Candleburn

by Jack Hayes

Silence.

  Asp sighed.

  “Perhaps, you’re right,” he said. “Perhaps, it’s just to kill everyone, impossible as that may seem.”

  Blake’s eyes flashed.

  “What?” Nate asked.

  “Not... necessarily... impossible...” Blake said, his face turning pallid. “It’s an outside chance – but I may just have figured out how you could do it. And if I’m right, it would happen today.”

  43

  Blake was back in the car, fumbling with his cheap, new mobile.

  “I don’t understand why you won’t just tell me,” Asp said huffily as he got in.

  “Close the door,” Blake said.

  The mobile didn’t connect into Blake’s hands-free kit. He pressed the speakerphone button, allowing Asp to hear the distorted ringtone as the low-quality device struggled with the loud volume.

  “Hello?” a voice groggily answered.

  “Mac? It’s Blake.”

  “For God’s sake, Blake – it’s four in the morning,” Mac replied. “The only reason I answered is that Eleanor insisted. And that bloody cat of yours won’t stop crying in the kitchen. What the hell is so damn important?”

  “The Anglo-India trade talks conclude today, right?” Blake asked.

  “If this is a journalistic issue...”

  “Mac – have I ever called you at this time before? This is serious.”

  “Alright then, I’ll play along. Yes, the talks end today. A historic agreement will be signed providing total freedom of capital movement, business access, patent protection improvements and improved labour mobility,” Mac said.

  Asp stared at Blake. His face was incredulous.

  “Are you a moron?” he said. “You think this is about a trade deal?”

  “Shut up, Nate,” Blake replied.

  “And who in the hell is that?” Mac raged. “I’m not supposed to be discussing this with anyone. Blake – you, I know and trust...”

  “Please Mac, bear with me,” Blake said. “This is – in all seriousness – a matter of life and death. In the car with me is Nate Aspinal...”

  “That wanker from Chrome?” Mac exclaimed. “Corporate Pinkertons – oh, this really is the limit...”

  “Whose wife and children were kidnapped at gunpoint earlier this evening,” Blake continued.

  Silence.

  “Got your attention now? Good,” Blake said. “This trade deal is important for the UK. The government’s pinning its hopes on it pulling Britain out of the global recession, right?”

  “Yes,” Mac said.

  “So it stands to reason they’re going to make a big splash over the signing because it’ll boost their re-election hopes, which right now are looking pretty crappy,” Blake said. “And what better way to make a splash than for it to be the first international trip for Prince William, his beautiful wife and their gorgeous child: a shining photo opportunity for doing business in Britain.”

  More silence.

  “How do you know about that?” Mac said in a hushed tone. “For security reasons their visit is beyond classified.”

  “Then the fact that I know about it should give you a further reason to believe what I’m about to tell you,” Blake said. “Later today, there will be an assassination attempt on the Royal entourage.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Through too many things to explain them all right now,” Blake replied. “I deduced it, the same way I worked out that Prince William would be here.”

  “You’re not instilling me with confidence, Blake,” Mac said. “How will it be done?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  “When will it happen?”

  “Today. That’s all I have.”

  “Where the attempt will be conducted?”

  Blake bit his lip.

  “I don’t have that either.”

  “For goodness sake, Blake, this is ridiculous.”

  “Listen,” Blake replied. “This morning I was sent by messenger a lock box. I managed to get into it and it contained three cigarette butts. They’re alleged to belong to Prince Harry. They’re part of a plan...”

  “Come on, Blake,” Mac interrupted. “Listen to yourself, man. Do you at least know who’s behind this alleged plot?”

  “A terrorist group called Ash-Shumu’a”

  “So, a fairy story is behind a plot to kill the second-in-line to the British throne through an unknown mechanism at an unknown time for unknown reasons, except to say that it’s connected to a box of cigarette ends you received by courier that may, or may not, have belonged to Prince Harry?”

  Blake paused.

  “When you say it like that it sounds so implausible,” Blake said sarcastically.

  “Hmm,” Mac replied.

  “Okay,” Blake said. “Talk with the head of the Prince’s security. Have him ask the local Ceebies about two dead Somalis found in a 4x4, totalled in a water trap on the Montgomerie Address golf course. Also, there was an explosion this evening that took out an entire floor of a block of apartments in the Marina. It just so happens, the flat that was the source of the explosion belonged to one of my journalistic colleagues Alice Thorne.”

  “The one you’ve never liked?”

  “Right.”

  “And who killed her?” Mac asked. “The other weasel in your office?”

  A pause.

  “Yes. In conjunction with Ash-Shumu’a”

  “The terrorists who don’t exist...” Mac said wearily.

  Another silence.

  Asp pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. It had been a long day on little sleep and with the adrenaline easing off, he was beginning to tire.

  “Mac,” Asp said. “Blake isn’t alone in believing this. I was reluctant to at first, as well. As further evidence, you can also ask the Ceebies about the mysterious killings of two of my colleagues, who were found tortured to death in motel bathrooms. I used my influence to have them chalked up as bizarre suicides following sex games that went wrong.”

  “So you’re in on this delusion as well?” Mac asked.

