by Scott Innes
‘Get Leigh down here – I want a word!’ I fumed.
‘Fancy seeing you here, Coogan,’ came a powerful voice from the doorway behind me. I – and everyone else in the room – froze.
They didn’t need to bring me to General Leigh after all.
He had come to me.
GENERAL LEIGH
‘We’ve never seen eye to eye, have we?’
It was all I could do to stop myself losing my breakfast. The Compound wall was a heck of a lot higher when you were standing on top of it.
‘No,’ I managed breathlessly. ‘We haven’t.’
Leigh smiled grimly and stared off at the distant horizon towards the long-dormant volcano, Great Strombago, which dominated the landscape. Immediately beyond the Compound on this side there lay a thick growth of forests, eventually giving way to boggy marshland to the east and to the west a tight knot of steamy jungle. Beyond the volcano… well, nobody really knew. Behind me, at the opposite end of the Compound, beyond the woods that bordered us on all sides, there lay an arid yellow desert as far as the eye could see. There were rumours that on clear days you could just about make out a distant grey ocean but as I turned to look in that direction now (carefully, so as not to spew everywhere), I couldn’t see anything beyond the shimmering expanse of sand. I gingerly turned back the way Leigh was facing, still staring down into the darkness of the trees.
‘They’re out there, you know,’ Leigh said quietly – for a moment I thought he may have been talking to himself. Then he looked at me, awaiting some kind of response.
‘Who are?’ I asked, sighing. He was toying with me and we both knew it. ‘The L’zuhl?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘At least, not yet. Our settlement here is small, that’s the only reason this place still stands. They don’t know about our increasing military presence, though our mysterious spy may very well rectify that, and soon. No, I’m talking about the Palangonians.’
We didn’t see the native tribespeople very often but when they mounted their doomed assaults on the chunky brick walls of the Compound with their elaborate war paint and orange-brown cloth outfits, armed with crudely fashioned spears, swords and bows and arrows, they were always swiftly rebuffed. Their archers occasionally managed to get a shot away at the Compound guards manning the machine-gun turrets but barely enough to pierce their thick armour. I didn’t blame them for having a pop at us – no one likes to see someone come strolling in and parking up on their territory as we had. It’s like Roy Evans at Liverpool in 1998 when they brought in Gérard Houllier as joint manager alongside him. Though I should stress that at no point did Roy resort to attacking the Shankly gates with any home-made weaponry. I want to go on the record about that.
‘Not just the tribesmen,’ Leigh continued, waving an arm across the expanse beyond the wall. ‘I’m talking about everything. There are multitudes of weird and not-so-wonderful beasts out there on this godforsaken planet. And a great number of those would love to feast on our sweet human flesh. The damned drelkor lizards and the flying falcon spiders for one thing – well, two – and of course, there are the Winged Terrors. They’re the hardest to keep at bay, but we’re working on our defences.’
‘Speaking of,’ I said in a slightly alarmed voice as my eyes quickly scanned the cloudy beige skies above our heads, ‘are we safe up here like this?’
‘Perfectly,’ he said. ‘We’re flanked by heavy artillery in the lookout posts on either side of us. Those bastards wouldn’t dare.’
Reassuring.
‘Why’d you bring me up here, General?’ I asked impatiently. Behind and below me, down in Fort Emmeline at the far north end of the Compound, life continued as normal. Guards patrolled the perimeter, engaged in training exercises; there was the constant rat-tat-tat of the shooting range. Further away within the Compound, beyond the gates of the army base, was the wider community – the square with its bustling shopping areas and restaurants, families out spending the day together – and way over on the far northern end I could see my home, the accommodation blocks, which were really nothing more than glorified high-rises. This was our life now. The L’zuhl had taken our planet from us but they couldn’t take everything. My eyes flicked over to the John Rudge Memorial Stadium at the west side of the Compound, squeezed in beside the school, which had class sizes barely in the double figures – not many children had made it out to Palangonia during the evacuation. It wasn’t exactly a great platform from which to repopulate the species and, more worryingly, it would have grave implications for the future of football as the few remaining human players began to grow older. Further beyond lay the shuttle bays, which currently looked empty and rather melancholy with the lockdown in place.
