by Rob Sinclair
He awoke with the sunrise, the warm glow of the early morning rays poking through the holes in the thin curtains. Lying in position Ryker looked over to Willoughby. She was lying on her side in the bed, the sheets twisted around her lower legs. Not surprising that she’d kicked off the covers – she’d gone to bed dressed in her jeans and strappy top after all.
Ryker’s eyes moved from her legs and up her shapely body. A Smith & Wesson handgun lay by her hand. His gaze reached her face and he saw her eyes were open and she was looking straight back at him. Ryker wondered how long she’d been like that, awake and staring. Had she even slept?
Ryker got up from the couch. He too had a firearm nearby, a Glock 19, by his feet. He left it in place. ‘Good sleep?’
‘I’ve had better.’ Willoughby sat up in the bed.
Ryker’s body ached and creaked as he got his muscles and bones and tendons moving, his awkward movements a combination of the cramped sleep he’d had, the injuries he’d sustained recently that were still healing, and the battering his body had taken for years. Many of the aches would soon wear away as he got his body moving and once it was fuelled with food.
As Ryker walked toward the tiny shower room, he noticed Willoughby staring at his torso. Not in admiration, he figured, but because of the network of scars that covered him. He used to feel ashamed of the way he looked. Now he just accepted it and had become hardened to the vacant stares, the pity. The horror that any human being could have suffered so much and still carry on.
‘It’s not all glamour, being an agent for the JIA,’ he said with a wry smile. He could only guess at her age she hadn’t suffered anywhere near as much as he had working for the JIA. Yet.
Willoughby whipped her eyes from his body up to his face. ‘I never thought it would be. And you’re not the only one with scars, Ryker.’
He didn’t question that, though her words did intrigue him. Did she mean emotional or physical scars? Or both?
‘What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger though. Right?’ she said.
‘Not exactly.’
Less than an hour later, they were back on the road again heading to their final destination: New Orleans. Along the way, they stopped at an outlet mall to buy further supplies – clothing and equipment – for the job ahead.
They arrived in the French Quarter of the city in the early afternoon. By that point, the morning sun had been smothered by thick dark clouds, but the temperature was still above thirty celsius and the humidity was so high that Ryker’s body was covered in a thin film of moisture.
The heavens opened as they drove along the narrow city streets that were lined with colourful two and three-storey Creole and Greek revival-style buildings. The hotel, which Ryker had booked by phone the previous evening – choosing it mainly for its convenient location but also because it was a small independent operation – was a step up from the motel on the I-10, but still basic in its amenities.
After paying in cash for the room for three nights, Ryker and Willoughby, clothes dripping from the downpour outside, made their way up to the bedroom.
Their room, finished extensively in dark rustic wood, at least had air-conditioning. Two sets of French doors with green shutters led onto a gallery-style balcony with an ornate iron railing overlooking the street below.
Ryker had never been to the city before, but as he stood on the balcony watching the hubbub, he could feel the history and charm of the place seeping through the walls of the buildings and up from the streets. He wouldn’t dwell though. He was hardly in the city for a relaxing tourist break.
‘So how do you want to play this?’ Willoughby asked, coming out onto the balcony.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Now we’re officially undercover, right? Tomorrow night we’re going to be at the Ashfords’ home as Emily Clarke and Jack Turner.’
Clarke and Turner, their identities to get them closer to Congressman Ashford. Delegates from the British government whom Willoughby’s contacts had got onto the guest list of a private charity function at Ashford’s home in Mandeville.
‘You’re saying you haven’t done this before?’ Ryker asked.
‘Probably not as many times as you.’
‘You did a good job of pretending back at Santa Martha.’
Willoughby tutted. ‘That was me, though. It just wasn’t the whole me.’
‘Yeah.’
‘These identities are bogus. It’s just acting, no big deal I guess. But for any actor it’s always better if you’ve rehearsed.’
‘So you want to practise being someone else?’
‘I think it’d help us get into character if we tried to be Clarke and Turner for a few hours, don’t you think?’
Ryker didn’t think that. He’d spent far too much of his life pretending to be other people. The unfortunate position he found himself in was that it was all too easy for him to pretend. But it was no bother to try to help her if she felt it would make a difference.
‘Okay,’ Ryker said.
For the next couple of hours, they prepped for their new alter egos. Ryker had a shave for the first time in a long time, he washed then clipped his hair and slicked it back. He dressed in new clothes; linen trousers, a tailored-looking long sleeved pastel blue shirt and brown leather loafers. The look was smart casual, rather than overtly formal, but as he gazed in the mirror, he had to admit that it felt good to have thrown away the scruffy mess he’d become used to.
As Ryker stared at his own reflection. The door to the bathroom opened and Willoughby came out wearing a light yellow summer dress that fitted her toned body perfectly and gave just enough glimpses of flesh without being too overt. Ryker spun round to face her. Her hair was now more blonde, loose and wavy. Her make-up was light and fresh like it had been the first time Ryker met her in Santa Martha, though the look was now less formal and more glamorous. To Ryker, she looked sensational.
Willoughby came over to Ryker and held out a necklace. ‘Would you mind?’
