I could only hear silence above the hum of the car engine and tyre noise on the road, yet had a sensation of speed as I willed my eyes to work, which they still refused to do. I tried to say something but my mouth was on strike along with my eyes, so I gave up and just let the nurse continue shaving me. It could've been a few minutes or a few days I was so confused, but I did realise the car had stopped and that the breathing on either side of me had moved, shortly after I heard the click of the release of my seat belt. My body moved somewhere; then along and upwards before I heard another click of a seat belt. In front of me was a white blur with specks of brown splashed here and there.
'Everything's cleared. Have a good flight and see you again,' I heard a voice say.
'Yeah. Thanks for all your cooperation on this one.'
'He should be ok for another couple of hours.'
'We'll look after him once he comes around.'
I saw bodies moving in front of me and then they all suddenly disappeared, bar one blurred face that appeared directly in front of me.
'Take it easy Mr Garret. It won't be such a long flight,' I heard, before I heard nothing again.
The rocking of turbulence woke me and a man in front of me slowly came into focus. In his fifties perhaps, with short grey hair and a very square jaw. Military was the first word that came to my muddled mind.
'You're probably thirsty,' he said, as he put an open bottle of mineral water to my mouth. It was then that I felt my arms were tied and I looked down to see the green straight jacket that was enveloping me. My ankles were shackled. I drank because my mouth was so dry, but wondered if I was being drugged yet again. 'We'll be landing shortly,' he said while I drank, spilling some water as I quenched my thirst. I wanted to ask where I was but my senses were still trying to find their feet. When I'd finished the whole bottle of water, he stood up and walked away. As the minutes passed, my head cleared and I realised I was sitting in a small jet. I turned my head as far as I could and looked around the cabin but couldn't see anyone, although I could hear dulled voices over the engine noise, coming from the rear of the cabin behind two pulled curtains.
I wriggled a little trying to make myself more comfortable, which was a complete waste of energy as I learnt quickly that there was no comfortable position to be in when you're wearing a straightjacket. However I did manage to rub my itchy nose up against the side of my seat's headrest and from it, gained some mild relief just before the man with the square jaw returned and sat opposite me. He even half smiled, and although it wasn't really a warm one, I satisfied myself in believing it wasn't a threatening one.
'I'm sorry about the necessity for the restraint Mr Garret, but we didn't want you to come to any harm. I'll have it removed shortly.'
'Should I ask my questions now?' I asked.
'Probably best not to right now, so relax as best you can and you'll find out all you need to know after we land.'
I nodded, and then looked out my window for a moment into the dark night sky. A much younger man appeared in the aisle alongside us, and the man across from me nodded towards him.
'If you could sit forward a little Mr Garret, I'll have your jacket removed,' he said, and then the younger man leant towards me and started unbuckling the straightjacket. Within a few minutes my chest and arms were extremely relieved to have their freedom of movement back. I stretched my arms to relieve the stiffness, and was even more pleased when the young man bent down to remove my ankle cuffs. As he did though, I noticed he slipped something else around my right ankle and I looked up at the squared jawed man.
'A little something to make sure you're safe Mr Garret.'
'A tracking device?'
'A little smarter, but yes, something like that.'
'Smarter?' I asked him as the young man finished his task of freeing me and fixing this smarter thing around my ankle.
'I'm sure you'll come to understand.'
'Another question for after we land?' I asked, and he nodded, accompanied by a smile that seemed pleased with my comprehension of the situation. The young man disappeared without a word and I sat opposite the square jawed man, whose smile had now vanished, but at least I could happily scratch my itchy nose with ease. Above the noise of the engines, the silence between us was punctuated with my arm stretching and ahhing at my newfound freedom, and his military like sniffing. It reminded me of my father, who sniffed in exactly the same fashion when he was bored, annoyed, or ready to give me a thoroughly good talking to. It was an, 'I'm really fed up with all this,' kind of sniff. I sniffed back at him, as if to say I was fed up as well and I felt we had reached a form of mutual agreement.
Helen crossed my mind and I think I wished she hadn't really bothered crossing. The last few years hadn't been our best years, and with her working a lot more, and being away an awful lot more, combined with my doing a lot less and not really giving a fuck about it, we had drifted from each other a little. I'm not sure how it happened because it was by way of such small increments it was difficult to comprehend that each half-inch was adding up to the mile that now came between us. It was probably at about the half-mile stage that I started drinking a little more to fill the space she used to occupy. There were occasional discussions of course, but at about the two thirds of a mile stage they started focussing on my uselessness and laziness and her paying to feed and house me.
When I did try to make the point that I had done that for a very long time as well, it was normally classified as ancient history, past the statutes of limitations, and therefore inadmissible as evidence. When we reached this stage in our occasional discussions, we then both resorted to saying fuck a lot and not speaking to each other at all for a week or two. At about the three quarters of a mile stage we both gave up on having occasional or even rare discussions, which was good in some respects as it stopped us swearing at each other, and from that point we seemed to have mutually accepted and agreed that ignoring each other was the most prudent solution.
