by Ed Grace
After twenty, everyone would applaud you.
After thirty, you’d get your own house, and be considered for more dangerous hits. You’d become a professional, and you would be rewarded as such.
He remembered, though it was only fleeting, thinking how strange it was to celebrate the deaths of others. But Alexander likened it to any other job. If he sold cars, he would be rewarded for selling the most cars. If he were a teacher, he would celebrate his students getting the highest grades. If he was a politician, he would celebrate his election victory.
As an assassin, he celebrated his hits — as it meant he was performing his job well.
Sullivan remembered vividly, the day after his thirtieth hit, when Alexander declared that his training was over.
“Will I see you again?” Sullivan, just twenty-one years old, had asked.
“Do you wish to?”
“I don’t know. It just feels weird. Three years, then suddenly nothing. Especially after all you’ve taught me.”
“I have other recruits now, Jay. I have others who need to learn.”
Sullivan looked down. It was strange, but he’d felt a little jealous. He’d enjoyed Alexander’s attention. He had become a far stronger father figure than Sullivan’s dad had been.
“You know you’re different, don’t you?” Alexander said.
“What?”
“I mean, yes, I train assassins, many of them competent. But you are in a different league.”
“Are you being serious?”
“Yes, Jay. You have quite a talent. I imagine, in a few years’ time, it will be you who teaches me things.”
“Seriously?”
“Maybe you can come back and show the trainees a few things. Then we can catch up. Go for a drink.”
Sullivan was proud of what Alexander had said to him, and remembered being disappointed that this was the end of his mentorship.
And now, standing at the sink of his prison cell, Sullivan could only look back at his younger self with pity. He may be locked up, but it was his younger self who had been imprisoned, desperately craving the approval from Alexander that he’d sought from his father.
He hadn’t done the right thing then, nor had he done the right thing afterwards.
One doesn’t just break out of years of brainwashing and conditioning and coercing.
Now he had the chance to do the right thing — but he could not do it from a prison cell. He had to find someone else at MI5. He had to tell them what had happened. He had to tell them who Azeer was, and he had to get them to find him another translator.
So he waited, just as he did the previous day, for the moment that afternoon when his cell would be unlocked.
He heard the cells across the corridor being unlocked first, and he waited by the door.
Ready.
Anticipating the moment.
As soon as his cell door opened, he swung his fist into the screw’s face. They fell to the floor, not quite knocked out, but close to it.
He took their keys and ran.
He didn’t hear the screw behind him radioing in what had happened.
They knew how dangerous Sullivan was, and knew they’d need more force than the screws had.
Which was why the firearms officers were deployed.
Normally it would take ten to twenty minutes for the firearms unit to assemble. Luckily for them, the firearms unit were training ten minutes away, and were able to arrive quicker than Sullivan had anticipated.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Sullivan ran across the top floor of E Wing. Inmates poked their heads out of their cells to see what the commotion was, and a few spice addicts begged for Sullivan to let them out too.
Sullivan ignored them. He took the steps two at a time until he reached the bottom floor, and sprinted to the wing’s exit.
Another screw came running at him. He really did not want to hurt him. These screws weren’t the criminals — they were people doing jobs. Some of them may even be honest.
But he had no choice.
He halted beside this screw and, before giving the man any chance to react, Sullivan placed a foot behind the screw’s ankles and palmed his face, forcing him onto his back.
The man would not be badly hurt — just stunned long enough for Sullivan to find the right key. He left the wing and locked the door behind him to ensure no other inmates could escape as well.
He ran down a corridor, then around the corner and into another corridor.
He passed the chaplaincy. A few men were praying. He recognised some, and knew they were not religious — they just wanted an excuse to leave their cells.
Past this was the segregation unit, which was full of moans and screams. Sullivan passed them and reached the door, which brought him out between E Wing and D Wing.
The buildings looked even worse on the outside than they did on the inside. The bricks were crumbling, the paint was peeling, and the doors were cracked.
He ran past a cabin, and past the fence that surrounded the courtyard he had spent an hour a day in for the past few weeks.
He turned the corner, sprinting past C Wing and B Wing.
A screw saw him as he approached A wing, but Sullivan ran too quickly for him to comprehend what he’d just seen.
Sullivan heard footsteps behind him, and talking into a radio.
He had to keep going.
He turned another corner, and passed another fenced off courtyard, until he finally reached the main entrance.
A few heavy doors were either side of him, with signs saying no smoking and CCTV in operation — but the heaviest doors of all were the two large metal slabs in the way of him getting out.
He ran into the security office to his right.
Three faces turned to look at him. One at a computer, one looking at CCTV, and the other eating a curry.
