Thunder

by Anthony Bellaleigh

  And if it’s not the police?

  Again, the conclusions are the same. I don’t care. I should already be dead. I am dead, and the dead have very little left to be afraid of.

  I step into the narrow hallway. The lounge door on the left hand side is standing open, its battered panels are plastered with many layers of forever yellowing gloss, which shimmers in bright rivulets as it reflects the pale lamplight from the paintwork’s myriad undulations. Three careful steps lead me to this opening, where I stop and slowly turn to look into the ample sitting room. It’s the biggest single space in this little cottage, taking up the whole end of the ground floor and, when the sun finally rises, it will afford magnificent views, from three sides, all along the nearby rugged shoreline – but, at the moment, I’m not interested in the views.

  A man is sitting in one of the armchairs, legs crossed, lounging comfortably. He’s pulled the chair closer to the window, so he could see the lane and my approach more easily. In the meagre glow from the standard lamp he appears to be stocky and slightly overweight. His face is almost circular in shape and blandly unattractive. His dark, strangely bulging, almost frightened-looking, eyes are turned toward me but, despite this strange visage, his disposition stinks of belligerence, authority, dominance or, maybe, just psychosis. I sense his spirit is as cold as the bitter Welsh wind howling on the other side of the walls from him.

  “Do come in,” he says plainly, in plush public-school English, and gestures for me to approach.

  I say nothing but take a couple of paces into the room and drop my rucksack onto the floor beside me. I don’t want to move too close to him, nor too far away from the door. Here will do.

  I gently loosen my arms within the long trench coat.

  “This here is my friend.” He gestures back toward the lounge door.

  I glance to my right and am surprised to see a second man, standing concealed from view behind the gloss-burdened panelling of the lounge door. This second man casually shoves the sturdy wood away from him and it swings shut with an ominous thud.

  “Hello,” he says with the hint of an East-end London accent. He is taller than Bug-eyes and a bit of a scrawny geezer. More athletic looking, but still not what I’d describe as honed. He has longish, spectacularly white-grey hair which looks like it could be a patch of snow draped over his head. It stands out as a bright patch of light in the otherwise shadowy corner and, as I watch, he slowly raises his arm and the gun he is holding levels itself directly toward my face.

  ‘How quickly things can change,’ I think to myself as a sudden rush of panic flows through every vein. Then my fears collapse into unexpected excitement. These guys might be with the Travellers? Come for payback? Perhaps I can complete my journey after all? Perhaps these men will bring me the release I crave? I stare into the round black maw of the weapon and imagine the shiny metal nugget nestling at its core.

  Willing the projectile forward.

  “Do you know how to use that?” I ask hopefully, my deep voice sounding satisfyingly calm and unemotional.

  Better a clean kill.

  A momentary frown of surprise ghosts across White-hair’s age-crinkled forehead. “I’ll show you if you like,” he replies coldly.

  “Now, now...,” interjects the insect sitting on my chair. “We’re not here for trouble.”

  “Good,” I say in response to White-hair, but I suspect that they didn’t understand me.

  Bug-eyes rouses himself slightly, pulling himself more upright. “Very impressive,” he observes, though whether he’s talking about me or something else I can’t be sure. “Messy and high risk but impressive all the same.” Is he talking about the Travellers? “The problem is: you haven’t covered your tracks very well, Nick.”

  There is the merest hint of a lisp lurking behind his flaccid yet well spoken enunciations but, despite this, he uses my name like a solid brick wall at the end of his sentence and lounges back into the chair with the air of someone who thinks they’ve made themselves clear.

  He hasn’t.

  I stand there silently, watching him and gently shake my right arm as if flicking a few drops of molten snow from the long sleeve of my coat. Amongst the pallid skin and perpetual sneer, his pug nose wrinkles with annoyance and, for some reason, I wonder whether the burden of being born with a face like that has defined the man he has obviously become. It will certainly have been an uphill struggle for him. The thought makes the corners of my mouth twitch upward slightly and, in response to this, his frown deepens.

