Identity X (28 page)

Several moments passed when it seemed
nobody made a sound.  The laughter ceased and not even Matthew spoke.  The
scene became paralysed, a moment of life captured in an oil painting, a single
second of action depicted for the future.  The realisation of Ben as a tangible
entity had stunned Mark, and once the nervous laughter had worn thin he was
faced with nothing more than the reality that he was the only one left to do
the job.  He was alone and had nothing to hide behind.  No desk, no office, no
agent, no hierarchy or agency to command.  He was faced with only Ben before
him, their lives between them, and his directive willing him forward.  It was
the devil on his shoulder shouting louder and offering much more than any
memory of the past.   The sole purpose of every one of his aims was no more
than a couple of arms length away, a single bullet away from being claimed.  He
took a step forwards and firmed up his grip of Matthew,
a new tactic,
Mark
thought, to threaten the thing that both
Hannah and Ben loved more than anything else in the world, including each
other.

Mark broke the silence.  “You, my friend,
have proven difficult to trap.  But it would seem you have had quite the little
assistant doing your bidding for you.”  He looked towards Hannah whose eyes
flicked between the two men.  “You wouldn’t have survived a second on your
own.”  Mark raised his gun in Ben’s direction again.  Both Hannah and Matthew
squealed in unison.

“I survived your first attempt to shoot
me Mark,” Ben reminded him, as he thought back to the shooter on the rooftop of
the laboratory, when Ben still thought that
Mark
was a friend and could be trusted.  Mark
was pushing forwards and guiding Matthew with him.  Mark no longer looked
steady.  Now as he was moving it appeared to Ben that Mark had become quite
unstable, using Matthew as a human crutch.  With each step Ben could see an
increasing level of gore around the wound on his shoulder, repugnant enemy blood
dripping down his sleeve.  “How could you do it?  How could you sell me out?” 

“It was easy enough.  Enough money,
enough glory, we will all trade what we have for something that we want, for
something we crave.”

“You would trade me for that?  Mark, I can’t
remember life without you.”  Ben’s voice sounded fractured, as if it could
shatter into a million broken hearted pieces at any moment.

“And now you’ll never have to.  I’ll take
your work and it will be me that is remembered.  I’ll be the fucking genius for
once.  No more shadows, no more comparisons.”

“You’re just a pawn Mark,” Hannah
stuttered.  “Just like I was.  There is no glory for anybody in The Agency.”

“You’re wrong Catherine,” he said
arrogantly, not at all convinced by her theories.  “There is.  Once I turn you
in,” he said as he took another step towards Ben, “your work is mine.”

“Even if that were true, it’s too late.” 
She inched her way forwards towards Matthew and smiled at him, holding out her
fingertips in an effort to narrow the abhorrent distance between them.  “You
don’t have the documents anymore.”

“What?”

“I took them.  They are destroyed.  They
were all on your desk, and I destroyed them.”

“That’s a lie.”

“It’s the truth.  I’m sorry Ben,” she
said as she looked for forgiveness.  “I’m so sorry about everything.”

As the man lying on the floor listened to
the conversation above him, he waited patiently for Ben’s move.

“Mark, give me Matthew,” Ben said
ignoring Hannah’s apologies.  “You can’t use him like this.  Let him come to
me.  Let him come now.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said?  There is
only one way this is playing out.  My way.  My way!”    He gripped onto Matthew
harder whilst pressing down on his shoulder for support, as more blood began to
ooze from his shoulder.
 
Matthew’s cries grew louder, Hannah’s too.

“Mark, don’t...”
Ben said.

“Move away from the boat, Ben,” Mark
screamed in a guttural and threatening call to listen.

“Mark, please...”

“Get off the boat,” he screamed again as
Matthew shook beneath him.  He had had enough.  It was time to end it.  He was
tired of Ben’s pathetic defiance. 
Couldn’t he see it was useless?  Couldn’t
he see who was in control? 
He took the gun and thrust it towards Matthew’s
chest.  Matthew screamed out as he felt the barrel push between his tiny ribs
like a doctor’s exploratory finger. 

