Identity X

by Michelle Muckley

  “Are you ready?” she asked Ben, as he craned his neck to get a better view of the figure walking away from the car. “It’s time to leave.” She picked up the first of the bags from where he had readied them on the floor by the door as if they were preparing to go on holiday, and walked towards the boot of the black saloon car. The delivery man was walking towards the boat, his grey hood just visible as he ducked underneath the low lying tree branches. He grabbed his stolen jacket as Hannah stepped back into the hallway of the house. She placed a small black box onto the coffee table in front of her. Lifting up a tiny antenna, she flicked a switch, activating a tiny, red flickering light.

  “What’s that?” he asked, as slid his arms into the jacket sleeves.

  “It’s you, kind of. This is your phone signal.” She grabbed her coat and flicked it around her shoulders to the sound of the engine of the boat firing up. She checked her wrist watch again. Only a few minutes until four in the afternoon. “I want them to track you here. It won’t be long until they pick up the signal. It will be enough time for us to get there, and it will divert their attention. If they think you are here, they sure as hell won’t be looking for you outside their own building.” She ushered him towards the door. “We will be there in half an hour, and they will be here not long after that. That will provide me enough time to get in and get out with our son.” For the first time he saw apprehension in her face, and he knew that she felt nervous. He wanted so much to hate her for what she had done to them. But the thought of what she had done since to save his life, and at least to give him a chance, prevented him. “Let’s get moving. The clock is ticking.”

  He adjusting the gun on his hip as he sat in the car. He heard her open the boot, and the once alien sound of the gun barrel as she loaded her hips with two new handguns rang out from behind the car. With the guns concealed by her jacket, she looked just like his wife, and yet still seemed like such a stranger. She dumped a rucksack onto his lap and handed him the roll of black tape and the homemade fuses.

  “Put the fuse into this hole,” she explained, as she picked one up and demonstrated placing the fuse in the hole from where she had removed the pens. “Then stuff a bit of this tissue inside and tape up the top. Just leave a bit of a hole in the middle. Got it?” Even if he hadn’t followed well, the ‘got it’ sounded so terminal that he would not have dared say no. So he nodded and set to work on the second smoke bomb. She nodded a series of positive affirmations as he completed the task before she said, “Good. Now do the others.”

  “What are you going to use them for? What do you mean, cover?”

  “Creating confusion. They might help, and we need all the help we can get.”

  They drove through the forest away from the cottage, and when they reached the end of the dirt track they picked up the first main road. As the density of the forest lessened, in place of trees there was real life, pedestrians, other cars, the general hustle and bustle of normal everyday existence. They passed restaurants and cafes, and places that he had been to before. As he travelled through the backdrop of his memories, they seemed to him now like nothing more than a theatre stage, full of props and imagery designed to create the illusion of real life. He regarded the people as they went about their busy lives; crowds waiting at pedestrian crossings, business men working from laptops on coffee shop tables, street sellers offering newspapers and food. He thought about how each of them would have an identity card tucked safely inside their pockets. But as he watched life carrying on around him, nothing about what he observed seemed real to him anymore.

  “What is it?” she said, as she caught him staring sentimentally from the window. “Are you nervous?”

  “Everything out there, Hannah. That’s what’s wrong. None of it is real anymore. I have all these memories, but none of them mean anything because none of them were ever real.”

  “They were real.”

  “Not the best memories,” he snapped. “You married me because you had to. I met your father today, so I don’t know whose hand it was that I was shaking on the wedding day, and who I thanked for such a wonderful wife. Who was it that I promised that I would take care of you?” He didn’t wait for an answer, even if she was about to offer one. He knew the answer; it was nobody. “Here for example,” as he pointed up to the small French restaurant that they used to visit. “We used to come here. This is one of the first places we ever came together, and I loved it there. Now that memory is lost. It’s all lost. Everything. My life. My family. My memories. Every piece of research that I ever did. All the work that I did to try and make people’s lives better, disease free. It’s gone. Gone in order to be used for weapons. Everything was just a big ploy. A cover up. I was just a tool in the whole thing. A tool for warfare. I will be the man who created a monster, rather than the man that saved people from them.”

  “That’s not true. I loved you. I still love you.”

  “Love me?” Being back in reality made it all the harder to believe that she could really have learned to love him when he started off as nothing more than an assignment. “You can’t love me.”

  “I saved your life,” she pleaded, half-heartedly, knowing that she was also responsible for almost destroying it. “If I didn’t love you, why would I do that?”

  “Guilt. You did it for Matthew. If you wanted to save me, you could have done it ages ago.”

  “I was coming back for you.”

  “You could have taken me from the moment I got home that night. You could have told me anytime. What about last week? You could have said, ‘hey guess what, my love,’” he began. “‘Next week your best friend will try and kill you. I know all about it because I’m in on it too. Fancy doing a runner?’ Yet never once did you try. There was nothing from you until the guilt set in and it was almost too late. You have destroyed my life, Matthew’s life, and the lives of everybody that my research would have saved.”

