by J. D. Weston
“Monica Deux,” said Kane. He exhaled the words as if he understood what Gabriella was trying to do and felt that the recital was needless.
“Estella Bouchard,” said Gabriella.
“Estella Bouchard.”
Pausing to allow Kane to reflect on the names he’d recited, Gabriella opened her eyes and found him in her sight. He was ready to die. He had accepted death long before he’d stepped foot on a battle field.
“Donna Almeida,” said Gabriella.
She felt the pang of SFS release into her blood like a hot coffee on cold teeth.
Kane remained silent, as if saying the name and reaching the end of the recital would instigate his end.
“Monsieur Kane, say her name,” said Gabriella. “Donna Almeida.”
“Donna Almeida,” said Kane. The voice cracked from interference over the radio and the broken tones of a guilty man. He straightened his posture, kneeling tall and proud, waiting for the bullet.
A tear formed in Gabriella’s eye and she cleared her throat of emotion, holding the push-to-talk button down on the radio, but saying nothing.
The one movement she allowed him was to hang his head in shame.
“Thank you, Monsieur Kane,” said Gabriella. “Are you ready to die for your honour?”
The lack of airflow in the glass-walled room combined with the fire that raged in the corridor outside encouraged a layer of sweat on Harvey’s skin that soaked into his clothes. Farrow slid down the rear wall to the floor. All anger and aggression for Harvey had dissipated, leaving just the shell of a drug-fuelled man whose body had entered into self-destruction.
Tall flames licked at the corridor ceiling, angry and unrelenting in their efforts to chew through anything that stood in their path, demonstrating to Harvey and Farrow what lay in store for them when the glass gave way.
“How long will it last?” said Harvey.
He paced along the length of the glass and stood beside the control room window. The control room still sat in relative peace and darkness, its conditions untainted by the blaze of orange that crept along the corridor outside.
Farrow stared back at him, offering an expression that conveyed an acceptance of death.
“Can you talk?” asked Harvey. But Farrow slumped further, his broken mind and dying body clinging to the cool wall. “Farrow,” said Harvey, crouching before him, “we have to get out of here.”
Farrow stared back at him. He raised a hand and touched Harvey’s swollen face as if ashamed of what he had done. His red eyes moistened and a tear formed in the corner of each eye.
Farrow shook his head then turned his face against the wall.
“Farrow, how long will the air last?” said Harvey, grabbing Farrow’s shoulders and losing control of his anger.
The aggression roused the forlorn man from his semi-slumber. He flinched at the touch of Harvey’s hand and, in an instant, gripped him by the neck, holding with an iron-like grip despite Harvey’s attempts to break free.
Climbing to his feet, Farrow dragged Harvey up and across the floor to the control room window, where he slammed him into the glass.
“Don’t you see?” said Farrow, with more of a breath than articulated words. “We both die here.”
Harvey pulled at the man’s hands with everything he had, but to no avail. The grip seemed to strengthen with Harvey’s efforts.
“I’m dying,” said Farrow. “I can feel my body failing.”
“There’s time to get out,” gasped Harvey. “There’s time to get Kane.”
“Die with me here before the fire consumes us both,” said Farrow, as if his offer of death was some sort of compensation for the beating he’d given Harvey.
“Stop, Farrow,” said Harvey, struggling to suck in the thinning air. “Don’t do this.”
But Farrow increased the strength of his grip, pinching at Harvey’s windpipe and slamming him into the glass.
With only seconds of strength left, Harvey began an onslaught of punches.
But no matter how hard Harvey punched and kicked, the blows failed to halt Farrow’s efforts. He slammed Harvey into the wall, pressing his face against the control room window.
Harvey’s hands fumbled for Farrow’s face. His thumbs found the soft eye sockets and forced an entry, pushing the eyeballs back until Farrow screamed and squeezed Harvey’s throat, closing off whatever gap remained.
