“Come off this exit,” she told me.
“I thought we were going to London?”
“Just shut the fuck up and get off this exit. There’s a service station up ahead. Pull into the car park behind it and park in a space at the very back. I have a surprise for you.”
Sarah
We’d been waiting for around fifteen minutes. Despite the bitter cold, Elizabeth insisted I turn the engine off. Without heaters, it was like sitting in an icebox.
“I don’t understand why you brought me into all this. You knew I never wanted anything to do with the company. I would’ve sold you those shares in a heartbeat if you’d asked me to.”
“You may be beautiful Sarah, but you really are swimming in your mother’s end of the gene pool when it comes to brains. Of course you would’ve sold them to me, but really, after everything I’ve done for Tatem Shipping, why should I part with a penny? Those shares are mine. Mine by birth right and mine because I’ve earned them. Far better to inherit the shares as your next of kin,” she replied smugly.
“If I’m killed, you’d be the first person they’d look at. You can’t inherit that kind of money from someone who’s been murdered or killed suspiciously and not expect a few eyebrows to be raised,” I said, wondering if she really might have been mad after all.
“Really, Sarah, it’s clear you don’t have a head for this sort of thing at all. You need to start thinking outside of the box. How do you ensure the finger of blame is never pointed at you? Well, you make sure that someone else kills the person you want dead very loudly and very publicly, and you play the part of the grief-stricken lady of misfortune, deprived of the last member of her family in a way the entire country will sympathise with. By the time my inheritance comes through, I’ll be a national treasure. My popularity and media presence will put those shares at an all-time high, and that’s when I’ll sell them. Of course, nobody would expect me to continue on. It will be a sad day for the board that the last living Tatem is leaving Tatem Shipping, and behind my back people will talk about how I must be regretting not having any children now. Those bitches can think what they like though. I’ll be smiling on the inside. Because now the Russian trade deal is dead, eventually it will come to light that the bottom is falling out of the company. It will take months, maybe a year even, but I’ll be long gone. Doing the talk-show circuit and selling my tale of woe. I might even write a book about it, before retiring to an island somewhere warm.”
“At the risk of getting hit again, I have to tell you that you are absolutely fucking delusional. Why would the public give a shit that I died? And how would that possibly help you get a book deal?”
She lunged towards me again, having gotten a taste for violence, only this time I wasn’t driving and caught her wrist.
“Gun on Nan or not, you raise your hand to me again, and I will bitch-slap you into the middle of next week,” I warned. I’d had enough of crying, of mourning, of feeling like a fucking victim. Now I was fighting back, and the first time she let her attention drift, I was getting that weapon off her. She snatched her arm away indignantly, and I let her.
“It amuses me to see you so upset over a slap. Believe me, that’s going to seem like a gentle caress next to what you’re going to endure,” she said, smiling as she regained some of her composure. I frowned, as a wave of nausea came over me. It didn’t sound as though it was her plan to shoot me quickly.
“You didn’t answer me,” I repeated. “Why would the public give a shit that I died?”
“It’s not your death that they’ll care about. It’s how you’ll die that will make me famous,” she said, leaning forward so that she was right in my face, “there’s a storm coming, and you’ll be in the eye of it. That was my price. I don’t need money. I’ll get that from the sale of my shares. They offered me a few million, but what good is a couple of extra million when it can be traced back to me? Forensic accounts being what they are these days, it just wasn’t worth the risk. I’ll get what’s coming to me when I cash in our combined share value. No, I wanted something else. So, when Vasili came to me and said that he wanted me to ship a biological weapon from Russia to the United Kingdom, we struck a bargain. You see Vasili wants out of the game also. I suppose it is rather tiring to always be at the whim of someone more powerful than you. Between us, we had a buyer, a need, the cash, and a way out. The only thing I struggled with was a way to engineer it all, until you stepped in and set it all up so beautifully.” She cackled with gleeful laughter.
“For Christ’s sake! Will you stop talking in riddles and just spit it out please? What did you do and what are you talking about, a biological weapon? Everything was seized by the SAS last night. It’s been all over the news all day,” I said, omitting the fact that Tom had been killed in the assault. She’d immediately work out that I gave Nan a message, and Nan wouldn’t be safe after that.
“You stupid bitch, you still haven’t figured it out! You were the one who brought in the SAS. You were the one who set this whole thing up for us. The firebombs that have been all over the city, they were just a prelude. A pre-dinner performance! Have you ever heard of a dirty bomb? It’s what you get when you attach a biological agent or nuclear material to an ordinary bomb. It doesn’t have the same level of devastation as a nuclear bomb, but it will bring a built-up area like London to its knees,” she gloated, as though it were some kind of achievement that should be lauded. “I arranged the delivery, Vasili took the payment, and the terrorist cell your boyfriend’s been looking so hard for will get the engine for their bomb. The Russian gang wants their money, of course, but thanks to the SAS, they now believe Vasili to be dead and the money lost along with him. Vasili gets his very comfortable retirement, and I get exactly what I need. A niece who dies strapped to a suicide vest in a death I couldn’t possibly be connected to.”
