“Yes?”
“The monitor. Switch that bloody beep off.”
I closed my eyes completely and their voices morphed and merged into a blur of undifferentiated data. The room pressure shifted as nurses came and went. I realized in a passing moment of lucidity that I’d been asleep for hours and then drifted back in and out of consciousness, clinging only to one certainty: it wasn’t a question of if they would come for me, but when.
* * *
—
THE ROOM WAS dark.
Above and behind me, the medical monitor hummed and clicked. A crack of green fluorescent light escaped from the bathroom and picked out a jug of water and a plastic beaker on a cart by the bed. Apart from that the room was bare. It looked like I’d been moved to a new ward. I closed and opened my eyes. The beaker disappeared and reappeared. It was definitely there. I was definitely awake. And I was alone—inside the room, at least. Outside, a policeman would be sitting in the corridor, trying not to doze off, no doubt cursing his luck to his mates at being put on a babysitting detail while secretly being relieved at the warmth it offered. I untangled the observations in my dreams from the observations of my doctors and began to weave myself back into reality. Thread by thread I knitted myself into Frank’s knot garden. The container. The doctor. The killing. I couldn’t recall hitting the water, but memories of the swim washed over me: head down; front crawl; lifting my face just enough to suck in the black air before the next wave broke across my back. The beacon I’d been aiming for had been ripped out of view within seconds, torn away from me by the running tide.
I was in hospital in Kent. The ship could have sailed south through the Irish Sea and through St. George’s Channel, or cut out into the Atlantic before moving east along the English Channel. In my condition, in that water, there was no way I could have swum more than a thousand meters—which meant that when I’d dived we’d been coming into Dover or looking for anchorage in the Downs. There was no other way we would, could, have been that close to shore, heading in that direction, in a ship that size. If I’d embarked at Dublin Port—or anywhere on the east coast of Ireland—it would mean I’d been at sea for two or three days, and then possibly in hospital for a day more. And that meant that whoever was on that ship was likely only a day behind me.
I sat up in bed, fully awake. I’d been disconnected from the drip, but the three pads of the ECG trace were still stuck to my chest and abdomen, and the sats probe was still attached to my left middle finger. I couldn’t move away from the bed without triggering an alarm; not knowing where it would sound, I wasn’t yet prepared to take that risk. I rolled my shoulders and stretched my legs out. The consultant was right: although I looked a mess, I was in reasonable shape. My thigh was stitched, my left shoulder packed and wrapped. If I wanted, I could get up and run, albeit painfully. But to, or from, whom? Kent wasn’t exactly home turf, although a decade earlier I’d spent a week at the Shorncliffe base outside Folkestone with the Gurkhas. William Harvey Hospital was in Ashford—which was twenty miles from the barracks, and two miles from the Eurostar station to Paris.
Frank had told me to go dark. UKN was already dark. What he meant was “go darker.” And the only way I could do that was to vanish again—and so completely that not even my own side could find me. I could do that. But if I did, I asked myself, what incentive would there be for me to come back? The work would never have any closure, except death. The only way out was to force an ending. If I could make it across the Channel, I would be free. Even if I just stayed put in France, the options were almost endless. Never mind a few months or weeks; up in the Pyrenees or the Massif Central the odds were that I could survive indefinitely—undetected, untraceable, unknown. I had nothing to lose. My mind ran away with itself. If I could stomach it, there was even the Marseilles mafia. As every mercenary knows, warriors aren’t trained to retire.
I thought about that for a moment—that kind of killing.
But I couldn’t do it. In twenty-four years I’d never even drawn a salary—much less murdered for money. I owned, and owed, nothing. The person I saw looking back at me in the bathroom mirrors of the hotels I called home was not a sicario, as Frank had once called me. I carried out hits. But I wasn’t a hit man. True, I’d never sold out. But I’d had nothing to sell, and I had no pockets for pieces of silver, either.
