Identity X (18 page)

He knew that he wouldn’t understand the
majority of what was written immediately.  It would take time.  These were
after all Ben’s handwritten notes from years of research.  The date on the top
of this file was from three years previously.  He leafed through the contents,
the notes and diagrams a foreign language to him.  He brushed his thumb against
the spines of the other files that sat atop his desk and felt their rough
texture which set his teeth on edge, like fingernails on a chalk board.  He
found the latest file, named ten of ten.  Opening the folder he saw that the latest
page was dated only two days before, the final day of Ben’s existence.  He
glanced at the page as report after report was completed detailing the success
of repeated experiments.  He found it unbelievable how Ben had failed to
maintain computer records, and had continuously tried to push him towards
starting them, knowing that it would be infinitely easier to secure the work
this way.  He closed the file, knowing now was not the time to focus on Ben’s
work, and opened his desk draw in order to place all of the files securely
inside.  Amongst the cigarettes, pens, and other office paraphernalia there was
one other thing that caught his attention, and he found his eyes being
antagonistically drawn towards it against his will.  It was a photograph of him
with Ben, taken as teenagers and before any influence from The Agency had snuck
malevolently into their lives.  As much as he denied it to the public and also
to himself if he cared to admit it, seeing the past documented like this was
painful.  He threw the files on top of the photograph and slammed the draw
shut, leaving his hand in place against the closed draw as he took in another
deep breath.  Angry at the photograph’s presence he reminded himself that to
bring it here had been a moment of unacceptable weakness, and he tossed it back
inside.  There was a bin next to the desk which remained empty.  He told
himself it was the wrong place for disposal.  He may have been right. 

Taking one final look at the red lights
blinking on the screen, he stood from his desk, leaving the office behind him
as he stepped out into the corridor.  The only sounds around him were the
tapping of computer keyboards or the occasional scratch of the lead of a pencil
against paper, and they resonated through the silence. 
Which one of you was
talking about me before I came out of my office,
he thought to himself
rhetorically, fearing that the answer could be all of them.

Walking through the corridors he could
feel the eyes upon him as heads raised as he passed them, like a Mexican wave
as they each looked up to catch a glimpse of their under pressure boss.  He
knew what they were thinking.  He knew that they considered his appointment to
the head of this operation a failure.  He knew they were thinking him to be a
weak leader, or worse, a traitor.  He ignored his desire to question them, to
turn around and give them a piece of his mind and ask them if they had any idea
what it was that he had given up in order to get this operation off the ground
in the first place.  If they had any idea of what personal cost he had paid in
the pursuit of success, the thought wouldn’t even cross their minds.  He held
his head up, and pushed all memories of his youth to one side. 
There is no
shame in what I have done.  Anybody would have done it, maybe not exactly this
but everybody is selfish.  It’s normal. 
He focussed his mind on the
metronomic beat of his shoes as they struck the stone floor of the corridor. 
It’s
true, nothing lasts forever.

In his effort to forget his past, his
present was doing little other than making him feel angry at himself.  He had
planned almost every step of this operation personally, and those that he
hadn’t planned were organised under his close scrutiny.  So far today he had
suffered the embarrassment of not only discovering that Ben must still be
alive, randomly wandering the streets and seeking access to the underground
stations, but also that he had enabled and worked alongside a double agent for
the last two years.  Amena Saad had paid the ultimate price, her body now
resting in their mortuary and waiting for cremation, but yet to Mark that still
did not seem enough.  He had no idea of the level of information that Ben may
have gained from this traitor before he had given the order to take her out. 
For the first time in a long time he felt that he was the one in the dark, that
he was no longer in control of everything.  There were things happening that
were not directly the result of his hands and he wanted it to stop.  He needed
Ben’s body in his mortuary, alongside Amena’s.  It didn’t matter how hard it
would be for him to see.  He had hoped that his body could be disposed of
directly, and that he would be able to avoid forming a real visual memory,
but
so be it. 
He would take responsibility for the mess that had occurred. 
His punishment would be the sight of his dead friend, Ben cold and lifeless,
tag on the toe and penis hanging pathetically limp along his leg for all to
see.  That would be the price of success.  Then he could put an end to the
embarrassing whisperings of his staff regarding his potential involvement in
Ben’s escape.  Then he would be absolved.

