Defend or Die

by Tom Marcus

  ‘But I ain’t going anywhere, you know? I want to be going somewhere. I don’t even care where it is. End of the fucking world, I don’t care. Right off the edge. I just want to be going . . . somewhere.’

  I slumped in the chair and closed my eyes with the effort of trying to squeeze out so many words in the right order.

  I blinked, and I could see Martindale was still nodding.

  ‘No one goes so far as he who knows not where he is going,’ he said.

  I looked at him blankly.

  ‘Oliver Cromwell.’ He smiled. ‘Never mind. The point is, I think I understand what you’re talking about, Stevie. You’ve got an energy, a tremendous energy in you. A fire. You may not understand where it comes from, but I do . . . I really do. It comes from God. It’s the fire of the Holy Spirit that’s burning in you, that makes you walk. And you might think all your life you’ve been going nowhere – you’ve just been trudging on and on through pain, through rejection, through misery, through violence, through loneliness – but all that trudging has actually brought you here.’

  ‘But—’

  He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Not that this is your final destination, Stevie. No, no. This is just a stop. A station along the way. But now you’re on the right track, do you see? You can begin the real part of your journey from here.’

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, clenching my fists. ‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything. I don’t know why I come here.’

  ‘That’s OK, Stevie. That’s OK. I know this may sound strange, but that’s how I know it was meant. That’s how I know the Holy Spirit has been directing your steps. No one goes so far as he who knows not where he is going, remember? And you are going to go far, Stevie, I promise. Further than you have ever dreamed. You are going to do wonderful things for God.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What am I going to do? I can’t do anything. I’ve never been able to do anything – except fuck everything up.’

  ‘Trust me, Stevie. You can do so much more than you think. Remember, you have that special energy within you, the fire that comes straight from God. We just need to harness it, to direct it.’

  ‘How?’

  He leaned forward in the chair. ‘Do you trust me, Stevie?’

  I looked at him. I didn’t have to think about it. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I do.’

  He sat back. ‘Then everything will become clear. You just have to be patient, give it time. The Holy Spirit has brought you here. And God will take you the rest of the way. You don’t have to think for yourself any more, Stevie. You don’t have to worry if you’re doing the right thing ever again. You’re in God’s hands now.’

  I felt a warm wave washing over me, through me. I didn’t have to worry about anything any more. I didn’t have to be angry any more. All the shit that had been happening ever since I could remember, all the fighting, the crying, the beatings I’d taken, the ones I’d dished out, all the fury about what I’d never had and could never have, all the shit I’d taken from cunts who thought I had less right to exist than a dog: I could let it all go. Martindale would take it away. God would take it all away, and scatter it all into space.

  My chest started heaving and I could feel hot tears trickling down my face. I tried to speak but it felt like something was stuck in my throat. My mouth wouldn’t work, even though there were words trying to get out. Martindale was sitting looking at me with a smile at the corners of his mouth, waiting.

  ‘Just tell me what you want me to do,’ I said.

  ‘First we have to cleanse you, Stevie. We have to empty you out.’

  I nodded. That sounded good.

  ‘We have to make a bonfire – a bonfire of the spirit. We’re going to throw all the garbage from your life onto it, so it turns to ashes and blows away. Everything in your life up to this moment is going to burn, until there’s nothing left. No more bad thoughts. No more bad memories. No more . . . Stevie Nichols.’

  ‘And . . . then?’ I managed to say.

  Martindale folded his hands in his lap. He wasn’t smiling any more.

  ‘Then you’ll be ready to do God’s work.’

  31

  I stood under the shower, letting the scalding water wash away Stevie’s rancid stink, while the last vestiges of his fucked-up personality finally drained from my mind. On the walk back, I’d had a struggle putting him back in his box. The plan had been to get Martindale to swallow the bait – and he had – but Stevie was the one who ended up getting hooked. As I’d shuffled away from the church, shoulders hunched, hood down, hands in my pockets, I’d tried to put a lid on his excitement, but it kept fizzing up to the surface, like a can of Coke I’d chugged down too quickly. Martindale’s spiel about incinerating the old Stevie and his shitty life had really got to him. He couldn’t bloody wait.