  “It’s not a delusion,” Blake stated. “It costs you nothing to be safe and take extra precautions with the Royals today.”

  “I presume the two of you have heard of a folie-a-deux?” Mac said. “It’s by far the most under-rated psychological phenomena in the world – particularly today.”

  “Mac!” Blake shouted. “Please! Just talk to the Prince’s security detail.”

  A pause.

  “Alright,” Mac replied reluctantly. “It’s half-past four now. They’ll be up in 90 minutes. But I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

  “Thank you,” Blake said.

  “And don’t forget to pick up your bloody cat,” Mac said loudly and slammed the phone down.

  Blake and Asp sat quietly for a few moments.

  Blake wound his window lower and fumbled through his coat for a cigarette. Lighting the end, he began to gulp at it as though he were a crashed pilot in the Sahara chancing upon an oasis.

  “What’s next?” Blake asked with smoke clouding from his mouth.

  Asp didn’t have time to answer. His own phone began ringing.

  They looked at one another uncertainly. Asp picked up the call.

  “Hello?” he said.

  A mechanically altered voice began speaking:

  “Listen to me: I have your wife and daughters.”

  44

  “What do you want?” Asp asked.

  “You know the answer to that. I want the puzzle box,” the voice said. “In exchange for you handing it over, I will return your family, unharmed.”

  “When and where will the exchange take place?” Asp enquired.

  “Since you have the journalist and box with you, you can step out of the car and leave it at the side of the road. You will drive away. Your family will be returned to your home in two hours.”

  “You’re watching us right now?” Blake interrupted.

  “Naturall
y,” the voice replied.

  “And how exactly did that work out for your henchmen the last time they tried it?”

  “You will leave the box at the side of the road and drive away.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Blake said. “I have no faith that if we give you the box, you’ll return the hostages. Here is how this will work: at 7am, two and a half hours from now, you will meet us at the sand dunes of Al Kaspar...”

  “This is not a negotiation. Leave the box now or I start chopping little pieces off the youngest girl.”

  “Cut the crap and the silly voices Aarez,” Blake said. “You will meet us on the sand dunes at Al Kaspar. There is a good two miles of visibility in all directions there. We won’t be able to ambush you and we can have faith you won’t be able to ambush us. You will bring the girls and we will bring the box...”

  There was a sobbing from the other end of the phone.

  “Daddy?”

  It was Persephone’s voice.

  “Daddy?”

  Asp sat forward in his seat and placed his hands around the phone cradling it as though it were the girl’s face.

  “Hey my little Pepper Pig,” Asp said softly.

  “Daddy, the man killed Zain with birds and it was horrible,” the young girl gushed. “We saw his body and they hit mummy and...”

  “Leave the box now or the girl loses a finger,” the mechanical voice interrupted.

  “Blake,” Asp said, “get out of the car and put the box at the side of the road.”

  “You have a man watching the car?” Blake said loudly. “Then he can watch me destroy the box right now. You hurt that girl, the box is gone.”

  Blake opened the glove compartment

  “Blake, what are you doing?” Asp asked.

  “Destroy the box and they all die.”

  “You’re going to kill them anyway,” Blake replied. “We do this my way or you lose the box.”

  “Blake – what the fuck?” Asp shouted.

  Blake’s hand clasped the box. Asp grabbed his wrist.

  “No, no, no!” the young girl screamed at the other end of the phone. “Daddy! He’s got my fingers in giant scissors!”

  “Blake?” Asp’s voice quivered with fear.

  Blake moved very fast. With a twist of his wrist, he simultaneously freed his arm from Asp’s grip and hit him on the nose with the back of his hand. Asp was momentarily stunned. When his eyes reopened, Blake had the barrel of the PSS silent pistol lodged against his forehead.

  “Your men are watching the car?” Blake yelled. “Then they can see I have a gun to Nate’s head. I will spread his brains all over the passenger side window and then destroy this box if you so much as breathe heavily on that little girl, you hear me?”

  The girl continued screaming in the background.

  Blake held the box out into the night.

  “They will also confirm I have the package and you know I am fully capable of both killing Nate and destroying it if you cross me. Now – do we have an agreement, Aarez? You, me, Nate, the hostages meet at Al Kaspar and I’ll even allow you to bring as many of your henchmen along as you like for protection. 07:00, sharp.”

  The girl continued to wail.

  “Blake,” Asp hissed. “Please...”

  A tear formed in his eye. His hands were raised in half surrender, his breathing short and shallow.

  Blake clicked the firing pin of the pistol back. The distinctive metallic tone was audible even over the screams and sobs from the phone. He shook the hand holding the puzzle box. It rattled in the quiet of the street as the acid phial in the lid tapped against the carved wooden sides.

  “Any injuries of any kind to any of the women and I kill everyone there, even if it means I die in the process,” Blake said. “The same goes for any kind of double cross.”

  The girl’s cries were muffled.

  Silence.

  Seconds passed.

  “Very well.”

  The phone cut off.

  Blake slowly brought his palm back into the car.

  “You bastard,” Asp whispered. “You utter, contemptible son of a bitch.”

