The Barista’s Guide to Espionage

by Dave Sinclair

  Heart fluttering and giggling? Eva wondered if there was a way to commit suicide via coffee machine.

  The three customers didn’t actually order, they simply engaged in small talk as she prepared their beverages. Regulars. So regular in fact, she knew their real names. Not that she used them. Continuing their conversation they’d brought in from outside, they were discussing a good day’s trading. Eva had never asked but judging by the cut of their suits, good results were a regular thing.

  “…yeah, yeah, but nah,” the youngest of them said animatedly. “It was at fifty-four when I bought. Closed at eighty-eight. Ron lost his mind. He said he wanted to increase my bonus next year. I said, ‘Bullshit, after that you owe me a yacht’. Hell of a day. I wanna shake Lancing’s hand. That dude made me a shit-tonne of cash.”

  Harry’s head shot up. He was suddenly interested in the conversation.

  “If anyone could find the bastard,” said the oldest of the three.

  They all nodded. The elusive Horatio Lancing. Apparently no one knew who he was. Apart from the fact that he was head of one of the biggest corporations on the planet. It never made sense to Eva how someone could be so well-known, yet invisible to the world. Especially these days of instant everything.

  “I still reckon he doesn’t exist,” said the middle man.

  “What, Lancing Industries just run themselves?” the oldest of them asked. “I doubt your phone or laptop or overused Chirp account made themselves.”

  “No one’s ever seen him,” he replied indignantly. “It’s probably a fictional figurehead like Colonel Sanders–”

  “I’m pretty sure he was a real guy.”

  “–and all the different corporate heads run the show. They’re the ones who take all the glory anyway.”

  “You’re so full of it. He’s a bloke. He’s Aussie, like this one.” The oldest motioned to Eva.

  “This one?” She planted her hands on her hips. “This one has a name.” All three stared at her. “Right. First bloke to tell me my name gets free coffee.” Silence. “For life.” It would have been an appropriate time for tumbleweeds to roll across the floor. “Thought so.” Eva handed out the coffees. “There you go, Simon, Jason and Piers.”

  The three sheepishly took their coffees. Harry chuckled and said, “She’s got your numbers, boys.”

  “Bloody hell,” the oldest said, “another one. Are there any English people left in London?”

  The other two appeared to want to dive into their coffees.

  “I’m intrigued,” said Harry, “why don’t you think Lancing is real?”

  It was the second time Harry had asked about Lancing. First was when they’d been on the street.

  The youngest piped up. “I reckon he is.” He eyed the sceptic among them. “He has to be. No corporation’s gonna be doing all that philanthropy crap off their own bat. That’s a human doing that. Has to be. He’s made all his money from his tech, industry and media arms, right? So now he does all that charity bollocks in Africa and India and whatnot, which I still reckon is pissing it up against the wall.”

  The other two finance guys shared a smirk.

  The oldest rolled his eyes, “Everyone knows when he’s buying up debt and giving,” he used his fingers to create air quotes, “’free’ debt management to the shitty European counties. Which basically means he’s buying power and influence and god knows what else.”

  “None of that has ever been substantiated.” Harry seemed a little too defensive.

  The oldest sceptic snorted. “Substantiated how? About a man no one’s ever seen?”

  “It doesn’t mean it’s not true,” the youngest said with a shrug.

  “The media think he’s real.”

  “What? The media he supposedly owns? The social media platforms that spread the word of this supposed growing social revolution in Europe are all owned by him! Reported on his satellite TV networks. There’s all manner of rumours about bribery, blackmail, vote rigging and extortion, you name it.”

  “But the people love him,” the youngest said.

  “The idea of him. How can you love someone no one’s ever seen?” said his workmate.

  “Like the bloke you’ve got on a cross around your neck?”

  “What, he’s the messiah now?”

  “To some. To large parts of the population, maybe. Governments, not so much. They’re scared shitless that he’ll dump all the dirt he’s supposedly accumulated.”

