by Helena Maeve
Only when they had to stop for border control did Arthur’s pulse speed up, dread coiling in the pit of his stomach. He had given up on asking Klaus how it was that their forged papers didn’t catch anyone’s eye—the cobbler he’d used must have been skilled at his job. Either that or this was the first lucky streak Arthur had known in months.
“No kids,” he confessed once the mystery had stretched on for too many minutes. “There was a girl, though…”
“In Dorset?”
Arthur made an acquiescing noise.
“Was she…in the business?” Klaus’ hesitation was almost endearing, as though he wasn’t certain if he should ask. As though he hadn’t been brought up to speed on all the details yet.
Trying to spare my feelings? “She was a waitress.” And the extent of their relationship was best summarized by saying Arthur had made eyes at her a couple of times while in town and left a fat tip whenever he visited the pub. His attentions had been met with a cold shoulder, which was for the best. He didn’t do guilt when it came to strangers, but Section had a reputation for ruining the lives of anyone so much as tangentially connected to one of their assets.
That pretty redhead would’ve rued the day she gave him her number, if they ever got that far.
“Sorry,” Klaus said.
“For what? You didn’t make me squeeze the trigger.” Or toss the unpinned grenade. Or fake his own death so he could take another stab at completing his mission.
Arthur turned his gaze to the décor outside the passenger side window. Trucks, mobile homes, roaring motorcycles all fell back as Klaus sped along the Serbian tarmac.
He was careful to stay just below the speed limit, but the battered Audi proved a surprisingly smooth drive. It didn’t take much to make it glide between slower vehicles, weaving like a salmon in water.
“Do you wish you hadn’t done it?” Klaus wondered.
Arthur snorted. “Right answer is yes, right? Contrition buys me another few inches off the leash?”
“It is a simple question.”
That was a lie and they both knew it. Nothing about Klaus was simple. The secrecy he’d wreathed himself in was proof enough.
Arthur rubbed absently at his knee, right hand mangled and useless in his lap. “I had a job to do. Nothing personal.” He’d said as much to Sosa when time had come to deliver the final blow.
The weeks Arthur had spent waiting for the kill order had been an opportunity to research his target—and, sure, maybe along the way he’d come around to thinking Sosa wasn’t a terrible person. It made no difference as far as putting a bullet in his skull was concerned.
“Must have paid well,” Klaus ventured. “Tangling with MI6…” He shook his head, lips thinned in silent judgment.
“Collateral damage.”
“You call shooting an agent collateral?”
Face flaming, Arthur tipped his head back against the seat. “I missed.” He remembered sighting Sosa through his lens and squeezing the trigger just as the target ducked out of the way. The bullet found his companion—his lover, whatever he was—and nearly took him out with a gunshot to the chest.
Arthur pressed his tongue to the roof his mouth. “Word is your Robin turned him in to save his own skin. That true?”
In the driver’s seat, Klaus nodded.
“That’s cold, man.”
“It was a joint decision. Manuel wanted to stop running. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”
Oh, fuck you. “So what you’re saying is that he conveniently came in from the cold and just happened to wind up in bed with his jailer?” The look of disbelief on Klaus’ face was worth all the crap Arthur had endured since screwing up the assignment. “Oh,” he laughed. “You didn’t know? They were at it like rabbits before I squeezed the trigger. Pretty good show, too, if you’re into that sort of thing.”
Klaus’ profile was sharp and dark against the sunlit fields. He’d never struck Arthur as particularly easy to read, but this was a whole new level of undecipherable. He might as well have been a tomb etching—one with short-cropped hair and a perpetual five o’clock shadow that Arthur maybe, just a little bit, wanted to feel against his cheek. Right before he slit Klaus’ jugular, of course.
Arthur cleared his throat. “Hey, I get it. Whatever you need to do to survive, right? You don’t have to look so upset.”
“I’m not.”