Deeper and deeper, Harvey forced his thumbs inside the sockets. He pulled at the sinew inside, finding taut nerves that seemed to electrify Farrow. But still, the man held onto Harvey’s neck. A thick sweat glazed Farrow’s skin. As the two men grappled, each of them pushing the other closer to death, bright lights danced in Harvey’s vision. A darkness enveloped his sight and the beat of his dying heart thumped like a bass drum inside his chest.
Without warning, a pane of the glass wall exploded from the heat and vacuum of air.
Angry flames licked at the walls around them both, searching for fuel. They found Farrow’s tortured body.
He screamed and released Harvey, who pulled his hands back to cover his face from the searing heat. Harvey fell to the floor, gasping for air. His fingers searched for something to grip on the smooth linoleum floor to pull himself away and find somewhere cooler.
The flames receded, finding no air to fuel its rage, and the next pane of glass cracked from top to bottom as the heat overwhelmed the glass.
Harvey dragged himself to his feet, his raspy breath sucking in as much air as it could. He pulled one of the big heavy gurneys closer then lifted it, holding it high above his head. Then he hurled it at the control room window.
Nothing happened. The gurney bounced back and fell to the floor at his feet.
Then the glass partition became a wall of raging flames as the fire closed in, trying to enter the control room. Inside, the ceiling had begun to smoulder and thick smoke rolled through the top of the doorway.
Seeing his last chance of escape become engulfed in flames, Harvey pulled the gurney up above his head once more, stepped back, and smashed it into the window with everything he had.
Nothing happened. His attempts were too weak to scratch the glass. He struck the glass three more times. But the oxygen in the air had grown too thin. Harvey dizzied. He rested the end of the gurney on the floor, leaning his weight on it while sucking in empty air.
Through the control room window, flickering orange crept into view, finding new fuel in the untouched walls and ceiling.
Harvey dropped to one knee, unable to hold his own weight.
A hand gripped Harvey’s shoulder.
Instinct sent the signal to his brain to defend himself and strike out, but his body was starved of oxygen. He let go of the frame and braced for the final blow that would finish him.
But no blow came.
The gurney was wrenched from Harvey’s grip. He toppled and fell to the floor. The bright lights that had danced across his vision in wondrous circles now succumbed to the darkness that was closing in. The pain in his chest, likes stabs of a blade, grew stronger as his lungs sought fresh, clean air but found only thick, black smoke.
The next partition of the glass wall shattered. The flames erupted as if rejoicing at their invasion and reached out across the ceiling.
The control room window was framed with a mix of fiery reds and oranges. Harvey turned his face to the floor, seeking a layer of air as the room prepared to collapse.
Harvey closed his eyes.
Another bang sounded, louder than the first. Glass shattered behind him as more of the glass wall gave in, and a rush of heat filled the room, fighting for the same sparse oxygen as Harvey.
Farrow screamed, wild and angry. The yell evolved into a growl that culminated in a final smash of glass. Harvey rolled, peering through one eye in time to see the gurney disappearing through the control room window.
A hand, strong but gentle, pulled at Harvey’s arm. He tried to fight back, but there was nothing left. Even as Farrow pulled him to his fee
t and lifted him, Harvey’s fingers searched for a weakness, the eye, the ears, anything.
A breeze touched Harvey’s face. It was weak, but it was there, fractions of a degree cooler than the hot air that was suffocating him. He opened his eyes as Farrow held him up to the window, trying to pass him through the gap into the control room.
Hope reared its head.
He sensed a taste of oxygen, faint, but enough to tease Harvey’s dying body.
But as Farrow leaned through the hole, pushing Harvey to safety, the ceiling above them collapsed. Burning timber and ceiling fixtures dropped into the room, landing on Harvey and Farrow, and pinning Harvey to the ground with its burning dead weight. Intense heat singed Harvey’s face and hands. Smoke stung at his eyes like hot sand. There was nowhere to turn, no refuge from the blaze.
