by Stuart Keane
Iain cringed. Again he said nothing.
Kathryn flexed her fingers, gripping the pistol tightly. It took all of her resistance to resist just cracking off some shots in hope of hitting them. But she knew they didn’t have much ammunition, so she couldn’t afford to waste it.
“Sputnik?” she called out. “It wasn’t Iain that killed your brother. It was me. This situation isn’t his fault.”
“Well, well…the lady speaks. Finally. I wondered if you were a mute or a retard like my brother,” the gunman replied. “Never fear, now I know you can talk, I’ll have the pleasure of hearing you scream my name. In torture, or in pleasure, I’m unsure which yet. Maybe both.”
Kathryn swallowed, unsure if she should continue to antagonise her enemies further. “You are very confident. What makes you so sure you will catch me?”
Sputnik laughed. “Oh don’t worry, I have all the time in the world. You aren’t going anywhere in a hurry, and we seem to have an impasse here. We won’t come and get you, no no no, waiting for you to come out will be much more fun. You see, we all ate a hearty meal an hour ago, before we ran into you. I’m betting you haven’t eaten properly in a day. All you’ve had is crap food from the vending machines below us. Am I right?”
Kathryn said nothing.
Iain winced in pain before talking too: “What if you were wrong, Sputnik? We could have gone to the canteen in the basement.”
Sputnik laughed. “If you had done, you would have known that the chef was dead, shafted with a baseball bat. That was Boyd’s doing. I was proud of my brother for that. The chef was actually sitting upright with the bat sticking out from his gaping maw. Pretty. We took all of the food three days ago. All you would have found would have been a rotting body and empty crisp packets. Now stop bullshitting us. We know you haven’t eaten. And we’re willing to wait you out, isn’t that right, Genghis?”
Genghis nodded. “Indeed it is.”
Kathryn looked at Iain. It looked as if they had some time. Not much time, and with Iain’s injury, time when he urgently needed medical help was slowly ticking away.
“That truce you mentioned,” she called out. “You never had any intention of keeping it, did you?”
“Nope. See, I live by the rules of The Game. There are no truces, no backsies, no friends, and no colleagues, except for my posse here. It’s very black and white. I find it a remarkable way of living. Easy, no strings. It makes decisions very simple. I just talked about a truce to poke fun at you.”
Kathryn bit her lip. “So you are a liar as well as a psychopath?”
Sputnik frowned. “You could say that. I’m not a liar so much as a creative person who likes to pose scenarios – like politicians or your family doctor – I never tell the truth but I don’t actually tell lies.”
Kathryn said nothing. Iain winced again.
“One thing I know to be true,” he continued. “It’s too bad for you, but the fact is that tonight, regardless of what happens, neither of you are getting off this roof alive.”
THIRTY-ONE
At first, Rupert didn’t know what his course of action would be.
After destroying the first camera, that he only discovered by seeing its lens, he’d become concerned. Rupert managed to find the camera concealed within the light and the one hidden inside the large framed painting. In such straightforward items, there are only a limited number of possible hiding places, and the spy cameras put there were no longer a concern.
Rupert worried about the possibility of there being many other concealed cameras that he wouldn’t be able to find. For all he knew, Gunnar had pointed out those particular three at random, these being a few of a much larger number. The description of the setup Gunnar had described sounded elaborate and expensive, likely to run to far more than the bare minimum of such spying equipment. He inspected the dead camera hanging from the light: it was tiny, meaning that many more could be anywhere, and easily hidden.
John wouldn’t come down and confront him, he was convinced of that. As long as his enemy could continue observing Rupert, he could continue to send people to do his bidding, and Rupert certainly didn’t want that. For once in his life, Rupert was standing up for himself. He was sick of rolling along on the highway of life as a passenger, and not taking control. He decided that, from this day onwards, he would start taking control of things. And the first thing on the agenda was to take out the man responsible for trying to destroy his life.
