by Jack L. Pyke
Sallows seemed as transfixed on them. The teenager was forced up to his feet, slim ass exposed, as he was pushed facedown over the conference table. Something was pulled from a drawer, lube... a condom... then the boy winced as a thick cock forced its way between his thighs. All the time Sallows kept his intent on the three TV screens.
A black Mercedes had pulled to a stop on one screen, paused far back from the wrought iron gates that led up to an archaic manor. Kes knew the property homed other Mercedes-Benz, one even parked by the entranceway now, giving the two guards on duty there quick access to any trouble that might crop up. He knew more Mercedes would be along the perimeter at this time. At least five others came and went regularly, taking the long drive up to the stately confines. And it was noted how security had been relaxed a little around the perimeter.
So this Merc, oh this black beauty, it was different, bringing its own... esoteric provocation.
Mercedes-Benz always carried a certain class and threat wherever it graced tarmac, but this was the new S-Class coupe, a beautifully crafted sleek and stylish silhouette that slept peacefully enough on the road. The owner certainly had a fine eye for individuality, despite the required conformity that came with his... Masters’ Circle. Yet even though no smoke touched the interior, the taste of class was there, this one so subtle as it turned slow anticipation circles on the tongue, yet offering a bitter pulse in the aftertaste that would stir the finest of pole dancers to move and twist in the simmering desert heat. And the history of this man’s involvement in the Masters’ Circle over the past decade-plus said he’d made many a body shift and sweat in the darkness.
Pain and thrill. Youth and the offer of darker teachings. Certainly with a lot more class than bending a teenager over a conference table and grinding his way into him. Kes ignored Sallows, how a line of sweat dropped down the side of his face as he fucked, giving the young man’s ass a visible grief of its own as it hit his ass cheek. He would have felt sorry for the youth and stopped it, only the boy writhed and twisted, finding his own pleasure and pushing back into the thickness of a cock, all in time with some unheard music that he still sang to. Sallows looked close, the flab in his belly pounding into the youth almost as much as his cock.
Kes preferred the offer coming from the screens. The invitation to make a move was there: a watch from the woods on his side; a long look back into the woods from Gray Raoul, even though the S-class coupe itself looked like it slept idly there in the dark.
It was becoming routine. Usually Raoul would pull alongside the security office and time would be spent talking. Nothing was ever heard, no conversation given away, but Kes liked it that way: being allowed to fill in the blanks with how the security team stayed on edge, bodies never relaxing around this man. Raoul’s MI5 ranking and Master Circle rights came on easy intel, but there was something deeper with him. His long glance into the woods was illustrated by the select few in this life. Despite that offer of controlled aggression, Raoul kept formality on surveillance, especially with everything he held close beyond those iron gates.
“Then you can’t be too careful these days. No telling who is out there. Watching.” That came from Sallows. He’d cleaned himself up, shirt now tucked back in, boy being led out of the room with barely the come given time to dry as it was spilled onto his ass cheeks. Kes could only guess at the latter, but it was something Sallows enjoyed doing with his “boys”. Only the blush on Sallows’s face as he came over spoke his workout, which made him look like he’d run a mile where slimmer men would go on for another two and still come away with less sweat.
“Kes. You never answered my question in the meeting. What are your plans now?”
Kes wanted to ignore Sallows as movement came on the second flat screen TV. A young man was dragged into the centre of an ordinary looking bedroom. It played on a repeat loop, and this particular recording had made the conference lounge fall silent earlier, or at least stopped the mouths from moving, sips at bourbon given deep intakes to wash away the butchery that came next.