As he approached another door he swiped
his access card against the screen of the card reader. The red light at the
side of the door changed to green and he slipped into the room in front of him.

“Where is he?” The agent stood to
attention as the door opened and his boss walked through.  Mark’s words were cannonball-blunt
and unfriendly. 

“Sir, he is just through here.” The guard
led him towards another doorway which had no locking mechanism or card reader
to grant access.  Mark pushed the door open to see the little boy playing on
the floor with a popup book, taking in each of the details as he turned the pages
that brought to life images of mountains and animals, a tour of the world and
its zoological inhabitants.  A female agent, who looked less than excited with
her appointment to this latest assignment, stood as she realised the man
walking through the door was in fact her boss, but he brushed her away,
ushering her to resume her disinterested position in her seat as if he knew
this assignment was beyond boring.

“Hey Matthew,” Mark said, as he got close
enough to crouch down next to the boy and ruffle his hair.  His sudden change
of tone, a full about turn, sounded alien to the other agents who shared their
surprise in a quick glance behind the safety of Mark’s back.

“Uncle Mark!” A smile spread across Matthew’s
face and he threw his arms around Mark’s body, his chubby arms wrapping
themselves without caution around his waist.  His hands gripped onto Mark’s
clothes, and Mark naturally and softly slipped his hands around the small body,
encasing him in a genuinely warm embrace as he scooped him up. “Did you bring
it?” he asked.

“Did I say I would bring it?” The boy
nodded, unsure if the response was in his favour or against him.  “If I said I
would bring it, then I must have brought it.”  Mark pulled out a rolled up book
from his inside pocket, no thicker or smaller than a magazine.  Matthew’s eyes
grew wide as he saw the blue of the book appearing as majestically as Poseidon
from an underwater domain, which had been stowed there this morning, before he
knew that Ben was about to wake up and slip through his not so carefully cast
net.

“Wow!” exclaimed Matthew, unfolding the
football sticker book onto the grey tiled floor as Mark placed him back down,
pushing away his popup book and X-Men comics.  “And the stickers?”

“I got ten packs.”  Mark pulled the
packets out from his inside pocket and scattered them onto the floor.  He
crouched down next to Matthew, uncomfortable in the oppressive room, dimly lit
and claustrophobic on account of the low ceilings. 

“Shall we do it now?” Matthew asked, as
he tore open the first pack and scattered the contents to the floor, faces of
football players tumbled to the ground.  “I’ve got Gerrard, and Cassillas,” and
he paused as another sticker came into view.  “I got Beckham.  We should wait. 
We should do it with Daddy when he gets here.  He loves Beckham.”  Mark slipped
his hand underneath Matthew’s chin, and pulled it towards his.  He leant down
so that their faces met.  Matthew’s smile drained away, just as if somebody had
pulled the plug on his excitement, his dreams.  Mark saw the shift of the
female agent next to him, and wondered if she too thought him to be the
libertine that he knew he had become.

“You remember what I told you yesterday
Matthew?  You remember what I told you about Daddy when you got here?”  Had he
not been holding Matthew’s head so tightly, a grip that said
you
will
listen,
it would have dropped like a fallen ice cream, splat into his
chest, the thought of what he had been told enough to crumble his childish will
and sense of hope.  Instead Mark pulled on his chin, dragging his eyes back up
to meet his own.  “Do you remember what I told you Matthew?”

“Yes.  You said he had to go away to work
for a while.”

“That’s right.”

“But he promised me that we would go and
play football on Saturday.  He never breaks his promises.  You promised too.”

“And we will Matthew, but not this Saturday.”
 Mark stood up, ruffling his fingers through Matthew’s curly blond locks which
looked so much like Ben’s, but he felt him pull away as he did so. “Mummy will
be back soon.”

Matthew pulled the comics towards him
once again, discarding the sticker album in an act of childish defiance.  He
allowed his dreams of one day becoming Wolverine or Cyclops to replace the
thoughts of becoming Beckham, his fantasies drowning out the last words to
leave Mark’s lips before he left the room.

“Don’t let anybody else in here,” he said
to the agent that stood guard against the door.

“Sir, what about Agent Mulligan?” the
guard of the main exit door asked, immediately regretting questioning his
instructions as Mark glared at him through cold eyes, glass eyes, glistening like
polished crystal.

