Defend or Die

by Tom Marcus

  ‘Didn’t they feed you?’

  I made a face. ‘There’s a reason they call it hospital food, you know.’

  ‘Funny. But now? You’re eating properly? Not just takeaway curries every night?’

  She was right about the curries, as it happened, but I needed to put a stop to this or she’d be asking me about my laundry next, and whether I was wearing clean boxers.

  ‘Just the low-fat veggie ones. All right, Mum?’

  She winced, realizing she’d gone too far. ‘Sorry. I’ll shut up. It’s just . . .’

  ‘I know. I’ve been worried about you, too.’

  ‘About me? Why?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I thought maybe you’d get bored and try to set a speed record on that bike of yours.’

  She shook her head. ‘Nah. Just long walks in the country. A bit of birdwatching.’

  ‘Back to nature.’

  ‘What’s left of it.’

  That was the thing I could never figure out about Alex. As part of A4, MI5’s undercover surveillance unit, she’d ridden a motorbike – a big, powerful one. Her job was to stay on a target when other vehicles were too unwieldy, dodging though traffic at high speed to make sure we didn’t lose them, making manoeuvres and taking risks no car driver, however well trained, could even think about. And she was damned good at it too – a natural. But when the helmet and the leathers came off, she didn’t really behave like a biker. Instead of doing wheelies and a ton-up on the motorway like any self-respecting petrol head, her idea of letting off steam was to put on her hiking boots, grab her bins and a bird book, and head off for the boonies in search of something small, brown and endangered.

  I remembered taking the piss out of her about it once, probably after a couple of beers too many, and she hadn’t cooled off for days. When she did finally start speaking to me again, she pointed out that twitching and undercover surveillance weren’t really so different when you thought about it, which I admitted was a fair point. She offered to take me along on her next jaunt, to see if I had what it takes, but I politely declined.

  What I didn’t say was that it was the adrenaline rush that I was addicted to: the knowledge that if the mask slipped and you got made, it didn’t just mean the op had gone tits-up; it might also mean a violent and potentially armed individual now had you in his sights. A lesser-spotted hedge-warbler might be harder to keep track of, but if you spooked it, it was unlikely to come after you with a butcher’s knife.

  ‘So have you heard from any of the others?’

  ‘I got a text from Ryan yesterday. Hoping I’d had a nice holiday. You?’

  ‘Just Alan. Something about having a check-up at the optician’s.’

  She looked puzzled for a moment, before the penny dropped. ‘Oh, Jesus.’

  I shook my head sadly. ‘Yeah, there’s a reason they keep him in the back office. Tradecraft’s not really his thing. I’m surprised he didn’t send it in code.’

  ‘Thank God he knows what he’s doing when it comes to comms.’

  ‘Well, he certainly came through last time when the chips were down.’

  ‘True enough.’ She held up her now-empty bottle. ‘Same again?’

  ‘Sure.’

  As she made her way to the bar, I noticed one or two heads turn. That’s the thing about surveillance: habits become ingrained and then you can’t switch off. As soon as you enter an unfamiliar location you find your spot, start living your cover, and then check everyone out. The pub was already busy when I’d arrived, with people constantly entering and exiting the premises and generally forming a very fluid and dynamic group. It was hard to identify and keep track of individuals without drawing attention to the fact that you were observing them. But, still, there were one or two who’d got my attention.

  Top of the order was the bald bloke leaning back against the bar, with a mate on either side. As the pub filled up, room at the bar was at a premium, and already a couple of people trying to buy a round had politely asked if they could squeeze past, and both times he’d given them a look. The kind of look that made them decide to try their luck further down the bar.

  Now Alex was approaching him and my antennae instantly started twitching, sensing trouble ahead.

  I sat up a little straighter in my chair, hands loose on the table in front of me. Alex’s back was to me, and the background noise was too loud to hear her, but I assume she’d asked him if he’d move because he was grinning at her, then nudging one of his mates. Then he made a big show of standing to the side, waving her past like a traffic cop. Obviously whatever Alex had said had done the trick.