She turned round and Ryker leaned forward to do up the clasp at the nape of her neck, the citrus fragrance of her perfume tickling his nose. Everything about Willoughby in that moment, as he stared at the smooth skin of her neck and back, was so intoxicating. Ryker could well imagine the rich Americans at Ashford’s party would be falling at her feet.
Hell, Ryker could imagine himself as one of those men.
Willoughby’s effortless look, her confidence, her allure, together with her shades of grey, so much about her reminded Ryker of... Lisa.
Ryker tried his best to push aside the inevitable guilt that was building.
Willoughby spun round. ‘Thanks. You actually scrubbed up pretty well.’
‘You sound surprised.’
‘A little.’ She smiled, playfully. ‘Are we ready?’
‘Yeah. Let’s go, Ms Clarke.’
They took a stroll along the relaxed but vibrant streets of the French Quarter, soaking up the atmosphere and avoiding the intermittent downpours of rain.
They wound up in a cocktail bar where they worked their way through several rounds of drinks. Ryker had never been a big drinker. It felt good to be acting like a normal human being for a change, and the alcohol made him more relaxed and chatty. Acting. He had to keep reminding himself, this was all just acting.
But a growing part of him wished it wasn’t. Why couldn’t he just have a normal life like all these other people?
Ryker looked around the bar at the other punters, mainly couples and small groups.
Willoughby traced his line of sight to where two young ladies – all dolled-up for a big night out – were giggling at the bar. ‘I thought someone with your experience in the field would be more discreet than that.’
‘I’m playing Mr Turner remember, not James Ryker.’
Though he hadn’t actually been staring at the ladies, but beyond them.
‘Have you noticed the toilets?’ Ryker asked.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Ho
w old do you reckon this place is? The building I mean.’
‘Dunno. A hundred years maybe.’
‘You ever heard of the Jim Crow laws?’
‘Actually, yes. Racial segregation laws enacted across the southern states. Except many weren’t fully-fledged laws, just local customs that became engrained.’
‘Like requiring separate facilities in public areas. The two toilets at either end of this place, I’m betting in the olden days it was one for blacks, one for whites. And it doesn’t take a leap to figure out which was which.’
Although the bar was heavily modernised in places, it retained much of its original charm – if that was the right word. The one end of the bar was gilded with ornate fixtures and fittings from a bygone era. That side of the bar was now where people could wine and dine with sophistication. The other end was undeniably more plain and sparse, an area with few tables, just a place to stand and play pool, watch sports, and slosh beer.
‘Yeah, I think you might be right,’ Willoughby said. ‘Though when you say olden days, it wasn't that long ago.’
‘No. I guess not.’
The two of them fell silent for a while, the silence becoming more awkward the longer it went on. Socialising certainly wasn’t one of Ryker’s stronger points, and although he’d been chatty earlier, it felt like he was all out now.
‘How did you get into this?’ Ryker asked when he’d downed the last of a beer, moving the conversation back to what he felt was safe territory.
‘I joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office when I graduated university. Just as a research analyst initially.’
‘No,’ Ryker said. ‘I’m not asking about Emily Clarke. I want to know about Eleanor Willoughby.’
Willoughby frowned. ‘That’s not why we’re here.’
‘Isn’t it?’
Willoughby held Ryker’s gaze for a while and he struggled to pull himself away from her sparkling green eyes. ‘I'm not who you think I am,’ she said eventually.
Ryker raised an eyebrow.
‘Back at Santa Martha, you made quite a few assumptions about me.’
Ryker remembered. Her posh accent, her formal look. He’d believed that she came from money. Had suggested she was an Oxford or Cambridge graduate. The face of the British Empire.
‘I’m actually a lot more like you than you realise,’ she said. ‘I was an orphan too.’
Ryker felt himself tense. Just how much did Willoughby know? And how did she know?
Willoughby smirked. ‘It’s good to know I fool people so easily.’
‘So it’s just an act. The accent–’
‘The accent, and everything that goes with it, yes. I’m not the daughter of some rich well-to-do couple. I didn’t go to public school or university. This is just what the JIA wants the world to see. And I’ve been doing it so long now it’s... it’s all I know.’
‘So what’s the real story then?’
The happy look from Willoughby’s face disappeared.
‘Do you remember what your parents look like?’ she asked.
‘Which ones?’ Ryker asked, an attempt at a joke.
The truth was Ryker's upbringing had been horrible. As a young kid he’d skipped from foster home to foster home, getting into more and more trouble with the law and local gangs each time. He never considered any of his foster parents to be his real mum and dad. He’d been roped into working for the JIA when just an unruly teenager. The JIA had saved him from a life of crime and had moulded him into a heartless killing machine. Other than the job he’d never really had anything to live for. Until Lisa.
‘I mean your real parents,’ Willoughby said. ‘Your biological parents.’
‘No,’ Ryker said, without feeling. ‘I never knew them. I don’t know anything about who they are or why I was abandoned.’