  I dried myself with a towel and scooped Stevie’s clothes up off the floor. One day I’d happily chuck them into the incinerator, too, just like Stevie, happy to be rid of them both, but not yet. I shoved the dirty clothes into a clear plastic bag and tied it off with a strip of duct tape before putting it into the washing basket. There was a clean pair of jeans and a white T-shirt on the toilet lid, and it was only after I’d put them on that I finally felt a hundred per cent myself.

  Not that that meant I felt particularly great, but at least it was an improvement on Stevie. I couldn’t fault him; he’d done a good job. But once Martindale really got to work on him, I knew I was going to have a hell of a job keeping him under control.

  I wondered if Mrs Allenby was right and I was falling apart. Or did I still have what it takes, like Alex believed? I had a feeling that getting sucked into Martindale’s twisted world was going to test me to breaking point. Fine, I thought. At least then we’d find out.

  I felt a chill go through me. Once I’d submitted myself to Martindale’s brainwashing, I wouldn’t be able to call for backup. We wouldn’t be able to risk using radio transmitters. I’d be totally alone.

  I walked barefoot into the kitchen, looking for something to eat. I opened the fridge. A half-empty carton of soy milk and a packet of . . . tofu, whatever that was. It looked as if it might be handy for grouting tiles in the bathroom, but not much else. I was debating whether I could be arsed to go out and get some supplies or just make do with a cup of tea and some of that soy stuff when I felt my phone buzzing in my back pocket.

  ‘Logan.’

  ‘Hello. It’s Lucy. Sorry, it’s late – or early. I shouldn’t be calling, but I felt bad I didn’t call you back right away.’

  I had to stop myself from grinning.

  ‘No, it’s fine, I wasn’t asleep or anything. You got my message, then. Well, obviously. Sorry it was a bit garbled. I was sort of taken by surprise, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Oh God! The old greeting. I’m so sorry. That must have freaked you out.’

  ‘No . . . it was stupid of me. I should have realized.’

  ‘I’ve got to change it – I know I have. But I can’t face it. Just saying “Hello, this is Lucy” seems like too much. I don’t know why.’

  ‘Yeah, I understand. You could always just get an automatic one – you know, not your voice.’

  ‘Yes, I should do that. I will.’

  I didn’t know what to say next. I liked just knowing she was there, on the other end of the phone. It made me feel better. But this was supposed to be a conversation. If I didn’t say something, she’d think I was nuts or just annoyed she’d called in the middle of the night. Luckily, she broke the silence before I could come up with something stupid.

  ‘I know this sounds bonkers, but I was going to go out for something to eat. I haven’t done any shopping since . . . since, you know. And I don’t like going places where I might bump into someone I know, so that leaves going somewhere at three in the morning.’

  ‘Do you know anywhere?’

  ‘There’s a place in Soho, on Greek Street, that’s open all night.’

  ‘How far are you?’<
br />
  A hesitation. ‘Not far. You?’

  ‘I can be there in half an hour.’

  ‘Great. I’ll see you there, then.’

  ‘OK.’

  I ended the call and put my phone back in my pocket. I’d already done a lot of walking tonight. But that was with Stevie’s knackered knees and fucked-up feet. I still had plenty of miles left in me. I put on socks and trainers and grabbed a trackie top, then stepped out into the cool night air.

  The diner was surprisingly busy. Most of the customers sitting at the plain Formica tables were in their twenties or younger, nursing cups of coffee and looking like they were trying to come down off whatever drugs they were on. There was an old dear in a windcheater a couple of sizes too big for her, holding the plastic menu out stiffly in front of her without looking at it. I had the feeling she’d been sitting like that for a while and the teenage waitress lounging by the counter had learned to ignore her. No money, but nowhere else to go. Or nowhere she wanted to go.

  I saw Lucy at a table against the wall at the back and walked over. She was wearing a raincoat buttoned up to the neck, and maybe because it was the middle of the night I couldn’t stop myself wondering what she was wearing underneath.

  I gave myself a mental slap. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

  She passed over a menu as I sat down. ‘Are you sure you’re hungry?’

