by Mark Mannock
“This has all happened in the last few minutes?” I was looking at the time stamp on the screen. “How long do you think it would take us to get to the festival site?”
“Too long.”
I knew Greatrex was right, so we kept looking at the screen.
Our man reached into the keyboard. It was the first time he appeared to hesitate. The figure pulled his hand out and then reached in again. He found nothing. Of course, we already knew that would be the case. With his body language looking slightly more agitated, the figure turned the keyboard around and unscrewed the other end. His hand went in and came back out again. Still nothing. His body language was growing extremely unsettled and intense. It was then that he turned to look around the container—what had he missed?
Our shadowy intruder then turned all the way around. The torch on the ground now lit his whole face. It was an angry face, it was a frustrated face, and it was a confused face. Jack and I glanced at each other. It was the face of the man we knew as Elliot Brooks.
It was 3 a.m. Greatrex and I had been talking for almost an hour.
“Well, there you go. It will definitely all go down on the Isle of Wight,” said my friend.
“And that lowlife Brooks,” I responded, “or whatever the hell his name is, has put himself right in the center of this, and you know what, I’m glad we’ll get our hands on him.”
There was no doubt in either of our minds that Elliot Brooks was directly behind the abduction and possible murder of Kaitlin Reed. He was obviously also a very trusted member of Giles Winter’s entourage.
“I think we shall be hearing from Mr. Winter shortly,” said Greatrex. “I suspect that sometime tonight, if not already, he’s going to receive news that will make him a very unhappy man.”
“The question now, the life-altering question, is who will he direct his frustrations at?” I added.
We couldn’t go back now; we had committed. We were now banking everything on our suspicion that Giles Winter would come after us rather than risk losing or hurting his human trump cards, Leyla and Amira.
A few minutes later I was back in bed, but my mind wouldn’t shut down. I didn’t know how much more sleep I would get. There was something niggling at me, not for the first time in the last few weeks. We couldn’t change our strategy now; it was too late for that. The situation could turn bad in an instant. I knew the greatest likelihood was that I was going to personally confront Giles Winter. I wanted to. No one was making me. It was my own moral compass pointing me in that direction. What worried me the most was how I felt about that. Just as I had on the hill overlooking the house in the Rogue Valley, I began to feel the stirrings of anticipation and excitement within me. Damn!
I must have dozed off because again I awoke to the sound of loud knocking on my door. I clambered out of bed, forcing myself to wake up.
As I reached for the doorknob I managed to say, “Greatrex, what do you want this—” before I was abruptly cut off by the acute pain of someone’s fist smashing into my face. I fell backward onto the floor, only to feel a compressing pain on my chest. It was a foot.
“Not a word, Mr. Sharp.”
I recognized the voice, but I couldn’t place it. My senses were reeling from the punch and I was trying to get a grip. As my eyes focused, I looked up to see the sadistic face of Santori, Giles Winter’s number one man.
“Make no sound; you don’t want innocent lives needlessly lost here because you called for help.” Santori, the humanitarian.
I heard scuffling behind him. Santori removed his foot from my chest and stepped to one side. In the doorway was Rowley, Santori’s playmate from the Mojave Desert. Also present was Winter’s third man. I recognized him from Leyla’s house in Portland. Between them stood a struggling Jack Greatrex, his arms held behind him by the two enforcers. Greatrex did not look happy.
Once Greatrex was bundled inside and the door behind him closed, I was allowed to get up. I held my jaw; it hurt like all hell. We were marched to the couch and told to sit.
The door to my room opened again and in walked the second most hated man in my universe, the fake Elliot Brooks. He displayed his usual smug smile and condescending manner. I did, however, briefly detect a little urgency or fear of some sort on his face.
“Nicholas Sharp, how nice to see you again … in no way whatsoever.” He was so welcoming.
“Brooks, or whatever the hell your name is,” was all I could spit out.
Greatrex tried to get up off the couch. I presumed he intended to beat Brooks to a pulp, but he was stopped by Rowley’s fist.
“Yes, call me Brooks for now,” said Fake Brooks. “I don’t want to confuse you with real names. You two must have realized that you’ve made a mistake, a stupidly big mistake.”
To look at him and hear him was to want to hit him.
“Mr. Winter is a generous and forgiving man.” Brooks could not lie straight in bed.
“In the tradition of Hitler,” I said. That cost me a slap on the face from Santori, but it was worth it.
“As I was saying,” continued Brooks, “Mr. Winter is willing to forgo hurting anyone close to you if you tell us right now where the samples and formulas are.”
“And if we don’t?” It was Greatrex asking.
“And if you don’t, you will face a consequence that you will deeply regret for the rest of your lives.” The he added, “However long that is.”
“You’re full of crap, Brooks,” I said. “If you hurt the girls, you lose your hold on us and risk losing those samples forever.” I felt good about saying that.
Silence. Uncomfortable silence.
