by James Lear
“The prize money.”
“And more. Every penny he earned from his media work.”
“And where is he now?”
“In prison, while it’s decided whether to put him on trial here or extradite him to the UK.”
“He’ll get plenty of cock in prison. He’ll be happy.”
Oliver said nothing.
“And what about Alan Vaughan?”
“He was apprehended at Manchester Airport, trying to fly to Colombia.”
“Jesus.”
“He’s remanded without bail while the list of charges against him grows. Blackmail, terrorism, rape, conspiracy to murder, you name it. The press has had a great time. His wife is telling everyone it’s a pack of lies.”
“Poor woman.”
“Don’t feel too sorry for her, Dan. There’s a proceeds of crime investigation hovering over her head.”
“And all this happened because I pulled a gun in a room full of fat men in suits?”
“You provided the one piece of evidence that we needed: a link between HomeWay and Alan Vaughan. As soon as they mentioned your name, and the details we’d planted, we knew there was only one possible source. If Vaughan was providing HomeWay with that kind of information, it was safe to assume he was providing them with money. The attack on the army base confirmed what we already knew: HomeWay was involved in homeland terrorism.”
“But it’s all theory. No proof.”
“We got our proof. You remember Peter Logan?”
“The sweaty guy at the hotel?”
“He talked.”
“About Vaughan?”
“About everything. Eventually. After a little persuasion.”
“I still don’t understand what was in it for Vaughan. Why jeopardize everything to fund some bunch of crazy bastards in the US? Surely he didn’t believe their crap. He isn’t stupid.”
“Alan Vaughan is exactly what he appears to be: a boxing promoter. Everything else was in the service of that. He wanted to get out of the UK—it was getting too hot for him there, people were starting to find out about his other activities, people like Oz were starting to break ranks—and move to the US. That’s where the money is. HomeWay would have made that possible for him. They have all the connections in the sporting world, they could get him an entrée. And in return, he gave them the people they needed for one of their plots. Foreigners. Outsiders.”
“And they ended up with me.”
“In the absence of a Muslim, a mad gay ex-marine would do nicely. That plays well with their anti-federal agenda.”
“So that’s the end of Vaughan.”
“And thanks to the information you provided to MI6, a senior police officer has been charged with the murder of Oz Rafiq.”
“I knew it.”
“Several other prominent individuals are under investigation.”
“I bet they are.”
“And City Fitness has closed down.”
“What about the boys?”
“They’re being looked after.”
“Tom Jackson? Is he in prison?”
“There are no charges against him,” said Oliver, with a smile. “In fact, your friend Reeve from MI6 is very interested in young Mr. Jackson.”
“I just bet he is.” I could see Jackson riding Reeve’s thick cock—and I could also see him making a very good career for himself in the intelligence services. Perhaps, one day, he’d be briefing me.
“You will be interviewed by the British police at some point. They are trying to piece together exactly what happened to Oz.”
I remembered his mysterious disappearance from my Manchester apartment, the tidy bed, the clean bathroom. Perhaps I would never know the truth of his final hours. “Does that mean I have to go back?”
“I think, under the circumstances, we could ask them to come to you. You’ve done enough.”
“Yeah. I nearly died in prison.”
Oliver pressed his hands between his knees, and looked at the floor. “I know.”
“Are you going to tell me about it?”
“Yes, I am.” He took a deep breath, relaxed his shoulders, and began. “As soon as we heard what happened, we were looking for you. NYPD, FBI, all our agents. We tracked you as far as a warehouse on Long Island, and then the trail went cold.”
“I must have taken a shit.”
“What do you remember?”
“Nothing. I woke up in that cell.”
“They must have sedated you. By the time the police got to the warehouse, it was empty. We lost you. They led us on a wild goose chase, planting false information to keep us busy. As far as we now, you were moved straight to a detention facility in Queens.”
“Was it a federal prison?”
“Run by a private company. The corruption goes further and deeper than we suspected. You were admitted under a false name. It took a while to prove that you were the person we said you were.”
“How did you manage that?”
“MI6 were very thorough. They had your DNA on file.”
