by Matt Drabble
“Must be lonely here for you when your son’s away,” she said, looking out of the window at the large expanse of open ground.
“My Sheila’s never far away. The dead never really die. I don’t know about all that religion malarkey, young Miss, but I do believe that once we pass we live on, in here,” he said, tapping his chest. “We keep our loved ones alive in our memories and in our thoughts; that way they never really leave us..”
Avery nodded along with the farmer’s words. Her own life philosophy was much the same.
They sat in a comfortable silence for another 5 minutes or so, then the door opened and the farmer’s son walked in.
“Tea in pot, Junior,” the farmer said.
“In a minute, Dad; can I have a word?” he asked Avery directly and she didn’t like the look in his eye.
She walked towards him and then followed him out into the kitchen. She could see that he was holding something in his hand.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re into or why you’re here, but my old man doesn’t need any trouble, okay?”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” she said, confused.
Douglas Jnr looked at her for a long few seconds. “What is it that you do?”
“How is that important?”
“Just answer the question.”
“And what if I don’t feel like answering?” she barked back, not liking the accusatory tone in his voice.
“Then you can walk out of here right now.”
“The car’s okay?”
He remained looking at her, his face hard and set and in that instant she could see his father in him.
“I work in politics, okay? I’m running the campaign for Christian Tolanson. Look, what’s this all about?”
“It’s about this,” he said, opening his hand.
She looked at the small piece of plastic that he was holding. “What am I looking at?”
“The reason why your car shorted out. When you crashed into the field, you shook it loose and it crashed the electronics in the system.”
“But what is it?”
“It’s a bug,” he said, holding it out for closer inspection. “A listening device, if you will.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes. It’s an expensive one too; someone wanted to listen in to whatever you’ve been saying.”
Avery took the small device and held it gently in the palm of her hand. It wasn’t uncommon for underhanded practices in politics, but planting bugs seemed a little extreme.
Her first thought was the government. Maybe they were more scared of Tolanson and change than she’d realised. Her second thought, however, was more unsettling: what if this wasn’t coming from an outside source? What if this was coming from within?
CHAPTER 18
WAKING UP
“Can someone please explain to me just what the hell is going on?”
The room was deathly silent and no one dared to meet the prime minister’s eyes.
This was the inner sanctum of the Nationalist Party, a small office inside number 10 Downing Street, the ultimate in home ground advantage, or at least it should have been.
Jonathan Knowles held the position of prime minister and up until recently his re-election had been all but a formality. He snatched up a pile of papers and flung them across the table at his advisers.
“Jesus Christ, six months ago I had barely heard of Christian Tolanson and now you’re telling me he’s breathing down my neck? How the hell is this happening?”
“He’s resonating,” Wesley Court offered.
“Excuse me?” the prime minister demanded.
“His message - Hope and Change - people like the idea and they’re liking the man behind it, too,” Court explained.
“Get out!” Knowles barked.
“Excuse me?”
“Get the hell out of my office!”
“Sir,” David Berg interjected. “Perhaps we should take a break.”
“Perhaps you should get the hell out as well!” Knowles snapped. “I won’t be the first Nationalist leader to get his ass kicked by a bloody Progressive politician! Don’t you understand?”
“Okay, people. David’s right,” Parker Craven announced as Knowles snatched up more paperwork.
Craven was the campaign manager for the election. He was a studious man, small and compact with a calculator for a mind, one that was always processing the best options for any given situation. It was his job to get Knowles re-elected and, in spite of the man’s many flaws, he was right about one thing: the election should have been a lock.
The prime minister’s face was flushing bright red with frustrated anger as he devoured the figures yet again.
“You should stop reading those,” Craven suggested. “They won’t get any better.”
“How is this happening, Parker? How the hell is Tolanson gaining so much ground with the voters?”
“It’s not so much the voters that worry me.”
“It’s not? What the hell is more important than the voters?”
“The money, Prime Minister. We’re experiencing a severe drain amongst our support base. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“How is he doing this, Parker? I mean, really? Is it blackmail, bribes, threats… what?”
Craven considered the question for a long time. “Honestly, Sir, I don’t know. Normally I would be able to counteract any offer, any bribe, any threat, but now? It’s like everyone’s just buying what he’s selling.”
“Christ, the guy wasn’t even touched by the murder at the TV studios. The news stations are already starting to run his interview again. We’re going to lose, aren’t we,” Knowles stated rather than asked.
“We’re not dead yet, Sir… not yet. We’ve still got the debate coming up.”
“I thought that you said we were going to avoid the debate? You said that we’d drag the negotiations out and blame the other side when it didn’t happen.”
“That was then, this is now. We have to do the debate and you have to crush him. Right now Tolanson’s riding a wave of momentum. The people want change, they want something new, but at the debate we’re going to show them all that new is not better, that sometimes change can be a bad thing.”