“Well?” Brookes asked.
I always liked it in movies when the hero said, “Go to hell,” so I said, “Go to hell.” That felt good as well, for at least five seconds until Santori’s fist connected with my face. I shouldn’t watch so many movies.
Though I was feeling full of bravado, I was also relieved that they had come after us, not the girls. I was also scared of what would happen if we got this wrong.
“You are fools,” announced Brooks. He turned to the other three. “Search both their rooms. I’ll watch them.” Then he pulled out a gun and pointed it in our direction.
For around forty minutes we sat there saying nothing. There was more hatred than air in that room. The hatred was from both sides.
When Brooks’ offsiders reported back, they had nothing, and Brooks was clearly annoyed. That made me happy.
“For the last time, where are the samples?”
Silence.
“Very well. What happens next has been determined by your foolish decisions.” Brooks’ patronizing smile reappeared. “You are correct in saying that Mr. Winter has no intention of harming the girls at this point in time. I stress the condition ‘at this point in time.’ There will, however, be a substantial consequence for the path you have chosen.”
Brooks paused, as though waiting either for applause or a reaction. He got nothing from us.
“Shortly, we will talk again. At that point you will voluntarily bring the samples to us.” Speech finished.
Brooks nodded to his men and they all turned and left.
For a couple of minutes Greatrex and I sat in silence. We were both a little worse for wear but would be all right. A slight smirk had crept onto my friend’s face.
“Did you notice that each time he mentioned his hostages, he said ‘the girls’? He didn’t mention Leyla or Amira by name.”
“I noticed,” I said.
“Does that mean there’s a chance Kaitlin is alive and they’re holding her here as well?” he asked.
“It’s possible,” I continued, “but what worries me the most is what the hell are they planning? Brooks clearly said that in the short term they’re not going after the girls, and they don’t appear to be coming after us.”
“But they are coming after someone, and probably someone close to us, but who?” asked Greatrex.
“I have no idea,” I sai
d. I was deeply worried. What innocent party had we accidently dragged into this mess? I couldn’t help but feel that in our need to force Giles Winter’s hand, we may have underestimated his response. If he had his way, there was going to be a price to pay. The question was, who was going to pay it?
29
Late that afternoon our convoy of black SUVs headed to the festival site, just out of the township of Newport. I was feeling exhausted and more than a little anxious. Greatrex had gone ahead some hours before in our rented Mini Cooper. As usual, it was his job to make sure my equipment was set up.
We had talked through the morning about ways this could play out. We needed to be as prepared as we could for any move Winter, Brooks, or their men may make. This was important not only for our safety but also for those around us. For this reason, we decided to break with Greatrex’s usual duties while the band was on stage. Normally, he would be side of stage, out of sight of the audience, ready to act if anything went wrong with the gear. He would also pass me my guitar when needed. For this show we had decided that once we started playing, Jack should be out in the audience, ready to react to any situation if required. We didn’t think Winter would try anything in such a public environment, but we were taking no chances.
To help with communication, Greatrex had procured a simple two-way radio system. It included earbuds, to be unnoticed, and hidden lapel microphones for the same reason. He and I could remain in contact while the band was on stage.
As we pulled through the gates into the festival grounds, I prayed that no harm would come to any of our innocent musician friends. They had done nothing to deserve being part of this.
The atmosphere at a big music festival is exciting enough for an audience. For a band performing, it is simply electrifying. Over fifty thousand people coming to lose themselves in music and party like there’s no tomorrow. The festival had several stages, but all the big names would perform on the main stage. It was a huge scaffolded structure with a roof, a giant screen either side, and hundreds of lights pointing downward across the stage area. Spiraling out of the audience were two large lighting towers. These were at least fifty feet high and held a huge array of lights, including follow spots, which could follow any performer across the stage and scan over the crowd. Between the towers was a smaller scaffolded structure; it held the sound desk and the main lighting console. The show would be produced and controlled from there.
I could see all this from where I stood. Once we had dropped off our personal gear to a very luxurious VIP tent set behind the main stage, I had climbed the stairs to the side-of-stage area. The view was fantastic. The whole thing about a music festival was to keep the music as constant as possible; keep the people entertained and minimize the downtime.
I was watching a young but well-known English band. I had heard their first two albums and liked them, but live on stage these guys were over the top. The rhythm section was hot, and the singer owned the room. The three-quarter-capacity crowd were responding with energy and enthusiasm. It was late afternoon, so you could still see clearly across the ocean of enthralled faces. The stage lights were all on and enhancing the mood, but they wouldn’t come into full effect until the sun went down. We were due to play about an hour after sundown. Scheduled to play after us was another legendary band, part of Britain’s rock royalty.
After twenty minutes of enjoying the music and the atmosphere, I returned to our tent. I checked in with Greatrex to make sure all was fine with my set-up. We then excused ourselves and went outside to a more private area.
