by Oisin McGann
Chi thanked her and swore softly as he strode toward the door. He needed to get hold of Robert, but had no way of reaching him. No phone number or email address, nothing. He was stumped for a moment; then his eyes opened wider and he chewed on his lip for a few seconds before shrugging and pulling a sheet of A4 paper from his case. With a thick marker, he wrote out some words on it then, paper in hand, he picked up his case, swung the strap over his shoulder and walked outside. Standing on the path, looking out at the road, he held up the sheet of paper and waited. On it, were the words: “ROBERT, WE NEED TO TALK.”
Less than a minute later, his phone rang.
“What the hell d’you think you’re doing, you moron?” Robert’s voice growled.
“Improvising,” Chi told him. “You didn’t leave me a contact number, so I’m left to communicate with the great unknown. You haven’t been straight with me, Robert, which shouldn’t be a surprise, I know, but we need to meet up and a have a proper chat. Either you tell me what’s really going on, or I go public with what I know so far.”
“Is that right?” Robert snorted. “And what do you know, exactly?”
“Well, for a start,” Chi told him, “your name actually is Robert. Freaky, huh? Maybe it was just a lucky guess on my part, or maybe I somehow knew from the get-go. Maybe my subconscious remembered something from all those stupid little snippets of information I’ve got filed away in the old memory banks.
“Oh, and also … I’ve just met your daughter.”
Chapter 10: The Troubles
Robert wanted to take another bus, but Chi felt the need to assert himself a bit, so he insisted they meet like a pair of civilized adults, taking a seat on a bench in Aske Gardens. It was a public park shaded by mature deciduous trees, with an area sectioned off for tennis courts and partially bordered by a former hospital with a grand entrance framed by tall pillars. They sat with their backs to the courts, facing into the green.
Robert was seething, his teeth clenched together, his hands tense. There was a slightly unhinged quality to his anger, as if he was scared, too. He was uneasy sitting with his back to the open space behind him and kept turning to look over his shoulder, one way, then the other. His agitation served to make him all the more intimidating, but Chi had some good cards to play for the first time today and he was determined to lay them down.
Perhaps he’d been reckless holding up that note to get Robert’s attention; however, he figured that, if they were being watched, the watchers knew what was up anyway. And if they weren’t, nobody was seeing anything important.
“Did you follow me into the library?” Chi asked.
“What? No, I was outside. Why?”
“You didn’t take a photo of me in the library?”
“What are you talking about?”
Chi opened up the picture in the text and showed it to him.
“This, you git. I’m talking about this.”
Robert took one look at it and handed it back. He showed no sign of surprise, but he went a shade paler. That was enough for Chi. Whatever was going on here, they were no longer alone. Perhaps they’d been under surveillance all along, despite all of Robert’s “precautions.”
“Harriet called me ‘Goldilocks,’” he told the old spy. “She even used the same damn tone as you. You had my whole focus on Sharon, so I hadn’t even thought of connecting you with her girlfriend until she used that word. You must have used the term for other blond guys when Harriet was a kid; am I right? It’s one of your charming habits that she picked up, whether she meant to or not.
“Anyway, once she said it, it got me looking at things in a different way. I started to see a family resemblance. She gets her skin color from her mum, but her face is quite like yours, around the mouth and the eyes. She has a similar manner, too. And you’ve both got the look of a ballbreaker about you. She also mentioned spooks and said she, ‘grew up with that nonsense.’ That got me thinking, ’cause if she was a relative of yours she shouldn’t know what you are. Spies aren’t allowed to tell their families what they do for a living. If Harriet was your daughter, she wouldn’t have known you were a spy unless it came out somehow.
“That reminded me of something I saw years ago. I’ve got a good memory—it was always good, but I’ve worked at it too, developing it—”
“Can you remember how to get to the bloody point?” Robert snapped.
“Sure I can,” Chi said, smiling at the old man’s blunt manner. “
“There’s this famous story about an MI6 agent who was captured by the IRA. He was rescued, but not before it all became very public. His name was Robert Caul. At the time, known Republican sympathizers were being kidnapped by intelligence operatives and were being interrogated. Those who made it back alive claimed they were subjected to the kind of torture that doesn’t leave a mark—sleep deprivation, locked in cramped spaces, blasted with white noise, waterboarding—you know, that kind of thing. The IRA said Caul had been leading those interrogations. They alleged that he was working with Loyalist terrorists, who were helping MI6 pick targets and providing local knowledge and support. Any of this sounding familiar?”
Robert said nothing, his posture hunched, his head hanging slightly, his gaze fixed on the ground in front of the park bench. If there was any sense of emotion off him, it was more disgust than anger. The lines either side of his nose and mouth were deep; his upper lip pulled back from his teeth.
“The exposure was a major embarrassment for the government,” Chi went on, feeling vindicated by Robert’s reaction. It was as if he had his fish and was reeling it in. He was going to gut this old deceiver and get the truth out of him. “They couldn’t be seen to be working with terrorists. Caul became their scapegoat; they made him famous … infamous, really, leaking all kinds of ugly stuff about him. His face—your face—was plastered all over the news. You had a beard then, which is why I didn’t recognize you when we first met. The press even found your family over here. There was one really touching photo of your poor nine-year-old daughter, Harriet, answering the door and finding herself facing this barrage of reporters. Which was how she found out her dad was a spy.
