Hooded Man (70 page)

Tate said nothing, but she was right. They should get away, wait for Jack at the rendezvous point.

They had to head for Sherwood.

Mark’s driving left something to be desired – he’d been too young to drive pre-virus, and Robert and his men went everywhere on horseback. Luckily, Bill had given him a few lessons before leaving. “Never know when it’s goin’ to come in handy,” he’d said, tapping his nose.

Mark hadn’t thought about Bill in months, and it was strange that he should do so now; as they pulled in to the car park at Sherwood Forest, who should they see but the man himself, standing next to his helicopter, holding his shotgun as if he’d never been away. He was pointing it at their vehicle, squinting as he tried to make out who was inside.

For a second Mark thought he was actually going to shoot, so he stuck a hand out of the window. Bill kept his gun raised, but when Mark braked and shoved his head out, he smiled, lowering the weapon.

Mark hopped out and ran towards him. “Bill? Is it really you?”

“Aye.”

They gave each other a hug as Sophie helped Tate out of the jeep. When the pair came over, Bill greeted them both. “How do?”

“What are you doing at Sherwood?” Mark asked him.

“Long story. Yerself?”

Like Bill, Mark didn’t know where to start. He told him about the attack on the castle, and how they’d only managed to get out by the skin of their teeth. They were still hoping that Jack would make it, with Gwen and Adele.

“Well I’ll be,” said Bill when he’d finished. “It’s a good job I didn’t take him there, then.”

“Who?” asked Mark.

“I’m not goin’ to lie to you. The bloke’s in a pretty bad way, Mark.”

“Who? Who’s in a bad way?”

“Robert.”

“You’re here with Robert?” Tate rubbed his head. “I don’t understand.”

“Makes four of us, then, I reckon,” Bill said. Then he went on to explain how he’d found Robert after the battle, badly injured and not making much sense. “Just kept on insisting we come ’ere.”

“Where were the rest of the men?” asked Sophie, and Mark guessed she probably meant Dale. “They weren’t...?”

“Reckon you lost a fair few – bloody insanity goin’ up against them things in the first place.” He scratched his stubbled chin. “Tho’ I will say this much, you lot gave them Russkies a good hidin’. Not sure what happened to the rest. Like I say, Rob wasn’t makin’ much sense by the time I showed up.”

“How long’s he been in there?” asked Tate.

“Good few hours. Wanted to fly ’im back to Mary, but... Do y’think she’ll get out with Jack, then?”

Marked opened his mouth, then closed it again. He shook his head.

“What? Is the lass all right?”

Sophie suddenly burst into tears and turned to Mark, pressing her face into his shoulder. Mark hesitated, then wrapped a comforting arm around her. He was having trouble holding back the tears himself. “Bill, we think Mary might be...”

“What?”

“I was the last one to see her. She was... crushed in a cave-in. Happened when the Tsar attacked. I think we’ve...” Mark sniffed. “I think we’ve lost her.”

“Judas...”

“No,” said a voice, so quietly it might have drifted in on the wind. The three of them turned, Bill automatically raising his gun.

There, in front of them, was Robert. Or rather, the Hooded Man: features still obscured by the cowl he wore. He was standing straight, in spite of the bandage on his leg, but when he took another step towards them he was hobbling. Even so, it was nothing like the figure Bill had described.

“Robert?” gasped Mark. He’d come up on them silently, making all of them start. But then, he was good at that; self-trained in this very place.

“No,” Robert continued in those hushed tones, ignoring everything but what had been said about Mary. “She can’t be.”

Bill was staring at Robert in disbelief. Slowly his gun dropped again, but he didn’t say anything.

Mark nodded. “I think so. I’m really sorry. Everything happened too fast for me to...” He saw Robert’s body stiffen, his back straighten. Then he saw the man’s fists clench.

“We have to prepare ourselves,” Robert said, his voice strong.

“For what?” Tate asked, but didn’t get a reply. Robert had already turned and was walking back towards the visitor’s centre. He knew what was about to happen, of that Mark was certain – just as certain as he was that the forest had somehow healed Robert (though later Bill would argue that maybe he’d looked worse than he actually was). The forest had shown Robert what would happen, or at least what might happen without their intervention.

Mark looked at Sophie, then at Tate and Bill. Their confused faces said it all, but he knew exactly what had to be done.

They’d follow Robert, just like always.

So, as the sky began to grow dark and as a light mist started to roll in from the surrounding fields, they did just that.

Followed the lonely figure into Sherwood.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

S
HERWOOD
F
OREST.

It was the most obvious choice, after all. Deep down, Adele knew that’s where they would go, because she’d followed them there once before. She knew that’s where Robert belonged – if he was still alive (no-one seemed to be able to confirm it either way). So it was where Mark, Tate and Sophie would go, too.

They hadn’t really needed the torture session with Jack at all: conducted in the smithy, in one of the archways adjoining the stables.

But it had been fun.

Adele – the... what was it Jack had called her just before his interrogation? Oh yes, the
femme fatale
. The pain Jack had experienced at the hands of this master craftsman, this artiste, had sent tingles through her entire body. He hadn’t had time to do a complete number on the man – the Tsar was demanding results – but it had been enough.

In lieu of his usual equipment, Tanek had made full use of the blacksmith’s furnace (after all, he wouldn’t be needing it, now he was over in the corner riddled with bullets): the tongs, the poker, the red-hot coals spitting in the open-sided tray. He hadn’t even asked any questions to begin with, just inflicted his agonies on Jack – the screams of the big man so piercing they could be heard throughout the grounds.

Tied to a chair, naked apart from a pair of boxers, Jack had looked up at Adele and the betrayal on his slick face was incredible. It was like a physical thing. Adele knew that he had been starting to fall in love with her, in spite of everything she’d done to show her ‘affections’ lay elsewhere – or at least her obsession. With Robert. With his downfall. With his death.

