by Ian Somers
It took less than an hour to get from Maybrook to the docklands in Dublin. Hunter used his light-tuning gift to render us invisible to everyone around us and we were able to navigate right past the lines of cars waiting to drive onto the ferry to Liverpool. The fear that I felt as we neared the boat was in stark contrast to the elation I experienced the last time I boarded a boat in this port and left Ireland to enter The Million Dollar Gift. I was full of hope back then. Now I just wanted to get through the night with my life.
I steered the bike to the front of the line of vehicles and drove alongside an eighteen wheeler as it parked in the car deck, which was below the passenger levels. We were well hidden away and the hold was empty and silent by the time the ferry pulled away from the port. This allowed Hunter to relinquish the cloak and he was able to rest properly. We intended to stay there hidden next to the truck for the entire journey. We would have if Hunter hadn’t fallen asleep. He still wasn’t back to full health and after almost two hours of swaying in silence he drifted off.
With no one to talk to I soon grew restless and started to wander the tight spaces between the vehicles. I had no intention of doing anything apart from wandering until I saw an open door that led into a narrow service corridor. I took a glance through the open door out of sheer boredom and saw there was a telephone mounted on the wall at the far end. I wouldn’t have much time to myself after we reached Liverpool so this was my one and only opportunity to disobey Hunter’s orders and contact Cathy. I think it was a mixture of guilt for being intimate with Gemma and genuine concern for Cathy that forced me to walk forward and pick up the receiver. Our relationship was finished, but I still wanted to hear her voice and for it to sound friendly. I still worried about her constantly and this one phone call would allay most of my fears and allow me to concentrate fully on the dangerous tasks that lay ahead – or so I thought.
I punched in the number to the house in France and waited as the phone rang and rang. I expected that the call would wake her up and that I would hear the familiar gravel that was always in her voice when she was tired. What I heard was something very different.
‘Hello?’ It was June Atkinson. There was still a slight delay between each word she spoke that betrayed the damage done to her mind by the attack on her home by Marianne Dolloway. June was but a shadow of the person she once was. ‘Who is this?’
‘June, it’s Ross. I’m sorry to ring so late. I hope I didn’t wake you.’
‘You didn’t wake me, Ross,’ she said distantly. ‘I was just getting ready for bed.’
‘Listen, I can’t stay on this line for very long. Could I speak to Cathy?’
‘Cathy?’ she asked in a high pitched voice, as if it was strange to make such a request. ‘Why would you ring here for Cathy?’
‘Because she’s staying there …’
‘But Cathy’s not here.’
‘She’s out quite late,’ I said, looking warily along the corridor. ‘When do you expect her back?’
‘Back? Cathy is in London doing work for the Guild. Lord only knows when she’ll come here again.’
‘Working for the Guild?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice low. ‘Cathy would never work for the Guild again. She hated being part of the group.’
‘Cathy is in London working for the Guild,’ she insisted. ‘And I don’t know what could ever possess you to think she hated the Guild. Cathy is a valued member and has been for many years.’
June had been like a mother to me after I escaped the clutches of Golding and Shaw. It was cruel that such a cultured, caring and confident person could be reduced to this timid and confused woman on the other end of the phone. It broke my heart to listen to her. I was thinking she’d completely lost her mind. Cathy simply had to be there with her. She could not be working for the Guild!
‘June,’ I raised my voice. ‘Cathy ran away from the Guild with me. Don’t you remember?’
‘She didn’t run away.’
‘June, where is she?’
‘Cathy is far away from here.’
I was about to question her further when a door slammed somewhere nearby. People were talking in an adjoining corridor and their voices were growing closer by the second. I couldn’t risk staying on the line and placed the receiver back down without another word to June.
I quietly made my way back to Hunter, who was still sleeping. I slid down against one of the wheels of the truck and sat on the cold metal floor, trying to figure out what just happened. June Atkinson had just told me that Cathy was not in France as she had claimed to be. And that she was doing important work for the Guild of the True. This made no sense at all. Cathy was dead set against the Guild. She had turned her back on the organisation over a year ago and vowed never to even have contact with them again – never mind work for them. June’s mind was never the same after Romand’s death and I thought that she might still be confused and had dreamed the whole thing up. The fact remained that Cathy was not in France. She had lied to me. She had left me and had lied about where she was going to be. Where was she if not in France tending to her mother? June Atkinson was hardly a reliable source but the information on Brofeldt’s files saying that Cathy had been sighted in London seemed to corroborate her claim. The Palatium was in London. Everything pointed to Cathy being back in league with the Guild of the True. This truly was a stunning revelation.
I wanted to wake Hunter and confide in him but he’d go nuts if he knew I’d made that phone call. No, I’d have to keep this mystery to myself for the time being. I’d have to wait until things had calmed down before I could go looking for Cathy.
‘How long was I out?’ Hunter asked as he groggily peeled his face from the tank of the bike.