“You let it happen. You took the blame for everything; you confessed to running an unsanctioned intelligence operation. You were tried and sent to prison. You did easy time though, and a lot of people thought you were taking one for the team, so to speak. That you’d actually been under orders, that it was a typical black op from start to finish and, like a loyal soldier, you were sacrificing yourself to save the government embarrassment.
“That was a brave thing to do. It must have been hard on you … and your family. Funny thing is, that whole affair had a big influence on me when I was young,” Chi went on. “It was one of the first stories that convinced me our government couldn’t be trusted. You opened my eyes, in a way—which is kind of ironic now. So how about it, Robert? Did you fall on your sword for Queen and country? Did you ‘confess’ to hide the truth about the kinds of crimes your puppet masters are still committing all over the world to maintain global domination?”
Again, Robert said nothing, but his body had the trembling, aggressive poise of a cornered animal. Chi took this in, a little unnerved, and wondered if he should press this any further. Then he figured, what the hell?
“So now you’re telling me you want to expose the government’s plan to brainwash people”—Chi leaned in close to Robert, close enough for Robert to feel the breath on the side of his face—“except I can’t believe a bloody word you say. Your daughter’s girlfriend is already investigating it and instead of going to her directly, you want me to bypass Harriet and give Sharon some much-needed ‘direction.’ So I think it’s time you told me what’s really going on here.”
There was a momentary pause; then, without warning, Robert’s left hand clamped onto Chi’s crotch and squeezed. Chi sucked his breath back into his lungs and he squeaked in pai
n as his testicles were crushed. Robert turned to glare at him, the old man’s face a mask of vicious desperation. It was only then that Chi realized how the stakes had changed. This wasn’t some washed-out killer looking for redemption. Robert was being driven to do what he was doing … because he was utterly terrified of something.
Chapter 11: Farm Animals
“Now you listen to me, you little shit,” Robert growled at Chi, drops of spit shooting from between his teeth. “I told you to stay away from Harriet. I warned you! This isn’t some bloody role-playing game where it all fits into a neat story, where you can solve everything by finding the answer to a mystery! Figuring it out won’t help; it’ll just make things worse for you. The things you’re messing with here would burst your gormless little brain if you ever got a look through the keyhole.”
A well-dressed, middle-aged woman walked toward them, trailing an overweight, waddling Jack Russell on a lead. As she approached the bench, she saw the older man clutching the younger man’s groin. Robert flashed her a benign grin and she quickly looked away, an expression of shocked distaste on her face. Chi fervently wished he could have explained what was happening, but the opportunity didn’t present itself. And he could barely muster more than a squeak anyway.
“You think you’re in pain right now?” Robert asked in a low, harsh voice. “I’m dealing with people who can do what they like to whomever they like as long as they get the right results. What you’re feeling now? This is a tickle compared to what could happen to you if you ever became a real threat. You’re not a human being to them—you and almost everyone else in this country, you’re nothing but farm animals to be used or butchered. And I’m not much better.”
Chi was almost levitating to try and relieve the pressure on his testicles. Robert glanced down at his own hand and then, with something akin to guilt, released his grip. Chi let out a rather embarrassing, babyish gasp of relief and settled back on the bench, cupping his hands over his crotch, partly for comfort, but mostly in fear that the old man might change his mind and take hold again.
“Let’s walk,” Robert said.
“I’m not sure I can,” Chi groaned.
“Stop being such a big girl’s blouse and stand up, you pillock.”
“That’s quite sexist.”
“Yeah, like I could give a damn. Come on, we need to get moving.”
They headed out onto the street, with Chi walking rather stiffly, struggling to keep up with the old man’s long strides. There was a sullen silence for the first few minutes, each of them lost in their thoughts, unwilling to be the first to speak.
“How are the balls?” Robert asked eventually.
“They’re bloody sore! Where are we going?”
“Back to Harriet’s. You’re not done there.”
“She won’t let me anywhere near Sharon—”
“We’re going to get this finished and we’re going to do it now,” Robert snarled, his tone allowing no argument, his face creased with anxiety. “Everything you said is true. Back in Northern Ireland, I was exposed. The operation was a liability; it could have brought down the whole peace process. I was going to prison anyway, so I took the blame for all of it and they looked after me when I went inside. But I still did five years and prison is no joke for someone with my background. Afterward, I’d proved my loyalty, so they quietly took me back, restored my security clearance, and farmed me out to GCHQ.
“Listen to me now and listen good, because there are lives at stake and I’m not having you cocking this up. Sharon’s story about the Scalps, these black ops guys, is real—or at least enough of it to matter is. For the last few months, she’s been hitting a lot of dead ends, but she’s smart and she’s persistent. Eventually, she’s going to make the right connection somewhere and, with what she’s got, she’s going to uncover an operation that needs to stay secret. A lot of very powerful people are involved in this and they won’t take chances.
