Blackout

by Dawson, Mark

  "You were locked up before and you still murdered someone who was important to me. You like to remind everyone that you’re a rich and powerful man. The money. The yacht. Friends in high places. You would’ve been better to forget all that."

  He felt sick. "What does that mean?" he said, even though he knew exactly what it meant.

  "Walk."

  They continued. Radiant waves rose from the sun-baked forest, and mirages shimmered at the edges of his vision. It was hot and humid. The fear, though, was worse. It leeched the strength from his legs, hollowing them out, churned his stomach and loosened his bowels.

  They descended a gentle slope to a burbling brook and de Lacey couldn't stand it any longer.

  He ran.

  It was awkward, with his hands behind his back, but he ran.

  Three paces.

  Four.

  He aimed for a thicket of bamboo on the other side of the water. Maybe if he could get there before Milton did...

  Ten paces.

  Fifteen.

  He felt the blast of pain a moment before he heard the crack of the pistol.

  He lost his balance and fell, splashing down into the water.

  The gunshot echoed back from the foothills.

  His leg was on fire. He was lying face down, water in his eyes and mouth and nostrils. He felt the hot blood, each fresh heartbeat sending another pulse to flow out around his helpless fingers.

  He turned his head to look back.

  He hadn't managed to get very far.

  Milton was walking toward him. His right arm was extended and angled down. He had his pistol in his hand.

  De Lacey tried to scramble to his feet, but his leg wouldn't move and his arms were still shackled behind his back

  Milton reached him. The setting sun was behind him, casting a long shadow and blackening him in silhouette. The shadow fell over de Lacey's body.

  Milton crouched down and flipped him over onto his back.

  De Lacey tried to speak, but his throat was dry and choked with water and the words wouldn't come. He closed his eyes.

  “Who put the pressure on to the Filipinos to get you out?”

  He felt something press against his forehead. It was cold and hard. He knew what it was.

  “Answer me, Fitz.”

  “The Circus. Who do you think?”

  “Why do they want you out?”

  “They want me to front a deal with the Iranians. Missiles. Artillery. Ammunition. They don’t care about the equipment. They want intelligence and they know I can get it for them. And the Iranians trust me.”

  “And you said yes.”

  “With one condition. They got you for me.”

  “How’d that turn out, Fitz?”

  De Lacey didn’t answer.

  “Who were you dealing with in MI6? Names.”

  “Latimer and Fox. I never met them.”

  “Who did?”

  “Bertie. He handled the negotiations. You’d have to speak to him.”

  "I will. "

  Milton put his gun down and placed his hands around de Lacey’s throat. He started to squeeze. De Lacey felt the coolness of the water as it ran around his head, and then the increased pressure around his throat as Milton leaned forward and pressed down with all his weight. He tried to breathe, but his breath wouldn’t come.

  “Goodbye, Fitz.”

  His eyes bulged as he stared up into Milton’s eyes—cold, impassive, emotionless—and then his face, the jungle, the sky, and everything else above him all faded into black.

  89

  MILTON AND Hicks drove back to the city after they had finished burying the body. They torched the stolen van, changed their clothes, and took a taxi the rest of the way to the airport. Ziggy was waiting for them in the landside Starbucks.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “It’s done.”

  “What happened?”

  “It doesn’t matter. What about the police?”

  “I monitored the radio. Josie gave you five minutes and called it in. She said she didn’t get a good look at the van. They put out a bulletin but there was no way they would’ve been able to find you in time.”

  “The other thing?”

  Ziggy sipped his coffee and nodded. “They’ve identified the bodies at Tondo. Bruno Mendoza was easy—the car was registered to him, and they matched his teeth to his dental records. The second body has been reported as John Smith, recently escaped from Bilibid. They found the gun, pulled the prints from it and when they searched against them they had a match with the prints you gave them when you were arrested. They can’t confirm it for sure, but it’s strong circumstantial evidence. As far as they’re concerned, John Smith is dead. They’re looking for someone who shot him and Mendoza.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “You think it’ll stand up?”

  “I doubt they’ve got anything that would help them to identify the body as Logan. Even if they can take his fingerprints, I’d be surprised if he’s on record anywhere. And I’ve got an idea to make it even tighter.”

  Hicks scrubbed his eyes; none of them had had much sleep.

  Milton reached into his pocket and took out Hicks’s wedding ring. “Here,” he said. “Better not forget this.”

  Hicks took the ring and screwed it onto his finger. “Thanks.”

  Ziggy looked up at the departures board. “We’d better check in,” he said. “The flight goes in an hour.”

  “Thank you,” Milton said. “Both of you. I’d still be locked up if it wasn’t for what you did.”

  “You’d be dead,” Hicks corrected.

  Milton nodded. “More likely,” he agreed. “But I mean it. I’m grateful. Really.”

  “Forget it.”

  Milton put out his hand and shook with Ziggy and then Hicks.

  “What are you going to do?” Hicks said.

  “Some people I need to see,” he said.

