Hawk's Cross

by David Collenette

  He swung himself upright and stood up, hurried across to the window and crouched down. From the seclusion of the inside of the building he looked out across the street and regarded the cars.

  He reached into his pocket and retrieved his phone. He tapped in a text and sent it, although I couldn’t read what it said.

  Next he worked quickly, collecting up his stuff and putting it into his pockets. The laptop he took and placed into the dishwasher.

  Next we went back to the window and watched the cars. A few minutes later and we saw other cars arriving: two black cars from the same direction already with the lights off.

  “More?” I asked.

  “No, these are with us.”

  These new cars tried to approach with stealth but it was difficult. The road was straight and open, and with nothing else on the streets everything was noticeable. The first cars clearly spotted the arrival and I heard engines start. The first two cars lurched forwards and crossed the street, stopping at right angles to the arriving cars. The doors opened and from each car four men got out.

  Using the cars as a shield they crouched down and waited. As the new cars got closer I heard cracks of gunfire and saw flashes coming from the men below as they fired their weapons.

  The approaching cars stopped and the men inside jumped out, also using the vehicles as shields.

  Roche put his hand on my shoulder: “Time to go.”

  Instead of going to the door, Roche pulled the chairs out of the way and walked to the side of the balcony.

  He went back inside and grabbed two bags – his bag and my duffle – and came back out. One more look below and he climbed up onto the balcony wall saying, “Follow me,” and he slipped around the wall to the balcony next door.

  I climbed up and followed. Down below I could hear the cracks of gunfire and my imagination told me that any second now I would start to feel those shots hit the wall beside me. I hurried as quickly as I could.

  I tried not to look down as I swung around the wall to the next balcony and followed Roche as he did the same to the next balcony.

  We went from balcony to balcony towards the end of the building. Suddenly, as I was crossing the last wall, I heard a louder crack and was hit in the face. At first I thought I’d been shot but then I realised that the shot had hit the wall next to me and splinters of concrete had hit me in the cheek.

  I jumped down and Roche pulled me back as he looked back the way we’d come. He removed a pistol from his jacket and aimed back. He waited and then fired. A scream as he’d clearly hit someone but the scream seemed to be angry rather than frightened and I guess that the shooter had been hurt but not killed.

  “Quickly,” said Roche as we headed to the other wall. He pushed me towards the wall and said, “Get on the ladder.”

  With that, he went back to the other wall and held off the new shooters as I climbed onto the wall. There were no more balconies left. In place of another balcony was a ladder. It wasn’t a normal ladder but instead looked like one of those used by firefighters on top of their fire engines. Looking across I could see that a fire truck was indeed parked on another street to the side, higher than the street below. I started panicking. Moving from balcony to balcony was one thing; climbing onto a wobbling ladder was another.

  Roche joined me. “They’ve worked out which room we’re in. Hurry.”

  At that moment I heard a crash and realised that someone was trying to get through the front door of this apartment.

  Roche said, “It’s blocked but it won’t hold long. Move!”

  Spurred on I reached over and grabbed the ladder. Terrified, I lifted my leg and bridged the gap to place a foot on the ladder. I pulled my other leg across and felt Roche’s foot brush my hand as he was right behind me.

  I heard a crash and guessed that they’d breached the door, the barricade crashing around them.

  I felt completely vulnerable. This was madness. They would be out on the balcony in seconds and we were slowly climbing down a long ladder in full view of the balcony.

  Just then the ladder swayed violently and I gripped on hard to stop myself falling. I looked up to see two men appear at the wall of the balcony as the ladder swung to the left and away from the gunmen.

  The truck was moving and the ladder was swinging away from the building as it went. I gripped on tight and waited. There was nothing else I could do.

  As the truck moved away the ladder began bouncing, the pendulum effect making each dip of the truck’s wheels ten times worse up here. I felt a rumble as the ladder began to retract as we went, and I felt my toes scraping on the rungs from the lower part of the ladder as the sections retracted together.

  Eventually, the ladders collapsed together and lay flat on the truck. We stayed where we were, holding on tight. The driver, aware that we were now down on the truck, gave up any pretence of caution and started throwing the truck through the streets as fast as possible. The streets were narrow and winding and we swept violently from side to side as we lay between the side rails of the ladders, clinging on.

  Eventually the truck pulled to a stop and Roche jumped up. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  I pushed myself up and yanked my shoes clear of the rungs. I jumped down from the truck after Roche and followed him at a run into a building.

  Inside the building was a small counter with adverts across the wall for limos and helicopters. We ran past the counter and through a door around a corner.

  In front of us was a scanning machine similar to ones I’ve seen in films about airports and a conveyor belt for luggage that disappeared into a machine with rubber flaps.

  We ran through the scanner which was switched off and out of another door, around a corner and through a final door before we were outside on a large, flat concrete surface. Standing on the tarmac was a large black helicopter.

