by S. G Mark
“I can’t say if they saw the reg number, but we’ll have to dump this car pretty soon,” Emma said breathlessly to the two guys in front.
“Don’t worry, it’s stolen anyway,” the driver said, sending a grin round to both of them, “I’m Luke, and this is Sam.”
“Emma,” she smiled, “And this is Jack.”
“Cool, and you’re heading to meet the big K, yeah?” Luke said, stepping on the accelerator as they pulled out from a set of traffic lights.
“Yes,” she said, “He said he needed our help.”
“Cool, he’s at the safehouse on the posh side of town,” Sam said, “We can drop you off outside but we gotta head and dump this car straight afterwards.”
Jack looked at Emma and instantly felt uneasy. Kyle needed their help? For what? Jack had proven his ineffectiveness already.
“Where have you just come from then?” Sam asked.
“Blackpool,” Emma said, “How was it down here over Christmas?”
“Pretty dull, but ever since that attack in Fort William, it’s been chaos. Security is on high alert. Christ knows how he got out of that place himself without being caught.”
“Well you’ve got Jack to thank for that,” Emma grinned, “He, Kyle and another woman managed to escape.”
“Christ, Jack!” Luke turned round, narrowly missing a car on the other side of the road, “I can’t imagine what that was like. Kyle said they shot everyone they caught dead, is that right?”
“Yep,” Jack replied, resignedly gazing out the window. He’d just managed to erase the images from the forefront of his thoughts. Now they had just been regurgitated.
“The bastards,” Sam sighed, “We’ll make them regret that.”
“Will you?” Jack’s anger played his body as if it were a ventriloquist. “And how are you going to do that?”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said instantly, “I didn’t mean to offend.”
“Aye,” Jack said, “I’m sure you didn’t.”
They pulled over in the posh side of Leeds and jumped out of the car and down an alley in between back garden suburbia. Sam and Luke drove off seconds after they were out of sight. It was then that Emma reeled on Jack.
“What the fuck was that about?” she demanded.
“Don’t make me out to be a fucking spectacle again,” he replied, marching on defiantly without even knowing where they were headed.
“What? I was telling you how courageous you were? What the fuck is wrong with that?” she grabbed his arm.
“Because I wasn’t. I was just there. Don’t make me out to be more than I am,” he said.
“Where’s this coming from?” she stood in the alleyway, blindsided by this sudden appearance of anger.
“Two hours we were on that train for and you barely said one word to me because I asked you about your family and you got pissed off… I’ve been taken half way across the country for reasons I don’t have a fucking clue about… you tell me Kyle has plans for me but don’t bother to fucking explain what they are? I have no idea what is going on in my own life and then you come out with these brilliant one liners about how brave I was in a situation where all I did was, once again, follow orders from someone else because I’m too stupid to come up with my own plan… so don’t you dare try to call me courageous again.”
“I’m sorry,” she stuttered, “I didn’t mean anything by it…”
“Which house is it?” Jack said impatiently.
“It’s just at the end of this alleyway,” she said, striding past him.
Both of them actively ignored the tension between them as they continued along the alleyway and turned the first left into the tiny front garden that belonged to number forty-two. The brass numbers on the door instantly reminded Jack of his own home at number forty-two, Relugas Road. A lifetime ago it felt since he had last laid eyes on it.
Any emotion that was building inside of him was cut of its oxygen supply the second the door was opened and Kyle’s grave features greeted them within.
The nineteen seventies returned in the form of a harshly decorated living room and cheap kitchen units. It was into the latter that they were directed, having only seconds to chance a glance at the rest of the downstairs. Another man sat by the kitchen counter, stacking up and counting what looked like fake Rations. He nodded with concentration when he saw them.
Kyle ordered them to stay in the corner whilst he went back into the living room. Apparently he had been holding a meeting in there and he would soon be finishing. Emma took this opportunity to uphold a complete and utter silence. Jack had no desire to break it either. Instead he dedicated the time to watching the man at the counter separate the existing single pile of Rations into four equal towers.