Greatrex produced a set of earbuds and a lapel mic from his pocket. “Put these on and we’ll check them now,” he said.
I put them on. They were perfectly concealed, so well so that I didn’t even realize Greatrex was already wearing his. No one in the band or audience would notice them.
“The transmitter for these just looks like part of the keyboard rig at the side of the stage,” said my friend. “Now go for a walk—say, three hundred feet away, toward the catering tent—and we’ll test them.”
I did as instructed.
Three hundred feet away I could hear Jack Greatrex’s voice as though we were in the same room.
“Are you picking me up?” I asked through my lapel mic.
“Sure,” was his response.
We were in business. I just hoped that if we needed them, the microphone and transmitter would work just as well over the noise of the band and the crowd. The truth was, I hoped we wouldn’t need them at all.
“Fifteen minutes, folks.” It was the voice of the festival stage manager letting us know how long until stage time. Musicians prepare for big shows—any shows, really—in different ways. There are those who sit in a corner quietly, those who warm up their voices very loudly. Some talk a lot as the nervous energy starts to take hold. It’s increasingly rare for professional musicians to overmedicate with alcohol or other drugs. It is a very competitive game, and if you are off yours, eventually you won’t be asked back. That said, there are still countless stories that are part of rock ‘n’ roll folklore of musicians being poured onto the stage in a heavily “affected” state. That wouldn’t be the case today. I had downed my prerequisite scotch to loosen up a little, but no more, especially on a night like this. I was sitting quietly in a corner, not being anti-social but not being social either. Robbie caught my eye and wandered over.
“Everything all right, Nicholas?” he asked.
“Sure, Robbie, just going through the process,” I responded.
From the look on his face I don’t know if Robbie bought my explanation, but he didn’t push any harder. I was in fact “processing the show” in my head. I was also picturing every possible bad thing that I thought could happen over the next ninety minutes or so.
There was a mighty roar from the crowd as we walked on stage. Barry Flannigan and I acknowledged the roar with raised arms but neither of us looked up. There would be time for that in a couple of minutes. A moment later, Brian Pitt was surveying the scene from the drum kit like a king on his throne. He made eye contact with each of us to be sure we were ready. The adrenaline had kicked in; we were focused and ready to rumble. Brian held his drumsticks in the air and slammed them together as he counted one, two, three, four … we were away.
If the crowd could roar at us, we could explode back at them. The thunder that was the drums hammering across the audience was like Thor himself had visited upon us. As guitar and bass joined in, a mania of driving rhythm was sent into the night like attack dogs looking for prey. On cue I joined in with a powerful synthesizer and Hammond organ wash. The wall of sound was complete.
One minute into playing, we all backed off a little and a deep voice sounded over the monstrous PA system. “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Robbie West …”
The audience seemed to morph into a giant breathing beast as they went crazy. Robbie ran onto the stage and acknowledged his fans with two arms raised to the night sky. He grabbed his microphone off the stand and wailed like an angry angel.
It was then that I looked up and soaked in the intoxicating environment before me. It was totally dark now, so the lights were weaving a magical array of colors across the stage. We could hear and feel the audience but could only see the first few rows. This didn’t stop the crowd from energizing us on to play harder and better. We were giving it everything. Every now and again the audience appeared out of the night as either a roving follow spot lit some of them up, or the blinders, the bright white lights that framed the stage but pointed out to the crowd, flashed on. Now you see them, now you don’t.
As the energy continued to build, we excited, caressed, and saddened the audience as we went from hard rock and dance tracks to ballads and pop. The deal was simple. We will give our all if you give your all, and they did. Robbie was his usual charismatic self. Our front man could entice a small crowd into friendship for life. With a crowd this size, Robbie seemed to kick it up another notch. He was preaching to fifty thousand disciples.
It seemed like a few minutes, but it was nearly an hour and a half after our show started that we began our second-to-last song. It was an up-tempo belter that the entire audience seemed to know. It had been another huge hit for Robbie in days gone past. I was playing guitar for this one, so I moved in front of my keyboard rig. This gave me a slightly better view of the crowd as I moved forward. We were all bathed in sweat but loving every second of it. The crowd now seemed like they were part of the band as we lifted each other higher and higher. The song was arranged so that Brian Pitt would have a drum solo about three quarters of the way through. Robbie would step out to one side of the spotlights, Brian would thunder his way into the audience’s hearts, and then Robbie would step back into the spotlight to lead the cheers for Brian as he finished. We did this at every big show; it was always a crowd-winning moment.
As we began the song, I could feel the relief starting to wash over me; we were almost done and nothing untoward had happened. I almost called Greatrex back to his normal position at side of stage but then decided not to, not just yet. We were coming up to the drum solo, Robbie introduced Brian and stepped back. The thunder began, lights were flashing everywhere in time with Brian. The follow spots and blinders were sweeping over the crowd, lighting them up and whipping them into a frenzy.