by Robert Clark
I turned back and looked at the group. The moment they were out of sight, I started to move once more. As I got back to my feet, I looked around. I could see people all around, but no one was coming our way. I gestured to the others to follow, and kept going.
We passed through the busier region of the settlement without being spotted, and lurked back into the trees. The light of day was starting to recede back over the trees, leaving in its wake a dark, winter sunset. Nobody spoke as we drifted through the trees towards our destination, and try as I might, I couldn’t blame them. As I cast my mind back to the holding room where Miles and Whyte had bestowed upon me my mission, I realised I had accomplished all three of my objectives. Find out what Al-Assad was doing. Locate Agent Noble. And kill Maddox Cage. With Al-Assad and Cage dead, and Noble jogging along behind me, I should have felt relief.
I did not.
I spotted our destination through the trees. A blanket of snow rested over the interwoven sticks that formed a cover for the pit that had been my first home in Second Solace. The only breaks in the white blanket came from the miniature gaps in the wood, creating a strangely alluring latticed affect.
‘Here it is,’ I said to the others. ‘They won’t expect us to hide out here.’
‘What is it?’ asked Miles, and as I opened my mouth to answer, Noble did it for me.
‘They put prisoners in here before they put them on trial,’ she said solemnly, ‘I was in there for two weeks before they moved me up to the bunker.’
‘I was in here a night,’ I said, ‘I can’t imagine how bad two weeks were.’
She shrugged off the comment.
‘Come on, we need to get down there,’ she said.
Together, Miles and I shifted the cover aside with care. If someone saw the snow had been cleared, they might think to check inside. We managed to move it a few feet without disturbing the bulk of the snow.
‘Stone, you go first and help down Noble,’ ordered Miles, a fissure of his former self rising up to the surface.
I nodded and squeezed through the gap. My arm throbbed from the exertion. I tried to ignore it as I turned around and lifted my hands up to help Noble.
‘I don't need your help,’ she said, taking it anyway. She got down onto her backside and hung her feet down. With Miles holding her hands, she slid off the side to meet me.
It all happened so fast. The crack of a single bullet came as a shock. Noble slipped and fell down, knocking me to the frozen earth. I looked up just in time to see Agent Miles drop. His body smashed through the cover, and I barely had time to throw my injured hand up to protect my face as dozens of shattered branches and the body of the dead FBI agent came crashing down on top of me.
The force knocked the wind out of my chest, and I gasped. I was stunned. Unable to breathe. The cold, unmoving eyes of Agent Miles stared blankly into the dirt as blood trickled down from a fresh hole in the side of his temple.
Noble wasn’t moving either. I hoped she was just unconscious. Under both their bodies and a mound of broken sticks, I was trapped. Someone was coming. I could hear them kicking up snow with their boots. Walking at a leisurely pace. Totally aware I was trapped under their thumb. Aware I was at their mercy.
The dead agent's MP5 was above, butt hanging over the precipice of the pit. All it needed was the slightest nudge, and it would come falling down into my reach. But trapped under two bodies, there was nothing I could do to retrieve it.
My back throbbed where the pistol had dug into my spine. It squeezed deep into the skin. I pulled it free. The clip was empty. Useless. Impotent.
Then suddenly, I remembered. The night of my trial. The attack from Cece's goon. The knife stolen. The hidden bullets. I cast my eyes around, trying desperately to remember whereabouts I had pressed them into the dirt. Snow covered everything, robbing me of any landmarks. The footsteps were getting closer. Whistling away. Taunting me. Where were the bullets?
I scratched at the dirt near my head. They had to be here. Somewhere. Please let them be here. My nails caught against the frozen dirt. I dropped the pistol on my chest and used both hands. Blood and dirt stained my arm. I couldn't stop. Panic seeped into my chest. Couldn't stop. Flecks of mud and small stones broke free. Couldn't stop. The footsteps grew louder. Couldn't stop. I could hear them whistling like a postman on their route. Couldn't stop. I stretched out, looking for new ground. Couldn't stop. No idea if they were here. Couldn't stop. Fingertips were bleeding. Couldn't stop. Heart racing. Couldn't stop. Couldn't stop. Couldn't stop.
