“Yes, in the boot. Even with the bags there’s plenty of room for you. You’re not suggesting we should put the baby in the boot, are you?”
“No, of course not.”
Maurice clambered into the boot of the vehicle and Tony slammed the tailgate shut.
Then the four men got into the SUV, Wolzenik in the middle of the back seat, with the new-born baby on his lap.
Maurice was less than impressed. He was sure that there was plenty of room for him in the back seat.
“Right, brace yourselves.”
Tony threw the car into gear and sped off down the road as if he were being pursued by a dozen police cars.
The man that Maurice had punched, stood up and brushed the dirt off his trousers.
“That baby’s probably got a stronger punch than that accountant,” he thought to himself.
He went over to the front door of Wolzenik’s house, turned a key in the lock and went inside. He walked into the living room, sat down on the sofa, and pulled a mobile phone out of his trouser pocket. He dialled a number and waited for the call to be answered. The ringing tone was replaced by an enquiring voice
“Done?”
“Done.”
The man took the battery out of the phone, stood up, and stomped his foot down hard onto it, breaking it into four irregular pieces. He opened the back door of the house and lobbed the pieces into the stream that ran behind the house.
Roberto took the battery out of his mobile phone, opened the car window and skilfully threw it into the path of the SUV. Tony, equally expertly guided the front nearside wheel of the speeding car over the phone, crushing it beyond recognition, before continuing the short journey to Bournemouth airport.
Chapter 20
7 a.m. Thursday, 9th November, 2051
“Maurice? Maurice! Wake up!”
Maurice slowly opened his eyes to see Roberto leaning over him.
“What’s up? What time is it?”
“It’s seven o’clock. We have to go downstairs. There’s someone here to see you.”
“Who?”
“Nobody you know… but it’s important so get a move on. I’ll tell him you’ll be down in five minutes.”
“Tell who?”
“You’ll find out.”
Four and a half minutes later Maurice entered the front room and saw the three brothers with a stranger. The stranger walked forward and offered his hand.
“Mr. Boone? Pleased to meet you. My name is Takahiro Nakata and I’m a senior aide to the Businessman. Please take a seat, Mr. Boone.”
Maurice sat down on the sofa and looked up at the visitor.
“Mr. Boone. It has come to our attention that your identity was compromised last night. Is this correct?”
Maurice turned red and felt like a naughty schoolboy about to be scolded by the headmaster.
“Yes. I guess so. I mean I know so. This guy came over from across the street and started asking questions.”
“Questions?”
“Yes. Questions.”
“And then?”
“And then he opened the car door and tried to pull me out of the car.”
“Wasn’t the door locked?”
“I thought it was, but obviously it wasn’t”
“So what happened when he tried to pull you out of the car?”
“He tried to take my ski-mask off.”
“And he succeeded?”
“Yes. I don’t know how, but he managed to take it off. It was supposed to stay on and protect my identity. But it didn’t.”
“I see. And then what happened?”
“Then I punched him and he fell out of the car onto the driveway of the house, unconscious.”
“I see. And did you dispose of the man or leave him there?”
“We left him there. Roberto said we didn’t have time to do anything else.”
“So… we can assume that he saw you and will report that fact back to his overlords.”
“I suppose so.”
“Well, Mr. Boone. This faux pas of yours will have repercussions.”
This was what Maurice was worried about. He had a history of cocking things up. He wondered what punishment was in store for him, bracing himself for the worst.
“Mr. Boone. The team will be going on another important mission tonight, and you will accompany them.
Maurice thought he was hearing things. Hadn’t they noticed that his participation in previous missions had been an unmitigated disaster?
“But you can’t be serious.”
“I’m deadly serious Mr. Boone. I wish I could leave you behind, I truly do, but your inclusion is mandatory. Your identity and relationship to the resistance movement will have been noted by The Order. The fact that you’re supposed to be dead will be of additional interest to them. They will use your family as a bargaining tool in the hope that you’ll defect to them or at least tell them what you know about our operations. Admittedly you have been deliberately kept on the peripheral but this won’t stop them from getting any information they can from you. And they can be very persuasive. To avoid that possibility, we’ll be extracting your wife and daughters so they have no bargaining collateral. You leave in fifteen minutes.”