My eyes grew accustomed to the dimly lit room. I reached out with my right hand and felt for the plastic bag I’d seen earlier in A & E. It had traveled to the new room with me—tucked away under the bedside cart. I removed the damp denim jeans inside one-handed, and then wormed my right index finger down into the ticket pocket. I might have been close to moral bankruptcy, but I wasn’t quite penniless. Soaked, squashed, but still there: I left the hundred-dollar bill where it was and pinched the sleep out of my eyes.
I needed to see clearly.
Maybe I didn’t have to vanish. Maybe Frank would come back online with all the answers. Maybe the mission would become clear. Never mind a hit man: Frank had conjured me up out of Raven Hill as his Irish avenging angel, visiting death upon all those who threatened the idea of the Crown we served. Even if we no longer quite trusted each other, we still needed each other to fight the forever war. Although I had accepted death long ago, I wasn’t ready to quit. Not today.
I swung my legs around and sat on the edge of the bed, facing the bathroom door. The ECG leads were long enough to let me move. I put my feet on the floor and flexed my toes. I stood up. The surgical gown they’d wrapped me up in clung to me like a winding sheet. That was me, all right: a dead man walking. No matter who was after me, this was the point of maximum vulnerability—not just on this job, but since the very moment I joined UKN. For the first time I was not only outside the system that supported me but trapped in the world that supported the system—the real and ultravisible world of doctors and police and processes and procedures. If I could be seen, I could be identified. And if I could be identified, I could be eliminated—without investigation, without interrogation, without trace. You cannot be held accountable for killing a dead man.
I put the jeans on carefully. Damp, but not torn. They’d evidently peeled and not cut them off me in the ambulance. Good to go.
“I’m glad you’re not ready to quit.”
I turned around. The consultant was standing in the doorway, lab coat bleached bright white by the harsh light of the ward beyond. She turned her head toward the policeman outside. I spread my hands wide and caught her eye. She startled and looked at me.
“Please,” I said.
8
I sat down again and she stepped into the room.
“I was talking to myself, wasn’t I?” She nodded. “Bad habit. Sorry. I can’t think straight if I don’t talk things through.”
“And now?” she asked. “Are you thinking straight now?”
“Yeah, I guess.” I looked at the half-open door. Eyes on me, she reached behind with her left hand and pushed it so that it was only ajar. “Thanks. How long was I out for?”
“All day. You were admitted early this morning. It’s Friday night now.” She checked her watch, adjusted her lab coat. She was nervous, working out what to say next. “It’s bloody mayhem out there. And I’m not even supposed to be on call tonight.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment. The sounds and shouts of frenetic work being done farther down the ward percolated into the room. I calculated how quickly, quietly, I could incapacitate her. She stepped closer. Taking out the police guard would be easy, too. But that was a last resort—and, as yet, as unnecessary as it was undesirable. If I made it past the exit—which was a big if—getting any farther in the southeast of England with no support and no kit would make outrunning the Gardaí look like a walk in the park. No: if I was going to jump, it had to be clean. Doctor Rose was the perfect springboard. I relaxed and let my shoulders slump.
“So,” she said, “the ‘avenging
angel.’ What’s that all about?”
“I really was gabbling.” I rubbed my face with my hands. “I’m guessing you reckon you should have got me a head shrink, not a head CT?”
“I’m not guessing anything. I know you’ve had a very traumatic experience.” She sized me up and clicked her tongue, considering, perhaps, how much of her bedside chat I’d heard earlier. “You might feel all right in yourself, but a shock like that—falling into cold water, or exposure—that can make your mind play tricks on you.” She paused, casting around for the right words. “Your wrists . . . I mean . . .” She paused again and then asked what she really wanted to know. “What should I call you? What’s your name?”
“It doesn’t matter what my name is,” I said.
