Kingdom: The Complete Series (17 page)

“
You
can't expect me to negotiate anything with you, King. I came here for my
mother.”

“
And
you'll get her.”

“
Alive
and unharmed?”

“
You
have my word,” he says, and motions back to the other room. “Now, you can't
think straight in here and you know she's safe... shall we return to the
comfort of the conference room and you can hear me out?”

“
I
don't need to hear anything. I know who you are.”

“
I
told you, Mark,” the King gives him what appears to be an honest smile – more
disturbing than any grimace. “We're very, very similar. I still believe that
we'll leave this place as equals, having put this behind us.”

Mark gives him an
uncompromising look, glancing back to the metal door.

“
I
can walk out of here with her? Ok, I want to do that just now.”

“
Once
you've heard me out, you can take your dear old mother,” says the King.
“Regardless of your decision. But you
do
have to hear me out. Ok?”

“
Then
make it quick,” Mark says under his breath, and gestures towards the door. The
King smiles to himself and opens the pressurised door, returning to the room
with the two chairs and the small table.

“
Please,
Mark,” he says, indicating the chairs, “sit down and listen.”

With a look of
impatience and contempt, fighting the anger that's boiling up in his stomach
like a violent chemical reaction, Mark lowers himself onto the seat and takes a
breath.

“
Go
on then.”

The helicopter races
over the suburbs of the city, over winding spaghetti loops of houses and
driveways, far enough now to avoid the chaos of the city centre. No fire fell
here: no soldiers, no fighting.

Trespasser One is
messing with the dials and switches on the helicopter's controls. Jamie,
leaving Chloe to nurse her cut hands, undoes his belt and approaches the
pilot's seat, where the two seats are occupied by the Trespasser and his
unconscious extra passenger.

“
Uh...
Trespasser?”

“
Jamie,
everything ok?”

The soldier does not
turn his eyes away from his job, but out of the corner of his eye he sees that
a large, red mark has formed around Jamie's lower face, remnants of his bloody
nose.

“
What's
the plan now?” asks Jamie.

“
Mark's
tracker has began broadcasting. I need to try and get the Agency on my side for
this next part. I'm guessing you want me to let you and Chloe out before I
bring hell down on our heads? Where will I drop you?”

Jamie looks back at
Chloe, who is opening and closing her hands, wincing with pain as her cuts
close and reopen.

The question hangs in
the air as Chloe senses his stare and looks up, both of them a half-dead mess.

“
What?”
she mouths, her voice drowned out.

“
Where
do you want to start running from?” he asks. She doesn't answer to start with,
she just looks at him with her eyes. There used to be a sparkle in those eyes –
it's still there, but it's being smothered. “Chloe?” he asks her, waiting for a
suggestion.

She says nothing – her
eyes tell him that it's not that simple, that it never is. In those eyes, he
sees everything that they've been through in the past twenty-four hours.

Torture. Extortion. The
threat of human trafficking. They've been shot at by criminals and
law-enforcers alike, they've skirted death more times in one day than most
people do in a lifetime.

At some point, Jamie
knows, they'll have to stop running. It'll kill them eventually.

Jamie looks at the
Trespasser, and a second passes. It doesn't feel like a second – not for him.
He sees everything they've been through; he can almost taste the blood the
first time he tried to stop time.

Jamie hears Mark saying
goodbye to him in the gardens.

You're not a bad man.

He had really meant it.
Mark knew that Jamie was a car thief, a career criminal with little regard for
the well-being of others: a selfish man. When they had first met, Jamie had
just killed two men in cold blood and knee-capped a third. He had pointed a gun
at Mark's face.

Yet Mark had meant it
when he had said it: he doesn't believe that Jamie is a bad man.

Nobody knows that
better than Chloe, and she sees the turmoil in his expression, his mind working
to come to terms with what he's about to say.

So she says it first:
not with words, but with her eyes.

Chloe purses her lips,
and shakes her head. Jamie gives her a faint nod.

They understand.

“
We're
not leaving,” he tells the Trespasser. “We're coming with you.”

 “
You
sure? This could get rough pretty fast.”

“
We're
used to rough,” says Jamie. “Just do what you have to do.”

“
What
changed your mind?”

“
Mark
saved our lives,” Jamie tells him, “and right now he needs a favour. I don't
know what your plan is, or if it's even going to work; but I owe him this much,
at least.”

“
If
you're sure,” says the Trespasser. “I'll get to work on the next part of the
plan.”

“
Which
is?”

“
Contacting
my superior,” he says, producing his comms unit from a pouch on his webbing,
“and giving him the ultimatum: expose this, or get buried under it. Same
options he gave us.”

“
You
think he'll go for that?”

“
He
will when I explain it to him.”

“
And
if that doesn't work?”

“
I'll
think of something,” he says. “Trespasser's are adaptable.”

Jamie nods, and waits.
The Trespasser does nothing, and then looks up at Jamie.

“
Something
wrong?” asks Jamie.

“
Why
are you staring at me?”

“
I'm
waiting for you to enact your master plan.”

“
I
can't do it with you watching, Jamie,” he says.

