by Stan Mason
Being a person of resolve, having faced a number of privations in Uzbekistan, wearing the mask was not too much of a hardship. There was no alternative if she wanted to lead a normal life outside the hospital. Naturally, there were times she felt uncomfortable about it such as the time she was pursued by some young schoolgirls who made fun of her and shouted loud abuse. In due course, she approached Universal Energy Inc. asking for an appointment as a scientist within the organisation, quoting her experience in Uzbekistan, which, in reality, was of little value to them in the scientific world. The Cosmic Joker clearly felt pity on her as it arranged for the interview to happen just after David Coleman had vanished from the scene and Robert Harris’s body had been found floating in the river. No one really knew why Coleman left but the company put out the rumour that he was very ill and unable to continue with his work... not that he ever did any. As far as Harris was concerned, the matter rested with the police who searched unsuccessfully for clues to his killer. Little did they know it was a case that would never be resolved. Consequently, as a result of these occurrences, Anya managed to secure an appointment for herself in the brainstorming unit.
When he first saw her, Don didn’t quite know what to make of her. She was a woman and therefore she affected his speech and thoughts adversely in the time-honoured fashion but, in this case, she wore a mask so he was unable to see her face or view her expressions. To him, it was an odd situation which made him feel uncomfortable yet somehow he found that he was able to deal with it... mainly because she wore a mask and he couldn’t see her face. As far as he was concerned, she was another individual, like himself, who couldn’t face the world directly because of a deficiency, although unlike himself she was able to correspond without stuttering and she was relatively worldly-wise with a very easy manner.
On the first occasion, when she arrived at the laboratory, he stared at her strangely wondering what her face really looked like. It was a compulsive intense feeling that he wanted to see her face. He knew that it had to be scarred, torn, sutured and ugly and he also . sensed the pain she had suffered when being forced through the windscreen of the car when it became wrecked. For that incident, he pitied her and writhed inside in anguish for reasons totally unknown to him. ,
‘Are you in any p... pain?’ he managed to say after she had introduced herself.
‘Sometimes,’ she replied. ‘I have tablets to take every day and there’s a whole course of surgery on the agenda. I don’t think I’ll ever recognise myself when they’ve finished changing my face. I don’t know that I’d dare to look into a mirror. Without any doubt, I certainly won’t look like the person I used to be. Maybe I’ll be better, maybe worse. I trust the surgeons who carry out the operations... they’re absolutely wonderful.’
‘You’re very b... brave,’ he went on.
‘Bravery doesn’t come into it,’ she returned easily. ‘I had no choice in the matter. Fortunately, I was rendered senseless at the time of the accident and woke up in hospital sedated. So I felt no pain then.’
‘I c... couldn’t bear to wear a m... ask,’ he went on. ‘I would frighten m... myself to d... death if I looked in the mirror and couldn’t see my face.’
‘Why do you stutter?’ she asked impertinently, changing the subject quickly.
‘I always have d... done.’
‘I had an elder brother once,’ she told him. ‘He stuttered but I cured him.’
‘How?’
‘I worked out that he was always too scared to say what he meant and so the stutter gave him a little longer to think. Whenever he wanted to speak, I made him hold his nose and pause. It gave him more time to think. In time, it cured him.’
‘How could holding your nose stop a p... person from s... stuttering?’ he enquired a little puzzled.
‘Maybe it’s an old wives tale. Perhaps it’s not. You want to try it.’
‘Is your brother with you in England?’
‘No... I’m afraid not. He died when he was twenty-two.’
Don stared at her even more puzzled. ‘From holding his n... nose?’ he asked seriously.
She burst out laughing. ‘No... of course not. He worked on a farm and was knocked down by a tractor. But that’s another story.’ Back in Samarkand... ’
‘Samarkand!’ he managed to say becoming enthralled.
‘That’s where I was born,’ she went on, before telling him her life history.
He sat at his desk listening to her intently, his mouth opening and closing in awe. ‘Samarkand!’ he repeated conjuring up a vision of golden sun and warriors in armour as he has seen in many films in the past.
He was unable to see her face so that he didn’t know she was smiling warmly. To her mind, he was such a nice man and so very funny. He seemed to absorb everything she told him like a sponge and he didn’t seem to mind that she was wearing a mask. Admittedly he was ugly to look at and was always reticent when it came to talking with her, and he stuttered badly. However, beggars couldn’t be choosers and he was her partner in the brainstorming unit. The situations s one had to face in life were not always pleasant. It was the ability to overcome them that made a person inspirational. Indeed, she readily recognised that she could have been partnered with a pompous scientist with a gigantic ego who had a particular dislike of women but she was with a nice pleasant man with no temper and a very tranquil disposition.
‘I think we should move on,’ she told him. ‘I need to familiarise myself with what you are doing here.’
