Paul spoke for roughly three minutes as he outlined his plan, his voice shaking terribly when he got to the main point of it. Straub listened in silence throughout, giving no indication of either agreement or disagreement. He included as much detail as he could, keeping it all as realistic as he thought possible, and repeatedly emphasising the potential benefits to the whole country. His hope was that by doing so, he would give his plan more weight, and not just be seen as an attempt to save his own skin.
Once he’d finished and his breath was held in his throat, all he could hear down the line was the continued steady hum of machinery. It hadn’t changed during the entire phone call, as seemingly relentless and unending as the Stone Man’s pursuit. He waited for Straub’s response. He would shortly find out whether his life would end in the next few minutes, or if he would, in fact, receive a stay of execution. The latter wouldn’t mean salvation—at least, not for sure—but it would mean a chance. The thought of it was like an adrenaline shot.
Straub finally spoke.
“Give me a moment,” she said, and Paul could read nothing in her voice. He was left alone in the dark for a full minute as the muffle went back on, and when she came back all she said was:
“I’ll call you back. Stay there.”
The line went dead and Paul stared at his phone’s now-returned home screen with his jaw hanging slack.
It wasn’t no. It wasn’t no. They might actually go for it.
The minutes passed, and Paul continued to stare at the screen, his gaze unmoving as he hopped slowly from foot to foot and waved from side to side like a catatonic patient. He only looked away once, to the west, as he thought he heard the sound of several approaching helicopters, but then went back to staring, this time swaying faster than before.
The screen changed, and Straub’s name appeared. Paul’s hand moved so fast to hit ‘ANSWER’ that it was barely visible in the dark as it did so.
“Yes?” asked Paul, simultaneously ashamed of the desperation in his voice and too desperate to really care.
“The barriers,” said Straub, her voice inscrutable, “are they up? Can we move you?”
Paul hesitated, torn between giving a foolish, instinctive lie as a response and the need to actually check. This held for a moment, then sanity prevailed, and he marvelled at his own temporary insanity, at how close he’d come to screwing everything up.
“I don’t know,” he replied, before quickly adding, “but I’ll check, I’ll check.” In his desperation, he hadn’t thought that they’d want to move him, his plan being based on stuck where he was. His mind raced, seeing sudden cracks in the plan that might mean its failure, but he quickly realised that it made no difference. Where he was, or elsewhere, it didn’t matter. But did he really want to risk being moved and have the barriers appear whilst in transit? That would be disastrous.
“Wait,” he said, holding up a hand to halt someone who wasn’t there. “I’ll find out, but you can’t move me. If you want to try this, if you want to try my idea, it has to be here. The barriers could go up en route. Yeah, you’ll have me and can finish me off at your leisure, but you won’t get to try this out, and this could be the answer to the whole thing. If you’re gonna move me, you might as well send the hit squad and get it over with.”
“Winter, do you realise what you’re suggesting?” replied Straub. The tone wasn’t aggressive, was still matter-of-fact. It almost sounded as if she was testing him. “The amount of damage that would happen in the meantime, leaving you there? The potential loss of life, directly or indirectly?”
Paul took a deep breath, and pushed his luck.
“Are you seriously telling me that your boys in the back room didn’t think of something similar already?”
Straub sighed, and there was impatience in it.
“Yes, Winter, but in an entirely different scenario,” said Straub, but Paul thought she didn’t sound too certain in her response. “Not with a target stuck up north, for starters. We were talking about a completely controlled, purpose-built environment, right in the middle of bloody Coventry, right at Ground Zero, and in a scenario where a target was detected early enough to be moved into that area. Operatives specially trained and prepared for the exact procedures involved, supplies already in place, and most importantly the whole thing would be out of the eyes of the media. And besides, the whole thing wasn’t to even be tabled again unless other protocols we’ve been developing failed first, multi-billion pound development protocols at that.”
“And have they failed?”
There wasn’t an answer for a moment, but when it came Paul felt his fresh hope shatter.
“They have, Winter, and the remaining protocol in that instance was immediate elimination of identified targets. Preparation was to begin after that, straight away, for the next arrival. I’m sorry. We’re talking about the lives of six against … well, who knows. The decision isn’t a difficult one.” Despite her words, Straub did actually sound sorry.
Just before blind panic set in, something clicked in Paul’s head. It had taken a moment or two to register, but Straub had just given something away.
“The bloodhounds,” he said in a near-whisper. “The new guys. Did they get everyone?”
“Pardon?”
“The targets. You said the lives of six. There should be seven. Did they get all the targets? They didn’t, did they?”
That silence again, but only briefly.
“No,” admitted Straub. “They were … disconnected before they could get the seventh. It would seem our friends elsewhere have gotten more efficient at detecting interlopers. Presumably they’ve learned to be on the lookout since you two.”
Hope gently raised its broken head once more, wincing and barely alive, but still clinging on.
“And replacements,” he said, his breath quickening again, “how many reliable replacements are coming forward? Obviously, whoever you have at the moment will be next, but unless you have seven of those guys at the moment I think you lot are shagged for knowing where the next lot of targets are when the big stone bastards come back. Right?”
