‘There has to be another way,’ I say, but I somehow know there isn’t.
‘These people are arriving in the UK as we speak. They are from all over the world, from all sorts of different groups. Some are terrorists, some are world leaders, I’m sure some of them fancy themselves as Bondian super-villains. What are they going to do when they arrive here, only to find out that their host has already robbed them?’
It is a sound point, and a compelling argument. Grosvenor looks as cut up about it as I feel, his pursed mouth almost releasing the words reluctantly, his eyes simmering with disbelief that this course of action really is the best.
‘We can’t let something as godawful as an auction for this stuff takes place! We just can’t!’ I say.
‘I know the gravity of this situation. I know what this stuff can do -’
‘Do you?’ I ask, challenging him. ‘As far as I know, my partner is the only person who has seen this toxin up close. And I assure you, it is far worse than what you can imagine.’
Grosvenor settles in his chair again, the flickers of his previous animation soothed as he settles his tie. ‘This sort of thing doesn’t usually happen. Weapons of mass destruction appearing from unknown sources. But when they do, we take notice. As far as I am concerned, as far as the Prime Minister is concerned, this is a situation that is as dreadful as it is scarcely believable. We must act to restore parity or, where Great Britain is concerned, the equilibrium will be disturbed for who knows how long, and not in our favor. Sweetmore seems to think Apex will unlock all sorts of power for Great Britain, and she thinks that as Secretary of Defense, it is her job to do so. But she forgot the very principal of Defense. Defense is too protect and fortify, not build for the basis of attack - which is precisely what her actions suggest. Now I understand that attack can sometimes be the best form of defense. but this is no attack -’
‘It’s putting a big fucking target on us.’
Grosvenor nods with extra grimness, and our plates arrive. The smell of mackerel is immediately both mouth-watering yet overpowering. I’m not sure I can stomach it, so I settle for a slug of coffee.
‘Forgive me’, Grosvenor says, ‘but I have an audience with the PM fairly soon, so I hope you don’t find my tucking in rude.’
‘Have at it,’ I say.
Between slivers of mackerel, Grosvenor sneaks out some small talk.
‘I assume you were a soldier. Afghanistan? Iraq?’
‘Both,’ I reply. ‘You?’
‘Kuwait, Brunei, Northern Ireland, The Falklands, The Gulf, Bosnia, Iraq again. Amongst other things.’
Jesus. This guy is military royalty, there on the ground at pretty much anything and everything the UK military was involved with from the late 1950’s onwards.
‘Other things?’ I ask. I like talking shop when it’s not about me. Grosvenor looks at me as if measuring whether or not to let me in, but I seem to have passed when I see a flicker of a smile.
‘SAS?’ I venture. His nod says it all. ‘I considered it.’
‘I’d have welcomed a man with your talents with open arms.’
I flush with pride. That’s the nicest thing a superior has said to me in a very long time. And that’s just what this man is - my superior. Anyone with his honor roll would be. No wonder the Queen wants this guy at the PM’s side in whatever capacity.
‘I won’t ask anymore,’ Grosvenor says, ‘but needless to say, I feel we are on the same side. Can I persuade you to hand me the toxin, so I can do what is necessary for the good of this country?’
Here we are. The fork in the road. The unenviable question that no man should ever have to answer. Which evil do I pick? Give the criminal fraternity what they want, condemning some poor sods to a horrible death at the hands of Apex, or make enemies out of all of them on behalf of the United Kingdom. Grosvenor knows my plight. He understands the gravity of this decision.
This is a decision I have to get right.
‘The item in question is upstairs,’ I say. Can I have a minute to go and get it?’
‘Of course,’ Grosvenor says. ‘I can wait for you.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, pushing myself up and away from the table, and head for the door. I feel groggy, as if each sentence of our conversation was another body blow in a long drawn out boxing match. I lied too - the toxin is right here in my pocket, in its vial. I slipped it out while Amina was enjoying a self-guided tour of the suite. But I need time to think. And I need to ask Amina about the toxin. Maybe she knows of a way to neutralize the toxin, rendering it worthless before I hand it over to Grosvenor. That way, the UK still comes out of this OK and it becomes more of a quality control issue between buyer and creator.
As I cross the hall to get in the lift, my mind swimming elsewhere, I think of questions I need to ask Grosvenor when I come back down, namely: who is selling it? How is this auction to work? And who the hell was the headless woman on the plane? How has that same party failed to recognize that their cargo is missing?
None of this really bares thinking about, and I hop out when the lift gets to our floor. I see cleaning trolleys in the hall. I had forgotten it is still so early, and the hotel is only just waking up. I enter our suite, and shout to Amina. So much to ask. I hope she knows as much about this sort of thing as she seems to.
I cross the foyer, and into the main body of the suite - where Amina sits on a chair, her cheeks alighted by tears, with a pistol trained point blank on the back of her head.
17
On seeing that steel zero pressed up close to Amina, her eyes streaming with fear, my gut tangles and mind races. I feel instinctive backlash ripple through me and before I know it I am moving low and hard for the cover of the chaise longue, which I flip over in an instant. During my movement, I have clocked 6 people in the room.