Chained down with a collar around the throat, the bound man and all his nakedness and snarls of anger were lost as someone came in carrying a branding iron. A moment later smoke curled into the air in its wake, then gained more ferocity as the burning letter of the V pressed down on the bound man’s toned and very slender hip, then—
“Mercedes, Mercedes fucking Benz,” Kes mouthed for the tortured soul, even letting a repeat follow as the branding iron went in for a second attack, burning the kind of skin that should never carry any man’s mark. The young man’s cries stayed as silent as Raoul’s on the screen next to him, leaving Kes to fill in the quiet grief with a brief close of eye. The pulse that now came from the main speakers could be felt in his own chest, carrying how sound assaulted the conference lounge, and his hand went to his chest to feel the cries pound against his ribcage.
Another tap came at his shoulder, but Kes denied Sallows as the third screen crept into his view.
A locked office door blocked the decor of the interior, but a name branded itself into the brass plaque.
Mr Jan Richards.
Ah. Richards.
Modest came to mind with the name and inside of the office, although no cameras had yet found their way into the latter. Surveillance was too tight around this man, albeit a little too much, far too late. Kes knew the schematics without use of technological intervention. The office itself had a medium-sized rectangular office desk, black leather office chair, and a few file cabinets for client details, showing a slight distrust, or careful aptitude to take into consideration blackouts and lost files. Richards had worked there since he was eighteen, falling in love with one Rob Kershaw, an older male co-worker, even as wedding bells had taken the older man down the aisle with a woman on his arm, then how... death had taken him and his toddler much later. Strange business, most stranger lives. Not any of the men onscreen holding innocence. Yet now, everything there in Richards’ office remained devoid of life, much like Richards’ life now, and offering every echo of past silent movies.
Silence.
Frustrations had set in since a letter had arrived from an Italian solicitor, noting Jack Harrison’s mother’s disappearance a few weeks ago, and the fourth tap at his shoulder marked the worried mood. Along with Fortello’s disappearance and threatening note, the three men onscreen had been split and distanced, for the past five months and with Harrison’s time in the psychiatric unit, all of them offering... nothing, avoiding society and giving... nothing. But Lego bricks built on unstable platforms were made to be pulled apart and reshaped. Sometimes for the better, mostly for the worst.
He was funded for the worst, with a need to find out just who funded Raoul for his worst side away from MI5 and the Masters’ Circle. Raoul’s bank details showed a very refined price tag from an untraceable source, but he knew Raoul’s payment sometimes came for free, for the pleasure of doing the act. And everything was there to say that Fortello been caught in that... free attention of Raoul’s. But then no mother should have her son and his lover raped, so Kes could appreciate that... free attention. Raoul’s wait beyond the manor gates was still for free now. There’d be no payment for catching those who’d funded the rape done to his, just the pleasure found behind brutal cause and effect.
And from within the S-Class Coupe, it came; just a gentle shift of head towards the woods. Kes’s heartbeat skipped at the possibility of being seen, of Sallows being seen.
“Your art,” Sallows mouthed. But Kes called it business, nothing more. Raoul would see the art found in that.
An unhappy glance down off Sallows saw Kes slide open a drawer, then slip something into his ear, still drawing the smoke into his lungs as much as he could. He flicked the intercom button on the conference table and waited for the device in his ear to settle. “Luh-Luh-Luh—”
“Liz here.”
Breathing became controlled, flat as he watched Sallows and spoke to the man’s personal assistant. “Ryan Keal’s
fuh-fuh-file. Want to say good morning to Luh—” He wrapped his mind carefully around Keal’s son’s name. “Luh-luh—”
“Logan?” came the reply, and he briefly closed his eyes.
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Understood.”
A slow smile crept to Sallows’s lips, and Kes held the look in the man’s eyes. They cried out something much deeper than business, where skin colour, race, and gender blended into one as extremism took control. Part of it was directed at the screens behind, part at Kes himself. Kes had taken his Master’s at eighteen when most people, including this young man, were just scratching piles from indecision over which haemorrhoid cream to choose, let alone which university to attend. Like most—the looks, Liz’s replies—they always carried such a sarcastic edge, impatience over always needing to rush life. No respect. Kes cut the call and took the greatest of comfort in removing his hearing aid. That was his way of saying conversation was done for now to all concerned. Only Sallows didn’t seem to understand, and this time the tap at Kes’s shoulder broke his concentration.
