Kindred Intentions

by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli

  “I left the car near the tunnel, but there’s some movement out there. I heard some motorbikes,” an unknown voice said. The sound filtered through a gap between the shutter and the jamb.

  Amelia stopped to listen. Someone had come to take them from there. She was a bit disappointed about it, but what she had just heard made her even more worried. The last thing she wanted was to be chased again by a killer squad. Why the hell didn’t they leave them alone?

  “They won’t let it go.” This time Mike had spoken. Amelia smiled as she recognised his voice. “I’m …” The sound got lost, becoming a muttering.

  Won over by curiosity, she moved closer and pushed at the door slightly. She wanted to learn more about that story, but if she knocked, that conversation would be interrupted.

  “I’m sorry to state the obvious,” the newcomer continued. Putting an eye to the gap, Amelia could glimpse his features. He was dark-haired, with an olive-coloured complexion. “But I’d told you to let go. We had earned enough from this contract. And instead, no, you’ve been greedy. You wanted double. Now that Isabel is dead you’ve come close, given that we split her share. You’ll be happy.” The man’s face contracted in a surge of annoyance.

  Isabel? Were they perhaps talking about Isabel Jordan, Goldberg’s assistant?

  The image of the woman emerged from her memories, as she, without showing the slightest fear, confronted with a weapon the man who would kill her.

  “Give me a break, Yasir,” Mike’s voice attacked him. “I fucked up, I know. But considering how it went, she was doomed anyway. Nothing would’ve avoided that.”

  A myriad hypotheses crowded Amelia’s mind. Save for some complex infiltration as an undercover agent, for which a little part of her still hoped, the idea that Mike belonged to MI5 was fading out with each passing second. Now seeing that Middle Eastern man together with him, and listening to them talking of killed partners and contracts, and of greed, she was starting to think that he was one of Goldberg’s clients. And knowing the kind of clients that law firm had, it wasn’t good news at all. His friend’s face shouted ‘terrorism’, but Amelia knew it was too banal an association. They were speaking of money they would earn from a contract. An illicit financial transaction—because of which a person was already dead? And now they were trying to kill him, too?

  “So, to add more bullshit to all this, you loaded that woman into your car.”

  Up until now she had thought that Mike’s involvement in the shooting of that morning had been casual, that the target was Goldberg or one of his senior partners and that the killer was the same one who was terminating half of the lawyers in the City. What if it wasn’t so? First, it wasn’t a lone killer. There were more people out there. It could even be an army, as far as she knew.

  “I couldn’t leave her in the middle of a road. I thought I would get rid of her within a half-hour.”

  Yeah, that was what she’d thought too, but in hindsight, she wasn’t sorry at all that they had spent the entire day together. Even if now she had the worst suspicions about the possible illegal activities of Mike, she found herself pushing them aside. She, a police officer, who should have enforced the law, was already ignoring her ideals for a man—actually, for a fuck—and maybe the hope that the experience would be repeated. That somehow amused her.

  But some important piece of the puzzle was still missing, and that lack wouldn’t bring her peace. Who had freed her? If they had freed her, why had they tried to kill her again? Only because she’d seen a man’s face? They could have killed her immediately, unceremoniously. Yet they had questioned her. What had really happened next? How many players were involved in that match?

  Her thoughts were confused. As Mike himself had said hours earlier, this was too complex a situation. Her colleagues hadn’t the slightest idea of what was happening and she had ended up right in the middle of it.

  “Oh, I know what you were thinking!”

  As she heard herself being called into question by the discussion between the two men, Amelia focused again on their words. To figure that one out, she had to try to gather as much information as possible. No, actually, it seemed to her that the guy was making strong allusions about her and Mike. And he was right, in the end. That was the reason that pushed her to listen. What was her man waiting for? He should be defending her!

  “I hadn’t realised they were following me.”