“If she comes too close to the operation, she’s going to die. I’m telling you this as someone who’s been in this business a long time. She’ll have a sudden heart attack, or hit her head and drown in her bath, or crash her car, or commit suicide. Whatever form of death is considered the most appropriate at the time.”
Robert stopped and seized Chi’s shoulder, staring into his face. The old man’s eyes were wide, his lips pulled tight against his teeth.
“And if the Scalps think Sharon has been talking to Harriet, then Harriet will have to die, too. That’s a simple fact. They’ll make that decision the way you decide whether you’re going to keep an old pair of shoes or throw them away. They’ll kill her.”
Now Robert’s agitated manner made sense, Chi realized. He was terrified for his daughter. They were about a ten-minute walk from her flat on Shoreditch High Street and could have caught a cab, but Robert seemed to need to walk off the shuddery energy that was coursing through him. He was shaking his head and as he continued talking.
“Sharon won’t back down—she wouldn’t even if I warned her,” he sighed, walking at a pace that nearly had Chi jogging, trying to ignore the bouncing ache in his testicles. The old spy’s voice was just loud enough for Chi to hear him over the passing traffic. “She’s too stubborn. It would just convince her she was on the right track. Harriet’s almost as bad. Sharon’s going to get herself killed and she’s going to take my daughter with her. I can’t let that happen.”
“What’s all this got to do with me?” Chi asked.
“If the Scalps see me with her, or even with Harriet, it’ll be taken as a sign. They’ll think I’ve gotten involved. If there’s even the slightest possibility that Sharon could quote me as a source they’ll … I’m too close to it all for them to take the chance. They’ll decide on her disposal there and then. And maybe they’ll do me and Harriet in, too.
“But if you show up, as one of Sharon’s sources, it’s an entirely different thing.”
“Yeah?” Chi asked. “Why is that?”
“Because you’re a conspiracy theorist,” Robert told him, glancing at his watch and quickening his pace even further. “Anything you produce can be ridiculed by pointing to other things you’ve written. You know: weaponized parasites, human mutants, aliens, all that malarkey. We don’t worry about the likes of you.”
“Excuse me?” Chi responded with indignation.
“That’s what you conspiracy nuts have never realized,” Robert grunted. “We need oddballs like you. You poke around, finding some real facts from time to time, but even if it’s true, it won’t matter, because with the kind of nonsense you turn out, no one takes you seriously. Christ, the bigger the conspiracy you guys come up with, the better, as far as we’re concerned. You’re our best defense when it comes to discrediting a dangerous story. So if you’re one of Sharon’s sources, then we can ridicule her too, by association. We can undermine her with her editors long before she can get a single word printed.
“That’s why I contacted you, Chi. I’m going to save my daughter’s life by using you to make a complete fool out of her girlfriend.”
Chapter 12: Damage Limitation
Chi had rarely experienced such rage. He wanted to throw himself at the old man, to smash his fists into that grimacing, wrinkled old face, to throw him to the ground and stomp on this horrible human being until he’d beaten the life out of him.
He didn’t, of course. He wasn’t the violent type, after all, and he suspected Robert would be more than able to fend off any attack and turn the hurt back on Chi. And then there was that photo they’d sent him, a close-up of the back of his head—a message, to let Chi know he was being watched, to keep him in line. Still, it was sickening to learn that his only role in the biggest story he’d ever come across was to be the stooge in discrediting it.
“I won’t do it!” he exclaimed. “You can shove it, Robert! She’s onto something and I’m not going to help you bring her down
.”
They were standing on the corner of a junction and Robert spun around and slammed Chi against the post of a traffic light.
“Understand this,” he snapped at the younger man. “Knowing the truth about the Scalps’ operation will not make any difference to what’s going on—it will just ensure that you’re removed from the picture. You, me, Sharon, Harriet … and whoever else might get in the way.”
“Hang on, you’re saying the Scalps might kill me now too?”
“That photo was bloody warning, you fool! Ever since you got involved—”
“You mean ever since you got me involved!” Chi interrupted.
“As I was saying, ever since you got involved, they’ve had to factor you into their calculations. Whether they rub you out or not depends on how much of a threat they think you are. The dumber you come across, the more likely you’ll be considered harmless—or even useful. And we can use that now.”
Robert started walking again and Chi scuttled along after him.
“Make no mistake; that’s the only part of this you have any control over, Chi. Play your part and you can save lives today. That’s the only decision you have to make.” Robert looked at his watch, swore, and ran a hand through his hair. “Jesus, look at the time. Twenty past three. Listen, I’m on a bloody deadline here. We both are.”
“What do you mean?” Chi demanded.
“I told you; Sharon’s leaving at three-thirty for a meeting with that editor, Goldbloom, at The Chronicle at four o’clock. She’s got a cab booked.”
“Can’t we just catch a cab, too—to her flat?”
“Don’t think it would be good idea to get into a car with any strangers at the moment,” Robert snorted, throwing the young man a bitter smirk. “Just in case my ‘puppet masters’ decide to wrap things up early. They carry out a lot more abductions with taxis than they do with UFOs.”