“I don’t know,” she whispered against his ear. “I lost them. They all ran in different directions when we came out of there. I was scared.” Ivan let the bag drop by his side with a clank and held her tight, enjoying the warmth of her body.
“I was scared too,” he admitted. “Did you see Scabies?” Tufty nodded.
“I saw…he was shot…real bad.” He felt her sob and pressed his lips against the nape of her neck.
They walked back to the bus station without speaking, hand in hand, clutching each other for comfort. Ivan felt numb to the world. Building, lights and faces passed them by but the details were blurred. They reached the bay for the Merthyr bus. His heart sank to find it empty. They checked the timetable. They had just missed one and it was another hour before the next one. Tufty led him toward the train station. Just inside the entrance was a café. Ivan sat with the bag, listening to the hollow rumble and boom of the trains above, as Tufty ordered two coffees.
The café was virtually empty. They sat in silence and smoked, Ivan nervously searching the waiting area outside for signs of the police. After a few minutes his paranoia subsided. Even if the police had a description it would be difficult to find them in the city at night.
“Hopefully the others managed to catch that last bus,” Tufty said eventually.
“Yeah. Pigpen said to meet back at the den.” He stared into her sea-green eyes. She was so beautiful. She stared back. “Do you know what Simon wanted them for?” He gestured at the canvas bag. She shook her head.
“He never tells me anything. Hasn’t he told you?” She seemed surprised.
“No. I’m just a foot soldier.” She smiled. He watched the swirling patterns of their smoke spiral and entwine in the air. She looked away again and he studied her beauty. In the afterglow of the fading drug and the post adrenalin rush of the raid, she was radiant. Her lips curled around her cigarette and her dimpled cheeks hollowed as she inhaled, emphasising her high cheekbones. Ivan wanted her more than ever.
“Shit!” A sudden look of panic flashed across her face. He glanced round to see two police officers approaching the station entrance. “Quick, the toilet.” They were on their feet and away from the table in a second. Ivan was about to push open the door to the gents when he felt Tufty tug him toward the ladies. “In here,” she insisted. “They won’t look in here.”
Inside the cubicle, Ivan dropped the seat and sat down, placing the canvas back gently on the floor. Tufty closed and locked the door and stood facing him. Minutes ticked by.
“I doubt they’re looking for us,” she said. “But you never know. We’ll give it 10 and then slip back out.” Ivan nodded. “Exciting, though, isn’t it!” she enthused. He was shocked.
“I thought you were scared.”
“I was earlier. Not any more. I was scared because I was alone. I’ve got you to protect me now.” Ivan couldn’t help grinning. He gazed up into her eyes, a growing sense of intimacy in the tight space of the cubicle.
“Simon’d be furious if he could see us now,” he joked. “You and me close together in here, locked in the same bog.”
“I doubt it. Your Christine’s more likely to be the jealous one.” He shrugged.
“All the same, best not to tell him, eh?” Tufty smiled, her lips parting to reveal her perfectly white teeth. Without warning she leaned down and knelt in front of him.
“You’re not scared of Simon, are you?”
“Well…” She reached her arms around him. He felt his desire growing. She must only be teasing though. She was Simon’s girl. Holding hands in the earlier excitement, hugging for comfort in the fear…that was one thing.
“You’re much bigger than he is. You shouldn’t be scared.” He felt her lips pressing against his ear, her hot breath against his neck. He felt his erection pushing against his tight jeans as he held her. It was Pigpen who terrified him, not Simon. If Simon ever found out… “Come on, I know you want to fuck me.” She pulled away. “You’ve wanted to fuck me for ages, haven’t you?” He nodded. Her eyes sparkled and she smiled wickedly as she began to undo his belt. “Let’s not waste time. It’s been a while since I had a good stiff cock inside me.” Ivan realised she wasn’t teasing. He also realised what she’d said.
“You mean Simon doesn’t…” Her hands were working his jeans open. Ivan sucked his breath, then gasped.