‘I brought you here, Coogan, because—’
‘Come on, you know my name’s Keegan,’ I snapped irritably. ‘Let’s have a bit of respect, please. I managed the national side, for goodness’ sake.’
Leigh glanced at me and to my surprise actually looked a little chastened. He was a fit man in his early-to-mid fifties, military to his core, supposedly signing up at sixteen and now responsible for the stewardship of one of the hundreds of human colonies trying to establish themselves in the far reaches of space. He had short greying hair under his black beret and even in his Alliance-issue black uniform (which personally I think made them look like the real baddies, not the L’zuhl – what’s wrong with a nice yellow or a pleasant mint-green type of thing?), the man looked absolutely ripped. His legs were like tree trunks and his arms were two hulking joints of meat. Fair play to the guy, he had looked after himself even into his later years. I knew of one or two former pros who could’ve taken a leaf out of his book rather than just letting themselves go – not least Razor Ruddock. Then again, you couldn’t expect much common sense from a man who slathered himself in Old Spice because he thought the Liverpool club slogan was ‘You Never Wore Cologne’.
‘You’re right,’ Leigh said – probably the first and only time he’d ever say such a thing to me. ‘You deserve my respect. Keegan.’
‘Aye,’ I said suspiciously. ‘Fine then. But you still haven’t told me what this is about, why you’re waffling on about the indigenous Palangonian races and all that. Everyone knows about them – we got handed the crib sheet on the shuttle out here last year. I got 76% on the “Test Your Knowledge” bit at the end. I won a key ring.’
‘I’m showing you this,’ the General said, ‘to emphasise the size of the task facing me here. Facing all of us. There are other dangers on our doorstep each day than merely the threat of L’zuhl annihilation, you know. I appreciate you don’t care much for me, Keegan, and – be assured – the feeling is more than mutual, but I have a job to do here and by God, I’m going to carry it out.’
‘What job’s that then?’ I asked defiantly. ‘Shutting down my football club? Cheers for that, by the way. Must have made you feel such a big man.’
Talking to the General like that ran the risk of my being shot on the spot but I was so riled by his anti-football agenda that in that moment I simply did not care.
‘Your silly little football team is a gross abuse of Council funds,’ Leigh said stuffily. ‘I’ve said that from the very beginning and I maintain as much today. But the Council voted in favour of its creation and I’ve abided by it. I don’t agree with it, and I’ve found your tiresome attempts to influence the Council to invest additional funding in your inconsequential project deeply distasteful, but I accepted it.’
‘What attempts?’ I asked, wounded. ‘I haven’t tried to influence the Council at all, I’d never do that.’
‘So you’re really going to look me in the eye and say that you didn’t send gift baskets to all five Council members six months ago, myself included, containing a box of cupcakes with little footballs on them, signed copies of Gary Neville’s memoir Right Back Atcha, mini bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale and a card signed “With love from an anonymous donor. All the best, Kevin Keegan”?’
‘Nowt to do w
ith me,’ I shrugged. Though on the inside, I was panicking – if they brought in fingerprint forensics, I was buggered.
‘In any event,’ Leigh pressed on, ‘despite all of that, I’ve tolerated your football club. I respect the rule of democracy and you had, by that account, as much right to exist as these walls upon which we now stand.’
Pull the other one, I thought. Leigh’s sole objective was to see the club fail and by creating a daft spy story, he now had the perfect cover. It was so plainly obvious. Ask anyone. Well, ask Gerry.
‘So I hope we can clear the air about that, at least,’ he continued. ‘We can just agree to dislike each other without there having to be some grand conspiracy to undermine something which, as I hope I’ve now explained, is quite some way down my list of priorities during an intergalactic war.’
He must have had an even lower opinion of me than I’d previously thought if he expected I’d fall for this. I felt genuinely insulted.
‘I must say, however, that I was surprised to see you in such a hurry to leave Palangonia,’ Leigh added, his voice suddenly darkening. ‘I mean, given your dedication to your club and all.’