  They were following him? He’d said the car had come out from a country road after he had stopped to pick her up. And she had taken him at his word. She’d been too happy to have found a known face to doubt anything about him. So naive.

  “It isn’t like you, Mike. It isn’t like you.” The scolding tone of Yasir was stressed by him shaking his head.

  “It’s too late for recriminations now.”

  “It’s late for many things,” the Middle Eastern man urged him. “We must close the estate agency and get away.”

  Estate agency. Amelia felt the strength in her legs fading away. It was a coincidence. It had to be a coincidence.

  “I know.”

  “And you must get rid of that woman,” Yasir said, pointing at the wall with an arm.

  There was a long silence. Amelia started hyperventilating. Her whole body contracted in waiting. No, please, no.

  “I know,” Mike’s uncertain voice replied.

  Oh, fuck.

  She stepped back. She’d heard enough. She had to get away from there. She turned. First, the shoes. And then out, away, as far as possible. Without making the slightest sound, she reached the shoes and started to put them on. The otherwise simple operation of donning a pair of shoes was becoming the most difficult thing in the world. She didn’t have time to panic, fuck. She crouched down, dropping the sweater, to avoid losing her balance. If she went out there, what would become of her? Whilst her fingers laced up the shoes, she raised her head in search of something useful. Anything.

  And then she saw it. A satellite phone on the edge of the fireplace. So that was how Mike had called his friend. He’d hidden it from her so that she couldn’t get in touch with the police headquarters. He had deceived her.

  After tightening the last lace, she picked up her sweater, then reach out to the device and grabbed it. At that very moment the voices became louder; the crack of light coming from the secret room was widening.

  She cast a glance at the main door. She wouldn’t make it to the exit without being seen.

  Without wasting any time in thought, she stepped back, avoiding making any noise. She opened the bedroom door and gently closed it. Her hand searched for a key inserted in the lock, but in vain. There was none.

  Mike would immediately notice the absence of the phone, he would understand that she knew, and would come in any time now.

  She ran to the window. She put the device on the windowsill and donned her sweater in a frightful hurry. She tried to turn the handle to open the window, but couldn’t move it an inch. Why? Fuck!

  With her heart rumbling in her thoughts, she turned again to the door. Then to the bathroom. Yes. She grabbed the phone, climbed over the unmade bed to save time, and rushed to the bathroom. She closed the door and turned the key.

  She allowed herself to breathe, leaning against the wall. She raised her hand holding the appliance and activated the screen, which turned on. In the foreground, over a gloomy background, writing stood out: ‘No Satellite Found’.

  “Amelia,” Mike called her from the other side of the door. It was his usual gentle tone, but she could’ve sworn she could perceive a malicious inflection in the way he’d addressed her.

  “I’m in the toilet,” she replied aloud, trying to sound casual.

  She moved closer to the window. It was a satellite phone. She had to go out so it could lock on a satellite signal. She put it in the sweater’s pocket and grabbed the handle, but that one wouldn’t move either.

  “You won’t be able to operate that phone.” Mike’s voice was warm and calm. “Open the door.”


  She was stupid, but not that stupid. She placed a hand on the shutter, but she stopped. She would have to turn off the light. If someone was out there, they would see her. Yeah, they would see the light and detect the lodge. Those men had come here to kill Mike, they weren’t looking for her. She could draw them here to prevent him following her.

  “Just a moment,” she shouted, pretending she hadn’t heard his menacing tone.

  She opened the shutter. She wrapped her hand with a towel and looked at the window, hesitant.

  “Amelia, you have nothing to fear, but don’t force me to break down this door. Get out.”

  Amelia punched the pane, which shattered into smithereens.

  Mike started kicking the door.

  With some more strong pats of her hand, she cleaned the window frame of the sharp remainders, then she climbed onto the stool and squeezed herself through it. She fell face down outside the house. Fortunately the terrain was soft.

  The kicks in the bathroom ceased. He was certainly running out to stop her.

