Errand of Mercy: How far do you run, and where do you hide?

by William Walker

  The lady’s ATM card was not yet in sight. Her fingers were doing a slow waltz through her pocketbook while her mind was apparently on another planet.

  He stepped politely in front of the woman and summoned his best and warmest smile. “Sorry about this ma’am.” He tried not to visualize the fearsome image the poor woman confronted: the cuts on his face, the scrapes, the burn scars. Then another thought. Gina evidently thought he was handsome, so what was that all about?

  A flicker of fear and obstinacy appeared in her eyes as he attempted to move her to the side with gentle pressure on her shoulders. She twisted away with a cry, “Get away from me!”

  “Look, ma’am, I need to get out of here in a hurry. My wife’s already on the train downstairs. She’s handicapped and can’t leave without me.” It sounded lame.

  “Don’t touch me again,” she said loudly. “I’ll scream.”

  The little girl’s eyes opened wide as she peered upward at O’Brien. She stuck her thumb in her mouth and began to cry. As long as the woman didn’t actually scream he was okay. Crowds pushing past seemed to ignore them. The noise in the terminal covered the commotion so far, but there were always plenty of security guards in airports.

  The woman grabbed her handbag and took a deep breath. Something loud was coming.

  “Please,” he said in a raised voice into her face. She recoiled and he flipped his card into the machine. He punched in a few quick key-strokes. “I’ll be out of your way in a second.”

  She drew back, shifted the infant in her arms again and sagged under his stare. “You’re just a bully,” she said as her eyes began to water.

  The children cried as the slider ejected bills into the tray. He’d killed men before and not felt half as badly as he did at this moment.

  “Is he bothering you ma’am?” Gina approached from behind.

  “You should report this man to somebody,” she said tearfully. “He’s just a bully, and he’s...are you his wife?”

  “No. He’s not married.”

  The woman stopped crying and glared at O’Brien. “You said your wife was handicapped! You’re a liar and a bully.” She made a weak effort to kick him.

  O’Brien grabbed the bills from the machine. “I’m not a really good liar, obviously.” He fingered the wad of twenty pound notes. “Here ma’am.” He thumbed a bill and stuffed it in her hand as he turned away. “For you and the kids.”

  Lucy came up in a rush. “You were right, Daniel! Take a look at the far door, the one we came through. That’s Gary with some weird-looking guys just coming in.”

  A jolt of adrenalin hit him even though he’d been expecting someone. He spotted the men and realized he was looking at Starr looking back at him.

  “Let’s go! Downstairs. The train for Brighton!” They were steps away from the down escalator, but even as he led off in a run, a check on the time told him they only had a few minutes remaining. He hoped British trains ran late.

  Lucy took the steps two at a time and O’Brien grabbed Gina’s hand and pulled her along on her flapping sandals.

  The escalator led to a poorly lit subterranean complex humming with the vibration of powerful electric generators. The trains were at the concrete loading docks and there were only a few passengers in sight. A rhythmic clang of metal against metal came from somewhere.

  Lucy yelled at the far ticket counter when she was still yards away. “Three tickets to Brighton, please!”

  A young Asian woman behind the partition looked up in surprise. The ticket counters stood opposite the boarding area for the trains, and the woman raised her voice at a uniformed man walking toward the row of passenger cars with a clipboard in hand. “Stanley?” She pointed at the three late passengers with the tip of a ballpoint pen.

  “Please, Stanley!” Lucy yelled.

  The man was short and stocky and he regarded the group with a dull expression. “You’re too late, luv. Train’s got to go.”

  “We’re doctors,” Gina cried out. “Just back from Africa. My mom is dying. Please!”

  Stanly stopped, glanced past O’Brien and took in Gina. He waved a reluctant come-on to the Asian woman. “Okay then Jayani, give’um tickets, but it’s got to be cash only and I’m not adjusting the count. Make it quick. These Yanks...” He turned away and plodded down the concrete loading platform.