With a roar of sheer power and animal strength, Farrow threw himself through the flames and fell to the floor. He pulled the burning debris off Harvey, who rolled to his knees and clambered back to the one remaining wall that wasn’t ablaze.
Harvey pushed himself to his feet and shielded his face from the intense heat. But through the flickering flames and heat haze, he saw Farrow crouching in the collapsed doorway. The man who had been so close to death just ten minutes before, whose body had entered into self-destruction mode, began to stand.
The timbers across his back found skin with a hiss that was audible above the crackling destruction of wood. He growled once more. It wasn’t a roar of anger. It wasn’t a cry of pain. It was the final growl of a man who was sacrificing his life in repent.
Timbers fell around him, scorching his melting skin. His hair took flame and lit his anguished face. But he rose to full height, creating a small gap in the flaming debris for Harvey to escape.
As the flames danced across Farrow’s ruined face, his pain-filled stare found Harvey’s eyes. No words were needed. There was no time for sorrow.
“Now,” Farrow cried.
He squeezed his burning eyes closed and let out one final scream of spent energy and frustration.
With just fractions of a second to spare, Harvey threw himself between Farrow’s legs into the corridor. He rolled to where the fire had yet to reach. A cool stretch of linoleum lay beneath a layer of cool oxygen.
Harvey rolled to his feet and reached into the fire, fumbling to pull Farrow free.
But it was too late.
As Harvey’s outstretched hand touched Farrow’s melting skin, the rest of the control room ceiling and walls gave way. Harvey leaped for the safety of the unburned stretch of corridor. He turned to witness a frenzy of flames rush across the debris pile in a victorious dance of orange and red with Farrow beneath it, his sins repented.
“How does it feel?” said Gabriella over the radio.
Kane sighed and hit the push-to-talk button. “Do you think this is the first time I’ve had a gun pointed at me?”
“A man like you? No. I imagine there have been many men who have had you in their sights,” said Gabriella. “But rest assured, this will be the last.”
“And if I pulled the trigger now? What would you do then?”
“I would do nothing. My plan would continue and you would die, shamed, as you are now,” said Gabriella. “Don’t you see, Monsieur Kane? I am offering you a chance to redeem yourself, to clear your name. I am offering you a chance to save France and all she stands for.”
“Why would I care about France?”
“You would be a hero. I’ve seen how you wear those medals on your chest, regardless of your disgrace. You have no honour. Men like you seek glory whatever the cost.”
“You don’t know anything about me, Gabriella,” said Kane. “You were just a lab rat, a disposable lump of meat in the palm of my hand.”
“Lower the weapon, Monsieur Kane.”
Kane glanced up at the tower in the distance.
“I said lower it,” said Gabriella.
He lowered the gun.
“Now get up and walk.”
“Where am I walking?”
“To victory, Monsieur Kane,” said Gabriella. “When the prime minister arrives, you will be standing there waiting for him. He will see you, so he can recognise your infinite leadership skills and the quality of Kane’s Army.”
Kane said nothing. He just stared up at the church tower.
“But your success will be short-lived. You will die. But whether you die a hero or the disgraced fool you are is up to you,” said Gabriella. “Now walk.”
Kane began the long walk, following the path the prime minister’s small motorcade would be taking in the morning. He splashed through puddles of rain water and considered his defeat. What would it mean to the men that had died for him? Killed while fighting for their names to be freed from their tarnished state. Failure now would seal their fate.
“Are you going to tell me how you pulled this off?” said Kane. “Surely now is the time to gloat.”
“We’ve known about your plans for some time,” said Gabriella. “We have spies everywhere and we are all willing to die for France.”
“All of you?” said Kane. The statement invoked a conscious thought that held the faces of his men at bay. “Who’s all of you?”
“Donna,” said Gabriella, “Claudia, Monica, Estella. We were all against you. There are others, as I’m sure you will know. We are willing to die for our beloved France. Not even the vile tactics of a disgraced British military officer could stop us.”
“So it’s true,” said Kane. “You are resistance.”