“My wife and daughters? But they think I’m dead.”
“Then they’ll have a pleasant surprise then, won’t they? Goodbye.”
Takahiro Nakata turned on his heels and went back to his car,
“Am I really going to see Karen and the girls?” asked Maurice.
Tony spoke up.
“Only if you get a move on. That fifteen minutes is about twelve minutes now. We’ll be taking two cars.”
“Two cars? I thought we only had one.”
“Well, now we have two.”
An hour later the two SUVs pulled up outside Maurice’s old house.
“Let’s hope your missus hasn’t changed the locks,” said Roberto. Maurice placed the palm of his hand upon a glass control panel and the imprint that it left when he removed his hand glowed green.
“So far, so good,” Maurice mumbled to himself as the door clicked open.
The brothers entered the house and Maurice followed them. He felt very nervous about this; he didn’t want to give his wife a heart attack. Did women have heart attacks? Maurice really didn’t know, but he didn’t want to take the risk and so he hung back whilst the brothers went into the living room. Karen was watching TV and was shocked to see three strangers standing before her. She grabbed the closest weapon to hand – a cushion. She had no idea what she was going to do with the cushion, but felt very slightly more comfortable having something in her hands with which to defend herself, however useless it was for the task. In the shadows, Maurice wondered what the hell she expected to achieve with the cushion; at least the table lamp would have had some weight behind it.
“Mrs. Boone? My name is Roberto and these are my brothers Tony and Miguel.”
“Who are you? Some kind of Spanish Mafia? How do you know my name?”
“We’re not here to hurt you Mrs. Boone. But we do need you to come with us.”
“Are you the police?”
“No we’re not the police.”
“Then get out of here, this minute. My husband has only popped out to buy some milk, and he’ll be back any minute. If he finds you here I hate to think what he’ll do to you. He’s a black belt at karate.”
Roberto had to bite his lip to prevent himself from laughing out loud.
“No he’s not Mrs. Boone. He couldn’t even punch his way out of a paper bag.”
Maurice felt a little hurt by this last remark. Hadn’t he knocked that man unconscious with one punch, in New Milton?
“He’ll still be back soon. And then there’ll be trouble.”
“You have to come with us, Karen. Your life is in danger. And Caitlin’s and Michelle’s.”
“How do you know my daughters’ names? And why am I in danger? Am I in danger from you?”
“No, we onl
y want to protect you.”
Maurice felt that it was time to intervene. Karen clearly had no intention of going anywhere with the brothers; not willingly, anyway. He knew that it would be a shock for, as far as Karen knew, he had been dead for several months and she had probably got used to the idea that she was now a widow. Now she was about to meet her husband again; a living, breathing husband who had never died. He wasn’t sure how she’d react but it had to be done. Each minute that passed was another minute during which she and the children were at risk. He stepped forward out of the shadows.
“Karen, you really should come with us.”
His wife stood still, dumbstruck. Maurice continued.
“Yes Karen. It really is me. It’s Maurice. I’m not a ghost and I’m certainly not dead.”
Karen found her voice.
“Maurice? Is it really you?”
”Yes darling. It’s really me.”
Tears started to stream down Karen’s face and she walked towards him, arms open wide. Maurice opened his arms to embrace her, to hold her, to feel her touch. But the touch that he felt was not an affectionate, loving touch – it was a slap around the face.
“How could you, you bastard! I’ve been mourning you for the last few months, trying to get my life back on track, trying to adjust to life without you, missing you every day, loving you every day. And you don’t even have the decency to be dead. And what about the kids? Did you think about them when you were off gallivanting with your new friends?”
