by Tim Heath
His usual lady friend wasn't answering her phone. He hoped she would later, maybe they could do something that evening. He was in need of some distraction.
As he was sitting down in his favourite local café, he was approached by two smartly dressed SAS agents, their appearance fitting with the other customers. To the observant eye, it was a natural, everyday business chat. Nothing to raise anyone's suspicion. Clive was initially hostile. They didn't say who they were, but he'd come across the security service once or twice before. Those were the stories he'd get to tell the grandchildren one day if he ever had any.
“What do you want?” he'd said. “Who are you? MI5?” Clive was keeping as calm as possible, and no one else in the café was taking the slightest notice, though he did try hard to keep his own voice down.
“Let's just say that we are watching you. What you are currently doing is now bringing you into our attention even more. You need to back off.” The SAS man paused before adding, with a little more threat in his voice: “Why did you tell the family?”
“I didn't!” Clive barked back at them, a little too forcefully.
“Then you have a leak, and leaks in our line of business need to be shut down.” They changed their tack. “You are a leak. And you are walking into something that you think you understand and yet have no idea about. We know you were at the hospital, with a young staff member who posed as your daughter. You were claiming to have a son there, but that is not true, is it?” Clive didn't respond. He didn't need to.
“This story stops here!”
“If you say so,” Clive said, trying to make a joke. It didn't draw a laugh from either of the two suited men in front of him.
“Where did you get your information?” Clive wasn't about to reveal his sources, no journalist ever did.
“That's not your concern.”
“It is precisely our concern if we make it our concern. If you want us to play hard-ball, we will. National security protocol means we can be in your office in no time. We can shut you down. We can put you in prison. We can take your computers. Do you want us that involved in what you are doing there at your little paper?”
He'd got the point. He certainly didn't want the British Intelligence Service anywhere near his office. He put his hands up, as if in surrender.
“Okay, calm down, will you? I'm listening. I'm here. Let's talk about this, shall we, before you jump in with both feet.”
“There is nothing to talk about. Your source? Who fed you this lie that John Westlake was still alive? Who got you to dig into it? Where did you hear it from? I bet it wasn't from your usual contacts.”
That was true, a fact overlooked by Clive, and one that he was now beginning to consider. Maybe that source had leaked the news to his family? And if that was the case, there seemed little reason to protect them any longer. They hadn't played by the rules. He still had their cards on him in his jacket pocket.
“Look,” he said, reaching into his pocket to get them. “They left me their contact details. It was two women, a couple of hookers if you believe what they said. They implied that John had hired them for relief. I certainly wouldn't have said no.” That drew no response whatsoever from Clive's two companions. So he continued, “You are welcome to try and contact them. They are the ones who showed up and told me about the situation in the first place. I'd heard nothing from my usual sources. If I had, I wouldn't have been telling you now, of course.”
They picked up the two cards that Clive had dropped onto the table and looked at them, as he was talking. The cards were somewhat generic looking, of inferior quality. The companies listed were also generic, meaning nothing to either agent. It was evident that they were fake. Clive continued:
“They did ask me to call if I had news for them.”
The numbers might work, at least, they thought. The older of the two agents now put the cards in his pocket and proceeded to get up.
“Where does that leave me then?” Clive asked.
“As we said, this is not a story. Stay away. I'd suggest, for your health, you take a break. Get away from it all. Let it go quiet, for now. In time, you can come back to the story, once the situation has stabilised. But if you continue, we have no choice but to get involved. We are having this conversation now to make that clear to you. You have been warned. There will be no further warnings. Have we made ourselves clear?”
Clive said nothing but nodded. They turned and left, as quickly as they'd arrived. Clive now sat back in his chair, cheeks puffed out, his body tired. He was wondering what he needed to do. Who had those two ladies been that had given him the story in the first place? And if it had been them, why had they told the family? Could he just walk away? Would that be the best thing to do? It wasn't the first time the paper had been warned off. A few stories had brought similar reactions, though often they were run anyway. These other incidents had been before his time in his current role. That was his first personal encounter, and now, alone again, he wasn't sure. They'd been quite clear as to what would happen if he didn't back down. Something was going on, that was for sure. But was it something into which he especially now wanted to get involved? That was the real question going through his head as he left the café and made his way back to the office. Answering that question would show him what he needed to do––it was decision time.
John closed the book he'd just finished, his seventh that week. He was beginning to enjoy most of his new routine, unaware of what any other life had been like anyway. He guessed it wasn't quite as gentle as the one he was living now, though maybe gentle wasn't the word. His next physiotherapy session was due in a little while, and that would be anything but gentle. His first one had been so much harder than he ever thought possible. It was as much a mental exercise as it was physical. He had to will himself to do it, to move a little. That had not happened last time around, but he hoped that today could be different.
