Delivering Caliban (12 page)

‘
Mr Crosby, are you willing to testify to all of this?’

Crosby sniggered again. ‘What’ve I got to lose? They’re going to come for me already, whoever
they
are.’

From the window Kendrick spoke, low and urgent.

‘They’re already here.’

Twenty-One

Between Charlottesville, Virginia and Washington D.C.

Monday 20 May, 11.40 pm

Pope was by inclination a marathon runner, not a sprinter; but while speed was important, he had the advantage of surprise, and he hoped it would carry him through.

The distance from the bottom of the slope to where the three figures were standing was about a hundred yards, possibly slightly less. The woman had stopped and begun sidling sideways, so presumably there was some sort of barrier blocking her path: a fence or a ditch. The men were taking their time reaching her but would be at her in a minute, if everyone continued moving at their current pace.

He had surprise on his side, because the rain, light though it was, was deadening the sound of his approach, and in any case the two men wouldn’t be expecting anyone to come sprinting up to them from behind. Against him was the quality of the ground. Pitted and gnarled, it would be all too easy to sprain an ankle, and then he’d be finished.

He ran in strides longer than usual to afford extra stability, feeling himself settle into a steady rhythm as he gained ground on the small group. Fifty yards covered now. If he could get within ten yards he’d be safe; even if they were armed – and Pope assumed they were – they wouldn’t be able to bring their weapons to bear before his momentum had carried him straight into them.

With thirty yards to go, the girl saw him.

She was superb, a distant part of his mind appreciated: there was no stifled shriek, no reflexive drawing away. She recognised that he was coming to the rescue, and she reacted like a professional; namely, she didn’t react at all.

The men were talking to her, he registered, as he bore down on the final approach and picked up his speed as though aiming to breast a finishing tape. The two men were side by side, the taller one doing the talking. It meant the other one was probably the muscle.

Pope launched the kick in midair, his foot catching the man squarely in the back just below the neck. The man’s torso barrelled forward while inertia kept his head where it was so that his neck snapped back. He was lifted off his feet, and this time the girl did scream as she dived out of the way. Pope disregarded the first man and landed on his feet at a crouch, facing the other man and with his back to the girl.

The taller man was fast, his gun already out. Pope hacked at his wrist with the edge of his hand, caught the gun barrel instead, knocking it aside but not out of the man’s grip. The man kicked at Pope’s kneecap and made contact, sending a sheaf of pain up through Pope’s leg. He stumbled, doubling, but he was bluffing and the other man was a fraction slow in stepping back and raising his gun in a two-handed grip to deliver the execution shot.

Pope lunged, gripping the man’s wrists in his clasped hands and yanking him forward so that he was pulled off his feet. Pope’s knee connected hard with the man’s face and he collapsed, prone.

‘Look out,’ yelled the woman a second before Pope flung himself sideways and the shot whined past his head, trailing a blast that echoed off the walls of the miniature valley. He rolled on to and over the prone man, prising the gun free from his flaccid fingers and coming up to a sitting position as the second shot too went wide, far wider than it should have. Pope saw the first man, the one he’d kicked in the back, stagger slightly, one hand to the side of his head as his gun arm wove to take a bead again. The woman was off to the side, cowering.

Pope shot the man twice, once in the head and once through the chest before the first shot had dropped him. The man dropped to his knees, his torso remaining upright for a second like a hammy actor in a death scene. Pope rose and strode over and put a third shot into what was left of the man’s head.

He went back to the other man and turned him over. The knee to his face had killed him.

*

Neither man had anything useful on him apart from a gun. Their driver’s licences identified them as Francis King and Dwayne Harlan. Pope pocketed the licences and took the guns. A Heckler & Koch USP – the one he’d just fired – and a Glock 22.

The woman, Ramirez, stood clutching her violin case to her, shivering as though in January sleet rather than warm spring evening drizzle. Pope stuck the guns in his belt and held out a hand.

‘My name’s Pope. Don’t be afraid.’

She didn’t move. In the dark her eyes gleamed white, above and below the irises.

‘It’s over. Or it will be, if we get out of here now.’

At first he thought she’d hooted a laugh, but when it came again he caught it:
‘Who.’

‘
Who am I? A friend. I’ll explain in a moment. Once we’ve got back on to the road and into my car.’ He stepped forward, hand still extended.

She took it.

*

Pope kept his gaze fixed on the road above them as they crossed the field, but there were no flashing lights up there yet.

The girl stumbled beside him, clutching her violin even though it would have been more practical to strap it across her back. Her head was lowered.