  “And then?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  * * *

  MILTON ARRANGED to meet Josie in a café near the Napindan Castle hotel where she was staying. He arrived first. He put the leather satchel that he had taken from Mendoza’s villa on the floor beneath a vacant table and then went to get his food. The place offered a breakfast buffet, and he doled out a generous portion of tocilog. He hadn’t eaten since the sandwiches he and Ziggy had shared the previous night, and the trays of sweetened pork, egg and fried rice were impossible to resist. He finished his plate quickly, and, as he took it up to the counter for another portion, he saw Josie looking for him in the doorway.

  He waved her over.

  She had a bag in her left hand and her walking stick in her right. She hobbled over, rested the bag on the floor next to the table and sat down. “Well?”

  “It’s finished,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “We buried him. He won’t be found.”

  She turned away from him, biting her lip.

  He felt the need to justify himself. “There wasn’t any other choice.”

  When she turned back to him, her eyes were cold. “I’m not sorry,” she said. “He got what he deserved.”

  Milton knew: she had striven so long to do the right thing and now his news—and the sure knowledge that she had facilitated de Lacey’s murder—was her repudiation of it. She was angry with herself, not with him. The curtain had been pulled back and now she saw how the world worked.

  “It’s my own fault,” she said, as if she could read his mind. “De Lacey called me naïve. Turns out he was right.”

  She reached down and placed her hand on her injured leg.

  “What about you?” Milton asked. “What happened afterwards?”

  “After you took him? They took us to the station. We were questioned. But Carlos backed me up. The crash, the two of you taking him and driving away. Our stories tallied. They said they believed it. What else were they going to say?”

  “And then?”

&n
bsp; “They had the whole district out searching for you. I told them I didn’t get a good look at the truck, but there were witnesses on the street who did. Where is it now?”

  “We torched it.”

  Milton noticed that she was looking at the door. An older woman who bore a striking resemblance to Josie was standing there. She was holding the hand of a young boy.

  “Mama!” Josie called out, waving at her.

  The old woman turned. The boy turned, too, and, on seeing Josie, he tugged his hand free and ran full pelt toward the table.

  Josie hugged him, grimacing as he bumped up against her leg, and then delicately disentangled him.

  The old woman reached the table and looked down at Josie’s stretched out leg and the walking stick. She put her hand to her face. Josie struggled to her feet and embraced her, then spoke earnestly to her again. Milton could tell that she was trying to reassure her. The boy saw the stick and Josie spoke calmly to him, too.

  They finished their conversation. “They haven’t seen me since I was shot,” she explained. “I haven’t been home. And I thought it best not to tell them on the phone. They’d only worry.”

  “Do they know who I am?”

  “No.” She gestured to where Milton was sitting and spoke in Filipino again. Milton caught his name at the end of the sentence.

  He turned to Josie’s mother. “Hello,” he said.

  The woman regarded him with unmasked suspicion.

  Josie spoke to her again. “Mama is very protective of me. She doesn’t mean to be rude.”

  “It’s fine,” Milton said. “I’d be suspicious, too.” He turned to the boy. “And this is your son?”

  The boy looked up at him shyly.

  The boy looked at his mother and then at Milton. He showed the same suspicion as his grandmother.

  “Angelo,” Josie chided, “say hello.”

  “Hello.”

  Milton had never been good with children. “Hello,” he said. “How are you?”

  The boy shrugged.

  “He’s shy,” Josie apologised. “But he speaks very good English.”

  “Do you?” Milton asked.

  “Mama says so,” Angelo said quietly. “Are you her friend?”

  “I am,” Milton said.

  “She’s been shot.”

  He said it with wide eyes, as if the information, when shared with his friends at school, would mean an elevation in his status.

  Milton smiled at him.

  “Mama,” Josie said, before continuing in Filipino.

  The older woman nodded and took the boy’s hand and led him away from the table.

  “I asked her to give us a moment,” Josie explained.

  Milton stood. “It’s okay. I’ll go. You should be with them. I don’t want to intrude.”

  She ignored that. “You asked what I did last night. I didn’t get to finish. I went to see Dalisay in the hospital. He’s going to make it. Another centimetre either side and he’d be dead now, just like I could’ve been dead. We were both lucky. I spoke to him and he helped me make up my mind. So I went back to my desk, wrote up my resignation letter and mailed it. I’m done.”

  Milton listened to her and, when she was finished, he reached out and laid his hand over hers.

  “I don’t blame you. I would’ve done the same thing.”

  She took her hand away. “Principles are great, but now I have to put food on the table. Got any ideas?”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “There’s one more thing you can do for me first.”

  She nodded that he should go on.

  “They’ve identified Logan’s body,” he said. “They think it’s me.”

  “And you want them to think that?”

  “Yes. I left my prints on the gun I left there. They’ve matched it with the prints you took when you arrested me.”

  “So you want me to say that I saw you being shot? An unidentified man shot you and Mendoza, and then the same guy shot me in the leg.”

  “Could you do that?”

  “Sure. What’s one more lie going to mean? I’m already up to my neck in them.”