“Well,” she replied, “it matters to me. And I’ll bet it matters to whoever it was you were asking for in the ambulance, too.” She was hyperalert. Night after night of dealing with junkies and drunks kept her on her toes. But she was softening. “And for the record, I don’t think you need a shrink. I think you need rest, and plenty of it.”
Her pager went off and she apologized as she checked it, all the while keeping one eye on me. “You know, if nothing else, you’d do yourself a favor by telling me who you are . . . or at least what happened. We can look after you better, and you’ll recover faster. Which means you can leave sooner.” She took her hand off the pager. “The police would like to ask you some questions.” I snorted and shook my head. “Yeah, OK, I know. . . . But you mustn’t worry. It’s just that they think you’re a migrant, and they’ve had the bloody coast guard out all day looking for wreckage or other survivors. The sooner you tell them you’re not, the sooner they’ll leave you alone. I’m not going to let anyone question you until you’re fit to talk.”
I pursed my lips and shook my head again.
“I’m not under arrest, am I?” She agreed that I wasn’t. “So then I don’t have to say anything to them. And in case they ask, I don’t want my photograph taken, either. Is that clear?”
“OK.” She shrugged. “But you are going to have to talk to them. Eventually. You have no clothes, no money, no ID. I can help you, you know.”
“How?” I said.
“Well . . .” She hesitated. “Apart from getting you well again, we—I mean they—can help protect you, if that’s what you need.”
An edge of exasperation crept into her voice. She was moving between caring and irritated. That was a good sign. People are rarely scared by someone who annoys them.
“No,” I said. “You can’t. Protect me, I mean. That policeman outside? What was it you called him, a vulture?” She cleared her throat and dropped her eyes. “You know, I’m sure he’s a very decent vulture. But when his boss finds out I’m not a migrant, helping to protect me isn’t going to be top of his to-do list. Believe me. You’re very well-meaning and all that, Rose, but this isn’t just a hospital now. It’s a prison.”
“You wouldn’t be the first patient here to think that, I can tell you. But you were awake, eh? You had me and Dr. Mann fooled, that’s for sure. Well . . . ,” she sighed, “God knows you need something. Everyone in here does. But no one’s going to hurt you. Not on my watch. I can give you my word on that.” She hesitated for a moment, and then decided to ask again. “Tell me who you are. Or at least . . . At least tell me what your name is.” She looked at the monitor and checked her pager again. “I can hardly call you ‘angel,’ can I?”
“If I tell you my name . . .” I struggled to find words that would inspire trust, not instill terror. “Oh, man, this is going to sound nuts.”
“Try me.”
“Right, well . . . I’m going to tell you straight, and you can take it or leave it.”
“OK. Go on.”
“If I tell you my name, I can’t guarantee your safety.”
As I spoke, her pager beeped again. She looked at it, distracted. I raised my voice a fraction. “Listen to me.” She looked up and backed away abruptly. Harmless eccentric or dangerous madman? I’d asked myself the same question many times before—though not often of myself. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly, and swung my left leg up onto the bed, rolling up the cuff of my jeans. “Look.”
The scar on my calf that she’d pressed her thumb into earlier appeared deeper than usual, picked out by the slanted light from the bathroom.
“Colombia,” I said. “You’re right, there is a story behind it. I only wish I had time to tell you.” I pointed to my left ear, the top of which had been torn off ten months before. “Sierra Leone. You could write a whole book about that one.” Then I pointed to a long-since-healed laceration on my right bicep. “Afghanistan. I lost three friends that night.” Finally I pointed to my left wrist, ringed with bruises fresh from my ordeal on the ship. “English Channel. Last night.” I rolled the jeans leg down again. “I’m not mad, and I’m not dangerous,” I said. “Not to you, anyway.”
“So what are you, then?” she asked.
“Unless you help me to get out of here? A dead man.”
She said, did nothing. I was winning. Slowly.
“It’s just . . .” I cleared my throat. “It’s just that I’ve spent my whole life convincing people I’m someone I’m not. Now I need to convince you I am what I am, and I don’t know what to say.”