‘
You hit him with a rock, didn’t you?’

She stared at him.

‘The man back there. He was aiming at me and you got him. Made him miss.’ He smiled in the darkness. ‘You saved my life. I’m very grateful.’

He wasn’t trying to get her to speak. He just wanted to give her a boost, keep her on her feet and moving forward.

They reached the foot of the slope and he started up, tugging at her hand; but she needed no prompting, and he felt able to let go. A few feet from the top he motioned to her to stop, and crept forward, peering over the top of the rail. There was the Toyota, its headlights still on, and behind it his Mercedes with its hazard lights flicking. No police.

When she’d climbed over the rail he took her elbow lightly and led her to the Toyota. He opened the door and scouted around. The interior smelled of stale cigarette smoke with an overlay of pine air freshener. Nothing in the glove compartment or under any of the seats.

At the Mercedes he opened the  passenger door and gently pressed her inside.

‘
I can put that in the back,’ he said, indicating the violin. But she strapped herself in and held the case across her chest. Fair enough.

He stowed the Glock in the glove compartment, and the Heckler & Koch under his seat. As he pulled away into the rain and the steady flow of cars, he saw the red, blue and white flashing lights approaching the spot behind him in the distance. No sirens yet. Those would come later.

*

‘
Your name’s Nina Ramirez. Mine’s Darius Pope, but people just call me Pope.’

He’d thought about bluffing, pretending he was simply a passerby who’d happened to stop at a parked Toyota saloon by the side of the road and happened to spot two men chasing a young woman across a distant field and decided to intervene. But he knew she wouldn’t buy that.

At first she’d stared straight ahead through the windscreen, but now her gaze was turned on him. He could see it on the corner of his vision even as he drove. Large eyes, cheekbones high and fine, delicate nose and chin. The way she carried herself convinced him that she was one of those rare people who genuinely didn’t realise how attractive they were.

‘
You’re heading to Washington. To find someone there, I wonder, or maybe just to get away from those men.’

‘
Who –’ The word barely rasped out and she swallowed and tried again. ‘Who were they?’

That was interesting. She was asking who they were, rather than who he was. It suggested she trusted him a little. Perhaps not much, but enough to be starting with.

‘CIA. There’ll be more of them.’ When she drew in a breath, he said, ‘I won’t say “don’t worry”. But I’ll protect you. You can survive this.’

‘
They killed my friends.’

‘
Back in Charlottesville? What happened there?’

‘
They started following me this afternoon. Maybe before, but that’s when I first noticed them. I went to my friends for help. They broke in, shot them dead. I jumped out the window.’

Pope watched the road in silence for a full ten seconds, then said: ‘You did well. If you’d stayed, they would have killed you.’

‘Why?’

He’d rehearsed several different scenarios, played them out to their possible conclusions, keeping in mind at all times that you could never fully predict how human beings would behave or how conversations would run. He was having to modify his approach now based on the information he was getting from her demeanour, her body language.

‘Nina, I’m going to ask you an odd question. Humour me. I want you to think back to when you were a child. Eleven years old. Tell me what you remember of that time.’

‘
Who are you?’

She’d asked it, then, finally. And it had been the strangeness of his own question that had triggered it.

‘Just let’s focus on you at eleven –’

‘
Who are you.’

Sharper this time. He’d have to give her something.

‘I have a connection with your father.’

Twenty-Two

Interstate 95, Outside Washington D.C.

Tuesday 21 May, 12.15 am

The adrenaline had begun to drain from her limbs like fuel from an engine, leaving her feeling inert and immobile.

There’d been the terror of the advancing men, the shock of seeing the sprinting figure coming up behind them, then the awful physicality of the violence which had followed. Nina barely remembered picking up the rock and heaving it at the gunman’s head, but she remembered being utterly confused as to why he then dropped to his knees, shaking, until she understood that the newcomer had shot him.

The blasts had set up a high whine in her ears which hadn’t gone yet.

She watched the man beside her. Pope, he called himself. He sounded British, and educated, though she didn’t know much about distinguishing British accents. His profile was impossibly handsome, movie-star quality.

And, unbelievably, there was something familiar about him.

His phrases were like sharp jabs form a needle, one after the other so that she barely had time to register the shock of one before the next came.

CIA…

There’ll be more of them…

They would have killed you…

And then the one that stuck, lingering:
I have a connection with your father
.

Somewhere in the middle of it all he’d asked something about her childhood, but perhaps she’d imagined that; imagined she was undergoing therapy of some kind.

