by Adrian Wills
‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘Do you have any idea how excruciatingly painful a bullet through your femur would be? You might survive the blood loss, but then again, you might not. Want to keep negotiating?’
Blake tossed his phone at Okeke, who let it fall to the floor and ground it into a mangled mess with his heel, metal and glass cracking and crunching under his foot.
Blake clung to the hope the damage might only be cosmetic and that the technical wizards at MI5 might still be able to extract the audio from its internal electronics. But that hope was dashed when Okeke snatched up the damaged phone from the floor and threw it into the fire where it hissed and cracked in the heat.
‘Now wake him up,’ Okeke said, nodding at Bowater.
Blake inched around the desk keeping a wary eye on Okeke. With a loud clap of his hands, Blake brought Bowater out of his hypnotic reverie almost as quickly as he’d put him under. The politician’s eyes peeled open, like he was emerging from a deep and disorientating sleep. He blinked three times.
‘Home Secretary, are you okay?’
Bowater looked up at his PPO as if recognising him from a distant memory. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, rubbing the back of his neck. He stood to stretch and saw Fletcher’s body heaped on the floor, his eyes wide and staring, his skin a pallid grey. ‘What the hell happened?’
‘He couldn’t live with the guilt,’ said Blake, answering before Okeke could open his mouth. ‘So he put a bullet through his skull. Yet more blood on your hands.’
Bowater turned slowly towards Blake. ‘What did you do to me?’
‘I made you confess your sins.’
‘You told him everything,’ said Okeke. ‘And he recorded it on his phone.’
A fearful flash of panic washed over Bowater’s face.
‘But I took care of it,’ Okeke added, pointing to what was left of Blake’s phone, bubbling in the fire.
‘How?’
‘Coercive hypnosis,’ said Blake. ‘Call it my gift.’
‘And you thought you could use that together with Fletcher’s testimony to bring me down?’
‘No, Fletcher refused. I guess he thought death was a more favourable option than spending the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, waiting for you to take your revenge.’
Jenni, who’d slumped to the ground and backed up to a wall with her knees pulled up to her chest, whimpered.
‘How long have you been here?’ said her father, noticing her for the first time. He rushed across the room, pushing Blake to one side and pulled her to her feet into a warm embrace as her tears flowed freely.
‘Daddy, what did you do? I don’t want you to go to jail,’ she said, choking on her words.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said, stroking her hair. ‘What gave you that idea?’
‘Tell me you didn’t do it.’ She pulled away from him, folding the knife in her palm, and looked into his eyes, imploring him for the truth. ‘Tell me you made it up.’
‘I don’t know what you heard,’ Bowater said. ‘But it’s all lies.’
‘You told him you ordered a family to be killed. A young girl and her brothers.’
‘You’re confused.’ Bowater shot Blake a look that could turn milk sour.
‘So why did you say it?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘But you didn’t do it, did you? Promise me.’
‘I promise, Jenni. Now I need to sort a few things out. Go to your room.’
‘I want to stay with you.’
‘Don’t argue with me. Get to your room.’
‘But I don’t want to,’ Jenni said, breaking free from her father’s grasp. ‘I’m not a child, so stop treating me like one.’
‘I said get to your room,’ Bowater snapped, raising his voice. ‘I won’t have you arguing with me.’
‘No!’
Bowater slapped her hard across the face with the back of his hand, knocking her off balance. ‘How dare you tell me no,’ he said, with fury in his eyes.
Jenni picked herself up, wiping a smear of blood from her lips. ‘I hate you,’ she screamed and ran from the room, slamming the door behind her.
Bowater let out a long sigh and straightened his shirt. Footsteps pounded on the stairs and another door slammed in a room above their heads. ‘Christ, if she isn’t the death of me,’ he muttered.
‘Maybe you should show her some respect,’ said Blake, unable to hold his tongue. ‘She’s a good kid.’
‘And who asked you?’ Bowater faced him with an angry glint in his eye. ‘Things aren’t looking too hot for you right now, so you’d do well to keep your mouth shut.’