“You’re not the brightest button are you?” She had released his proud cock and was gently stroking its length. “Simon likes me to dress up and spank him now and again, but he gets his real kicks from Pigpen.”
“What?” Simon and Pigpen? No way!
“Keep your voice down!” She wrapped one hand beneath his balls and continued to caress him with the other. His mouth hung open. “You don’t believe me? How many girls have you seen Pigpen with? As far as Simon’s concerned, I’m just for show.”
Before he could articulate his shock she had swallowed him and was sucking hard, her tongue testing his rigid shaft. His senses were tingling with pleasure, his nerves were on fire. He moaned softly and leaned back against the cistern. A few seconds more and he would come.
She stopped and pushed herself up using his knees. Then she released her belt and unbuttoned her jeans. Ivan reached up and slipped his hand inside her panties, exploring her with his fingers. She whimpered as he found her wetness. Suddenly her jeans and pants were down around her ankles and she was sitting astride him. She reached down to guide him inside, then pressed her lips to his. He opened his mouth to her tongue, reaching up to pull the band from her hair and letting her long blonde locks fall free. Then, with one hand he gripped her neck and pressed her hard to his face, kissing her intensely, and with the other he found her nipple beneath her sweatshirt and gently pinched as she rocked against him in slow, deliberate movements. His breathing quickened as he neared the point of ecstasy. Ivan was no longer thinking about the two policemen outside, about Simon and Pigpen, or his friend Scabies lying dead on the floor a few blocks away.
*
Ivan kissed her cheek as they stepped off the bus. Tufty smiled distantly.
“Nobody here to meet us,” she said. “Better find out where they are.” She began to walk away. Ivan was in no hurry to get back to the den now. He wanted to linger with Tufty, to spend more time with her, holding, kissing, caressing. Besides, how could he face Simon and Pigpen again, knowing what she had told him about them.
“Do we have to go straight back? Let’s…”
“Yes, we do.” Her tone was curt, cutting him dead. “I think we should find out what happened to everyone else.” He pulled the heavy canvas bag behind him and reluctantly followed her through the rain as she walked up toward Pontmorlais. He didn’t want to be part of the cause any more. His friend Scabies was dead. Pigpen and Simon were arse bandit hypocrites, much worse than blacks and Pakies. But all he had outside the cause was Christine, and he didn’t want her any more either.
The pools of rainwater on the street and pavements flashed with blue as they rounded the corner by the Castle Cinema.
“Shit!” exclaimed Tufty, who was first to see what lay ahead. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” Ivan caught her up and stared along the length of Pontmorlais in horror. There were police everywhere, the lights on their cars and vans lighting up the scene. Hundreds of people were gathered behind a taped cordon watching as the paramedics emerged from the side entrance by the Vulcan, the entrance that led to the den.
They carried three stretchers laden with bodies, covered over with bloodstained blankets that hid the faces. Ivan and Tufty watched silently from a distance as the bodies were loaded into the backs of the waiting ambulances. Then the police moved the crowd back and opened the cordon to let the paramedics drive away.
“We’re too late,” said Ivan. Tufty ignored him and walked up to the edge of the crowd. Ivan, aware of the weight of his bag, stayed where he was.
“What happened?” he heard her ask.
“Shoot-out!” said one of the crowd excitedly.
“Yeah! Fuckin’ Neo Nazis, someone said,” added another.
Tufty turned and walked past him. She was crying.
“What do we do now?” he asked. “What the fuck do we do now?” Ivan reached out to take her hand but she shook him off.
“How the fuck do I know?” she spat. “Did Simon tell you every fucking thing? Didn’t you ever think for yourself?” Ivan glanced around nervously, hoping her voice didn’t carry to the police further up the street. “I’m getting the fuck away from here and I suggest you do the same.” She walked away.
“What about us?”