Tanek had even let her have a turn with the irons, sweet man that he was. Her father’s second, and now her protector. They’d hardly had a chance to talk since meeting earlier that day, but they hadn’t really needed to. Tanek recognised her almost immediately, knew she was from the great man’s stock. And that allegiance continued even after Daddy was gone. Murdered by Robert and his followers; including Jack. It brought her great satisfaction to torture him, chasing any last doubts from his mind that she might be talked around or turned.

Or be his.

“Y-you... traitorous s-slut,” Jack spat through clenched teeth, love turning to hatred.

She studied his face again, then she kissed him – it would cause more pain than she ever could with the irons. Adele bit his lip as she pulled away, laughing as the blood dribbled down Jack’s chin. “Poor, deluded idiot,” she said in her true accent, the one she’d been so careful to conceal during her time playing the helpless heroine.

“Where are the others going?” Tanek asked. Maybe he was uncomfortable with the way the session was going. Maybe he was just jealous. Was he hers for the taking as well? Adele had already observed the way the Tsar had been looking at her. But his time would come soon enough, she understood that. At some point she and Tanek would rule this army, or rather she would – with Tanek by her side. Whether that was as her willing slave, bodyguard or lover – or all three – remained to be seen.

“I saw how this went in
Reservoir Dogs
. Go screw yourself, pal,” Jack breathed. That earned him a slap in the face. Adele could still taste the copper in her mouth as she watched Tanek at work; now picking precise spots on Jack’s body and hammering in horseshoe nails. It wouldn’t kill him, but would deliver lasting pain. Tanek hammered them home until Jack passed out. Then he threw a bucket of cold water over him.

But they were getting nowhere. “He’ll never talk in the time we’ve got left,” Adele said, and Tanek could see that she was right. Given a couple of days, he could get anyone to talk, even someone as loyal as Jack. But the Tsar was breathing down their necks and, like it or not, he called the shots.

“Let me try a different tack.” She brushed a finger over one of the nails. “If you’ll pardon the pun.”

When Jack was awake, Adele ran a sharp fingernail down his cheek. “If you don’t tell us where your little friends have gone, we will execute Mary.”

Looking at her through a haze of anguish, Jack spluttered, “Don’t have her... Mark said...”

“Oh, in spite of my best efforts she’s still alive. Just. But how long she stays that way depends on you, my dearest Jack.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

She couldn’t help but smile at that. “You don’t,
mon chéri
. But you have my word as a De Falaise that she will die if you do not co-operate. And that really
does
mean something. That is important to me.”

He thought about it for a second or two, weighing everything up and concluding that if she’d done all this to avenge her father, then she would never take his name in vain.

“Tell us what we need to know,” she’d pressed.

So, hanging his head in shame, he did.

S
HE REMEMBERED THE
shame.

The nights lying awake as he snored beside her. Spent, after he’d done whatever he pleased with her. Of all the places the soldiers could have stuck her.

Focus on Clive Jr, not the room. Not the bedroom where De Falaise kept you locked up, where they are keeping you locked up right now.

Gwen screwed her eyes shut, then opened them. It was just a room, just a room in the castle. At least it was on the ground floor, with no chance of rockets hitting the wall. Not that there was any fighting going on anymore. The Tsar’s forces had won, swiftly and confidently.

Perhaps he’ll be like the Frenchman,
her mind whispered.
Do you think he’ll want to play games, as well? Dress you up and pretend, while you lay there, catatonic?

Gwen felt sick to her stomach. If Tate was here right now, she might just put her hands around his neck and squeezed. Reverend or not.

But it could be worse. She was still alive, and so was her son – her one connection to home, to New Hope, to Clive.

Could be in the same state as Mary, she said to herself. Gwen had seen her being carried in, helped by Lucy, the woman who’d assisted when Clive Jr was born. She’d been training as a nurse. And Mary looked like she needed one, looked like she was barely hanging on to life. Gwen had exchanged a brief look with Lucy as they’d passed, and could see pure terror in the woman’s eyes. Like she knew it, too. Like she wasn’t sure she could pull Mary through.

Gwen had been bundled into the room then, the door locked behind her. As far as she could tell there weren’t many other survivors, unless they were being held in different parts of the castle? Perhaps the Tsar had shot them all?

She wondered what might have happened to Jack, Mark, Sophie... and, yes, Tate. She did still care about him, in spite of herself. Were they all dead, or in the same state as Mary?

But the room. Oh, God, this room.

It looked different; had no bed in it, for a start, and had been turned back into some sort of office. Probably where Robert organised his little missions. Just who did he think he was, appointing himself the guardian of this land, withholding vital things like weapons from people who just wanted to protect themselves? Leading suicide squads of young men to their doom? He was lucky they’d go with him, though she had to admit he had a way of sucking people in. Didn’t work on her, of course. Too bloody-minded.

Gwen rocked Clive Jr on her knee. “I won’t let anything happen to you, sweetheart. Not while there’s still breath in my body.”

The door lock clicked and Gwen jumped. She watched as the handle slowly turned. When the door opened, she felt a lump rise in her throat.

“Remember me?” said the man standing there.

Gwen said nothing.

“I had to see if it was true, that you were back.” He grinned, but it came out more like a leer. A leer that stretched the scar across his jawline tight.

“Jace,” she said.

“That’s right,” he chuckled. “You haven’t forgotten me, then?”

How could she? He’d been her means of escape, the guard posted to keep an eye on her. She’d lured him inside, then stolen his clothes and knocked him unconscious with the butt of his own gun.

“But you were –”

“A prisoner? Just like you were back then? Fucking locked away when I hadn’t even done nothin’.”