She sat at the computer and pressed a number of keys to start it working. He was surprised at her adeptness on the machine and watched her carefully. For some strange reason, the mask that she wore seemed to take away all the fear he had of the woman. As the computer program started up, she stared at the screen closely through the eyes of the mask.
‘What’s the problem here?’ she asked point-blank.
‘Mr. Harris, the m... man you’re replacing, wrote a p... paper on hydrogenetics. It’s a new theory that’s supposed to create massive energy at a very low cost.’
‘Very interesting,’ she told him with an element of excitement in her voice. ‘What’s file name?’
‘That’s the p... problem,’ he retorted. ‘It was on the computer and someone wiped it c... clean. They also took the p... papers with the formula and the notes.’
‘Who did that?’ came the question.
‘I d... don’t know,’ he replied uncomfortably. ‘And then the computer went haywire. It wouldn’t r... respond to the k... keyboard p... properly.’
‘It must be somewhere on here. Has anyone tried to retrieve the file by using the recovery program?’
Her colleague shrugged his shoulders aimlessly without replying as he had no idea what she meant, He was a scientist, not a computer expert.
She tapped out a number of keys on the keyboard in an attempt to redress the situation and waited as a number of blocks appeared on the screen.
‘As I said,’ he went adamantly. ‘It’s been wiped c... clean.’
‘Let me try something,’ she went on, tapping furiously at the keys with a great deal of dexterity, staring at the screen as a multitude of information and filing systems appeared.
‘Your really know how to use a computer,’ he said, staring at her in awe.
‘I take that as a compliment but you know what they say. A computer expert is someone who’s on the next page to you in the control book.
She continued tapping out the keys as a number of items appeared on the screen. Then, after a short while and a great deal of huffing and puffing, she suddenly sat up straight in her chair. ‘There you are,’ she told him triumphantly. ‘Have a look at this and tell me if it’s the right file.’
He went to her, looking over her shoulder at the screen. It was there... the file with the formula and all the notes. ‘Wow!’ he gasp
ed. ‘You’ve d... done it! That’s b... brilliant... b... brilliant!’
‘Hydrogentetics!’ she uttered to herself, staring at the screen. ‘If I were you, I’d take a couple of copies just in case it gets lost again.’
He nodded and ten minutes later, with great delight, he held two copies of the information firmly in his hands. Suddenly, in a flash, everything in his life began to fall into place. He was not able to give one of the copies to Jake which would allow him to pursue his aim to be reconstructed to an adequate physical and mental condition. In the very short time that she had been on the brainstorming unit the woman from Samarkand had established his passport to the future!
***
Jake would never have classed himself as an assassin. In his honest opinion, he was employed by people who skirted along the edge of the law... people who never became directly involved with violent or dastardly crime. Ever more important was the fact that their activities did not necessarily affect individuals or their livelihoods. Those involved only perpetrated, what might be termed as, invisible crimes. However there were times when Jake had to influence people one way or the other to comply with their demands which, in normal circumstances, would benefit them rather than affect them adversely. In some cases, people failed to see sense or conform to his needs so it was necessary to push them that little bit harder to ensure that they understood what he really wanted. If he failed in his mission, it would not only affect his reputation for achieving his aims but also the fees he hoped to gain each time.
Jake was a relatively young man who had been the Finance Officer for a large shoe-making manufacturer in the Midlands. He was good-looking with blond hair, six feet tall, and he had an athletic body. A bachelor, he became drawn in to the world of gambling, attending a casino every night of the week and betting on horses daily. It should have been no surprise to him that he would lose a great deal of money.
The problem arose that the debt reached a level that was so high, he knew that he could never repay it from ordinary savings or resources. The only way he could settle the debts was to ‘borrow’ from the accounts of his employer, which he did, but the theft was discovered quite swiftly and he was prosecuted. When the case came to Court, he told the judge that he had every intention of repaying the money in due course but this weak plea failed to impress the Court. At the end of his trial he was sentenced to three years in jail. It was the end of his normal life for as an ex-convict, especially one who had stolen from his employer, no company would be willing to offer him a similar appointment, so he was forced to work for people like Mr. G. who gave him tasks which paid quite well and just about remained inside the law. There was one distinct advantage in that any money he earned did not attract Income Tax for it was always paid in a backhanded manner in cash. As far as the authorities were concerned, he no longer existed. He was a shadow in society and the only record anyone had of him rested in the police files.
The killing of Robert Harris was one of the most heinous acts he had ever witness and he was most annoyed at his henchman for acting so violently. He had never intended the situation to go that far but his giant henchman had taken the initiative and had strangled the scientist. To Jake it had been a complete failure for why should he want the man to be killed. It meant that he could never get his hands on the formula and the notes. It should all have been plain sailing with the scientist handing over the details and to simply wait patiently for a fortune to come his way. However life was far too complicated in some cases. There were people whose senses were blocked by pointless principle and idiotic obstinacy. They tended to fail to see the wood for the trees. Harris was such a man and he paid the price for his arrant stupidity. In actual fact Jake had no wish to kill him but his giant henchman had taken the scientist by the neck and refused to stop squeezing. It was a blot in the ex-convict’s copy-book and he should have had to live with that thought on his conscience for the rest of his life... but life was too full of incidents for that to happen.
