She slowly nodded, and then he looked down at the event’s card. She stroked the corner of her eye with her finger.
Stop it—she thought—you’re meant to wait until after the performance to cry.
Connor limped down the stairs of George’s dojo. It had been his second consecutive day training there, and he was feeling the effects. He smiled despite feeling like he’d been in a car accident. The older man hadn’t come out of this session unscathed either. George was fifteen years his senior—he wouldn’t have the upper hand forever.
He opened the main door and spotted Louis’s Blue Audi TT. He failed to disguise the limp entirely and saw his friend laughing. Connor threw his training bag into the Audi’s boot and got in the passenger seat.
“Maaate, you want to get on the ‘tren-train’ and stop letting that old man bully ya.”
“Tren? Is that what you do?”
Louis kissed his teeth, then flexed a bicep that resembled a baseball trapped underneath the skin, “I don’t need to, I have ‘blackness’ fam, you should try some—like your Mum did.”
Connor smiled. “Why don’t you climb the stairs, and challenge the ‘old man’ with your blackness?”
“Nah,” said Louis, merging the Audi with the flow of the traffic. “Don’t want to bruise mah knuckles for nuttin.’”
“You bag-off that solicitor?”
Bruce had continually impressed upon them to eradicate Royal Marine terminology from their speech. There was no way of knowing where they might get sent or who they might be inserted with, and they might have to hide that part of their background. But Bruce wasn’t here, and the Marines was where they had met. Connor smiled in the recollection that Louis was one of the few who had never toned down the way he spoke. Most lads in the military with strong regional accents did, if only to prevent being asked to repeat themselves constantly or to avoid being characterised by their dialect. Connor remembered that he was never made to feel self-conscious about his Yorkshire brogue until he reached his unit of 45 Commando. One of the lads would parody him—‘goin’ teeerrrr tha gym, goin’ feeerrr ah cuppa tea’. Connor knew he had simmered down the way he spoke—his cousin Tom would often mention it. Louis never did, he punctuated his talk with words like ‘in’it’, ‘safe’, ‘fam’, ‘ya get me’, ‘an that,’ ‘bruv’.
He knew they looked an odd pair—he was white from Leeds, and Louis black from South-East London. They had many shared interests; they were both criminals before and during their time in the Corps, they had met on the Navy boxing time, and both loved women.
“Bag her off? Nah, it’s not like that.” Then Louis asked, “But you’ve fucked Ciara haven’t ya.”
Connor didn’t say anything.
“How was she?” Louis asked.
“Mate, she’s easily in the top three shags I have ever had.”
“Gen?”
“Gen. Choking me from on top, covering my mouth, biting my chest, all sorts. Didn’t think I’d like it, but it was something different.”
“She looks a bit of a beast—in a good way in’it,” said Louis. “Ah had this nineteen-year-old over last week. White girl. Fuck me, she looked like butter wouldn’t melt, but she was a straight up freak. Coming out with moves ah didn’t even know.”
Connor chuckled. “You know what I think it is. I think it’s because of the easy access to porn. I bet half of ‘em have a porn app tucked away on their phones. No girl fifteen years ago was rooting through their dad’s sock drawer for Escort magazine or splinter celling it down the stairs to watch the Television X ten minute preview. But now they don’t have to. Anyone with a phone can download a porn app.”
“Must be why your mom has got dirtier then.”
“You ever gonna get bored of these Mum jokes?”
“What do ya mean? Jokes?” smiled Louis.
Connor’s phone vibrated, and he read the message.
‘Candidates suitable. Be ready to transport on Saturday. Exact location given on Saturday morning. Around the Surrey area.’
The performance transfixed Bruce. Ten years ago, he would never have thought he would have appreciated the opera. He’d been persuaded to accompany a woman he had briefly dated and enjoyed it despite himself. It still amazed him that a hundred years on, ‘Tosca’ was still entertaining the crowds. That said, he mused, the first of Shakespeare’s plays had been performed around 1590.