‘I was just saying —’
‘Stop talking. You’ve done enough damage for one night. Time to clear up this mess, starting with him,’ Bowater said, nodding at Fletcher’s body. ‘I want his body gone. Tony will show you where to take him.’
Chapter Fifty-Three
With only the bobbing light of the torch Tony Okeke had picked up as they left the house and the sketchy glow of an intermittent moon vanishing behind sweeping clouds, Blake struggled to pick out the contours of the uneven ground. He grunted and sweated along a narrow path that meandered between swathes of bracken following Okeke, and with Henry Bowater bringing up the rear, fearful of turning an ankle with Fletcher’s heavy body draped across his shoulders.
‘Hurry up,’ Bowater hissed as Blake lost his footing and stumbled on a rock protruding awkwardly from the ground.
Blake was anxious to treat Fletcher’s body with dignity in death and was determined to neither drop him nor complain about the difficult journey. It was the least he could do.
After a few hundred metres of steady climbing, the path converged with the main coastal footpath, a wider track heading towards Porthleven where Blake and Fletcher had purchased and painted the inflatable dinghy earlier in the day. They pressed on for another hundred metres with Blake’s thighs burning, rising up the cliff until eventually Okeke guided them through a thick patch of undergrowth.
‘You can put him down here,’ said Okeke, stopping suddenly and putting out an arm to halt Blake in his tracks.
Blake gently lowered Fletcher’s body to the ground and stretched his back, the sweat evaporating off his shoulders in smoky tendrils.
Okeke aimed his torch into a gaping hole in the ground by a red sign hammered into the earth that warned of an open mine shaft.
‘An old tin mine,’ said Bowater, peering into the black abyss. ‘God knows how deep it goes. The farmers around here are constantly complaining about losing sheep down these old shafts. There’s probably a heap of bones at the bottom.’
Blake’s stomach lurched as he sensed the emptiness stretching below him. It was impossible to tell how far the shaft dropped, but they were at least thirty metres above the sea. Falling in would almost certainly prove fatal. Okeke stepped back and pointed his gun at Blake’s stomach.
‘You had no business looking for Kyle Hopkins. You should have left it to the police,’ Bowater said.
‘They’d have caught up with you eventually.’
‘I doubt it. Without a body they’d have wound down the investigation soon enough and concluded Kyle had taken his own life.’
‘You want me to apologise?’ said Blake.
‘Look, what happened in Basra was unfortunate, but you need to look at the bigger picture. I have no doubt we saved many lives that day. They were running a bomb factory, producing IEDs to kill and maim coalition soldiers. That’s it. If we hadn’t shut it down, more lives would have been lost, and more men would have been sent home crippled and their careers finished.’
‘It doesn’t excuse murder,’ said Blake.
‘I’d say it was a fair price to pay. You of all people must understand that sometimes the end justifies the means.’
‘You killed a young girl in cold blood and ordered the execution of the rest of her family. Then you covered the whole thing up to save your reputation. I don�
��t know how you can look at yourself in the mirror.’
‘My conscience is fine. How’s yours? I made a mistake, but I’m paying my dues to the country. You, on the other hand, were involved in a dirty war behind a veil of secrecy. How dare you stand here and pass judgement on me.’
‘I’ve never killed a child.’
‘I did what had to be done.’
‘You’re a spineless, heartless, power-hungry megalomaniac.’
Bowater swung a clenched fist into Blake’s stomach causing him to double over in pain, coughing and spluttering. He took a second or two, caught his breath and stood up straight, meeting Bowater’s eye. ‘And what’s more, you’re a coward,’ he said. ‘First it was Kyle Hopkins, murdered without a thought for his wife and children. Then out of spite, you shut down Echo 17 and arranged the deaths of Harry Patterson and his wife.’
‘Collateral damage. It happens,’ Bowater shrugged.
‘And you might as well chalk up the deaths of Stone and Fletcher too.’
Bowater raised an eyebrow.
‘You didn’t know about Jake Stone? He slit his throat in my hotel room.’
‘One less loose tongue to worry about, I suppose.’
‘You really don’t care, do you?’
