by J. D. Weston
“I have nothing to do with her,” said Harvey.
“But you do know of her?”
“She broke into my house.”
“Your house?” said Kane, feigning ignorance.
“The one you burned down,” said Harvey. He felt the jolt of something inside him, like the flicking of a switch as his anger flared, and then subsided.
“I hope you can see how devoted I am to the cause,” said Kane. “I’ve put everything I have into this little enterprise and nothing will stop me now.”
“What’s the cause?”
“Honour,” said Kane, without any hesitation. “Plus, it would be nice to clear my name along the way. It got a little tainted in my younger days. I’d like to leave this world with some kind of legacy, something the world can remember me by, not just my mistakes. You know how it is. People have a tendency to remember the bad and forget about the good.”
“Does it matter what other people think?” asked Harvey. A single bead of sweat formed on his brow then began its slow journey down his face before nestling in the two days’ growth on his skin.
“I bet you’ve done some bad things, Mr Stone. I bet there’s more to you than meets the eye. The funny thing is, when we searched the databases, Harvey Stone doesn’t seem to exist.”
“You researched me?” said Harvey, then coughed as burning acid reflux warmed the back of his throat.
“I tried. There’s no shame in knowing who you’re up against, is there? Know your enemy, Harvey. The first rule of war. Now, in my experience, there are two types of man with your talent and no record. But I can’t decide which you are.”
Harvey spat on the floor, taking deep breaths and directing his thoughts to an escape.
Kane watched with curiosity, his head cocked to one side and one eye semi-closed, as if he was reading what Harvey was thinking.
“What are my options?” said Harvey. “I’ll tell you if you’re right.”
“Men like you don’t exist for a reason. The government keeps you secret. They’ve invested too much into you. Training. Knowledge. Secrets that will go with you to your grave.”
“Or?” asked Harvey.
“Or you’re a bad, bad man, Harvey Stone. You’ve done terrible things that can never be known and you’re destined for a life underground. That’s why you’re out here. That’s why you’re so upset about your crummy little house. Because it’s all you had and all you’ll ever have. You so much as raise your head in a crowd and someone out there will take it off, tick a box, and walk away with just another brown envelope. You’re a notch on a hit list and nothing more.”
Kane allowed a small pause for his two theoretical summaries to digest.
“Why don’t you tell me which one you are, Harvey? The good news is that I admire both,” said Kane. “There’s no prejudice here. So, tell me. Who is the real Harvey Stone?”
Kane turned back to face the glass wall. His cruel expression softened into a picture of admiration while Harvey took a breath to reply.
“I’ve got some bad news for you, Kane,” said Harvey, as he pushed himself from the gurney and stood for the first time, his bruised bones screaming for some kind of reprise. He found Kane’s reflection and fixed his stare. “I’m just a guy who’s going to kill the man who burned down his house.”
“It’s a pity. We would have made a great team,” said Kane, with an audible and theatrical sigh. “I suppose Miss DuBois is out to scupper my plans right now, is she?”
“I’d say your plans are well and truly scuppered, Kane,” said Harvey.
“How so?” said Kane. “The prime minister is a few hours away, and I still have one man in the field. Plus I’m not too long in the tooth to get my own hands dirty, you know?”
“Who was it Kane?” said Harvey. “Who’s paying you?”
“Now, now, Harvey. A good businessman doesn't reveal his sources.”
“And what’s next? A life on the run?” said Harvey. “Honestly, it’s not what it’s cracked up to be.”
“And why would I run, Harvey?” said Kane. “We’ll be heroes.”
“If you kill the prime minister, Kane, that’s it. You’ll have every contract killer in Europe after you, and you can’t run forever. They’ll hang you by your balls.”
“Kill the prime minister?” said Kane, unable to contain a crazed laugh. “Mr Stone, I am not going to kill the prime minister.”
“So why are your men placed strategically across the town?” asked Harvey. “Armed to the teeth and preparing for a battle?”
“We’re not planning the prime minister’s assassination, Mr Stone,” said Kane, as he stepped toward Harvey. “We are here to save him.”
Harvey didn’t reply.
“So where’s Gabriella, Harvey?” said Kane, his voice serious and his tone flat and cautious. “I imagine she’s comatose somewhere, withdrawal getting the better of her.”
“She’s gone,” said Harvey.
“Gone?” replied Kane, his voice rising as temper reddened his face. “Gone? Do you realise what you’ve done, you meddling fool?”
Harvey didn’t reply.
His thoughts returned to his conversation with Gabriella on the hill, about how Kane was planning the attack, about her military days, and how highly she had spoken of the resistance.
“So it seems your usefulness has expired, Harvey Stone,” said Kane, seeing the realisation hit Harvey like a slap in the face. “And my work is still incomplete. So I’ll bid you farewell.”
Kane moved across to the doorway, where he turned and looked back at Harvey. Then he moved his attention to Farrow.
“You know what to do, Doctor Farrow,” said Kane, then pulled the door shut.
Kane appeared on the far side of the glass wall. Harvey limped away from the gurney to face Farrow head on.
But a tiny light appeared in the corner of Harvey’s vision.