But the cameras? Rupert needed to get rid of them all. Make them an afterthought.
And then he found the schematic diagram in Gunnar’s bag.
When he saw it, he couldn’t believe his eyes.
It was a map of his house, or more precisely the carbon copy of his house, and it showed the location of every single camera. In total, he counted fifty two: an obscene amount. Seven more were in the room where Gunnar had died. There were five in the shower, one in the toilet bowl itself, and a multitude of the spying devices scattered around the house in key positions such as hallways, doorways and furniture. According to the plan, it was clear that the lounge was meant to be the staging area for the drama. Gunnar had died there, so in a way the mission had been accomplished. Gunnar had obviously prepared a layout to decide where to place everything and what angles to use, so as to maximise the drama and the appeal to viewers, as if he was a proper TV stagehand.
So Rupert then proceeded to find each and every camera. Then, using Gunnar’s hammer, he smashed the lenses, after which he ripped away the cameras’ cable connection. He collected the pieces together and threw them into the toilet bowl. It took him two hours in total to destroy them all. Once he’d broken the final camera, Rupert felt completely isolated, and much safer, even though he knew he was on borrowed time. Without the cameras spying on him, John would have no reason to stay away. He would have no alternative but to come and confront Rupert man to man.
Rupert stepped over to where his mother’s head lay on the floor. The blood on the stump was black and clumpy. He gripped the head gently and scooped it up, then closed his eyes. Rupert didn’t want to look at her face. He stood for a minute, allowing the rage to build up in him until it controlled him, giving him strength. He opened his eyes. Anger blazed brightly in his pupils. “I’m going to do this is for you, Mother,” he said. ”I love you.”
He positioned the head on the chair. The eyes stared at him blankly, his mother’s remains occupying the same position that had been his own seat of torture for the last few hours. He held back tears and swore to avenge her, then turned away.
Immediately, Rupert hobbled up the stairs. He went to the bathroom and studied his face in the mirror. It was a mess. Bruises mottled his skin, his lips were chapped and cracked, and his left eye was pretty much swollen shut. The right eye was swollen but open. His vision was fine, albeit a little blurred. His nose looked broken. The gash across his face was healing, but he could still feel the throbbing behind his eyes. Blood from his broken nose smeared his face, now dried. He was actually thankful that Gunnar had snapped the bone back into place. With the fractured bone still displaced, the pain would surely be unbearable right now.
In hindsight, a broken nose was a small price to pay.
And it could have been worse, he thought, the bullet might have gone through his foot, rendering him immobile.
Rupert filled the sink with hot water. Taking a breath, he lowered his face, submerging it. The water stung his cuts and bruises and then subsided. He scrubbed the blood off with his fingers, taking care not to touch his damaged nose, finding that the warm water soothed his bruises. He splashed water onto his hair and then towel-dried it. Using a comb, he slicked the hair back to his head to keep it away from his face. He found a plaster and gently taped it across his nose, relieved when it adhered to the skin. He opened the medicine cabinet, took some painkillers from the shelf, shook a couple into his hand and popped them into his mouth, still holding on to the bottle. Taking a deep breath, he walked out of the bathroom
and into the bedroom.
The battered man then opened some drawers and found some blue jeans and a grey polo shirt, which he put on. Adding a black hoodie and some socks, Rupert then moved into his study and opened a drawer of his filing cabinet. He pulled out a carpenter’s tool belt and emptied the tools onto the floor. He picked up a screwdriver and slotted it into its pouch on the belt, and then buckled the belt around his waist. He pocketed the painkillers, noticing how they clattered as he walked. Grabbing his watch from the top of the bedside cupboard, he left the room.
