He knew first hand that governments could not be trusted when it came to their versions of the truth. The Queen’s Guard by definition had been a secretive organisation, one steeped in the shadows and hidden from public view. As far as he was concerned, who knew who the good guys were or the bad.
Okay, so maybe he was also helping himself, but that was just a happy byproduct and a long overdue one. Why the hell shouldn’t he finally get his reward? Clermont had a gold-plated pension post politics. After all, every ex-prime minister made their money after they left office.
They all sat on multiple boards of multiple companies, getting fat paycheques for doing little more than assigning their names to a company letterhead, wealthy rewards for the receptive ears they’d lent the fat cats during their time in office. A sympathetic view on a bill here or there, an investigation into the competition when required, all perfectly normal business as usual.
Clermont had a bright future in or out of office. Dennison knew that the man had plenty of nests plumped and feathered; hell, he’d set most of them up himself for his boss. The trouble was that Dennison did not see his own future quite so comfortable. He had no intention of staying on as the aide to do nothing boss. If truth be told, he had no intention of ever working for someone else ever again… enter Cynthia Arrow, or more accurately her cheque book.
He’d already procured a large farmhouse in the south of France, a stunningly beautiful property with its own vineyard and 30 acres of lush land cutting him off from the rest of the world.
His plan was to retire there in the near future. If Clermont won the election, then he would stay and serve for maybe the first year or so; if Clermont lost, then he would bow out of politics immediately.
The phone lay on the ground with the screen cracked and the back sitting a few feet away, but despite its fatal-looking injuries, it started to buzz and vibrate again.
“Oh, give me strength!” Dennison complained as he strode over and stamped on the phone, once, twice, before it finally died.
“Good,” he snapped. “Now bloody well stay dead.”
The thought of running without much in the way of a plan was abhorrent to him; he was, after all, a meticulous man who prided himself on always having an alphabet full of plans. But now he had a wildcard in the pack, one who could expose him at any moment.
He had thought that Cynthia Arrow had as much to lose as he did if their arrangement ever became public. While that was still the case, after looking into her eyes, he didn’t know if that would stop her. It was hard to predict what a crazy lady would do when pushed.
Another thought had quickly occurred to him, one that had necessitated his quick packing and withdrawal from public life. What if Cynthia didn’t plan on exposing him? What if she thought it far more expedient to simply silence him before he could talk?
As the aide to the most powerful man in the country – certainly most powerful now that Wilson Fontaine had made a large wet mess on the concrete outside of his apartment block – Dennison knew all too well about making arrangements to make problems disappear. He had just never been on this side of the divide before.
Thinking about what had happened to Fontaine, he couldn’t help but let his mind wander as to just what had happened to the man.
It had been clear to him for some time that Fontaine’s media empire had been pushing Cynthia’s narrative. The last time that he’d met the woman in that café, the café where he’d thought himself so clever only to be disavowed of the notion, she had all but confirmed that she was pulling Fontaine’s strings.
He had met Fontaine at plenty of functions down the years; the man’s greed for control had led him into plenty of backstage meetings in the halls of power.
In his limited direct dealings with Fontaine, he had always struck him as a firm alpha. It was hard to picture the man accepting being told what to do by anyone, but then again Dennison would never have pictured himself frantically packing a suitcase in a blind panic either. If Fontaine could take a walk off the balcony of his penthouse suite, then anyone could – let alone a faceless government aide.
He was sure that he had placated Cynthia enough to buy him some time. He had rolled over and showed his belly. She would think him scared and that was correct, but she would also think him defeated and that was most certainly not the case.
The farmhouse in France wasn’t the only asset he had at his disposal. He had offshore accounts, with the bulk of Cynthia’s money sitting in them earning him a tidy net interest.
“Going somewhere, Mr Dennison?”
The voice startled him badly as he hadn’t heard anyone enter the room, which was impressive given how tightly strung his nerves were and how he was jumping at every tiny sound.
“What are you…? Who are you?” he demanded, striving for an authoritative tone.
The woman merely smiled back at him. While he was sure that they had never met, there was something oddly familiar about her.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
“Not yet, Mr Dennison,” the woman answered. “But I believe that you know my mother.”
“Your mother?”
“Oh yes, Mr Dennison. You know my mother, along with a great deal of other things I’d wager.”
“You’re her daughter,” he stated rather than asked. “So she sent you to what? Silence me? Kill me?”
“Not at all,” Number One replied with a smile, not unlike her mother’s. “We’re going to be good friends, you and I.”
“Friends?”
“Oh yes, Mr Dennison, the very best, and knowing my mother as I do, you’re going to need a friend like me.”
----------
Morning dawned early in the frozen Swedish wasteland. The few buildings in the small fishing village were already sending smokestacks drifting up from rudimentary chimneys as the residents rose at first light to start their days.
Jamie-Lyn looked out of the rented tourist cabin across towards the town as she sipped strong coffee from a motel mug.
Being the only female left in the group, she’d taken her own cabin while the others had bunked into two other similar accommodations.
The result was that she’d barely slept last night. With her mind unable to shut down, and without anyone to talk to, she had simply had to watch on as her own thoughts cannibalised themselves in an endless loop as they bounced around her head.