  “I wouldn’t be so smug if I was you!” he barks suddenly, and I sense White-hair shifting slightly behind me. “Javed Omid was executed in cold blood.” The mention of the worm’s name vaporises my half-smile. “His murder will attract a lot of public interest. The police will hunt remorselessly for his killer and, given how easily we’ve found you, it won’t take them long to track you down. You took the law into your own hands, Nick, and the British Judicial System has a particular dislike for being undermined. You are about to find yourself at the epicentre of one fucking nightmare of a public circus: a hunted man, on the run but with nowhere to hide and then, when they catch and prosecute you, which they most certainly will, you’re going to end up rotting out the rest of your miserable existence in jail. A place, where I strongly suspect, you’ll find that your cellmates will have a particularly virulent dislike for someone with a history which includes the murdering of fellow criminals.”

  They’re not with the Travellers then.

  “Who are you?” I grunt.

  Bug-eyes smiles. “We’re here to offer you a chance,” he says more carefully. “A chance to avoid that unpleasantness. You are rumoured to have some basic skills that we feel we can use and, I understand, you have some, albeit unexplained, motivation for taking violent action related to what happened at Victoria?”

  I nod, once. It’s starting to become clear that they don’t know all that much about me.

  “We have the means to put you somewhere where you might be able to satisfy that desire, but you will need to follow our instructions to the letter. Any deviations and we will simply vanish, in much the same way as we’ve appeared, and you will fall swiftly back into the ruthless and dispassionate arms of the law. There will be no history of this conversation, no records to trace any connection to us, no lifelines, no parole, no good behaviour and no second chances. You will simply be incarcerated, until you die.”

  I suppose he thinks that this is supposed to be threatening, but he’s not been living my life recently. “So, who are you?” I repeat frostily.

  This seems to push his ‘go’ button and he leaps to his feet. “None of your fucking business, you miserable piece of shit!” he rages. “Didn’t you fucking well listen to me? You get one chance! Right now!” A spot of phlegm flies from his mouth and his arms gesticulate wildly. It’s good to see he’s about as stable and level headed as I am. “YOU are going to fucking well do as we ask of you, exactly as we ask of you, when we ask you to, and maybe, just maybe, get an opportunity to strike back at the terrorist perpetrators of the bombing! Piss us around. Fuck up following our instructions. Turn us down, or just keep asking dumb-shit questions, and I’m going to walk out of here and call in the Police.”

  “So why the gun?” I ask, as I neatly sidestep a second drop of airborne bug-spittle.

  “Good point,” Bug-eyes recovers his composure and reaches up with one hand to tease his somewhat greasy black side-parting back into place. “I could just let Deuce here shoot you, and then have him heave your miserable body over the cliff. He’d enjoy that.”

  I glance over my shoulder. White-hair, or Deuce, or whatever he’s called, stares impassively at me. I suspect Bug-eyes might be telling the truth.

  “Deuce?” I grunt.

  White-hair’s wince was so slight it was barely noticeable. But I saw it. Then he nodded, slowly, once.

  “So you are?” I turn back to Bug-eyes.

  “You will know me only as Ace,” says Bu
g-eyes and I struggle not to guffaw at him. “Code-names,” he adds, in case I hadn’t already guessed as much, then sits himself carefully back into the armchair and crosses his legs. “Other than to know that we do have, at least in part, official sanction for what we do, these code-names are all you will ever know about our identities and who we work for. There is no point in trying to find out more, any searches would only confirm that we do not exist anywhere beyond the confines of this brief encounter. If you elect to do the sensible thing and work for us then we will furnish you with means and opportunity to take action. Beyond that, you’ll be on your own. You will also vanish from existence.

  “Be under no illusions,” he continues, looking at me calmly, “what we’re talking about is extremely dangerous. It is unlikely that you will survive and, if you are ever captured, wherever you might be captured, you will be alone and without support from any quarter.”

  “So I might get killed?” The very question sends a thrill through me.

  “If you’re lucky,” White-hair growls from behind me.

