Thunder

  You are so beautiful.

  “I’m glad,” you say. “Because I love you too.” And with your words I feel like I have died and gone to heaven, but you’re not finished yet. “I have done,” you duck back down and murmur into my ear, “from the first moment I saw you.”

  I scrabble excitedly away from under you – this has got to be the best possible moment – and reach across into the drawer of my bedside cabinet. “I bought you something,” I splutter self-consciously. “I couldn’t help myself.” And I hand you my tiny, carefully wrapped, package. “I hope you like it...”

  ~~~~~

  “There’s definite improvement every day,” says a voice. “It’s probably some form of psychological reaction that’s preventing consciousness.”

  “Coma?” says another.

  “No. It’s strange. More a deep unconsciousness. Not surprising given the level of trauma sustained.”

  “Do we reduce sedative levels further?”

  “No. I don’t think so. The pain must still be excruciating....” It is. “We’ll leave the dosage at the current amount and let nature take its course.”

  Thanks. I don’t want any more of this pain and you can stop talking about me now. Whoever you are...

  ~~~~~

  Iuli is raging and shouting. “Hanging would be too good for them!” you shout. “Back home I think they’d just disappear. One day they’d be there. The next gone. Know what I mean, Nic?”

  You’re looking at me expectantly.

  “I’m not sure,” I reply truthfully. I suspect you’re exaggerating. “Wouldn’t it continue to escalate matters?”

  You huff and shake your head. “For what possible purpose should they be allowed to continue to live?” It’s not really phrased as a question, and I know you too well to interrupt. “The animal kingdom would deal with such brokenness. Would eradicate it for the good of the species. We don’t, because we’re supposed to be more sophisticated.” You shake your head and for a few seconds we sit in silence, watching the TV screen.

  “...As many as two hundred casualties at the moment. Many fatalities, including whole families. It seems that the car bomb was detonated toward the centre of the resort. Timed for maximum impact and devastation amongst restaurants, where large numbers of people were gathered for evening meals. Whole families are missing...”

  There are pictures of children drenched in blood. Pale little faces with eyes wide in stunned shock, not comprehending. Being led to ambulances by medics. Adults crumbling to their knees, casting their arms to the skies, screaming in awful grief.

  “Tell me, Nic,” you say in a voice so calm, yet so angry and so impassioned that it’s frightening. “Tell me why the monsters that do this kind of thing should be allowed to live?”

  I think about our unborn child, of future children, and of how I might feel if any of them were involved in something like this. Or any of the rest of my family? For sure I feel like weeping for those affected tonight, but I’m not convinced that more violence would help in any way...

  ~~~~~

  Greere stood up on the other side of the partition and plucked his jacket from the back of his chair. “Need my help with anything, Deuce?” he barked imperiously. A slight lisp made the word ‘with’ sound softened. “Otherwise, I’m going over the river to make my report to Sentinel.”

  ‘Like you couldn’t just do that by phone,’ Ellard thought quietly to himself. ‘But you wouldn’t want to miss out on a chance to brown-nose though, would you?’ He shook his head and caught sight of the reflection of his shoulder length ice-white hair oscillating in the glass of his monitor.

  Ellard had started to go grey in his early twenties. Initially he’d tried using dye, to cover it over, but had abandoned hope of keeping ahead of the process by the age of thirty, and by forty the grey had further regressed to white. He privately hoped that, if it kept going like this, then maybe it would go full circle to its original brown again. Even his eyebrows were white. It was the only notable distinguishing feature he had. The rest of him was six feet and one inch of entirely average muscle, propping up a long narrow face, a pair of hooded brown eyes and his punch-flattened nose. His mouth was small and most often inarticulate. A sneer seemed to be his default expression.

  The door to the office opened, then closed again, as Greere left without another word. Ellard didn’t expect anything else. His boss was an arse. A pompous, overambitious, self-righteous, slime-ball.

  Not that he cared.

  He’d worked with Greere on a few assignments and, unlike many superiors, the man seemed happy to leave him be, to let him get on with things the way he wanted to, and didn’t keep trying to get him, through the Service’s ridiculous and never-ending appraisal process, to improve himself. Ellard was done with improving. He just wanted to keep getting paid. To keep getting handed opportunities to add to his personal retirement fund. To continue working toward the not-too-distant prospect of getting out of this whole business.

  This latest project was typical Greere. Right on the edge of insane – at least as far as Ellard was concerned. Over the last few months he’d been babysitting and training up three complete oddballs. None of them knew about the others and they were scattered in locations across Europe. Two of the three were ex-military which had made things a little easier for him. Of these, one appeared to be making promising progress – albeit that he was a complete dick-head. The other one was less promising – there was something just a little unstable about that ex-soldier. The third agent was, even for Greere, a real gamble – an ex-civilian, ex-criminal. Ellard felt pretty certain that this particular nasty-piece-of-work didn’t pay the slightest attention to anything he ever said to him.

  Well, that was Greere’s lookout.

  Not Ellard’s.

  When they fucked up. Which they would. He’d just have to go and sort them out.

  Clean up.

  Get rid of the evidence.

  He was good at that.

  It was fun.

