by Devon Ford
“Rest, please,” he said to her, giving her a kiss on the cheek and feeling the warmth of her skin as she leaned into him. Glancing up over her shoulder he saw Kate watching their embrace, and nodded slightly to her, signalling that he felt Marie had enjoyed enough fresh air. Watching on as Kate led her away, he chalked up another thing, correction things, to worry about on top of their defence and long term survival.
Returning to Leah to see her deep in discussion with Polly he felt another surge of emotion, this time fatherly admiration more than worry. Leah first came into his life as a naïve, sarcastic and frightened young girl. After almost two years she was still a sarcastic young girl, but she had metamorphosed into something so unique: terrible yet brilliant, frightening but caring. He thought back over the years he had spent fighting alongside others, and the time he had spent fighting crime with various partners, and wished that on any single day he could’ve had the young girl as his backup. True, her childhood had come to an abrupt end, and he was a likely cause of that by removing her youthful innocence and replacing it with a gun and the training to use it properly, but he didn’t force it on her.
She was an evolution.
An adaptation.
A demonstration of the human ability to react to circumstance and prosper. She was the caterpillar emerging from a chrysalis to spread her wings, but instead she came out armed and smiling.
None of this could he have articulated, and to simply say that he loved the girl was woefully insufficient. He respected her, cared for her in many fatherly ways but treated her in most senses as an equal. Now, watching as she walked away with the effective mayor of the town, he saw and heard how a child deftly moulded the conversation without seeming manipulative. That, he was certain, he hadn’t taught her.
He felt no need to oversee that task; Leah would pick someone appropriate to accompany the old man high on the hill, taking into account their personality and ability alongside their nature so as not to clash. In short, she would, he knew, try to find the old man a friend and betray the fact that there was still a sweet young girl in there.
Dan’s attention was snatched away by Neil slapping him hard on the backside, making Ash skitter away unsure of what had happened, before he recalled he had a reputation to uphold, and adopted a more menacing look towards the man who had startled him.
“Let that set for a bit,” he said before Dan could offer an opinion on his stinging buttock, meaning the fixings he had just concreted into place. “Next one lads!” he announced, waving his entourage to the stairs to fetch the other heavy gun and carry it the back-breaking distance to the seaward defences. Dan accompanied them, doing his bit by slinging his new gun and hauling a heavy metal container of huge linked ammunition in each hand. He had to stop every fifty paces or so and shake his arms to get the blood flow vaguely back to normal before resuming. His slow progress wasn’t an issue, as the already-tired crew carrying the gun and the heavy tripod were making slower progress. After they had crossed over the small bridge spanning the water’s widening path to the protected bay, Dan saw Mitch’s new ‘friend’ approaching with a small trolley. He guessed from having seen similar things on holidays, that this was the cart she used to transport heavy compressed air diving tanks from her shop to the sea, and having seen their plight had emptied it and now came to offer her help. Hiding behind her hair, she merely wheeled it into the path of the machine gun team and stopped there, waiting for them to mutely understand. A sweating Neil was effusive in his thanks, maybe a little over the top if Dan had to be honest, and the gun was loaded. He found space to stack his ammo boxes, as did the others carrying similar burdens, and added his own body weight to the combined effort of pushing the cart along the cobbled street.
Reaching the foot of the raised sea wall which led to the low, circular stone watch tower he left the team to their task and returned at a more relaxed pace to the gatehouse. He had discussed the sea-facing defences with Neil, and as the older man had already found himself on that side of town as some crazy foreign inventor and all-round tinkerer of things, he had agreed to remain as the de facto commander of that gun battery. He would have to leave Mitch in charge of the gate gun, which would leave himself and Leah to command the remainder of the militia to wherever they were needed in the event of an attack.
The plan was basic, but it had to be. They were truly dealing with a militia, a civilian army, and their tasks had to be simple. A professional soldier could be expected to multitask; to switch between firing mortars and having to man a heavy machine gun to include clearing jams and swapping barrels in quick time but a militia could not. Dan’s imagination treated their forces, although not unkindly, as the peasantry who would herd their livestock inside the walls and join the defence with their pitchforks.
Keep it simple, stupid.
Groups of people would be trained to use the big guns, but not through live-firing exercises as they were literally firing a quickly exhausted supply. Bullets were, as of almost two years ago, an endangered species.
The question of the anti-tank rockets, the disposable ‘fire and forget’ things was raised, and it was agreed that asking a civilian to use one of those would be somewhere between unfair and catastrophically dangerous. Best keep those particular ace cards up their collective sleeves.
Standing on the upper ramparts once again, reunited with his new toy and accompanied by his dog, he scanned an all-round view of the town and imagined them now to be a damned hard target.
SUSPICION
Steve watched subtly from his quiet corner of the dining hall. He had worked hard to become all but invisible over the last few months, but within minutes of the unfamiliar face walking into the room the whisper had reached him that the boy was asking for Steve by name. If he knew anything about him then the cripple injured in the helicopter crash should be easy to find. That worried Steve.