  Bug-eye’s ugly face splits into a thin grin at his partner’s interjection. “Deuce is right,” he says. “Torture or imprisonment in a foreign jail are also probable outcomes.” He is studying my face for a reaction. There isn’t one. “I’m not sure you understand me?”

  Oh, I understand. I’m just not alarmed and, at the moment, I’m wondering whether I might be better off if I can get Deuce, or whatever he calls himself, to pull that trigger.

  “This guy is a moron.” White-hair pronounces with the full weight of his extensive knowledge of me. It’s an interesting observation though. The second use of such description and part of me is intrigued by it. “Fucking mentally imbalanced. This is a waste of our time. Let’s go. The cops can sort this one out.”

  “Sentinel thinks differently,” says Bug-eyes calmly.

  Sentinel?

  There is a moment or two of uncomfortable silence. I sense that this Deuce-character might want to make further comments but is holding back. It might be that they can’t discuss this difference of opinion in my presence. “Would you like me to give you a moment alone?” I rumble helpfully.

  Bug-eyes laughs and White-hair snarls, “Stay right where you fucking are!”

  I flick my arm and release one of my shuttered switchblades into my palm. The tension continues to rise and I can feel the cold embrace of death shuffling back to within touching distance. I can sense it. For some reason I can’t help but scan the dark windows – I wonder if you’ll appear there again – but the various window panes remain unoccupied. They’re just spiritless black rectangles of glass, populated only by dusty reflections of the room’s interior. “I’m not afraid of death,” I rumble, to myself.

  “Very good,” says Bug-eyes, thinking I’m talking to him. “So is it going to be a slow rotting death, or would you like to hear more about what we might like you to do instead?”

  “With this guy, all he’ll be doing is committing fucking suicide,” Deuce mutters from his corner. “Messy suicide. After hours of agonising torture at the hands of a group of professionals who’re desperate to escape our clutches. They’ll drop him in a breath, then stop at nothing in their attempts to squeeze him for the fuck-all he’ll actually know.”

  “I’ll do it,” I say. Deuce’s words have helped me to make my mind up. I’m not interested in festering in prison. It’s too long a wait. Time for me to live up to their obvious expectations and, as they’d put it, to be a man.

  Bug-eyes looks momentarily delighted. “You’re certain?” he asks grimly. “There’s no way back from here.”

  “I’m in,” I repeat simply. “What now?”

  Bug-eyes nods toward Deuce and a glance tells me he is lowering the pistol.

  Damn.

  “Now, we take you somewhere else. Not too far away. Deuce will spend the next few days with you. He’ll provide you with some equipment and instructions on how to use it. We will monitor this carefully. Failure to pick up these basics would be particularly unpleasant for you.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we’ll spirit you to the continent under a new identity and you will be teamed up with another operative. He has material knowledge and experience so you will continue your training under his guidance. This agent will be your only lifeline, as you will be his.”

  “God help him,” Deuce declares quietly from behind me.

  “You have already been allocated a code-name,” Bug-eyes ignores his partner’s comment and continues calmly. “Mercury.”

  “Very glamorous,” mutters Deuce. “Who picked that one?”

  “Sentinel,” Bug-eyes replies coldly.

  Deuce goes quiet again.

  “And the other agent?” I ask... “Code-name,” I clarify.

  Ace’s beady little eyes flash for a fraction of a second, as if my question has somehow been unexpected: unexpected and perhaps mildly impressive. “Tin,” he says carefully. “Deuce’s choice. He likes his agents to know who’s boss.” I can’t help raising one eyebrow at this. “You’ll need a new cover name too. We need to make up various identity documents for you, which we’ll do over the next few days whilst you’re undertaking your training and testing. What would you like to call yourself? Obviously you can’t use Jason Bourne or James Bond.” He smiles his ugly smile at his little joke. “That would be too much of a giveaway.”

  I look at him coldly. “Nick,” I say.

  “No, a made up name. To cover your identity.”

  “Let’s play double bluff,” I grunt. “Let’s call me Nick.”

  “Yeah. Nick Arsehole,” agrees Deuce.

