INCEPTIO (Roma Nova)

by Alison Morton

  I left the hotel, careful to avoid CCTV cameras as much as possible. But they clung on every building, inquisitive little eyes roosting on every corner. Like a fugitive in my own country, I looked up and down each street I crossed, like searching supermarket shelves. After ten minutes, I was sweating. Where were all the good people and their churches?

  Fifteen minutes later, I crouched behind a dumpster in a narrow alleyway, watching people filing into the neighbourhood church opposite in ones and twos, their faces composed, ready for a re-injection of goodness. After ten minutes, no one else appeared. I drew myself up and ran my hands down the front of my jeans, attempting to smooth away creases. My heart thumping, I forced myself to walk across the street at normal pace. But I remembered Conrad’s words about being ready to run.

  I looked up and down. Nothing. I put my foot on the first grey stone step. Only four more and I was safe. I heard singing behind the now-closed door. As I grasped the handle, I released a breath I didn’t know I was holding. I was easing the door open so I could slip in as quietly as possible when two pairs of arms grabbed me and dragged me back down.

  ‘So you see, Miss Brown, you are in a fragile situation.’

  I had stumbled as a woman in a suit pulled me back down the steps. She’d flashed a gold badge and declared herself as Special Agent O’Keefe. One of the people who had visited Hayden. Still gripping my arm, she’d put her hand on my head and pushed me down into the back of a plain grey car that had whirled from around the corner and braked hard in front of the church. It stank of stale junk food. I’d flung myself at the far door but it was locked.

  ‘How dare you? Let me out this minute.’

  ‘Sit down and keep still. I don’t want to have to cuff you,’ she’d said as her companion accelerated away from the kerb.

  I gave up arguing after ten minutes of her ignoring me. Shortly after, she tapped the driver on the shoulder, and we stopped in a deserted street of warehouses.

  ‘I’m going to give you a friendly warning.’ She looked straight ahead, focusing through the windshield glass on the end of the street. ‘You need to keep away from dangerous people like Mr Tellus.’

  ‘You can’t tell me who I can and can’t see. This is a free country.’

  Her laugh didn’t sound mean, just cynical. She swivelled around to face me. ‘You may like to think about this. Firstly, for whatever reason, you’re on the national watch list, where they put subversives and potential terrorists. Secondly, sure your father became a good American. He even reconnected with his cousins in Nebraska. But your mother stayed a foreign national. Maybe there was something irregular in her paperwork. Could be that you don’t have right of residence here, after all. You couldn’t work then, without a social security card.’

  Bluff. She was bluffing. Besides, I had my mother’s money.

  ‘Your bank account would be frozen, of course, pending investigation, which could take years.’

  ‘You can’t threaten me like this.’

  ‘I’m not threatening; just showing you what could happen if you were unwise. Surviving on the street is very hard. Especially for a naïve young woman used to comfort and decent behaviour.’

  ‘You…you shit!’

  She shrugged. ‘If you keep away from Tellus, your happy, safe little life will settle back to normal, and your listing might get cancelled. You have a fine future. In a few weeks, you’ll inherit a prosperous business, with a raft of secure government contracts. It would upset me to learn you’d thrown it away on a whim.’ O’Keefe fixed her light grey gaze on me. ‘We’ll take you back to your apartment now. But we’ll be keeping an eye on you for a little while longer, for your own safety.’

  Outside my apartment building, O’Keefe got out and unlocked my door, opening it like she was a parking valet. I couldn’t scramble out fast enough.

  ‘Do I have your undertaking, Miss Brown?’

  ‘What do you think?’ I said. I turned my back on her and fled inside.

  XIV

  Renschman jammed his lips together and exhaled in one heavy pulse through his nose. Exasperation was an alien emotion. He’d been forced to accept the help of O’Keefe’s First Bunch of Idiots, but they couldn’t keep hold of a sandwich box if it was Velcroed to them. With skin buffed clean of any emotion and a tight smile ending one millimetre above her top lip, O’Keefe had seemed perfect. The last time he’d seen such a hard face was the madam in the projects he’d been forced to live in when his mother had drunk them into debt.

