by Tom Field
“No good, that means nothing, too vague. You are lying to me. Stand up, look me in the eyes and I will know if you are lying,” he challenged the guy.
He pulled himself up to his feet and stood upright, about a foot away from him. He was a small guy, about five foot five and he had to crane his neck to make eye contact with him.
“Now, where is Al Holami?” he asked, slowly and clearly.
“I told you, in Greenwich Village.”
“Where in Greenwich Village?”
“On West 8th Street, the building behind the recording studios.”
Ward studied his eyes for a moment. He knew when a man was lying. He knew what fear looked like and he could see that this guy saw a seven foot giant looking down at him. He knew that he had told him all he knew. There was no more to tell. So he shoved him hard in the chest and the guy fell back, his legs catching the low roof wall and he went over the edge of the building with a deafening scream. The thud as he travelled the six floors and hit the ground could be heard from the roof. He walked to the edge of the building and looked down. He had landed head first on the sidewalk, a fact he deduced by virtue of his brains spreading out everywhere, and the few people who were on the street were screaming and already on their cell phones calling for help.
“Was that really necessary?” Gilligan asked.
“They killed that girl and tried killing us. I’d say it was totally necessary,” he replied.
“Couldn’t you just have shot him?” Gilligan enquired.
Ward ignored the question.
“I’d better make a call and get this cleaned up,” Gilligan said with a sigh.
“I have to go home for a few hours anyway,” he said. “You can drop me off, come back, clear this up and collect me about four.”
“Anything else you wish to add?” Gilligan asked sarcastically.
“Yes,” replied Ward, “I think it’s safe to say that they know something.”
SIXTEEN
“I’ll see you at four. I’m back down to Bowery to sort out your mess and then I’ll be back to pick you up,” Gilligan said as he pulled over close to Ward’s apartment.
“Find out what you can about this place in Greenwich. Find the studio and see what information your people have relating to it. Nicole-Louise and Tackler have probably got further than the whole of the CIA combined, so call them first,” Ward said as he got out of the car.
He walked into his apartment building, and when he opened the door to his apartment, he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Eloisa. She looked stunning in a white blouse and black pencil skirt.
“That smells nice,” he said as he took off his jacket and threw it onto a chair before stepping through to the kitchen area and kissing her passionately; long and hard.
“God I’ve missed you,” he said.
“And I you,” she replied as she pulled away and smiled.
He looked at her for a brief moment. She was flawless. Her beautiful, thick, long shiny hair, her light skin with a hint of bronze, her green eyes that made him feel like he wanted to stare into them and lose himself in them for hours. Every part of her was perfect.
He took her hand and led her slowly through to the bedroom, stopping at the end of the bed and kissing her lightly on the lips. Standing behind her, he moved her hair to one side and began to kiss her neck gently, and she instinctively closed her eyes and tilted her head back to expose more of her neck for him to explore. As he kissed her neck her breathing became more and more heavy, almost reaching a gasp. Her hands reached out for his and they joined together in perfect unison.
“You taste incredible,” he said
“Please, don’t stop,” she begged.
He let go of her right hand and moved his to her front. As he continued to softly kiss her neck, he started to unbutton her blouse, the first button to open being the one between her perfect, pert breasts. He continued down to her navel until the last button separated and her blouse fell open.
He turned her around and kissed her lightly on the lips once more as he took her blouse off of her shoulders and let it fall to the floor.
She pulled at his tee-shirt and lifted it over his head and threw it onto the floor. She dug her fingernails into his chest while he removed her bra, feeling his incredibly toned body not move at all under the strain of her grasp. As they continued to kiss each other, now with more intensity and their tongue’s entwining, they pulled at each other’s lower clothing and within one minute, they were completely naked. He pushed her on the bed with force, and she responded to this by completely submitting to him and they got lost in each other for the next two hours. When they had finished, Eloisa was exhausted. Ward was a long way from being spent but she said,
“I have to go back to work for a meeting, we can’t do it again.”
He looked dejected, “Not just once?”
“No. We will have plenty of time later,” she replied, “What were Misker’s last words?” she asked, referring to the
Estonian that Ward had eliminated in St James’ Park.
“He begged me not to kill him. He was petrified.”
“What are you doing in New York?” she asked.
“There’s a bomber on the loose and he’s heading here.”
“Is he here already?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Will you stop it from going off?” she enquired.
“Yes I will,” he stated.
“Then I have nothing to worry about. I know you will win. You always do.”
He gave her a reassuring look.
“Let’s make love again,” she said.
They showered together and made love under the warm spray. Within 10 minutes of leaving the shower, she looked as immaculate as she did when he first walked through the door a few hours ago.
“Don’t you wish that we could spend more time together?” he asked her.