‘Not long enough,’ I grunted back at him.
‘Christ,’ he sighed as he stretched his back. ‘You’re a real bundle of laughs tonight. You know, I’d kill for a cup of coffee.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if that was actually true.’
‘Oh, what’s eating you?’ he snapped. ‘You’re acting like a little girl again!’
‘I have a right to.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m not telling you.’
‘Good because I don’t want to hear it.’
‘Enough talking about my mood,’ I said. ‘What are we going to do once we get ashore?’
‘We make some calls. We have to find someone friendly in the Guild to go to and who can fill us in on what’s been going on. Then we go in search of the traitors in the Guild and torture the hell out of them until they rat out all their friends.’
‘And what about this assassin that’s supposed to be hunting us? Have you given him any thought?’
‘Not much. We have no idea who he is or where he is, so we can’t do anything about him. I’ll think about him if he manages to find us.’
‘Do you have any idea who he might be? If he’s such a great assassin then the Guild would surely know about him, right?’
‘There are a few assassins out there who might fit the bill,’ Hunter said, folding his arms and nodding. ‘There’s a Peruvian woman who works for the south American drug cartels. She’s an emotomagnet and a pyrokinetic. A very potent mix of gifts for an assassin. She could be the person Brofeldt was talking about. Then there’s Gutierrez – he’s based in Los Angeles. He is a very skilful electro-psych and could also be classed as a master assassin. There are other possibilities but most of them have been out of action for a long time.’
‘Will we be able to deal with Gutierrez or the Peruvian if they find us?’
‘Neither would represent a threat like Dolloway or Zalech did.’ He looked down at me and shrugged. ‘We managed to deal with them, didn’t we?’
‘Yes, we did. They basically destroyed my life but we did deal with them.’
‘Forget the assassin for now,’ Hunter said. ‘Chances are that the trouble we face will come from Guild agents who have aligned themselves with our mysterious new enemy.’
‘I h
ope the war hasn’t already kicked off. These traitors in the Guild could be supplying Golding Scientific with the whereabouts of countless Guild members. They’ll be slaughtered if they’re not warned.’
‘We can do little to save them right now. Our only choice is to stick to my plan. I just hope that we can contact Armitage. She might be able to contact the Council and that could bring a swift conclusion to this entire affair.’
‘Why would she be able to get in touch with them? I thought no one knew their location.’
‘Elizabeth Armitage is very tight with Jim Sterling.’
‘I don’t see what good Jim Sterling could do. He’ll only make himself a target if he raises his head above the parapet.’
‘Jim Sterling is strong enough to tip the balance in our favour.’
‘I doubt he’s that strong, Hunter. We’re facing a well organised group that has control over Paul Golding. That means they have an advanced army at their command and that tips the balance in their favour. Golding Scientific has been developing some very interesting weaponry for use in a gifted war, remember? The armour that Zalech wore, the kinetibike, Vanev’s gun and the gauntlet that the assassin used against us in the hospital. Lord only know what other technological horrors they have dreamed up in the labs of Golding Scientific. I think the only way to stop them is to kill this master that Brofeldt mentioned.’
‘Yes, you may just be right.’ He sat down next to me and scratched at the grey stubble on his chin. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about what she said and I still have no clue who it could be.’
‘Maybe it’s someone who has been hidden from the Guild their whole life. Or someone who appears to be just another gifted person who poses no threat, like Verbannk was.’
‘I suppose both are plausible,’ he said. ‘There’s no point in guessing. What we need are answers. Facts.’
I could see in Hunter’s eyes that he did have an idea who the leader was but that he didn’t want to tell me for some reason. I didn’t probe any further. I didn’t dwell on it either. It was best to keep my mind on staying alive rather than dreaming up images of some mysterious dark lord that had been waiting in the shadows his whole life for the right moment to cast his wickedness upon the world.
I was beginning to feel sea sick.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Chase
The port in Liverpool was swarming with police that morning. I guess it was to be expected considering there had been a terrorist attack in the city only two weeks earlier, and the supposed act of terrorism at the Windmill Hotel probably set them on high alert again. The uniformed officers scrutinised every person getting off the boat and were stopping all the vehicles that rolled out of the parking deck. We didn’t suffer their attentions because Hunter had made us invisible with the trick of body refraction. We slipped past the cops and the barriers without anyone ever knowing we were there.
The city was no different to the port; there were officers on every street corner and we also saw a few army vehicles that were packed with armed soldiers sitting inside. It looked like a war was about to break out and it felt like it too; there was an uneasiness in the air that clung to me as we journeyed through the rush hour traffic. It made me paranoid and I started thinking that people could see through the cloak and were watching our every move. I even thought for a while that a helicopter that hovered high above the rooftops of the city was following us. I didn’t take a comfortable breath until we were outside the city centre.