The great hall echoed with rapturous applause, and Bruce smiled as he saw his niece dabbing the corners of her eyes. He was very proud of how she had turned out. She had got her glossy, dark curls, flashing brown eyes and pragmatism all from her mother, Sandra. Her calm temperament had come from her father Mick, who had died from liver disease when she had been a teenager. Mick’s death, and Sandra’s continuing battle with bipolar depression, had been hard for both daughters. Sarah, the eldest, had dealt with it a little more stoically than Millie but they had both turned out to be great girls.
He enjoyed spoiling his nieces and tonight was no exception. However, as good as he was at compartmentalising, he was aware that Philip Norton would be having his meeting with his superiors tomorrow. There was nothing Bruce could do to affect the outcome. He had to snatch respite whenever he could because if he didn’t, he would eventually implode.
As Ben Shaw had explained to him, that for the audio recording to escape any anti-bug detectors, it would have to be ‘tight wrapped’, and the process of unwrapping it afterwards could take hours.
All he could do was wait.
46
Philip Norton was being escorted seamlessly through the London traffic surrounded by the mahogany and cream leather of the Bentley Continental.
The driver wore a suit and gave off the air of warm professionalism.
Norton imagined that he would have thoroughly enjoyed the experience under normal circumstances. As the Bentley stopped at the lights, he watched a group of teenagers stare intently at the vehicle, no doubt wishing to be him at that moment, having no idea that all he wanted was to be in their shoes. In fact, wishing he could rewind the clock to a time when he was that age—there were so many things he’d do differently.
As the purring engine pulled away from the lights, Norton was reminded of something that the girl had said—that he was doing this for redemption, to save himself. Indeed, he was almost glad he was being forced to do this.
The Bentley slowed and turned into a private car park of a towering office block. It was held back by a barrier. The attendant approached the driver’s side, and the window slid down.
“Mr Norton here to attend his meeting.”
“Of course,” said the attendant before angling his face at Norton. “Mr Norton, I’ll need you to wear these.”
He passed him a wristband and an ID clip. Norton put them on, and the barrier lifted after a moment.
After the driver had opened his door for him, he negotiated the medical consultant through a quagmire of office workers. They seemed to Norton to have an almost frenzied look about them. They came to an elevator. As he entered it, he remembered the girl’s words to him, ‘If you think your nerves are getting the best of you, then force yourself to breathe slowly, and deeply. And swill saliva over your gums. When danger is present, the body will divert water to higher priority places like your head for sweating, and attempt to draw in extra oxygen, so these are biological hacks to trick your system that there is no danger.’
It seemed to work a little. Still, when the steel curtains drew back, and the final door to the meeting room presented itself, he couldn’t stop his heart rate from shooting up.
Frank Schwimmer took in the view from his office on top of the high rise. He loved London. It remained the world’s leading financial centre for international business and commerce. That meant it was the centre of the world for power. Or at least it once was. In this age of globalisation, there didn’t need to be a ‘centre’ anymore.
He smiled when he thought of the conspiracy theories that the masses liked to ind
ulge in. The idea that only a handful of men controlled everybody and everything was absurd. There were almost two hundred nations and over seven and a half billion people in the world. Besides, a group of individuals wielding that sort of power would never agree all of the time.
However, there were secretive groups that could and did engineer seismic influence in the world. Schwimmer’s healthy donations to the Republican party had been noticed a few years previous, and he had been invited to be a member of Bohemian Grove. As he had been driven to the gates of the ‘Ancient Redwood Forest’, he had felt he’d arrived as a power player. The feeling faded over time, and he deliberated that it was down to his alpha personality—always striving for more.
Bohemian Grove was a social club, and a resort for the wealthy and powerful to relax. But to regard it as a place purely for recreation, where nothing ever got decided, was naïve at best. It wasn’t even a secret that the ‘Manhattan Project’—the research and development of the first nuclear weapons—had been first mooted there. It was the types of people that were members of Bohemian Grove whom Schwimmer wanted to benefit from his global organ transplantation venture.