Crimson might have been a sociopath with psychopathic tendencies, but that didn’t make him stupid. If he felt a suspicion of CJ, then she should take his feelings seriously. But then again, on the sixth or seventh hand, depending on if you were keeping score, she had never known the alien to be anything other than a paragon of virtue. His moral centre had been stronger than anyone else’s she had ever met, and the thought of him doing anything other than the right thing seemed absurd.
While she personally had left the group the better part of two decades ago, Jesus had stayed and walked in his father’s footsteps, working hand in hand behind the scenes with CJ. Surely the handler knew CJ now better than she ever had? Not to mention the fact that Crimson hadn’t given any specifics to his suspicions, just a general lack of trust, which to be honest applied to just about every other living thing on the planet.
She finished the strong coffee and was grateful for the warmth and the perkiness of the brew. It felt like she was operating on autopilot, mainly because she knew if she stopped long enough to process her situation, she’d crawl back under the covers and never come out again.
Part of what Crimson had said to the group had settled hard on her, the fact that there was no coming back from any of this, not all the way at least. Say they proved that Cynthia Arrow was the bad guy here, the villain, the evil mastermind, then what? Proving it to the authorities meant little in the wider court of public opinion, not to mention the fact that they didn’t know just how far Cynthia’s influence reached. If they found what they were looking for, would there be anyone left to tell?
A gentle tap at the door blissfully pul
led her back from the abyss before she teetered over the edge and plummeted down into the darkness of doubt.
“Come in,” she called out.
Link entered the cabin wearing outdoor travelling clothing suitable for the terrain.
“Here,” he said, throwing her a bundle of similar attire.
“Where did you get this?”
“I’ve been into town this morning. Man, they sure do get up early round here.” He grinned. “There’s a general store down there; they stock a bunch of gear for dumb tourists who turn up thinking a pair of gloves and a hat will keep them warm out there.”
“I’m surprised that this place is even on the map,” she said, taking the clothing and ducking into the bathroom to dress with it but leaving the door open a crack so that he could still hear her.
“Lady down there tells me that in the summer they get a bunch of sportsmen, hunters, fishers, that type of thing. She was pretty surprised to see me.”
“You don’t think…?”
“That she recognised us? No. Luckily, my picture is the only one so far not circulating, so at least one of us is in the clear.”
“You know, you really should consider that.”
“What?”
“That you’re in the clear. You could just walk away from this, Link.”
“Not this again.”
“Well it deserves revisiting until you see sense,” she snapped, a little more forcibly than she’d intended. “Sorry,” she added as she emerged from the bathroom.
“I’m in it, all of it,” he replied, his tone serious for once. “Whether I like it or not, I was there at the base. I saw what happened to Doc, what they tried to do to all of you… hell, all of us. I worked for a guy named Buckley; it’s one of those situations where he’s watching me, I’m watching him, and around we go again and again.”
“Who is he?”
“An old army buddy, well old army commandeer to be exact. He set up a private security firm after he left the service, offered me a job when I got out.”
“Was that us?”
“Was what you?”
“The job?”
“In a roundabout way, yes.” Link shrugged. “I worked for Buckley for a while, but I always wanted to run my own show. When a job came through for Wilson Fontaine, I wanted in, more so once I found out that he wanted to find out about the Queen’s Guard. Fontaine was having his strings pulled by your old pal Summer Sloan, but maybe someone else as well.”
“Cynthia Arrow?”
“Given everything that’s happened since, that’d be my guess, but old Wilson’s not with us anymore, and the shit has just kept on coming. My information tells me that there is a Mrs Fontaine, someone younger than dear Cynthia, but I’m guessing whoever the new Mrs is, she sports a very particular tattoo.”
“Can your friend help, this Buckley guy?”
Link went quiet for a moment and his normal good-natured face faded.
“Maybe he could have, maybe not. I mean, he has been working against us. That raid at the Queen’s Guard base had his signature written all over it. The general store in town had a Wi-Fi signal, so I was able to do a little bit of poking around, but I wasn’t able to run Buckley down. I think he’s gone,” he finally replied. “Just another loose end to clear up, much like the rest of us.”
“I’m sorry,” Jamie-Lyn said automatically, despite the knowledge that the man in question had tried to kill them all.
Another knock at the door halted the conversation as Jesus poked his head in.
“Time’s a-wasting,” he said, motioning them outside.
Dressed in the thermals and pulling on the bulky overcoat that Link had brought for her, Jamie-Lyn stepped outside and was relieved to find the clothing doing its job; the biting winds fought hard but were unable to penetrate the garments.
There were two snowmobiles lined up outside the cabin.
“These you?” Jamie-Lyn asked Link.
“I had to rouse the guy who hires them out of bed at dawn, but who needs sleep anyway?” The younger man shrugged.
“You don’t think that we’re making ourselves too known here?” she pondered.
“Hell, these backwards hicks don’t know what’s going on outside of their shitty little town,” Crimson sneered. “How are they going to recognise us?”