“I said nobody.”  Mark pulled his jacket
neatly back into place, before once again swiping his card and passing through
the door.  As he walked back up the corridor, he saw Captain White approaching
him.  He looked even more harassed, his hair having a party atop his head,
crazed like it was on a bad trip, as he hurried towards his superior.

“Sir, we need to talk.”  Mark had seen
this look before.  It was the type of clenched-jaw tension that never proffered
good news.  Add into that ‘we need to talk’, and you virtually guarantee the
imminence of disappointment.

“Tell me you have found him.”  Mark clung
onto the last unrealistic hope of positivity.

“We lost Mulligan.”  In an instant,
hundreds of half formed ideas raced through his mind, uncertain if any of them
could represent the truth.

“What do you mean you lost her?  You
can’t just lose an agent.”  He could feel his throat drying and pulse quicken
as his muscles tensed across his body, like an electric shock they tightened in
waves.

“Sir, it’s not just her,” he paused, as
if saying it would somehow make it worse.  “We just lost her whole team.”

As Hannah
steadied the boat
into the small mooring station that sat tucked away, hidden by busy bush and
shrubbery, she motioned for Ben to stand up.  Raising her hand, she waved him
out and pointed to the rope that was curled up at the bow of the small vessel.

“Take that and tie it to the jetty.  Not
the first post though, it’s a bit wobbly.  Be careful where you put your feet,
too.”  He pressed his hands against the wooden slats, slats that looked like
they had weathered without any care or attention for many hard winters, until
he found a stable section which didn’t shift under his weight on which to pull
himself up.  He pushed a few dangling Willow branches to the side, and with a
bit of a wobble as the boat became unsteady in the shallow water as he pushed
too much of his weight through his feet, he hauled himself out.  He did as she
said and wrapped the rope around the post of the rickety jetty, and watched
with each step that the boards were sound underfoot.  She pulled hard on her
end of the rope, checking that it was taut.  He assumed from the simplicity of
the knot that he had executed that it could have been completed with greater
skill, but as she pulled it, it stood firm.  Noticing his lack of confidence in
his effort she smiled and reassuringly offered a discretionary, “It’s fine.”

She lifted up the seat cover and removed
the bag with the flask and fruit inside and threw it down onto the jetty.  He
still hadn’t found it appropriate to ask for something to eat in spite of the
stream of complaints stemming from his stomach, mainly as she had barely spoken
during their fifteen minute journey.  Even if he had wanted to it would have
been difficult for her to hear him over the hum of the engine and the spray of
the water.  He had imagined himself sitting there eating the delights from the
food filled rucksack as if he were a tourist being ferried about the canals of
Venice in a gondola, and it seemed to him such an inappropriate image for their
situation.  His musings had only been interrupted as he became aware of the
slowing of the boat and her instructions to disembark.  As the bag landed at
his feet Ben jumped back, frantically searching the wooden slats for signs of
failure or impending collapse.  She pulled up the other bag and offered it out
to Ben. 

“Take this one.  It’s too heavy to throw
down.”  She passed him the bag that he knew from earlier contained more than
light refreshments, and he felt the weight of it as he slung it back over his
shoulder and it unsteadied him.  Replacing the seat cover, and feeling the
first drops of rain as they began to fall through the canopy of trees, she
stepped off the boat with more grace than Ben.  Taking hold of the second
rucksack, she motioned for them to start walking across the grassland in front
of them.  It was open and uphill, and the ground felt damp and slippery
underfoot.  Hannah was still wearing heels, and progress over the difficult
ground was slow, her feet as steady as the legs of a new born deer.  He
instinctively took hold of her arm to help.  Her pace was fast, even with the
disadvantage of her inappropriate footwear, and whilst he lengthened his stride
to keep up with her, ultimately he was forced to let go as he realised she had
been steadying him just as much as he had her.  She didn’t speak as they
broached the house, which came into view as they veered left around the swaying
branches of another Willow tree.  It was a small bungalow, constructed from
white wood panelling that had weathered gradually through the years since the
time it had been built.  It looked like a large version of the jetty, and he
imagined that in the right conditions it would have been quite beautiful.  The
windows were small and dark, and as Ben peered through whilst he stood waiting
for her to open the front door, he saw nothing but his own reflection staring
back at him. 