  “I didn’t…”

  “You didn’t what? I can’t believe a word that you have ever said to me anymore. All the stories that you told me about your family. All the lies. You told me that your mother wasn’t at our wedding because she died when you were young. How could you lie about such a thing when you knew what drove me to work was the death of my own father?”

  “Ben, I…”

  He didn’t let her finish. “I don’t want to hear it. Don’t talk to me. I have heard enough.”

  The rest of the car journey fell under a veil of silence as the black saloon meandered through the streets towards Headquarters. She drove as if under the scrutiny of a driving instructor, her eyes always alert for any sign of hazard. More than once she allowed herself a glimpse of Ben as he sat staring dead ahead at the dashboard, his eyes watery and tear filled. She knew that he was right. She had wasted endless chances to tell him how she really felt. To tell him the truth. Once she had even considered it. They had been arguing one Sunday morning. She was shouting at him about the mess in the bathroom and the crumbs on the floor from where he had dropped his toast. She was screaming at him as he sat behind his laptop, text books, and endless piles of handwritten notes. She had complained and complained at him, until finally he rose to his feet, his cheeks ruddy from anger. What do you want from me, he had screamed as he slammed down his sweaty palms onto the tabletop, accidentally knocking over a glass of orange juice. The juice spilt over the notes, soaking the pages. She had grabbed a towel to mop it up, which he snatched out of her hands faster than she could take a grip on it. She tried to help him, but instead he body blocked her, forcing her out of the situation. As she watched him mopping up the spilt juice, she thought about how it might sound if she tried to tell him why she was really so angry. She mouthed the words over in her head, sounding them out internally. There is a plan to kill you. I want to save you. Please listen to me. I want to save you. I love you. But he looked at her with such harsh eyes, his breath streaming through his nostrils in punctuated jets, quivering with anger. It was the last time she wanted to feel hi
s judgment. His hatred of her was too much a burden for her to bear.

  Pulling the car into the side of the road, she pulled on the handbrake and shut down the engine. She turned the key and sat back in her seat, the only sound in the car that of the material of her coat as it crimpled under her shifting weight. She turned to look at Ben. He was still staring at the dashboard in front of him. She placed her hands down onto her knees to steady herself, but what she really wanted to do was to rest them onto his leg and try to comfort him.

  “Ben, I know it’s hard to believe me. I have made so many mistakes when it comes to you.” He remained motionless, as if he hadn’t even heard her words. “But you have to try to believe me. I had to let them believe they had succeeded. I was scared for Matthew, and for you. If the operation failed, they would have killed you anyway. If they discovered that it was because of me, they would have killed me too. What would he have done then? I tried to manage the situation. I just didn’t do it very well.”

  “The situation?” he asked, turning to look first ahead, and then at her. “Matthew and I were a situation that needed managing?” He shook his head in disbelief. “This just keeps getting better.”

  “You’re mixing my words Ben, and you know it. I tried to save you. I did it badly. I was coming back to the house, but you woke up faster than expected when I was delayed.”

  “Hannah, honestly. Listen to yourself. You left me in our house for over twenty four hours! They could have come and got me at anytime. You had no intention of saving me.”

  “It was part of my plan. I didn’t leave that night like you think I did. You threw up at about half past midnight. I gave you a slow release sedative to make sure that you wouldn’t wake up. The branch of the Agency which organises recovery and clean up isn’t based at Headquarters. I have a contact there. He helped me make it look like you had already been picked up. Mark assumed that I had done it when he checked the status of your recovery on the system.”

  “So then what?”

  “My debriefing should have happened on Friday morning after being put back from Thursday afternoon. It would have meant that the operation had been closed. Deemed successful. Ben, Hannah, and Matthew Stone would have been erased from ever existing, and Matthew and I would have gone on to live a new life, with different identities.”

  “Without me.” He locked his jaw and looked away.

  “Yes, at first. But I have a lot of contacts, Ben. People to help me. I was planning to come back and get you on Thursday afternoon, but when things got changed I had to put it back to Friday morning. The same man that delivered the car to us was going to help me. I know him through my father. They are good people. Honest people. But when your identity card was detected in the underground it was as much a surprise to me as it was to Mark, and it threw the whole plan into chaos.

  “There have been all sorts of people in trouble over what has happened, and I have lost good people over this. So far, they haven’t made the connection back to me, but they will, and that’s why they want me back at Headquarters. They want to know how I could have made such a mistake and thought you dead when you weren’t. If they knew already about my involvement, I’d already be dead.” She reached over with her left hand. She wanted to feel him, a connection to the man that she still loved, and who she hoped still loved her. She let her hand rest onto his leg, and whilst she felt his knee tense a little, he didn’t brush her away.

  “So what now? What are you planning to do?” he asked. She reached across him to open the glove box. He watched as she pulled out three burgundy red passports, but they looked different to what he recognised. The lettering was different, and in a language that he didn’t understand.

  “We run. Together. These are our new names. Our new lives. Ben Stone is dead. So is Hannah. Matthew too. But our new lives are here. You just have to trust me to get him out, and trust me to love you. This kind of thing cannot be organised in a couple of hours Ben. This was my plan all along. Please believe me.” She reached into her pocket to retrieve her telephone as Ben thumbed the passports, staring at his new photo and new name. “I have to call Mark. Keep quiet.”

