Seven Day Hero

by J. T. Brannan

  The Bull must have taken his partner’s death seriously, and it was clear that subtlety was now out of the equation. The man wanted Cole dead, however he did it.

  Cole looked down at the body of Pencil Neck in front of him, spread-eagled on the floor, the thick metal door trying to close itself by crushing his chest. Beyond, Cole saw the man’s own silenced handgun at the foot of the stairwell. Keeping low, he ducked down to grab the weapon and retrieve it from the doorway.

  The same phht! was followed by the same metallic kerang! as the Bull fired again. Cole reared back out of the way, again narrowly missing being shot. The man was good, Cole gave him that.

  So, he couldn’t get the gun. But Cole was faced with another problem – the open door would soon register with the ship’s security centre. Meant to be kept shut against flooding, if the door was held open for too long an alarm would soon start sounding in the operations room.

  Cole held his breath, centring himself. Over the beating of his own heart, he heard movement. The Bull was advancing. Cole used the opportunity to reach out and grab Pencil Neck’s legs, pulling him violently backwards into the parking sector. As the door finally released him and clanked shut, Cole fell over backwards with the force of his pulling. It didn’t matter though – the body was out, the door was shut, and Cole regained his feet instantly.

  He had lost his awareness of the other man’s position though, and hoped that the man or woman tasked with watching the security cameras would not be studying the screens too closely. The notion didn’t worry him unduly, however; experience had taught him that such cameras were seldom monitored very effectively. They were, in fact, mainly for use if and when a crime was reported, at which stage the films would be played back and potentially used as evidence. A useful tool to be sure, but due to a lack of manpower to monitor the multitude of images, it was rare for that tool to be used to prevent an incident in real-time.

  Deciding to play it safe nevertheless, Cole slipped quietly to the floor and dragged himself underneath and past the first two lines of cars, heading for the line he thought the Bull would be approaching from.

  As he pulled himself along the cold, wet floor towards the centre of the parking sector, a noise made him pause. It was the rustle of clothing against metal, and it had come from the right hand side. Cole slowly eased out from his position, trying to see exactly where it had come from.

  He saw it and pulled his head back under the car at almost the same instant, as the Bull fired another subsonic bullet towards his prey. The man started running then, Cole saw, eager to capitalise upon his attack. Cole rolled in the opposite direction, out from under the car, and stood up in a low crouch, revealing himself to the hunter.

  The Bull, now only twenty feet away, saw Cole’s head pop up and immediately turned to fire, this time a two round double-tap. But Cole had already ducked back down and was rolling under the same car back the way he had come.

  He popped up on the first side of the car again just as the Bull reached the opposite side, gun aimed down at the floor where he expected Cole to be. It didn’t take long for him to realize where Cole was, and he instantaneously turned to fire, but it was already too late. The knife that Cole had taken from the agent in the bathroom earlier, thrown with great force and accuracy, entered the Bull’s skull via the eye socket before he even had the chance to squeeze the trigger. The tip of the blade pierced the agent’s brain, and he fell to the floor dead.

  Breathing a weary sigh of relief, Cole’s head snapped around just instants later as a sudden noise caught his attention. A buzz of static, then a voice – the ship’s electronic PA system.

  By the time the voice was halfway through its announcement, Cole was already in motion. Apparently they were almost at France, the passengers were being instructed to return to their vehicles – and Cole had just minutes in which to hide two more dead bodies.

  23

  Sitting across the polished wooden desk of the British Prime Minister, Hansard sipped at his third brandy of the day, an unusually refined almanac. Ignoring the jug of iced water set to one side, Gregory joined him with the brandy, and they raised their cut-crystal glasses to one another in toast.

  ‘It went well,’ Gregory said happily. ‘Just like you said it would.’

  Hansard nodded his head sagely. He had not been overly surprised; after all, he had spent the last decade and a half studying the leaders of ERA in such minute detail that he probably knew more about how each individual would react under any given set of circumstances than their own wives or husbands. But reality was fluid, and Hansard was all too aware that nothing could ever be set in stone. He did, however, have contingency plans for most variations. How could a plan hope to succeed otherwise?

  ‘Let’s not count our chickens just yet Adam, much can go wrong in the next few days,’ Hansard advised. ‘We need to follow a fine balancing act with our allies. But, yes, this morning went well. We just have to keep on top of it and make sure it keeps going well.’

  Gregory nodded, and took a sip of brandy. He held the glass up in front of him, examining the rich, honey-coloured liquid. As he did so, his face grew pensive. At length, he looked up at his friend and advisor.

  ‘Do you really think it will work, Noel? Do you think we’ll do it?’ The question was hushed, worried, a cry for reassurance.

  Hansard regarded Gregory with his cool grey eyes. If you don’t let me down, he answered silently. But he knew the man he’d chosen all those years ago wouldn’t fail him. Perversely, the weakness and vulnerability that Gregory displayed when alone translated to great strength when on the public stage, almost as if he was able to feed off his own fears and worries and imbue himself with a power he wouldn’t otherwise have.