“I’m sorry Karen, but I couldn’t let Caitlin die. I had to do something to get the money to pay for her surgery. But things went wrong and I accidentally killed someone. I was scared. Not just for me, but for you and the girls too. I had to keep any trouble away from my family.”
“Well that didn’t work out too well, did it? My house is full of strangers who want to take me and my daughters – our daughters – away from here to god knows where.”
“It’s for your own safety.”
‘So everybody keeps bloody saying. Who are these people then?”
”They’re from One Life.”
“The terrorist group?”
“No. The resistance movement. And so am I. I’m with the resistance now.”
Karen gave a sarcastic grin.
“Sorry Maurice, but you have to admit the idea of you being part of the resistance is a bit far-fetched. You were – are – a great husband, but you’re a lover, not a fighter.”
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you in the car. But we really need to get going. Can we fetch the girls?”
“They’re at school. We can pick them up on the way. Can I pack?”
Roberto cut in.
“We can give you five minutes. That’s all. Just the essentials. We have all the everyday things you may need. And what we don’t have, we can get hold of.”
“Come on Maurice. You can help me.”
Maurice and Karen went upstairs to their bedroom. Karen closed the door behind them and launched herself at her husband. Maurice braced himself for another slap but instead Karen threw her arms around him, wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed him passionately. Maurice had missed the warmth of her body, the warm, moist sensation of being kissed by those beautiful succulent lips. He was also glad for the months of working out as he was now able to support her weight with no problem. Karen’s lips broke free.
“I wish we could make love right now.”
“So do I honey, but we really must get a move on.”
Karen released her grip on her husband.
“OK. I’ve already got a bag packed. Just in case of emergency. I don’t know what kind of emergency I was expecting but since you died I’ve had to be prepared for anything. We need to grab some stuff for the girls. I’ll pack for Michelle. She’s becoming a young woman and I know what kind of things she needs. You can pack for Caitlin.”
Maurice walked hesitantly into his youngest daughter’s room. The walls of the room were lilac, his daughter’s favourite colour, as were the duvet and pillows. The invention of programmable wall design had been a godsend to many a parent. Children changed their favourite colour at the drop of a hat and redecorating the old-fashioned way with brush and paint was both time consuming and expensive. Now all that was required was to choose the colour or design and select it using the controls on the integrated light switch. You could even integrate cartoon characters into the design by selecting the right settings. Caitlin was still his baby. She had had her seventh birthday a couple of weeks earlier and about twenty birthday cards were attached to the walls. Of course, nowadays fewer cards were sent but to a seven year old there was nothing to match feeling a real plastic birthday card in your hands.
Maurice went to the fitted wardrobe and put some clothes into a holdall. His wife called from the other room.
“Don’t forget Mr. Boo…”
Of course there was no way they could leave Mr. Boo behind. He had been with Caitlin all the time she was in the hospital and was part of the family. They lived in a world full of technology but Caitlin loved that fluffy tiger and wouldn’t settle if he wasn’t with her. Maurice and Karen had given Mr. Boo to Caitlin when she had first been diagnosed with kidney problems and had tried to explain to her that he was really Tigger from the Winnie the Pooh stories but she had insisted on calling him Mr. Boo. They could no more leave Mr. Boo behind than Caitlin herself.
The two parents left the bedrooms at the same time and trotted downstairs. Maurice gave the brothers the thumbs up.
“We’re ready.”
Karen was still not sure exactly what was going on but she knew her husband was back and that she loved him. If abandoning their house meant that the family would be together again, then abandon her home she would.
“The girls are at school. I’ll fetch them out of their classrooms and they can ride in the second car with me. I don’t want them to see their dad just yet – it’d probably freak them out. I almost freaked out, myself.”
She paused.
“You may have noticed.”
Maurice was desperate to see his girls again but he could see that it was the best thing to do, so he didn’t try to force the issue. He was just overjoyed at the thought of the family being together again.
As the cars sped off Karen looked out of the tailgate window, a single tear nestling in her eye.