Of course: my audition with Reeve and Radek.
“How long was I in there?”
“A month, more or less.” Oliver’s voice cracked. “We nearly lost you, Dan.”
“And how did you find me?”
“Logan again. It took a while.”
“Is he still in one piece?”
“He’ll live.”
And that seemed to be the end of that. They got the bad guys. Vaughan, Logan, and the rest of them were in prison. The boys were safe. Dakota, Kieran, Jackson: I’d never see them again, but I’d saved them. As for Craig Lukas—his career was over, his reputation destroyed, maybe he’d serve some time and then follow the usual path of disgraced boxers, into private security. Or he’d kill himself. I didn’t much care.
Everyone was pleased with me. Major General Hamilton, Andrew Reeve, Ethan Oliver, all the politicians who controlled them, would be content with a job well done. I’d been promised a pension. That would be enough for me. It doesn’t cost much to live a simple life. I’ve got twenty, thirty years left, hopefully not too much more. I don’t want to be old. If I buy myself a place to live, I can afford food, a car, the essentials of life, and I’ll probably have enough left over to pay for trade.
Not much of a life after decades of service, but it could be worse. I could be dead again.
I became conscious of Oliver staring at me. His face was pale and tense.
“What?”
“We so nearly lost you. When we found you . . .”
“It’s okay.” I reached out and took his hand. “I’ve been in worse shape before.” This wasn’t true, but I wanted him to feel better. “They keep trying to kill me, but I’m still here.”
“Thank God.” He squeezed my hand. That felt nice. We didn’t speak for a while.
“So, Agent Oliver,” I said, as much to break that silence as anything, “do you consider the operation to have been a success?”
“Actually, it’s not Agent Oliver.”
“Oh, you got a promotion? Congratulations. What is it now, then? Special Agent Oliver?”
He shook his head.
“Chief Special Agent Oliver? Deputy Director Oliver? Give me some help here.”
“It’s just Ethan Oliver.”
“That either means you’re so senior that you no longer have a rank, or . . .”
“I quit.”
“You did what?”
“This is my last job. I am officially leaving in March, but you know what the CIA is like. As soon as you say you want to go, they make sure you are out in the cold. I insisted on debriefing you, but I had to put up a fight. I think I should be allowed to clear up my own messes.”
“Why the hell did you throw away a career like that?”
“Because I can longer work within a system that treats human beings as expendable resources.”
“Don’t join the army, then.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
�
�Surely you guys are trained to understand the concept of casualties of war.”
“I understand the concept just fine. I’ve seen agents and other operatives die in the course of duty. I’m okay with that, in general.”
“So?”
“Just not in this particular instance.”
“Why? Because some asshole in the prison service conspired with some asshole in the NYPD to kill someone in police custody? Come on, man, this shit happens every day.”
“We should have found you earlier. You were nearly dead. You were . . .” He choked, and had to stop.
“The mission was a success. The bad guys were caught, the attack in New Hampshire was a failure, and here I am, still alive.”
“I don’t care about the fucking mission.” His voice was rough, his eyes wet. “Don’t you get it?”
I was beginning to think I did, but he was going to have to spell it out. “Explain.”
“I didn’t want to lose you.”
The words could not go back. I waited.
“It was your death I couldn’t accept. Your suffering. I realized that I . . . I just can’t . . .” Poor bastard was struggling for words, almost for breath.
“It’s okay, Ethan. I know what you’re trying to say.”
“You don’t know, Dan.”
“Then tell me.”
He wiped his eyes, blew his nose, cleared his throat. “I love you, you fucking idiot. I love you.”