They all stood and approached him, but he acted quickly. He charged toward the screw eating curry, snatched the knife from his hand and lifted him from his seat by the hair. Sullivan held his head back in one hand, and held the knife beside his throat with the other.
The others stopped approaching.
A few more screws who had been in pursuit burst into the room, and also came to a halt.
“Now, now, let’s be—” said one screw, holding his arms out in a calming manner — but Sullivan did not care what he had to say.
“Let me out,” Sullivan demanded.
“Let’s not be—”
“I said let me out, or I will cut his throat.”
Sullivan considered for a moment what he would do if these people did not comply. He did not wish to kill an innocent person.
But there were more lives at stake.
Luckily, he didn’t have to deal with this possibility, as the man attempting to calm Sullivan said, “Fine, let’s open the doors.”
The door opened and Sullivan backed through, keeping his hostage between himself and the others.
He emerged outside, turned around, and stopped.
Three police cars were waiting for him, each with firearms officers using their car doors as cover. They pointed their guns at Sullivan, fingers itching over their triggers.
Sullivan wondered how he was going to get out of this one.
“Let the hostage go,” they instructed.
A sudden headache took hold of him. His brain felt as if it was expanding. It was a sudden pang of alcohol withdrawal; he recognised the pain — he did all he could to ignore it. But it was clouding his mind. It was getting too tough to ignore.
“Let the hostage go,” the voice repeated.
He couldn’t do that.
If he did that, then—
The headache struck him harder and he fell to the floor. It took him a moment to realise he’d been tasered.
He tried to get up, but he was tasered again.
His headache grew worse. The last thing he saw before he passed out was the hostage running away, and the firearms approaching.
Chap
ter Thirty-Seven
“Dad?”
Sullivan turned his head to the side. Opened his eyes a fraction. Squinted at the brightness of the sun. Covered his eyes. Turned his head away.
“Dad.”
That voice.
He knew that voice.
It was a voice that brought him equal amounts of happiness and pain. It represented all that spurred him on to live, yet all that prompted his sorrow.
He opened his eyes slightly, and kept his eyelids apart just a tad until he adjusted to the sun.
“Dad!”
He sat up. He was on grass. Some kind of field or park or something.
She was standing above him.
“You’re not real,” he said, and even though he knew he was right, even though she wasn’t really there, even though this was just another dream — he didn’t care.
It seemed the only times he ever had a heart to heart with his daughter nowadays was when she was manifested by his subconscious.
Something leapt upon his back.
He turned around.
It was a small dog. Jumping on him. Smiling, if dogs could do such a thing. Reaching its tongue out to kiss him, enthusiastic at the sight of him.
“I got a puppy,” Talia said.
Sullivan had no idea whether she actually had a puppy or not. Hell, she may have twenty for all he knew. But his subconscious seemed to think she should have one, so she did.
Sullivan gave the dog a fuss then pushed himself to his feet.
Talia looked remarkably well. Those childish features she had in his memories were still there — the same nose, the same eyes, the same body shape. But now it was womanly. That nose was a woman’s nose, those eyes had the pain of experience, and that body stood with the pride of battle.
And she smiled at him.
That smile was not hers. It was her mother’s. She’d stolen it.
“So what is this?” he asked. “What do you want this time?”
“Don’t be mad, Dad.”
“Mad?”
“You’re always so angry when you see me. So pent up.”
“Trust me, it’s not because of you.”
“No. It’s because of the weight of the world you put on your shoulders.”
“It’s put on me, I don’t put it on—”
“You chose to do this mission. You asked Kelly if you could help. You agreed to go into the prison.”
“If I don’t, thousands of people will die.”
She smiled. “Those people are not your responsibility.”
Sullivan huffed and turned away. He put his hands in his pockets.
“If I can do something, then it’s my responsibility,” he said.
“Says who?”
“Do you know how many people I killed, Talia? Do you know how many people would still be alive if it weren’t for me?”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I killed them.”
“Because you were brainwashed, for Christ sake. At least you broke out of it. None of the others have.”
“I’m a grown up, Talia. We tend to take responsibility for our actions.”
“And you think saving these people will make up for it?”
Sullivan paused. Considered this. Bit his lip. Dropped his head.
“No,” he said. “But it’s a start.”
“Dad—”
“If I’d have stopped the attack on Camden Market and Brighton Pier, I’d have saved more people than I’ve killed. What other situation would allow me to save that many people at once?”
“They weren’t your fault.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You did all you could.”
“And it wasn’t good enough.”
“You—”
“Goddammit, Talia, what is the point of this? Why are you here? Why is my pathetic brain creating this conversation?”
“Perhaps it’s the only way you’d ever listen.”
He said nothing. She stepped closer, until she was right next to him, and she took hold of his hand.