  O’Keefe had been lucky picking up the girl again – but to have fallen for the pregnant switch? Twice?

  Jesus!

  He longed to get hold of the girl. He’d enjoy scaring her half to death. He’d have her roughed up first; then an overnight stay on a filthy mattress in a cold, unlit room and she’d sign anything. He slid the inside of his hands against each other, slowly, crossways as if they were caressing each other. Just a little pressure on her soft white neck and it would all be over.

  XV

  Upstairs, I let myself in. My hand shook, making the drapes flutter when I pulled them aside to peer down into the street. O’Keefe’s car had vanished.

  Where was Conrad? Had they taken him? Maybe I was dumb to have tried calling him. These people were probably intercepting my phone and my mail. Maybe they had deported him already. Or worse.

  Despite the danger and anxiety of the last few days, he had made me feel excited to be alive. More than anyone else, ever. But, just as important, he was the key to me learning who I really was.

  Next morning, I woke early with my stomach in knots and my head heavy with the sleeping tablets I’d made myself take. After I called in sick to the office, citing a cold with fever, I dressed in jeans, tee and sneakers, and stuffed money and cards into my purse. I planned to go find a public phone and try call Conrad again. If I didn’t get through, I’d contact their legation or go back to Gianni’s.

  Looking sideways through the drapes, I couldn’t see any watchers. I thought I knew now how to spot them. But who was I kidding?

  I was stretching out my hand to grab the door handle, when somebody knocked. Catching my breath at the interruption, I peered through the spy hole and saw a distorted figure in a brown uniform. I hesitated. They knocked again. I decided to open the door.

  ‘Sign here, please.’ He thrust a padded envelope at me. I signed and he hurried off. My hands trembled as I opened the envelope. Inside was a tall, narrow book: The Complete Illustrated Map and Guidebook to New York Kew Park. It opened naturally at the first map page. Running down its length, an eighth-inch-wide ribbon of paper was jammed up against the gutter. I nearly missed it. I eased it out, dreading tearing it. Tiny black marks turned out to be handwriting: P. 109 A fine spot to take pictures 11.30, Tues. Destroy this note. C.

  He was still here. Alive.

  The rest of Monday went by in a cross between nightmare and hallucination. I tried to focus on mechanical tasks like laundry. I even attempted to read a book, but the letters ebbed and flowed in front of my eyes without making any sense. I went to bed early and was up just after six, unrefreshed and overwrought. I called and spoke to Hayden’s PA, saying I couldn’t get in but that Amanda could follow my projects through. I hated loading it onto her; she was my friend as well as my colleague.

  On Tuesday morning, I gritted my teeth and dawdled up the path in the park. I made myself recite the details of each shrub and flower individually in order to stay slow; I knew the name of every one. The elaborate techniques practised in spy films didn’t seem so stupid now.

  At eleven twenty-five, I sat down by the pool at the north end. The soft, quiet retreat, reminiscent of original woodland, was so calm. I lay back on the grassy bank, watching sunshine dribble in between the willows, listening to the sound of ducks splashing. I shut my eyes.

  ‘Darling, here you are.’

  I sat up so quickly my head swam.

  Conrad. A fake cheery smile plastered on his face. He knelt down and kissed
my cheek. ‘Smile,’ he whispered. ‘Relax your shoulders.’ He narrowed his eyes, searching over my shoulder for anybody watching us. ‘Difficult, I know, but we have to appear ordinary and casual.’

  I couldn’t see a single person anywhere, but I knew we had to be very careful. I had already crossed into a shadow world. This was merely a part of it. He pulled a cloth out of a picnic basket, followed by acrylic glasses, a bottle of wine, plates and food. He sat down on the grass close beside me so we looked like any other couple.

  ‘Thank the gods you’re not hurt. I’m sorry if you thought I’d deserted you. They took me when I was buying breakfast. I had to get the legation to spring me.’

  I told him about O’Keefe.