  She had to leave and look for a quiet place to make that call.

  She started running in the dark.

  5

  Taking advantage of the glare coming from the window, Amelia ran as long as her breath allowed her, then she slowed down. Now she was walking slowly amongst the trees, orienting herself with her right arm stretched out. Any light had disappeared again. She had no idea where she was and couldn’t see a thing around her. She should have felt reassured by that latter awareness, but instead it scared her even more.

  Her legs brushed against a low bush. With a hand she felt that it reached her waist. She knelt behind it, still panting. Her other hand was holding the satellite phone again. She hoped it hadn’t got broken during the fall or from hitting a branch. Touching its edge, she searched for the button to reactivate the display. When she sensed a little bulge, she pressed on it and a screen lit up before her eyes. The same background as earlier appeared; it showed the time, the name of a phone provider she didn’t know and an icon on the top corner indicating she had caught a signal.

  She allowed herself to smile. Perhaps the nightmare was about to end. She just had to understand how to dial a number, and maybe which number to dial. Given that it was connected to a satellite and not to a national network, she couldn’t take for granted at all that she would be able to use 112. She struggled to think, even though thinking right now, with all her accumulated tiredness had become very difficult. Which number did she know by heart? Those damned contraptions with their contact lists had made her lose the habit of keeping any information in mind. Then a sequence of digits re-emerged. Gavin’s number. She had forced herself to learn it, when they had been married, for emergency situations. She wished he hadn’t changed it after more than five years.

  Okay, thanks to him she would get in touch with the City of London Police or at least with the Metropolitan Police. They would track down her position and save her. Provided that he didn’t keep the mobile phone off, as was logical to expect at that time. It was already after three.

  She touched the icon to open the virtual keypad, but together with that, a box with a cursor appeared on the top, followed by ‘Type Your Security Code’.

  Fuck, no. But didn’t you type the PIN code only when starting the phone? Evidently it was something different.

  She snorted. Mike had said she wouldn’t be able to use the phone. That was what he meant. She would’ve liked to shout, and throw away the useless object, but she restrained herself. She was still out there, nobody knew her position, not even those willing to hurt her. She still had a chance to escape. Yasir had talked about a car left near a tunnel. Which tunnel? It had to be in the vicinity of the hunting lodge.

  She stood up slowly. Her eyes had been accustomed to the darkness and only now did she notice that the cloudy sky reflected the light, allowing her to see something of the surrounding environment. But she could only make out the trees. Perhaps, if she tried to walk around the lodge, keeping her distance, she would find that tunnel. And the car. She decided to ignore the possibility that its key wasn’t inside it. After all, why take it away? Who would steal a car in this place in the middle of nowhere? Ah, right—she would.

  She emitted a frustrated moan. It was worth trying anyway. The light from the display would maybe still be useful, somehow.

  She leant to step forward, when she felt herself grabbed from behind. A hand covered her mouth, and she was dragged to the ground again.

  “Don’t you dare make a sound or I swear I’ll kill you,” Mike whispered, pressing his fingers against her face.

  She had deluded herself she had left him behind, and instead he had always been a few steps from her. A moan escaped her.

  “I said shut up!” He tugged her.

  Amelia started trembling. Everything had fallen apart again. The ephemeral sense of freedom of earlier made her feel even more powerless now. She would never come out alive from this mess. She was just postponing the inevitable.

  “Ssshhh …” He reduced his grip on her; she could feel his breath on her skin. He was panting, too.

  Then she heard something else. Some rustling in the distance at her left, the sizzling of a radio, some buzzing. And then incomprehensible voices. The sounds got lost among the fronds and came to her like the sound of grumbling.

  She was slightly bent sideways and her back was hurting. With a hand she leveraged on the ground to straighten herself up and avoid falling. Mike didn’t stop her movement, but rather he loosened his grip in order to allow her to be more comfortable. That simple gesture gave her hope. By now she was clinging to any stupid detail.