A flash of steel where Kane was standing.
A flickering orange flame.
And a sickening smile as Kane dropped a lighter into the pool of fuel.
From the rise of the hill in the pouring rain, the fire burned bright against the dark sky and black forest, which filled the valley like a slow moving river in the night.
With one hand on the open door of the SUV, Kane turned and surveyed the sleeping town before him, revising his plan for the prime minister while the citizens counted down the hours to Christmas.
A single road entered the town, dotted with the large villas of the rich until the rows of terraced houses began. Tourist-fuelled restaurants sprawled out from the marina, a catchment for the cruise ships that docked in the port each week.
Obscured by shadows, two alleys sat either side of the road where the terraces began. It had been the perfect place for Bravo team to close the doors. But somewhere in those alleyways, they had been cut down by Stone, leaving the doors wide open.
A distant crack of thunder grew in volume then faded like the grumbling of a bear.
A flash of lightning silenced it; the light formed a snapshot of the town on Kane’s retinas.
At the foot of the main road, the largest rooftop in the small town sprawled from the dockside to the core of the community. All routes led past the fish market. With exits to all corners of the town, it had been the perfect place for an ambush.
But somewhere inside lay the corpses of Alpha team, Kane’s best men. His eye twitched at the thought. But the inferno that filled the night behind him satiated his anger.
The entrance to the marina was accessed by two gates at the far end of the town. In his mind’s eye, Kane imagined the prime minister and his family with their motorcade driving past the fish market and through the gates. Kane’s last man would be scanning the scene through the telescopic scope of his high-powered Diemaco from the church tower.
He raised his radio to his mouth, searching the dark town for the tall steeple.
“Tango-one, this is Charlie-one. Come back.”
But only static re
turned through the radio’s tiny speaker. The signal boost from the research facility would be down, and the distance from the hill to the church was too great for the radio waves to travel.
“Tango-one, this is Charlie-one. Come back.”
But still, there was no reply.
Climbing back into the car and running his hand through his wet, grey hair, Kane fired the engine into life, killed the lights, and rolled into town, all the while searching the sides of the road for DuBois.
It was just an ordinary night in the alleyways where Bravo team had been stationed. The black SUV, identical to Kane’s, was still parked close by. There was no sign of the bodies of his men. Kane stopped the car and searched the alleys.
Tucked into the shadows, Bravo-one stared lifelessly up at the sky, his mouth ajar and frozen with an expression of fear. Bravo-two was lying close by. The rain that pounded his dead flesh was insufficient to wash the blood from his open neck.
Kane examined the bodies and removed all identification. Then he searched the road left and right and tried the radio once more. His proximity to the church was now much closer.
“Tango-one, this is Charlie-one. Come back.”
But no reply came.
Kane cruised to the fish market. The five hundred yards required little more than a tickle of the heavy SUV’s accelerator. Gravity finished the job, and he rolled to a stop beside the building, leaving the lights on and the engine running.
Heavy rain thundered onto the roof of the long building, drowning out all other sounds save for the low rumble of the storm that hung in the sky above, reluctant to pass by.
The car park was empty, except for the dark corpse that lay on the ground. The body was lit by a flickering light from inside the two sliding doors. Kane stood over Alpha-two and peered into the building. Rows and rows of benches, worn from years of local fishermen selling their catch to tourists and restaurants along the coast, stood proudly in the flickering light.
But at the far end of the space in the loading bay, a grisly form swayed back and forth, hanging lifeless from a block and tackle. A steel hook was buried deep into the back of Alpha-one’s head. Strings of blood hung from the body, visible even from afar.
Once more, Kane collected the identification of the men he had served with, the men he had been proud to fight with, and the men with whom he had shared a common disgrace from the country they’d served for most of their adult lives.
He added the IDs to those of Bravo team, and placed them inside his breast pocket. Then he stepped back out into the rain. Three flashes of lightning lit the sky. The first captured Kane’s attention. The second allowed him to take in the scene. The third drew his focus to the tallest landmark in the town.
“Tango-one, this is Charlie-one. Come back,” said Kane into his radio, half in and half out of the SUV.
Silence.
He stared up at the steeple at the far end of the dockside road, which framed the marina as if holding the town at bay from the welcoming Mediterranean Sea.
“Tango-one, this is Charlie-one. Come back.”
He dropped the radio into the inside pocket of the car, climbed in, and closed the door, shutting out the noise of the rain on the fish market roof. The little green LED at the top of the radio lit up. It was faint, but bright enough to catch Kane’s eye.
“Charlie-one, I have you in my sights.”
Kane froze at the sound of Gabriella’s voice. The green LED blinked on once more.
“One wrong move, Monsieur Kane, and I’ll put a hole in you big enough to park the prime minister’s yacht.”
14
High Hopes
“DuBois, you don’t know who you’re messing with,” said Kane over the radio. “You’re playing with the big boys now and you’re in way over your head.”
“Au contraire, Monsieur Kane. I know exactly who you are. I knew about you and your plans even before your imbecile friends captured me. It is you who is ignorant of who I am,” replied Gabriella. “Do you honestly think that a cretin like Jones could catch me, Gabriella DuBois? I think not.”
