by James Flynn
“Ok.” She made sure her reluctance was perceptible.
“The plane is heading back to the UK, so follow me, ok?”
She nodded. He took her hand, slammed the boot shut, pocketed the knife and dragged her through the rain toward the waiting jet.
32.
The plane shook violently as it scythed its way through the storm clouds. Luke could see the wispy cloud inthe wing lights, and then with one last shudder the Learjet burst through the storm and the serene darkness above the cloud line engulfed them. Every star seemed to be shining. He had thought it was going to be trickier to board the plane, but he had pulled Seona’s hood down over her face and they both jogged over to the jet, pretending they were very sorry about being late and flew past the ground staff, throwing a hand up as they wished them all the best. Luke didn’t give them time to scan his bloodied face or mud-drenched clothes. He dragged Seona up the metal stairs and into the comfort of the jet.
The jet was far more luxurious than anything he had ever seen before; it had two large brown leather sofas placed opposite each other against the frame of the plane. In between them was a mahogany table, and the floor was covered in a thick burgundy carpet. Near the rear of the plane was a small curved mahogany bar and a cubicle that housed a bathroom and shower. Two rows of standard seatbelt-fitted seats were placed at the front of the plane, just set back from the cockpit door. Luke now sat on one of the brown sofas opposite Seona with an open medi-kit, patching up his nose, which was broken.
Seona hadn’t said a word since boarding. She sat with her legs up to her chest, staring out of the window. Luke noticed that there was a dark determination in Seona’s striking blue eyes; she looked much older than her twenty-five years, and he couldn’t deny she was stunning. Her legs were long, even under the tracksuit bottoms their curves were visible and where her tracksuit top was slightly unzipped he could see her pert breasts bulging against her white t-shirt. The whole look was framed by her wavy blonde hair. Sarah…he shook away the thought and turned his mind to the present, running through what he was meant to do now.
Why is this happening to me? Seona was trying to stave off negative and self-pitying thoughts but it was a hard task. Everything had happened so quickly and so violently that her brain was still grappling with her situation. She wasn’t even sure that the plane was heading back to the UK; she only had a stranger’s word for it. Looking over at him, she held no pity for the wounds that he was tending to, and she hoped that he was experiencing a lot of pain.
His stubble-clad face held a serious air; his dark eyes looked feminine, which seemed out of character. They were swollen from his nose injury and his mop of curly hair was ragged and dirty. Under his wet t-shirt his frame was firm but not bulging. He had spoken fluent Russian with an impeccable accent, had saved her from the American and now, looking directly at her, his eyes held no malice. She caught that same glimpse of softness in his eyes that she had seen the night before; it seemed like a lifetime ago now. An irrational thought bubbled up; it caused her to look away in embarrassment. She was appalled that she was wearing a tracksuit. A tracksuit! Running a hand through her matted hair she felt the urge to cry. I look a mess, I never look a mess. Despair quickly turned to anger.
“So what the fuck happens now?” She didn’t want to look at him in case he saw through her anger.
“I don’t know.”
“What? You don’t know? How can you not know?”
Luke didn’t respond. He could sense that her anger wouldn’t find any solace in his words; she would have a thousand emotions all fighting for attention.
Breaking the silence, the cockpit door emitted a click, followed by a short sharp metallic bang and the door opened. A man dressed in a white shirt with yellow-tipped lapels stepped out. He wasn’t particularly tall, was slightly overweight and wore a side-parting that was pinned down by grease. He eyed the scene uncomfortably.
“So this is the cargo, is it?” He had a posh English accent that wasn’t entirely convincing.
Luke nodded, taking the cotton ball away from his nose. “All ok your end?”
“Yes Sir, all fine. We’ll be hitting cruising speed very soon and it will be straight on to the airfield. ETA around seven hours from now.” The man was eyeing Seona up and down.
“Good.” Luke had nothing more to say and the co-pilot took the hint, disappearing back into the cockpit.
“Cargo? You’re an animal.” Seona stared out of the window.
“We’re definitely heading to England,” Luke said confidently. He also knew that the pilots weren’t military in any way, shape or form. They had been chartered. Money must have done the persuading.
“Well, I want a drink, although I doubt this hunk of shit stocks anything decent.” Seona stood up and headed to the bar area, trying to hide the wobble in her legs.
“Have some water,” replied Luke. “You must be dangerously dehydrated by now.”
Walking around the mahogany curve, Seona opened the fridge. All that was inside were two bottles of lager and a few bottles of mineral water. After downing a bottle of water greedily, she settled on the lager. She hated the stuff but in the circumstances it would have to do. She took a swig.
“That is disgusting.” She looked at Luke. “So, am I supposed to just sit and wait until you decide what to do? I stink, it’s gross. Is there no change of clothes for me? They just expected me to sit tied up at the back here?” She paced. “Like a piece of meat, all because my father is rich.” Her voice cracked, she took another swig, and tears filled her eyes. “And now I’m your piece of meat, just a way for you to stay alive? Are you even human?” She threw the bottle onto the mahogany bar and it smashed into chunks of green glass.
“ANSWER ME!”