He went downstairs and rifled through Gunnar’s bag. There were dozens of weapons to choose from. He selected a katana blade, a machete, the hammer that he’d used to destroy the cameras and a meat cleaver. He also slid the pistol into his waistband. He grabbed three clips of ammo from the bag and added them to his arsenal. The katana blade hung from his waist, its point scraping the floor. He grabbed a spool of rope from the bag and created a makeshift sheath for the blade with it. Once done, he wrapped a piece of rope around the sheath to act as a strap. He then swung the katana across his shoulder, feeling it hanging comfortably against his back. Rupert was armed and ready.
Rupert mapped out his home in his mind, knowing its layout like the back of his hand. Time was a factor. John’s Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) was unknown. And Rupert was certain that his enemy would not arrive alone. And there was no way that he could come from the front of the house. Rupert remembered his walk from the cell, and it seemed pretty linear. No, John would have to come from the rear. Rupert stepped into the kitchen and walked to the back door. He opened it and walked out into the night.
Pitch black night, was how he would describe the scene. There were no stars, no moon, just impenetrable darkness. Rupert went back into the kitchen and plucked the flashlight from the wall and latched it to his belt. He opened a drawer and pulled out a plastic sandwich bag and, taking the pills from his pocket, he emptied a handful into the bag and sealed it shut. He popped it into his pocket and jumped up and down. There was no rattling sound, which was a relief. Leaving the container in the drawer, he turned around to leave.
He turned off the lights in the kitchen and lounge, then went outside. Looking up, Rupert smashed the exterior light with the hammer, transforming the scene to absolute darkness. Glass rained onto the walkway, which was good: it meant that if someone came through here, he would hear them. A few concise foot movements and the glass was spread liberally across the path.
The backyard stood before him. The house was not special to him: just three bedrooms, one bathroom, a porch, and its upkeep was cheap. But the garden was his solace. Every day, Rupert would come out here and sit on the porch and watch the sun rise. Later in the evening, again every day, he would come and watch the sun set. It bought him peace and relaxation in a world that no longer seemed to know the meaning of the words. With his recent issues, it was nice to have something to call ‘his’.
But even now that had been taken from him. He wasn’t sure how. Replicating a house was one thing, but replicating his entire property, sky, garden and all was an impossible feat. Yet someone had managed to do it. Whoever was responsible must have deep pockets and a lot of influence. Rupert remembered seeing a movie once where a guy was living in a reality show: The Truman Show or something, was it called? Could someone have copied the idea?
Not possible, he reasoned. Real life wasn’t like the movies.
The throbbing in his head started to subside as the painkillers kicked in.
Rupert moved slowly, treading between the broken glass, off the porch and onto the grass. His eyes began to adjust to the darkness, allowing him to see more and more. It was all here. His garden in every single relaxing detail!
To the left was his potting shed. To the right, his crops. Rupert was no farmer but he liked to grow his own vegetables. He didn’t have a greenhouse, a small patch of soil was enough for him. A gravel path separated the yard into two sections and ended at a gate. Beyond the gate was a winding road down to the river. From here, a leisurely ten-minute walk would place you at one with nature. A large tree overhung the potting shed, and this was Rupert’s destination. He walked over to the potting shed and opened the door, leaving it ajar. He ran over to the crops and stepped through the soil, which was loosely packed, allowing his feet to sink in. He walked into the vegetable patch and then came back to the grass. Past the crops was a fence and leaping this fence took you down a steep rocky slope, with a road at the bottom, and this led to the river. Anyone who saw the footsteps he’d just created would think that he had leapt over the fence and run away.
That was the plan, anyway.
Rupert walked back to the tree. Pieces of wood were nailed into the bark, creating a makeshift ladder – something he’d done for any children he might have in the future. The prospect of a wife and family had become an afterthought once he had lost his faith. Maybe if he came out of this mess alive such a future could be his.
Placing his sword behind the shed, Rupert climbed up the tree and swung himself onto the large branch that spread out above the potting shed. Leaves still decorated the branches, giving him some cover. From here, he could see the garden, the back door and the road at the bottom of the slope. The gate leading to the river was behind a branch. All he had to do was push it aside. Rupert knew that he didn’t need to watch the back door, the glass crunched underfoot would alert him to any presence. Rupert lay down on the branch. Once in position, he adjusted his belt to move his weapons out of the way. He shook his head to try to dispel the fogginess. He still felt a little groggy but knew that he had to continue. He was ready.