  ‘They’re really piling on the pressure now.’ He looked down and played with a blade of grass. ‘One of those who visited your boss, a brutal bastard called Renschman, warned me that if I came within a hundred yards of you, or contacted you in any way, he’d arrange a fatal accident.’ He snorted. ‘He can’t terminate me; he knows the legation is aware and we’d retaliate hard.’ He turned to me. ‘But you’re not safe. He said he’d put you away, and I think he could.’

  After that frightening business with O’Keefe, I had no doubt.

  ‘The safest thing would be if I kept away from you.’ He looked across the pool. His Adam’s apple bounced hard.

  ‘Would they keep their word?’

  He shrugged. ‘Who knows?

  ‘No.’

  ‘Karen—’

  ‘No. Nonna would send somebody else. It wouldn’t change a thing.’

  He stretched his arm up to stroke my hair, and his polo shirt lifted to show a huge bruise.

  ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘A little souvenir from Renschman. Diplomatic immunity isn’t part of his personal vocabulary, it seems.’

  ‘Jesus. Who is this guy?’

  ‘Probably black ops, CIA or similar. But whatever he is, he’s a nasty piece of work. I don’t want him anywhere near you.’ He looked into the distance. The back of his fingers caressed my cheek as he brought his gaze back on me.

  ‘If I don’t leave, he’ll keep after you. But I can’t abandon you without any protection.’ He stood up and walked to the pool edge, crossed his arms and stared down at the water. He didn’t move or say anything for several minutes. The cords in his neck were taut, highlighted by the shadows forced by the bright sun.

  ‘There’s another choice. You’d be completely safe, they couldn’t get near you, let alone touch you, but it would be the most disruptive thing that’s ever happened to you.’ His voice was low, sad, as if regretting the passing of something. The soft rippling of the water and staccato of chirruping birds continued, but my world stopped as if we were held in stasis.

  I was so absorbed with trying to figure out what Conrad meant that I was totally unaware of anybody approaching us. Too late, Conrad started to twist around. A man jabbed a barrel right under his jawline.

  ‘On the ground, hands behind you.’

  A second man drove his fist into Conrad’s stomach and slammed him down, another kneeling on him, handcuffing his hands behind him. I recognised the third one: he was one of the watchers. No. Not again.

  He seized my arm and forced me up. I kicked him hard in the shins. His grip eased; I flailed him with my fists, aiming at his eyes and the bridge of his nose. I landed a punch on his cheekbone and nearly succeeded in pulling away, but another man lunged at me, crushing our picnic underfoot, and grabbed my other arm, twisting it up behind my back and forcing me to bend over. They dragged us through the trees, out through the Kew Road West entrance, and thrust me into the back of a waiting car. They opened the trunk, flung Conrad in and slammed it down.

  ‘No! No!’ I cried and launched myself at the rear door. ‘What are you doing? You’ll kill him.’

  The dark-haired one snorted, but didn’t say anything. He shoved me back on the seat. Again. It was happening again. Both big men, they sat legs apart, clamping me between them. We drove at normal speed, through small streets. After a few minutes, the car stopped. As the dark-haired one looked out of the window, shifting his lock on me, I wriggled around between my captors. Through the rear window, I saw them haul Conrad out of the trunk. One released the handcuffs then threw him onto the sidewalk and kicked him several times. He didn’t move. He lay there as if in a deep sleep. Or dead.

  ‘Let me out. Now!’ I fought and scratched to get to the door but was yanked back by my hair. I lunged out and my nails made contact with flesh. I dragged them across the man’s face. I heard a string of obscenities. He slapped my face. Hard. My neck was wrenched and I was sure my head was going to fall off. Tears rolled down my face as the blood and pain flowed back into my right cheek. I shivered as cold metal slid over my wrists and snapped to.

  XVI

  The car dove down into a garage under an abandoned building. I was dragged into an elevator lined with cracked brown plastic panels. It was intimidating to be crushed into such a small, dirty space with these brutal and silent men. The elevator clanked up, hissing when it braked two floors up.