‘Well, there’s no club to dedicate myself to now, is there?’ I huffed. ‘Thanks to you and your spy flim-flam. It’s a competitive marketplace out there, you know. Any of the managers from Earth who survived the L’zuhl genocide are scrabbling about for every job going. If Gerry and I don’t get over to… wherever Dave Moyes’ team is based, then Big Sam or Brendan Rodgers will steal a march on us. That’s basic.’
‘I know how committed you’ve been to your team here,’ Leigh continued. ‘You even made a short promo film of yourself helping out around the stadium, painting walls and making cups of tea to show how loyal you were to the cause. I must say, I haven’t cringed so hard in years.’
‘How do you know about that?’ I asked, flushing red in embarrassment.
‘There was a DVD copy in that bribery gift basket.’
Oh yeah.
‘Well, anyway,’ I said, puffing myself up, ‘I am loyal. But like I just said, it’s all finished now. Thanks to you.’
‘So defeatist,’ Leigh said. ‘I didn’t expect this from you. Why, I may catch this damned spy tomorrow and then, who knows, the Council may very well be foolish enough to vote to restore your funding.’
‘Fat chance of that,’ I said dismissively.
‘I’m disappointed that you’re so sceptical of my efforts to weed out this L’zuhl informer, Keegan,’ Leigh said in a tone that I really did not care for one bit. ‘As it turns out, I think this whole affair might be resolved far more quickly than anyone dared hope.’
Leigh clicked his fingers loudly (which was quite impressive given that he was wearing leather gloves, you have to hand it to the man) and I was unceremoniously seized by two visored guards who had appeared as though from nowhere.
‘Hey, hey!’ I cried in panic. ‘What’s this in aid of? I was just about to get off home!’
‘Au contraire,’ Leigh said with a relishing grin. ‘You’re staying right here where I can see you. I mean, I’d have to be pretty stupid to catch the L’zuhl spy only to let him go again, now, wouldn’t I?’
And, like the day I advised Mike Ashley that Newcastle needed more flair and told him to ‘go and get a Brazilian’, I felt utterly sick.
LOCKED UP
I paced up and down, my mind working overtime. How had I managed to get myself into this mess?
General Leigh told me he’d make sure I got ‘one of the finest suites’ in the Mark Aspinall Prison at the far end of the base (named after one of the most fearsome barristers in the Alliance who had famously prosecuted the Great Betrayer himself, Richard Madeley, in absentia the previous summer for crimes against humanity) but it turned out that by this he simply meant the toilet might flush now and then. The running water from the tap was barely more than a trickle and the mattress was stained with… well, I tried not to think about it.
‘Hello?’ I called through the bars of my cell door, the iron cool against my face. ‘Lunch is meant to be at one and it’s now twenty past! You’re treating me like a prisoner here. It’s not on.’
But of course, I was a prisoner. Worse than that, in the eyes of Leigh and his soldiers – no doubt by now, four days down the line from my arrest – and to the wider Compound, I was the evil turncoat spy who had been turfing over military secrets to the L’zuhl.
My heart sank at the prospect of my lads seeing the front page of the Compound Chronicle. BELOVED FOOTBALL MANAGER ACCUSED OF SPYING would no doubt be the headline plastered everywhere. The fact that Gerry had not come in to visit was worrying me. Oh, sure, I could well expect it of Gillian – she was no doubt thrilled to discover that someone had taken me out of the equation, putting a stop to my pleas for greater investment in the playing squad. But Gerry? Surely he wouldn’t just accept the accusation at face value like that? His support was all I had to cling on to as I spent my days staring hopelessly at the four grey stone walls around me. The only indication that anyone else had ever been held here before me (aside from the stain on the mattress) was a few bits of graffiti on the wall – one read ‘Eff Palangonia!’ Except it didn’t say ‘Eff’. I mean, what kind of sick mind writes something like that? What if a kid had seen it? Well, all right, probably unlikely, but still. The idea of my being kept in a ten-foot cell like the sort of dangerous deviant who’d write something so disgusting made my stomach turn. I led my country to an international tournament for goodness’ sake! And we’d ultimately finished a respectable third. In Group A. Look, let’s not get bogged down in that, it was ages ago. The other bit of graffiti was about the General himself, referring to him as a ‘L’zuhl shagger’ which at least made me smirk slightly despite my disapproval of the act and, frankly, the language.