Rupert waited.
He glanced at his watch. The second hand was ticking steadily. It said 10:12PM. It looked as if the detail they went into in The Game was painstaking and thorough. For the first time, he mentally praised the men who’d put him through such misery. They had unwittingly given him weapons and other practical advantages.
Rupert waited.
At 10:18PM the lights in the upstairs of the house went out: they were on a timer to save electricity.
At 10:29PM Rupert’s leg went numb. He shook it slowly to get the blood flowing again.
At 10.30PM needles prickled at his skin, the blood flowing once more.
At 10:38PM headlights illuminated the road at the base of the slope.
At 10:40PM three men entered the garden from the gate. They were armed. They filed through in a military formation, the approach referred to in TV cop dramas as a standard tactical insertion. Once past the gate they stopped.
At 10:43PM John appeared behind them. He started talking to them in lowered tones.
Finally. John was here.
Game on!
***
John stood behind his backup team. He felt the safety of the Colt Python pistol on his hip: a powerful gun for real men. He didn’t feel like a coward right now, for coming to an unknown battleground without security or a backup plan. No, John was playing it safe.
Since Rupert had broken all of the cameras, he was left with no choice but to come in and confront him head on. Not only did this man need to be stopped and reminded who the boss was, but John had to install new cameras. He had lost four sponsors in the blink of an eye when Rupert shot up the first camera. He didn’t want to think how many more he would lose if he didn’t bring a feed to them in due course. Luckily, he had managed to keep people entertained in the interim. He pulled out the rarely used ‘Intermission’ card. It had set him back a million in cash but using it had given him some respite. His backup team all had cameras wired into their helmets to facilitate the continuation of broadcasting. He leaned towards his men to talk to them.
“Right, let’s find this fucker before he ruins me. When we go live, James, you go left, Dave, you go right and Connor, head into the house. Be careful. This guy is a pussy but he proved he was no fool when he killed Gunnar. He might be getting arrogant. If you find him, injure him and leave him to me. Remember, I want to look like
the dog’s bollocks on camera. This is my show. We could win The Game in the next half hour. If we do, I personally guarantee you will all become my right-hand men. That’s three million a year each plus perks. Got that?”
The men all looked at John and nodded in silence. They understood the stakes. They faced the front in a show of unity.
“Good. Let’s not fuck this up, boys. Cameras on in: Three… Two… One… Now!”
Little red lights blinked to life on the men’s helmets. These new cameras were now recording what was happening, and John was back in The Game. He raised his sleeve to talk into its concealed microphone.
“Ladies and gentleman,” he announced, “I apologise for the delay. Previously the Choice, Rupert, had ordered his Chronicle into the game. That’s me – you know me as Charlie. As per the rules and regulations of The Game, this action is permitted at the request of the Choice. We have had some technical difficulties, the Choice seems to be camera-shy. But we overcome objections and obstacles every day. So right now, I’m now in The Game itself. Static cameras are a thing of the past. What you see now is actually POV footage from me and my crew members. The future of The Game is evolving as we speak! I now bring you live footage of The Game. Enjoy!”
John ripped the microphone from his sleeve and threw it to the ground, and then crushed it beneath his feet, having had enough of the niceties, wanting to simply get on with it.
“Rupert…WE’RE HOME!” he called out.
John stepped between the men and surveyed the area. The house was dark, with no lights on. It looked as if they were in some sort of miniature farm. A crop field was to his left, a small shed to his right. A large tree completed the scene. The house itself was quaint in an old fashioned kind of way. Tasteful. John could totally imagine Rupert wasting his existence in this dive. He made himself a promise to burn it down once they were done.