“There is no ‘us’. Fuck off! I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Tufty vanished along the High Street. Ivan stood in the rain and wept. He knew it was all over. They had removed three bodies from the den. There was a fourth body lying in a morgue somewhere in Cardiff. Scabies was dead. As far as he knew the others were also dead. It was only a matter of time before the police came looking for him too, a known associate. He could go on the run. Where would he run to? How long could he hope to run for? Ivan knew with a dreaded sense of finality that he could not escape. It was game over.
*
Beneath the glare of the floodlights, Worcester City kicked off in front of a boisterous home crowd. The ground was filled to capacity, the modest non league stands holding every body that could be squeezed in. The Tuesday night sky glistened with rain, rain that fell relentlessly onto the patchy stud-torn pitch. It was scrappy end-to-end stuff, the heavy conditions taking their toll on both teams and chances were few and far between. The players huffed and puffed, tore and trampled the pitch, slipping and sliding in the mud as the heavens poured down on them.
A solitary moment of inspiration came with just a minute of stoppage time remaining before the game would be forced into extra time. The Martyrs’ keeper mis-kicked his clearance and the ball fell short of the half way line. Topper went for it but it bobbled in the mud and Worcester’s tall black centre-forward deftly collected it and swept easily past him. Merthyr had pushed everyone forward in search of a last minute winner. He only had the keeper to beat. Topper’s sank his head in his hands and slumped to the soggy turf as the ball sailed sweetly though the air, past the keeper’s outstretched glove and into the net where it curled up, rattling as it went.
The Worcester fans were on the pitch a moment later and the final whistle went. Merthyr’s dream of a lucrative third round FA Cup tie at home to Cardiff City were over.
Ivan Berking watched the replay of the goal and then switched off the TV as the camera homed in on the tall black centre-forward’s gleaming white smile. In a moment the custody sergeant would come and retrieve the little portable, a concession for handing himself in and confessing everything last night. He felt the pain and anguish of defeat. He wanted to hurt somebody real bad. But the only potential victim in his police cell was himself.
*
Part 4
I’ve Got My Car And My TV
X
TALL against the horizon stood a man-made monolith. A daunting construction, it imposed an arrogant concrete magnitude the ancient skies. It was situated on the stark border of a deep forest and the open downs. In turn, the green fields gave way to dunes of white sand where the waiting sea rolled back and forth in anguish against a land it could not conquer.
The landscape was draped in a pall of humidity. It clung like a cloak to the seething forest, a burden to all within. Only a strengthening sea breeze offered relief, dancing promiscuously between the weary boughs, entertaining a promise of rain. It was evening, and in the amber twilight the forest canopy laboured with the preparations for nightfall.
Shrill cries heralded the approach of darkness and a multiplicity of creatures bustled toward their homes amid the treetops or in dark recesses beneath the undergrowth. High above the cacophony the heavens faded to deep blue and the first glimmers of stars peeped through an eternity of space. The sun, a shimmering pearl bathed in glory, dipped behind the inland horizon and set the earth’s rim ablaze with bloodied embers. Left behind, out to sea, was a fleet of bruised and sullen clouds, driven on a hungry wind to consume vast tracts of sky with monsoonal appetite. Their swollen lips curled with the chords of thunder, rumbling ominously like the drums of war. Lightning crackled and exploded. The forest trembled. The advancing armada blotted out the sky.
The silvery shape of the stealth craft spun away from the angry host and tumbled dizzily toward the treetops. It roared barely feet above the dripping leafscape, passing to and fro like a dragonfly over a pond. In the half-light of dusk the blue glow of its engine gleamed against the clouded sky, defining the vessel clearly in the narrow ravine between the storm and the forest. Strapped tightly inside the cockpit on a platform of instruments was an armour-clad pilot, masked and encased against the hostility of the elements. Amid the chaos of friction surrounding his aircraft he gripped the controls with the surety of experience and the conviction of a man who lived for the thrill of danger. Through the transparent fuselage beneath his feet he could watch the lush green canopy rushing by as he turned south to follow the artificial border created by axe and fire between the downs and the forest. To the west he could see the vermilion blaze of the disappearing sun. To the east lurked the sea where the atmosphere was fused with unbridled energy.