  While she stood waiting to be served, he moved a little closer again and said something into her ear, then stood back, grinning. Alex didn’t turn her head or show any other reaction, which was not a good sign. If it had just been regular banter, she’d have smiled and given it back.

  After a minute, she turned, holding two fresh bottles by the neck in one hand and her purse in the other, and started walking back to our table. I could see the bald bloke’s hand reaching behind her and she suddenly froze, before taking a deep breath and continuing on her way. At that moment the bald bloke looked straight at me. Our eyes locked and he gave me a wink.

  I was half out of my chair when Alex put the bottles down on the table with a shake of her head. ‘Don’t, Logan. Let it go. He’s just an arsehole.’

  ‘I know what he is,’ I said.

  She put her hand on my arm. ‘I’ve had my bum pinched by bigger bastards than that. I’ll survive. The last thing we want to do is get in any aggro. If we find ourselves talking to the local plods, things might get a bit tricky. Just let it go.’

  I sat back, to let her know I was calm and in control. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Does it matter? He asked if my boyfriend – that’s you, I think – knew I was a lesbian, and when I got married to my girlfriend, could him and his mates come to the wedding. That’s the clean version, anyway. I may have left some of the choicer language out.’

  I shook my head. ‘What fucking year is this? 1973?’

  She shrugged. ‘They’ve got cans of Skol behind the bar. Maybe it is.’

  ‘I think I’d better go over and have a word.’

  She sighed. ‘Do you have to?’

  ‘I think so, yes. Look, he’s looking for trouble. If I don’t rise to the bait, he’ll just come over here and piss us around some more until I do. Might as well nip it in the bud.’

  ‘Well don’t nip his bud too hard, OK?’

  I gave her a nod and went over to the bar. Baldy and his mates weren’t grinning now. They were standing to attention, getting ready for action, waiting for the first punch to be thrown. I walked up to them with a big smile on my face, then rolled up my sleeves.

  It only took a couple of minutes, and then I was back at the table. Baldy and his mates were no longer looking in our direction.

  Alex looked impressed. ‘What the fuck did you say to him?’

  I rolled my sleeves back up. ‘I just told him how I got these scars, and one or two others. I told him how many men I’d killed and explained how I did it. I asked him how many he’d killed.’

  ‘You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.’

  I shrugged. ‘He didn’t have much to show.’

  We clinked bottles and tried to remember what we’d been talking about before we’d been interrupted. ‘So what do you think’s going to happen now?’ Alex asked.

  ‘With Blindeye? Hard to say. That first op was ad hoc. I mean, we had to hit the ground running, no time to set things up properly. It’s been a couple of months, plenty of time to organize something a bit more permanent, you know, so we’re not just ghosts, drifting around.’

  She looked at me. ‘Is that how you feel?’

  Yes, actually, that was exactly how I felt. Unreal. Insubstantial. Not quite alive. Except in moments like the confrontation with Baldy and his mates, when my heart briefly seemed to start beating properly again. But I
didn’t want to tell her that.

  ‘Nah. Figure of speech. I just mean we need a base, you know.’

  ‘Well, maybe we’ll find out tomorrow.’

  ‘What?’

  Alex grinned. ‘Didn’t I tell you? I got a message.’

  ‘No you fucking didn’t. Saying what?’

  ‘Just a date and a time. And an address.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Office building, somewhere in Pimlico. Buy me another drink and I’ll give you the details.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Then I’ve got to shoot.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘Meeting your girlfriend?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  I put my hands up. ‘Didn’t mean to pry.’

  The fact was, I didn’t know very much about Alex’s private life. I knew she had been with one guy for a long time, but that had ended: the pressure of the job, the reason why so many intelligence operatives’ relationships hit the rocks.

  She knew all about mine, of course, poor cow.

  ‘It’s OK. Just a friend. Someone I was at school with but haven’t seen for years. It’s sort of like I want to see what my life could’ve been like if I hadn’t gone down this path, you know?’