As if by way of an answer, the motel owner, Albin, suddenly appeared out of the main office building and started walking towards them. He was off in the distance, but Crimson tensed way before the rest of them noticed that the man was carrying something… a hunting rifle.
Crimson’s hand was already trying to reach inside his bulky coat for a blade, and it was the delay of the unfamiliar clothing that stopped him from cutting the motel owner down in the snow.
The others only had time to flinch as the man reached them with the powerful-looking rifle held out in front of him.
“I bet you thought I wouldn’t notice, huh?” Albin said as he reached them.
Jamie-Lyn couldn’t take her eyes off the rifle pointed at them. Jesus was standing looking wide-eyed at the weapon while Link had taken a couple of relaxed steps to the side, and Crimson was grumbling under his breath as the gloves he was wearing were preventing him from pulling down the zipper on his coat.
“Notice?” Jamie-Lyn replied, striving for a casual tone.
“I see that you are not carrying any weapons,” Albin replied. He thrust the hunting rifle towards Jesus before noting the man’s expression. He changed his mind and handed the weapon to Crimson.
“Is that really necessary?” Jamie-Lyn asked.
“Lot of wild animals out there.” Albin nodded. “You look out for wolves. There’s a pack roaming around here, dangerous beasts; you all be careful.”
Crimson swung the rifle over his shoulder before turning away towards the snowmobiles without saying anything.
“Thank you,” Jamie-Lyn said quickly as she realised that the motel owner looked a little hurt. “That’s very kind.”
“You are fishing?” Albin asked curiously, looking over at the snowmobiles and not seeing any equipment there.
“Fishing? Who told you that?” Crimson said as he climbed onto one of the machines.
“Him,” Albin replied, pointing at Link. “You don’t seem to have any gear…,” he pondered as he looked over the group.
“Is that a fact?” Crimson said, his voice dropping a level.
Jamie-Lyn felt herself tense as the motel owner’s words hung in the air, and she knew that Crimson might do something about it. Jesus looked awkward, as though he didn’t know what to do. She did not like the way that Crimson’s bulky coat now sat open and his gloves were off.
Link, meanwhile, had disappeared without her seeing him go; he quickly emerged from his cabin next to hers. He was now carrying two large and heavy bags that she knew contained a small arsenal of weapons taken from his friend’s stash.
“Thanks for the reminder,” he said as he loaded the bags, one on each of the machines.
“You have fishing gear in those?” Albin asked, his face creased with naked suspicion.
“Foldaway.” Link smiled. “Latest stuff, makes it easier to carry.”
Albin stared at them, and Jamie-Lyn could tell that the man was now viewing them differently as though he had caught the scent of bullshit on the air.
“So the lake’s up here?” Jesus asked as he took a map from his pocket and showed it to the motel owner.
For a moment, Jamie-Lyn felt that Crimson was going to lose his patience and solve a problem the only way he seemed to know how, but mercifully, just as she felt him tense, Albin looked down at the offered map. He studied the marking before nodding.
“That’s the spot alright. Good fishing, beautiful spot, although this time of year not so nice.”
“That’s okay, we’re a hearty bunch,” Link said, offering his warmest and friendliest smile.
At last, Albin seemed to relax, which in turn had the same effect on everyone else, even
Crimson.
“Well, Ebba will have something hot for you when you return, just in case the catching is not so good.”
With that, the man turned and left. No one spoke until he had ducked back inside the main building.
“You think he bought that?” Link asked the group.
“Of course,” Jamie-Lyn replied with more confidence than she felt.
“Probably,” Jesus said hopefully.
“Not a chance,” Crimson added. “My bet is that he’s already on the phone.”
“To who exactly?” Jesus scoffed. “Take a look around. We’re miles from anywhere; who’s he gonna call?”
Jamie-Lyn had to fight the urge to yell, “Ghostbusters!”
“I tell you, he’s going to be trouble,” Crimson pressed.
“So what would you have us do?” Jesus exclaimed.
Crimson answered by starting to climb back off the snowmobile.
“No!” Jamie-Lyn said quickly as she felt what the man was going to do. “Not a chance, Crimson. You leave him alone.”
She stepped in front of him as he started to walk forwards towards the main office. Link quickly joined her, then Jesus did too, the three of them blocking his path.
Crimson viewed them all. She knew that he wasn’t afraid of them in a physical sense; it was more a symbolic gesture, and for a moment, she thought that they were going to have to fight him, but then he backed down and away.
“It’s a mistake,” was all he said before he started the snowmobile. “Maybe a big one.”
“Then we’ll all deal with it,” Jesus said firmly.
“Then we’d better hope that it won’t be all of our funerals,” he growled.
“Where’s CJ?” Jamie-Lyn asked
“Already set out… told us to catch up when it got light,” Jesus answered.
“He doesn’t feel the cold?” Link asked.
“His planet is apparently a lot colder than ours. He said this place kind of reminded him of home.” Jesus shrugged.
“Well then, we’d better get going,” Jamie-Lyn said. “You know, before our kind host thinks that we look suspicious standing around, or at least more suspicious than we do already.”
“I guess there’s only one question left, maybe the biggest and most important question of all,” Link said gravely.
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