It was a problem for a man who liked to know everything but also liked to remain anonymous. Now a face he didn’t know was asking for him. He asked one of his most trusted resistance members, Ryan, to find out who the young man was and what he wanted as he carried on wiping down the plastic trays slowly.
He watched as the man he had sent in his place sat down opposite the young man in the clean clothes. A glance to either side by his lieutenant made the other diners give them space in silence. The boy stopped eating and stared at the man opposite him.
“Steve?” he hissed, clearly unsuited to covert operations.
“Who’s asking?” said Ryan without looking up from the food he shovelled into his mouth, who was at least five years too young and a head too short to be Steve.
“My name’s Max,” Max said, feeling sorely obvious in a room full of people wearing rough and stained clothing. Perhaps changing out of his crisp, white shirt first would’ve been sensible. “And I need to tell you something,” he finished urgently.
“Ok, Max,” said Ryan, finally looking up to see a boy he guessed was genuinely scared, “what do you need to say?”
He leaned down to the table, making it obvious to anyone who was watching that he was trying to impart secrets. “A guard got killed last night,” he hissed, louder than it would have sounded if he had just spoken softly. That came as no surprise to Ryan, as the day’s feverish activity had all been centred around the murder of a guard in the night. It was common knowledge. When he carried on eating and didn’t respond, Max pushed further.
“By another guard,” he said.
Ryan stopped chewing.
“Why would a guard kill another guard?” he asked, careful not to say anything that would imply he had anything but a casual interest in what the boy was saying.
“Not here,” Max muttered, glancing side to side and further betraying that he was hardly spy material. “Steve, I need—”
“I’m not Steve,” Ryan said, resuming his eating as the young man opposite made a face of sheer horror that he had exposed himself. Ryan decided that whilst fear could be faked, this level of de
sperate incompetence could not.
“But I am interested in your little story. Tell me some more of it so I can sleep tonight.”
Max looked horrified. He had no idea what to do next and hadn’t even considered not being able to speak to Steve directly. He wasn’t fully committed yet, but he had gone too far. If what he had said was reported then he would not live for long. Even if Richards believed him he doubted the brothers would take kindly to any inquiry into the death they had already explained away to further their own cause. Lost for answers as to his next move, Max just sat there as Ryan finished his food.
“Come on,” Ryan prompted him. “Hypothetically, why would a guard kill another guard?”
Deciding that he had little else to lose, Max told him.
“Because they want to take over, and the dead man tried to warn me. I mean the Major,” he blurted out as quietly as his nerves would allow. He clearly spoke more loudly than he intended as the woman sat to his left shuffled further away as though the mere mention of Richards brought with it an inherent danger. Looking up at Ryan he felt a glimmer of hope that he had finally said something worthy of an audience.
“Who are you?” Ryan asked carefully.
“I’m Max,” Max said again, with an equal measure of care, “and I’m Richards’s bloody secretary. I heard everything this morning. And there’s more—” he said before Ryan cut him off.
“Not here,” he said simply. “Finish your food and don’t say another word. To anyone, understand me?”
Max nodded, and ate his food as instructed. Ryan calmly got up and walked away to deposit his tray in the spot where they were cleaned. He didn’t see the man speak to anyone else, although he was careful not to stare. He finished his food, taking his time, and waited as long as he could before getting up and taking his tray to where the others were stacked. Looking around he saw no sign of Ryan, or indeed of anyone he recognised as he had been plucked out of a work party which didn’t stay in the camp much. He handed his tray to the man stacking them with a thank you, but was surprised to find that the tray was pushed back towards him. Looking at the man who had jostled him he heard a whispered question.
“Where do you sleep?” the voice hissed.
Looking incredulously at the stooped man in front of him he thought initially to refuse to answer, but a sudden flash of all the combined intelligence reports he had compiled into a web chart went through his head. The web was synonymous with a spider; the unseen assassin hiding in the shadows. All of the useless pieces of paper, those endless half-overheard conversations and fruitless rumours, all of it was true. And at the heart of the web was Steve.
“Headquarters. Three windows in from the kitchens,” he said, hoping that this was the best way to explain it quickly.
“Go,” said the man, snatching away the tray. Max went, walking slowly back to his room. Maybe he was cut out for spy work after all.
~
Max lay on his bed well after dark fighting off sleep. He had no way of knowing how he would be contacted, or even if it would be that night. Just as he contemplated changing his clothes and giving in to sleep he sensed a shadow at his window. Stifling the unmanly yell of fright which rose in his chest he opened the clasp and swung the heavy metal frame out, wincing at the small noise it made. Wordlessly and without invitation the shadow placed both hands on the frame and hauled itself into the room making Max scurry back.
The shadow sat on his bed and pulled back his hood, revealing the stooped old man who cleaned the trays in the dining area. Only he wasn’t an old man now, he was alert and strong.
“Steve?” Max whispered.
“Yes,” Steve answered, “and I’m guessing you know how much danger I’m putting myself in trusting you now, so tell me everything you know.”