  ~~~~~

  Suddenly I’m younger. My dad is here, and my mum. They’re both smiling down at me.

  “We hope you like it...?” says Dad.

  It’s not hard to guess what might be in the box. It’s too long and narrow to contain anything other than my wildest dream... But there’s no chance... My wildest dream is far too expensive for my parents to afford. Too expensive for a Christmas present.

  My hands are shaking as I gently unwrap the paper...

  Unbelievable...! I look up in awe at my parents and they can see the delight written all over my face. “Awesome...,” is all I can manage to say as the rush of emotion becomes too much and I burst into happy tears.

  I gaze down at the beautiful, strange, spider-like object sitting there in the box in front of me. A wonderful matrix of brand-new, red and black, carbon fibre. Almost four feet of precision engineering with a complex pulley system which will even out the pulling strain and allow a longer aiming window. Whilst I love my old-style recurve bow, this ‘Javelin Precision Elite’, IBO 313fps, compound sports bow is one of the best archery tools on the market. Super-accurate. Super-powerful. Capable of putting a heavyweight carbon fibre bolt straight through a full size, dense wicker, target. A deadly weapon in the wrong hands, but these are my hands. It will be safe in them.

  “We hope it’ll help you win this time,” says Dad.

  “We know how much this means to you,” says Mum.

  “It is the right one, isn’t it?” Dad asks, suddenly sounding concerned.

  I look up and nod excitedly. “It’s perfect!” I hear myself cry out. “I’m going to call it Vengeance.” All the other kids have names for their bows. Until now, my old one has been called any number of things: some of them unpleasant.

  “That’s an odd name,” says Mum. “Not like you?”

  I laugh. “No, not like me. But it’s going to help me get revenge for last time.”

  “It was a tough competition, last time,” says Dad.

>   “I’m ready for tough,” I say proudly, and lift the weapon in my hands for the first time.

  It’s lighter than I imagined, which is good because at the moment it’s nearly as tall as me and will take some serious pulling.

  This weapon is good for a lifetime. It will grow in power as I grow.

  Nothing will be able to stop the two of us.

  ~~~~~

  My pleasant regression is rudely interrupted by the reappearance of the annoying neon light. And the voices. The light looks vaguely like it might be a strip-lamp tube. Perhaps a pair of strip-lamp tubes?

  “Nic?”

  That sounds like my mum’s voice? Perhaps I’m dreaming the strip-lamps too?

  “Nic, can you hear me?”

  I turn my head a fraction, causing sudden pain to slice through me, but I force myself to open my eyes and can just make out my mother’s features.

  Her blurry face seems very close to me...

  “Thank God!” she exclaims but the pain is dragging me back under.

  I try to smile. At least I hope I do.

  Sorry Mum, I’m not quite ready yet...

  ~~~~~

  It’s the Championships.

