fuckwit.”

  We shot straight across a crossroads at over 100mph and the lane before us narrowed dramatically. A set of headlights appeared on the horizon and Tempest’s eyes glimmered.

  “I’m betting he’ll swerve first,” he quipped, gunning his accelerator to send the Jag’s needle into uncharted territory.

  “Oh bollocks,” I braced, reaching for my seatbelt only to find it locked.

  “Talk!” he demanded.

  “I’m not working for anyone,” I insisted, as the other car’s horn grew louder and closer with every passing second.

  “Talk!” he repeated, veering the Jag onto the right-hand side of the thin country lane when the other car tried to tuck in.

  “I’m telling you the truth,” I insisted.

  “Talk!” Tempest simply snapped again, but it was academic by this point anyway. Even if I’d had anything to say, I’d run out of time to say it in.

  “Look out…!” was all the confession I had time for as our headlight’s blurred and our radiators met, but the terrible crunch I’d been expecting didn’t happen. Instead, the other car simply shot straight over us and flew into a hedgerow in our wake. Tempest didn’t blink. Not even when his control panel confirmed the car’s “cowcatcher” had successfully deployed. A little LCD diagram of the Jag showed a thin wedge flashing just in front of his front bumper, turning the entire car into a huge speeding ramp.

  “Now that’s what I call getting off to a flyer,” Tempest warbled.

  “You great, stupid irresponsible twat. They could’ve been really hurt back there.”

  “Well they certainly look bushed, I’ll give you that,” he chuckled.

  “Will you stop doing that!” I pleaded.

  “Then talk!” he demanded.

  “Okay, I’ll talk, I’ll talk,” I finally conceded, willing to promise anything just so long as XO-11 dispensed with the stand-up.

  A little country pub presented itself right on cue, so Tempest asked me if I was in the mood to behave myself.

  “Because we can always do this somewhere quieter if you’d prefer,” he said, snatching up his Beretta Tomcat to underline the point.

  “Look, just buy me a pint and I’ll tell you everything,” I promised.

  “Are you armed?” Tempest asked.

  “I’m not even armed with any money. Why do you think you’re getting the beers in?” I told him.

  As luck would have it, Tempest’s car came with a First Aid kit that included an eye patch, so I made myself presentable before we headed in. Despite my assurances, Tempest insisted on wearing his gun and his air of shit-eating superiority into the pub, and lorded them both over me with a constant display of eyebrow raising semaphore. He also took his comedy routine on the road and bombarded the confused landlady with a succession of double-entendres that would have landed her a decent six-figure settlement and Tempest a restraining order had they worked together in The City.

  “I prefer it hand-pulled myself!”

  “Huh, you what?”

  It was only after five minutes of painful over familiarity that I finally managed to drag him away and we retired with a couple of drinks to the snug to get down to business.

  “So tell me, who are you working for at the moment?” Tempest asked, sipping his gin and ginger.

  I realised we’d just end up playing the same old game of pat-a-cake if I tried to simply answer his questions honestly, so I decided to take him around the houses first, as XO agents seemed to like that in a confession.

  “I’m curious,” I opened, taking my spiel from every pre-death gloat I’d ever heard to make Tempest feel more comfortable, “how did you get out of that turbine pipe on Thalassocrat’s island?”

  Tempest smiled to himself.

  “Let’s just say, I was rather stuck on the good Doctor,” he quipped.

  “No let’s not. Seriously, how did you get out of it?” I repeated.

  “Hey, I’m the one asking the questions here, not you, so tell me who you’re working for before I forget my rules of conduct?”

  “What makes you think I’m working for anyone?” I replied, trying to give him as good as I was getting.

  The click of the Tomcat under the table caught my attention. “I thought you were going to behave?” Tempest pursed. “Now talk damn you!”

  Despite the threat, I knew he wouldn’t shoot me in the belly under the table of a country pub in Sussex, especially not one that had Michelin stars outside, that
simply wasn’t the done thing, so I felt safe enough to continue with a little interrogative chess just to get my point across.

  “Just what is it you think you know, Tempest?” I toyed.

  “Plenty,” he replied. “Names, dates, targets and objectives. We have almost everything. It’s just a few minor details that are missing.”

  “You might think you know plenty, but you don’t really. Not really. You can’t. Not the truth. Not what’s really going on,” I dangled. “You’re too small to comprehend the scale of our operation.”

  Tempest duly batted.

  “You under-estimate yourselves,” he challenged.

  “Then you know? You really do know?”

  “Oh yes,” he confirmed, then added, “Mark Jones,” to show me he had one name at least.

  “About Operation Gozer?”

  “We have a man on the inside,” he told me.

  “Who is it? Venkmen? Spengler?” I said. Tempest just smiled. “Not Louis Tully?”

  “Why don’t you tell me what I already know? And remember, if you lie, I’ll spread you all over the wall, horse brasses or no horse brasses,” he warned me.

  I looked at the table, took a sip of my Guinness and frowned. “If you know about Tully, then you know we’ve got the proton packs working.” Once again, Tempest confirmed that he knew everything about the proton packs so I told him; “We found the gateway a few weeks back. We’ve got Clortho and Zuul working on it and while they haven’t managed to get it open yet, they will. Just as soon as they get the sign. And when that day comes, Gozer will rise again.”

  Tempest was frantically scribbling all of this down when a thought occurred to him.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Some bloke on the next table who’d been scratching his head eventually answered for me.

  “It sounds like the plot of Ghostbusters,” he said and he was right. It had been on the box the night before.

  “Are you playing with me?” Tempest demanded.

  “Yes, because none of you will fucking listen to me. I am unemployed at the moment. I am between jobs. My last posting was base security for Victor Soliman,” I told him, figuring it was best not to mention anything about Kimbo Banja, not least of all because I’d been party to a nuclear explosion, so I stuck to confessing my failures and left the Hague’s prosecutors to bang the drum for my successes.