  All of a sudden a creaking behind them made her wince. He didn’t seem frightened, but reacted instead by increasing his grip on her body. She had a free arm now. Amelia’s mind tried to imagine moving it, perhaps nudging him in his ribs. Maybe he would release her mouth, giving her the chance to shout, ask for help. With a little luck she would escape from him and run, leaving him at the mercy of the men hunting him. They weren’t interested in her, right?

  But she didn’t do anything. If she didn’t succeed in her intent, he would kill her. Instead, if she did, he would be killed. She was surprised as it occurred to her that neither of the two solutions especially enticed her.

  The creaking was moving fast. It went past them. And then it faded away.

  She remained motionless and in silence for several seconds. But now that the imminent danger had disappeared, Amelia was trembling again. She couldn’t help it.

  She heard a sigh and felt his chest, tight against her back, contracting. “Tell me, what should I do with you?” Mike raised his hand from her mouth and placed it on her brow, then he bent her head backward. His eyes were now scrutinising hers in the semi-darkness. “If they had found you, instead of me, they would’ve planted a bullet in your little head without hesitation.”

  Would he have hesitated, instead? “Please, don’t hurt me … from now on I’ll do whatever you say,” Amelia murmured. She didn’t like to show herself so submissive, but she was shaking and certainly not because it was cold, not in that lukewarm summer night. Maybe she could have convinced him that it wasn’t necessary to get rid of her, that she didn’t represent a hindrance at all.

  Mike kept staring at her in silence, as if he was deciding whether he could believe her or not. She could grasp his rage from the tense profile of his jaw, but at the same time she kept catching sight of the kind man he had been until earlier. Or maybe she wanted to see him that way. He swallowed hard. “It’s better that we go back now.” He rose, dragging her to her feet. He released his grip from behind and made her turn, then he grabbed her arm. “Move slowly, no noise. Understood?”

  “Yes …” She stressed the word by nodding. She would survive, at least for the moment.

  Docile, she followed him, walking on the same footprints she had done to come there, but more slowly. Entire minutes passed during which she tried to calm down
and regain control of her body.

  When they reached the hunting lodge and he opened the door, the inside was pitch black. Mike pushed her inside in a rude way and she stumbled, collapsing on the floor. She heard the door closing, then a faint light from one of the little spotlights lit up. As she put herself in a sitting position by using her arms, she saw Yasir watching her. He had a kind of black visor on his brow. It had to be an infrared vision device. The door of the secret room behind him was wide open, revealing an austere environment, with a table on which was another visor, a closed window fitted with shutters and the edge of a rack, from which large calibre weapons peeked out.

  “What the fuck were you thinking when you left the light on in the bathroom?” Mike shouted at her, regaining her attention. “Are you trying to kill us?” He poked his own right temple. “What the fuck is your brain telling you?” He pointed outside with an arm. “Do you think those people out there are kidding? They will snuff out whomever they find on their path.” The edges of his mouth rose in a malevolent smile. “They won’t even bother to fuck you, before they do it.” Then he became serious again.

  Humiliation was all Amelia felt. It was something beyond pain, discomfort, rage. She was feeling lost. She placed a hand on her face to stop her weeping.

  Yasir, instead, appeared amused. “I told you it was a bad idea to bring her here.”

  “Don’t you fuck with me, too!” Mike pointed at him, but was still looking at her. “Keeping on repeating it, isn’t of any help to me,” he added in a low voice.

  The other man rolled his eyes and raised his hands in surrender. “Okay …”

  “I’ve heard them, they were very close.” Finally he turned to the Middle Eastern man.

  “I know. They are wearing clothes that partially shield the heat from their bodies. It isn’t easy to follow their movement.” Yasir touched his visor. “They are like ghosts. They disappear and reappear as blurred images. But there are at least five of them inside the perimeter, the problem is that I’ve seen more outside.”