  Blake tossed the puzzle box back into the glove compartment. The gun clicked again as he gently returned the firing pin to an un-cocked position and lowered the weapon.

  “Relax,” he said. “I just saved their lives.”

  45

  Alexandria was hoisted to her feet.

  Once the initial terror of the kidnapping was over, she’d acclimatised to the dust from the burlap sack tied loosely around her neck by breathing slowly and remembering the lessons learned from a two month stint spent training to be a yoga instructor.

  She’d pretended to be meditating to take her mind off the pain of sitting in stress positions – cross legged, hands on head – for four hours.

  “Pah! Yoga instructor!” she thought as she shuffled forward. “Another failed career move.”

  The binders around her ankles kept her footsteps small as a convict’s and she scuffled through the dirt, kicking up small puffs of dust with each pace.

  “Mum?” a timid voice cried out.

  Guinevere.

  “It is okay, my sweet,” she said as softly as she could. “I’m here.”

  Now she’d spoken she realised how swollen and rubbery her tongue was. Her throat was dry, and felt cracked like the paint on an old master.

  “Mummy,” Ginny simpered. “I want a hug.”

  The rope around Alexandria’s wrists clasped them together so tightly that the skin was raw and bleeding. The coarse fibres irritated the cuts. If she closed her right eye, she could just about see directly down through a half inch gap in the sacking near her chin. Her fingers were polystyrene white. They prickled with pins and needles.

  So did her feet.

  She extended her arms in the direction of Ginny’s voice.

  She was slapped across the back of the head.

  “This is not a fucking disco. Hands in. Walk straight ahead.”

  The voice behind had Russian inflections.

  “Where’s my other daughter?” she called out. “Where’s Persephone?”

  Alexandria tried to sound bold. She wanted to present a measure of defiance. Instead, she stammered over her words; her speech, high pitched and wavering, seemed not her own.

  The Russian was so close to her ear that she could smell his coffee-stained breath through the thick fibre of the bag.

  “It is not your place to make demands.”

  The barrel of a gun jabbed into her ribs.

  She felt blood rush to her head. Her breathing quickened. The space inside the sack, tolerable just minutes earlier now seemed even tighter across her face. Once again, she could taste the dry mud of the bag as she began to suck on the hemp with each pull of her lungs.

  “For God’s sake, get a grip,” she thought. “Stay strong for the children.”

  She tried to will saliva to coat her mouth. She force-swallowed.

  Nothing.

  “If you yourself have a mother,” she said haltering, “you’ll know she would do anything to save you. Let me know my children are safe and I’ll be easy to handle – I’ll be compliant.”

  A deep, chesty laugh.

  It was joined by others – three, perhaps four, further people.

  All men.

  A different man came close. A hand was slapped to her thigh and ran lasciviously up her leg.

  She shuddered involuntarily.

  “I think we have ways to make you compliant,” the new thug said. “Whether you want to be or not.”

  More laughter.

  She felt the hand move higher. She began to quake. It reached the top of her jeans and a thumb hooked inside against her skin. It moved across to the button and began fumbling at it.

  She shook her body, trying to break loose.

  The pistol poked at her back again.

  She bit her lip.

  “I like these English women, you know?” the second
man said, talking away from her, towards his laughing friends. “They put up a fight. Much more satisfying.”

  Alexandria’s mind began to work very quickly through her options.

  “Do I put up a fight?” she thought. “Does that give him what he wants? I can’t do much with bound hands and feet. And does it put the girls at more risk? Or do I lie back? Accept what’s coming?”

  The button of her jeans unclipped. Fingers tugged at the fly zip. She wanted to bow and pull away but the gun barrel pushed her forward.

  “Oh God, oh god – how did I end up here?”

  A huge rattle, then rumbling.

  A lock-up door opened.

  Bright light and intense warmth illuminated the right side of the burlap.

  “You!” another new voice shouted.

  It was almost Oxford English in tone – yet somehow she knew it to be a well-educated Arabic man: “I said no harm to the women!”

  The laughter stopped. The hand jerked away.

  “Mum?”

  Persephone!

  “Are you there now?” her daughter implored.

  “Yes,” the Oxford-educated Arab said in a hush. “Your mummy and sister are here. I will take you to them.”

  Alexandria could feel her face dampen and she realised she was weeping. Her trousers were still up but with her button and zip open, she felt as vulnerable as if she were totally naked. Her ears focused on Persephone’s sniffling. Tiny hands grabbed her around the legs.

  “Thank you,” Alexandria croaked. “Thank you so much.”

  A second pair of small arms wrapped around her.

  Ginny.

  “I trust we will have no more trouble?” said the Arab – so educated, so gentlemanly spoken.

  “No, no,” she replied. “I have my girls safe. I’ll be good, I promise.”

  She couldn’t hear what happened next, she was too focused on feeling with her fingers as she ruffled the girl’s hair. Something must have happened, as she was being herded, daughters about her waist, towards the light.

  She felt the compacted dirt beneath her shoes soften.

  Sand.

  They were moving outside.

  Oxford-voice was on the phone. He’d stepped away from the entrance.

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “We’re putting them in the Jeeps now. It’s a way from here. We’ll be there in two hours.”