Moments later, they heard the scuffle of people vacating the living room and spilling out into the hallway. Kyle was chatting amongst them - his voice ringing out clearer than all the others - as he held the front door open for them. Seconds after it closed, he reappeared in the kitchen and summoned them through to the living room. Eager to escape the awkwardness, Emma raced through whilst Jack loitered, unsure if he even wanted to know what Kyle required him for. He turned to the Counting Man.
“What are you doing?”
The man looked up at him, bewildered, “Sorting out Rations for the meeting tomorrow, why do you ask?”
“Whose are they - they aren’t legal?”
The man laughed openly, but his smiled faded when he realised Jack wasn’t joking. Immediately, the man looked to Kyle for guidance.
“He’s new around here,” Kyle offered his explanation, before grabbing Jack’s arm and steering him into the living room.
Jack slumped into the dusty sofa beside Emma, who was sitting up straight, awaiting orders. Kyle shut the door behind him and slowly stepped up to take centre stage.
“Thank you both for coming,” he began, “And Jack, I can’t tell you how great it is to see that you’re okay.”
Jack grunted a reply. Kyle tilted his head inquisitively.
“What’s wrong?”
Emma suppressed a laugh. Kyle rounded on her instantly.
“Tell me what’s going on,” he ordered.
Emma’s cheeks unfurled into seriousness as she stepped back into her soldier's shoes, “Jack has a little problem accepting his place in The Resistance, I think, sir.”
Kyle turned his attention to Jack, who was now glaring right back at him. He hated how exposed he felt right now. He wished he hadn’t overreacted in the car, but he couldn’t help how he felt. He was just a pawn in some bigger game and he had no greater part to play than to do as his superiors ordered.
“Well, I think Jack may feel a little differently by the end of the night,” he said, “Emma you know what the task is, but I’ll repeat it for Jack here.”
Jack looked up eagerly, but attempted to suppress his interest.
“Alan Marsh has been working for us for a number of months. He’s an accountant who has been giving us information on some of our local politicians and big businessmen. CRU are on to him however and we need to move him tonight. You and Emma are going to do that. We’ve got a car for you and an address to take him to. His family know nothing of what he has done so we are hoping they will be fine.”
“You are hoping they will be fine?” Jack said, outraged by the pitiful act of humanity.
“We can’t relocate an entire family - there would be too many risks, not to mention who else in their family may be implicated in their disappearance.”
“Right, so we just hope that they’ll be fine?”
“Yes,” Kyle said defiantly, “That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
Jack disagreed entirely, but knew whatever protest he made would be ignored.
Meanwhile, Kyle dug deep into his pockets and threw a set of keys into Emma’s hands.
“It’s the black Volkswagen Golf parked three streets away. Reg plate begins with an S,” he told Emma as he handed her a piece of paper, “And t
his is the address you’re taking him to. Memorise it and then bin it.”
Emma nodded affirmation before standing immediately.
“Can you give me five minutes alone with Jack?” Kyle asked. Emma nodded and left the room.
Kyle rounded on Jack like an incensed bull, “What the fuck is this attitude about? Was what Emma said correct?”
Jack shrugged his shoulders, “I am fucking confused right now. In the space of three days I’ve been taken from HQ, narrowly avoided being caught at a recruitment event, seen people shot before my very eyes, drove as a fugitive to Blackpool with some woman I might never meet again, and next thing I know I’m being dragged to Leeds to help save the neck of this accountant for reasons I’m still not entirely clear on?”
Anger seeped through every pore on Kyle’s face, “In three days, Jack, you’ve experienced more of what it’s like to be in The Resistance than most of our recruits ever face - do you know why? It’s not because we don’t let them see what it’s like, it’s because they are more often than not killed by CRU officers within the first six weeks of joining. I kept you in training because I didn’t want you to be a Six Weeker. And I’m sorry if you aren’t in the loop about everything, Jack. I really am. But maybe you have to prove your worth before you are privy to any decisions that go on around here. Maybe you have to be actively involved in what we are before you have any damn choice on what we do. And as for this Alan Marsh? We owe that man beyond reckoning. Without him, and accountants like him, we wouldn’t have had the funds to pay for your new ID or to print fake Rations and hand them out to those in need. Who the fuck is going to give us their financial backing? We are terrorists in the public’s eye. Alan Marsh is just one of many accountants who took a small percentage from the rich and redirected it to us. So if you want to know why we owe it to him to save his life, then all you need to do is count the lives he’s saved from starvation. Do that and then come back and judge me for my decisions. We can’t relocate his family. They don’t even know what he has done and that’s a decision that he made himself. So do you understand now?”