There was something, a speck of brass in a sea of brown. My heart leapt. I reached for it. It was just out of my grasp. With inhuman strength, I heaved myself a fraction closer. Noble still. Miles dead. Both crushing. I reached out again, felt the tip of my finger brush against it. I picked at the dirt beneath it. The footsteps were almost upon me. The whistling even louder. The dirt broke away. The bullet came free. It dropped to the ground. Rolled away. I caught it before it escaped me. Snatched up the pistol. Jammed my finger to eject the clip. Slid the magazine free. Whistling was louder. I could feel them close. So close. Almost on top of me. I fumbled the bullet. It landed on my chest. I could see the head of a silhouette breach my vision. I snatched the bullet. Pressed it into the magazine. Thrust it back into the pistol. Swung it up to point at the figure. Finger on the trigger. Ready to fight. Ready to survive. Ready to kill.
I froze.
Gail Cage stared down at me. In her hand was a pistol. Her eyes were lost of the compassion I’d seen before, replaced by the black, heartless glare of a shark.
‘Drop the weapon, James.’
I squeezed the trigger.
Thirty-Six
On The Road Again
My forearm hurt. The combination of tight straps pinning both arms behind my back, and the constant jostle from the truck meant that with every bump in the road, my body jerked backwards and pinned the wound up against the panel. Each time, I felt the wound open, spilling more blood down to my fingertips. Noble sat beside me. Her head hung low. The only reason she wasn't sprawled out on the truck bed was due to her shackles. She had been barely lucid since they had picked us up out of the pit and bundled us in the truck, offering only disjointed, confused comments as we bucked and bounced away from Second Solace.
Where we were going, I had no idea. The truck offered no light or indication of which way we traveled, and our companions weren't in the mood to chat. I could feel their glaring eyes pierce my head, burning my scalp like a hot summer day. I proffered no attempt to engage any of our four brutish guards in conversation. The best I could hope for would be a quick death, should I be so audacious as to open my mouth. They were heavily on Cece's side, and it was clear they resented every breath I took.
The bullet had not hit Gail Cage, and she had looked neither surprised that I had ignored her order, nor afraid of the bullet that sailed over her shoulder. The gun in her hands was one I recognised. It that her father's revolver, taken from the ambush site by her men. But as she raised the weapon at me, a thought came to her, and she lowered the weapon once more.
‘A quick death wouldn't suit you,’ she had said, looking down at me with an air one gives to a caged animal in a zoo.
Another figure appeared by her side. Cece. Her face was red, and she had a look in her eyes that I was sure would cut just as deep as any blade or bullet.
‘Allow me,’ she snarled, raising her assault rifle up to meet me.
Gail put her hand on the weapon.
‘He's not dying today, Cecilia,’ she said. Her voice was almost unrecognisable. Gone was the innocence of a carefree little girl. What replaced it was a commander. A leader.
Cece glowered at Gail.
‘This snake destroyed everything,’ she seethed. ‘That explosion will have been heard for miles around. We cannot stay here now. All because of him.’
Her eyes met mine.
‘Cece, you need to learn to chill out a bit,’ I wheezed, ‘you've got a really ugly sulk
face.’
I held her gaze, even though it physically hurt to do so.
‘I am going to cut you open with my blade and make you watch as I remove your intestines,’ she hissed. ‘I will keep you alive right up to the moment I squeeze your heart in my hands. You will suffer, snake.’
‘No, he won't,’ Gail snapped. ‘I have a plan in mind for this one. The girl too.’ She clicked her fingers, and suddenly there were more armed men and women around the pit. ‘Pick these two out of there and put them in the truck. Keep them alive until we arrive.’
And with that, Gail left. Cece and her men got us out, kicked me around a bit for good measure, then put us in the truck.
I had no idea how long we had been on the road. Hours. Maybe even an entire day. We had been allowed out only once, with a bag shoved over our heads to deny us any sense of where we were. An utterly demeaning toilet excursion left much to be desired, and as I was thrown back inside the truck, I knew we were not close to our destination.