“Goodbye house. I doubt I’ll ever see you again.”
Maurice was amazed at how calmly his wife was taking all this. Her husband had essentially returned from the dead – no reincarnation involved – and she had been told that she must uproot the family and leave her old life behind. He himself could hardly believe that he was sitting next to his wife, squeezing her hand as if to prove to himself that she was really there.
They decided to pick up Michelle first as being the elder of the two girls it would be easier to explain to her what was happening. Once Michelle was out of the school, she and Karen got into the second car and they headed to Caitlin’s school.
At first Michelle wasn’t impressed with the idea of leaving her friends behind but she trusted her mum. It helped that Maurice was now a member of One Life– teenagers don’t often think their parents are cool, but having a dad in the resistance gained him some brownie points.
“So dad’s in the other car?”
“Yes.”
“When can I see him?”
“Later.”
“Why can’t I see him now? I want to see him now”
“We’ll pick up Caitlin first, and then when we’re safe – when we arrive wherever these people are taking us – then we’ll see Dad again.”
“Where are we going?”
“Honestly Michelle. I don’t know. But I’m sure it’s somewhere safe. Your father said that if we didn’t go with them we’d be in danger. I trust him to do what’s best for the family. He has always put us first in the past. Even when he faked his own death, it was to keep us safe. I don’t see why he would change now.”
“Well I want to see him as soon as possible. I want to check that he’s real, not some hologram or something.”
Karen thought back to that shared kiss in the bedroom when they were supposed to have been packing, and smiled.
“Believe me, Michelle. Believe me. Your dad is real enough.”
Chapter 21
11 a.m. Monday, 25th March, 2058
Ami Durand, an advertising executive who worked in the City was very happy. If she could whistle, she would have been whistling as she walked. She was also very pregnant, almost to the point where she looked like she was about to burst. She had just come from a final medical health check before the imminent birth of her daughter and everything was looking good.
She was in no hurry to go home. It was a beautiful spring day; the trees were full of white and pink blossom and she was literally full of the joys of spring. Her husband, Michel, a systems analyst in the City, was at work. There was no reason not to stop at the nearest Costa Coffee shop and indulge herself with a Mocha Latte and a slice of layered carrot cake. She had no more engagements that day.
A few minutes later she pushed open the door of the Costa Coffee shop in Covent Garden. She ordered her snack and the young woman behind the counter, a very pleasant Polish girl, told her to take a seat and that she would bring her drink and cake over to her. She loved pampering herself in this way, and she had to make the most of it because when the baby arrived her free time would no doubt be precious; she would no longer be the mistress of her own destiny. But she didn’t mind – she was really looking forward to the birth of her first child, to the Durand family being a family of three; Michel, herself, and baby Adele. Life was going to be perfect.
The Polish waitress walked over and offered her a napkin, bending over towards Ami’s face as she did so. Ami was a little disturbed at how close the waitress was to her, invading her personal space, but didn’t say anything. She thought she saw the waitress blow onto the napkin but surely she must have been imagining it. Why would the waitress do such a thing?
She finished her Latte and cake and started to make her way to the station to catch the train home, but she noticed that she was feeling somewhat hot and flushed. Her mouth felt dry and she was convinced that her eyesight was becoming blurry. She decided to take a taxi home instead and hailed the next empty cab to come along the road. London cabs were distinctive as ever, with one major difference – they were driverless. The whole country could actually be full of driverless cars – the technology was readily available – but the British public still enjoyed driving and had resisted strongly any measures to force them to abandon this pleasure, even though the installation of self-drive technology had been made mandatory. The ONP was able to force almost all its policies upon the population but opposition to the sanctity of driving their own cars had been much stronger than expected and the Government had decided to a compromise and insisted upon self-driving cars that still needed a human driver to be present, although the human was there merely for the sake of appearances. However, London cabs were the exception and the taxis were completely automated.
REVELATION: Book One of THE RECARN CHRONICLES Page 14