Thunder (44 page)

Angry as he was at being discovered, Ellard knew he didn’t have many options. Somehow Greere had found his retirement fund. “I suppose you’re right, sir,” he said, noncommittally. ‘
Fuck!
’ he thought to himself. It must’ve happened sometime after Paris. That would have been why Greere had issued him a new phone. He sneered to himself as he remembered Greere announcing that he’d got him the new cellphone as a reward for all his good work in Berlin... Bastard.

But Greere was right. Tin and Mercury were fucking liabilities. And he liked the idea of getting out of the business early. Given that his boss was effectively colluding with him, he knew that, once they were certain Tin and Mercury were no longer a risk, then Greere would be left with little option but to facilitate an exit for him. “
If
they’re alive
and
out of Afghanistan,” he ventured, “...then there’s only one place they will be.”

Greere nodded.

~~~~~

Barfold

It’s raining.

Good, solid, miserable, English rain.

Pouring down from lead grey, wall-to-wall cloud cover which compresses the heavens into the thinnest sliver of drab twilight, despite it being nearly midday and nearly midsummer.

It’s the perfect day for this.

I force myself to leave the momentary cover of the churchyard’s quaint wood-and-tile Lych Gate, and head out along the weed-free gravel pathway toward the church. I can hear my feet crunching reluctantly beneath me, the woeful amber stones gnashing together sympathetically under my weight.

We were married here.

It has a squat, square, simple, Norman tower and unpretentious nave. It was, and still is, a simple country church for an ordinary couple’s big day.

We also had Lizzie christened here.

She had bawled and screamed in chorus with all the other infants and together they had raised the roof. Until, that is, the moment the holy water touched her brow. Then she was silent. A little angel. And you and I took over from her, tears of joy and pride running unrestrained down our faces.

I blink back tears again now.

A different kind of tears.

These are tears spiced with burning acid. Tears milked from the teeth of serpents. Tears which would etch metal, destroy nations, and poison the very soul.

The huge and ancient yew trees crowd close, and shepherd me forward. They reach out their always green, always dark, always mourning, branches and point the way.

And I can see it in front of me.

A tiny patch of lighter stone.

Here Lie Iuliu & Elizabeth Dalca

The stone is still too new to be populated by lichens and mosses.

Beloved Husband & Daughter

Still fresh.

Cruelly Snatched Away From Us

Still new.

But Will Never Be Parted From Each Other.

A pristine headstone, like the patch of beautifully tended grass which lies before it, and onto which my suddenly exhausted legs cannot help but bend, and they toss me forward so I’m pressing my face into the cruel hard rock, and my hands are grasping helplessly onto the unworn rain-splashed edges, and I’m howling like Hell’s own banshees have been unleashed from within me, and I’m adding my own bitter fluids to the gentle pattering of water all around.

~~~~~

Clutching tightly to her umbrella and flowers, the woman made her way carefully into the graveyard. Every fortnight she came. Alone. Made the trip, on the bus, into the town. Collected a small bouquet from the tiny florists, and walked along up to the church.

Every fortnight she felt a little more tired.

A little older.

A little closer to joining the sombre congregation amongst whom she now edged her aching bones.

There was someone at the graveside.

Crouched down.

Hidden behind the small stone.

She could see hands.

Grasping at the top of the brutal memorial.

She could hear sobs.

Agonising sobs.

“Nicola?” the woman ventured, her voice barely a whisper, her hopes held bound-tight by months of fear and worry. “Nicola?”

~~~~~

I lift my head at the sound of my name.

It’s been so long since I’ve heard it.

~~~~~

“NICOLA!”

~~~~~

“Mum,” I sob. I don’t care what miracle has conspired to bring her here. She is here. Now. When I need her the most.

~~~~~

It is, without doubt, the face of her daughter. A mother knows her own child, anywhere, at any time, no matter how much might have passed or changed, but this woman’s coal-black eyes blaze with unfamiliar ice and steel.

Burn with hitherto unseen fury and aggression.