“Rest. You’re going to need it.” Luke spoke quietly.
He sat and let her cry. There was nothing he could really say. She was mostly right, she was his safety clause, but as the tears flowed it began to haunt him. Memories flashed back, and he felt a pang of sympathy for her. He knew that she was an innocent in all of this; he had known that from the start. But it was a job, switching off from such connections was something he could do all too easily. He stood up.
At first, Seona thought that he was going to reprimand her for showing emotion, but he walked straight past and started picking up the shards of glass.
“Who are you?” Seona asked him.
“I’ve already told you, call me Luke.” Luke collected the glass and placed it on the counter.
“I know your name. But who are you?” she asked him with intent.
It was a question loaded with moralistic overtones. Luke had little time for morals; they only clouded the issues at hand and created complexities. All complexities ever led to was fuzzy thinking and slow decisions. It was also a question that had no simple explanation. He had been one thing: a person riddled with cancerous grief since his wife was violently snatched from him. But the person Luke had been was now dead.
The menacing train noise rattled in his mind, a nightmare playing over and over. He closed his eyes, pictured the night he had tried to end it all, a packet of pills mixed with a bottle of vodka. Then nothing. When he awoke he had been left with Luke Temple – no ties, only objectives. He had no answer for Seona about who he was because he had no answer for himself.
“At the moment I’m the guy keeping you safe.”
Seona scoffed. “Safe? I would hate to see your idea of jeopardy!” She stared intently at him. “You don’t know, do you? You have no idea who you are or what you’re doing.”
Luke avoided her gaze. “This is only the beginning. We have a lot ahead of us. You really should get some rest.”
“A lot ahead of us? That would imply that we are a team, which in turn implies I shall be helping you. And I can assure you I won’t be.” She narrowed her eyes. “I will be screaming down the place whenever I can. Someone will help.”
Luke walked slowly over to where she sat on the sofa; he sat
on the mahogany table so he was close to her, causing her to sit back.
“Seona, you need to understand this. The man I killed at the airfield ... he was taking you to someone. That someone is a very powerful person. He managed to put together a team of men who had the resources to kidnap you from New York. He then managed to organise a private jet to leave Canadian airspace to travel to England. Do you really think that he is going to let you go that easily? The moment you scream and someone helps he will know where you are, and he will come for you … and I won’t be there to stop it this time.”
Seona trembled, it all felt so unreal. “My father is a very powerful man. The moment I touch down in the UK he is going to have his people all over it. And when I finally get hold of him and he knows about this and about Viktor’s death … you won’t be able to hide.”
Luke’s brain processed the words. In lightning time it stripped the important data from what Seona had said. “You said when you finally get hold of your father? That suggests that you haven’t spoken to him for a while …”
Seona hesitated, and then said, “Well I haven’t spoken to him for a while, no.”
Luke continued, “How long have you been trying to get hold of him, Seona?”
She didn’t respond. Instead, she turned her head away.
“Seona, this is very important. How long have you been trying to get hold of your father? Days, weeks …?” Luke leaned in.
Seona relented, “About two weeks. Pretty much ever since I got to New York, but he’s probably busy with work or trips.”
Luke could see that she had a strained relationship with her father. In that moment he didn’t particularly care. “And who’s Viktor?”
Seona flinched at Luke saying the name. She wanted to cry at the thought of Viktor’s death. It now seemed so long ago that she had gotten the call.
“Seona, who is Viktor?” Luke was firm.
“He was …” she trembled. “He was my father’s business colleague. He headed up a lot of what we did in the UK. He died on Wednesday.” She exhaled with the effort.
Luke’s mind was now whirring like a computer. Could all of this be a coincidence? He didn’t believe in coincidence. In his life, believing in coincidence was the same as believing in superstitions and witchcraft. Things connect and if you fail to see the connections you won’t last long. Her father’s absence coupled with his business colleague Viktor’s death – the implications were big. This was an all-out war on the Latviks. The stakes just got pushed even higher.
“Do you think Viktor’s death is connected with you kidnapping me?” Seona couldn’t resist asking.
“Yes, but what the connection is I am not sure.” He decided to be open with her. “Seona, did your father say anything about anyone called Medea?”
“Medea?” Seona’s mind came up with nothing. “He barely ever spoke about work; I would have remembered a random name like that. Why?”
“The guy back there at the airfield who had you in the boot, he mentioned a Medea in connection with this whole thing.”
“The only thing I know about Medea is the Greek myth. We studied it in Classics. She was a Classical Greek character – a woman who was taken as a wife by King Jason. He treated her like shit and left her for another king’s daughter. So to take revenge, she killed their children, leaving him a crushed man. Actually she’s a heroine of mine.” Seona joked sarcastically.
“The character of Medea is a female?” It didn’t make sense.
“Yes the character is, but at the time it would have been performed it would have been a male playing her. The plays’ parts were all taken by male actors, like Shakespeare.”
“And Viktor? Did he ever mention any strange business deals, anything out of the ordinary?”
“Erm … no … no, I don’t think so. People never talk business to me. I just can’t figure all this out.” Seona was struggling with all the information; this no longer seemed to be a straightforward kidnap and ransom.
