Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) (16 page)

Someone once told Jack that it is impossible to anticipate every possible eventuality; but that
didn’t mean that he did not at least try his
very best to do just that. The advice was given to him before he started
his life as a spy, and he could not recall if it had come from a school
teacher
or a Sunday school teacher. The same person had then gone
on to explain that we can all ready
ourselves for times when trouble
is heading straight for us; when the mortgage has to be paid, or when
the tax year comes to an end; when the politicians announced a war
in some part
of the world that the young Jack had never heard of before. Those things he could steel himself for. But then there were those
things that
came at
him
completely
out
of
the
blue. The
day
his
father
died was a glorious summer’s
day. He hadn’t
been ill, and no
one was expecting it. That was the kind of thing that he could never
prepare for. The cop who just died in the Land Rover was a henchman
to
one
of the most feared men in the country;
he was someone who
should never have been in any danger. No one was that brave; at least
no one sane was that brave.

In the few
moments
of semi-consciousness
before Jack’s brain allowed him to once again take control of his body, the last few minutes
were replayed in his head. There were the two guards and there was
the cop behind the wheel of the Land Rover. That was it. There was

All of the confidence drained from the old man’s face. At the last
checkpoint
there were other vehicles to provide cover; this time
around they were alone.

“Drive on,” Cathal instructed.
“You are the boss.”

Jack applied pressure to the accelerator and he worked his way up
the
gears. He kept his foot on the accelerator. One way or the
other, that lorry was never going to make it past the checkpoint.
500 yards, 400 yards, 300, yards...

Four
of
the
soldiers
were
aiming
their
weapons
at
the
lorry.
Cathal looked out of the front window with horror. That was Jack’s
moment. He slipped the lorry out of gear, opened the door and
rolled
out.
His head made a sickening cracking sound as it hit
the ground. As consciousness faded Jack could hear the sound of
automatic gunfire. Everything went black.

The same sickly confusion that he felt
on that day had now returned to bite him hard on the ass. When the police Land Rover from
the present replaced the lorry as it sped towards the checkpoint, that’s

Jack slowly
began to come round—it was as fast as his
battered
brain would permit. His head hurt and his ears were ringing. The side
of his head, just
below his left
ear, felt
damp. It was
either sweat
or
blood. He couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes. Pain ravaged every
part
of his body and he couldn’t face the possible horrors that a selfexa mina t ion
might
reveal.
For
a
short
and
oddly
pleasant
moment,
he felt as if he was still moving through the air. No... He was
moving.
Though he was still
on the ground.
Again the odd feeling
of
flying was
his
brain
making
the
best
sense
that
it
could
of
a
situation that still
made very little sense at all—he was lying
down
and he was moving, therefore he must be flying. However, he felt the
ground that he was lying on and so he couldn’t have been in mid-air.
It
still
didn’t
make
any
sense.
The
ground
under
his
body
was
moving,
so
he knew
he wasn’t
on a
bed.
As he
opened his
eyes the
large, bloodied face of one
of the Guards greeted him. The man was
dragging Jack through the guard hut; he was saying something to Jack
but the ringing in his
ears
prevented Jack from
making
out
what
those words were. Blood and sweat
mixed into a frightful war paint
on the man’s face. A terrifying thought
occurred to Jack; if the guard
was in such a
bad condition, then how
much worse a condition was
he in? After all, this badly injured man was looking after Jack.

Like a newborn frightening for life, Jack began to fight against the
pain as he ordered his legs to move. A bolt
of pain raced the length of
his spine as his feet scraped along the ground. Relief
pulsed through
his body, injecting him with a sudden burst
of energy—he may have
been badly
bashed up but at least he still had movement in his legs.
The lost
of mobility had always been one of his worst fears; given all
the fire fights he had been in over the years, the possibility that one of
those stray
bullets could have caught him in the spine wasn’t such a
ridiculous notion. He tried to move his legs again—this time the bolt
of
pain was
much less intense. The third time resulted in a
decent attempt at getting to his feet. The guard’s face contorted into an expression of anger as he yelled at Jack. The ringing in his ears was subsiding
but not
enough for Jack to make out what the man was trying to tell
him; though judging by the earnest expression on the man’s face Jack