“Are you trying to tell me you planned on us kidnapping you?” said Kane with a laugh and a single exhale of disbelief. “You could never have known what we were planning.”
“Unless we had someone on the inside, Monsieur Kane,” said Gabriella. “Someone who had access to all of your plans.”
“Would this someone possess the knowledge to create SFS too, Miss DuBois?”
“The knowledge, yes. But alas, we lacked the funds.”
A smile, raw and vengeful, found Gabriella’s lips as Kane hung his head.
“Farrow was with you all along?” asked Kane.
“You should have done your research, Monsieur Kane. Farrow was a good friend, as devoted to France as you are devoted to power. But now your power is gone. Your time has passed. In fact, you can count the hours of your remaining life on those stubby little fingers of yours.”
She placed the radio resting on the ledge. Positioning herself with her back to the church bell, Gabriella took three deep breaths to control the tingling in her fingers. She flexed her hand then fingered the trigger.
In her sights, the only movement was the wash of wind-blown rain that fell diagonally across the marina.
“I have played your games for long enough. I am no longer your laboratory rat, Monsieur Kane. Now I am the master, and you will do everything I say, when I say so.”
“You’ll die for this, DuBois,” said Kane. “No more games. No more small talk. When I’m finished with you, you’ll wish you had died in the lab with your dirty little friends, twitching on the ground while their organs failed and their bowels collapsed like the dirty little French whores there were.”
A rush of blood dizzied Gabriella. It was enough to elicit a smile but faint enough for her to bring it under control with a few breaths of the cold air. It was too early to peak.
“And who will do such a thing?” said Gabriella. “Your men are all dead. All that remains of Kane’s Army is a sad, pathetic old man.”
“It isn’t over yet, DuBois.”
“No,” said Gabriella. “No, you’re right. In one hour, the sun will rise, and the prime minister and his motorcade will drive into Saint-Pierre, safe in the knowledge that Kane’s Army has secured the town.”
She paused, giving Kane time to imagine what was in store for him.
“In two hours, you will be dead,” said Gabriella. “But in the eyes of the French people, you will be a hero. If I were you, I would let that little thought carry you through to the morning.”
“We have a very different understanding of the word hero, DuBois.”
“Remove the keys from the ignition,” said Gabriella, maintaining control of the situation. “Try to run and I’ll cut you down.”
The interior light of the SUV flashed on. Kane stepped out into the rain, closing the door behind him. He stared up at the church tower.
Through the rifle scope, Gabriella met his stare. The cross-hairs met in the centre of his chest. She adjusted her aim, finding his forehead. She imagined pulling the trigger. The spray of red mist. His body as it crumpled to the ground.
Kane raised the radio to his mouth. “Now what?”
Gabriella returned the rifle to aim at his chest, the largest target with the most devastating result.
“Toss the keys into the boat yard,” replied Gabriella. She watched him throw the keys, keeping sight on him at all times. “Are you armed, Monsieur Kane?”
“You can see me. Why don’t you tell me?” replied Kane.
“You have a handgun under your jacket on your left side. Remove the gun.”
Kane did as requested. As any man with military experience might, he felt the weight of his handgun with a practiced hand.
“How many rounds?” asked Gabriella.
Kane looked up at the church again as if he was surprised that she saw the movement.
“A full magazine,” he replied.
“G
ood,” said Gabriella. “Although you will need only one.”
“You’re running out of time, Gabriella.”
“Au contraire, Monsieur Kane. It is you who is running out of time,” said Gabriella, enjoying the power she held over the man who threatened everything for which she had lived. “Kneel on the ground.”
Even from a thousand yards, Kane’s outrage was clear. He stared up at her with his arms outstretched as if questioning her sanity.
“Do it, Monsieur Kane.”
“You’re out of your mind, Gabriella. There is no more time for games.”
Adjusting her aim to the right, Gabriella fired once. The headlight of the car smashed. She returned her aim to Kane.
“Next time it’s your knee,” said Gabriella. “Now kneel.”
Kane bent one leg, held onto the wet ground for stability, and then bent his other leg and knelt on the hard concrete.
“Is this it?” said Kane. “Is this how I die?”
“No, Monsieur Kane. This is how you repent. Close your eyes and turn your face to the rain.”
The distance was too far to see, but with his face upturned to the skies, Gabriella assumed that Kane’s eyes were closed.
“Now, Monsieur Kane, put the gun to your head.”
There was no movement for a second, save for the cocking of Kane’s head to one side as he struggled to comprehend the instruction.
“You heard me correctly,” said Gabriella. “Place the gun to your head.”
Kane did as requested.
“Repeat these words after me,” said Gabriella, her voice calm. She closed her eyes and gave thought to those that had fallen in the battle, grateful to reach the end.
“Claudia Deseille,” said Gabriella.
No reply came.
“I have only one headlight left, Monsieur Kane. Do I need to fire another warning shot?”
“Claudia Deseille,” spat Kane, then lowered the radio.
“Monica Deux,” said Gabriella.