  Even the name made him angrier. “What will you tell him?”

  “Like I explained. That there has been an accident and that we are with the van. He will expect that. That should give me enough time to get in, get Matthew, and get back out. By the time he realises, we will be long gone.” She waited before sharing her next thought, immeasurably scared to hear the answer. “That’s if you will come with me.”

  His arms hung flaccidly in his lap, his hands cupped like a choir boy, and yet still somehow his stance appeared defiant and obstructive. He was motionless and it only worked to reinforce his untouchable facade, like a bronze statue, lifelike and beautiful, yet cold and unresponsive to her touch. His eyes flickered downwards to see her hand resting on his leg. He thought about his options, and how narrow they really were. Her words seemed genuine, and as much as he wanted to bolster his anger, he was in no position to be difficult. It was hard to argue with the arrangements that she had made, and harder still to deny his feelings. His mind was at war, wanting to hate her, but yet utterly incapable of ignoring her plea. He reached out his hand, just his finger tips at first which brushed against the side of hers. It was the signal she needed, and immediately took his hand in hers, relishing the warmth of his touch and the life in his veins.

  “I still have no idea how you could do this,” he began, “but I believe in you.” He took a big breath in. She motioned to speak, but he shook his head and continued with what he had to say. “I know this has been difficult, and you have risked a lot. But more important than anything else is that you are Matthew’s only chance. Only you can save him. Let’s focus on that, and anything else we can work out later.” Her head dropped as she started to cry.

  “I love you, Ben.” He took her face in his hand in the way that made her skin pucker and her heart flutter in her chest. He held her cheek, and her tears trickled over his finger tips. He brought her in closer to him and he allowed their foreheads to rest together. He felt her breath tickling his eye lashes. “Ben, I’m so, so, sorry.” Her body started to shake as the built up tears and fragility of their situation weighed upon her shoulders. He pulled her face up, their eyes never as close, as he looked to find strength enough for them both from somewhere in his soul.

  “Stop it now. Focus. It’s only you that can save Matthew, remember?” He saw a wave of composure creeping in and she released his hand to wipe the salty streaks away from her face. She nodded her head agreeably, understanding the enormity of his words, which replayed over and over in her head. It’s only you that can save Matthew. Only you.

  “I need to call Mark. I will let him know about the accident, and that I and the team are at the van. I will tell him that I am on my way in as soon as possible, as he requested.” She stuffed the smoke bombs into her inside pockets, and pulled out her holstered gun to check the magazine. “You will be in the driver’s seat. We will only be a few minutes from the entrance. When I call you, start driving in the direction of Headquarters, I’ll show you where. It means that I am on my way.”

  “Then where are we going?”

  She paused, knowing that for the first time he meant they would be together. “We will be following Second Street straight and turning into Fourth. We will be heading towards the old docks. We need to swap seats. Shuffle over here. Don’t get out of the car.” He shuffled across the seat as she lifted her weight up on clenched fists and stretched out arms. As he brushed past her, their bodies crossing midair, he felt the two guns poke at him from underneath her coat. It was hard to accept this new version of his wife.

  She asked Ben to park the car as far away from any camera location that she could remember. But in truth it had been many years since she had worked in a position where she had to remember all of the cameras in the centre of the city. She just hoped that the unnamed side street just off Twelfth was a good option.


  “There is so much about you that I don’t know,” he said as the car idled. His words were soft, non-judgemental, with sadness rather than anger. He shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, scratching at his face, his nose, brushing nonexistent strands of hair away from his eyes. “I don’t even know what to call you.”

  “Hannah. Hannah Stone.” She said it without a second for thought between his words and hers. She looked hopeful, desperately willing the name to not repulse him. “That’s my name. It’s the only one I want.”

  “Not Catherine Mulligan?”

  “She died a long time ago, Ben. The Catherine Mulligan that signed up for this job, that wanted to be an agent, that was happy to sell her life away to them,” she paused as she considered the passage of her life and the loss of who she was, “she is gone. Even if I wanted to be her anymore, I couldn’t. They destroy who you are, Ben.”

  “If they destroyed who you were, who are you now?”

  “Your wife. Matthew’s mum. Hannah Stone. At least for the next few hours,” she said as she picked up the new passports and handed them to him, “but after that we all have to start again.” He smiled at her sweetly as the idea of Matthew’s laughter filling the empty space in the car filled his head. It made him wish that they already had him so that they could just get out of here.

  “I wish there was something that I could do to help Matthew. I feel so useless.”

  “Being ready in the car is all you need to do. You’ll get us out of here.” She took a long hard breath before picking up her telephone from inside her pocket. “Are we ready?” He nodded, and this time it was Ben who rested his hand onto her leg. He squeezed her skin between his fingers and she knew he was with her. Everything that had gone before hurt like hell, but she could take the pain. She had always told herself that the people capable of hurting you the most are the people worth caring about. She had made it a mantra, making herself believe it. She had no clue if Ben felt the same. She hoped so. She wanted him around. She needed him around. There was nobody else she would rather have on her side.