“Ben!” Hannah screamed, as she pulled her
own gun and pointed it at Mark.  Time for thought was over.  There was no space
for anything but action.  She had left it too late.  There was a gun trained on
Matthew. 
I’m
too
late!  Too late.  It’s too late
. 

Immediately Ben abandoned his guns,
holding them up in the air.

“Alright.  Alright Mark, you win.  We’ll
trade.  Me for Matthew.  Just let him go.”

“That’s what it took, huh?  That’s the
only thing I had to do.  Finally.”  His voice was calm, like a flat line,
without a hint of humanity or life, just exasperation that it had taken until
now for Ben to see sense.  “You were pushing it there.  You have more fight in
you than I thought you would.  More stupidity too, for such a fucking genius.” 
Ben threw the guns on the floor of the boat and took a grip of the small
ladder.  Pulling himself out of the boat and standing on the edge of the dock,
he held his arms outstretched releasing a series of perpetual pleas, begging
Mark to forsake his weapon and free Matthew.  “Over here.”

Ben stepped past the boatman as Mark
instructed.  At no more than an arm’s length away Mark relinquished the gun
from Matthew’s chest and pointed it at Ben’s temple.  Matthew wriggled free and
ran to Hannah, arms outstretched she scooped him up and fell to the rough
ground, cradling him like a small baby.  All the while he gripped her
body with his tiny fingers
.  The smell of urine coming
from his trousers took her straight back to the cupboard where she had sat for
days as a child after the execution of her mother.  As Matthew’s heart drummed
against her chest she felt the same fear and the same agony of loss as she felt
when her own heartbeat had refused to slow down for the duration of her
confinement.  The fear never waned for the duration of the two days, and as she
had sat there, knees crunched up and eyes gritty without sleep, she knew that
nothing would ever be the same again. 

She rocked him back and forth as he lay
paralysed in her arms, and she told him over and over that nobody would ever
hurt him again.

“Finally, it’s over,” Mark said, as he
smirked at Ben
standing
before him, dropping the gun
and enjoying a moment of triumph.  “Get in the car.”

“You’re not going to kill me?”  Ben knew
it was a risk, but he figured if he wanted to shoot him he could have already
done so ten times over.  He had to push him.  He had to know.

“And give up the chance to drag you in,
take the glory?  I’m not gonna miss that.  Now walk.”

“Give me a chance to say goodbye. 
Please.”

“I said walk,” Mark said, as he
encouraged Ben forwards with the nose of the gun.  Mark waited for him to take
the first steps forwards towards the car.  Mark kept his eye trained on Hannah
who watched helplessly as he marched Ben forwards and away from her forever. 
She wanted to react, but she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about the
boatman who was alive just metres away.  They must have a plan. 
They must
,
she pleaded to herself. 
Do something!

“Mark, you know you are taking Matthew’s
father away from him.  You realise that don’t you?”

“Shut up Ben.”  Mark didn’t want to
listen to his ramblings.  He had done it.  He had got him.

“You know I could never let you do
that.”  For all he had done, and all that he had become Ben wanted to hate
him.  He saw remnants of the friend who had been there through his darkest
moments, the one he had loved and never thought he would live without, walking
now at his side, afflicted by wounds and covered in a mixture of congealed and
fresh blood.  Part of him, the old Ben, wanted to sit him down, help him get to
hospital and protect him.  He wanted to believe the boy who had put his arm
around his shoulders as he wept for a lost father was still there.  He looked
like him, just an older
,
bloodier version.  He was so
sorry for what he was about to do, but yet even sorrier that he knew Mark
suffered none of the same guilt.  Finally he knew.  There was nothing left to
grieve for.

“You don’t have much choice,” Mark
sneered.