‘Like I said, I do what needs to be done.’
‘So now you’re going to kill me?’ The moon vanished briefly behind a cloud, plunging Bowater into darkness.
‘I can hardly let you live, can I?’ Bowater laughed cruelly as Okeke jabbed Blake in the back with his gun.
‘You can start by putting Fletcher’s body over the edge,’ Okeke said, nodding at the gaping mine shaft.
Blake shook his head sadly. ‘After everything he’s done for you, this is what it’s come to?’
‘I protected Ryan Fletcher’s freedom and secured his future, but he repaid me by selling me out,’ said Bowater. ‘I owe him nothing.’
As the moon re-emerged, painting a silvery wash over the windswept landscape, Blake noticed how peaceful Fletcher looked, if you ignored the missing part of his skull. At least the guilt and regret were no longer tearing him apart.
Blake stooped on one knee, scooped up the soldier’s body and shuffled towards the hole in the ground. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,’ Blake whispered, understanding that despite all of Fletcher’s folly in trying to protect Henry Bowater, ultimately he was just another victim. Another wasted life. Another pointless death.
‘Do it,’ said Okeke.
Blake breathed in through his nose, drawing salty sea air down into his lungs. He let the body slip from his arms. It vanished silently into the darkness. No echoing thump or splash. Only the sound of waves crashing on the beach below. And just like that he was gone, unlikely ever to be found. Who would ever think of looking for him in an abandoned mine shaft in the middle of Cornwall? It was almost too perfect.
‘I want to give you a choice,’ said Bowater, after a moment’s silence, ‘because, believe it or not, I have respect for you, as a fellow military man.’
‘Don’t you dare compare us.’
‘Shhhh,’ said Bowater, putting a finger to his lips. ‘I’m not a cruel man, no matter what you think. I want you to have a say in how you die tonight.’
Blake’s legs felt as weak as water. He shivered uncontrollably either from the cold or fear or both. He contemplated bolting for it. Maybe he could take Okeke by surprise. But he dismissed the thought even as it formed in his mind. There was nowhere on the top of the cliff to hide. He’d be a sitting duck, shot in the back before he’d made it more than a few metres, killed like a coward running away. And there was no way he was going to die like a coward.
‘The choice is to jump and face your death like a man.’
‘Or?’
‘Tony can shoot you first.’
‘That’s not much of a choice.’
‘Best I can do in the circumstances.’
Okeke prodded his gun between Blake’s shoulder blades, urging him closer to the edge of the plunging hole. Clods of earth crumbled into the aching chasm.
‘Do I get a last request?’
‘This isn’t Hollywood,’ said Bowater. ‘Are you going to jump? I don’t have all night.’
Blake exhaled slowly. The stars in the sky seemed so bright, thousands of pinpricks of light from distant suns, some of which had already burned out and died years before. Blake was suddenly overwhelmed by the insignificance of his life in a universe so infinitesimally large. His gut tightened and bile rose from his stomach.
‘Stop! Don’t do it!’ A woman’s voice. Breathless.
The three men turned in unison to see Jenni emerging out of the darkness, rushing towards them.
‘Enough,’ she said, stumbling through the bracken. ‘You can’t kill him.’
‘Jenni, what are you playing at? Get back to the house,’ barked Bowater. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’
‘I won’t let you do it,’ she said.
Blake shuffled back from the edge of the drop with his heart still in his mouth.
‘I told you to stay in your room.’
‘So you can kill someone else?’ Jenni’s face was screwed up in disgust. ‘It’s true isn’t it? You did kill that family. You lied to me. You promised you hadn’t done it,’ she sobbed. ‘I hate you!’
‘Jenni, listen to me.’
‘You brought him up here to kill him.’ Jenni edged towards Blake. ‘Why? Because he found out what you did?’
‘You’re too young to understand. Go back to the house.’
‘No, I’m not.’ Jenni stepped in front of Okeke, putting herself between his gun and Blake. ‘Well, if you want to shoot him, you’ll have to shoot me first.’
‘Jenni!’
‘Come on then, Tony. What’s stopping you?’