“Of course I do, but we both have a calling that we can’t ignore. When I have bad days and feel lonely, when you are running around God knows where, I remind myself of the good that we are doing. I remind myself that hundreds of children are sleeping safely in their beds at night through our direct actions,” she replied, with a smile that filled him with warmth.
“I just sometimes think that there has to be more. We always meet briefly, sometimes I feel that what we have is casual and has no meaning to it at all,” he said.
“Of course it has meaning. I trust you more than I trust anyone in the world. I share my darkest secrets with you and you do bad things to bad people on my behalf. How many other people in a relationship have that between them?” she asked.
“None I guess. Do you think we will ever be normal?”
“Yes I do. We will have that in the future but for now, our time together is precious. When I am with you I feel so much love for you and I see my whole future in your hands. When I leave, I feel sad for a little while but crave the next opportunity to spend time with you and that makes me love you and miss you even more. That’s when I realise how lucky we are, how what we have is so special and that without a doubt, we are going to be together forever.”
He looked at her and smiled. Eloisa was the only person on earth who could put exactly what he felt into words because she felt the same. He felt safe, important and complete when he was in her company.
“Thank you,” he said.
“What for?”
“Just for being you.”
Sometimes, he thought, in the right moment, saying thank you, was all that needed to be said.
The moment was broken by his cell phone ringing.
“Great timing,” he answered
“Are you by a TV?” Centrepoint asked.
“Yes. What’s wrong?”
“Turn it on. Channel 301.”
He turned on his TV and selected channel 301. It was USBC News, the American arm of the Lord Ashurst- Stevens media empire. The scroll across the bottom read;
‘BREAKING NEWS……. BOMBER TARGETING NEW YORK –
SECURITY FORCES CHASING SUSPECT BUT HAVE NO LEADS’
“Is that for real?” he asked.
“The bulletin should come on soon. It’s on a five minute loop,” Centrepoint replied.
“How can this be allowed to happen? Look at the panic it will cause.”
“Unfortunately we can’t control the news. Freedom of speech comes before all else,” Centrepoint said with an air of sarcasm.
“Chasing suspect but have no leads,” Ward repeated, quoting the second part of the scroll, “How incompetent does that make us sound?”
“Well technically, they are right aren’t they? We have our suspect but we have no leads. We don’t even know if Fulken is in New York yet do we?”
“Not for sure but I believe that he is close and will be here any day now. No positive ID’s from the border people I take it?” Ward asked in hope more than expectation.
“Nothing at all.”
“Have you contacted any high level people at UKBC or USBC News to get that taken off?”
“I’m working on it. Here comes the loop, watch it.”
He lowered the phone and watched the news report.
Abbi Beglin appeared on the screen and proceeded to explain how the security services on both sides of the Atlantic have been working with her and her news crew to try and establish who was behind the Paris and London bombings. She explained that they had worked closely with members of MI6 and that there were no leads or clues to go on, but they were sure that the bombers next target was New York.
So much so, that the focus of their investigation had now moved stateside. Ward had heard enough and turned the TV off. He brought the phone back to his ear.
“I need you to make me an appointment with their top people over here,” he demanded of Centrepoint.
“Then I’ll make you an appointment with the chief news editor again, Martin Walker. He is there in New York for the Annual News Television Awards taking place in three days’ time,” he replied, “Where exactly are we on this Ryan?”
“Just make me the appointment and let me know when he will see me.”
Ward hung up the phone.
“Is everything alright?” Eloisa asked.
“Just people interfering, making things more problematic as usual,” he replied. “Don’t you worry about it, you go and save your world and I’ll save mine,” he added with a smile.
Eloisa came to him and kissed him softly, and then said,
“Let me know as soon as you are done and we can spend some proper time together. I love you,” and with that she turned away and walked out of the door. She was gone again.
He picked up his cell phone and called London.
“Hello?” Lawson’s familiar voice said.
“Have you seen the news?” he asked
“Yes, an hour ago.”
“Did you know that was coming?”
“What do you mean?” Lawson asked.
“Well I would put a thousand dollars on the fact that you have slept with Abbi Beglin by now,” the line went quiet, “So did she mention it?”
“Not a word. I was as surprised as you were.”
“Can you use your charm and get everything you can out of her. I need to know who told her how this story was going to run.”
“OK. I’m seeing her shortly when she leaves the office at ten,” Lawson confirmed.
Ward looked at his watch. It was three thirty, making it eight thirty in London.
“That means you have an hour and a half to do some other things for me then.”
“Shoot.”
“Find out all you can on Martin Walker the Chief News Editor. I mean everything. Family, education, school friends; I want you to dig so deep that you find what he use to dream about when he was six months old,” Ward said.
“I’m on it. I’ll get my best two people on it. They will find anything that is there to be found,” Lawson replied.
“Thanks. And squeeze Beglin for all she is worth,” he said and then hung up the phone.
