Her thoughts were broken by the sound of the telephone ringing across the other side of the desk. She stood up, and reaching across she grabbed the receiver. There was only one person that called on this line.
“Sir?” She listened as Mark began to speak.
“I need an explanation for what happened earlier at the station on Sixtieth.” She felt her pulse quicken, progressing from a walk to a trot. She fiddled with the bottom button on her shirt, just as she always did when she wanted to focus but yet simultaneously wanted to flee.
“Sir, we picked up a signal from his phone and we followed him to the station. We got ahead of him….” Mark didn’t let her finish.
“Where did you get this signal? Why were you not at your base? You had played your part in the operation. You were told to stand down.”
“Yes, I know, Sir. But we picked up a weak signal and knew we were close. Closer than anybody else could have been. You were on your way to Twenty Second. There was no time to inform you. I knew Phase Two was already active.”
“You should have called it in regardless. I have two dead agents now and still no Ben. I take it you know about Ami.”
“Yes, Sir.” She knew alright.
“I haven’t established exactly who she was working for yet, but it’s lucky for her she was shot in action. It makes the cessation of her service sound a little more glorious than being exposed as an informant.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I want you back at The Shop for immediate debriefing.” He hung up the telephone leaving no option for her to answer, argue, or barter her position. She placed the receiver back onto the base and felt four sets of eyes resting upon her, waiting to know what was coming next. She tapped her fingernails along the side of the coffee cup. The whole agency was searching for a dead man, who was already safely accosted in one of their own cells. She had the whole of the Agency against her, and the only thing in her favour was that they were yet to realise it. She looked up at the agents at her side.
“Time’s up. Get him in the van.”
TWELVE
She had not been able to listen as she heard her agents shouting at Ben to get his own clothes back on, and she had taken herself outside on account of it. He had been screaming, demanding to talk to Hannah. They tried not to be too rough as they forced his stolen jacket back on. After shackling his hands and feet like a slave, they forced a pair of goggles over his eyes, blacked out with duct tape. It heightened his sense of smell, a fact for which he was most ungrateful. The splatters of once hot blood on his jacket had now congealed into damp cold patches that smelt stale and rusty, forcing him to suck his chest away from it by arching his shoulders forwards. They dragged him by the armpits towards the door. He heard the buzz as it popped open and they marched him up the corridor and towards the central work room.
“Ben, listen to me,” Hannah said as she greeted him at the door. His head jittered left and right in search of her voice. “We have no time left. You have about five minutes to make your decision. We will have to kill you if you don’t agree to the plan.” He listened as she spoke in front of him, his ears his only guide to her position. “Get him in the van,” she demanded of the others.
The four agents trawled past her and pushed him into the same black van in which he had left the underground station. She went back to the building to close down the computers and tracking systems at her desk. She waited for them to exit the room through the large sliding door, and then she collected the telephone, wallet, and fake identity card that Ben had been carrying with him. There could be no trace of him left here. They would find it. As she picked up the wallet she was stunned by the sight before her as it fell open in her hand. Inside the wallet was a photograph of Ben, Matthew, and her cuddled up together. She remembered it being taken one Sunday morning as they had lounged around in bed, all three of them. Ben had held the camera up in front of them, and they had all squashed their heads in together in order to fit in the frame. Now as she held the wallet in her hands she realised that neither Hannah Stone nor Ben Stone existed anymore. Both identities had been wiped at the onset of Phase One, and she would have to go back to being who she had been before she met Ben. Matthew was effectively an orphan, and the family that she saw before her was dead.
“Ma’am, we are ready to go.” The voice from behind her requested her attention. She turned to face the agent, closing the wallet as she did so.
“I’m ready.” She walked out into the gentle April sunlight, the air cool whipping against her skin. She wondered how cold Ben might be in the light clothes that he was wearing; ripped, damaged, and bloody from his time in the underground station. She took the handle of the heavy sliding door and dragged it into place. The automatic locking code activated, and with the last and longest beep, her base was officially shut down. She pulled the second, original wooden door shut and flicked the latch before securing the padlock, leaving no visible trace of what this building actually was. Once again it looked just like an average cabin in the woods.