Fergus McFae strained to focus on the belt of greenery below. His helmet thundered with the roar of the wind and the turbine. He could almost feel the rush of air against the titanium hull. A red indicator flashed on his head-up-display (HUD). It warned him of a change in the surface level ahead. His attention dropped to the treeline where he could discern a rapidly approaching incline of nearly 50ft. His gloved hand pulled gently on the joystick and his craft responded by surging like a champion hurdler over the obstacle.
As the vessel resettled on its course he checked the HUD for a reading on the distance to the ominous fortress ahead. His craft’s sensors were attuned to electrical and radio transmissions but the storm made it impossible to gauge. According to the instrumentation there was enough activity to account for a large city. The alloy scan fared little better, with readings well off the anticipated scale due to massive interference. He switched to life scan but that, too, struggled to provide a comprehensible measurement because of the incoming storm. Its sensitive antenna was unable to distinguish between human and non-human life in the forest ahead.
Fergus pushed delicately on the joystick and his craft dropped toward the forest roof. The storm was closing on him and the man-made fortress was still some distance away. He peered out through the right side of the canopy. In the deepening gloom he caught the ripples of lightning reflecting on the white foam as waves broke across the sandy shore. How much further? He was running out of time. Soon he would be forced to abandon his mission and break away to the west to avoid the storm.
He checked his HUD once more. At last! The sinister outline of the fortress was beginning to take shape on the long range visual scanner.
“Target in sight!” Fergus said aloud, to nobody in particular. His eyes searched the treeline but there was nothing to see except greenery and darkening skies. He was still peering ahead when a finger of electricity poked its way across the divide and cracked against the fuselage of his craft. Its immeasurable power seemed to instantly sap all the strength within his plane before snaking back to the storm from which it had emanated. There was an eerie silence.
Fergus listened beneath the weight of his armoured helmet. He could hear the storm and the air swirling around him. He heard the rattle of the wind beating against the reinforced panels of the craft. But there was no sound of turbine, no hum from the on-board computer.
Fergus felt like a tiny mollusc snatched up by a wave and hurled into the air, then dropping suddenly to be dashed on the rocks below. It was that mental image alone that inspired him to thrust the joystick toward the right. His stricken, helpless vessel spun away from the forest and was lost against the churning tide.
Fergus stopped. The gentle clatter of stones fell hushed until only the wash of the waves sifted the shore with melodic regularity. It seemed he had reached the unfocused edge of ocean and land, where the forces of flux and intransigence battled to tear away each other’s crown. Dripping with salt wetness he watched the watery sentries war at his feet. What had become of the storm?
“This shouldn’t be happening!” His voice reverberated where it should have been lost to the vast scale of the panorama. “This isn’t in the bloody programme!”
He looked back to where, nestled slumberous against the ragged cliffs, the fishing village began its climb into the emerald hills. As the evening darkened it was becoming veiled in shadows. Thin whispers of smoke slipped away from the tiers of clay chimneys like vagrants before the dawn. The village seemed strangely familiar.
“This is bloody Wales again!” Fergus dragged himself further along the shore, his head shaking beneath the weight of his helmet. It was happening again, he thought to himself. Unreality was unravelling and the ugly features of his mundane world had become an unwelcome intruder. Virtual reality, mixed with a cocktail of hallucinogenic drugs, gave the scene something of a super reality. But there was no mistake. This was Port Eynon…or at least a hybrid of Gower villages where he’d spent long, tedious rain-soaked summers.
Stone-washed and solid, dotted with a hazy pattern of warm lights, the village offered a comfort he could no longer believe in. His faith ebbed away as the last clearing of angel blue closed beneath the darkened brow of night. He turned his back on the sleepy hamlet and faced the sea. Drifting toward him was the familiar sequence of lights, glowing through the deep water like the searchlight beams of a submarine.
Experiment With Destiny Page 16