“This was meant to be handled months ago,” mouthed Sallows. “For each week I’m forced to wait, a grand will be taken off your wages. Now get the job done.”
Kes leaned forward slightly and took out an envelope. After he tipped the contents onto the conference table, he eased back.
Now it was clear all communication was done.
Sallows backed away, and Kes commended the man for not trying to reach and take the photos. Aware of how still Sallows stayed, Kes caught the bound and burnt man on screen pass out from the branding. He hadn’t needed the hearing aid during the meeting, lips giving away most secrets, but in all honesty, it didn’t matter what was said, decided, and paid for.
All final game play came back to his hands. And Sallows was about to find out why.
This was Kes’s world, where speech was lost to the beauty of imagery and the comfort of planning. He loved the silence—lived it. Those who had been in this lounge fretted and shifted despite the cool and early August winds; those onscreen had no doubt drowned in it, but him...?
Attention was drawn back to the screen, to where Jack Harrison regained consciousness once the branding iron had been removed. His body had been raped, mind torn, perception skewed, and now there was stillness. Quiet. Harrison knelt there, staring at the hand holding the collar around his throat.
There was beauty, but for one reason only. Harrison had reached the point where nothing outside of the rise and fall of his chest existed. And—
“...react, Jack, fucking hurt the bastards... fucking make them bleed.”
Eyes closed, Kes inwardly cried it again for Richards. He was still bound in the corner of the video, forced to watch his lover’s branding, the brutality. Harrison headbutted one of his rapists, shattering the black visor of the gas mask that the man wore. And as the images played out, a smile crept to Kes’s lips. Make them bleed...
“Make them fucking bleed, baby,” he mouthed for Richards. Jan’s cry reverberated around Kes’s chest as Jack’s look back at Jan barely registered that they were supposed to be lovers. “Not yours. Never fucking yours,” cried Jan at the rapists.
Kes switched his look to the stillness of the third screen.
Despite his home being so close, Raoul still looked so far away, the echo of Jan’s cry of how Jack’s Not yours. Never fucking yours was called out now in Raoul’s silence.
Silence. Now that was the true art. Not tears that dampen pillows, not the cries that bled into the darkness, but the point where all that was left behind was this...
Silence.
Chapter 5
Silence
Present Day
The alarm clock blinked a timid 5:30 a.m. as Gray made sure it stayed quiet, easing his touch over the reset button as he fought down the usual sickness hitting his stomach. He cast a look at Jack and Jan, cuddled up asleep in bed together.
The position was odd. Usually, Jack would have slept between him and Jan, his pious throwback to science lessons and that test to see if ink would mix well with water, if only he was allowed to move and stir both up, therefore losing even the slightest schoolboy innocence he swore he had. Now Jan took his place in the middle, Jack there, coming in close from behind. Both eased into sleep with the same look of... listening for something, facing the bedroom door. Sometimes Jack was relaxed enough to look away for a few moments, but his attention always drifted back to the crack of light falling across the soft carpet, watching to see if it would widen in the darkness.
Security was there; Gray was there, but that look in their eyes just before they eased into sleep, that one instance where pretence eased away and relaxed into fully dilated and exhausted honesty, it showed how Gray hadn’t always been there, not when it mattered. The look wasn’t intentional, both just faced ghosts that carried on haunting no matter the location, and it showed most when they dropped their guard and held on to each other as if nothing existed beyond the bed.
Easing away, Gray lost his battle to keep hold on the bile twisting his insides, and quiet footfalls took him over to the en suite before he threw up.
Three quick and fast vibrations came off Gray’s mobile back in the bedroom, and when the caller didn’t get the hint to quit it after the fourth attempt to get his attention, he went and took it, discreetly hit reject, then let the phone rest back in his pocket. Trace got in touch via instant message, Thames House through a beeper, so this meant someone else, and that someone else needed to learn pretty quickly to disappear.