  “Daniel, sorry I doubted you,” Lucy said in a rush a moment later. They clamored up the boarding steps of the car.

  “I doubted myself,” O’Brien said. He took a couple of breaths. “Why don’t you guys take a seat. I’m going to watch the door.” The car was not crowded and there were plenty of open seats in the aft section. The glass sliders to vacant, private compartments were still open toward the front.

  A series of loud chimes sounded along with an announcement to stay clear of the boarding steps. O’Brien moved to the side of the door.

  “God, just in time,” Gina said, still breathing deeply. “Why are we always running anymore? Whatever happened to a nice stroll?” She walked to the rear of the car with Lucy.

  The doors remained open.

  “Come on!” O’Brien grated under his breath. From an angle through the doorway he could view a slice of the ticket counter and the departure waiting area. They weren’t that far ahead of their pursuers, and even with Starr’s limp he figured they had less than sixty seconds.

  Half of that time had elapsed when Starr hobbled to the counter behind the others. His face had become morose and nasty. This was the real Starr, the one that O’Brien sensed was always there. He fixed the faces of the other two in his mind and concluded that he was staring at three hideous men. The thin man wore a loose rain parka with a bulge on the side—a weapon of some sort. The heavy man standing behind Starr was dressed in black and looked almost brainless as he poked a finger into his mouth. He carried himself mainly on one leg, and he had cuts and scrapes on his hands and face.

  The chimes sounded again with yet another warning to stay clear of the doors. “Close, for God’s sake!” O’Brien hissed. Starr and the other men were looking at the train bound for London. He ran a hand over his face and prayed that the train would start moving.

  Finally the doors slid closed and O’Brien felt a jerk as the train cars tightened against their couplings. An instant later the doors unaccountably opened again.

  What the hell?

  The thin man slapped the counter in front of the ticket agent. The other two shifted their gaze as the agent Jayani picked up her ball point pen and lifted a shaky hand in their direction.

  “Fucking great,” O’Brien said to himself. He tensed his muscles and shifted his grip to the side handrails. They weren’t going to get on the train unless they shot him.

  He felt a jerk and the railroad car moved forward an inch or two. Something was happening, but would it be too late? He watched a flurry of movement as the thin man vaulted over the turnstiles and came running toward the line of cars. Did he know what they looked like? That was another question. They had been spotted by Starr across the long, open vault of an airline terminal, but that might not be enough.

  Starr and the heavy man were still climbing over the top of the turnstiles as the thin man raced past their car with hardly a glance. A car length ahead he stopped, turned, and walked back toward their car. He slid from O’Brien’s view as he closed to the side of the train.

  O’Brien pulled back from the door as another ridiculous announcement blared over the public address system. He took a deep breath and counted the five-second interval the man would take for his approach.

  A nightmare face abruptly flared in front of the door. A click of a mental image caught a wide, bitter mouth pulled back into a smirk. O’Brien swung forward into the man’s torso and jackknifed his leg muscles into the broad target of the man’s chest. His heel whacked into the sternum with a loud slap and it punched the man onto his back ten feet out from the train. O’Brien thought he heard a rib crack.

  The doors shuddered and closed fi
rmly together. O’Brien held his breath, but this time the doors remained closed. The railroad car jerked with a solid, definite pull as the line of cars took the strain from the lead locomotive. The train was finally in motion.

  Starr and the stupid-looking man scuttled up to the moving train and pounded on the large windows. O’Brien stepped back into the open seating area and watched the horror show as they walked alongside the train and pounded the windows. Starr pointed a long arm repeatedly at Lucy and Gina as he yelled at his partners.

  Lucy came to her feet and slapped at her side of the window. “Go to hell, Starr!” she yelled, as she raised her middle finger.

  The train was accelerating through the pace of a fast walk as the thin man got to his feet and moved to the side of the car. He followed Starr’s gaze and formed his hand into a pistol. There was no smile on his face as he pantomimed a shot into each one of them.