He put the book back onto the piles next to his bed, two towers of books. With seven on the 'read' pile, it was now much higher than the four he had left to read. Soon he'd have to send Lorna off for more books. She'd probably need to take the books away soon anyway; one more and the pile would surely be a safety hazard. He laughed to himself about the thought that of all the dangers no doubt listed in some manual at the hospital, toppling books was probably not in there, yet.
He could only guess at what his life might once have been. He'd just finished seven novels, each one showing the lives of seemingly ordinary people, explaining what they did, how they lived, where they went. John was living life through them at that moment. He was well aware of that fact but felt it lifted him from his current situation and gave him ambitions for the future. He too was soon going to have a life once more. And walking out of the hospital, on his own two legs, was going to be the first stage of that. Reading was a very therapeutic exercise, one he intended to keep up.
He wondered if he had read much before. He couldn't see why he hadn't, and he enjoyed it. But he also realised he had the time now. At that moment, he vowed to read more, not knowing how much time he had left. It needed to be an essential part of his relaxation. There felt like nothing better than getting lost in a novel, a whole world of different people, lives that jumped from the page.
Lorna walked into the room at that moment, bringing him back from his thoughts. She came over to his bedside table and started moving the books he'd read.
“Thanks, I was getting afraid they might fall and crush me,” he said, just about holding back a smile.
“Sorry?” she said, not entirely in the room herself, now wondering what she'd missed.
“It's nothing,” he replied.
Having taken the books over to nearer the door, ready to be moved away later, she came back, all attention, now with a smile on her face.
“So, John, today you have your second session of therapy.”
“Don't I know it!” He was joking with her, and she smiled back.
“Well, I'm going to make sure he d
oesn't go any easier on you today. Maybe I'll ask him to push you harder.”
“Good, that last session, after all, was rather lame. He needs to step his game up to keep pace with me, you know.”
Lorna laughed out loud at this then gently placed her hand on his arm.
“Seriously, though, you can do this. I know you can, and I'll be here for you after. We can talk about how you feel, how it felt for you during the session, anything.”
“Thanks, I know I can count on you for a good chat. It's the one thing I around do quite well at the moment. That, and reading.”
“Nonsense. You'll get there soon enough.”
“But what if I can't walk? What if I never remember anything from before?”
“I don't think it will help you to think like that, John. Firstly, you do not have a broken back. Be thankful for that. You do not have any serious muscle damage, either, that would stop you from walking. Therefore, as with many other patients, it's just a case of using the muscles and rebuilding strength where there has been some injury and limitation. It's a matter of time, and of course effort and hard work, than actual ability. You have the ability; you just need to engage it. And about your memory, you are making new memories all the time. You remember those seven stories, right?” She pointed to the books. He kept his focus and attention but didn't need to respond. She continued, “And you remember me. You remember the visions. Our time together here. Your brain, therefore, is not damaged to lose the ability to store information, it's just that, for some reason, your memory from before you came to the hospital has gone. But either way, John, don't lose heart. Don't let one second of doubt stop you now. You've come so far, and it's amazing to see you so healthy, and getting stronger by the day.”
He processed what she had said for a moment, silent and contemplative.
“Why am I here, Lorna?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what happened to me? How did I come to be in this hospital, with all these injuries, in the first place?”
She paused, calculating her answer for just a moment, before saying:
“If I am honest, I don't know what happened to you or why you arrived in the state you were in,” which was a half-truth. She didn't know why he had arrived in such a good state, not dead. He read it the other way. She continued, “But as a nurse, that's not my job, now, is it? I'm here to take you from where you were when you arrived, to the healthy, free walking man you need to be to leave this hospital. What has happened to you with these visions was something extraordinary. Let's not forget that.”
“Here's a question for you. Do you think I would have had these visions if I hadn't been so badly injured, and therefore here with you in the hospital? Would I have had them at home, for example, where ever that might have been?”
“I'm certain you had them because of the injuries.” She was telling him the truth with this response, for sure. “Maybe the closer you are to death, the more aware you are of the spiritual side of life.”
“Do you believe in all that stuff then?”
“Professionally, we are not meant to go there.”
“Why not?”
“Good question. I don't know. They just think it's the way it has to be. This is Britain, after all. The 'tolerant' place where everything is accepted, except intolerance, and where nothing can get said!”
They both smiled at each other.
“But personally, what do you think happens when we die?” John said.