‘I think I can remember my mother. There’s this image in my mind, a face, this moment in time that probably only lasted a second but it feels so vivid still. I must only have been two.’ She paused and looked away. ‘I don’t know for sure, but I think that was the day we were separated. We were travelling, from where, to where, I don't know. I never saw her again. You know, I don’t even know what country I was born in. I don’t know what my real name was. I was in an orphanage until I was nine. They called me Frances Andrews. Then I moved to a foster home. I stayed until I was thirteen before I ran away. After that...’
She trailed off. Ryker waited to see if she would carry on, but she didn’t. He could only guess that the JIA had somehow found her. A young teenage tearaway. Just like Ryker had been. The JIA had given her a purpose. They’d trained her, and moulded her into what she now was. Eleanor Willoughby. Beautiful, intelligent, articulate, but Ryker had no doubt she was deadly too.
‘How old were you when the JIA picked you up?’ Ryker asked.
‘You know what? I think I’d rather stick to being Emily Clarke for the rest of tonight.’
‘Fair enough.’
It wasn’t like he was any good at opening up to people about his past either. It intrigued him that Willoughby had chosen to give him that glimpse of herself though. He wondered why. Was the story even true? She had shown herself to be skilled at deception.
‘It’s getting late,’ Willoughby said. ‘Perhaps we should go.’
‘Yeah.’
It was dark out as they walked the short distance back to the hotel, the awkwardness growing between them. It seemed they were all out of acting.
Back at the hotel, they headed side by side along the corridor toward their room. Willoughby suddenly stopped.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to tell you more about me,’ she said.
‘It’s fine, really.’ Ryker stopped and turned to face her.
‘We just need to see this through. I had a good time with you tonight, James. Even if you are stiff as a corpse sometimes.’
Willoughby broke into a smile and Ryker couldn’t help but do so too.
‘I’m not sure anyone’s ever quite described me like that before.’
‘I don’t know why but I like you, James.’
‘Thanks.’
‘But we’re here for work, not pleasure.’
Ryker laughed. ‘Seriously, Willoughby, just relax. I know where you’re coming from. But you’re wrong about one thing.’
‘Which is what?’
‘This isn’t just work. This is our lives. Every morning you wake up as a JIA asset, your only job is to end that day alive and in one piece. It’s the only way to make sense of it all.’
‘You’re saying I should just live every day like it’s my last? That I should throw caution to the wind and just enjoy myself.’
He saw a suggestive twinkle in her eye. It drew him in.
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I’m saying the sooner you realise just how dangerous this world is, the longer you’ll be in it.’
Willoughby looked down – disappointed? – and carried on walking. Ryker moved in line with her.
When they approached the bedroom door, Willoughby reached out with the key...
Before she got there, Ryker thrust his hand out and grabbed her wrist. ‘Stop.’
‘What?’
Ryker indicated to the doorframe. He’d placed two near invisible seals on the frame when they’d left. Both were now broken. He seriously doubted the hotel had a turn-down service, which only left one other explanation. ‘Someone’s found us.’
43
St. Tammany, Louisiana
The problems in Ashford’s life were quickly escalating. Word had come through of Comisario Vasquez’s death in the bloodbath near Pachuca, Mexico. The PF leader and his cronies had been gunned down together with the small contingent of US citizens who’d been sent there to help with the black market deals. Ashford didn’t yet understand the full picture of what had happened in Mexico, who had perpetrated the massacre and why. His more immediate concern was what would happen next, and what the ramifications for him would be. The whole situation felt like a
massive volcano building up to an eruption, when it would spit out a massive cache of lava and obliterate anyone in its path.
Closer to home, the pressure on Ashford – in his role as Congressman – to take action against the planned expansion of Camp Joseph was mounting too, and Ashford had spent two hours that afternoon on a conference call with Senator Boyle. Boyle was a fellow Republican, but Ashford despised him: he was conservative to the point of almost being a relic in today’s society. He was brash and crass. He was a huge pain in the ass. He’d berated Ashford for the Congressman’s so far lax input into the Camp Joseph issue but what could Ashford say? His personal preference was to interfere as little as he could in the matter.
Ashford was in a bind. Colonel Lincoln was a powerful man and Ashford felt nervous following their last exchange at the army base, and the threat he’d received in the car park not long after. But Ashford wouldn’t let Lincoln get away with what he felt was an unnecessary and unjustified slight.
While Ashford had the political clout to go up against Lincoln, he would rather someone like Boyle take the front seat publicly. After all, it wasn’t through politics that Ashford was looking to get his own back on the Colonel. Without aggressive action, the situation in Mexico was now teetering on full capitulation. If Ashford could just keep the public pressure off himself for a little while longer, he was sure Lincoln would get what was coming to him.
‘The next shipment is due for delivery the day after tomorrow,’ Mitchell said, snapping Ashford from his thoughts.
They were walking through woodlands at Fontainebleau State Park, a location close enough to home to be convenient, but remote enough to offer privacy for their discussion. During the day, people came to the park for all manners of leisure activities, and it was a place Ashford regularly came to with the family. With the sun long set though, and the thick tree canopy overhead, it was currently black and they didn’t venture far from their cars. At night, the woods around them were dark, desolate, and eerie. Not that Ashford was scared of ghouls and ghosts – there were far scarier things in real life, he knew.