The sun was threatening to rise, and the darkness through the window at my shoulder was just beginning to be tinged with red. I watched as the deep red glow on the horizon changed slowly to a very dark orange, and then a few moments later I heard a change in the sound of the jet's engines and then the feeling of falling. For some reason my mouth couldn't help stating the bleeding obvious.
'We're landing,' I said, and was not surprised to be answered with a simple nod. As the man opposite me didn't seem at all bothered with fastening his seatbelt, I didn't either. 'And where we're landing will be a question for after we land I suppose.' Another nod – and a sniff.
There were no cabin crew to announce well-rehearsed safety messages before landing or to collect headphones, and there hadn't even been a hint of breakfast. I saved myself another knowing nod by concentrating on my view from the window and as the sun eked its way closer to the horizon, its rays slowly lit my view. Sea or ocean became clear below, and as the plane banked, I could see a few white peaks of waves. It meant I was very definitely a long way from Switzerland. Helen flashed into my mind again as I gazed at the endless water below me and I wondered what she would do when she arrived back home, or if she had arrived home already, what she had done. My sense of time was completely confused, and although my watch said twenty-five to six, I had no idea what day it was, or how long it had been since I was taken from my apartment. The only calculation I could make was that as it was early morning below me, and my watch agreed, that I hadn't travelled too far from Switzerland. Or if we had, we had headed roughly north or south and not east or west. Adding one more factor to my calculations, I reasoned that as there were no seas or oceans remotely near Switzerland to the north, we must have travelled south.
I caught my reflection in the window and noticed I needed a shave, and as I ran my hand across the whiskers on my chin, I calculated that I hadn't shaved for about two days, so perhaps Helen was due home today. Once she discovered my suitcase and some of my clothes were missing, along with my laptop and phone, w
hat would she think? My brain was using some logic for the first time since I was taken from my apartment, and although quite pleased with myself for my time and day calculations, I wasn't nearly as pleased with my calculations as to what Helen would think and do. We'd had our ups and downs, which were almost uniquely downs in recent years, so I doubted that she would call the police and report me missing. Maybe she would try calling me, but she would have noticed that the apartment door was locked when she returned, and that nothing had been stolen. She would simply discover that I was missing, along with my suitcase, some clothes, laptop and phone, and probably presume I'd left her. More than likely she would hope like hell that I had, and happily celebrate the prospect with a bottle of champagne.
'You' better buckle up. It's a very short runway.'
I looked up at the square jawed man and nodded as I fastened my seatbelt and then looked out the window again. I felt a little turbulence as I saw the waves below me and heard the noise of the landing gear being lowered. There was still no sign of land, and I thought back to landing so often in Sydney and Singapore, where it often felt as if the plane was going to land on water until a runway magically appeared below as the plane's wheels touched down. I then felt the first thud of landing before I saw the tarmac appear below the plane's wings, then the screaming of its engines as they were thrown into reverse thrust. My fastened seatbelt came into good use as the plane braked hard and pushed me forward. The man opposite me had the better seat as he was facing the rear of the plane, and calmly sniffed as the plane roared to a speedy halt. I looked out from the window to see the tarmac and then a short stretch of sandy grass that suddenly stopped a short distance from the runway and appeared to end at a cliff, then ocean to the horizon.
'An island?' I asked. He only sniffed in reply.
The plane turned slowly and from my window I could tell it had turned to face the direction from where we had landed, presumably in preparation for take off. I waited for the engines to shutdown, but although now seemingly at idle speed, they still hadn't shutdown when the man sitting opposite me spoke.
'It's time to go,' was all he said, as the younger man quickly passed me in the aisle and went to the door of the plane, which was just in front of me on the left. He pulled a lever and the door opened outwards from the plane with the smell of salt air immediately entering the cabin. I saw a set of steps unfurling from inside the door down to the tarmac. As I unfastened my seatbelt and made to stand, the square jawed man sniffed, looked at me and nodded. I gathered that was his way of saying goodbye and I hope you enjoyed the flight. I moved towards the door of the plane and the young man standing near it. He gestured towards the door with his hand that I should disembark.
'What do I do now?' I asked him, as I stood at the open door and looked out and down onto nothing except a small area of dark grey tarmac and then sand in the distance.
'Please Mr Garret,' was his reply, as he again gestured with his hand for me to descend the steps. I bent my head down as I exited the door and then stepped down from the plane and looked around – at nothing and no one. Within seconds I heard the mechanical sound of the steps from the plane starting to retract and then looked up as the door of the plane closed. I stepped back from the plane thinking it was about to take off, finding a rock jutting from the sand at the edge of the tarmac that was at about seat height. There wasn't much else to do other than sit, wait and see what happened.
A sudden thud broke through the sound of the idling engines and then I saw my suitcase on the tarmac, below the tail of the plane. The thought that it was fortunate I owned a Samsonite suitcase that could handle being dropped like that came to my mind as the jet's engines roared and the plane started moving forward. The thrust from the engines hit my suitcase and I watched it spinning on the tarmac as the plane gained a little speed, and then roared away from me. I watched the plane as it lifted from the end of the runway and climbed rapidly, and then banked right, towards wherever it was heading.