“What’s your point, Winter?” snapped Straub, and now her temper was showing. Straub seemed to be someone who thrived on pressure, but she was only human. “More people will come forward. By the looks of things, if this pattern continues, we’ll have months to find them, and we’re planning our own widespread recruitment tests. We’ll get them.”
“But you don’t know!” shouted Paul, desperation and hope combining to take his voice to a crescendo. “Those fuckers could come back and you could have no one, and they’ll tear up half the country tracking down their people. And the one chance you had to try something out, the last chance to have your target and experiment, with enough time before the Stone Man is right on him and you have to blow their brains out at the last minute to stop them being caught … you’re choosing to put a bullet right up that last chance’s arse. And even better, I’m right in the middle of fucking nowhere!” He shouted this last part to the field around him, throwing his free arm out wide and turning on the spot. “This is the best case bloody scenario! Yes, it won’t be planned, it’ll be done on the fly, but you have some prep, don’t you? You can adapt, can’t you? Can’t you?”
When the response wasn’t immediate, Paul found that he couldn’t take any more. All pretence dropped away, and the tears came straight away, as he thought of his wife, his life, even Andy.
“Aren’t I owed a bastard chance?” he sobbed, wheedling and pleading and not caring, thinking only about his losses and the unfairness of it all. “I mean … haven’t I been useful? You know things now, thanks to me and Andy, right? Haven’t I done something worthwhile?” Paul buried his face in his free hand, and cursed himself as he played his dirtiest hand. “Isn’t Andy’s death worth something? His, his … self fucking sacrifice? He was a good servant, right? He’d want you to try.”
“That won’t wash with me I’m afraid, Winter,” replied Straub, her voice
shocking Paul with its coldness. “Andy did an extremely brave thing, and a great service to his country, but as much as I respect that, I have a service of my own to perform for the same country. And whilst I sympathise greatly with your plight, at the same time you waited for an awfully long time to get in touch with us, knowing what might happen in the meantime. And I notice that you only really seemed to do so once you had this plan of your own to help the country … and coincidentally, to also possibly help yourself.”
Paul wanted to scream you bitch at her, but he couldn’t, both because the possible saving of his life was in her hands, and that her words had weight, so much awful weight. He stood instead in silence, and waited for her to continue.
“But I will discuss it,” she said at last, and in a quiet tone Paul hadn’t heard her use before. “If a similar plan hadn’t already been talked about, one that could be adapted without too much planning, well, I wouldn’t even bother wasting my breath. But lucky for you, it has, and despite my strong reservations over your recent actions, your past work has saved lives. On balance, you’re owed enough for me to at least ask the question. And it makes some sense. I’ll call you back,” she said with another sigh, this time with a slightly sad-sounding one. “I might be a while. Our men will be with you very shortly anyway.”
Paul heard her move away from the phone, about to hang up, and then he screamed down the line.
“Wait!”
“Jesus, Winter, what?”
“Will I speak to you again? I mean … I mean … either way?”
His trembling voice made clear what he really meant. With the reality this close, in the now much louder noise of the oncoming choppers—their lights now visible in the near distance of the night sky—he found that he couldn’t say it.
Straub hung up.
Shortly afterwards Paul was seated in the back of a parked helicopter, one that was floodlit by a searchlight mounted on the side of its twin, both standing side by side in the now partially lit field. He’d been handcuffed, but not roughly so, and there had been a minimum of shouting and pushing. It was almost as if they’d been instructed to treat him with a degree of respect, or at least gentleness, and he thought that his clear willingness to cooperate upon their arrival might have helped matters. He had volunteered himself, after all. Either way, sitting and waiting whilst armed men stood by, ready to execute him should the order go out, meant that Paul’s mood was far from relaxed. Despite the cold, the inside of his clothes were damp with sweat.
They can’t risk it, surely he thought to himself, and realised that he believed it, too. Now the bloodhounds are useless for next time, they can’t get rid of me before trying this out. I’m much, much farther away than they’d like … but surely they need to try out all possibilities, even if the cost is high? Surely? They need to experiment now that everything else has failed? He was desperate, he knew that, the word not enough to describe the frantic terror inside of him, but he didn’t think these thoughts were delusional.
Out of nowhere, a radio was handed to him.
“She wants to talk to you,” said the surprisingly posh-sounding voice from inside the balaclava, the one covering the head of the soldier who had appeared in the helicopter doorway. All of these soldiers were clad in black, from the top of their heads to the tips of their boots. He pushed the radio into Paul’s hand, and walked away, leaving him in the care of the men seated either side of him and the two standing outside the chopper. Heart pounding like a lead piston, Paul lifted the radio to his ear. When he spoke, his throat and mouth were so dry that his voice was barely more than a croak.
If she’s calling … there’s a chance.
“Hello?”