“What have you done?” I asked in disbelief. “You’d help facilitate in the killing of thousands of innocent lives. Families. Children. Your own people, for shares I would have gifted to you. They meant nothing to me. They never did. And soon they won’t mean anything to you either. At the end of the day, whether you’re implicated in my death or not won’t matter. I stopped by my solicitor before I left London. Figured it was about time to make a will. In the event of my death, the shares, the money, the property, everything goes into a trust fund. The fund will be managed by an appointed trustee with beneficiaries being those closest to me and the bulk going to a charity that helps the victims of human trafficking.”
It was my time to sound smug, and it felt good to wipe that entitled smirk off her face. If I’d known she was going to shoot me, I might have kept my mouth shut. The bang startled me because I wasn’t expecting it, but it took seconds for the pain to register. I looked down to see the red stain spreading across my sweater, and only then did I realise that the bullet had pierced my side.
“You’re ruining everything!” she screamed, before pretty much losing it, smacking the dash board over and over again with the butt of the gun like some fucking crazy person. I pressed my hand over the wound and pushed, bile instantly rising in my throat. I knew as much about first aid as I knew about football, which was a grand total of fuck all. In the back of my fuzzy little mind though, something was telling me that keeping pressure on it was a good idea.
After her little outburst, Elizabeth brushed back her now wild hair and made a fruitless attempt to comb it back into place, the gun still clutched in one hand as though she’d forgotten it was there.
“No matter. I’ll contest the will. There’s enough people who’ll testify about the adverse effect that money-grabbing parasite of yours had on your mental well-being to get it overturned,” she said, ignoring the fact completely that she’d shot me.
“You’re going to lose everything,” I said on a groan. “Do you have any idea what happened to the US economy on 9/11? The same thing’s going to happen here, and then your precious share prices won’t be worth shit.”
“Not if I short certain stocks and bet against the market. Then when stock hits rock bottom, I’ll do very well. Not enough to raise any red flags on a stock market analysis, but well enough. I’ve been in this industry for more than thirty years. You don’t think I’ve covered every base? By the time I inherit your shares, the economy will have recovered. The long-term effects of a dirty bomb will spread, meaning that food will need to be imported where it can’t be grown. Do you know what that will do to the price of those shipping stocks? It’s possible that losing the Russian business won’t affect Tatem Shipping at all, but I’ll be long gone before I find out.” She was so pleased with her own cunning that she was positively glowing.
“And the attack on London Bridge? Was that just coincidence?” I asked, my side really beginning to burn in a way that was making my vision blur.
“Of course not,” she replied. “That was supposed to be my payment. The terrorist event that would have blown you into the water. But the stupid bastard went too early and ruined the whole thing. And if he’d done his fucking job, you wouldn’t have made a will. Still, no use getting upset about it. You just have to roll with the punches I suppose. They were actually a lot more amenable to the idea than I thought. Apparently, a very wealthy, beautiful, and rich British heiress makes a very fine statement when she’s strapped to a biological weapon in the centre of London.”
“But the SAS seized your shipment,” I protested.
“No. The SAS seized a shipment. What better way to shut down their operation than by giving them what they think they’ve been looking for? Our terrorist friends could see the logic in that, and it wasn’t really much of a sacrifice to send in a few of their men who were, of course, clueless as to what was about to transpire. The terror level has already been publicly dropped in response to this ridiculous publicity stunt. They have absolutely no idea what’s coming.”
“Nan will know you came for me.” If I’d been any less delirious, I wouldn’t have mentioned her name. I wouldn’t have drawn attention to her in any way. But this was another base she’d already covered.
“Nancy Harper won’t live to see the morning,” she gloated, and using the very last reserves of energy left in the tank, I pulled my arm back and punched her hard in the face before passing out cold.
Tom
“Where are you going?” Will asked as I headed towards my Land Rover.
“Davies told Nan and Sarah that I was shot and killed last night. Told them it was during a training exercise, but with the leaked footage, he knows they’ll have bought it. Fucker wanted to hold me for twenty-four hours so MI5 could get Sarah in witness protection before I got back.”
“I don’t get it. How does Sarah going into witness protection help Davies?”
“Vasili Agheenco wasn’t taken out with the rest of the Russians, and Davies made the call to go regardless. At the moment, he’s looking at a medal and a hefty promotion. If a rags-to-riches heiress who gave up everything to bring down terrorists is killed publicly because Davies made that call, the press will have a fucking field day.”
“Dirty fucker. Nan’s gonna remove his balls with a rusty knife when she finds out,” Will predicted.
“That’s pretty much what I told him.” I unlocked my car and sat down in the driver’s seat, my aching ribs still giving me grief. Will climbed into the passenger seat, and I just looked at him.
“What? You didn’t think I was going to let you do this by yourself, did you?” he asked.