“Bullshit. You’re ten seconds away from prying the steering wheel clean off.” And Arthur, as his passenger, figured he retained some right to worry about that. “What’s the matter? Don’t tell me that you and Sosa…did you?”
Klaus’ muteness was its own confirmation.
“Huh. I know I’ve been watching a lot of soaps lately, but this is even better.” Arthur curled a leg against the seat and turned, offering Klaus his undivided, unasked-for attention. “What happened? He shatter your heart when he went back to the family? Have you been hoping to get him out all this time?”
There was a touch of poetry in that—the whole star-crossed lovers fantasy slotted neatly into a world of shadowy conflicts being fought exclusively behind the scenes. But it was only a fantasy. At the end of the day, it was every man for himself.
Silence did nothing to distract Arthur from the sight of Klaus’ white-knuckled grip around the steering wheel.
You hate me. Good.
He had a choice between letting the hurt fester on its own and turning the knife in the wound.
It was no contest.
“Sorry to be the one to break the news,” Arthur went on, “but he and—I think his name was Cole? Yeah, Cole… Well, they looked pretty chummy.” If screwing al fresco over the hood of a company car could be described in such nebulous terms. “Does Robin know? I guess he’s got his own moles at the heart of Section… Is that what Sosa was supposed to be?”
Arthur tried not to think of him as Manuel, the guy he’d cuffed every night and prepped for intense interrogation techniques every morning. The guy he’d helped walk up the stairs many an evening because his legs wouldn’t hold him.
“You’re very quiet,” he pressed, when Klaus refused to give him satisfaction. “Something I said?”
“We’re nearly out of gas,” Klaus bit out. The tension in his fists lingered, a real, live reminder that Arthur’s captors were susceptible to the same petty emotions as the people who had once employed him.
Jules had her soap operas and her short fuse. Klaus, apparently, had a broken heart.
Both were exploitable.
Arthur filed away the thought as they pulled off the highway at the nearest stop.
“Okay if I get out?” he asked, smothering a yawn behind his hand.
Klaus tugged the keys free of the ignition. “Don’t wander too far.”
“Where would I go? Nothing but cows and fields around here.”
Beneath white, ballooning cloud, the concrete square of the gas station stood silhouetted against green pasture, as incongruous as it was busy.
Arthur waved a red Mazda off before crossing the silver lot on his own, one ticking time bomb lost among truck drivers, harried commuters and raucous, bustling families on holiday. A cool gust of air conditioning and the dulcet warbling of a twenty-year-old Mariah Carey hit greeted him beyond the sliding doors of the roadside convenience store.
Strange how familiar a place he’d never seen before could feel. Crisp, shiny packets of potato chips and fizzy soda cans gleamed, colorful, on white-painted shelves. Everything from coloring books to underwear was available to satisfy the needs of exhausted motorists.
Via an A4 printout glued to the coffee machine, management informed the clientele that they accepted euros and dollars, as well as Serbian dinars. Arthur had neither.
It hit him like a gut-punch. It shouldn’t have. The clothes on his back, the shoes on his feet—even the forged papers they’d used to get this far into their journey, all belonged to Klaus, or Robin, or whoever it was that pulled his strings.
Arthur wo
ve between the aisles, bile souring in the back of his mouth. He could salt Klaus’ wounds as long as he liked and still he wouldn’t have any power over him.
Their eyes met across the shop when the doors slid open to admit his current jailer.
Klaus smiled tightly but made no move to approach. He was there only to pay for gas. Then he would beckon and they would be off again.
Arthur turned away from the door, the tempo of his pulse boosted by a sudden surge of frustration—and fear. Before him, neatly packaged in clear plastic, three rows of a dozen kinds of sandwiches winked under cheap neon lights. Every label had a picture of the contents within, as though stylized advertising would be more convincing than the withered lettuce and soggy bread visible from inside the packaging.
He had eaten gas station junk before. He supposed he could ask Klaus to splurge for a couple of double-deckers, even if they looked like they’d been sitting on the shelf for a week.