  To countless millions of citizens around the world, Adam Gregory was one of the world’s strongest leaders, and Hansard knew that the man had the respect of all thirty of ERA’s other Heads of State. Whatever Gregory’s personal misgivings, Hansard was confident that the man wouldn’t put a foot wrong, and would play his part in the plan to perfection.

  ‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think the outcome was achievable, Adam,’ Hansard answered at last. ‘It is by no means certain – there are always too many external imponderables to ever be certain about anything in this game – but it is most definitely achievable. We will wait for President Abrams’ reaction and see what the official US line is – although I’ve no doubt it will be as I outlined earlier.’

  Hansard took another sip of brandy, savouring the delicate flavour. ‘My people tell me he’s due to give a speech to the media at nine a.m. in Washington, which is two o’clock this afternoon here. The next ERA crisis meeting is at four, so we can meet up before that to discuss how you’re going to handle it with the others.’

  Gregory nodded, raising the glass to his lips, when the secure telephone on his desk started ringing. The Prime Minister picked up the handset on the second ring. ‘Hello?’ he said curtly, before his eyebrows rose in involuntary surprise. ‘Good morning, Stephen. It’s good to hear from you.’ His eyes caught Hansard’s, and he smiled. His mentor had been right again – going against EU wisdom, and keeping the UK’s close alliance with America had been a good idea.

  Across the table, Hansard returned the smile. He had never doubted the policy. The close relationship with the United States was, after all, absolutely vital to the plan’s success.

  24

  The two CIA investigators stared across the bare metal desk in the Spartan office in which they sat, trying to gauge the man sitting opposite them. Major Peter Drake wasn’t quite what they had expected; whereas most of the Directors of these companies that they had recently met were decidedly larger-than-life characters, Drake was seemingly introverted and unobtrusive. Standing just five feet five and with a slim build, covered by a simple grey suit, he looked more like a timid civil servant than a gung-ho Special Forces major.

  The office in which he worked gave some further insight into the man, however.
It was austere in appearance, with basic metal desks, chairs and cupboards; there was not a sign of personality in the room at all. There were no pictures on the walls or desks, and the office had not been painted. Everything was neat and tidy, and looked for all the world like an army barracks administration office out of the Second World War.

  It was the eyes that Arnold didn’t trust; despite the genial, slightly coy manner of the man, the piercing eyes betrayed a keen, perhaps ruthless, intelligence. Over the years, Arnold had developed an instinct for such things, and it rarely let him down.

  Moses, too, had similar thoughts. He noted how Drake’s eyes remained cool and distant even at the same moment that he smiled warmly at them. Moses knew that most of the words coming out of Drake’s mouth would be lies; or at the very least, would be an avoidance of the truth.

  ‘So how can I help you gentlemen?’ Drake offered kindly, still keeping with the slightly harassed civil servant routine.

  Arnold was aware of the time constraints under which they were operating, and decided to get straight to the point. ‘William Crozier organized and orchestrated a mission recently, one that involved up to thirty Chinese illegals, as I’m sure you are aware.’ Drake held Arnold’s gaze without blinking or otherwise moving a muscle. ‘Although they all had prior service within the People’s Republic Army, they certainly will have undergone specialist training for that mission. We want to know if they received it here.’

  Drake’s head tilted up slightly, in a gesture not dissimilar to a bird of prey assessing its next target. ‘I wasn’t aware,’ he began, his voice still kind but his eyes still cold, ‘that an official investigation had yet been authorized.’

  ‘You don’t have to be aware,’ Arnold continued without losing a beat, ‘but suffice it to say that we are here directly on the authority of the Director of Central Intelligence, who operates on the behalf of the President himself.’

  ‘Ah,’ Drake returned, as if contemplating the matter, ‘but is your investigation actually authorized directly by the President himself? Because my work here is. Authorized and protected.’ After stating this fact with relaxed indifference, he settled back in his chair. ‘Besides which, my understanding is that the CIA is responsible for the gathering of foreign intelligence. G4 is, as you can see, based in Denver. And Denver is, the last time I checked, still in the USA, which makes any such investigation a domestic matter, and one that should properly be handled by the FBI.’ He studied the two men across from him with his beady little eyes, narrowed to a point. ‘Or am I wrong?’

  There was a brief pause as Arnold and Moses considered the matter. The trouble, they both knew, was that Drake was right; they didn’t have any real jurisdiction here. They could investigate internal CIA matters and, although they believed that the recently-deceased Director of Operations for the CIA had sent men here to be trained, they had no evidence with which they could prove a direct link between G4 and the CIA – which was, of course, the very point of the company’s existence. Drake had them over a barrel and knew it.

  ‘It’s a fair point sir,’ Moses began, ‘you’re right. We’re really only authorized to investigate internal CIA affairs. But,’ he continued forcefully, ‘I think you may misunderstand the purpose of our visit.’ Moses had studied the man’s profile and felt sure that, whatever Drake’s faults, he was a patriot first and foremost, and it was this approach Moses decided was most likely to succeed.