“Yes. If you have to categorise us, if your analytical mind must place us, then we are the French Resistance. Too long have we hidden in the shadows. To long have we been forced underground. We fight for France. We fight for everything she stands for.”
“I don’t see any others,” said Kane. “Does the future of France rest on the whims of one stupid girl and her idiotic fantasies about right and wrong?”
Gabriella laughed, admiring Kane’s confident officer-like gait from afar.
“The prime minister will be here in thirty minutes,” she said. “He will arrive unannounced to spend a private Christmas with his family in his yacht. It is the perfect opportunity for an assassination. Am I right, Monsieur Kane?”
“Yes,” said Kane.
“The French government knows this. But to install a security detail would bring too much attention to this small town. Would it not, Monsieur Kane?” said Gabriella. “People would talk. They would wonder why the military walked their streets. The prime minister’s visit would be all over the national newspapers. It would be an invitation for many nationalists to come and vent their anger at the man who is bringing France to its knees.”
“People often pay no attention to what is in front of their faces, DuBois,” said Kane.
“And that is why Kane’s Army were hired, a team of highly trained men who can patrol the streets without raising an eyelid. Am I correct, Monsieur Kane?”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Kane. “Is there a point to all of this?”
“So let me finish my summary,” said Gabriella. “Let me explain what this stupid girl and her idiotic whims of what is right and wrong has accomplished. Behind you, at the entrance to town, is the perfect place for Bravo team to secure the town of Saint-Pierre. No escape. Am I right, Monsieur Kane?”
“Yes.”
“And the fish market beside you is the perfect place for an ambush, so it must be guarded. I’m sure you found Alpha team by now.”
“Yes,” said Kane, remembering the hook in the back of Alpha-one’s head.
He crossed the street with the dockside on his left and the church ahead on the right overlooking the small town.
“And from the church tower of Saint-Pierre, Tango team can see the whole town. He was your last resort, was he not, Monsieur Kane?”
“Yes,” said Kane. “So what?”
“So now, when the prime minister drives into the town, there will be no Bravo team to lock th
e doors behind him. There is no Alpha team to prevent an ambush. And there is no Tango team to overlook the town. There is just you, me, and the prime minister, Monsieur Kane.”
“Why are you doing this, DuBois?” said Kane.
“For my love of France. For freedom and for revenge,” said Gabriella. “We will both be heroes. The only difference is that I’ll be alive to enjoy my glory.”
Kane stopped at the edge of the dockside. Dark, inky water lapped against the concrete. The Mediterranean Sea beyond the port was pale with white caps merging in the wind. The rows of vessels, from small fishing boats to sailing yachts, rocked back and forth with the ebb and flow of the storm-driven water.
“So how is this going to work?” said Kane.
“The best plans are always the simplest, Monsieur Kane. The plan differs from your own only in the final act. You will wait where you are. The prime minister will arrive and you will be greeted. You will be thanked and complimented on the excellent security, leaving you to escort him and his family to his yacht.”
“I’m gaining his trust?” said Kane.
“Yes, Monsieur Kane. The prime minister will allow his family to board the yacht. His staff will carry their bags and the prime minister will board the boat last. The moment he turns his back, you will fire a single shot into the back of his head. Your name will forever be tarnished in the eyes of the military. But, Monsieur Kane, in the eyes of France, you will be a hero.”
“And if I don’t?” said Kane, with an exhale. “If I don’t pull the trigger?”
“Ah, Monsieur Kane,” said Gabriella. “If you do not kill the prime minister, the consequences for you will be beyond your wildest imagination.”
15
Stairway to Heaven
Three pairs of headlights appeared at Bravo checkpoint. They passed by unhindered and cruised into the town. Bravo team did not close in behind them.
The first and last cars were both police Peugeots. The middle car was a sleek, black saloon. The motorcade continued down the hill to the fish market, which they passed without incident. Alpha team were not surveilling the area for an attack.