  “When I was in the car with Mendoza on the way to Tondo, I made him take the expressway. Do the cameras on the toll booths work?”

  “Usually,” she said.

  “If you check the video, you’ll be able to find his car. I made sure I was looking at the camera. We used the second lane from the right. You’ll be able to match it with my photos and prove I was in his car. I doubt you’ll need anything else.”

  She nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

  “Thank you.”

  Milton took the leather satchel and gave it to her. “You asked if I could help. I can. Here.”

  She unzipped the satchel, opened the mouth and looked inside. Milton could see the thick wedges of bank notes.

  “What is this?”

  “I thought you—”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “From Mendoza. I found it under the floor in his villa.”

  She zipped the bag up again and put it on the table. “No.”

  “You said it yourself—you’re going to need money.”

  “Not if it’s dirty.”

  “It’s just money. It doesn’t matter where it came from.”

  “Of course it does.”

  “Keep it. Donate it. Do whatever you want with it. It’s up to you.”

  She stared at the bag for a moment. Milton could see that she was considering it. He could guess at her competing thoughts: she was weighing the integrity that was so obviously important to her against the exigencies of providing for her son without a regular wage.

  “Thank you,” she said at last.

  “It’s the least I could do.”

  He offered her his hand and she took it.

  “Be careful, John.”

  “You too.”

  He was about to leave when she put her hand to her forehead. “Wait,” she said. “I almost forgot. I brought you something, too.”

  She reached down awkwardly and collected the bag from the floor. She put it on the table and pushed it over to Milton. He opened it and reached inside. It contained the things that she had taken from him when he had been arrested.

  He took out his copy of the Big Book and flipped through the pages.

  “I went and got it from evidence,” she said. “I thought you’d want it.”

  “I do. Thank you.”

  He saw the flashes of yellow where he had highlighted the passages that meant the most to him. They reminded him that he needed to get to a meeting.

  “Where are you going to go?” she asked.

  “Haven’t decided yet. I need some time to think.”

  “I’ll see you around then, Milton.”

  “Good luck.”

  The old woman and the boy were waiting in the road outside the café. Milton paused and knelt down before the boy. “Your mother is very brave,” he said. “Look after her.”

  Milton didn’t know whether Angelo would understand him, but the boy stood a bit straighter and gave a solemn little nod. “I will,” he said.

  Milton smiled at him and shook his little hand.

  He stood, said goodbye to Josie’s mother, and made his way back to his car.

  90

  MILTON DROVE for four hours. The city of Lucena was a hundred and twenty miles southeast of Manila, and he followed the main north–south route to Calamba and then turned to the east. He passed the wide inland waterway of Laguna de Bay and then the holy mountain of Mount Banahaw. He stopped to refuel and looked out at the volcano, its huge bulk wreathed with clouds and dominating the landscape for miles around.

  His thoughts ran away with him again. He had spent the drive thinking about Josie and Angelo, and that, in turn, had prompted him to think about Jessica and her son. The suggestion that he might have been a father had stirred up a maelstrom of feelings that he hadn’t even
started to unpack; in truth, he didn’t know where to start. That vague possibility, raised by a woman that he hadn’t seen for ten years, had caused him to leave his cloistered life and fly halfway around the world. It had defused his natural caution and had very nearly led to his death. His impulsive reaction was out of character and it raised questions and possibilities that he had never considered before.

  He had never thought himself capable of paternal feelings. Children made him feel awkward. He didn’t know what to say to them. He didn’t know how to deal with them. More than all of that, he didn’t think he deserved the happiness that children might bring. He had shunned conventional relationships for the same reason. He had always believed he had too much to atone for to allow himself the luxury of happiness.

  What had changed?

  He didn’t know.

  He didn’t really know why he was driving south, either, only that it was something that he felt he had to do.

  Milton went inside the gas station to pay and bought a bundle of twelve cigarillos, unfiltered cigarettes that were wrapped in colourful printed paper. He went outside and lit up. The stick was longer than the brands that he bought at home, and the tobacco had a sweet kick during the drag. They were probably unhealthy, but Milton didn’t care. He needed a vice, and this was better than the alternative. They were more intense, too, than the cigarettes that he usually smoked, and that was something he could use to take his mind off his confusion and what he was intending to do.

  He got back into the car, wound down the windows, and set off to the east once more.

  * * *

  THE ADDRESS that Ziggy had found was on Evangelista Street.

  It ran through a low-rent commercial district, and, as Milton cruised along it, he passed a pharmacy, a car wash and a women’s fashion shop. The satnav bleeped that he had reached his destination; he pulled over into a space at the side of the road, checked the address once again, and got out.

  He walked back along the street until he got to Papay, a fast-food bakery that was advertised by a cartoon character designed to look like Popeye in a chef’s hat. There was a faded hoarding above the shop, and suspended from two chains attached to a rickety L-shaped pole was a sign that creaked as it oscillated back and forth in the light breeze that blew in off the sea. The café was housed on the ground floor of a two-storey building. The paint was peeling away, the windows were barred, and washing had been hung out to dry on the first-floor balcony.