Ben was placed in the back of the van with three agents, and Agent Smith sat in the front. She found the small black device that was located on the underside of the van and she leant down closely, pushing her weight behind it with her foot. It dislodged from its position, dropping to the ground. With a cautious eye on the door of the van she fiddled her hand around in the mud until she located the box and picked it up. She smashed it against the side of the van and stuffed the remains in her pocket.
“Let’s go.” She prompted Smith, who nodded his agreement. After a quick look back to his fellow agents through the small window to the back of the van, he started the engine. She too took a glance through, but she paid no attention to the agents. Instead she watched Ben, whose head was tilted upwards. She heard him say her name, muffled as it was through the thickset glass, and she stifled her feelings of guilt with the intention to remain focused on the task in hand.
They drove away from the disused wood yard following a poorly trodden dirt track that formed the only road to and from her base. There was a small gate that granted access which she activated from a button inside the van. The white barrier rose, and as they passed through she pressed another button which resulted in the closure of the gate. They rattled over the lumps of the road to a chorus of requests from Ben. She could hear him shouting, demanding to know where they were taking him, as he banged his feet repeatedly against the floor of the vehicle with all the insolence of a school boy. She held onto the dashboard with her right hand to steady herself as Smith negotiated the unpredictable surface of the road, whilst in her left hand she fingered the soft leather of her husband’s wallet. She hoped so much that when presented with the only option available to him, he would take it without question or incident. She could hear him in the back, shouting at his three companions, and she hoped that he would manage to calm down by the time they drew to a halt. It would be a difficult task for any person to control him should he choose to encumber the necessary steps of her plan. His repeated demands to be unshackled and released fell onto ignorance, and trained as they were, she knew that her team’s patience would only stretch so far.
She remembered her training, when unexpectedly one night she was taken in this way, terrified and bound in the dark with no clue who it was that held her captive, or where they were taking her. She was interrogated for hours in an effort to assess her strength and commitment to the Agency. She had passed the test easily, never once giving any indication to her captors of her level of fright and terror. Not when they punched her. Not when they pulled the wrist straps tighter. Not when they burnt her with their cigarettes. Not even when they threatened to take so much more, slipping their filth-covered hands into the waistband of her pyjamas. Ben had received no such training. How was he supposed to be calm? She slapped her sweaty palm on the metal wall between her and her husband leaving a visible wet patch. She wondered what it was that was making her sweat, the memories of the past, the uncertainty of the present, or he
r fear for the future. But then she heard a break in Ben’s demands.
“Ben, stay calm. We are nearly there,” she called.
Smith, the most senior of her agents, drove towards their destination. They exited the forest, proceeding along a narrow country lane which meandered towards what looked like a lake. But this body of water led directly to the sea. It was her planned escape route for Ben. The road was good, and they began to cover ground much faster.
“Smith, keep moving along this road for another two hundred meters and then pull into the parking area.” She pointed to her left, indicating a small gravel clearing alongside a boat house that wasn’t visible from the road. The tyres skidded on the loose surface as the van ground to a halt. She pulled her telephone from her pocket and held it up to her ear to make a call. There were no sounds, not even from Ben, and the silence of his uncertainty and anticipation felt almost as smothering as his dissidence.
“We’re here,” she said into her telephone. Her words were like a quick slap, delivered, rhetorical, no response needed. She hung up, and nodded to Smith to exit the van.
A man appeared to meet her at the entrance to the boathouse. He was small in stature with a full beard. He was wearing a thick jumper and burgundy corduroy trousers that seemed too heavy for the April weather, even with the chill that hung in the air. Agent Smith stood by his closed door, watching the couple as they embraced. The bearded man regarded her as a grandfather might regard a grownup granddaughter, proudly, but with perhaps a hint of sadness that the easy days of childhood had passed her by. She turned back and nodded to Smith, a signal that he should bring Ben forth. He hit the side of his fist against the van three times, and then heard the footsteps of those inside as they moved towards the door.