Max told him. Told him everything.
Steve listened, asked questions to clarify when he needed to, and finally gave Max instructions which ended in a rudimentary method of contacting him.
Climbing back out of the window and slipping through the shadows to his own bed, excitement and fear slugging it out in an even battle in his mind.
~
Sleep didn’t find Steve that night. He lay dead still on his back, eyes on the dark ceiling as he suffered the mocking sounds of others at slumber. His mind ran through a series of choices, and the way he logically explored them was to imagine a corridor. The corridor had doors either side; some were locked and others weren’t. Those he could open often led to other doors and ways to get into the rooms where the access was denied, and he kept retracing his steps – following the reverse course along his trail of breadcrumbs, to keep a mental road map of his route.
All night he explored the dark corridors of his mind, seeing which doors led somewhere and which were best kept firmly shut. As the light began to turn the windows of the room grey instead of black, he got up and stretched his cramped muscles. Dressing in silence he slipped from the room, careful to over-pronounce the limp in case and half-awake eyes watched him, and walked out into the cold morning air.
Wandering slowly to one of his favourite spots near the livestock pens, carefully avoiding the pigs in case they saw him and made the cacophonous noise they did expecting scraps from him, he stood on the dewy grass at a fence and watched.
He watched the sun creep slowly higher, inching above the skyline. Steve rested his hands on the strand of barbed wire on top of the fence and breathed out heavily. He finally had a plan. His plan had plans, and within those plans other plans needed to work or be standing by to work. The time was rapidly approaching, and it terrified him.
IT MUST BE A TRICK
Lexi had endured the questioning for as long as she felt able to. It may have been weeks, but she feared it was most likely days. The endless cycle of moving rooms and being restrained in different positions; one standing, one sitting on a stool with no possible way to get her back comfortable, and once she was even put it a box which was too short to stand up in but at the same time too narrow to sit.
Each of the rooms differed in their peripheral torture too. Bright lights on in one, loud music in another, inky blackness inside the box.
But then the rooms no longer followed the same pattern and where she expected to be sitting under harsh lights on the same small stool she now found herself with her bound hands tied to a hook in the ceiling forcing her to stand. These factors combined to do exactly what they had been designed to do, and she broke.
She had cried, screamed in rage until her voice cracked, and bawled that she would tell them anything they wanted to know. She repeated this over and over, sagging her body weight until the pain in her hands became unbearable again and then used her legs to support herself until they too became too weary and she repeated the cycle.
The sound of a metal bolt sliding open outside the room made her stop her mumbling and look at the door expectantly. It opened, but only enough to allow an unseen body to place a battered stereo inside the door and it was closed again. The stereo was obviously switched on from outside and the deafening sound of heavy metal music tore through her head and filled the room. Her shouts and pleading were drowned out and she just alternated between standing and dangling until the music came to a stop.
Glancing at the source of her most recent torment, she was struck by the retro and archaic nature of the noise.
“Who uses cassette tapes any more?” she asked out loud, her voice barely more than a whisper.
A tapping sound to her right caught her attention, and she found that the brightly coloured parrot had returned to her. Smiling at it as though she silently thanked it for keeping her company, she asked it the same question in her thoughts that she had just said aloud. The parrot heard her, but in answer it merely cocked its head and visibly shrugged the tops of its folded wings in an approximation of a human shrugging their shoulders.
Well, you’re helpful today, she thought, inciting the parrot to squawk in protest at her tone.
Sorry, she thought to i
t, hoping to appease the insult she had caused.
The bird seemed to accept her apology, and waddled closer to her with its curious gait until it presented itself at her feet and craned its neck up to look her in the eyes.
Turning its head sideways to give her the full and direct attention of one shiny eye, it clicked its tongue and spoke.
“They’re going to kill you. It’s a trap.”
Lexi’s world flashed white and the sudden pain in her hands and the stiffness in her lolling neck were unimaginable. The door banged open, two men walked in and threw a bag over her head.
If she had been more alert she would have noticed the irony that whenever this happened in movies, the person wearing the bag would be able to see and hear clues about where they were going and what was happening.
In reality, her breathing was so hard and panicked that she could hear nothing above the rapid, rasping breaths she took and nor could she see anything at all. The only sense seemingly still working was smell, and that was of little use because all she could smell was the musty stench of the sack her head was in.
She did know that she was bundled into a vehicle and driven over bumpy ground before the monotonous song of tyres on smooth tarmac became almost hypnotic. The vehicle stopped and her hands were cut free, still not one word had been spoken to her so she decided it was best to keep the hood on and say nothing. She tried to stay awake and alert, but her body and mind were so utterly exhausted and had been stretched so far beyond tolerable limits that she gave in to the comfortable seat and slept.
She woke in silence.
Breathing and listening for as long as she could, she raised a tentative hand to the hood and pulled it down.
She was alone in the vehicle, the vehicle was alone in picturesque landscape, and her eyes rested on the keys hanging from the ignition.