“Yes I do.”  Ben’s comments were cool and
collected, and had Mark not have been so intoxicated on his own prematurely
envisioned glory he would have been more alert as Ben shouted, “now!”

The boatman rolled over, pulling his gun
and poin
ted
it in Mark’s direction.  His
perfectly trained eye found the sight of the gun and with only a split second
between turning and firing, he pulled the trigger, releasing two rounds which
fired through the air towards Mark.  Instinctively Mark began to turn to face
the direction from which the sound came, just in time for the first of the
bullets to plant itself in his side, and the second in the right side of his
chest.  Ben jumped forwards and dropped to the floor, turning as he did so
kicking up a small dust cloud from the dry ground.  He saw Mark land next to
him, his eyes wide and vacant, and his body limp and heavy.  A split second of
sadness gripped Ben, followed by an immediate sense of relief as if somebody
had reached inside of him and pulled out the fear.  As he staggered back to his
feet he raced towards Matthew and Hannah where he fell to the ground and into
her
arms
.  He held them, and for the
second time today he cherished the sense that Matthew’s life had been saved,
first from disease, and secondly from Mark.  He promised himself that in
whatever life it was that they now had, there would never be anything of
greater importance than
his
family
again.

The boatman was also quick to his feet
and raced over to them.

“Come on Hannah, there is no time to
waste.”  He pulled Hannah to her feet and Ben took Matthew from her.  He kissed
his face repeatedly and made the same promises to him that Hannah had made only
moments before. 

“Get him to the boat,” said Hannah,
pushing them forwards.  “Do you have the passports?”

“They’re in the boat already.”  She
nodded and smiled at him, and grabbing his face in her hands she kissed him
passionately on the lips.  As their lips met and she felt the wet warmth of his
skin, all she wanted to do was get on the boat and leave.  But she had one more
thing to do.  She had to try to make up for the hurt.  She had to try to
destroy the plans of The Agency.  She hadn’t stolen the files for nothing.  She
ran back towards the car.  She looked back briefly and saw Ben carrying Matthew
to the boat, lowering him in.  The boatman was reaching up and took Matthew
from him before Ben also stepped into the boat.  She smiled to herself as she
reached in and collected the paperwork files from the footwell.  With her field
of vision extending no further than the interior of the car and with Ben,
Matthew, and the boatman all safely aboard, nobody had noticed that Mark had
reached forwards to stretch his fingers across the loose ground, grappling
until he had silently retrieved his gun.  With the files held by her chest she
took her first steps past Mark into a future that seemed so full of promise. 
She could see Ben talking to Matthew standing in the boat looking as perfect as
he ever had.  She had done it.  She had saved him and in the process somehow
managed to save herself.

As Ben stood upright and looked back
towards Hannah he saw Mark pushing himself up, disabled but not stopped by the
two bullets and with a gun gripped in his hand.  He was turning to face
Hannah.  Ben screamed her name, but it spewed out from him in a shrill and
dramatic yelp like a dog whose tail or toe had been misfortunately trampled. 
Ben reached down to grab a gun from the floor of the boat, and with Matthew
staring at him pleadingly,
quickly
Daddy
,
let’s go, no more,
please no more,
he heard the shot ring out above him.  He snatched the gun
up from the deck of the boat and raised it up and over the dockside.  He fired
two shots which struck Mark perfectly.  The bullets landed centrally in his
chest and immediately he saw the gun drop from Mark’s hand and his head drop to
the dirt.  As he clambered over the ladder for a second time, scrambling his
fingers in the dusty ground as he raced to his feet, he saw her lying face down
and motionless on the ground.  He fell to his knees as he reached Hannah,
without a second thought for Mark.  He could see the wound in her back, just to
the side and around where he knew her liver to be.  He turned her over hoping
to see weakness and pain rather than the silence of death.  Her breathing was
brusque and staccato, but she was alive.  She was still clutching the files,
hanging on not for the research but for a chance of forgiveness and a second
chance at unity with the man that she had almost killed.