“Luke, can I ask you something?”
It was the first time she had used his name; her vulnerability disarmed him. “Go for it.”
“Would you have killed me if the money had been right and that had been the task?”
Luke genuinely did not know how to answer that one; he weighed it up. She was a sharp thinker; her questions were full of complex connotations. It was hard not to engage. He knew the money wouldn’t have altered the decision as to whether he would have killed her had it been part of the operation. Past faces flashed before him; different cities, different countries. He had not hesitated to kill for Group 9 when it was disguised as ‘continental protection’. In his heart he had no remorse. Would he have killed Seona? Yes, he would have. He stayed silent.
“I am scared, I don’t want to die. I haven’t done anything wrong.” Seona cupped her face in her hands.
Luke always thought it was fascinating how everybody dealt with fear differently. He had seen some very intense reactions, Seona had been remarkably tough up until this point, and it was endearing. She was starting to believe that death was inevitable.
“I am not going to kill you. The basic fact is that we need each other. It’s the only way we can take the initiative. They want you, and they want me dead. The only way we can stop both those things happening is by doing this together.” Luke nodded his head.
“Doing what?”
“We are going to find Medea.” He stared straight into her blue eyes.
33.
“Will you just leave it? I don’t want to talk about it. It makes no difference to us; as long as we are paid then we could be carrying the Scarlet Pimpernel as far as I care.” The pilot was a thin gaunt-looking man; his nose was beak-shaped and he insisted on brushing his remaining three strands of hair over his head. He was eating a ready-prepared baguette.
The co-pilot wouldn’t drop it. “Think about it, of course it makes a difference to us.” He waved a picture in front of the pilot’s eyes. “That guy back there is not this man. It is not him and we were told this would be the man who would be with her.”
“So they used a different person, big deal.” The pilot took another bite of the baguette.
“Come on, open your eyes. Does our employer seem the sort of person who would have changed the plan at the last minute? He contacted us six months ago so he’s been planning things at least as long as that. I’m telling you, something is not right. His nose was all bloody; he’d been in a fight.” The co-pilot was getting more and more agitated.
“James, for the last time, leave it. I know one thing about our employer; he isn’t someone who takes kindly to people acting on their own … drop it.” Bits of crumbs tumbled onto the seat and accumulated between the pilot’s legs.
The co-pilot went to say something but checked himself and settled back down into his seat. He played with some dials and checked that the auto-pilot was still engaged. He had been excited at being offered a risky job that paid a lot of money; he felt like a spy from a film, or one of his favourite Andy McNab books. But now he could sense something was wrong; his favourite spies would call it instinct. His eyes widened at the thought of imitating his heroes. Their employer would surely be thankful if he took initiative to make sure everything went to plan. It could be the start of a whole new career for him. He let his hand drop to his side and rummaged under his seat. Still strapped in place was the small pistol he had purchased almost five months ago. He felt it only right to have the proper equipment for the job. He had practised shooting endlessly in a deserted field near his home. He wished his ex-wife could see him now. Boring my ass! Life had presented him an opportunity to finally step up and be the hero. And he wasn’t about to let it go.
34.
Mulberry couldn’t believe the weather, it was meant to be the middle of the summer and the rain lashed down onto his windscreen.
“Bloody England,” he muttered to himself.
From what he had heard from the various news channels, a lot of places aroun
d the world were experiencing freak weather conditions. People were panicking about global warming. Mulberry had never given much credence to the issue; nobody could seem to give a straight answer on the subject. He personally felt that it was just one of many cycles that the earth had gone through in the past 100 million years. His real anger didn’t lie with the world’s climate problem but with the fact he was sat at 4.50 a.m. in the middle of nowhere, awaiting the first plane’s return. Everything had been delayed by the bad weather, and his wife had taken a lot of persuading that he had to leave the house due to work.
His train of thought was interrupted by the deafening jet as it roared overhead and landed on the runway directly in front of his car. At least one of the planes has bloody arrived. He was even more annoyed that the rescheduled second plane wasn’t due in for at least another three hours, possibly four, if the head winds were hell-bent on sabotaging them further. He reached into the back of his Renault estate to grab his raincoat; he rummaged around under the comics and half-empty crisp packets that his son had lost interest in, and located the jacket under the driver’s seat.
Stepping out into the rain Mulberry was shocked at how muggy the air was. He would be sweating in his coat before long as he started over to the tiny terminal located on the far side of the private airfield. He would need to sit down with the returning operative and debrief him. As there was time to kill, the operative would have to shake off any jet lag and debrief now. Plus, the more Mulberry thought about it, the more he wanted the operative around when the cargo arrived in a few hours’ time. That way there could be a final meeting together before the cargo was transferred to the holding area in London.
He was surprised at how calmly Sir Peter had accepted the lie that Seona had been snatched from their hands. Then again, the old timer took everything with an unreadable ease. He informed Mulberry that he was still away but would consult with his people. Mulberry didn’t know where Sir Peter had been in the past three days, but he never pried. His boss was just elusive, which was probably the main reason he held the position that he did.