  A moment later the train cleared the terminal. O’Brien exhaled in a shaky tremor and fixed his eyes on the open-mouth faces of Gina and Lucy. He could say nothing. For the moment they were safe. How long would it last?

  19

  “They can drive it,” O’Brien remarked in a tired voice to Gina. He looked at the women sitting across from him. They’d retreated into one of the vacant compartments and shut the door. The small chamber was comfortable and quiet and provided a feeling of privacy and safety. Cushy salon seats faced each other underneath overhead luggage racks. Lucy’s head was reclined against one of the headrests. Her eyes were closed and O’Brien could pick up a muted snore from her rhythmic breathing. “It’s not that far, but it’ll be tough to find us once we’re in Brighton,” he said. “We’ll have to get away from the train station though.”

  Gina sat next to the window and held a blank gaze in a fixed position. She turned her head fractionally in his direction. “This whole thing is just incredible. I can’t believe it.”

  He nodded grim faced.

  She reached absentmindedly into her bag and retrieved a thin, cream-colored cotton pullover with a small British flag sewn into the front shoulder. It amazed him that women could shop so quickly.

  She allowed her bag to drop to the floor with a heavy thump and eyed him. “You get the last look at my top so enjoy the view. I wore it for you, and now I’m freezing.” She worked herself into the pullover and slid the stitched neck over her head. A generous flash of her cleavage rose up with the movement then disappeared under the covering.

  “I’m truly scared, Daniel,” she said in an off-pitch voice as she adjusted the article of clothing. She pulled her hair back from the collar.

  “And I’m confused,” he said. “We can all see what’s happening, but I can’t figure out the rationale behind everything.”

  Lucy sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Like what?”

  “These people seem to kill pretty indiscriminately if that soldier was any example,” he said. “I thought initially that whoever’s behind this would be after us just to teach us a lesson, for delaying the airplane, leaving it on the ramp here at Gatwick, chucking the contract, that sort of thing. But this is something different. I get the feeling that they’re...proactively after us, and for a reason. That little scene at the station a few minutes ago was more than an attempt to punish us.”

  “So what was it?”

  He leaned against the seatback and watched her adjust her cuffs. “I don’t know. I truly don’t.”

  Gina wadded the packing material from the pullover. She looked left and right and finally stuck the wrapping paper in her bag.

  O’Brien raised his head slightly. “Everything goes in there? Even garbage?”

  “Yeah.” She grabbed the canvas straps and gave the bag an up-and-down jiggle. “It’s getting heavy too.”

  He reclined his head again and attempted to close his eyes. The natural motion of the train, the clickety-clack of the rails was as soothing as a lullaby, and he tried for the empty, hollow vacuum of sleep.

  He abruptly sat up with his eyes wide open and his heart thumping. He stared at the women.

  “Daniel? What?” Gina looked at him.

  He ran a hand through his hair and held back for an instant. “We’ve got something they want. Something huge. Something valuable. That’s the only explanation.”

  “I had the key to Gary’s flat,” Gina said. “He may think I’ve still got it, but that couldn’t be it.”

  O’Brien shook his head and glanced at Lucy. “And it’s not in our flight bags. Remember? We left them in the hallway. They would’ve checked them first.”

  “So you’ve got to be thinking in terms of my bag.” Gina said. “I can do the math.”

  “Think about it. Gary followed us through customs like a hound dog. He was waiting to see—”

  “If I got stopped,” Gina finished for him.

  “Exactly. If they found the...let’s call it the contraband, you’d be arrested—not him—and if not, he could pick up whatever it was when we came out.”

  Lucy came to life and said, “Except we went out a different exit!”

  He glanced at the compartment door, reached over and slid the lock lever forward. “Gina, would you mind dumping out your bag here on the floor? We’ll just see if I’m right. If not, then I give up.”

  “I’ve got some girly stuff in here so be prepared,” Gina warned him.

  He shrugged. “Tampax and condoms. I’ve seen ’em before, okay?”

  Lucy sat up. “Maybe a sex toy.”

  “No sex toys, I’m afraid.” She dumped the contents on the hard, brown nap of the compartment floor.