  I know I’m ready, and so is Vengeance.

  We’ve battled our way through three years of competitions to get here and I am taller and stronger. As it is, I’m only just inside the boundary age for junior classification. It has to be this year.

  This is the final round of the day-long event and now we are within striking distance of achieving our ambition – but I’m starting to doubt myself.

  The tension is palpable.

  One missed shot and it’ll all be over.

  The wind is gusting nastily, from right to left, across the range. The longest shots are in front of us, the final few remaining contenders, as we stand in a line on this open field and stare across at the distant straw targets. Over these distances, one serious puff of wind can make the difference between bullseye and several roundels off-centre. To cope with these sorts of conditions, I know that the best strategy is to pull and hold, to sense the gusts and pick your moment to loose, but, even as strong as I am now, I struggle to hold the draw for too long. The tension across my arms and shoulders can make my aim drift. Besides, I am much more accurate when I fire quickly – particularly when faced with small or moving targets. It must be a hand-eye thing.

  My dad moves quietly to my side. “This is it,” he says in a calming, straightforward, kind-of way. “This is the big one. The one that’s been waiting for you to arrive and claim it.”

  I look at him and see him smiling confidently at me, though I’m sure that both he and mum share my nerves. “What about the wind?” I ask him.

  He laughs. “The same for everyone. Just do your stuff.”

  I do.

  I don’t hold the draw.

  Vengeance and I take strength from each other and we loose five arrows in quick succession.

  We aim by reflex.

  React to each gust as it occurs around us.

  And pepper the bullseye with every shot...

  ~~~~~

  Parc National de la Vanoise, France

  Ellard stood to one side of the large, open-plan room and stared patiently out of the windows while Greere finished his lecture. The alpine valley which sprawled below the pinewood mountain chalet was bathed in afternoon sunlight.

  He really didn’t like this particular recruit. His boss had taken a huge risk springing this one from jail. Whilst he tried not to make his misgivings too obvious, he just couldn’t work out why Greere had singled out this particularly unpleasant thug from the candidate list?

  He’d have to try to track down the guy’s mother at some point. Something about that particular little sob story stank of bullshit to him...

  “Your missions will be carefully selected. Your actions will make good for the pains you have suffered.” Greere’s pontifications didn’t seem to be having much effect on the thin, wiry, pinch-faced animal who sat perched like some coiled spring on the edge of one of the battered old armchairs.

  “Right,” the thug muttered indifferently.

  “Deuce says you’ve made good progress with your basic training. You must continue to study and train while you’re here. We’ll check in on you from time to time.”

  The thug’s brows arched menacingly. “Is that supposed to be some sort of threat?” he snarled.

  Greere laughed, and Ellard got the strange feeling that his boss was somehow excited by this unconcealed aggression. “If we have to resort to threats, Iron, it will mean you have failed,” Greere said calmly, but Ellard recognised his boss’s icy undertones. “That would be a real shame. Entertaining but a real shame.”

  The thief sat back into the armchair and crossed his legs, apparently unaffected. “Don’t worry yourself. I’ll be ready,” he growled, fixing Greere with an unblinking stare from his muddy-brown eyes.

  Greere stared back at the other man as if he was somehow fascinated by the weasel’s grimy, age-lined face and tobacco-stained smile. “Be sure that you are,” he purred, whilst unconsciously and unnecessarily pushing his fringe to one side with his hand.

  Ellard scowled quietly at them both.

  ~~~~~

  London

  And so, finally, I’m back. Back here in the land of the living. The lucky one.

  But I wish I wasn’t.

  Mum is here, and so are the doctors that I’d heard and half-seen earlier.

  They’re all very kind but it really doesn’t help.

  The pain is excruciating. I have multiple fractures, apparently. Arms, legs, one shoulder, fingers, a couple of toes, ribs, the list goes on... Seemingly, the pain would be worse but the jarring to my spine has damaged the nerve transmissions to my brain. The pain I am experiencing is much less than would normally be the case.