That was what today’s meeting was all about, the progression of that goal. Philip Norton had been one of his chief consultants. Norton had been working for the company for so long, and visited so many of the hospitals, that it had to be near impossible that he didn’t at least suspect where the donors had come from. Schwimmer was looking to expand, and he needed a consultant to oversee the initial health screens of the donors brought in, one who understood why their previous medicals couldn’t be accessed. A highly qualified family man with a secret proclivity for prostitutes and fetish porn seemed an ideal candidate. Schwimmer needed to get a feel for the Irishman personally.
As a precaution, he’d had the parking attendant issue Norton with an admission wristband and an ID card. The ID card contained a chip that monitored fluctuations in heart rate, and the wristband contained a technology that detected perspiration. AGI patented both.
The billionaire knew that to expose himself, and his vision of the future was dangerous. Norton, from this meeting on, would know Schwimmer to be directly responsible for the drive of scraping up the underbelly of different nations and using their involuntary sacrifice for the greater good. Not everyone shared his dream, and perhaps Norton would be one of them. If money or a threat to his reputation couldn’t persuade him, then at least his organs could be used.
The doors opened.
Philip Norton walked into the room. There was a long polished table with grand seats either side. They were all empty.
At the helm stood a man with hair that matched his grey flannel suit. He turned around, revealing a black goatee underneath a pair of enquiring eyes.
“Mr Norton,” the man said in New York saturated English, “a pleasure to finally meet you. My name is Frank Schwimmer.”
“A pleasure to meet you too Mr Schwimmer.”
“Please take a seat.”
Both men sat.
“I trust we are treating you well enough.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Wonderful.” Schwimmer smiled wide. “And you’re wondering why you’re here with me?”
“I was sir, yes.”
“You see Mr Norton, I, and the rest of the board members of course, am particularly interested in not only expanding, but progressing the quality of medical care for the people who can make a difference in this world. Those people who can make a difference to millions of people.”
“OK,” Norton said cautiously.
Schwimmer looked at him a moment or two, and Norton forced himself not to look away.
“Are you familiar with the siege of Leningrad?”
“Err, I am aware—”
“The siege of Leningrad cost more lives than any other siege in history. It lasted over two years. Most starved—around a million and a half. There were twelve men, however, who were surrounded by food. Know who they were?”
Norton shook his head. He began to feel a little more relaxed. Frank Schwimmer seemed to be revealing a personal passion to him.
“They were eleven scientists under one Nikolai Vavilov, a botanist who devoted his life to the study of crops that could sustain an entire population. They took shifts guarding the world’s largest seed bank that contained 250,000 samples of seeds, roots, and fruits. This seed bank would be a cornerstone to Russian survival. Do you know what happened, son?”
Norton shook his head.
“Nine of them died of starvation. Not one would eat the contents of this Bodega—excuse the New York in me—this grocery store. They sacrificed for the greater good. You understand this?”
“Of course I do Mr Schwimmer,” the Irishman had answered him.
Frank Schwimmer was wearing an earpiece in which his assistant Ian relayed Norton’s heart rate and perspiration fluctuations. The voice whispered in his ear, “Heart rate spiked on the word ‘sacrificed’. He’s nervous about something.”
His assistant Terry watched Norton from a variety of angles through the secret cameras dotted around the room.
“So Philip, do you agree that there are people in this world that contribute more than others?”
“Of course Mr Schwimmer.”
“And that there’s those who drain it of its vitality?”
“Perspiring has begun.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you eat meat?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“You eat meat? You’re not a vegetarian or a vegan?”
“Oh. No, I eat meat.”
“So you understand the concept that a lesser being should be sacrificed to sustain a greater one?”
There was a moment of hesitation before Norton answered, “Yes.”
“What we do at AGI is we take those people who have squandered their precious lives for self-indulgence, and we use their organs so that the people who strive in this world can endure. Darwin’s theory of evolution.”