Maybe it wouldn’t feel as though he was trampling his pride underfoot to do it. Maybe he’d luck out and Klaus would treat the request with the same nonchalance he applied to everything else.
Heart rattling violently against his ribs, Arthur cast his gaze over the display in search of the least wilted option.
A shawarma wrap in shiny packaging sat smugly on the second to bottom shelf, forgotten.
Arthur thought he was quick about it. He’d been pulling sleights of hand before he could read. They shouldn’t have been any harder to perform one-handed. He made it as far as the double doors when a clerk—no older than eighteen, thick eyebrows, new at his job—stepped into his path.
“Sir, you have to pay for that.”
“For what?” Arthur heard himself quip, as though feigning ignorance would do a damn thing. The sharp plastic edge of the box dug into his flank.
Someone must have seen him sneak it under his jacket.
The clerk pointed to the ceiling. Cameras dotted around the store like giant black eyes that were all pupil. Whether gas station theft was a real issue in Serbia or not, CCTV had certainly served its purpose this time.
Blood leaching from his face, Arthur hesitated. “I don’t—”
“Sorry,” Klaus said, in English, “it’s supposed to be on me. Two-fifty, right?” He was already fumbling for his wallet. “The line was moving slowly. And he’s not—well, you can tell by the hand.”
The clerk glanced down before Arthur could think to conceal the mangled limb.
“Kosovo,” Klaus added, as though that magic word was all it took to right the balance.
“O-oh! Sorry, sir. Yes, um…”
The clerk was just a kid. He must have grown up with the specter of the war hanging over his country but no distinct memory of what it had entailed. Any older and he would’ve realized that Arthur couldn’t have been more than a teenager during the ’98 conflict that had splintered the Balkans for good.
The last thing Arthur saw before he marched out of the gas station was Klaus paying for the gas and the food, spinning his web of lies to smooth over any ruffled feathers.
Arthur considered lobbing the shawarma into the nearest trash can. Instead, he threw it at the dashboard, aggravation tipping over into humiliation.
“Why not the Gulf War, huh?” he snarled, when Klaus slid into the driver’s seat. “Shit, maybe I was around in 1918—”
The Audi lurched abruptly into motion. Klaus revved the engine, swerving between marked lanes and stationary cars to pull into a mostly-deserted parking lot behind the gas station. No eyes there. No cameras, either.
Arthur barely had time to steady himself with a hand against the door when Klaus reached over and snapped a pair of handcuffs around his crippled hand. He fastened the other manacle to the door, so fast that Arthur barely deciphered what he’d done before he was withdrawing.
“You son of a—” He made to swing his elbow, but the blow was weak and widely telegraphed.
Klaus dodged it easily. He yanked the overpriced wrap off the dashboard. “You risk getting arrested for this shit? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
It was the first time Arthur had seen him look more than aggrieved. It wasn’t a good look.
“I was hungry!”
“So you steal?” Klaus shot back. “You spoiled, selfish little—”
Arthur knotted a hand in Klaus’ shirtfront and hauled him in before he could finish speaking.
Their mouths slammed together like celestial bodies on a collision course. It couldn’t be termed a kiss, but it wasn’t quite a blow. Whatever it was, Arthur felt the impact ricochet all the way to the back of his skull.
Klaus turned his head, breath hot against Arthur’s cheek. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I don’t know,” Arthur admitted, but that didn’t stop him raking his chapped lips through Klaus’ stubble. It felt as good as he’d imagined. And as it always did when he imagined things he wasn’t supposed to, his throat grew tight, heart stuttering.
He expected the worst when Klaus inched back. The upholstery creaked beneath him.
A muscle twitched in Klaus’ jaw, sliding beneath skin like a piston. “Next time you’re hungry, fucking tell me,” he snapped, rough but no longer shouting. “I was going to stop when I saw a fast food restaurant.”