16
As declarations go, that was badly timed, inappropriate, and unexpected. Much as I’d wanted to fuck Ethan Oliver ever since I first met him, my motives were more to do with punishment and revenge than that other thing he’d mentioned—that thing I always struggle with—love. He was a jerk in a suit. A spook. A representative of everything I hate—order, control, dishonesty, secrecy. I like breaking those guys down with my dick, turning them into drooling sex addicts and then moving on. And let’s not forget that he was directly responsible for what I’d endured in that prison cell. I might pretend that it was all in a day’s work, but I suffered in body and mind more than I’ve ever suffered before. I’m not going into details. I can’t talk about that stuff. I file it away and I forget it. One day it’ll all come out, and I’ll be that lunatic who walks into a shopping mall with an AK-47, but that’s what you get when you train men to suppress their emotions. It’s very effective and useful in the armed forces. It’s shit in civilian life—but I had no plans to reenter civilian life. I tried it. It doesn’t suit me. I wanted a new mission. I wanted Major General Wallace Hamilton or Andrew Reeve from MI6 to give me a job. I needed an objective in my life. A reason to move on.
What I did not need was some guilt-ridden spook telling me that he was in love with me. Okay, he was an attractive guilt-ridden spook, I got stiff when he started spilling his guts, and I did admittedly kiss him and hold him, but that didn’t mean that I was planning a future with him. It did not mean that I loved him back. I didn’t fucking know him, for Christ’s sake. He didn’t know me. We were strangers. Hot strangers, yeah, but that’s all. You don’t base these decisions on some stupid moment of attraction. You don’t fall in love with someone just because he cares about you and is willing to sacrifice his career for you. You don’t. You just don’t. You don’t fucking fall in love at all. Every time you fall in love with a man, he dies. So stay out of trouble, get a new job, put yourself in the firing line again, and hope this time that a bullet or a bomb gives you a nice clean end.
But things never seem to go the way I want.
Here was former agent Ethan Oliver in my arms, awkwardly clambering on top of the hospital chair to sprawl in my lap, his mouth glued to mine, his hands all over me, and for some reason, obviously to do with medication and recent trauma, I seemed to be reciprocating.
It couldn’t go on for long. My leg muscles were weak and wasted, and his weight was hurting me. I was in pain.
Our idyll was interrupted by a soft cough.
“You’d better let Colonel Stagg breathe a little, sir.”
Luiz, of course, standing in the doorway in his dazzling white nurse’s uniform, arms folded across his chest, a smile on his face. Oliver jumped to his feet, and tried to rearrange himself.
“Hey, Luiz. Care to join us?”
“Three’s a crowd, Dan. Besides, I have other patients to attend to.”
“I just bet you have.” Who was receiving Luiz’s special therapeutic attention now, I wondered? Some new patient who was about to be issued with a new identity and sent out into the field, sucked back to health?
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Mr. Oliver. The doctors will be here in a couple of minutes. There’s the round of meds, and physical therapy, and then he has to rest.”
“Okay.” Oliver was flushed, ill at ease. “I’ll go. Thank you for . . . thanks for your understanding, Dan.”
Come on, Stagg. Wave him off. Dismiss him with a gruff remark. Get rid of this thing. This need. This emotion.
He backed off a couple of steps.
I said, “See you,” and his face resumed its habitual bland expression.
He turned, and walked towards the door.
And then I thought of that cabin in the woods, and the empty bunk beside mine, and the boredom and loneliness of life without companionship. And I hastily rearranged the picture to see if another face would fit.
“Wait.”
Luiz was making himself busy with a piece of paper.
“Hey, Oliver! Wait.”
He turned. “What?”
“Just . . . just hold it. Luiz—can’t he stick around?”
“Not really. The doctors are . . .”
“I mean, if I tell them that I want him to.”
“It’s not usual.”
I pushed myself up in the chair. “And how about if I give orders?”
Luiz scratched the back of his head. “Well, Dan, you’re the senior officer here.”
“You bet your fucking life I am. And it’s about time people remembered that.”
Ethan Oliver seemed frozen to the spot, his mouth hanging open. I caught his eye, and we looked at each other. Five seconds, ten seconds, twenty.
“I’ll leave you alone, then,” said Luiz. “If that’s what you want. Sir.”
“Dismissed,” I said, and the door closed softly behind him.
About the Author
JAMES LEAR is the nom de plume of a prolific and acclaimed novelist. As James Lear, he is the author of The Mitch Mitchell series including, The Back Passage, The Secret Tunnel, Hot Valley, The Low Road, and The Palace of Varieties. He lives in London.