He needed privacy, and someone’s bollocks would be put in a horse twitch for interfering with home life again.
A glance back saw he hadn’t disturbed Jack and Jan, and wiping a hand over his mouth, he shifted over to the double wash basin. The one next to his took his attention as he reached for the toothbrush, and he frowned. With Jan staying here, too, a third basin would no doubt find its way in here after some interior designing. Jan had the option of another room, as Jack did, but neither of them took to it.
The phone made its presence known again in Gray’s pocket, and this time he eased back a touch when four discreet vibrations came through, then went dead.
That changed things slightly. When the same pattern was repeated, Gray picked up. “Sut mae?”
Quiet, then—“Shw mae.” There was little difference between the phonetics of the two; Gray’s how are you? marked a greeting from North Wales, the male caller’s hello came from the South. Both sounded like the same interrogative, but few would recognise the difference away from Welsh shores. Not even Trace.
Gray kept an eye on Jack and Jan in the bedroom.
“You’re getting a visit at 9:00 a.m. this morning.”
The caller got all of his attention. “Someone I need to worry about?”
“Perhaps. There’s a call to lift the Exclusion Order over information surrounding MI5’s involvement with Ryan Keal’s death.”
Surprising. Usually the exclusion orders were enough to waylay public interest. This was the next step up and suggested the Security Service Tribunal panel was getting serious. “My office or the district-general’s?”
“District-general’s.”
Now he winced. That was a little more than serious. “Who from the SSTP?”
“Thomas Reignfold.”
Gray didn’t recognise the name.
“He’s a friend,” said the caller.
“Enough of a friend to get him into the director-general’s office in an attempt to lift the ban?”
“No. I said he was a friend; you’re business. I won’t entertain the two together.”
He liked this man, and that was a rarity. They’d met only once and this caller’s attention was demanded with four rings off a mobile, something that even sent him quiet and still. But Gray always knew where he stood with him, and likewise.
“Watch your back.” The Welsh accent was very soft now but evident. “This meeting with Reignfold stains the air with con
nections.”
The irony there was laughable. As high as both UK and European Parliament, the caller himself set the precedent for “connections,” although his name was only mentioned behind closed doors when tied to the cullers. Both Field Marshal and Chief of the Defence Staff, the man and his military coalition with MI5/6 was rivalled by only one other intelligence/military-led agency: Israeli’s Mossad. Those who briefly came into contact with this caller’s team knew them as cullers, but the official name within the military and the Secret Service was Sicarius. Gray worked for MI5, but when it came to handling domestic and foreign business beyond MI5/6 control, his orders came from the British military, a call to business that the district-general for MI5 had no jurisdiction over. By the time Sicarius were called in, there was only ever one order: catch and cull. So Gray didn’t laugh at the irony over hearing how Reignfold’s investigation stank of connections: he was speaking to one. “Understood.”
“No game-playing here. I’ll have a Public Interest Immunity Certificate mailed to your office by the time you get there. SSTP need to back down now.”
A PIIC... and in a few hours? “Any idea who’s behind Reignfold? Who’s calling for Ryan Keal’s file to be opened when it was made clear enough it was to be remained shelved?”
“Logan Keal.”
“And Keal’s son pushed for an investigation into my actions specifically?”
“Yes. I don’t like how your name has been mentioned now. Use the PIIC and get the panel and his lawyers out of the picture. Somebody is pushing for this. Are personal issues dealt with?”
Gray glanced back into the bedroom. “No.”
“Understood,” said the man. “Same procedure applies as with Keal: a call within an hour of the finished contract if it needs to be called. But get this with the SST panel wrapped up and find out who’s pushing Logan Keal’s buttons, and why. He’s getting your name from somewhere. Nos da.”
“Nos da,” said Gray, flatly, and he couldn’t have made that goodbye sound any more neutral.