  No one spoke for a moment. Gina knelt and scattered her effects around. A book and a stethoscope, along with various pills, hairbrushes and toiletries occupied most of the floor. Two strange items stood out.

  “These must be what they’re after, ‘cause they’re not mine.” She separated two pint-sized Ziploc containers full of small quartz-like stones.

  “My God.” Lucy gawked. “Are those things what I think they are?”

  O’Brien looked closely. “Yeah, they’re rough diamonds and there must be a hundred in those plastic containers.” He picked up a bag, unzipped the seal and withdrew one of the diamonds. He squinted. “Six carats, ladies? What do you think?”

  Lucy took the diamond and rolled it slowly in her hand. She pinched it between her fingers. After a pause she looked down. A mote of red appeared on her cheeks. “I can’t believe I let that bastard kiss me,” she said in a quiet voice.

  O’Brien let it hang. There was a time for a flip remark, but this wasn’t it.

  “So what are all of these worth?” Gina wondered.

  “Enough to murder for,” O’Brien answered. “Maybe five, six million. I don’t know. But we can’t return them.”

  Gina looked up from the floor. “They’d kill us, whether we gave them back or not.” She began returning the clutter to her carryall. She tossed the remaining baggie to O’Brien. “You keep them, Daniel. I don’t care about the diamonds. I just want my life back.”

  “Yeah, we all do.” He pitched the bags onto the seat beside him and stretched his legs across to the opposite settee.

  “A little room, Daniel?” Lucy squirmed sideways.

  “Sorry, Lu. I’ve got to close my eyes for a minute. I know what we’ve got to do, but I’ve got to close my eyes. It’s the post conflict syndrome. All the shrinks know about it. Wake me in ten minutes and we’ll talk. Meanwhile, I’m going to sleep.”

  The train began to slow and O’Brien awakened to confront Gina’s dark eyes on his. She held the contact, scrutinizing his face as he blinked the sleep away.

  “You let me sleep too long,” he said.

  “You needed it. Lucy too.”

  He nodded and sat upright. “Okay. I’m feeling better.”

  “Daniel, what would we ever do on a date?” She said in a quiet voice. “After this.”

  Her face was lovely and weary and intelligent and concerned, all wrapped up into one expression. He
rubbed a hand across his face. He knew what she meant by the question. Was this real or just an infatuation ramped up by the stress of the last few days? Change the environment and what have you got? Maybe the attraction would not have been as strong had they met under normal circumstances. Yet, he couldn’t forget the night on the rooftop. Was that dream-like embrace only thirty-six hours before? Something overwhelming seemed to be taking hold of him, and now he couldn’t break away. That was his side of the equation. He wasn’t sure what her side was, but hopefully there was an equals sign in the middle.

  “Say.”

  “Say what?”

  “What would we do together, as a couple?”

  He gave it another few seconds. She was trying to project, to square the circle, to figure out what was there. “I don’t know,” he said. “Being alone with you would give me a chance to stare at you for one thing, study your face, connect with your thoughts, tune out the rest of the world and let all of the normal concerns just pass us by. And I wouldn’t have to feel awkward about any of it.”

  “Tune out the world. That’d be nice. What else would we do?”

  He raised his shoulders, contracted them slightly. “Prepare delicious Italian dinners, share some good wine with each other. Did I mention I’m a good cook?”

  “No.” Gina gave the word some attitude.

  “Well, I am.”

  “Keep going, Daniel.” She pulled the hair from the back of her neck, gave her head a shake and readjusted her clip.

  “We could read the morning paper in bed together, maybe with some good, strong coffee. How’s that for a thought?” He picked out a patch of freckles on the bridge of her nose and came back to her eyes. Her pupils were dilating.

  “Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself? I mean, we’ve only known each other for a few days.”

  “I wouldn’t want to rush anything, but keep in mind we’ve been through a pressure cooker of dangerous and life-threatening events with each other. As I figure it, that equates to a normal dating period of about two weeks.”