Burn as if they’ve been to the very edge, and peered into the depths of Hades itself.

“What has become of you?” the woman wails, emotions tumbling wildly, her thoughts and feelings helplessly out of control, and she hurries forward, arms spread wide, rain and pain ignored. “Oh, my darling, sweet, Nicola,” she throws her arms around the other woman’s lurching shoulders. “Oh, my darling baby, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay...”

~~~~~

Heathrow Airport, London

Ellard walked along the balcony looking down at Heathrow Terminal Five’s expansive airside shopping area having just negotiated his way through specialist clearance. The contents of his canvas holdall wouldn’t go through any normal scanner.

His phone started ringing, and he fished it out of his pocket, expecting he was about to be administered with another rousing pep-talk from Greere.

The number was unrecognised. Very unusual. It would probably be a misdial.

“What?” he answered abruptly.

“Deuce,” said a deep male voice.

“Who the fuck is this?”

“Your Grandfather, Deuce. London’s Burning.”

The emergency protocol. “All at sea,” he ventured. His response indicating that he was able to talk, but on an assignment. “Your name,
Granddad
?”

“Sentinel.”

Ellard paled, stopped, and leaned on the balcony rail. Had that wanker, Greere, fucking grassed him out?

“Deuce, one question: Tin and Mercury’s last EMT message confirmed mission completed, yes?”

Ellard watched aircraft milling on the tarmac through the huge glass walls. ‘Strange question,’ he thought, but cast his mind back to the night of the operation.

“Deuce?” Sentinel prompted.

“Yes, sir,” said Ellard. “Confirmed with collateral damage.”

“Thank you, Deuce. Carry on.”

The line went dead.

~~~~~

Barfold

We take a trip, in the hire car I’m using, around to the house so I can collect a few things together into the simple holdall I’ve brought with me. Mum helps me to select a couple of my photographs. Jack has made a space for them, on a faraway mantlepiece. He says they belong there too.

I want to tell her everything, to confess, but I know that I can’t. It would put her in danger too.

“Would you have come to see me?” she asks quietly, as she bustles around, keeping herself busy.

I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Mum. I’m sorry that I can’t explain. And I need you to promise that you won’t tell a soul that you’ve seen me.”

She smiles. “Mum’s the word,” she says.

I’ve not told her the details, but have mentioned my dreams, and that Dad was in them. She asked how he’d seemed, and I’d said he was the same as he always was – right, reassuring, strong and supportive. She’d seemed happy to hear that.

“Your Dad was a good man,” she mused, half to herself. “But he wasn’t tolerant of any injustice. If he’d been alive, he would likely have tried to get back into the Forces to have a go at finding those wretched terrorists.”

I look at her, surprised at this. “I didn’t know he was in the Armed Forces.”

She smiles knowingly to herself. “We all have our own little secrets,” she says simply.

I don’t have long. My return flight is in a few hours. In and out. Quickly. Different names, different carriers, different airports, different connections. I need to run Mum back to the home. She’s quite cheerful about it.

“It’s full of scatty old biddies,” she observes wryly. “But that makes them perfect company for me.”

I’m hoping I can maybe smuggle her out to visit, or perhaps to stay with us, once the dust has settled.

“Say hello to Jack for me,” she says in parting, before climbing out of the car and trundling off around the corner to the home’s front door. She didn’t even bat an eyelid when I’d suggested we should avoid me being spotted. I watch her moving away with a puzzled frown on my face. I seriously think she must’ve done stuff like this before...

~~~~~

Skala Kallonis

Jack hadn’t slept well. He’d been worried about Nick. He hoped she was okay. If things went to plan she’d be on her way back by now. His heart beat hard just thinking about it. He’d missed her.

He rolled uncomfortably around into a sitting position, and recovered his crutches from beside the bed. Their bed. The thought made him smile contentedly.

Hefting himself upright, he hobbled through the lounge and then into the kitchen.

Another bright and sunny day welcomed him through the room’s simple window, and he poured himself a glass of cold water and gazed out, like he always did, watching the birds wheeling above the nearby wetlands and listening to the comforting clanging of goat bells in the surrounding fields.

That was when he spotted the car.

Parked in the distance.

Where had that come from?