  As we ran towards the helicopter I could hear the engines starting and the huge rotors on the top slowly beginning to revolve. The side door of the chopper was open and a man stood next to the door beckoning us over and urging us inside. We jumped inside and he slid the door shut.

  The rotors were spinning fast now and the craft was vibrating as I found a seat and struggled to strap myself in. Roche didn’t bother strapping in and stayed by the window, gun drawn, looking back towards the building.

  Suddenly, the vibrating got worse and the noise changed, and with a gentle twitch the helicopter lifted off the ground, tipped towards its nose and we began to move upwards and forwards.

  Roche relaxed, placed his gun back into his coat and sat opposite me. He still didn’t strap in. I felt slightly foolish strapping myself in; after swinging from a ladder, climbing across balconies high in the air and being shot at, strapping myself into a seatbelt seemed similar to eating fifteen hamburgers and ordering a Diet Coke.

  It was very noisy inside. Roche put some headphones on and indicated that I should do the same. I looked up and saw three sets hanging above the seats I was in, so I grabbed a set and put them on.

  I could hear Roche in the headset: “Empty your duffle.”

  I picked up my duffle bag, which I’d swung off my shoulder and onto the floor when we’d got in, and emptied it out onto the floor.

  Roche started going through the contents one by one. He picked up a shirt and checked it all over, bending the collar and checking the seams. Next, he checked some jeans and carried on through all of the contents.

  Satisfied that he didn’t find anything amongst the clothes, he picked up the bag and started going through it. He checked through it all and I thought he’d found nothing until he got to the straps. He frowned and reached into his jacket for a knife.

  Opening the knife, he slit the carry straps open. They were double webbed with a void in the centre. He ran his thumb down the inside and pulled something out. He examined it. It
looked like a small plastic tag, similar to those used to stop people stealing clothes, but it was black and had a short, stiff wire attached to it.

  We were over water now and Roche went over to the door. He opened a small sliding window and tossed the thing out.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “A tracker,” he replied.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  We sat in silence.

  17

  Roche was deep in thought and I could imagine why. We’d moved to areas that he’d considered to be safe and yet they’d found us. Not only had they found us but they had found us quickly, which led to only one conclusion: that they’d had information we weren’t aware of. Roche had joined the dots and worked out that we must have been tracked and only since leaving his house.

  The only constant since leaving had been my bag. Searching it had revealed the tracker.

  Finally, Roche turned and spoke to the pilot, his words reiterated in all headsets but of no use to me as they were all in French.

  However, I guessed that he’d come up with a change in plan and a few seconds after their conversation the pilot swung the chopper over to the left and we changed direction.

  Watching Roche for a while I finally said, “Where are we going?”

  Without looking over to me he simply said, “Home.”

  I was expecting to fly to his house and was surprised to only be in the air for about twenty minutes. I was even more surprised to find that we were landing on the playing field at Gourdon.

  We got out of the chopper and moved away. We stood and watched as the pilot angled the blades and the heavy downwash blew hard against us as he lifted off, dipped forwards and disappeared into the night.

  Once out of sight, I was surprised at how quiet it had suddenly become. The sky was bursting with stars, more than I’d ever seen before, sprayed across the black blanket of night.

  The air was cool but not cold and the breeze prickled goose-bumps up on my skin. In the distance the sea was inky black, the waves hinted at by the occasional glimpse of reflected moonlight.

  Roche was busy working on his phone and came over, probably to hurry me along. However, when he saw me looking out at the surroundings he relaxed and stood next to me.

  He lit a cigarette and stared to the left. I followed his gaze and could just see the first hints of a lighter sky appear as the dawn suggested its own arrival.

  “The world keeps turning,” I said.

  He turned to me, nodded and said, “I guess so. Let’s go.”

  We walked across the field and to the car park.

  Gourdon was different to this afternoon. Three times I’ve been to this little village in twenty-four hours and each visit couldn’t have been more different. From lazy, sun-washed village to an arena of mayhem and death and now to dormant blackness. I wondered how much today had forever changed this little village. All things are already lost; everything temporary. I wondered how many of the people here who had lost loved ones today would be able to see the bliss in a single moment ever again.

  When we reached the car, Roche opened the boot and retrieved another laptop and a couple of new clips for his pistol. He reloaded his pistol and put the spares into his jacket. Then he turned to me, threw me the keys to the car and said, “I’ve got things to do. You drive.”

  “What?”

  “You drive.”

  “I can’t!”

  “It’s not much more difficult on this side of the road, just take care.”

  “No, I mean I can’t. At all.”

  “You can’t drive?”

  “I never had to.”

  Roche regarded me carefully and then said, “You do now.”