  ‘Sure.’ Well, sort of. I couldn’t really do that with the people I grew up with. Not unless I wanted to spend a lot of time visiting prison or hanging out in graveyards. For all that my life was a complete fucking disaster, I’d probably still have ended up top of the class. Not that we ever went to class, of course. School of hard knocks. And some of those knocks were hard enough to be fatal. ‘Right, come on.’

  We drained our bottles and made our way to the door. There was no sign of Baldy and his mates. I looked both ways quickly as we stepped onto the street, just in case he’d been waiting outside, holding a bottle by the neck, but the coast was clear.

  I turned to Alex. ‘Which way you going? You on your bike?’

  ‘Nah, left it at home. Look. I’m just going to pop to the loo. Wait for me, yeah?’

  ‘Sure.’ I zipped my jacket up against the early September chill. The street seemed to have emptied, as if everyone had settled down for whatever evening they’d planned, either staying in the pub till closing time or dozing at home in front of the TV. A fox had stopped at the kerb opposite and was looking at me, utterly unconcerned, as if he knew he belonged out here on the street just as much as me. I suppose he did.

  I was just turning back to the pub to see where Alex had got to when something hit me like a sack of concrete on the back of my head. The next thing I knew I was face-down in the road, my head exploding with pain from where I’d just cracked it on the tarmac. I tried to lift myself up, my hands scrabbling for purchase on the road while I tried to get my legs to work. I turned my head, my vision blurry, and was suddenly blinded by headlights. I heard the grinding of gears as someone put their foot down hard. Shit, I thought.

  The next thing I knew, I was being hauled upright, strong arms around my chest jerking me back towards the kerb. I felt the rush of air as the car screamed past, then watched it barrel down the road, brakes screeching as it turned the corner.

  ‘Jesus, Logan. Are you OK?’

  I staggered onto the pavement. ‘Yeah. Bloody hell. That was close.’

  Alex stood back to take a look at me. ‘What happened?’

  I put a hand to the back of my head. ‘Somebody blindsided me. Then before I could . . . Fuck, that hurts.’

  ‘Just sit down a minute. Come on.’

  I plonked myself down on the kerb and took a couple of deep breaths. ‘It’s OK. I’m fine.’

  Alex did a quick three-sixty, scanning both sides of the street for further threats. ‘Baldy?’

  ‘Dunno. I didn’t think he had it in him, to be honest.’

  ‘I guess you never know.’

  I stood up. ‘OK, let’s make a move.’ People spilling out of the pub were looking our way, trying to decide if we needed help or were just a couple of drunks.

  We walked as briskly as we could up the road towards the station. My knee didn’t like it, but I focused on making my gait seem normal. I put my arm round Alex’s waist for a bit of extra security, just in case the joint decided not to play ball. We looked like an ordinary couple on the way to getting their train home. People drifted away or went back inside the pub.

  I looked across the road, and the fox was still there, still not bothered, as if he saw people almost mown down by speeding cars every night of the week. I gave him a thumbs up.

  ‘All right, Foxy?’

  He looked straight back at me, and for a moment I thought he was trying to tell me something. I held his gaze, trying to work out what it was, but before I could he gave the air a quick sniff and trotted away into the darkness.

  2

  It was still muddy at the bottom of the rise, and my trainers were soaked through as I geared myself up for the final push. Five miles of hard running through boggy fields and farm tracks, driving myself until my muscles screamed and my lungs ached, with the grand finale of Hangman’s Hill waiting for me at the end. One good thing about the pain in my thighs and calves was at least it took my mind off the thumping headache I’d had ever since the incident outside the pub. There were several routes to the top of the hill, but it didn’t really matter which one you took: all of them were brutal. Strangely, though, the harder I pushed myself, the less my knee hurt. In fact, over the last mile or so, I’d forgotten I still had a problem and had stopped instinctively favouring the good one. I managed a wry chuckle in between heaving for breath: all that fucking physio, all that pushing and pulling and stretching and kneading, and all it needed was a brutal spanking like this to sort it out. Bloody sight cheaper too.