  Lucky me.

  They say the ability to feel will be affected forever. I reckon that’s good. I feel like I need to be numbed physically. It will match how numb I feel emotionally.

  They keep talking to me but I don’t respond – other than gentle nods or shakes of my head. The metal shard that hit me during the explosion cut into my vocal cords – they say it was a miracle that it didn’t take my head off, but I disagree with them on that. So, on top of the painkilling drugs, I’m being pumped with steroids too. They say that I should recover speech, eventually, though my voice will sound different when I do.

  It doesn’t matter though. I haven’t got anything to say.

  My beloved Iuli and my daughter Elizabeth are both gone.

  Mum was crying when she told me. I could see her reliving Dad’s passing all over again. I knew she understood the agony of what she was having to tell me, that she had real empathy, that she wanted to try to give me strength. But I was beyond comfort by the end of her first sobbed sentence, then beyond help and, in the end, beyond caring.

  The van that I saw was packed with explosives. Home made from a concoction of surprisingly common components, all of which are readily available to those who want to use them for their intended purpose and also to those who would rather do dreadful things to people.

  It was a suicide bomber. Some random lunatic who chose to dispatch himself down into the pit of Hell’s damnation whilst no doubt waiting placidly for the miraculous appearance of a host of long-dreamed-of vestal virgins who would, according to the usual insidious indoctrinations, throw themselves mindlessly at him and suck endlessly on his no doubt inadequate and stunted cock. Personally, I hope he’s found himself in the midst of my preferred version of the afterlife. I hope he’s discovered that Hell is a very different reality. I really hope he’s screaming in agony in a fiery pit of eternal torture. Because, if he is, I know exactly how he feels...

  ~~~~~

  Back in England, Greere had a lot to think about. One more significant, decisive, action might be enough to get him the Major’s desk. To get him the top job. With his skills, this new team, his contacts and hi
s cunning, this latest incident might just provide what he wanted most of all: to displace Sentinel.

  What a long journey it had been. All the way from those initially gruesome, but later surprisingly pleasurable, buggerings in that lonely, dusty dormitory at Prep School. Travelling over each and every continent, armed to the teeth, free to kill or be killed. Living on the very edge of existence, able to take and then get rid of any wanton men or boys he’d wanted, almost at will. It had all been so easy when you live a life that doesn’t really belong to you. When you live a life in the grey space between the system and anarchy.

  He felt proud of his intense self-orientation and lack of compassion. He was glad he’d had all feelings for others brutally shagged out of him while he was still so young. It had served him well in later years. His reputation for ruthlessness and delivering spectacular results was the reason why, young as he was, he was now only one step away from his ultimate prize...

  His encrypted cellphone started ringing and he snatched it up, “Ace.”

  “Boss, it’s Deuce.”

  Greere smiled at the sound of his subordinate’s gritty voice. He liked Ellard. Ellard didn’t care about anything. Ellard just did his job. Ellard didn’t want to do anything else, didn’t want to get promoted, to settle down, to waste time with some other life-partner or to have kids. Ellard wanted nothing. Ellard enjoyed doing what he did best: running assets. He also seemed to enjoy disposing of the odd one now and again.

  “Go ahead, Deuce,” Greere replied.

  “Tin is in place,” said Ellard, and Greere could hear the man laughing to himself in the background. “He really likes his code-name.”

  “Will it cause a problem?” Greere asked sharply. At times Ellard’s penchant for winding up agents could cause unforeseen complications.

  “No, sir. Not with Tin. He’s a good little boy. It’s nice to put him in his place. You’re familiar with his cover name, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Deuce, I am.”

  “You know he thinks it makes him sound posh, don’t you?” Ellard was still chuckling. “Vittalle! I think it’s just typical of the little tosser. I keep thinking he’s some sort of ruddy bottled water...,” Ellard’s voice was consumed by bellowing laughter and Greere wondered what manner of cynical expression would have been plastered over his subordinate’s campaign-hardened features when Tin had announced his chosen persona’s name...