Checkmate

by Brian Cain

CHAPTER TEN

  Stanton studied the scenery through the small round window, things looked so familiar as the little jet hugged the coastline then banked toward the Newcastle airport in New South Wales Australia. He could see the old radar station on Sheppard's Hill Lookout, tomorrow morning he planned to be there as the sun came up. The aircraft touched down and as the exec jet turned to taxi from the end of the runway Stanton opened the door, threw his hand luggage to a waiting friend, then jumped from the jets door. They left in a black police car parked on the edge of the scrub, along a rough track, through a gate in the perimeter fence and on to a house that he had once called home, for without a family it was just a building. As they approached the house in Bar Beach, he could pick the agents assigned to watch over them, parked in places of visual dominance for the first time he felt intrusion. The garage opened and swallowed up the black ford, as quickly as it had closed it opened again and the black ford speed away, the garage door closed and wrought iron gates sealed the grounds squeaking and clanking in the warm air of a sunny day.

  His daughter did not have to speak, she had elation written all over her face as they embraced in the kitchen he knew so well, he could see the pool from the window over his daughters shoulder and a sense of purpose again crept through his body. A helicopter banked around the house, it then set a bearing for Rutherford airport stirring the beachgoers and home owners as it gained height from just above the rooftops. Lola pushed him to arms length and with a wide smile. "Mum is awake, she is terrified, ashamed, she won't get out of bed."

  Stanton looked his daughter in the eyes. "Mmm," he smiled. "Sound's like your mother. I anticipated she could be like this, and now I face the truth. Leave us."

  "Will you be going away again?"

  "Probably not."

  "The end of my dad, John Stanton."

  "No, just the beginning."

  Lola looked puzzled. "Dad that doesn't sound reassuring."

  "It's a long story, now I need to talk to your mother."

  "She still says she's a skanky bitch."

  "Let those whom have not sinned throw the first stone."

  "I would rather stay."

  "You have to leave, your mother must stand alone, you would give her false solace."

  "She is my mum."

  "And I am your father."

  Lola let go of her father with a reassuring kiss on the forehead, she gathered her bag and began to walk to the garage access, Stanton could see her mother in her walk, her long blonde hair down to her buttocks. She suddenly turned back with a finger on her chin. "Oh, Anthony found an old Lola race car, raced in France in the seventies, he bought it for me, your right, Lola's are beautiful." She scampered away.

  Stanton climbed the stairs and stopped looking at his bedroom door, hesitant he contemplated the moment. He was dressed in a black leather jacket, blue denim shirt and jeans, he looked down at his crepe soled Redwing boots, he had dressed like it for decades, nothing had changed. His hair was cropped but now grey, in some places white, his face had stood the test of time but wore the lines of wisdom. He looked at the back of his hands, they had wrinkled, but for a man of his age he looked surprisingly young. Without fear he opened the door and walked in, beneath the beds neatly arranged covers was a long hump, the quilt pulled up to hide what was beneath. He cautiously and silently walked to the bedside and sat down, the hump did not move, he gently pulled back the covers. Jodi hid her face with her hands. Stanton gently pulled them apart and kissed her on the lips. "Back with us my love." Stanton was surprised there was no sign of marks from the surgery.

  She looked at him with a bland face. "Don't look at me, I am nothing but a Skanky bitch."

  Stanton smiled, he got up and walked to the bay window looking out over the beach and sea. "Should I be without sin I would cast the first stone." He turned back to her, walking over and looking down at her face. "Can you get up?"

  She covered her face with the sheet. "I don't want to get up, young men round here wo..."

  "It's over Jodi, to dwell in the past will serve no purpose and purpose has always been what we are about."

  She lay in silence for a few seconds. "Have you been with her?"

  "If you're talking about Bella, yes."

  "What have we turned into?"

  "You wish to bear the burden of what you cannot control."

  She pulled down the sheet and sat up, her green eyes pierced Stanton's senses. "You could have stayed."

  He sat beside her and rubbed his face with his right hand. "Was hard to watch, even I sometimes falter."

  "Did you hurt any of them?"

  "No."

  "Thank god, it wasn't their fault."

  "No one was at fault; the mission is to plan the rest of today and tomorrow and the day after, yesterday has gone."

  "Did you put your hands on her?"

  "We were regularly involved in what can only be described as passionate sex."