  As I passed the rock that marked the halfway stage on the ascent, I thought back to those lung-bursting runs during basic training, often in full kit. If you had anything on your mind, any problems weighing you down, that was the way to clear your head. Everything felt better when all you could feel, all you could think about, was the pain wracking every inch of your body. Yep, no doubt about it: pain was good. It was the only philosophy I had and it had proved its uses over the years. Unless you took it too far, of course, but that was true of everything, wasn’t it?

  Three more strides that made me feel as if I was pushing the weight of the world up the hill and I was at the top. I jogged over to the flat boulder that marked the summit and sat down. Amazingly, my whole body now felt as if it was glowing, pulsing with an energy that seemed to come straight out of the earth beneath my feet. I held my hands out in front of me and spread my fingers, almost expecting to see sparks fizzing from the tips.

  ‘Budge up.’

  I turned my head and Sarah was settling herself on the stone beside me.

  ‘Good run?’

  I nodded, looking at her. Her eyes were screwed up against the sun, her shining blonde hair tossing in the wind. ‘Never better.’

  ‘Look at the little rascal. What does he think he’s doing?’

  I turned and looked where she was pointing. Joseph had a stick that was almost as big as he was and was swinging it round and round as if it was a sword.

  ‘I told him there was a monster up here – a big, shaggy thing with horrible teeth.’

  I smiled. ‘Well, if there is, I don’t fancy its chances.’

  ‘Joseph! Your dad’s here!’ Sarah had to shout against the wind to make herself heard.

  The little boy paused in mid-swing, the big stick held above his head in two hands, and looked over. When he saw me he smiled.

  ‘I’m going to kill the monster! I’m going to smash him!’

  I felt my heart swelling in my chest. ‘Go get him, Joseph!’

  Sarah smiled. ‘He’s growing up so fast.’

  I was puzzled for a moment, a bubble of anxiety forming in my chest. Then it passed.

  ‘And what about you, Logan?’ Sarah said, looking at me.

  ‘Me? Too late for me to grow up, I reckon.’

  She laughed
, that lovely soft sound I’d missed so much. ‘Don’t worry, we like you just the way you are.’ She touched the bruise on my forehead gently with a finger. ‘How did you get that?’

  Her touch was like a magic wand, filling me with warmth and light. I reached up to put my hand over hers, but it was no longer there. I sighed. ‘I’m not really sure. An accident, I think.’

  She frowned. ‘Well, try to be careful. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.’

  ‘Look—’ I started to say, but she cut me off with a finger to my lips.

  ‘No, Logan. Don’t start that again. It’s not your time. Not yet. You’ve got a job to do. An important job. Joseph and I are very proud of you.’

  I bowed my head, knowing it was no use arguing. We’d had this conversation before.

  She changed the subject. ‘So the house is all packed up?’

  ‘Just about,’ I said with a sigh. ‘It doesn’t feel right, though.’

  ‘It’s only bricks and mortar, Logan. Nothing important.’

  ‘I know, I know. But it’s where Joseph was born. Our own little home. It’s where we were happy. Mostly happy, anyway. When we weren’t, that was my fault.’

  ‘Always happy,’ she said, giving my arm a squeeze.

  We looked down at the valley below, spreading out towards the city in the distance, and we could see the little house at the edge of the estate. I knew you couldn’t really see it from up there, but today we could.

  ‘Let someone else have it. Someone else can be happy there.’

  She was right. That was the way to think about it. I looked up to see where Joseph had got to, but he was gone. ‘Sarah . . .’ I started to say, reaching out, but she was gone too. My hand closed on empty air.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, filling my lungs with cold air. It was not the first time Sarah and Joseph had appeared to me, but it still left me wondering what it meant. I didn’t believe in ghosts, in visitations from the spirit world. I never had. When I was little and my dad had died, my mum had some sort of spiritualist medium come to the house. I remembered her, a big woman in a bright floral dress and large hoop earrings (for the gypsy look, I suppose), collapsed in an armchair with her eyelids fluttering, beads of sweat forming on her brow, pretending to be tuning in to the right spiritual frequency.