It didn’t take us long to break free of the suburbs and find a road that would take us east of the country. Hunter removed the cloak when we got to the first strip of empty road then told me to stop at a filling station that was further along the route. He’d obviously come this way before and felt it was a safe place for us to stop to figure out our next move.
Within half an hour we had reached the filling station. There was a large forecourt at the back that Hunter instructed me to park in, and on the opposite side of the road was a diner that he claimed had great grub. As I steered off the road towards the small car park I realised why Hunter had chosen this location to stop; there was an old-fashioned telephone box at the side of the building. I figured he’d take this opportunity to try contact his friends.
‘Let me know if that precognitive gift of yours starts acting up,’ he said as we left the bike parked between two SUVs. ‘I don’t really feel comfortable being out in the open like this.’
‘I’ll give you as much warning as I can.’
‘You better. I don’t want a repeat of what happened at the hotel.’
‘Sorry about that,’ I said, thinking about the terrible injury that he’d sustained during the fight with the spies. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I’ve been better.’
‘Maybe it’s not such a good idea for us to go to the diner. You’re not in good shape and you’re obviously not comfortable with this location.’
‘We’ll just stay long enough to fill our bellies with fried food and to sink a strong coffee or two.’
Hunter walked to the telephone box and simply shook his head when I pointed out that we had no coins. He sent a spark of electricity into the phone before using his psychokinesis to both lift the receiver to his ear and to press the appropriate buttons.
‘We’re gifted, remember?’
‘Okay, using your power to make a free call is fine,’ I said. ‘Using it to press buttons is just plain lazy.’
‘It’s not lazy at all. I like to use my powers as often as possible, so that I can maintain total control over them.’ He smiled and gave me a wink. ‘Practice makes perfect.’
‘I say you’re lazy.’
‘I say you’re a novice who shouldn’t question my experience.’
He tried the same number over and over again but there was no answer and he finally accepted that Armitage wasn’t going to pick up. This left him with one only option: Marie Canavan. He seemed reluctant to make this call and waited for more than a minute before dialling. It was risky to contact anyone in the Guild because there was always a chance the call might be somehow traced. I could understand his trepidation in calling Canavan because she wasn’t just anyone, she was the woman who had been his mentor and foster parent for many years. He was obviously worried about putting her at risk by making the call.
‘Yes?’ I heard Canavan’s strong voice over the drone of the cars as they passed the filling station. ‘Who is this?’
‘How’s the weather in the city?’ Hunter asked.
‘It’s appalling,’ Canavan answered. ‘Although I hear there are clear skies by the coast.’
‘Might be nice to have dinner there.’
Hunter hung up then turned and walked towards the road. He really was a strange bugger at times, but the brief conversation with Canavan was on a whole new level of weird.
‘What the hell was that all about?’ I asked as I walked with him to the roadside. ‘Why were you asking her about the weather, dumbass?’
‘I wasn’t.’ There was a break in the traffic and I followed Hunter as he strode cautiously across the road towards the diner. ‘It’s a simple code we use, just in case there was anyone listening in. Asking about the weather in the city is really asking what the situation at the Palatium is like. She answered by saying it’s appalling, which means it’s not safe for me to go there. Clear skies by the coast means I should head for a little house on the east coast that Canavan and I bought a few years ago – one we didn’t tell the Guild about. And by saying it would be nice to have dinner there means I will be there by dinner time – approximately 6pm. If I’d said it would be nice to have supper there it would mean I’d arrive at 9pm. Breakfast at 8am and so on. Anything else you would like to know?’
‘Yeah, how are we paying for lunch?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll think of something. Remember, I’ve done this type of thing a thousand times before.’
‘So you’ve stolen a lot of money over the years, yeah?’
�
�Yes,’ he laughed. ‘Only because it was absolutely necessary.’
‘Coffee is not a necessity.’
‘It is to me.’
I was surprised to find the diner practically empty as we entered. I figured the reason was because it was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch. There were only two members of staff behind the counter, a waitress wiping down a tabletop and just four customers: A young man who was busy with his cell phone, two older men, probably truckers, who were deep in conversation, and one woman who was reading a newspaper while tucking into a muffin. Hunter looked to me as we got inside. I knew by his eyes that he wanted to know if I was sensing any danger. I wasn’t, and gave a shrug of my shoulders to indicate so.
We sat at the table nearest the door and read through the menus before the waitress asked us what we wanted. We both ordered a full breakfast and black coffee.
‘So, tell me’ I said to my companion, ‘why do you and Canavan have a house that the Guild doesn’t know about? It seems quite strange to me.’
‘Technically it’s my house. I bought it with some money I’ve gained over the years. But it was always intended for Marie. She’s getting on in years and I thought the clean air by the coast would be good for her whenever she decided to go into full retirement. I didn’t tell the Guild about it because agents aren’t supposed to have large stashes of money hidden away from them.’
‘Where did you get so much money?’