  “What’s that?” Eva asked. She’d remained passive during the conversation, but that had caught her attention.

  “There was this thing in Wired saying he’s hiring hackers to gather up all this government data. Like a private Wikileaks or something. Didn’t ring true. Sounded like some government git scaremongering, if you ask me.”

  Harry appeared to want to say something when the oldest glanced at his watch. “We’ve got that three o’clock.”

  “Yeah, right. Thanks for the coffee, ah–”

  “Eva, Piers.” She shook her head. “You’ve been in here every day for two years.”

  “Eva. Yeah, sorry Eva. See you tomorrow, uh, Eva.”

  The other two men waved goodbye. When they walked out, Eva discovered only she and Harry were left in the café. She collected the money and placed it in a wooden box. He checked his watch again.

  “That’s your system? A box?” Harry asked with a smirk.

  Eva shrugged. “It works for me. Cash registers aren’t really my thing. Technology and I don’t get along. Like oil and water or Captain Hook and pap smears.” She paused. “Sometimes I shouldn’t be allowed to speak out loud.”

  Harry chuckled. Walking out from behind the bench, she collected cups and tidied up.

  He scanned the men. “They’re in for a bumpy few weeks on the market.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I know a few things.”

  Straightening magazines at the end of the bench where Harry sat, Eva shook her head. “So, not a drug dealer then?”

  “Who said I was a drug dealer?” Harry tilted his head. “Pimp I could understand, but drug dealer?”

  “Oh darlin’, you really think you could pull off pimp?” She smirked. “I can’t see you kneecapping a guy.” The grin disappeared and her eyes wandered towards the floor. The alley and the image of the Bulgarian on the news came back to her. “Searching for a flat?”

  “What was that?”

  Eva nodded to the open real estate section of the newspaper Harry was reading. “I assumed–”

  “Oh, right, yeah. Hunting for somewhere to set up,” he paused, as if the word stuck in his throat, “home.”

  “Westminster isn’t cheap, Dude. I hope you’re sharing.” Suddenly realising what she’d said, Eva added, “I mean, I wasn’t fishing. You can live with whoever you want, or not, or do, whatever. It’s really none of my–” Her head whipped around and she opened her mouth in mock surprise. “Oh look, a thing I have to do. Over there. That’s not here. Excuse me.”

  Harry chuckled. “You’re adorable when you’re off kilter. Wait, did I refer to another human being as adorable?”

  “I can honestly say without a word of a lie that no one’s ever referred to me as adorable.”

  Harry politely wiggled his coffee cup in her direction to grab her attention. “I’ll be paying for that one, won’t I?”

  Eva was suddenly struck by images of how she’d make him pay. None were suitable for children’s viewing hours.

  Rolling her eyes in a friendly manner, she took the cup from his hand. Her delicate porcelain fingers wrapped around his for a moment. In fact, it was a fraction longer than a moment. Their eyes met, and it was far from uncomfortable.

  An instant later the world shook and turned blood orange. The explosion ripped through the windows, showering them in glass and debris, and knocked them both to the ground. The gut-punching blast engulfed them with crippling heat.

  After the second explosion everything went black.

&n
bsp; Chapter Eight

  It was the smoke that panicked Eva the most. The acrid cloud descended like a dark spectre and cut her vision to no more than a metre or two. Outside sounded like the apocalypse. It was a horrifying cacophony of agonising screams, people calling out in panic, sirens and car alarms.

  Eva staggered to her feet, took a step, slipped on glass fragments and fell. Before she could hit the ground a strong set of hands cradled and hoisted her up. She twisted and saw the granite jawed Harry. A trickle of blood flowed from a cut on his forehead. He hadn’t seemed to have noticed.

  “Are you alright? Are you hurt?” he asked. His jaw locked in place, his expression stern. He’d become a different person. Harder.

  “I think – yes, I’m fine.” She patted herself down to double check, but there was no pain, nothing broken, nothing cut as far as she could tell. Glancing about her café, the windows were completely gone. Tables and chairs were covered in glass shards. Bad but repairable. Outside an occasional figure staggered past. The thick smoke made it impossible to know what was happening beyond the footpath.