The smell of the fresh countryside air and the breeze on his face was a welcome relief to Ben. It was claustrophobic under his blacked-out goggles and the clean, salt-tinged air helped. He felt two sets of hands either side of him pushing him forwards, and he was certain that he could sense footsteps behind him too. The sound of trees rustling overhead made him think they were still in the forest, and the background lull of the water as it lapped against the shore gave him an inappropriate sense of peace.
“Bring him here.” Ben heard his wife’s familiar voice as she shouted instructions. The agents pushed him forward, and the sound of the shore intensified as he was led in her direction. She pulled the goggles from his face. The overpowering daylight forced him to squint and cower away. His focus came back into view and he saw his wife standing alongside an unfamiliar man.
“What are we doing here, Hannah? Who is this?” Ben held up his shackled hands in the direction of the bearded boatman, only a couple of arms length away.
She didn’t answer. Instead she instructed Agent Smith. “Take these off now,” she said, pointing to Ben’s ankles. Ben stared at the back of Smith’s head as he leaned down to remove the shackles. He considered the strength of two clenched fists against the soft bone at the base of the agent’s skull. With enough force he could likely snap the delicate spinal cord it he caught it just right. He could at least knock him out. But then Ben glanced around and saw the other agents, each of them with their eyes trained on him. It was a stupid idea, and wouldn’t help. He looked up and found Hannah staring straight at him.
“Your choice is very simple. You go with this man, or you go with us. Going with us only leads in one direction. Remember, in our world, Ben, you are already dead. Killing you isn’t a crime if you don’t exist.”
“Hannah, I haven’t done anything. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m Matthew’s father. Have you forgotten that?” She reached her hand in her pocket and delicately stroked the soft leather of the wallet as if it were their actual faces on the photograph inside. “What will you tell him?”
“What I have to. The fact that you are Matthew’s father is the only reason I am risking my own life now. You have to go with this man.” Ben could feel the lump of hurt forming in the back of his throat, and he tried to swallow it down so that he could continue to plead for a chance to see his son again. A chance to save his old life.
“But I love you, Hannah.” A solitary tear broke free from his eye and trickled over his cheek before falling to the ground. He reached forward, striking her arms with his shackled hands. His movement caught the attention of the agents, each taking an assertive step forward, the pack moving in to strike, before she called off the hunt with a single shake of her head. Smith stepped away and stood to the side. “I love Matthew. Don’t take everything away from me.” She knew when he referred to everything that he didn’t just mean the two of them. He was referring to his work, his other baby which never ceased to require attention and time. It was the child that never grew up, and he was the parent that never tired of feeding and nappy changes. “The people I could have saved. I could have saved Matthew.”
“You don’t need to save him, Ben.” She looked at his reddened face, his eyes puffy as the leaves of the towering Ash trees danced about above him. “He doesn’t have Huntington’s disease like your father did.”
“But we had him tested, he carries the gene faults just like I do. He had enough glutamine repeats in his genes to cause the disease. That means he will get ill, Hannah. I’m just a carrier, but he will become ill. I’ll be able to cure him. Give me a chance to do that.” He raised his hands to her face, wanting to touch her. Perhaps something would transfer between them and make her see sense.
She shook her head and averted her gaze, pulling herself away. “He won’t get ill. He’s clear. He doesn’t have Huntington’s like you think he does.” Ben looked at Hannah as if he may have met her once and vaguely recognised her. “You were lied to.”
“Why?”
“So you wouldn’t stop.”
Ben felt a simultaneous sense of relief and anger as he heard that Matthew was healthy. In a single moment he had won back his son, and lost him all over again. How she could allow their son to be used like that was beyond his ability for comprehension, but the relief was so great that the single tear that had already fallen was followed by a torrent as he brought his hands up to his face to shield himself from view.