----------
Lomax hung around the railway station all day, hoping to get lucky. Whoever had mugged him and taken the key still hadn’t shown up to empty the locker as the locker door was still locked shut.
He needed the contents although he wasn’t sure for what. He wasn’t even still sure if he was in the game anymore, but he had come a long way and his instincts were still stuck way down deep inside.
The station was busy at any time of the day or night as people came and left, buzzing around with hurried lives and hurried minds.
Tolanson had missed his opportunity at the pub. Whomever he’d sent had been interrupted before he could finish the job but he had taken the locker key.
The bank of lockers stood like guardians hiding their secrets behind sturdy locks and thick metallic doors. His was number 23 and inside was all of his research into Tolanson and his only chance to convince anyone else about the politician.
A skinny man suddenly appeared. His walk was overly casual as he moved cautiously along the lockers trying to be inconspicuous. He wore a large camouflage hooded jacket with the hood pulled down low to obscure his features.
Lomax hadn’t gotten a look at his attacker’s face at the pub but this man fitted the body size and shape.
The man paused by locker 23 and pulled out the small silver key. He opened the door and quickly took the box out without checking inside.
Lomax had to stop himself from rushing the man there and then but he couldn’t afford a scene; his battered face had already drawn a few too many curious looks from passers-by.
The man took the box and started to move. His walk was fast and he immediately headed for the exit. Lomax followed.
&nb
sp; He stayed well back and out of sight as he followed the man along the street. He almost lost him for one terrifying moment.
He ran forwards and looked around frantically for any sign but the man was gone. He stood on the pavement next to a row of shops, his head whipping from side to side. Then suddenly, he caught a flash of the man’s green, black and brown camouflage jacket in a side alley window, the irony being that the camouflage colour actually made the man stand out.
He ducked down the alleyway and followed. The man led him away from the high street and the people until they reached a rundown street full of boarded-up windows.
Lomax watched the man duck into one of the deserted buildings. He waited a few seconds before following, quietly.
The hallway stank of mould and urine. The house had obviously been empty for a long time and the carpet beneath his feet was squishy and foul smelling.
He heard movement upstairs and climbed his way up as slowly and stealthily as he could manage.
“What we got?” he heard a voice ask from a room above.
“Give me a damn minute, will you!” came the impatient reply.
Lomax paused to make sure that it was only two voices; when he was sure, he continued up the stairs.
“Let me see.”
“Get your bloody hands off, it’s my score!”
The arguing covered his approach as he tiptoed along the landing towards the voices.
There were the remains of a broken chair in the hallway and Lomax reached down to pick up a sturdy leg. He hefted the weight in his hands and was comforted by it.
He moved to the room where the voices were coming from. It was open a crack and he was able to look inside. It may have been sexist but he was relieved to see that one of the voices belonged to a woman, however deep and coarse.
Feeling that his best friend was the element of surprise he kicked open the door and charged inside. The man looked up in shock and opened his mouth to ask a question, but Lomax answered it by swinging the chair leg hard and cracking the man across the head. Just the single swing told him that his body was in no shape for a long drawn out battle so he swung at the woman also. Unfortunately for him, the woman ducked out of the way easily and leapt back against the wall.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she pleaded and he lowered his weapon.
“Just stay there,” he said, pointing.
He turned to find his box and saw that it was lying on the floor next to the man in camouflage who was currently motionless.
He felt the woman move rather than saw her but by the time he’d turned, she was on him. Her hands were curved into claws and she scratched at his face, drawing blood. Her feet kicked out and she caught him a good one in the groin, staggering him backwards. He dropped the chair leg as both hands went instinctively to his groin.
The woman charged him again and all thoughts of chivalry went out the window. His head was still throbbing, his side was black and blue from the kicking at the pub, and now his balls were a white hot mess of pain. As the woman charged screaming, he swung a clenched fist hard, connecting with her chin and dropping her instantly.
The man on the ground started to stir and Lomax staggered over to him. He dropped both knees onto the man’s chest, driving the breath from his body.
“I should kill you,” Lomax snarled. “Doing his dirty work makes you every bit the monster he is.”
“Huh?” the man replied groggily.
“Where is he?”
“Who?”
Lomax raised himself up slightly before driving both knees down into the man’s chest again. “WHERE IS HE?” he roared.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” the man coughed and spluttered.
“Tolanson.”
“Who?”
Lomax reached back and grabbed the chair leg from the ground behind him. He placed the jagged broken end against the man’s throat and exerted just enough pressure to draw blood.
“Tell me now or I swear to God I’ll kill you.”
“I don’t know any Tolanson! I don’t, honest.”
Lomax stared down at the man beneath him. “Then who sent you to attack me?”
“I didn’t.”
Lomax leaned on the chair leg, adding pressure.
“Okay, okay, maybe I did. I just wanted your wallet” the man gasped.
“No one sent you?”
“No, I promise. Please don’t kill me.”