‘Hey!’ I shouted into the empty corridor beyond my cell. ‘I’m starving!’
No response. What was this, a bank holiday? I sat down on the bed and rested my chin in my hands. Obviously it wasn’t enough for Leigh to destroy my football club, oh no – he also had to ruin me as well.
‘Did you think I wouldn’t put two and two together?’ he had taunted as his two goons dragged me aggressively down the steps from the top of the Compound walls. ‘It was painfully transparent! I put the Compound in lockdown so we can hunt for a spy, and then, suddenly, Kevin Keegan cannot wait to leave! How very convenient.’
Certainly didn’t feel that convenient to me as I sat there, bored rigid, in my cell for four days, being fed nothing but beans on toast thrice daily (though at least for the evening meal they gave me those beans with the little sausages in). In a way, this was all Gerry’s fault. Look, I’m not one to pass the buck, I’ll own all my mistakes, but if he hadn’t planted the seed of our moving on and taking Moyesie’s job, I’d never have ended up in this situation. I’d have probably fought harder for Palangonia FC, too. Thanks a bunch, Gerry.
Suddenly, a wave of despair washed over me. Why hadn’t I fought harder? I’d mouthed off to Gillian and complained in the loudest terms but I hadn’t really done anything. I’d just accepted Gerry’s suggestion that we might have a better time of it elsewhere. I’d taken the easy way out – and that is not the Kevin Keegan way. Palangonia FC was mine. And I had to stand up for it.
‘Oi,’ came a voice from outside – I hadn’t even heard the masked guard approach.
‘Oh, finally,’ I grumbled, getting to my feet, arms outstretched. But the guard held no tray of beans.
‘Forgotten something, son?’ I asked, eyebrow raised.
‘Come with me,’ he said darkly. ‘You’re to be interrogated. The General wants answers.’
‘So do I,’ I said, and waited for the cell door to slide open.
*
The interrogation room was every bit as dingy as my cell – I was baffled as to why, given that Fort Emmeline had only been built little more than a year ago. They had plenty of opportunity to give the place a bit of character, a colourful pain
t job, a skylight – a conservatory would have been ideal to catch the sunshine from the twin suns setting in the late afternoon. Instead, it was grey brickwork and a cold stone floor, with a wooden table in the middle of the room and a mirror on the wall. I initially assumed, on walking inside, that this was the obligatory two-way thing for people to watch the interrogation but actually, it was more likely to be pure vanity from Leigh. And sure enough, he was already sitting there at the side of the table facing the mirror. Pathetic.
‘Keegan,’ he said gruffly without getting off his arse. ‘Take a seat. You look well.’
‘I look how I feel,’ I snapped, sitting down opposite the General. Beside him, a young woman in a smart suit was scribbling on a sheet of paper. There was an empty seat next to me.
‘Well, you brought this on yourself,’ Leigh said.
‘You honestly cannot believe that,’ I said, shaking my head in exasperation. ‘I’m a pure football man, not a secret agent.’
‘Perhaps we should hold fire until we begin,’ the woman said, looking up. She wasn’t wearing a military uniform but looked very officious. I had a bad feeling about this.
‘Mr Keegan’s lawyer isn’t here yet,’ she went on. ‘This spy business is big, General – we want to make sure we play things by the book.’
‘Right you are,’ Leigh agreed, sitting back in his seat and knitting his hands together over his stomach like he was relaxing in a lawn chair. Honestly, I have never felt the urge to slap another human being as much as I did in that moment. He oozed smarm – that’s a trait I simply cannot abide. I remember years back there was that Swedish boy, Zlatan Ibrahimović. Hell of a player. But one day I heard him remark during an interview that he was unquestionably ‘the greatest living Swede’. I mean, I had to laugh. Did you write ‘The Winner Takes It All’ then, son? Nope. Next.
Still, though. A lawyer? For me? I didn’t even know I had one. Back on Earth, I’d always represented myself whenever I was involved in legal proceedings – like when I took Cineworld to court after I paid full whack for a ticket and yet the film only lasted three minutes. (They won on some weird technicality, claiming it was only a trailer before the main feature. Aye, right.)