The cut on my head had cauterised, not that that stopped it hurting any the less. All the muscles in my arms and back and legs and everywhere else felt like they'd been pulled out and battered like a fish. My stomach growled in protestation. My throat was bone dry, and to say my head throbbed was an enormous understatement. No point asking for food or water. The human body could go without for days, and I had no doubt in my mind that Gail did not see our future extending past the point where starvation normally occurred.
I looked at Noble. Her head lolled with the motion of the truck. If it weren't for the low, rasping breaths she took and unpleasantly slow intervals, I would have thought she was dead. She wasn't far off. I hated to think what was going to happen.
‘She needs something to drink,’ I said, not looking at the men sitting opposite me with daggers for eyes.
None of them responded.
‘So much for chivalry, if a bunch of big, strapping men like yourselves won't offer a woman help,’ I said, catching the biggest, meanest, ugliest of the bunch and holding his glare. ‘Your mother would kick your arse if she saw you now.’
He said nothing.
‘Or is she too busy turning tricks herself to notice?’ I asked. ‘Maybe that's why you’re such a dickless cur.’
He didn't register the last word, but he got the dickless part.
‘It's going to be fun watching you both suffer,’ he said, keeping his cool surprisingly well for a man with more fingers than brain cells.
‘There won't be anything to watch if you don't give her something to drink,’ I said.
‘Wait till we pull over,’ he said with a smirk. ‘Then she can drink the piss out my cock.’
‘Oh, so you've got a prosthesis?’ I asked, ‘or did the doctors just cut open a flap for you to piss out of?’
‘Another word out of you, and I'll-’
‘You'll what, get in a sulk? Have a little cry?’ I asked, cutting him off. ‘Or are you too emotionally inept to register anything other than dickless rage?’
He stood up. Not as impressive as if we'd been outside. His massive stature was crooked and bent double so that he struggled to stay upright in the moving vehicle. It knocked some wind out of his sails. I snorted.
‘Back playing up, huh?’ I asked him, not suppressing the smirk, ‘I hear arthritis is a bitch.’
He swung a punch into my gut, which sent me reeling, but I managed to turn the gasp into a laugh.
‘You punch like an arthritic bitch too,’ I chuckled.
His eyes turned blood red, but there was little else he could do that would make my life any worse, so he sat back down in his chair and huffed.
‘I'll keep this up the whole way if you don't give her a drink of water,’ I said, keeping my eyes on him.
And finally, he conceded. He nodded to the guy closest to Noble, who pulled out a container and popped the lid. Carefully, he lifted Noble's head and helped her drink. She was conscious enough to swallow. As the container was taken away, she took a breath and said.
‘Thanks.’
‘No problem,’ said the guy with the container.
‘Not you, asshole,’ she croaked. Her head turned a fraction to the left and looked at me. There was still life in her eyes.
‘I'll have some of that too, if you're offering,’ I said.
But Dickless kicked me in the shin.
‘All you'll get to drink is gasoline,’ he said. ‘And that's if you're lucky.’
‘Oh, I'm always lucky,’ I replied. ‘Just you wait and see.’
The journey continued in silence for another few hours. I tried to count it to fill the time, but my mind was too exhausted to keep it up, and somewhere around the ninety minute mark, I lost count. My eyes closed, my head drifted slowly down, and sleep started to take hold. But another kick from Dickless told me that wasn't going to happen on his watch. I flashed him a wry smile and rested my head back against the panel and felt the vibrations in my skull. I kept my eyes closed, snatching fractions of sleep in between the bumps in the road and kicks to the shin. I must have managed at least a couple of minutes, because when the truck brakes screeched and squealed, I jolted awake.
I looked around. Noble looked a little more alert, obviously conscious that we had come to a stop. With her head still bowed, she looked at me, then at the rear of the truck, waiting for something to happen.