  ‘We’re not here to examine this place inside and out, or to make judgements about what you do here, and to expose the place to the media.’ He spread his hands wide in a placatory gesture. ‘We just want a little help, that’s all. Have you seen what’s happening? Pretty soon, the whole world’s gonna know about America’s involvement in the operation, and they’re not really gonna care whether it was official or unofficial. And then what? ERA, China, they’re both wanna get a piece of us for this, and there’ll be a lot more countries looking to get on their coat-tails to do us further damage.

  ‘What we need to do is limit this damage as best we can. And to do that, we need as much information as we can get. For instance, was Crozier working alone or was he being controlled by someone else? If someone else, then who? For what reason? Believe me, if we don’t get answers then someone else will, eventually. And that someone else may not be what you’d call pro-American, you know?

  ‘Added to which, I understand that you knew Bill personally,’ Moses continued, although this was more guess-work than evidential. ‘Surely you want to know what happened to him, and why?’

  Moses settled back, looking levelly across the desk at Drake. ‘Help us,’ he reasoned. ‘Tell us what you know. Please.’

  Drake sat in his metal chair and regarded the big CIA man with curiosity. ‘An appeal to my better nature, eh?’ he wondered aloud. ‘You realize that you have no power to ask me any questions whatsoever, and so you go for the heart. For the love of my country, right?’ Drake asked, the start of a smile at the corner of his lips. And then he was off into a world of his own, as if lost in thought.

  Arnold wondered what was going through the man’s mind. He thought Moses had done a good job, but Drake was sharp, clever. Who knew what he might be thinking? He certainly wouldn’t want to admit to the involvement of his company in the atrocity; it would be suicide, both professionally and personally. What he told the two CIA men would depend entirely on how much he believed was at stake.

  As Drake sat staring at his desk, the room was filled with the sudden shrill beeping of an electronic alarm. Snapped from his reverie, Drake reached over to the clock to his right and turned it off, double-checking his watch as he did so. Snatching up a remote control from a nearby drawer, he pointed it at the small wall-mounted television, high on a corner to the right, behind his two guests.

  ‘You might be interested in this as well, gentlemen,’ he offered softly. ‘The President’s about to make his speech.’

  They were pushed for time, but Drake was right – they were interested in what Abrams had to say. They turned to the small screen behind them and started to watch.

  The Seal of the United States of America loomed large on the curtain behind President Stephen Abrams as he took the podium in the White House Press Room. Settling himself quickly, he looked directly into the cameras with a grave earnestness, his eyes unblinking.

  ‘My fellow Americans,’ he began in his faint Southern drawl, ‘I come before you today with some sad news. It has come to my attention that there may have been American citizens involved in the recent tragedy in Stockholm.

  ‘Details are sketchy at the present time, but it appears that the operation may have been carried out with the help or prior knowledge of an unknown number of our own people. Because information at this time is necessarily very limited, I would at least like to take this opportunity to spell out the position of the United States government.

  ‘I hereby state categorically that, despite the involvement of US citizens, the mission against the Euro Russian Alliance was not sanctioned by myself or the US government. Indeed, I promise that we had no prior knowledge that such an attack would be carried out, or was even being planned.

  ‘I would like answers as much as the next man, and offer all the assistance I can to our allies across the Atlantic. I am all too aware of the recent escalation of events involving ERA and China and wish for us to avoid such a confrontation ourselves. On behalf of the American people, I therefore offer my apologies for the apparent involvement of our citizens in the affair.

  ‘I am pleased to say that the Euro-Russian Alliance is not being headstrong in their response. I have already spoken privately to the British Prime Minister, Adam Gregory, and he has been kind enough to arrange a video conference between myself and the Heads of ERA for later this afternoon.

  ‘I am sure we will manage to salvage relationships, and I promise to do everything within my power to help.

  ‘Thank you for your time, and rest assured we will keep you posted on our progress. God
Bless you all.’

  As the television scene switched from the White House to the news studio for the intense analysis and debate that were sure to follow, Moses and Arnold turned in their chairs back towards Drake.

  The Director of G4 Training Division sat still, deep in thought once more. ‘Won’t be long before we’re crawling with press here anyway,’ he said at last. ‘What is it you want to know?’

  25

  Sarah made her way through the Jackson Mall as nonchalantly as she could, seeming to idle from boutique to boutique with no real direction. Her tight hold of her children’s hands was entirely subconscious, and betrayed the fact that she was actually a harried bundle of nerves, totally on edge. Tarr was no longer with them, having split up an hour ago in the mall parking lot, and she was all too aware that she was now totally responsible for her children’s safety.

  Although she appeared to have no destination in sight, the three members of the Cole family were actually headed for a very specific location. She had tried the counter-surveillance moves as best as she could under the circumstances, and thought that nobody was following her, but she was all too aware that she was no expert at this game. There could have been a dozen men following her for all she really knew.

  She managed to continue her laid-back stroll until they came upon a small coffee house. ‘Who wants a cake?’ she asked Ben and Amy.

  ‘Me!’ shouted Ben immediately.

  Amy, a little more aware of her mother’s uneasiness, asked quietly ‘Is it okay?’

  Sarah smiled widely at her, her daughter’s understanding giving her renewed strength. ‘Of course it is honey, we’re on holiday! Come on, we’ll have a bite to eat and then go on to meet Uncle Phil. Okay?’