  She had her hair in a tight ponytail, and it made her look as if she was showing her face properly for the first time. I noticed her eyes were green and her skin looked very pale under the fluorescent light. She was wearing just enough make-up to make it look as if she wasn’t.

  ‘I could eat a horse. I genuinely couldn’t tell you the last time I ate.’

  She smiled. ‘Lucky I called, then.’

  I smiled back. ‘Yeah. Yeah, it was.’

  ‘So what have you been doing that’s so fascinating you forgot to eat?’

  ‘I . . . I’ve just been walking around, mostly.’

  I winced. That sounded fucking stupid. I should have figured out a proper cover story before I left the flat.

  ‘Trouble sleeping?’

  If only she knew.

  ‘Yeah, something like that. What are you having?’ I asked, keen to get off the subject of what I’d been doing with my time.

  ‘A burger,’ she said. ‘And not the vegan one. With chips and an entire bucket of ketchup, if they have it.’

  I grinned. ‘Sounds good.’

  I waved at the waitress and she practically sprinted over, obviously thrilled that someone was actually ordering food.

  Lucy looked up at her. ‘The burger. With chips. And any trimmings, if you have them.’

  ‘Same,’ I said.

  The waitress scribbled something down and scurried off before we could change our minds. It clearly wasn’t the sort of place where they asked you how you wanted your burger done, and that suited me fine. As far as I was concerned there was cooked and uncooked, and I trusted the chef to figure out which was the right one.

  I slid the menu back across the table. ‘So what have you been up to?’

  I gave myself another mental slap. Harder this time. She’d just lost her entire family. She’d been about to throw herself off a bridge. So what have you been up to? Oh, you know, this and that. Looking at a new colour scheme for the lounge. Pruning the wisteria. Running a nice, relaxing bath so I can slit my wrists.

  Luckily she didn’t seem offended. ‘Funeral arrangements, mostly. I can think of better ways of trying to take your mind off things, frankly.’

  I nodded. ‘I was lucky. I had a mate who did all that for me. I stayed blind drunk until the day of the funeral.’

  I felt my guts twisting at the memory.

  ‘Was it hard?’ she asked, and I could tell she was afraid, afraid she wouldn’t be able to go through with it.

  ‘If you do it sober, yes. Nothing harder. Sorry.’

  She reached out and touched my hand. ‘No, I want the truth. I think that’s why I find it easy to talk to you. You don’t shy away, or get squeamish. You just give it to me straight.’

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  Our burgers arrived, practically flung down in front of us with a challenging look from the waitress, as if to say, ‘Don’t blame me – you ordered it.’

  Lucy emptied the bottle of ketchup onto her chips as promised and we both grabbed our burgers and got stuck in. She looked as if she was properly letting go for the first time, dropping bits of food onto her plate and getting her fingers sticky with ketchup. Her burger disappeared in half a dozen bites and she grinned at me across the table, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. I swallowed the last of mine and grinned back. You could only eat like that with someone else who’d lost everything, both knowing that being hungry and taking pleasure in satisfying that hunger wasn’t a betrayal. It just meant, for better or worse, you were still alive. Still human. It wasn’t something to be ashamed of. It was just the way it was.

  She looked at me with a wicked glint in her eye. I knew what she was about to say.

  ‘Sure, why not,’ I said, waving the waitress over again. It wasn’t as if the other customers were keeping her busy.

  ‘Can I get you coffee or dessert?’ she asked.

  ‘Maybe later,’ Lucy said, smiling. ‘We’d like two more burgers, please.’

  The waitress nodded. As she took our order to the kitchen, she glanced back over her shoulder as if she couldn’t quite believe we were serious.

  We took the second burgers more slowly. I couldn’t help thinking it was like when you had sex with someone you’d fancied for a while. The first time was fast and furious, just pent-up lust being unleashed. Then the second time was gentler, more controlled. Better.

  We ate in silence. Every now and then our eyes would meet and we’d quickly glance away.

  I pushed my plate away and sat back. ‘That was a good idea of yours.’

  She picked up a slice of pickle, then halfway to her lips, put it down. ‘God, I’m done.’

  She smiled, sheepishly now, as if the same thoughts had been going through her head as mine. She started wiping her fingers carefully on her napkin. For the first time, there seemed to be an awkwardness between us.