After the murder of Robert Harris had taken place, he and his giant henchman had taken the body to the river, loaded it with sandbags which were tied to it, and dumped it in the deepest part, hoping that it would remain there undiscovered for eternity. Not that they were particularly concerned as no one except Rose, Harris’s wife, could ever point a finger in his direction and it was extremely unlikely that she would do so. He did not predict that a life sentence in a penitentiary for murder was on the agenda for his future.
He was delighted to learn that Don Wise had managed to find the documents he wanted. The man hadn’t proved to be such a fool or as stupid as he had first thought. If only Harris had the common sense to do the right thing, he would still be alive with the prospect of receiving enough money to last him his lifetime. Jake’s mind then flitted to the situation between his employer and Rose. She appeared to be most relieved to learn that her husband was dead. There was always some differences between married couples some years after the wedding but she had clearly not been unhappy about his disappearance. Then he thought about Mr. G. and Mrs. Harris. Somehow he believed that there was a deeper connection between the two of them. She had to have possession of his telephone number or she wouldn’t have been able to inform him about the heating process. However, whatever the case was between them, such matters were their business and had nothing to do with him. His main task was to fulfil the contract with Don Wise as he had promised. Despite the bad error he had made in his past, and the fact that he was always skirting According to Jake’s law, a promise was a promise, therefore after receiving the telephone call from the scientist, who also managed to remember the code, of the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, he went on to meet him so that he could fulfil the mission.
‘How did you find the documents?’ he asked when he arrived there.
‘It wasn’t m... me,’ he replied. ‘It was Anya. She ret... re... trieved the information from the c... computer. She wears a mask, you know. She was in a m... motor car acc... accident.’
‘Too much information!’ snapped the ex-convict. ‘Where are the documents?’
Don went to a drawer in the cabinet by the side of his bed to fetch them as Jake looked around the room staring at the glass shards from the smashed mirror which lay haphazardly on the floor.
‘You’ve been having a wild party, I see,’ he uttered slowly.
‘My f... fault,’ returned the scientist, pointing to the damaged mirror. ‘I s... stumbled into it and it sm... smashed.’
He passed the documents to the other man who glanced at them briefly. They meant nothing to him but they seemed to have been professionally prepared and looked very technical.
‘Right,’ he told Wise. ‘I’ve thought about your wishes and I’ve carried out the following. You’re to report to Dr. Sinclair in Limehouse tomorrow. I’ve got his business card here so you can find the place. He’ll tell you what he intends to do to help you. The good thing about it, from your end, is that it won’t cost you a penny.’
‘Th... thank you,’ cut in Don with an element of delight in his voice tempered by caution.
‘That’s only one part of it,’ continued Jake earnestly. ‘He’ll pass you on to a psychotherapist to help you with a mountain of other things that needs to be done and there’ll be someone else to go through the rest of the curriculum. You’ll find out more about it when you get there.’
‘You’ve d... done all this for me?’ gasped the scientist dumbly.
‘That was the deal, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes... but you’re so kind... so helpful. How can I re... repay you?’
‘There’s no need. Just keep me informed about the test. That’s all you need to do.’
‘I’ll c... certainly do that,’ came the response.
Jake took the business card and handed it to the other man and stared at it.
‘Catch you later!’ he said, going to the door. ‘I
’ll be in touch!’
He left the room and Don continued to stare at the card. Dr. Sinclair! It was almost too good to be true... his passport to humanity. For that he was more than grateful. In fact he was over the moon!
Chapter Nine
Before they prepared their onslaught on the Russian embassy, the two Baker brothers gritted their teeth in anticipation of tough negotiations. Neither of them relished the thought of going there. They were totally unversed in the business of selling information and they knew full well of their deficiencies in pursuing their demands. Nonetheless they had been forced by their elder brother to carry out the mission and therefore they had no option but to see it through.
‘Are you ready for this?’ asked Jack nervously, extremely reluctant to set out on their quest.
‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,’ stated Dean with a dead-pan face. ‘It’s not going to happen unless we do it.’
‘You’re right,’ agreed his elder brother, trying to pluck up sufficient courage to undertake the mission. ‘We have a bargaining tool and we hold the reins. Let’s make use of it!’
They set off together and, with trepidation, they approached the Russian embassy with a request to see the Trade Minister. Their approach was met by an official who never seemed to have smiled in his life. He stared at them with a great deal of hostile suspicion but, in due course, they found themselves in the office of Igor Strogonoff, the Trade Minister. He stared at them with icy cold blue eyes and then, before they had the opportunity to present their case, he released a torrent of information which surprised the two visitors.