She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Get on the boat, Ben.” Her words were soft and warm, and it reminded him of the thousands of times that she had whispered three enchanting words in his ears. Now she was offering him something back. Another chance. All he had ever wanted was to cure Matthew, and now he knew he didn’t have to his concerns seemed to fade faster than fog on a summer’s morning.
She had risked everything to offer him safety. In a cruel twist of fate, by stepping on that boat, he was offering Matthew a future with his mother. She, at least, would return safely. She took out the wallet and placed it against his chest and he took it in his hand. For a moment their skin connected and he felt her warm soft fingers against his own. He glanced at the photograph inside and gulped down another lump in his throat. He nodded his head solemnly as he wiped the tears away and allowed himself to be guided by her hand, still resting on his shoulder.
As she turned to walk with Ben to the boat she heard an almost inaudible sound that her trained ear would never miss. She swung round, pulling her gun from its holster, aiming it upwards to meet her fellow agents. The agent’s gun was ready, his arm outstretched, pointing at Ben.
“Smith, what are you doing? Lower your weapon!” She spoke with the urgency of somebody who had no time to stop and think, her words bursting out from her subconscious.
“Ma’am, I can’t let you go through with this.” Smith spoke on the behalf of his henchmen. “If he gets away and the part this team played in it is discovered, it’s our lives that are over. I can’t let you risk that, Ma’am. I can’t let you risk our lives for his.”
“Nobody will find out if everybody keeps their mouths shut. How could they find out?”
He ignored her pleas. “We have to turn him in. None of us will say a word about your part in this. But we can�
��t let him get away.”
“Smith, you don’t understand. We can’t kill him. We can’t…” Smith didn’t let her finish.
“We respect you, Ma’am. We do. We have given you every chance to rein this in. To do the right thing. But now we have to take over. I promise that your part in this will stay with us.”
“Smith,” she said with definite and purposeful words, “you will not kill this man.” Ben was looking frantically between Smith and Hannah, realising that suddenly he had more than one option. Hannah couldn’t let them kill him.
She had pulled her gun on her own team in his defence. All of the things she had told him, she couldn’t carry them out. She wouldn’t let them be carried out. The bearded boatman took tentative steps around Ben’s other side, and as he moved forwards Ben saw the gun strapped to his back. Ben remembered the power that he had felt in the underground station and wished that it had been a weapon rather than a wallet that Hannah had placed in his hand moments ago.
“I will, Ma’am.”
Her eyes darted between Smith and the other men, analysing each of them and waiting for their next move. She silently pulled her finger back on the trigger, squeezing it a little, and braced her arms.
“Ben, get on the boat.” Smith’s eyes were on him, boring a hole into his forehead as deep as a bullet. Hannah repeated her words again, never taking her eyes from the gunman.
“Get on the boat, Ben.”
“Don’t move, Mr. Stone.” Smith didn’t care about putting a bullet into Ben’s chest, but he genuinely hoped to avoid putting one into his boss’s. “Stay where you are.”
“Hannah,” Ben cried, even though he now knew it wasn’t her real name. “What should I do?”
“Get on the boat!” she shouted.
“Stay where you are, Stone.”
Hannah’s eyes were fixed on Smith’s trigger finger. She watched as he strengthened the position of his finger and braced for a shot. He was well trained and there was very little chance of failure from this distance. Without a second thought she unloaded a single shot into the centre of his forehead, sending a fountain of blood and bone spraying into the air. She didn’t hear Ben scream behind her as she trained her sights on the next agent, and as smooth and seamless as the passage of light she delivered the same fatal blow into the side of Agent Roberts’ head. The third agent had enough time to get his hand on his gun, but not enough to remove it from the holster before the boatman unloaded a double round into his face, hitting him in the right eye and levelling him to the ground to meet his team. She turned and pointed her gun directly at the forth agent. She was joined by the boatman, putting a line of weaponry between the agent and Ben.
Identity X Page 11