Lomax stared down at the man for a long time. Part of him wanted to kill the man; it was a primal urge after all the shit he’d had to endure. Even if this piece of shit was telling the truth, so what? He was just another bottom feeder who didn’t deserve to live. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the chair leg.
“Please, please don’t,” the woman begged from behind as she climbed to her knees.
Lomax looked at her bloody face and felt ashamed. Her arms were bare and he could now clearly see the telltale track marks peppering her flesh. These two were just drug addict thieves, not monsters like Tolanson. Whatever they deserved, it wasn’t Tolanson’s fate.
He climbed up off the man. “Get out,” he ordered tiredly and the two of them scrambled and ran like the rats they were.
Lomax sat down on a filthy mattress and threw the chair leg away in disgust. When he’d been holding it at the man’s throat, he was almost sure that he could feel Tolanson in the back of his mind urging him on. He had never been a religious man but there was a part of him that instinctively knew if he gave in to the darkness then the light would give up on him.
He looked over at his box sitting on the floor. The lid was off but the papers were still inside and he breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing his treasure flooded him with purpose again. He felt a power surge through him as anger took hold.
He hadn’t asked for any of this, he hadn’t wanted to be a hero and he sure as hell didn’t want to fight someone like Tolanson. But he was here now. He was in it for better or for worse and as long as he was, he was going to start dishing out a little pain of his own, but only to those who deserved it.
----------
“You can’t be serious!” Donovan exclaimed.
“Deadly,” Sutherland replied.
“You do realise that he’s the only reason you’re still alive after that shit you pulled with my delivery?”
“Delivery? Oh, you must mean the women that you were trafficking!” Sutherland barked.
“You want to keep your voice down!” Donovan warned.
“You can’t be this stupid, Donovan. You know as well as I do that sooner or later you and me are both going to be expendable.”
“Not me,” Donovan crowed with a grin. “He needs me - always will. He needs people like me to provide the financial backing for his career.”
“Try telling that to Tafferty,” Sutherland retorted and was pleased to see Donovan’s grin falter.
“Tafferty fucked up, I won’t.”
“We all do, kid; sooner or later, we all do.”
An uncomfortable silence fell between them, a dirty cop and a dirtier criminal. The air was punctuated with the clack of snooker balls being hit around them. It was soothing space and felt far away from the real world outside.
“You know what he can do,” Sutherland pressed. “We’ve both seen… hell, I don’t even know what we’ve seen but it’s been some crazy shit.”
“If you’ve seen what he can do then doesn’t it make it madness to try and go against him?”
“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know why but I feel like it’s time to take a stand? Before it’s too late.”
“You know he could be listening to us right now,” Donovan said, looking around nervously. “I swear to God, the guy has eyes and ears everywhere. I don’t think anywhere’s safe to be talking like this.”
“I don’t know,” Sutherland said, looking around. “Don’t ask me how I know but I feel safe here, like we were meant to meet here and now.”
“What the hell have you been smoking?” Donovan
laughed but Sutherland could tell that the young man’s heart wasn’t in his mirth.
“Don’t you feel it?”
“You’re nuts, old man. He’s the future. Haven’t you been following the news? He’s gonna win the election and then he’s gonna run this whole damn country.”
“Even more reason to stop him now. Shit, kid, think about it: if you don’t want to do the right thing then at least think about your own selfish needs. If he wins, how long do you think it’s going to take him after the election to start cleaning house? You, me and a whole lot of other people are going to disappear. He’ll have to. He won’t be able to leave any loose ends; it’ll be too risky.”
Sutherland waited as the kid processed the information. While his own motives were more along the lines of redemption, Donovan’s would ultimately be self-preservation.
“Alright,” Donovan finally replied.
“That’s great.” Sutherland smiled.
“So how do we do it?”
“I have no fucking idea.”
“Well at least you came prepared.” Donovan laughed, this time with a little genuine humour.
CHAPTER 19
MOMENTUM
“Something’s wrong,” Tolanson said, his head sticking up like a dog that’s caught a troubling scent.
“Sir?” McDere asked but then had to wait patiently for some considerable amount of time. He was used to the pauses but they were starting to last longer and longer, he’d noticed.
Tolanson stared off into space, his eyes glassy and glazed. McDere waited until the great man was ready. There were several troubling aspects to his leader of late: the lapses of judgment, the drifting off - he was missing more and more details and there were cracks starting to show in his deity like power.
While all of these things were troubling, it still didn’t make an awful lot of difference to him; he would follow Tolanson through the gates of Hell if he asked him to. Still, these were worrying times and the victorious end game that had seemed so assured for so long was now relying on Tolanson being able to hold himself together long enough to finish the job.
“The woman,” Tolanson finally said.
McDere looked at him and could see that the politician was not looking well; his face was pained and seemed to have aged. The skin was moist with sweat from the strain but of most concern was the lack of utter conviction in his eyes.