“The truth,” she said. “Tell me the truth. The truth will set you free.”
“No,” I said, “it won’t. The last time I heard someone say that was during an interrogation. They executed the prisoner in the morning. And, anyway, I can’t tell you the truth. You wouldn’t believe it. But if I can show you the truth,” I continued, “will you help me?”
“You don’t have to show me anything. I believe that you’re a soldier,” she said. “And I believe that you’re in trouble and that you need help. What I don’t believe is that running away or holding back vital information—from me, or the police, from anyone, frankly—is ultimately going to do you any good. There are probably people out there, right now, risking their lives searching the sea on your account. Think about that, about them, for a moment.”
“You see, that’s the problem,” I said. “I’m not a soldier. Not in the way you mean. Please. Let me show you.”
She didn’t say no—which was a good start. I looked at her and showed my palms in supplication. The muscles in her jaw worked, and she sucked the inside of her cheeks. Any decision she was going to make would be as much personal as it would be professional. I’d clearly been through the wringer. The question for her, perhaps, was whether I’d deserved it. But despite the sheer weight of her misgivings, her evident ambivalence toward the police mixed with a high dose of good old-fashioned curiosity was getting the better of her.
She nodded.
“OK, take out your phone and Google the FCO.”
“The what?”
“The Foreign and Commonwealth Office.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yup. Go on. It’s not going to blow up or anything.”
“No, I mean about my being at risk?”
“Uh-huh.” Another pause. “But look at it this way: if I am delusional, then all this will add up to”—I nodded toward her wedding ring—“is a good story to tell your husband tonight. Five minutes. That’s all. And then we can all go home,” I lied.
She shook her head as if being petitioned by a child—or an idiot. “Wife,” she said. “I’m married to a woman.”
Nearly two and a half decades of professional people-watching, upon which dozens of life-and-death decisions had been made, and I still couldn’t work out if women were flirting with me or just fucking with me.
She fidgeted and tugged at her sleeve, wrestling with her reservations. Then: “Oh, sod it!” She exhaled the words hard. “Five minutes, OK. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Her phone was tucked away in a trouser pocket, hidden beneath
her lab coat. She fished it out and unlocked it. “I must be bloody mad.”
I kept looking at her phone. She tapped the three letters in with her right thumb, her eyes now flitting between mine and the screen.
“OK, good.” I smiled. “Click on their website and then scroll down, all the way to the bottom, to the main switchboard number, the one that ends with fifteen hundred.” She went to speak but stopped herself. “You’re going to dial the number,” I said slowly.
“Anyone could have memorized that number. That doesn’t prove anything.”
“Of course,” I agreed. “When you dial it, you’re going to get a recorded message with a menu asking what extension or department you want. Ignore them all and key in star, followed by one-nine-zero-nine and then the hash key. That’s going to put you through to an operator who’s going to be bloody rude. She’ll say, ‘Embankment,’ and then ask you what extension you require. Tell her, ‘Stirling Lines.’”
“You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you? What is this—some special code to sucker unsuspecting civvy girls?”
“No,” I said. “This is an absolutely spectacular breach of MI6’s security protocols that’s going to land me in even deeper shit than I’m in already. But it’s all I’ve got right now. So, you know, how about it?”
She gave a deep sigh and carried on despite herself, determined, perhaps, to find out where this would take her.
“So, I ask to be put through to extension ‘Stirling Lines’?”
“No. Just say, ‘Stirling Lines.’ Nothing else. There’ll be a delay.” I relaxed and spoke calmly, deliberately. My smile was gone. There would be consequences to making the call that I couldn’t explain. I hoped my demeanor would prepare her for what might happen next. “You’ll be put through to another number. Someone else is going to answer the phone. Probably a man. More relaxed. Tell them you want to speak to Grumpy Jock. That’s it.”
All Fall Down Page 7
