by Ian Somers
‘I don’t like relying on that gift when my life is on the line – needlessly on the line.’
‘Your life was on the line as soon as you stepped out of that cottage yesterday. Now, get your act together.’
‘My act is together! In future you let me in on your plans before you throw me into a situation like that!’
‘Okay, I admit it, that was a bit cruel.’ He found a chicken burger at the bottom of the bag and threw it at me. ‘Now eat up before it gets cold.’
‘I’ve lost my appetite. Christ, you do know that was Wilson and Brofeldt standing next to me over there?’
‘Yeah, I saw them before you left the chipper. I had you cloaked before you were out the door.’
‘You play a dangerous game, Hunter.’
‘The game has just begun, Bentley. Now we know for sure they are staying in the apartments across the street. We’ll make our move soon enough.’
‘They left in a taxi, Hunter. What if they don’t come back?’
‘They’ll be back. They won’t get away from me.’
‘I don’t know why you’re so confident that you’ll catch these two.’
‘They call me Hunter for a good reason, Bentley. No prey ever escapes me.’
‘You belong in a B-movie with all your one-liners!’
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Hit List
I sat on the bed sulking for a couple of hours and occasionally picked at the cold burger when Hunter wasn’t looking. Windmill Street grew quieter as the night wore on, the traffic becoming sparse and the constant babbling of the pedestrians fizzling out, leaving only the sound of nocturnal revellers and the engine hum of parked cabs. Hunter had had enough by midnight and threw the binoculars at me and said it was my shift. We exchanged places and I settled into the lonely watch.
Most people would have found the task of monitoring an empty street excruciatingly boring, but I’d had a lot of practice at watching over lonely landscapes. It was still hard to keep my thoughts on the job, though. I kept thinking of Cathy, and how I wanted to hold her, let her perfume fill my nostrils, run my fingers through her soft hair and for us to fall asleep in one another’s arms. I had not valued those simple things in the weeks before she left. They had become routine. It was only now that she was gone that I longed for them once more. Would I ever hold her again? Would the embrace still feel magical, as it once had? Would the magic fade once more? Would falling asleep with her become routine yet again? I knew I would never find out the answers. There was no going back for me. I could never truly be content to hide away from the world, and it would be unfair to force Cathy into a life of constantly dealing with how hiding made me feel. We were too different, Cathy and I.
That still didn’t stop me missing her, and missing the little things that had become part of my life. The thoughts of falling asleep with her had brought on fatigue quicker than I expected. I tried to fight it off by going to the bathroom and dousing my face with cold water. It helped only for a short while. By 3am I had surrendered. The soft caress of slumber sapped my strength. Then came the dream.
It was one of those dreams that trick you into thinking it’s real by beginning in the exact same place you fell asleep. There were whispers in the hallway and I left the chair by the window to investigate. There was no one out there at first. Just an empty hallway. Then the whispers returned and I sought them once more. At first I could see the end of the corridor, that led to the stairwell, but it soon warped to become endless, stretching out into infinity with a million doors on both sides. I found myself racing forward in a panic and searching for a way out. I tried door after door. All were locked. There was no escape and I sprinted back to 408 to find it too was bolted. I screamed Hunter’s name over and over, and pounded the door, until I noticed the shadow growing on the floor at my feet. I went silent and turned around.
A sallow-skinned man wearing a grey suit had appeared behind me. He spoke but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Then the dream went totally black and there were distant flashes of white and I felt compelled to chase these dancing lights, as if my life depended on it. Before I woke up there was only darkness and I heard Sarah Fisher whispering to me: ‘He lives, Ross. He will find you soon.’
‘Who?’ I called out to the shadows. ‘Who lives?’
Two glowing green eyes appeared deep in the empty blackness and became fixed on me. Then another voice spoke. A man this time.
‘I am the Kematian. I am the shadow in the night. Allow me to show you what I am capable of.’
There were images flooding my mind. Too many and rotating too fast to focus on at first. Just before I woke up I identified a single image: Hunter lying on a tiled floor, surrounded by debris, his body bloodied and broken.
I fell right off the chair when I woke. My heart was jumping all over the place and I struggled to take air into my lungs. What the hell was going on? The dream felt more than just a dream. Dreams are never that clear when you wake up. I remembered every second of it. I could still hear the deep echoing voice of the Kematian. I’d seen Hunter dead. Why would my mind create such ghastly imagery? Was it a dream or was someone screwing with my mind? I had also heard Sarah Fisher’s voice. Had she found a way to reach my mind to warn me of an impending doom?
‘Bentley, what are doing lying on the floor?’ Hunter bawled as he sprang off the bed. ‘You’re supposed to be watching the street!’
‘Sorry,’ I panted, lifting myself back to the chair. ‘I dozed off.’
‘I can see that.’ He was absolutely furious with me. His fists were clenched and for a moment I thought he would start throwing punches at me. ‘Now do you realise what a year as a civilian can do to an agent? Now do you understand why I don’t take time off? The longer you’re out of the game, the harder it is to get back into it. Look at you, you’re a quivering mess!’
‘I didn’t ask to get back in, remember? You’re the one who contacted me.’