I didn’t argue with him because we both knew I’d do the same for him. Not that I could ever see Will racing out to track down the girl he loved, but stranger things had happened. I would’ve said the same about myself a year ago. I dug out my phone from the centre console of my car where I’d left it. As soon as it powered up, I checked the link to the security feeds. Nan was pacing up and down with her phone to her ear, looking absolutely furious.
“Fuck. I can’t see her,” I said. I’d pulled up the feed in every camera I had at the house and she wasn’t in one. After an unsuccessful attempt to call Nan, I chucked him my phone then started the engine and gunned it towards the main gates.
“Keep trying Nan for me. Her line’s constantly engaged, and Sar’s is just going straight to voicemail. I’d prefer Nan to find out I’m alive before I just rock up on the doorstep, and I need to know if MI5 or the Ministry of Defence guys have taken Sarah.”
The guards waved us through at the exit, and I broke more than a few speed limits as I sped through the country lanes back to the cottage. If Sarah was still there, I had no doubt that’s where they’d be holed up. Sarah loved our place, and Nan wouldn’t try and take her away from anywhere that gave her comfort. I fucking loved that it was “our” place now, but my gut burned when I let myself think of what they both must have endured in the last twelve hours, thinking I was dead. It strengthened my resolve to leave active combat duties as soon as I could. A small part of me was a little ashamed at the thought of everything I’d put Nan through over the years. The worry of never knowing whether I’d make it back or not alive. But as fucked up as my childhood had been, I needed that outlet. Needed the discipline of the army until I could figure out who I was, who I wanted to be. Now all I needed was Sarah. Fuck it, I’d be a great stay-at-home Dad if it meant she could do what made her happy. Never in a million years did I ever see myself having kids, but now that I had Sar, the idea was stuck in my head. I wanted to see her belly swell with my baby, wanted to hear their first laugh and change their first nappy. No way was I going to miss out on that because I was squatting in some shithole doing intel on the other side of the world. I would be the perfect dad because I knew exactly the sort of father I didn’t want to be.
“Any luck?” I asked him for about the fiftieth time.
“Do you hear me talking to anyone?” he grumbled. I was about to tell him to cut off when I heard a voice on the other end of the line. “Hi, Nan, it’s Will Edwards,” he said.
“Who?” she screeched.
“Will Edwards, Tom’s friend,” he replied.
“Who?” she screeched louder.
“It’s Badger,” he practically shouted down the phone.
“Why didn’t you bloody say so then?” she shouted back, and he rolled his eyes, despite the fact she couldn’t see him. She was talking so quickly, I couldn’t hear her through the phone.
“Listen, Nan,” he said, trying to calm her down. “I need you to sit down for a sec. I have something really important to tell you. Yes. Yes. Yes…I know all that. Yes. Listen, woman, will you stop talking for a second and let me get a word in edgeways!” Everything went quiet, and then Nan was speaking in a low voice.
“Yes, Mrs Harper. Sorry, Mrs Harper,” he said eventually, seeming a bit embarrassed. I chuckled to myself thinking that only my mother could have the hardest special operative fucker I knew apologising like a contrite schoolboy.
“Well, the thing is, I know that Lieutenant Colonel Davies paid you and Sarah a visit earlier, but he wasn’t exactly truthful. Tom was shot during the exercise last night, but his Kevlar vest saved him. Davies wanted you to think he was dead so he could get Sarah to agree to witness protection,” he told her.
“Why didn’t you bloody well say so,” Nan screamed down the line. “You’ve been on the phone five minutes, and you’re only just telling me my boy’s alive!” Her rant continued, but I didn’t hear any more of it. Will covered the mouthpiece and lowered the phone as she continued to scream.
“You and me go back a long way, mate, so no disrespect intended, but your mother drives me up the fucking wall,” he said.
I chuckled because she drove everyone up the wall, but I stopped short as we sped up the lane to the cottage. “We’re here,” I said, screeching to a stop on the gravel drive. He ended the call, cutting her off mid-rant, and I had a feeling he’d pay for that when she saw him. She already had the front door open by the time we reached it, and I lifted her off her feet into a huge hug. For once in her life, sh
e was speechless.
“You okay?” I asked as I put her down.
She wiped the corners of her eyes surreptitiously and smiled. “Well, I am now. But I don’t fancy going through that again anytime soon, and I’m taking a sledgehammer to that fucker Davies’s kneecaps when I see him next,” she said.
“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on putting you through that again anytime soon. I have a few years left on my ticket, but I’m getting out of special ops,” I told her. I felt a little bad that I hadn’t discussed it with Will, but he wouldn’t be surprised to hear it after everything that had gone down.
“Oh thank God,” she said, putting her hand over her heart. The damn woman had never let on that my profession bothered her, but I could see then what I’d been putting her through all those years.
“Where’s my girl?” I asked her, needing to feel her safe in my arms.
“You’d better come in,” she said, and walked towards the kitchen. Will and I shared a look, and his face reflected the same concern as mine. This didn’t sound good at all.
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