“Those people you’re trying to save are the people who avoid looking at you when you stumble drunk down the street. They are the ones who won’t sit next to you at the bar. They are the ones who condemn you to prison for committing all those hits, without understanding why you did them.”
“I did them, Talia, it is my—”
“Responsibility, yes, I get it. But when does the responsibility for everyone else’s lives end?”
He stared at her. So wise. So wonderful.
He wondered if this was actually what she was like.
“When does the suffering stop, Dad? When does your suffering stop?”
“When I’ve made up for it.”
“And when is that?”
He shrugged. “Never, probably.”
“Why torture yourself?”
He chuckled. “You have so much of your mother in you, do you know that?”
She let go of his hand. Took a few steps back.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Our conversation’s over. It’s time for me to leave.”
“But, Talia—”
“You’ve got a terrorist attack to stop, haven’t you? That’s more important than me.”
“Nothing is more important than you.”
“That’s nice of you to say, Dad. That really is nice of you to say.”
He stretched his arm out for her, but she faded from view.
As did the grass. The trees. The blue sky.
His eyes opened to a grey ceiling, an empty cell, and narrow walls.
As his senses returned, he realised — he was in solitary confinement.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
There was no television. No sink. Not even a window.
The air felt dirty and breathing felt strenuous. There was a toilet that was in no way concealed, a small bed with a hardened plastic mattress, and an artificial lamp hanging from the ceiling that changed the dark cream walls from a sickly colour to an even sicklier colour.
He had no paper. No pens. No books. Nothing to occupy his mind with. He imagined a great many people had gone crazy in this cell, and a great many people would go crazy again.
Luckily, this wasn’t the first time he’d been in a cramped, dirty cell. He had suffered far worse conditions, and he had resisted madness before. Back when he was learning to become a Falcon, Alexander had created a training program designed to teach trainees how to endure being a prisoner, and it was an experience Sullivan would never forget.
“Very rarely does one of our assassins get caught,” Alexander had said, pacing up and down the line of trainees. “In fact, only twice do I know of such a situation, and each assassin was dismissed upon their return for incompetency — not for being caught, but for the madness they returned with. And so, for the next month, you will experience what a prisoner of war may experience. You will either develop the mental strength to persevere, or you will prove to us that you are an unworthy candidate.”
Alexander looked across the faces.
“Not all of you will come out the other side. You will not see me throughout this month, nor will you see anyone of the other trainees. Any pleas for help or for the program to end will be ignored. We will not stop, and your captors will not behave with sympathy. You will be getting the full experience. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” the trainees spoke as one.
“I ask now, as I will not ask it again, is there anyone who wishes to forego this program? Bearing in mind that, should you do so, you will be immediately discharged.”
Alexander looked back and forth. No one raised their hand.
He nodded, turned, and left the room.
The trainees remained in line. In silence. Waiting for it to begin.
After a while, they began to look at each other, wondering what was happening and whether anyone was coming for them at all.
Eventually, they broke formation and discussed what
a croc of shit this program was.
Sullivan did not join in.
He understood this was part of it.
Just as everyone began to relax and talk casually, the doors opened and armed men in military uniform and balaclavas burst in, shouting.
Sullivan was taken to the ground and a hood was placed over his face. He stayed still and limp, allowing what was happening to happen.
He was dragged, his knees scraping against gravel, then placed into a cell. They removed his hood and closed the door behind them.
The cell was tiny; too small for him to be able to lie down. No bed. No window. No light.
Pitch black.
He wasn’t quite sure how long he was left in there. He grew hungry and thirsty, and then grew hungrier and thirstier still — until it hurt. Until his stomach was so starved that it twisted in pain.
After what seemed like days, but was probably hours, the cell door opened and he was brought to his feet.
The light came on and he couldn’t balance. He was dragged through to a small room with walls of stone and moisture in the air. They attached his cuffed hands to a rope and hoisted his arms up until he was dangling on the tips of his toes.
They left him like this. Unable to sit. Unable to properly stand.
Eventually, despite the constant discomfort, his body forced him to fall asleep.
Just as he found himself doing so, two speakers either side of his head burst to life. Loud, thrashing heavy metal music played in a burst of a few seconds, stopping him from drifting off.
He woke up. Looked around.
Darkness.
After a few minutes, he started to drift off again.
Just as he did, the noise burst through the speakers as it had before.
This kept going all night.
Someone came in with food. He was starving. His stomach was in agony, desperate for nourishment.
This person had mushed up beans or baby food or something. Sullivan didn’t care. They took a spoon, scooped it up, held it out to his lips.
He opened his mouth and reached for it — but, just as he did, they took the food away.
They did this over and over.
Sullivan knew they wanted him to beg.
But he also knew that, if they wanted to keep him alive, they would need to give him food. So he was sure he’d have it eventually.