Inside the cottage smelt musty, like damp
wood, as if it had been closed up for years.  He heard a series of beeps as she
punched in a code which he assumed to be for an alarm system.  The light that
skipped in through the windows and that managed to sneak past the lead-heavy
curtains illuminated the dust motes floating through the house.  She dumped the
bag heavily onto a couch, disturbing more dust, erupting from the seat as if it
were lava in slow motion.  Ben could feel it at the back of his throat, and
watched his wife suspiciously as she pulled back the curtains.  She turned to
look at him as he stood there aimlessly in the doorway, no idea what to do or
say, as useless as a garden gnome. 

“We have to wait here for a while.  We
need a car and a few other things.  They will be delivered for us.”  She could
see his discomfort at the prospect of waiting longer in this temporary base, as
he shifted from one foot to the next.  “Matthew is safe for now, as long as
nobody knows where we are, and what has happened.”  She stopped a few feet away
from him, uncertain of the welcome that she might receive should she attempt to
shorten the distance any further.  Ben had considered her previous silence as a
display of strength and commitment, but in reality it was born out of a fear of
his response, should she try to speak to him. 

“And if they do work it out?”

“They won’t,” she said.  “You need some
rest too.  You look dreadful, and you’re starting to get the shakes.”  Ben held
up his hands palm down in front of him, his fingers jittering back and forth
just as she had proclaimed, scoring one or two on the Richter scale.  She
approached him, her arms outstretched and submissive, trying to look as
reassuring as she could, her aim to do anything but intimidate.  She helped him
to remove the heavy load of the bag slung over his back and placed it on the
floor next to the couch, and reached for the other bag nearby.

“Come on, take a seat,” she said, as she
closed the door behind them.  He allowed her to guide him to the nearest seat,
a small armchair with wooden armrests with a once overfilled cushion that was
now worn and threadbare.  He sat down, distributing more dust motes into
general circulation, forcing him to cough.  She unfastened the holster of the
gun that her father had attached to his waist and slipped it out from around
him, placing it on the table behind her.  She saw his blue tinged fingertips,
and took both hands into her own.  “You’re cold.”  She felt the chill of his
skin, and instinctively rubbed her hands across the top of his, trying to
restore some blood flow, whilst all the time he regarded her with suspicion,
never once taking his eyes from her.  She placed his hands into his lap, and
pulled out the flask from the rucksack which she had dragged to her feet.  The
cup rattled as she pulled it away from the flask, and as she released the inner
stopper the steam rose up onto her face, casting her in a dreamlike haze, which
he thought perhaps wasn’t all that different from how he currently viewed the
world.  She poured him a cup of tea, taking one of his hands and placing the
plastic beaker into his cupped palm.  She felt the hesitation in his wrist as
she pushed it towards his lips.  “I promise, it’s just tea,” she said, and he
welcomed the intake of something warm as she held it up for him to drink, as if
nurturing him during a period of convalescence.  As he sipped on the hot fluid
she pulled out a chocolate bar from the bag, and after unwrapping it, handed it
to him piece at a time which he ate in seconds.  She stood up, grabbing a
woollen blanket from the settee and shook it open in a corner of the room.  She
draped it over him, tucking it underneath his knees, and raised it up towards
his chest.  “You need to get some rest.  Try to sleep.  You have time.”  She
stood up and side stepped the chair.  As she did so, he looked up towards her,
arching his neck backwards.

“Hannah,” he called, his eye lids heavy
as he reluctantly succumbed to the unexpected comfort of the chair.  He raised
a hand upwards, and his finger tips brushed the exposed skin of her wrist.  To
hold her hand seemed so alien to him now, yet to not touch the skin of the
woman stood beside him, a face he had known and loved for so many years seemed
somehow worse. 

“Yes?” she looked down at Ben as she
stood, her exit halted by his touch.

“If it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead. 
Right?”

She nodded her head before shamefully
muttering, “yes,” fearing that even her willingness to try to save him could
never make up for what she had done beforehand.

“Thank you.”  He pulled his arm back
under the woollen throw, and allowed his eye lids to close.  Before she left he
was already drifting into sleep.  She rested the palm of her hand onto his
face, stroking his cheek, whilst praying that there would again be a time when
she could do so under different circumstances, and when the risk of death for
either of them was a distant and terrible memory.