Everything was now taking shape in his mind and the picture was becoming clearer to him. But this was going much deeper than he initially thought. At the moment, he was raising more questions than finding answers. Why would the broadcasters break protocol and reveal that an impending incident was coming to New York? And why would a rogue FFW bomber be so brazen in what he was doing?
He picked out the note that Charlie Dunno had written on and looked at the one word on it. He couldn’t link the word to what was happening, but he knew deep down that Charlie was probably right. He always was. The silence in the apartment was broken by the ringing of his cell phone.
“Your chariot awaits sir,” Gilligan said
Ward checked his watch. “You are two minutes early,” he said and hung up.
SEVENTEEN
Asif Fulken was in Greenwich Village, trying to blend in. Blending in is not easy to do when you have no particular place to go or no specific thing to do. He didn’t want to be close to places where a large number of people were, this invariably led to a greater police presence; so he found himself in a place called The Four Faced Liar, just off of West 4th Street. An apt name for him he thought. It was a casual bar; the kind of place where students go to discuss poetry and talk about the text book politics they believe in. He had stumbled across the bar when walking down the street. From the outside, it looked like a normal shop front. It looked more likely to sell furniture than alcohol. Inside, there was a long bar on the right hand side, with a number of worn, wooden bar stools running along the front that had clearly seen better days. Seats for the hardened drinkers he thought. Behind the bar, the whole wall was stocked heavily with bottle upon bottle of alcohol. He ordered a soda and went and sat on a table in the corner of the bar, placing the copy of the New York Times that he had purchased an hour ago on the table and started to read. No point in pretending to read when you have a newspaper in front of you he thought; regardless of the fact that he had no interest in the newspapers content.
The western media, it truly was an evil thing.
He placed his cell phone on the table and waited patiently for the call from Al Holami. He wasn’t concerned about there being a problem, the security people were always getting close, but as far as he was concerned, their misguided tolerance always stopped them from pushing too hard. Sure they had a few people who were of similar warrior status to his people, but they were few and far between. Take away their weapons, their jets and their bombs and they were weak. In psychological combat, they would always lose. All of these thoughts were running through his head, and he was starting to feel invincible once more.
His cell phone rang.
“Yes?” he answered.
“Are you in New York safely?” the very well-spoken English voice said.
“Of course I am.”
“You have caused quite a stir.”
“Wasn’t that the intention?” he asked.
“Now they know it is you behind it they are panicking,” the voice said.
“And so they should. It won’t read well if I get caught,” he proclaimed.
“For me or you?” the voice asked.
“Everyone involved.”
“There is nothing that comes back to me I hope? You know the consequences if there is?”
“Are you getting worried?” Fulken asked.
“Should I be getting worried?”
“My friend, I am teasing you,” he replied, “There is nothing that can trace any part you might have played in this. You have my word.”
“I’m to take the word of a terrorist on good faith? It may well be that you are at the top of the tree in your game, but there are some equally competent people chasing you, so I have been informed.”
“What people?” he asked.
“Well, according to my people, men at the top in their fields, the very best,” the voice said.
“Well, I will kill them too,” Fulken proclaimed.
“Are you putting the wheels in motion
?”
“I have a minor problem at the moment which will be resolved shortly.”
“Do I need to be concerned?”
“No. Just the big bears sniffing around. It is to be expected,” he said reassuringly.
“Are they getting close?”
“No. They are working through a list of potential contractors. They are simply trying to squeeze everyone that would be likely to help me and hoping to get lucky.”
“And will they get lucky?”
“No they will not.”
“Why not?”
“Because no one but you and me know what is happening.”
“And you are confident that it will stay that way?” the well-spoken voice asked.
“One hundred per cent,” Fulken replied in a tone of voice that reassured the listener completely.
“How long will it take you to prepare and to be ready to present the quote?”
“No more than twelve hours once I have everything that I need.”
“With regards to the equipment that you need, do you have it?” the voice asked
“I will do once my friends have provided shelter. They are very resourceful,” Fulken said with confidence, “And my creative freedom on this project will please you no end.”
“I’m concerned that you underestimate those chasing you.”
“Don’t be concerned. All that matters to you is that you meet your payment agreements. I’m not the kind of business partner you want to disappoint,” Fulken said threateningly.
“I will provide twenty four hours’ notice before anything happens. You know that, yes?” the voice asked.
“Yes. As with the other two deals, you will know exactly where we are with this at all times,” he replied.
“Good. I will be in touch soon.”
The line went dead.
He sat at the table feeling very confident. He continued reading his paper for a further five minutes and his phone rang again.
“Yes?”
“My brother, it is me. Sorry for the delay,” Al Holami said.
“Is everything fixed?” he asked.
“Yes. We had to sacrifice five of our brothers to escape but they died as martyrs,” Al Holami proclaimed.