There is the man, holding the gun to Amina's head, in a pinstripe suit, fashionably abhorrent hot-lime tie, an entirely forgettable face and an earpiece.
Another man, covers the grand windows, turning from his view of the street to see who just entered. He too has the curly tail of earpiece wiring wriggling down his shirt collar.
Sitting on one of the sofas, directly facing me, her legs crossed in demure confidence, is a woman flanked by two more suited, ear-pieced men. She looks to be mid-thirties, short blonde hair quaffed expertly, a statuesque physical presence shining bright even though she is sitting down. A Nordic Amazon. She carries the ghost of a very vague smile, as if she knows that she alone carries all the cards regarding the fate of this room.
And there, loitering in the back, is the only person in the room aside from Amina that I recognize. The rotundness slathered in sweat is a dead giveaway. Lloyd Weathers. He wrings his palms, as if desperate to get his hands on me.
Silence befalls the room. A standoff has begun. I wish I was armed.
'Amina, are you ok?' I ask from my impromptu sofa fort.
'Yes,' she replies, low and strong, trying so hard to be brave with a tool of certain demise pointing straight at her.
I have a sneaking suspicion who the woman is, not to mention the crawling dread that Grosvenor has suckered me in here. He fed me lies and platitudes about the Great Britain he thought I wanted to hear, straight from an ex-military viewpoint he knew I would trust. Son of a bitch set me up, surely. I don't want to believe it, but what choice is there?
Offense, Ben. Now.
'Kirsten Sweetmore, you should be ashamed of yourself,' I say, trying my best to sound like a weary father grounding an unruly teen that nudged just over her agreed boundaries. 'Where does this fit in with your oath of government?'
'You have me wrong, sweetheart,' replies a female voice, which can only be the woman on the couch. The Secretary of Defense is answering me directly. 'It is the job of the cabinet to act in the direct interest of the people of the United Kingdom. A man gallivanting across the country carrying a lunchbox full of botulism is hardly in the public interest.'
'Your spin won't work in here, not
like it did down in the south west,' I counter, shifting higher on my knees to peak out over the top of the chaise. As I peak, I can see the men with earpieces have handguns drawn and trained in my direction, their stances identical. Secret Service, surely?
'The people need to know precisely what the people need to know. Nothing more is necessary,' replies Kirsten, and I see that she is smiling. I look into the eyes of my adversary, who seems intent on mocking me with a fascinated, feline gaze. 'You can't get out. You can't get closer. Give us the toxin.'
'Simply put, fuck off.'
She laughs loudly at that, chucking her head back to throw her glee at the ceiling. 'I wish more people in the House of Commons spoke like that. Prime Minister's Question Time would be a lot less like childish playground preening if there was a little more of an edge to it.'
'Weathers,' I call, and I see the corrupt MP raise his chin to look at me, hatred swirling like hornets. 'What's in it for you?'
Weathers' ire cools momentarily, to supposed guilt. By following in this charade he has backed himself into a corner, with one incriminatory act after another. I bet he can't remember how he even got into this mess now, but his indignation returns.
'Was it as simple as a leg up to Westminster?' I taunt. 'Did you want it so badly that you agreed to sell out your constituents with a fine line of bullshit just so you could impress the Secretary of Defense here? You saw an opportunity to get in the good graces of this fine public champion, so you gave her all the tools necessary to complete her dirty little side mission.'
'Not just a pretty face,' smirks Kirsten, cruelly reveling in the verbal disintegration of her dogsbody. She is a rum piece of work, this woman. 'But you made life very difficult for poor Lloyd, didn't you? So much so that he had to come here cap in hand to try to make amends, watching you all the way into our grasp. It hasn’t been fun, has it Lloyd?'
She turns to Weathers, still smirking. She is enjoying humiliating him, and in this gesture I see the measure of this woman. Nasty, calculating and vindictive. Exactly the kind of person a substance like Apex should never be near.
Man, government is more fucked than I thought it was.
Weathers flushes crimson and looks at me with that same hateful glare - the glare that says 'you did this to me'.
'Never send a boy to do a man's job, it seems,' says Kirsten. 'Now where is Apex?'
'Why do you want it?'
'Why would anyone want it? Invincibility. It immediately puts a flag over the carrier's head which lets everyone know that these guys cannot, under any circumstances, be fucked with.'
'It doesn't work like that, and you know it,' I say. 'You are dragging Great Britain into some very dark places. And you shouldn't be.'
'I think when it comes to the ultimate protection of the country and its people, those very things that shouldn't be done are sometimes exactly whathas to be done. Times are changing. And so should we. Finally.'
A beat of silence hits, its vacuum almost as deafening as cacophony itself. Kirsten breaks it with the impatience of someone who has more pressing engagements to get to.