“
What?
Really?”

“
I'm
not the greatest of public speakers, mate; I'm used to punching and shooting
people. Just save me the embarrassment, ok, go sit with your girlfriend.”

Jamie shrugs and gives
him some space.

The Trespasser sighs,
trying to get the sickening nerves out of his stomach. He lets out a frustrated
breath and shakes himself.

“
Typical,”
he groans. “I'll punch a trained soldier in the face without a thought, but ask
me to pick an argument with my boss and I turn into a child.”

He leans over and takes
the helmet off the pilot's head, and holds the microphone up to his own earpiece.
The Trespasser hits the broadcast button on the helicopter's dash, counts to
three, and then puts the USB comms unit back into his helmet.

“
This
is Trespasser One, come in.”

The headset remains
silent, but he can hear.

Trespasser One eases
back on the throttle and lets the aircraft right itself, decreasing power until
he is maintaining altitude, hovering in the one spot over the suburbs.

He takes the tracker
out, and finds it pointing back – towards the north of the city, a fair
distance away now.

“
Command,”
he says, louder, “either you talk to me or I say this to whoever is listening
and let it spread on its own.”

The static stops and
changes, shifting to a clearer tone, and the voice that comes through the
headset is the familiar, masculine, commanding tones of his superior.

“
You've
got some nerve -”

“
I
also have something you're going to want to hear.”

“
I
can have a jet scrambled to blow you out of the sky in a few minutes. Give me
one reason why I shouldn't.”

“
Because
then you don't find out where I've got my trump card hidden. If you take me out
of the game, you take yourself out of it too.”

“
What
are you talking about?”

Trespasser One smiles –
uncertainty. It's there, faint, but he's trained, and he can hear it.

“
You
might want to clear the room, if you haven't already,” he takes a breath. “I
know everything, Command. I know everything. The King, the truth behind
Glasgow's prosperity, the truth behind the falling crime rates and the property
prices; I know what price it all came at.” Command says nothing, so he
continues, growing bolder. “I wondered why we were given specific areas and
buildings to avoid – why I was to avoid asking questions about the King, but I
get it now. The Agency doesn't just know about him. They're helping him, aren't
they? They know everything, and they decided that he was so good for Glasgow,
so good for the statistics and the numbers that they'd just let him stay in
power. Maybe even help him out.”

“
Now
you listen son -”

“
No,
here's how this is going to go. You have my location as long as my comms unit
is plugged in: you're going to follow me to the King's location, and you're
going to help me expose him.”

“
Son,
stop. Listen to sense.”

The Trespasser hears
real distress now, and he savours it, pushing the advantage.

“
You
remember my target? The one that single-handedly took out a few trained strike
teams with his fists? He's with the King. He's going to take the King down. So
here is my olive branch,” he says, and Command is silent. “I want to give you
the chance to fix this. Send a strike team. Arrest the King properly, give him
due process... I don't know how high up the corruption has gone, or how he did
it, but that man is going down either way. The world
is
going to find
out, and his little empire will crumble when it does. You can either be on the
side that strings him up, or you can get strung up with him.”

“
Trespasser
One,”
Command's voice comes over the headset. There's no
uncertainty or fear in it anymore.
“You are a foot soldier. The big
decisions don't come to you. You do not know, nor understand, the benefits that
this arrangement has brought to that city. Glasgow is just the beginning, and
your friend with the powers, the janitor? He's gone. Dead. The King will have
dealt with him, bulletproof or not. You should have followed orders, son.”

“
Command
this guy is a tyrant, a warlord who has taken an entire city hostage.
Trespassers – hell, the entire Agency – was created to fight threats like him.
Are you telling me that you're going to just allow a psychopath to occupy one
of our cities?”

“
You're
failing to understand the Agency's role, Trespasser. We were created to ensure
that the population is kept safe, and we are doing that. Sometimes we depose
warlords – sometimes, the warlords are the best thing for the population, and
we let them stay in place.”

“
Are
you, or are you not,” he turns the helicopter around until it is facing the
direction that Mark's tracker is pointing him, “going to help me take down the
King, Command?”

Command is silent for
longer than the Trespasser can stand, and when he does speak, it is with a very
grave, final:

“
He's
not a warlord.”

“
I'll
take that as a no, then,” the Trespasser turns again, regarding the young
couple, and flashes a triumphant smile at them. “In which case, Command, let me
tell you that you just announced your intent to everybody on comms in Operation
Firefall. I had the pilot's helmet broadcasting on all frequencies the entire
time.”

There is silence over
the radio.

“
Your
move, Command. As for those of you that are still listening and remember what
the Agency stands for: I am flying a standard Westland Puma transport
helicopter in Agency colours, previously designated as Eagle Four – the pilot
is unconscious in the seat beside me. It's easy enough to track: follow me, and
I'll show you where the King is. I can't do this alone. I hope to see you
there.”

The Trespasser gives
Chloe and Jamie a nod, pushes the throttle as far as it will go, and tilts the
helicopter forward. They all hold on, watching as the body swings under the
rotors like a pendulum and they rush forwards, the rain rattling the hull like
machine gun fire.