“Oh.”
Was meant now I no longer will. Arthur looked at the offending shawarma, package dented and dusty where it had landed between his feet on the plastic mat.
“And I don’t need you doing me any favors because you think I’ll hurt you if you don’t.”
“I don’t.”
Klaus glowered. “Is that clear?”
“Yes.” Necessity prompted a response as much as hunger prompted robbery. Both were the product of years and years of training under handlers far less principled than Klaus. Arthur tried to sell his acquiescence with a solemn nod. He couldn’t tell if it worked.
Sighing, Klaus keyed the engine. They didn’t mention the shawarma again.
Chapter Eight
Without map or GPS, Arthur couldn’t be sure, but he thought their straight shot south seemed to have suffered a slight detour. The reasoning was entirely Klaus’. He’d clammed up after the gas stop—after the kiss—and Arthur couldn’t bring himself to dial up his needling like before. His throat tightened to the point of discomfort as they slowed for another border crossing.
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to go through Greece?” The question begged asking. In front and behind the Audi, a snaking line of idling cars shimmered in the haze of exhaust fumes.
To his surprise, Klaus replied with something more than his customary monosyllabic answers. “There’s a warrant for my arrest in Greece.”
“Really? What for?”
“Theft.” A smile teased at the corners of Klaus’ lips, but he didn’t seem willing to let it show.
“I see. So back at the gas station…that was just you just objecting to my technique?”
Klaus shook his head. “Your planning leaves much to be desired.” He eased up on the brakes and the Audi rolled forward of its own accord, bringing them ten feet closer to the checkpoint.
They stilled again, immobilized by the bottleneck.
Nerves churned in Arthur’s gut. “I’m a creative thinker. That’s what my teachers used to say. Suppose that’s shorthand for dumb as a brick but tries real hard, right? Anyway, it’s not like it made much difference. I come from the kind of family that doesn’t believe in bucking the system.”
“Relax.”
“What?”
“You talk my ear off when you’re anxious,” Klaus clarified. “Relax.”
Repeating it only served to fan the flames of aggravation licking at Arthur’s insides. “Really? Is it you that’s wanted for treason and terrorism—and whatever other charges GCHQ has decided to tack on? Is it you they’re sending scalphunters to kill?”
He hated laying out his weaknesses for Klaus to pick at, but over the course of a scant two days, it had some
how become easier to let his handler diffuse his mental tripwires than take up the task himself. “We should have stuck to the back roads,” he grumbled. “This is fucking suicide.”
Only two cars were left ahead of them now—a battered Honda and a Dacia with Bulgarian plates. Luggage was packed so high on the backseat that it completely obscured the rear window. American rap blasted through the lowered windows.
“For a man who willingly went up against the SIS, you seem to have a healthy understanding of their reach.”
Arthur scoffed. “Better than you know.” The SIS didn’t just abduct and interrogate. They tortured. They used drugs to pry truth from unwilling mouths and threats to keep the willing talking. With nothing to do and no means to distract himself from the ever-tightening noose, Arthur went on. “I’ve been captured before. Forgive me for not chomping at the fucking bit for a repeat performance.”
Klaus flicked up his fingers in a little wave without releasing his grip on the steering wheel. “Merely an observation.”
There are no ‘merely’s with you. Arthur smothered his dread as the barrier lifted and the Dacia was waved through. It was their turn next.
This job called for compartmentalization. Normally Arthur was good at it. He had no trouble enjoying gelato while studying a target’s routine or calculating the best angle to perform a cover assassination while munching popcorn in the movie theater.
The thought of traveling through Eastern Europe on false documents, with a black man who spoke Hungarian like a local and seemed to know his way around the country as though he routinely ferried fugitives around, slammed into him with the force of a wrecking ball. It didn’t help that Arthur himself stood out, mangled hand, dull brown bruises and all, a brawler in an ill-fitting, clearly off-the-rack suit.