  “Good.” Harry took in the street scene with concern. “Stay behind the bench, lock the back door, don’t venture out for any reason until you see the police or military, do you understand?”

  “Like fuck I will.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Jesus sodding Christ, who the hell do you think you are? I’m not some damsel in distress and I’m certainly not taking orders from a man I hardly know.”

  Harry seemed genuinely taken aback that his orders, and they were orders, weren’t immediately followed. Screw him.

  “Ah, right. Okay. Then I recommend what I just said, if you want. I’m going to go out there and see what I can do to help.”

  “Are you a doctor?”

  “No.”

  Apparently the conversation was over because he marched into the darkness. Not knowing what to do, Eva reluctantly did exactly what he’d ordered, then suggested, she do. With no glass in her windows she was exposed and especially alone.

  When did she become the cowering fragile type? Squatting, she reached under the bench and pulled out her non-English baseball bat. She’d only taken it out once in the café to emphasise a point to a couple of particularly persistent Mormon preachers. Clutching the wood to her chest she felt marginally less like a weakling.

  The sirens refused to let up. The screaming and shouting continued, but there was so much it coalesced into an unrecognisable horrid shriek. About to venture to the doorway, another explosion tore through the darkness outside. Squatting in the foetal position, hugging the bat to her chest, Eva rocked back and forth, terrified.

  Several minutes passed, silence replaced chaos, which was far worse. There were still relentless alarms, but all human noise seemed to have ceased. The dark smoke hovering above the street began to dissipate and morphed into an unreal white haze. Occasionally a black silhouette ambled past like a zombie.

  Chastising herself for her cowardice, Eva made the decision to go outside and see what was going on. People might be hurt. There hadn’t been an explosion for a good five minutes, maybe it was over.

  Standing unsteadily to her feet, she tentatively edged towards the front of her café. The occasional shout told her there were at least some humans left alive in London. Reaching the door, she was able to take in the street for the first time. An unnatural ashen mist hung over everything, the smell of burnt plastic and gasoline filled her lungs. Eva wandered cautiously towards the Strand where there were at least some signs of life. The source of the blasts seemed to be Charing Cross Station, which had black scorched wreckage of some description strewn across the entire street.

  Her first thought was Freedom First. A fringe group of loonies whose ultimate aim was anything but what their name suggested. Driven by the current worldwide disillusionment with self-obsessed governments, they advocated near-anarchy. Their rhetoric made the IRA look positively Ghandi-like by comparison. Even though there had been vague threats and a few out of control protests, they’d remained all talk. Maybe that had changed.

  People were about, but had completely contradictory reactions. Some were dazed. Others ran either away or towards the scene. There were several groups huddled together, arms around each other for protection. One woman stood in the middle of the street and screamed incessantly. Several hooded figures slunk about in the dark corners, trying to be invisible.

  There was only one large collection of people about fifty metres down the Strand, closer to the station. Not knowing why, Eva hurried towards it. As she approached, she observed the damage to the shops along the strip. As with her shopfront, all the windows on the strip were blown in. No store had survived intact. Some shop owners were already cleaning up. And judging from the movement at the back of the pharmacy, some were already being looted. Vermin.

  About twenty people formed the largest group. A strong voice was the only one she could hear. He seemed to be in charge. Of course he did. She couldn’t see him because of those surrounding him, but she knew exactly who it was.

  “–and then take her to St Barts. How you going there Liam, you okay with applying that pressure? Need a rest?”

  “No, it’s alright, I’ve got it.”

  “Good lad. Right, you, Red Shirt, I need you to go talk to the pharmacy over there, get all the bandages and gauze they can spare. If they have those car med kits, grab them all, it’ll make it easy to distribute.”

  “That could be a problem.” When Eva spoke she was surprised how her voice sounded.