‘I’m starting to regret that decision.’ He sat by the window and lifted the binoculars to his face. ‘Damn it, they might have come back. We might have missed them!’
‘Hunter, I had a terrible dream. I saw …’
‘Shut up, Bentley. We’re in business.’
‘What?’
‘They’re back,’ he said. ‘Look! Third floor of the apartment building, the window on the far right.’
I took the binoculars from him and pressed my eyes into them. Through the furthest window to the right I had a clear view into one of the apartments. Wilson was sitting on a couch, writing in a notepad. Brofeldt was standing by the window smoking a cigarette. After a moment Wilson stood and flung the notepad aside and paced the floor, gesticulating. Before long they were screaming at one another.
‘All’s not well by the looks of things,’ I said. ‘They’re really going at it.’
‘Maybe their trip wasn’t a successful one,’ Hunter replied. ‘I’d very much like to have a look at what he was writing into that notepad. Pass the binoculars.’
‘Wait a minute.’
‘What’s happening?’
‘Wilson has a sheet of paper in his hand and he’s showing it to Brofeldt. He’s still shouting by the looks of it.’
We watched as the two argued for the best part of an hour. Then things went quiet for a while, before Brofeldt appeared at the window once more, smoking again, but with a mobile phone pressed to her ear this time. She seemed quite animated as she spoke. I’d have given anything to eavesdrop on that conversation. Who was on the other end? Who was behind all the mysterious goings on? Who was our true enemy?
‘I think this certainly proves that there are others involved in whatever these two are up to,’ Hunter said. ‘My theory might not have been that far-fetched at all.’
‘Don’t congratulate yourself just yet, Hunter. She could be talking to her boyfriend for all you know. Jeez, she could be talking to Paul Golding for all we know.’
‘I told you already she would never work with Goldin
g.’
‘Well, either way, we don’t know who she is talking to and we have no idea what they’re really up to.’
‘True. We won’t know anything until we break into that apartment.’
‘Are you absolutely, positively, out of your blinking mind?’ I exclaimed. ‘And you say I’m going nuts. You should take a long hard look at yourself. There’s no way we’re breaking into that apartment.’
‘We can and will break into that apartment, Bentley. We simply have to wait for them to leave again.’
‘What makes you think they’ll leave together again?’
‘Because it is obvious that whatever they were meant to do tonight didn’t go according to plan. I’m betting they’ll leave again at the same time tomorrow, to get whatever it is done.’
‘Wouldn’t it make more sense to follow them? That way we can find out where they’re going and who they’re meeting with. We can follow them on the kinetibike; that way we won’t ever lose them. And you can keep us both cloaked. It the logical thing to do, Hunter.’
‘No. At least not yet. Getting a look at those documents will tell us more about what’s really happening here.’ He took the binoculars from me and moved them to his face, restarting his vigil. ‘Best you get some sleep now, Bentley. You’ll need to be on your game tomorrow.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘You’re the one who’s breaking into the apartment.’
I lay on the bed staring up at the glow the streetlights cast on the ceiling and fought to stay awake. Sleep was my enemy. Sleep brought thoughts and visions that I did not want in my mind. Anxiety was present once more. The excitement of the investigation had chased it away for a couple of days. It had returned when I had the dream earlier that night. I tried to be strong. Capitulating to this intangible dread would someday ruin me and in turn ruin all that was of value to me. I had to fight it off. I would not let this depression claim me. I had not fought the cruellest of villains just to surrender to a darkness my own mind was creating. It took hours, and a lot of determination, to conquer the anxiety that night. Most people will never know how wicked one’s mind can be when it decides to go to war with itself. I wouldn’t have wished it on my worst enemy.
The night was stubborn and only gave way to day around 9am. I lifted myself off the bed with my elbows and watched Hunter slumped in the chair by the window, a smoking cigar end hanging from his lower lip, his eyes rimmed red, the binoculars resting on one knee and an ashtray resting on the other. He looked a right mess.
‘You want me to take over for a while?’ I asked, snatching him from his thoughts. ‘You look like you could sleep for a week.’
‘I’m fine,’ he said hoarsely. He stubbed the cigar into the ashtray, left the window and stretched his back with a loud click. ‘I’ve done this a thousand times before.’
‘I doubt you’ll be able to do it a thousand times more. Get some sleep, Hunter.’
‘Maybe in the afternoon,’ he replied. ‘I’m going downstairs to book the room for another night. I might get some toast and a strong coffee while I’m down there. You want some?’
‘Yeah, get me the same.’
After he left I realised how similar we really were. Or how like him I was becoming. It wasn’t simply our choice of breakfast that made us so similar; we had both killed people, lost loved ones at the hands of killers, neither of us could sleep properly because we were haunted by the ghosts of the past, and we were as grouchy as each other. All I was missing was the cigar smoking and the Scottish accent. I had often felt like that during the weeks that we hunted Edward Zalech. I didn’t like the idea of ending up like Hunter back then. That was part of the reason why I left the Guild to be with Cathy. She had represented another possible future. A normal one. That started me thinking about her again. It had only been a couple of days since she left, but it seemed like months since we’d seen each other. I did miss her, but I didn’t miss the cottage and the tedium at all. I was beginning to doubt whether I could return to that way of life. What was my future to be now that Cathy was gone? That was the question I pondered that morning as I watched the windows of the apartment building across the street.