  "Did you see me with the young men?"

  "No."

  "I'm a whore, a skanky bitch, someone whom I have despised all my life."

  "Bella asked of you every day."

  "How long have you been gone, Lola told me nothing."

  "You decide what you wish to know."

  "Will it make a difference?"

  "To me no, for you, you decide."

  Jodi shocked him. "How is John junior?"

  Stanton studied her face, he could find no messages, he held ground. "Explain."

  "You know what I'm talking about, Bella's son." She smiled at him.

  "I know you well Jodi, you would not smile at such a thing."

  "I know John, I have a media empire."

  "Rumours."

  "You still deceive me John, why."

  He hesitated and looked away for a brief few seconds. "Some things are on a need to know basis."

  "Greywolf." She could see the pain in his eyes, she held his shoulder with one hand propping herself up with the other. "I knew of John junior long ago, Bella had morning sickness after our wedding, she disappeared to France. The young man so much like you, always with you, I've seen pictures over the years, I destroyed them all and had the perpetrators sanctioned."

  He lay he down on the bed beside her putting his head gently on the pillow. "The tumour and surgery has taken its toll."

  "I knew one day you would be old, we would weaken and be exterminated, we have our boys, and Bella's, thank god."

  "We've both changed." He stood up and began to undress. "For a few years now I have been ineffective, hesitant, waiting for that little bit more information, I'm failing. I haven't found the king pins I was looking for and probably never will, loose and dead ends everywhere."

  Jodi moved across the bed and opened the covers, Stanton looked upon her beckoning thighs. "As one falls another rises, speaking of rises I'm rather excited to say the least."

  Stanton climbed in beside his wife and embraced her, she whimpered with delight as he ran his hands over her body. "Time to put the past aside, we have come through far worse times than this. When the sun rises in the morning, we will remember." He climbed gently on to her, she gripped the sheets as he entered her body and screamed with delight.

  Lola became concerned, concern turned to panic, she had called her mothers phone many times but no answer. In the early morning as light was breaking she drove to her parent's home, the ominous vehicles of sanctuary were missing and so was her fathers Harley Davidson. She summoned the Cadiche man, he directed her to Sheppard's Hill lookout. She passed the warning vehicles of sanctuary, from the road near the lookout turn of she could see them standing at the cliffs edge, she smiled with relief and turned for home.

  They stood motionless at dawn next to the old radar station on Shepherd's Hill Lookout, staring at the horizon over the torrid sea waters stretched out before them. They could hear the waves crashing on the rocks far below; their hands grasped the guardrail atop the sheer cliffs with a white knuckled grips of steel. They would be there ev
ery clear morning they could be, waiting for the sun to clip the waves with gold and splash it across their face's. A tug boat's horn broke the silence as it muscled a coal ship into port far to their left, a jogger shuffled past behind them with a laboured greeting from climbing the hill, "Morning," but they didn’t respond. John and Jodi Stanton stood motionless with no expression, not even a blink; the sun split the water with its piercing gold light as it made its presence known and heralded the start of the day. It shot across their face's and with a ricochet from the gleaming Harley Davidson parked behind them and lit the back of their black attire. They mumbled quietly, "At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them."

  They stood in rapture for a few seconds with their eyes closed then Jodi gripped his hand with a clasp fuelled by adrenalin of the moment, she opened her eyes and looked at him, her hair blew around fuelled by the crisp wind driven up the cliff face from the sea. "You did succeed, we don't know what would be if you had not done what is done. As others that have come before you, democracy is handed to those whom follow. Are you home forever?"

  Stanton put his arm around her, he maintained his gaze at the horizon. "Does a one legged duck swim in circles?"

  Jodi giggled. "Is he as good as you?"

  He looked at her, she felt so safe. "Whom?"

  "The Wolf."

  He looked back out to sea. "He's different, to some degree I do not approve, but my father was the same with me."

  "We need breakfast at Lola's, she'll be flustered."

  "She was here."

  "You saw her."

  "I heard her car, she's of her mother and a journalist, can't help herself, we'll go there anyway, I'm hungry."

  They stood in embraced silence watching the waves for a while, Jodi looked up at him. "What if he fails?"

  "Whom, Greywolf?"

  "Yes."

  "Then they will awaken a sleeping giant and fill it with a terrible resolve."