  There’s a faint whispering noise as one of my stilettos whistles past his suddenly wide-eyed face and embeds itself deeply into the lath and plaster wall behind him.

  “Next time I’m aiming straight at you,” I say. “Right between your miserable eyes.”

  He raises the gun, steps toward me and presses the cold muzzle against my forehead. “You don’t get a next time,” he snarls.

  I lean forward gently onto the hardened steel and close my eyes. “Good,” I say.

  ~~~~~

  Milan, Italy

  It was late and he was tired, so Jack eased the rental Honda off the highway and onto the Milanese motel’s ice-rink of a car park. The car twitched nervously underneath him, tyres slipping on the frozen surface, and the dashboard erupted with a multitude of angry looking warning symbols. But the car park was deserted, so he punched the throttle once, gave a swift tug on the handbrake, and slid the complaining piece of high-tech Japanese engineering, sideways, into a parking space near the entrance.

  Bitterly cold air was sweeping westwards across much of the mainland. Where, in the UK, there had been hints of sleet, here in Europe there was considerable snow. It was making his journey long and unpleasant, and he still had a long way to travel to get back to Greece. He hoped he could get there before his handlers tried to contact him but he had, at least, made it into Northern Italy.

  He shook his head. He still wasn’t sure what had compelled him to make the visit to the UK. It had been a big risk, and had almost turned into something he hadn’t planned or expected.

  He was pleased he’d been able to check in on Julie and little Michael. Pleased he’d been able to help out with the TV. Yet, at the same time, he felt guilty. Perhaps he’d been imagining things? Perhaps Julie would have been appalled if he’d tried to kiss her? Was he just taking advantage of her, of her situation, of her loneliness and need for company?

  Other men, even other men in his squad, would probably have jumped at the chance to score with her, but it wasn’t his style. He always made himself out to be a bit of a ladies’ man, and knew that he had the looks to play the field if he wanted to, but for some reason he just didn’t, and never had. Perhaps it had been his upbringing in the orphanage? The homely matrons’ constant lecturing about good manners and respect, or something? For whatever reason, he had always found it easier to g
et on with other men.

  He reached across and recovered his cellphone from the passenger seat. The tiny light on top of it was flashing, indicating he had a message.

  “Shit,” he muttered to himself and opened up the text screen.

  ‘GO TO GOD. SOONEST. AFI. FU. D.’

  He grimaced, even though he was pleased by what he read. He didn’t even need to fire-up his laptop to translate a numeric location code. He’d visited Göd before.

  Deuce was instructing him to move to a safe-house, in a small town, a few kilometres north of Budapest. He liked this location, it was a top floor flat in a small and unusual block of residences on the shore of the Danube. Most buildings along the riverbank, even in Budapest itself, stood well back from the river but, where the tiny town called Göd merged into another called Sződliget, a small clutch of 1960’s cubes had crept up onto the crest of a for-once-near-vertical flood wall and, in turn, the agency had crept unnoticed into the top floor of one of them.

  He had to get there quickly. That was okay. He’d drive on to Venice, dump the rental and get a train from there. Then he had to await further instructions – ‘AFI’. The final part of the message was just Deuce’s way of having another crack at him.

  “F-U-too,” Jack muttered, grabbing his holdall and heading into the motel’s reception.

  ~~~~~

  London

  Major Charles sipped at his coffee and looked out through the rain-smeared bay window. This cafe was one of his favourite backstreet haunts for afternoon meetings like this one. A short walk from his office, and run by an industrious and often excitable Italian, it served excellent coffee and pastries and was usually, like now, almost deserted. This table in the bay window was his preferred vantage point. Segregated from other clientele by the sizeable counter, and with room for only two customers, it was regularly vacant.

  Greere approached, carefully carrying a large cappuccino, which he placed on the table before moving his neatly folded raincoat and manoeuvring himself onto the other chair. He was wearing an immaculately tailored black suit with heavy white pinstripes, a white shirt, and a fat pink tie. Another businessman amongst the crowds. Another businessman who might as well have bought off-the-peg, given Greere’s capacity for looking unkempt in even the finest of clothing.