  All eyes turned to her. Including Harry’s. He was huddled over an elderly man, tying a shirt sleeve, his own, around the man’s leg as a tourniquet. Harry didn’t show any emotion, but raised a questioning eyebrow.

  Eva addressed him, “I think – I think they’re already looting the pharmacy.”

  Harry’s eyes narrowed and his lips went white. “Bastards, don’t they know–” He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He patted the hand of the old man and asked, “Charlie, you going to be alright?”

  “Yes, yes, thank you.”

  Nodding, Harry rose. “Right, Red Shirt, UPS guy, and you,” he said to a tall black guy, “if you want to do some good, you’ll all come with me and we’ll clear them out of the chemist. People need help more than some crackhead needs his pseudoephedrine. You with me?”

  The youngest, with a red shirt, shifted uncomfortably. “They could have knives and all–”

  “Yes, they could,” Harry said without further encouragement. He gave a slight shake of his head, as if to say and?

  The three men uttered their acquiescence, some more eagerly than others. They walked towards Eva. Sweetness returned to Harry’s face, he leaned down to her. “I should have known you wouldn’t have stayed put. Are you alright?”

  Eva nodded, not knowing if her voice wouldn’t break if she uttered another syllable.

  “Can I borrow that?” He motioned to the baseball bat in her hands.

  She hadn’t realised she still had it. Giving a brisk nod, she handed it to him. He ran his hand tenderly along her arm and broke into a run after his newly-formed citizen posse. Was he really going to–?

  Before she could even finish the thought, Harry sprinted towards a hooded figure emerging from the window of the pharmacy, one arm cradling a collection of pill bottles. Without breaking stride, Harry leapt in the air and kicked the man in the centre of his chest, throwing him clear off his feet.

  The pills went flying, the man – he must have been at least six four, to Harry’s six foot – flew backwards and hit the ground with a thud. Before he’d had a chance to recover, Harry swung the baseball bat hard into his ribs.

  The crack could be heard all the way down the street, it may have even echoed. Satisfied his victim posed no threat, Harry rose and turned to his somewhat stunned companions. Tossing the bat end over end, he caught it on the handle and grinned. “Who’s next?” With a yank of his head, he motioned the others to follo
w and jumped through the smashed window. His posse followed him in, albeit with less enthusiasm.

  Nothing happened for the longest time. Eva slowly edged along the street, but had no weapon to speak of and felt naked and exposed. Shaking her head, she chastised her helpless reactions. Sure, whatever had caused the explosions was bound to be catastrophic, but she was better than that. Stronger. She was no wilting violet. She wasn’t a character in a Charlotte Brontë novel. Eva had seen off muggers who’d made the mistake of showing the slightest vulnerability. She’d sent exes to A&E that had dared raise a hand to her. Why would this be any different? Clenching her fists and straightening her back. It’s not different. Under her breath she muttered, “Fuck weakness,” and was better for it. People were dazed, but at least they were still standing.

  More Londoners filled the street from the nearby office buildings and tube stations, either from pure curiosity or having been evacuated. Tourists, not knowing which areas were safe, seemed to be moving the fastest away from the scene. The street was less like a post-apocalyptic scene and more like her adopted city again, albeit a bruised and battered one.

  Eva organised the uninjured office workers to form small groups to carry some of the wounded to the nearest hospital on Pall Mall. Most followed her orders without question, assuming the person with the strong voice knew what she was doing. She didn’t have the heart to tell them it was all an act. But it was an act that worked.

  From the dark recesses of the pharmacy came shouting and several crashes. Abuse, orders, names shouted in panic and viscous threats rang out. Scanning the street for a weapon, any weapon, she came up short. Relying on her new found bravery, Eva edged forward.

  Two youths leapt out the shattered windows and hit the ground running. They sprinted up the street and didn’t look back. Neither carried anything in their hands. Harry and his little group emerged from the pharmacy engaged in jovial conversation with two white-outfitted staff members. Red Shirt cradled his arm, but seemed elated. They had faced off against an enemy and had emerged victorious.