“Heart rate spiked. He’s perspiring. I don’t like this, Boss.” Ian’s voice said.
Schwimmer could see a faint sheen on Norton’s brow. Still, Norton wasn’t going to snitch—he had too much to lose. He’d go through with this until the end. Schwimmer knew the type—Norton would need time to process what had been said, but ultimately he’d stay on the train.
“Like the…like the Russian scientist, Valuev,” stuttered Norton.
Schwimmer smiled to himself. “Vavilov you mean. Yes like Vavilov and his scientists.”
“So,” said Norton, “we take homeless people and drug addicts, and give their organs to people more worthy of them?”
Schwimmer felt his heart rate spike, and it was reinforced by Ian’s voice. “This motherfucker is a Fed.”
Then Terry’s, “It’s the ring, that ring; he touched it. Boss, scratch your nose, and I’ll knock on the door, we have to talk about this.”
Schwimmer scratched his nose and said, “How are you finding your work so far?”
He watched Norton flinch at the knock on the door.
“Come in,” he said.
The bearded, neatly groomed Terry appeared. “Mr Schwimmer, apologies to interrupt but I need a moment of your time.”
Schwimmer nodded. “Excuse me, Mr Norton, I won’t be a moment.”
And he stood, leaving the Irishman fidgeting in his chair.
47
Ciara sat in the ‘London Grind’ bar, waiting for Norton to debrief him.
She had felt a pinch of guilt ensnaring his co-operation the way she had. Bruce had told her that the memory of his entrapment would recede. In time, Philip Norton’s mind would tell him that he wanted to help, and he’d throw himself into his role of ‘double agent’ with more abandon. When a person didn’t have a choice, the mind found equilibrium through rationalisation.
Her phone rang. She answered it, and Bruce’s voice came down the line. “How is he?”
“He’s not here yet.”
There was a pause and then. “You’re not in the actual café where you said you’d meet him?”
“Of course not,” she answered a little prickly. “In the café across the road. Fifty metres or so. I can see all the lead-ups to that and this one.”
“Just checking—fuck.”
“What,” she asked. She couldn’t remember a time she had heard him swear.
“Nothing. Keep me updated,” he answered before terminating the call.
She felt a stab of adrenaline—why the change of tone followed by the abrupt finish?
Norton was now eight minutes late. Not a massive deal—the meeting might have run over—but there was a man propped against the bar who she knew was preparing to come on to her. His black, skinny jeans were ripped at the knees, and a loose scarf lay haughtily over a tight white t-shirt. The blonde hair, shaved at the back and sides, was painstakingly tousled on top. He was not her type at all.
She knew she shouldn’t be judging a book by its cover, but she felt the ensemble gave a definitive window into the guy’s personality. He slid off his chair and sauntered over to her in a manner that reminded her of a catwalk model.
He sat down without asking. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she answered—be polite, don’t be that girl.
“Can I buy you another coffee.”
“I am OK, thank you. My boyfriend will buy me one when he gets here.”
“Oh, I’ll keep you company until he gets here.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Thank you anyway, it was nice that you came over.”
He frowned. “You controlled by your boyfriend. Not allowed to talk to other men?”
Ciara clenched her teeth. “Listen, I am flattered that you came over instead of staring. But I am not interested. I want to enjoy my coffee and wait. Don’t take it personally—there’s isn’t a man on earth who’s everyone’s cup of tea, not even Brad Pitt. Now, will you please leave me alone.”
His expression slowly turned into a sneer. He got up and spat, “Fucking dyke.”
Ciara’s mind dived into turmoil. She knew she should have just let him off with the insult, let it be water off a duck’s back. Besides, she was waiting for Norton. She checked her watch; he wasn’t here now so it would be better to text him and arrange another place. She was taught in her training never to remain more than ten minutes after the scheduled time. She began to seethe—that fucking ‘Made in Chelsea’ reject will go on abusing women at will, and you have the power to make him pause for thought. She thought of her mother’s ex-boyfriend.
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