My seat on my rock gave me a good view – of sand, a runway and my lonely suitcase. There was a small rocky outcrop just behind me and to my left, and the sunrise was reflecting across the ocean in front of me. I stood up and did the only logical thing I could think of doing. I walked over and collected my suitcase, and then returned with it to my rock. I sat back down and realised I was hungry. Even my very upside down stomach agreed.
Down
I thought about moving from my rock but for some reason I had an inkling that it was where I was supposed to be. My stomach was now sending me hunger messages, but the lower regions of my guts were sending panic and impending doom sensations. Just for once, my brain agreed in totality with my guts that this felt bad. It took more than an hour of waiting but my inkling proved to be correct and waiting on the rock had been a wise choice. Well, wise only in the sense though of being almost scared to death by what came from behind me.
'Sorry to have kept you waiting,' the voice said. That I was concentrating on the sun's reflection on the water in front of me, and not at all expecting someone to have silently snuck up from behind me would have been normally enough to make me jump in fright. But that it was a woman's voice seemed to add to the shock value of the utterance. I spun my head quickly.
'I'm sorry if I startled you,' she said from a short distance behind me.
'Um, yes,' was all I managed to say, as I looked at her in both shock and surprise.
'Would you come with me please?'
'Yes,' I said, as I stood and picked up my suitcase, still in a state of disbelief. The woman standing in front of me was surprising on many counts. Firstly by sneaking up so silently from behind me and scaring me witless, but also by being so different from those people who had made my acquaintance in the last couple of days. She didn't have eyes that could have killed, she didn't sniff her replies and she didn't seem interested in placing me in handcuffs. She was also stunningly beautiful. Blonde hair flowing across her shoulder and down her back, smiling green eyes, young, perhaps in her mid-twenties and standing only a little more than five-foot tall. Wearing an aquamarine jacket and knee length skirt with sensible shoes, she reminded me of someone who worked behind a five star hotel reception desk.
'You must be a little confused,' she said, as I moved forward towards her.
'Totally.'
'Well, this way,' she said, as she offered a half smile and then turned on her heels and started walking off towards the rocky outcrop I had noticed earlier. I skipped a little to catch up with her and followed to wherever it was that we were heading. It was a full five minutes of walking, more like plodding through the soft sand, before she slowed and stood beside a low rock face and waited for me to catch up. I looked at her wondering why we had stopped here but for some reason I wasn't surprised or shocked at what happened next. Part of the rock face moved away in the motion of a sliding door, revealing a pair of surprisingly ordinary looking silvery metallic elevator doors.
'Just like in the movies,' I said, thinking that today really couldn't get any weirder. She half smiled again, pushed the call button and waited, looking at the elevator doors with me looking at her back.
'Can I ask where we're going?'
'Sorry, I'm only responsible for collecting you,' she said, without turning her head and then was probably relieved when the elevator doors opened that she could complete her task without any more questions from me. I followed her into the elevator and stood against the rear, then dropped my suitcase. She pressed a button and stood on the side, staring ahead, seemingly nervous at my proximity. I gathered by this that our conversation had ended. There were no indicator lights for the number of floors above the doors but I could feel that it was quite some way down that we were travelling. The woman moved to face the doors and I presumed we had nearly arrived. When the doors opened, she stepped out and said, 'This way please.'
I stepped out into an area that resembled a cave, although its shape was more square than curved or round. The floor was made of roughly trowe
lled concrete and the room lit from recesses in the walls. It was bare except for two large blue-green doorways directly opposite the elevator. The woman strode towards the door on the left, opened it and waited for me to enter. When I did, I found myself in a white-washed corridor that stretched ahead and then heard the door close behind me. I waited for the woman, who walked ahead and led me off again, down the length of the corridor until we turned right, and then left into another. I noticed only a few doors dotting the long corridors but after the last turn they were becoming more numerous on both left and right. The woman stopped and checked something from her pocket and presumably verified that this was the door she was looking for. She placed her hand on a small glass panel on the wall adjacent to the door, and it opened.
'Please make yourself comfortable. You will be contacted shortly,' she said, as she stood by the open door and waited for me to enter. When I walked in it was immediately clear that it was my accommodation. I heard the door close behind me and glanced over my shoulder and was not surprised that the woman had not stayed to show me how the television and mini-bar worked. As there were neither that I could see, I suppose there was little point. After dropping my case, I checked my room and would have been pleased if I had been on holiday in Spain. The queen size bed felt comfortable and the bathroom was large and well supplied. A small writing desk and chair plus a small two-seater sofa and light cream walls made it very comfortable. That there were no windows was no surprise, but a tray on the writing table was – breakfast at last. When I removed the cover I found a note atop my neatly napkin wrapped slices of very cold toast.
The Sons Of Cleito (The Abductions of Langley Garret Book 1) Page 2