“I thought I once knew. I guess I had believed nothing happens, like most of the people around me believed. But then I'd never lost anyone. Now I hope I am wrong. I did once go to church. I don't know why we stopped. Just lazy really, I guess. And busy. But that busy doesn't seem like it was worth it now, in the end. I'd have taken a less demanding job, with more time with James, if I had the choice now. What about you, John?” she said, diverting the focus of the conversation away from herself. “What do you think?”
“I'm a blank canvas. But I have seen beyond, remember. This angel––or whatever he was. So yes, I guess I do believe in something.”
Lorna wanted to say that it wasn't so, or that the vision at least didn't prove one way or the other. She couldn't, of course, and buried that urge instead.
They sat there in silence for a little bit. Then there was a knock at the door and the physiotherapist walked into the room, a smile on his face.
“Are you ready?” he asked, with energy and vitality to his voice that made John feel so weak.
“As ready as I'll ever be, I guess,” John said, a smile appearing on his face. “Let's get this over with, shall we?”
21
Clive had spent some time thinking about what he was going to do and wasn't any closer to working that one out, so had returned to the office and had shared his thoughts with the rest of the team. They were all surprised and also unsure what needed to happen. They'd all invested a lot of time and effort into the investigation so far. It was also true that for most of them it was just a job. They were getting paid regardless. For Clive, it was much more than that. It would have been his name on the front page article after all. His story. And now, that was not so certain. The consensus in the room, at least amongst the rest of Clive's team, was that they should back away, take the warning seriously and leave it all alone, for now. They still had all their information up to that point, so there would be the chance to publish it at a later stage. There seemed no reason to go so obviously against the instructions of the British Intelligence Service, MI5, or whoever they might have been. They were apparently getting into something far more significant than they realised, but that was what excited Clive. He was, after all, already aware of the more prominent story behind the RAF base, the sole cause and reason for the whole incident in the first place. Instead of making the call right away, he wanted them to take some time to process it, and then they would come back and have a secret ballot. That way each one of them could vote with their heart, not as they thought the others in the room wanted them to. They all agreed that everyone would go away for a while. One would get some drinks, another some food. Pizza seemed the popular choice once again. They would each disappear for an hour before coming back, eating and then deciding whether to drop the most significant story they would ever get to work on, to pull out because of this threat from an unidentified group, one they presumed was in fact MI5.
Just ten minutes later they were leaving the office and all going their separate ways. That caused a little concern for the watching African secret service team, who could only follow two members. So they split, one opting to follow Clive, an obvious choice, the other tailing Emma.
Clive stuck to familiar places. The local shop to buy some snacks, then on to his favourite café. It was the same place where the two British agents had approached him. His coffee was drunk in a less eventful fashion this time. No one seemed to notice him, though he was being watched. He finished, going over to pay his bill, flirting once again with the young waitress he was beginning to recognise. She responded in kind, but only to try to increase the tip he usually left. Nothing else about the man remotely interested her, but she wasn't going to let on. He was a customer, and he tipped well. That made him more than welcome.
Clive left the café just before one, heading for a local park. He liked to walk through there, the autumn colours still just about hanging on. While untouched by the incident, saved by its distance from the base, there was always the smell of burning in the air, and this was not the usual city centre smog. It was the burning columns of black smoke in the distance, a constant reminder, for those that could see it, of what had so recently happened. In the park, once he'd started walking in the opposite direction, it was at least possible to forget about all that, to imagine a much happier time, when the end of the world was not predicted. Of course, even then, there were pockets of people, the non-conformists, who ignorantly denied any such conclusion as being in sight. Or even a possibility, as if their statement alone had
any bearing on the actual, inevitable, outcome.
Clive was of a different understanding, because of what he already knew through John as well as what he had since learned. He knew the real scale of the disaster and what was about to happen. Clive was a realist, though not a fatalist. He was, therefore, looking to get on with life, as it now was, as best he could.
He had been walking in circles and crisscrossing the park for about thirty minutes. The woman tailing had at first thought that he was onto her before it became clear Clive was just wandering, going no place in particular. So lost in his thoughts was he that, when the same African woman he'd first met a few days before stopped straight in front of him, he didn't immediately notice. Then Clive suddenly registered, seeing those same eyes, that same face. He paused.
“What are you doing here?” he said.
“We've been keeping an eye on you. And we now have a message for you.”
“And what would that be?” Clive said, looking around him, wondering if anyone else was watching, if there were others in her team, or was she just on her own at the moment. He thought there must be others, somewhere.
“You need to run with the story.”
“Sorry?” Clive said, not quite believing what he had just heard.
“You heard me. You must pursue this story until the end. You must find John, and you must report this to the world. They need to know.”
“Why are you saying this?” Clive was worried, scared even. “Why now?”
“You seem to be in some confusion about whether you want to proceed. I am just making it clear that stopping is not an option you have right now.”