‘For the last time, get back to the house. I’ll deal with you later.’
‘Stop trying to tell me what to do.’
‘I’m your father.’
‘Not anymore.’
Okeke’s gaze darted between Bowater and his daughter, uncertainty etched on his face, his gun wavering.
‘You are a monster.’ There was no anger in Jenni’s voice, only sadness.
‘And you’re a silly little girl who’s caused me nothing but trouble from the day you were born. Go back to the house!’
‘Maybe you should do as your father says,’ said Blake, touching Jenni lightly on the shoulder. ‘Go back, lock the door and call the police.’
‘But he’ll kill you.’
‘I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I’ll take my chances.’
‘No, I won’t let him.’ Jenni’s hand flashed through the gloom in a blur. Okeke screamed and dropped the gun, clasping his wrist as Jenni staggered backwards into Blake’s arms with the knife glinting in the moonlight.
It was a tiny window of opportunity, but maybe the only one he was going to get. Blake shoved the teenager out of the way and lunged into the scrub, hunting for the Glock. In an instant, Okeke was on his back ignoring the blood pouring from his wrist. He wrapped an arm around Blake’s neck, and squeezed.
Panic swelled in Blake’s chest. He bucked and writhed, swinging fists and elbows wildly, using up the precious air in his lungs that now burned and ached with the desperate need to draw a fresh breath. With his vision tunnelling, he rolled to one side, dragging Okeke with him, and finally his elbow found its mark. As the bone dug deep into Okeke’s kidney, the pressure on Blake’s throat eased. He sucked in a desperate lungful of air and twisted out of the choke hold.
Both men pulled themselves to their feet and squared up like a pair of wrestlers, muscles taut and adrenaline pumping. Okeke threw the first punch, wild and hopeful, but Blake saw it coming, blocked it and countered with a stinging jab to Okeke’s face. Okeke’s head rocked back, but he shook it off and came again, trying a combination of blows, alternating between his right and left fists, pushing Blake back towards the edge of the precipice.
Blake defended
his head with his arms, grunting as Okeke’s rock-like fists made contact with his body. Eventually, he saw an opportunity as Okeke stumbled forward, losing his balance. He ducked below a swinging right-hook, and with his leg swept Okeke’s feet from under his body.
The bodyguard fell heavily, and Blake jumped on top of him, landing on his chest and pinning him to the ground. He dug his thumbs into Okeke’s throat with an aggression that came from a primal survival instinct. Kill or be killed. There was no other choice.
Okeke’s eyes opened wide, sweat glistening on his brow. He grabbed Blake’s wrists and with the strength of an ox and the determination of Sisyphus twisted Blake’s wrists against the rotation of his joints causing an agonising bolt of pain through Blake’s arms.
Blake fell away, assisted by a donkey kick in his chest that sent him sprawling backwards. He lost his balance and fell, cracking his head against a rock. Momentarily stunned, he lay motionless with the stars above pulsating like fairy lights on a Christmas tree, until Okeke’s angry face loomed into view. He grasped a handful of Blake’s jacket around his throat and with fists like clubs of iron, pummelled Blake’s head.
A dark cloud gathered at the edge of Blake’s consciousness. He tasted blood in his mouth and a dull pain radiated through his skull. As he started to slip away, he heard Jenni’s voice, distant and woolly, like she was shouting from the far end of a tunnel.
‘Get off him, Tony. You’re going to kill him.’
More punches landed, like mallets trying to break a lump of granite, and Blake’s arms fell into the cold, damp undergrowth. As his fingers twitched, they brushed against hard metal. The shape was familiar. A gun. Okeke’s Glock. He wrapped his hand around the grip and slotted a finger around the trigger. Summoning every last ounce of energy and willpower, he raised his arm, intending to jab the gun under Okeke’s chin and put a bullet through his brain. But he’d been weakened, and his movements were slow.
Okeke saw it coming. He snatched Blake’s wrist, pushing the gun away, his fingers clawing for the weapon. A shot rang out, shattering the chill night air. Jenni screamed, and both men froze.