  ‘So,’ she said finally. ‘What do we do now?’

  32

  The atmosphere was different when I walked through the door and into the Clearwater Security office the next morning. Everyone was there, already assembled at the conference table, Ryan with his laptop open, Mrs Allenby with her notepad at the ready. Alan was sitting next to Alex, nervously wiping his glasses on a handkerchief and looking as if he wished he had a bit of kit to tinker with. Alex had her arms folded, her game face on.

  All eyes turned to me.

  ‘Well?’ Mrs Allenby asked.

  ‘I think he’s our man,’ I said simply.

  She let out a long breath and nodded. As I sat down between Ryan and Alex, I could feel a surge of electricity around the table.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. He’s serious, and I don’t mean about doling out soup and all that. He’s targeting vulnerable individuals for some sort of brainwashing. I did my best lost sheep act, and he practically swallowed me whole.’

  Mrs Allenby looked at me. ‘And you think you can handle it, being in the belly of the beast? You’re comfortable submitting yourself to this “brainwashing”?’

  Comfortable? Not the word I would have used, but I could see she was looking for chinks in my armour, any little sign that I would crack under pressure.

  ‘I’ve done the training – interrogation resistance,’ I said coolly.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Flying colours.’

  She didn’t look convinced. She maintained eye contact, daring me to look away. She would have made a decent interrogator herself, I thought.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if we can risk it. If he’s as good as you’re suggestin
g, he could unmask you, and then we’ve lost him. He’ll just go to ground.’

  ‘Won’t happen,’ I said firmly.

  ‘I’ve seen Logan in situations like this,’ Alex said. ‘He knows what he’s doing.’

  Mrs Allenby gave her a withering look. ‘Situations like this? I’m not sure there are any training courses that can prepare you for the kind of intensive psychological assault that Martindale seems to have in mind.’

  ‘Maybe not, but—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Logan has done a first-class job of getting Martindale to expose himself. Now we’re sure he’s our man, the sensible thing would be to put the church under continuous surveillance and—’

  I slammed my fist on the table, rattling the coffee cups. ‘Bollocks!’

  For a moment no one said anything. Alan looked as if he wanted the ground to swallow him up.

  ‘Look,’ I said, in a calmer voice. ‘With all due respect, right now we know absolutely fuck all. We don’t know what the connection is with Weston. We don’t even know for sure if Shlovsky’s involved. We don’t know what Martindale’s planning, let alone how he’s going to do it or what his homeless recruits have got to do with it. And like you say, the clock is ticking. We’ve got no idea how close to midnight we are. For all we know, it could all be about to kick off. We can’t afford to fanny around keeping tabs on Martindale. If we’re going to stop this thing, we need to be on the inside, now, and I can do that. I’m halfway there. If we back out now we’d be cutting off our noses to spite our faces. Isn’t that the whole point of Blindeye? Martindale’s opened the door. We have to take our chance while we can, otherwise it’s going to slam in our faces. We won’t get another one.’

  I sat back with my arms folded. That was a long speech for me, and if they wanted an encore, they weren’t going to get it.

  Mrs Allenby tapped her pencil on the table, thinking it over. ‘Mr Oldfield? Are we any closer to establishing the connection between Weston and Martindale?’

  Ryan put his laptop to one side. ‘I’ve been thinking about it. Let’s assume Weston found Martindale and not the other way around. We’re also assuming no prior connection; they weren’t altar boys together, or anything like that. So that means Weston is searching and ends up finding Martindale. What’s he looking for? He’s Shlovsky’s point man, so actually the first question is, why Weston and not Titov? Given their history – the fact that he’s Shlovsky’s personal bodyguard – you’d think Titov would be the most trusted, especially for something as sensitive as this. But no, for some reason he picks Weston. Why? Well, the obvious difference is he’s British. It could be that using him is a way of disguising the Russian connection. That would make sense, if the crucial thing is to keep Moscow’s fingerprints off it. But maybe there’s more to it. Anyway, we’ve got Weston, and he’s looking for someone who is willing and capable of executing a terror attack. Where’s the obvious place to look?’