  They pulled me along a white-painted corridor and into a plain room. A nondescript man with frameless glasses was sitting on a chair behind a plastic-topped table, his fingers playing with an unlit cigarette. My purse was emptied out, the contents strewn over the table, like for a match of Kim’s Game. One of my captors forced me down onto a chair opposite the man. They left, except for the one I’d attacked in the car. I was pleased to see blood oozing out of the scratches I’d made on his face. My heart was pumping hard. I was frightened, but I was more angry.

  ‘Oh dear, Miss Brown, you do look a little out of sorts.’

  I instinctively disliked Mr Frameless. He gave me a creepy feeling. ‘Who the hell are you?’

  He smiled like a tax official, but said nothing.

  ‘You can’t kidnap me like this – it’s against the law.’

  ‘I am the law.’

  ‘So read me my rights.’

  He laughed. Not like some movie villain, just normally, but I didn’t like it.

  ‘You’re becoming tiresome, Miss Brown. We’ve tried to warn you but, as you weren’t taking the hint, I thought we needed to have a little heart-to-heart.’ He sounded like a high school principal admonishing a wayward student.

  ‘You can’t be the law. They don’t brutalise people like this.’

  ‘When it comes to traitors, we have to be a little robust.’

  ‘Who are you calling a traitor?’

  ‘Oh, I think consorting with foreign intelligence operatives and conspiring to hand over vital strategic assets to a non-treaty-bound foreign power would put you in the frame.’

  I stared, open-mouthed, at him.

  ‘Personally, I don’t care who you fuck, but I will not allow Brown Industries to go out of our control,’ he said. ‘You’ll go down for twenty years unless you sign it over to a government nominee. And I’ll make sure it’ll be a very uncomfortable twenty years.’

  Jesus. This was one vindictive son of a bitch.

  ‘My father was loyal to his adopted country – he fought in Somalia Dawn.’

  ‘Ah, yes, William Brown, the great patriot. Was he trying just a little too hard to show us all just what a good American he had become? Strange how he went running off after glory a little over two years after your mother drove herself off that cliff.’

  ‘Don’t you sneer at them. My father built up his business with his own money and effort. He didn’t owe you anything. Neither do I. You can go screw yourself.’

  ‘Bravo! I do like to see some spirit.’

  Patronising jerk.

  ‘I think some time out will help concentrate your mind. We’ll continue our talk later.’ He nodded at the man whose skin I’d ripped. ‘Put her in one of the cells.’

  The watcher yanked me up from the chair. He pushed me down the hallway to another door, which opened outwards. He shoved me in and slammed the door shut.
In the cell was a mattress, a bucket in the corner and a small barred window high up. Dirty white tiles, some missing, lined the cold cell.

  Where the hell was I? Who were these frightening people? Was Conrad still alive?

  ‘Let me out. Let me out of here!’ I banged on the door with my shackled fists. Silence. I banged again, but nothing. I caught the outer edge of my hand on a raised stud. I stared at the blood welling from the broken skin. My teeth started to chatter. I was so tired. My nerves were beyond shredded. I lay down on the mattress and cried myself to sleep.

  The loud clanking of the door woke me. I shivered with cold. I was so stiff I could hardly move. I wiped over my eyes with my palms, hoping that, when I opened them again, it would all be gone. It didn’t work. A different watcher came in and pulled me to my feet. I guessed it was time for the ‘further talk’. What were they going to do to me? I knew one thing. If – no – when I got out of here, I was never going to let myself be this vulnerable again. Ever. Whatever it took.

  The watcher pushed me into the same room as before. But this time Mr Frameless was standing away from the table. Another man, medium height, fair hair, a square, pleasant face showing a solemn expression, stood by the table, his briefcase resting on its top, a bunch of papers in his hand.

  ‘Good evening, Miss Brown. Steven Smith, attorney at law. I’ve been retained to handle your affairs. You’re to be freed this instant.’

  I stared at him.

  ‘Furthermore, a restraint notice is being served on the ESD on your behalf. Proceedings for compensation will be filed at the local courthouse tomorrow morning.’ He handed the documents to Mr Frameless. ‘Remove the handcuffs, please.’

  Mr Frameless looked seriously pissed. Frustrated of his prey. Would he go for the lawyer? Nobody moved.

  ‘Now,’ said Steven Smith.