“Find the barriers,” said Straub’s voice, tinnier over the radio’s speaker than on the phone. “We need to know how much room we have.” Paul barely heard what Straub said next as relief washed over him, but he forced himself to concentrate despite the voice screaming about time, blessed time in his head. “I’m not going to lie to you, Winter, if seeing this thing through means we end up turning you into a vegetable like Patrick Marshall, but you stay alive so we can see if it works or not, we’ll do it. Whilst your continued life is paramount to us in terms of this experiment, your state of mind is not. You need to understand this.”
“I do, I do,” said Paul, not caring and thinking only about what was next, how long it might take to either get an answer, or for them to decide enough was enough and pull the plug. Months, or years? The rest of his life? It didn’t matter, it was time, and Paul was aware, in that moment, of just how much had gone out of him in that field. He was someone else now, and that was better—to his thinking—than the alternative.
“At the same time,” Straub continued, the background noise wherever she was far louder now, alive with activity as things were already getting under way. Straub even had to raise her voice slightly. “If we can keep you conscious and aware, and still have the operation working at an efficient level, we would rather do that. We may need to be able to instruct you, and have you able to respond to us; we have no idea what this thing may bring up, after all. So we would rather keep you compus mentis, so to speak. But you do need to be aware that the prime factor for this experiment to work is keeping you alive, and if that means taking you just past the barrier, then we will.” Paul’s delirious optimism caught that remark this time, the repetition finally breaking through. That would be the same as death, the death of his mind if not his body. But that might not happen, might not NEED to happen, said the voice in his head, and with that he was away again, not listening.
“From what I gather, the people at the very top were split about this, but it was the Prime Minister’s call and he’s approved it,” said Straub, unaware. “Operation Paquirri is now officially under way. But you need to find the barriers, Paul, for your sake. If you can’t, then we’re still going ahead with this and that will almost certainly mean you entering into a permanently vegetative state. We’d rather not have that, as I say—it benefits us for that not to be the case—but we’re doing it anyway. So find the barriers if you can, and do it fast; very shortly that field and the surrounding area are going to become incredibly busy and loud, so if you need to move around and concentrate, you need to do it now. Do you think you can do that?”
“Yes, yes,” gibbered Paul, almost weeping with relief even though he had no idea if he could find the barriers or not. He thought he could, though. He’d been cut off one way, but as he still had enough of a connection to the Stone Men to know he was a target, to feel them start to move, then he thought he could find the barriers. He thought that maybe even Patrick and Henry could have, if they’d have known what they were looking for. If Patrick hadn’t been running in a blind panic, he could have felt it too, thought Paul. Like running into a glass door. At speed, not checking, you wouldn’t even know it was there. But f you’d gone slowly, feeling as you went …
Once Straub had signed off, Paul was escorted out of the helicopter by two of the soldiers, and shortly after that he found himself wandering around the nearby immediate area, surrounded by torchlight and concentrating with all of the willpower in his body. It was a fresh terror for him, like being forced to walk through a minefield. He didn’t truly know how it worked, after all; was merely touching a barrier enough to render him catatonic? Or would he have to try to break through it for that to happen? Would he be able to feel it beforehand, sense that he was drawing near? Was it even there yet, even though the previous evidence said that it should be? Paul moved forward with shuffling, terrified steps, feeling with his mind and his hands, and constantly waited for the shock that signalled the end of his consciousness.
He found that, unlike his previous time in the darkened field, he could find the willpower required of him. His body screamed at him to stand still, and abject fear pleaded with him to stay rooted to the spot, but he continued to walk forward blindly even though it might have meant his end. If asked, Paul wouldn’t have called it bravery, howev
er. His life depended on him risking it, and the act would save only himself. Fear conquered by greater fear of something worse is still fear, and he didn’t know if there was a name for great undertakings that come as a result of it.
Paul had learned this, just as he had learned a great deal about himself in the last twenty-four hours. He knew that this was just something he could do, and that it was fortunate for him that he could.
Eventually, as he continued to walk and concentrate so hard that he had a violent headache, Paul felt the beginning of a shift in his head, and a slight tingle in his fingertips. He went only slightly farther, enough to confirm that he wasn’t imagining it, and then stopped. He wasn’t going to risk any more than that. It was close, very close, and he didn’t know where the exact tipping point was. He didn’t want to find out the hard way.
“There,” he said to the soldier to his right, and gestured on the floor with his foot. As the soldier stepped forward and thrust a small metal stick into the ground, Paul couldn’t help but think how the man that had just taken instructions from him could just as easily have been instructed by someone else to put a bullet into his brain. He pushed the thought away and began to walk in a straight line, away from the stick in the opposite direction to the way he’d come. His thinking was, if the barrier area was really small, he might push farther if he had to, but would he need to? The walk from where they’d set off—next to the parked chopper’s landing gear—had been roughly forty feet. The choppers had landed as close to where he’d been standing as they could, and at the time he’d moved about ten feet away from the stile that he’d been sitting on. Paul did the rough maths as he walked:
So the helicopters were what, ten feet from me? And I’d been sitting on that stile for hours, and the barrier had probably gone up during that time … so that would make the stile and fence the line through the middle, as that’s where I was when it went up. So me about ten feet from the fence, and the choppers ten feet from me, and the barrier edge forty feet further out than that … that’s sixty feet. Roughly.
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