There was no sign of either Wilson or Brofeldt. It was late afternoon when they finally surfaced. Hunter was asleep and I didn’t bother to wake him. I kept myself a good distance from the window, as my colleague’s invisibility shield was down, and watched their every move. They was no arguing this time. They spent most of their time sitting on the couch, Wilson consulting files that were laid out on the coffee table, Brofeldt typing into a laptop and occasionally moving to the other side of the room and returning with sheets that she handed to Wilson. I figured there was an inkjet printer in the room and she was printing out whatever she was writing, and Wilson was then working on these files with a biro. These two were involved in something big. I could feel it in my bones. I wasn’t looking forward to risking my neck by breaking into their apartment. At the same time, though, I was sort of excited by the prospect and I was dying to know what they were involved in. Perhaps I was so eager to know because I would then likely bow out of the investigation and allow agents from the Guild to take my place. There was always that cushion of safety for me. There was always the escape route back to the loneliness of the west of Ireland.
Hunter rose late that afternoon and I gave my weary eyes a break and went to the bathroom for a very long shower. We spoke of our plan as the afternoon became evening and darkness claimed the street outside. It was a simple strategy; we would use our gifts to bypass the security door of the apartment building, locate Brofeldt’s apartment, then Hunter would remain cloaked in the hallway and keep watch while I looked through the files the spies had been working on.
It was simple and it worked. I stepped inside the apartment at 9pm, only fifteen minutes after we had watched Wilson and Brofeldt leaving from the window of our hotel room.
After bypassing the main door, I trod along a short hallway that led me to the large, bland sitting room. Cheap wooden floor, magnolia walls and flat pack furniture. There was no TV, framed portraits, ornaments or books. There was nothing that would suggest this was a home to anyone. It was a safe house by the looks of it.
The laptop that Brofeldt had used was lying on the coffee table. The inkjet was standing on a cabinet on the opposite side of the room. There was no sign of the files they had been working on, though, and I feared they may have taken them away and this would be a waste of time.
I crossed the sitting room, staying clear of the windows, and went to another hallway. There were three doors. Two were closed and one was ajar with the light on inside. I could see enough through the crack in the door to tell it was the bathroom.
I leaned against the wall and heaved in deep breaths to stem a tide of anxiety that was washing over me. I was getting flashbacks of Rebecca Dunlow’s house and the grizzly scene we had uncovered in that bathroom. Even one year later, every little detail of what I saw that night was etched into my memory. I’ll never forget the revulsion I felt as I set eyes on her lifeless body, scorched and melted, and as the smell of her singed flesh met my nostrils. It was one of those moments that stays with a person until the end of their days.
‘Calm down,’ I whispered to myself. ‘There are no dead bodies here. Everything is fine, Ross. Search the rooms and you’ll be free of this place within ten minutes.’
I forced myself from the wall and opened one door to find a room with nothing in it except a single bed that was unmade. There were some clothes scattered on the floor. Wilson’s, judging by the size and style. Nothing else.
I re-entered the hallway and went to the next room. I flicked on the light switch and saw it was an identical bedroom to the last. A single bed. Some women’s clothes neatly folded and stacked on the floor. I let out a sigh of relief when my gaze met three binders full of sheets of A4 paper.
I sat on the bed and placed one of the binders on my lap and thumbed through the first collection of files to find t
hem to be all gift related. Details and tricks and attacks for each of the fifteen true gifts. Someone had been doing a lot of research by the looks of it. These were certainly intriguing documents but were of little use to me. I placed the binder back on the floor and lifted another onto my lap.
These files were much more interesting. All were official government documentation. At first it seemed all were stolen from the British Ministry of Finance. Then as I flicked to the centre pages I found documents stamped by MI5, and others from the Ministry for Defence. Then to my surprise there was also a collection of files from Irish government departments. Mostly Department of Finance and a scattering from the Department of Justice. The final pages in the binder were official government documents from Iceland. They certainly had been busy. Too busy for two people to amass so many confidential files. Hunter was right when he claimed that more spies were involved. I was sure of that now. They had infiltrated the most sensitive areas of three separate governments. But to what end?
This was certainly a startling discovery. Nothing could prepare me for what was in the third and final binder. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing as I flicked from one page to the next. I had borrowed Hunter’s phone before I entered the apartment and I used its camera to take photos of as many pages as I could. It was impossible to look through them all; this one binder had more than a thousand pages in it. I couldn’t quite grasp the enormity of the situation in that moment. There was too much fear and adrenalin in me to concentrate fully. Still, even in that instant, I knew these files would alter the course of my life. Maybe even alter the course of history.
Before I left the room, I noticed more files on a shelf by the window. I found them to be maps of Iceland, Scotland and northern England. Then another map of an area of India that was accompanied by a handful of photos – all of a tall office block. Another map of the isle of Unst, which was one of the Shetland Islands north of Scotland. This was stapled to blueprints for a massive industrial structure.