~~~~~

Midair, Southern Europe

I stare, sightlessly, out of the window. I don’t care about the clouds which stretch in every direction to the distant horizons. I just want to get home.

It won’t be long.

The plane has already started to drop out of cruising altitude.

Land.

Recover the bike.

One hour, I reckon. No more than two...

~~~~~

Skala Kallonis

Jack edged, as best he could on the crutches, toward the doorway to the lounge. He was being paranoid, he knew. A random car didn’t mean anything. It was probably just holiday makers. Lots of bird enthusiasts would travel halfway round the world to spend a few days with the kind of views his house afforded every day.

The doorway out to the veranda stood open.

He frowned and hobbled one step toward it.

~~~~~

Ellard stepped cleanly out of the bathroom and pressed the muzzle of his silencer against the back of the bandaged man’s head.

“Hello Tin,” he said calmly.

~~~~~

“Deuce,” muttered Jack.

“What a surprise,” said Deuce. “Finding you here, and alive. Where’s Mercury?”

Jack shrugged. “Not here,” he answered.

“I can see that for myself, fuck-wit. Where is he?”

Jack turned his head carefully to one side so he could see the other man. “Not here,” he repeated. “Gone. Don’t know where.”

~~~~~

Ellard snapped his gun hand back, and then forward again, smacking Tin in the face with the butt of the gun. As he did so, he kicked sideways at Tin’s nearest crutch.

“Stop fucking me around,” he snarled angrily, as the agent sprawled untidily across the coffee table in front of him.

Tin rolled off the table onto the floor and Ellard stomped forwards and pressed the gun onto the prostrate man’s uplifted forehead.

“Fallen out with your
boyfriend
, have you?” he spat.

~~~~~

Jack stared up into Deuce’s face. He was lying on the floor with one arm stretched out under the sofa. Carefully his fingers started searching the webbing. ‘Come on,’ he thought to himself. It was here somewhere...

“Well, I’ll find him, don’t you worry,” Deuce growled ominously. “Then I’ll tell him how you died. Perhaps he’ll shed a little tear for you? Do you think he’ll cry when he finds out?”

Jack just smiled and shook his head.

~~~~~

“Come on, Dominic!” yelled Ellard. “You’re usually
full
of yourself. Usually so full of
shit
. What’s the matter? Are you ashamed of being caught? Ashamed of your perverted buggery?”

~~~~~

Jack laughed out loud. He couldn’t help himself. “My name is
Jack
, and Nick is more of a
man
than you’ll ever be,” he managed to splutter.

“Fucking gays.” Deuce turned, and spat a large glob of phlegm across the room in distaste.

It was the chance Jack had been looking for. He rolled vigorously round, and brought himself up painfully onto his knees. The old SIG Sauer P220 pistol was brandished in front of him. The one he’d smuggled back from Poland. The one he was supposed to have dumped. The one he’d secreted under the sofa. You can never be too careful...

Deuce didn’t move.

Both men stood there with guns trained on one another.

Now it was Deuce’s turn to start laughing...

~~~~~

“That gun is an antique,” said Ellard. “I thought I told you to get rid of it?”

“It fired fine, when I trialled it here a few months ago,” said Tin, calmly.

“Maybe so,” said Ellard, “but, of course, I’ve seen it more recently. When I popped around. After you left for Cyprus... Taped under a sofa? What an unusual location. I had a good old look around. You have lots of nice things here that I can take off your hands when you’re gone. Think I’ll leave your crappy pictures though.” He nodded toward the mantlepiece. “Even their cheap frames aren’t worth anything.”

~~~~~

Blind fury raged through Jack, and he pulled the trigger.

The hammer jerked backwards, forwards, and clanked dully against the chambered round.

Nothing happened.

~~~~~

“Shame,” said Ellard. “But that’s what happens if someone’s taken the firing pin out...”

~~~~~