'If you are deaf and dumb to any urgency, I'll have to get the lads to force the issue,' she says. 'We know nothing about you, mystery do-gooder, but we know that this is Dr Amina Ridgewell, Kosovan-born microbiologist. Escaped the horrors of her homelands war to carve out a new life in Britain’s generous bosom. And hasn't she done well for herself!? It would be a shame if it all counted for nothing in the end.'
I hope Amina forgives me for what I am about to say, but I suppose my stock with her could hardly be any lower. 'Sorry Kirsten, but the life of one is not even on the same level when talking about something that could wipe out millions. I am not going to give it to you. Over my very dead, very cold body.'
'Kill her then,' she says, cold as ice and malevolent as hell. The room stands still. Is she serious?! Even the goon pointing the gun at Amina looks at her to check if it's a bluff, but Kirsten's stare of pure, fiery detachment tells anyone who sees it that this is no joke, and the time for chit-chat mucking about is over.
I look at Amina, her eyes wide and pleading, but her mouth closed and stoic. I think of how many times she has been faced with peril, how used she must be to threats, and how every time she escapes one dreadful situation, she ends up in another. She looks like her card was marked long ago, and violent death would find her eventually, an inescapable destiny locked in place which she will have to face, like it or not. And it ignites a fire in me. Not today. Not today.
The chaise can't be too heavy, but it seems solid enough. I drop, and lift it immediately, heaving it up and forward, and it raises still on its side. It is heavy but I get it up waist high, to a height I can hide my torso behind. As soon as it is up, I charge forward as quickly as I can, as gunfire begins to erupt. Slugs thud into the wood on the other side, jolting my progress.
'Amina!' I bellow, as I stagger towards her, the chair she was seated on surely just a couple of yards ahead of me know, but she has caught my drift already. She has dived forward, beneath the onward-marching chaise, next to my legs. 'Out into the foyer!'
I imagine the closeness I must be to the chair Amina was on now, and shove the chaise as hard as I can, at the man who was holding a gun to Amina's head. It's all guesswork, but it's working so far. Somehow.
As soon as the chaise has left my fingers, I throw my hand into my pocket to pull out the vial of toxin, which had been there all along. I lied to Grosvenor to buy me time, so I could work out his intentions. Good job I did, the snake. I thought that on me was the only place I knew it would be completely safe, and I'm glad I followed through with it. By the time the chaise crashes down to the floor, bouncing over the chair, and the men have retargeted on me to pick an effective kill shot, I am holding the vial out to them.
'You don't want this to break. Believe me,' I say, waving it from side to side.
I feel six sets of eyes on me, four narrowed behind pistol barrels. Lloyd has his chubby fingers stuck in his ears, while Kirsten looks positively turned on, a cheeky half-smile parting her lips.
'Think carefully, mystery man,' she taunts in a soft purr. 'You can't possibly think you can get out of here with that?'
'I didn't possibly think I could get Amina to safety with a fucking chaise longue, but that worked out alright, didn't it?' I reply.
'You call that safety? This hotel is the epicenter of a tactical operation of which you are the principal target. Or I should say, what you are holding. Two teams are downstairs, armed and ready to fulfill whatever it is I ask of them, and considering how poorly you both are playing along at this point, I'd say your safety isn't increasing.'
'Your actions betray your country,' I tell her, my mind already racing to options for avoiding two tactical units on my case.
'My actions will put my country on the map.'
'You men,' I say, looking from one to the other. 'Do you go along with this too? You are equally able to make your own minds up. Can't you see what madness this is?'
'I agree the Secretary of Defense fully,' pipes up Lloyd, his fingers still poised by his ears in case he has to cover them again.
'Christ, Lloyd, you don’t have to kiss her arse anymore. Do you think for one minute you'll get that fast track cabinet appointment you were hoping for? Never mind the fact that if your dear Secretary's plan comes off there might not be a cabinet to try to weasel into.'
Kirsten smiles broadly, clearly relishing this. 'You are a bundle of fun,' she says. 'I get the distinct impression you are not buyable.'
'Fuck off,' I tell her. She giggles, and I see that a couple of the men look at her as she does so. They adore her, and are firmly entwined within her spell. She is an attractive woman, for sure, but it's not just that that men must find catnip about her. Her mannerisms are all the things that make men quiver at the knees. She literally gives men exactly what they want while taking all that she can get. No wonder she has supporters right across the uneasy halls of Westminster, and
beyond. It's power by seduction, until her position contained actual power. And she consolidates her position with the continuing of the charade, her true nature coming out in closer-knit circles and quieter moments. If I kept my eyes on the gossip columns, I'm sure I'd have heard of her. Surely this type of politician is pure gold for the tabloids.
'Who are you?' she asks. 'I didn't want to be as predictable as to ask that, but you seem like such a bygone relic that I have to ask.'
'Someone who doesn't take kindly to his country being used as a bargaining chip in a power struggle, nor it's people being lied to by the very leaders they themselves elected to serve their interests.'
She crosses her legs and leans forward, and takes a radio unit from her jacket pocket. 'You are a fascinating specimen. Lost in time, you are. Did Dr Ridgewell find you in a block of ice and thaw you out?'
Apex (Ben Bracken 2) Page 17