Dickless and his men got up. He threw a final jab into the side of my neck that hurt way more than I let on, and the group climbed out. Behind them, I could see an empty warehouse. Lit from the glow of hundreds of hanging strip lights, I could just about make out a couple more trucks similar to that we currently occupied, and several dozen armed people milling around.
‘What do you think this is?’ I asked Noble.
She didn’t respond.
The door swung shut, and darkness was returned to our small enclosure.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked her.
She didn’t speak, but she nodded her head a fraction.
‘I’m sorry about Miles and Whyte,’ I said. ‘They were arseholes, but they cared a lot about you. They’d be glad that you’re alive.’
Noble said nothing.
The truck door opened once more, and a single person entered. Gail. She took the seat directly opposite me, pausing only briefly to lift Noble’s chin a spell and look at her condition.
‘Hmm, she’ll live,’ she said, mostly to herself before she sat down and looked at me. ‘You on the other hand. Well, it doesn’t look great.’
A small smile crossed her face. It lacked the warmth I’d seen there before.
I said nothing.
‘What, not speaking to me now?’ she giggled, ‘I thought we had quite the rapport going there. The candlelit dinners, the chanced looks at each other. Give it a couple more days, and we’d have seen a lot more of each other.’
I snorted.
‘You wish,’ I said.
‘He speaks, how diligent of you,’ she said. Ice returned to her voice. ‘You look like such a hurt puppy. I bet you thought I was just a dumb little girl, desperate to be saved from her father’s wicked grasp.’
‘Actually, I thought you were a child trapped inside a grown woman’s body,’ I said, ‘but as I see that was just an act, I’ll retract that. All you really are is an unlikeable cunt.’
It was Gail’s turn not to respond.
‘How long have you wanted your father dead?’ I asked her, ‘because I can think of a couple of books you should have read that might have sorted this weird psycho-sexual bullshit out. You ever heard of Sigmund Freud? He usually says people like you want to kill your mothers to fuck your fathers, but I guess you always were special.’
‘That’s not what I wanted,’ she snapped.
‘Did you want to fuck your mother then? Is that it? The shaved head thing looks a bit too much like Alien 3 Sigourney Weaver for my liking. Now, Alien 1 Sigourney, and we’d be talking. But each to their own, I guess.’
‘This is all just a
game,’ she retorted, ‘a ploy to hide your shock. Did it come as a surprise to realise I have been playing you since the-’
‘Look Gail,’ I said, cutting her off mid sentence, ‘I know what you’re trying to do here. I’ve sat through enough of these talks to know you want me to realise how clever you were for playing everyone against each other, and how you were the puppet master, controlling everything from behind the scenes. But to be totally honest with you, I don’t care. I don’t care why you thought it would be swell to try to have me killed numerous times, or why you wanted your father to die, or why you always called him “daddy” like you were an eight-year-old.’
‘From the very start, I-’
‘Ah, I did say I don’t care,’ I interrupted, ‘whatever reason you had for destroying your father’s dream, I just don’t care. It doesn’t bother me at all, knowing your motives.’
Her eyes flared.
‘He wanted me to stay there,’ she shouted, ‘he wanted me to uphold his legacy, as though my life meant nothing.’
I yawned.
‘He was a blind fool with short-sighted dreams,’ she screamed, ‘he never cared about anyone else. Not me. Not my mother. It was all or nothing for Maddox. Just as it is for all men. They dream big, and think that us women should trot along obediently at their side.’
‘Seriously, I don’t give a damn,’ I snapped, ‘if you have a problem with male patriarchy, go to a rally or something instead of killing your dad.’
‘Oh, I’ll do more than that,’ she snarled, power bubbling up in her voice. ‘Maddox couldn’t see the future, so he had to die. Andrew Parker is the same. He thinks this country needs another man in charge. But the future is female.’
‘And you’re going to prove this point by blowing him up?’ I asked. ‘That’s about as short-sighted an objective as setting your hand on fire to warm yourself up.’
A perverse smile crept across her face. Her eyes turned jet black. And a monster was revealed.
‘I have much more in store for Parker than watching him go up in flames,’ she hissed.