  Sat behind the wheel of the car I was completely lost. Roche showed me how to start it and explained, “It’s an automatic. You put it in D for drive and use the pedals: that one to go faster and that one to stop. The wheel makes you go left and right.”

  I stared at him.

  “You’ve driven a bumper car, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, this is pretty much the same, just don’t hit anyone and stay on the right.”

  For half an hour I was terrified. The car lurched forwards and skidded to a stop. Lurched and stopped, lurched and stopped.

  However, after a few near scrapes, skids and learning some new French words that were probably not taught in schools I was able to drive the car, albeit very slowly, along the road.

  It was hard. I kept over-steering and then not steering enough on the bends, meaning that I had to brake and over-compensate the steering. I thought that this would annoy Roche but, once we were going, he was focused on the laptop, only glancing up now and then to give directions.

  An hour later and we were making good, albeit slow, progress, although I was terrified.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Other cars. Everywhere.”

  He looked up and saw that the three-lane carriageway we were on was now loading with early morning traffic. The other drivers were clearly annoyed with my cautious driving and were honking and pulling in close in front to register their distaste.

  However, Roche just said, “You’re doing fine,” and looked back down at his laptop.

  So I tried to relax and ignore the hatred from other motorists as I drove this high-powered black sports car along the highway, hoping that I wouldn’t be overtaken by a child on a tricycle.

  I drove for some time until Roche finally said, “I need to upload some more data and I can’t do this properly while we’re moving. We’ll stop at Rochefort.”

  I had no idea where that was so I carried on driving until Roche gave me directions into the town.

  We parked up, that is to say I parked up, at the centre of the town near a bridge. By now, thanks to my aversion to speed, it was early afternoon.

  Roche had selected a modern-looking hotel offering free internet and checked us into a twin room. I stood at the window and watched the people walk alongside the river while Roche set up his laptop, plugged in the phone device and connected to the internet service.

  “That will take some time and then we’ll need to wait for intelligence to come back.”

  “What does it do?” I asked.

  “The phone had some useful information on it, including some location settings, phone numbers and messages. I’ve compiled the information and now I’m uploading the contents, including the tracking and call detail report, and am sending this through to the organisation who hired me. They will analyse the data, identify other devices that have been in contact with the phone and hack them. Assuming they can get what they need, it should give us a fairly comprehensive idea of who was calling who, where they were located and hopefully some reliable information.”

  “How long does it take?”

  “It depends. Sometimes a few hours, sometimes a couple of days, depending on how difficult it is to extract the information and how well connected the other devices are.”

  “So, what now?”

  “We can leave this and get some lunch.”

  Leaving the hotel we walked along the river until we found a restaurant with outdoor seating. We chose a table outside but in a corner away from others, settled down and ordered some food. I ordered a lasagne and ate it quietly while drinking some wine that Roche ordered, staring out over the river and the people walking by.

  “Are we safe here?” I asked, scanning people as they walked past and carefully examining the behaviour of cars as they came down the street.

  “As safe as anywhere right now,” replied Roche. “With the tracking device gone we should be able to move around with more freedom.”

  “That’s good. I’m not sure how much more excitement I can deal
with for one day.” I tried to make this sound playful but my heart wasn’t in it. Finally, “How do you do it? How do you cope with… all of it?”

  “With what? You mean the constant threat?”

  “And the death! It feels like all I’ve seen is death!” I could feel my throat closing up and I leaned my head in my hand, trying to suppress a sob.

  We sat in silence for a while and then Roche said, “So, you’ve told me how you came to know Ethan but you haven’t told me what happened next. You talk about all this death. What exactly are you referring to?”

  It struck me that Roche didn’t know of my involvement. His priority had been to locate Claudia and he had very little interest in my hardships. “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “Probably not. Tell me anyway, we have little to do for a while and you talking might be a little less conspicuous than you sobbing into your pasta.”

  I sat up straight and wiped my eyes. My throat felt tight and I took a drink of wine to help steady myself. Thinking about the things I saw was painful but I started anyway. I told him about the first meeting: the guy in the chair with the twisted eye. I told him everything: the fake suicide and the race to get to the school. I explained how I tried to beat the system and how I was punished by the bombing. Listening to myself telling the story it sounded ridiculous; as if someone was telling a story that had happened to someone else. Eventually I sat back and stared to the side, feeling the tears welling up again.

  “You couldn’t help those people, Matthew. You didn’t kill them.”

  “But I did! I made choices and people died! I tried to save them all but people died! I don’t have the right to decide who lives and who dies! I killed them! I see them every day and I see them in my dreams.” Tears were flowing again and I hated myself for letting it all show.

  I drank some more wine but the hurt was overwhelming. I looked at Roche, tears streaming down my face and said, “When does it stop? How can I make it stop?”

  “I was wrong,” said Roche.

  “About what?” I sobbed.