She threw her jacket onto the settee
exposing the holster and gun resting on her hip.  She left it in place and
picked up the heavier of the two bags, transporting it to the small kitchen
table.  She unzipped the bag, which opened from corner to corner unfolding like
a blanket.  She took comfort from the familiar sound of Ben’s breathing as his
chest rose and fell, and the progressively louder patter of raindrops as they
dripped onto the tiled roof above her, the snug enveloping sensation of being
inside with the person you love on a cold wet day whilst a storm raged
outside. 
Yes, that was where they were, a rented cottage somewhere.  Later
she would cook and Matthew would come out from his bedroom and eat and then
after he fell asleep whilst they were lying on the couch he would turn and kiss
her and they would have fumbled half naked sex whilst trying not to disturb the
creaky but quaint settee. 
She heard the wind rattling a few of the loose
tiles, and with them she rattled back into the reality that this was not a
rented cottage, and that there would be no meals or cosy nights by the
fireplace.  She opened up the weapon filled bag. 
Yeah, definitely just
dreaming. 
Like she needed a reminder. 

She inspected each of the weapons as they
lay before her; a selection of hand pistols, and an Uzi submachine gun with its
shoulder stock wrapped around the bulk of the gun making it look short and
squat.  She zipped the bag back up and left it on the table.  Grabbing another
chocolate bar from the rucksack at Ben’s feet, she peeled it open and took a
large bite.  The air felt cold, and she picked up another throw from the settee
and draped the thick woollen pile across her shoulders.  Walking towards the
window, which she knew offered no visibility from the outside world, she traced
the line of the driveway from the house as it meandered towards the forest. 
The road was shielded by the cover of trees for over five hundred meters before
you hit a main arterial road that dissects through from one side of the forest
to the next.  Nothing would come down this road that didn’t intend to.  Taking
her telephone from her back pocket, she looked at the screen in search of a
message but as of yet, it was still blank.  She wanted the car here already,
and didn’t want to linger here wasting time.  Her son was at Headquarters, and
every moment that slipped by was a moment closer to Mark finding out what she
had done.  Because she knew he would.  He wouldn’t care about the agents that
she had killed, but to foil his plan, to take Ben’s life back, that was a
betrayal too far and with Matthew at his side he had more power over her
actions than she ever wanted to imagine possible.  There is nothing that she
wouldn’t risk for his safety.  She had known that from the moment he was born,
and with his birth the same protectiveness extended to Ben.  As he shifted
uncomfortably in his chair, his sleep disturbed by the drugs and memories of
the past day she promised herself that there is nothing that she wouldn’t give
to keep both of her boys safe.

Moving through to the kitchen, her muddy
heels leaving a trail of triangular footprints on the wooden floor, she could
hear Ben stirring and hoped that he would be able to sleep for a while longer
until the message arrived from her father to say that the car was on the way. 
She opened the kitchen cupboards, more out of curiosity than necessity,
wondering if somewhere inside her memories were waiting for her to rediscover
them, hidden in the dusty corners of the house.  The smell that had first hit
them could be explained twice over by the decomposing bag of potatoes that she
found in the kitchen, and another of onions that were in a similar state of
putrescence.  Undisturbed they remained relatively inoffensive, but as soon as
she rustled the plastic carrier bag to investigate, the smell forced itself up
her nostrils, making her stomach somersault and stir up her recently eaten
chocolate.  She shut the door again, hoping that as little as possible of the
odour had escaped.  Opening the adjacent cupboard door, she noted a few old
cans of paint and remnants of string, amongst which were left scattered old
rags, all of which were the surplus supplies from previous household work
before the owner had died.  The couple that lived here had welcomed her and her
father into their home when they had needed sanctuary.  The previous occupants
had been close to her father, and when one of his missions had proven
unsuccessful they had spent a summer here in hiding.  It had been a difficult
few months, watching her father stand relentlessly at the window monitoring the
driveway, night and day as immobile as a mannequin.   There were happy memories
of those times too, and as she stood here now looking at the old cans of paint
and the otherwise bare cupboards she realised how it was only now that she
appreciated what an extraordinarily bizarre life she had lived, initially
subconsciously, and later as an adult when she chose the same reality and a
life of detachment for herself.