The highway droned by outside, the monotonous beat of the windshield wipers like a pendulum lulling her under.

‘
What connection?’ she heard a thin, distant voice say. Her own. ‘Did he send you?’

‘
No.’ Was there the trace of a smile in his voice? ‘Not exactly. Though indirectly I suppose he did.’ 

Their exchange was too elliptical, too many-sided, for Nina to find a clear way in. She sat in silence once more.

He said, softly, ‘When you were eleven, Nina, you lived on an island, didn’t you?’

She blurted, almost cutting him off: ‘I know you.’

This time he looked across at her, and did smile; though the smile was touched with sadness.

‘
In a sense, you probably do.’

*

It’s an afternoon, clear and bright, mountains of cumulus (she’s learned about clouds this week; her mother’s taught her) towering overhead. This is a few weeks before that night when she heard the screams and went out to look under moonlight.

She’s playing alone on the lawn outside the house. Her mother’s inside, resting. Her father’s at work, his car gone. There are no other girls or boys on the island. When will they be going back to their real home, she wondered again this morning. Soon, honey, her mother whispered in her hair.

The gate’s closed but the wall’s easy to climb. Bored, she shins over it, dropping to the dirt. Across the road, the Box sits in the heat like the brownies her mom bakes.

In the daylight, when it’s silent, it doesn’t frighten her.

She crosses the road (looks both ways carefully first, as she’s been taught, though there are no cars) and approached the Box. She’s never been this close before. Her mom and dad have told her never to go near it.

A voice, loud and angry as an animal’s roar, makes her leap in the air and freeze at the same time. She turns, her heart like a drill. It’s the tall man, the one her father calls Taylor. She doesn’t like him. He’s always bad-tempered, even when he laughs. He’s not laughing now.

He’s running over to her from around the side of the Box, yelling. Using words her mom told her she should never say, words with F and Jesus’s name. He even calls her a little B. She’s too scared to run. He grabs her shoulders and shakes her.

‘
Get away from her.’

She remembers the words, and the voice, clearly. The words because they’re so calm; the voice, because it sounds a little odd, like he’s not American or Spanish. He’s standing behind Taylor. She doesn’t know his name, but she sees him around sometimes. He doesn’t look angry.

Taylor turns round and starts using that sneering voice, asking the other man who the F does he think he is. He stands close to the other man (she thinks it’s called “getting in his face”). The other man says something so quietly she can’t hear. Taylor Fs and MFs some more and goes away.

The man whose name she doesn’t know comes over to her. She’s not tall yet, though she’ll grow in the next year. He hunkers down on his heels and asks her if she’s okay. She says yes. He helps her back to her home, saying a lot of other stuff which she doesn’t remember.

What she remembers is his eyes. She sees something there she’s never seen in anyone’s before. Not her mom’s, and certainly not her dad’s.

*

‘He was angry for me. Not at me, but
for
me.’

Pope hadn’t said a word. How long had she been talking for? She stared at him, his face again in profile. He was utterly unreadable.

It struck Nina suddenly that she had no idea where they were going. They weren’t on the Interstate any more.

Before she could ask, Pope said, ‘What are your feelings towards your father?’

It really is like a therapy session
, she thought, and that crazy reckless giggle threatened to erupt again. She swallowed it, hoping to seem as if she was finding difficulty organising her thoughts.

‘
He abandoned me when I was eleven. Gave me to my grandmother and never tried to make contact again. No birthday or Christmas cards, no letters or emails. So I feel betrayed by him. Betrayed, hurt, and confused. I want to know why he did it. More than almost anything else in the world.’ The words started rolling out, beyond her control. ‘I mean, if he wasn’t up to being a single dad, I can understand, you know? He was an incredibly busy man, wrapped up in his work. Awkward with kids, from what I recall. But even if he felt my gramma was the best person to look after me – and she probably was – he could at least have called or written me from time to time. Or now that I’m grown up, made contact to explain to me why he did what he did.’

As though sensing she was saying more than she’d intended and wanting to save her from embarrassment, Pope cut in: ‘How do you believe your mother died, Nina?’

She took a breath, slowed herself deliberately. ‘She was killed in the storm. The big one that hit the island and the rest of Honduras that year.’

‘
Your father told you that.’

‘
Yes. And my gramma.’

‘
And your grandmother heard it from… whom?’

‘
My father, I guess.’ She stared at the side of his face again. ‘You said, how do I “believe” my mom died.’

He glanced across. This time there was sadness without the smile.

‘Your father killed her.’