Jack felt a shiver down his spine. He wasn’t quite sure how to swallow so much information without choking on his own assumptions. He looked Kyle directly in the eye, and a fleeting desire for Eliza to be at his side suffocated him for a second, before he found the courage to speak, and even then he ensured to keep it brief.
“Thank you,” he said.
Chapter Eleven
Emma was waiting for him in the hallway, busying herself by unpicking a thread from her fingerless gloves. She looked up as he closed the living room door behind him. A fraction of light spilled in through the frosted glass in the front door; the hallway was smothered in a graphite darkness. For a second he thought she was going to ask him how he was, but whatever had been on the tip of her tongue had quickly been swallowed, and Emma the soldier reared her fearsome head.
“Let’s move out then,” she said, reaching to unlock the front door, leaving Jack little time to object.
The car was waiting for them as promised and it was identifiable in the rows of parked cars - lost to all but the intended owner. They got inside and were immediately wrapped in a sheet of ice.
“Fuck, it’s colder in here than out there,” Jack said, blowing on his hands and rubbing them together.
“I’ll get the heater on once we’re on the move,” Emma said, checking her mirrors as she pulled out.
Kyle had clearly given her the full set of instructions hours in advance of Jack hearing about their mission. Though Jack now understood what they were doing in Leeds, there was something unsettling about the need-to-know policy in place. Again, he could understand the reasons for it: safety of everyone involved was a major bonus for secrecy… but that was exactly what it was. Secrecy. Jack believed that there was enough of that already.
They drove a few miles out into another suburb of the city. Another leafy-green terrace - diminished only by the bitter winter, but crowned with a film of frost. Emma parked at the side of the road.
“What do we do now?” Jack asked, scanning the street ahead.
Emma twisted around to see the road behind her, “Well first off we stay where we are right now. There’s a couple of guys in that Nissan over there that are looking far too inconspicuous for my liking…”
“Too inconspicuous? Is that a thing?”
“It is when it’s the difference between staying alive or not,” she settled back in the driver’s seat, reaching out to the heating fan to warm her fingers.
“So what, we wait around here until they become less suspicious, or more conspicuous?”
“Maybe a bit of both,” she said, pointing ahead of her, “That’s Alan Marsh’s house there.”
Jack honed in on the tiny little terraced house. The front garden was a proud little affair of pot plants and hanging baskets, a gravel pathway - short and sweet - ran down to meet the pavement. The house itself was weather worn. The harling was a stained shade of brown normally reserved for scrublands.
“And he’s in there right now?” Jack asked.
Emma nodded, “Probably preparing the final meal he’ll make for his kids for a while.”
“That’s a horrible thought,” Jack said.
“It is what it is, we just have to deal with it,” Emma said, glancing into the rear-view mirror.
“And what, we just swoop in and grab him as he’s tucking his kids into bed?”
Emma rolled her eyes, “Yeah we snatch him just as he’s about to kiss them goodnight.”
“I’m only asking,” he said.
“Yeah, I’m sure you are. But try asking a sensible fucking question next time. This guy has asked us to help him. The CRU are on to him. He’s helped us, so we’re helping him.”
“But we can’t help his family too?”
Emma stifled a laugh, “Is that what Kyle told you?”
“What do you mean by that?”
Emma leaned over to the wing mirror on her side, “Get out of the car now.”
Obediently, Jack immediately got out of the car and just as his feet hit the pavement several smart suited men rushed by. Jack instantly looked to Emma for guidance, but her eyes were not gripped with fear as Jack’s were, but feigning delight.
“God it’s great to be out of that car,” she said cheerfully, “My legs were getting a bit numb. Now, which one is Nancy’s again?”
Emma over exaggerated her movements as she pretended to look for her fictional friend’s house. Jack surrendered to the situation and kept silent.
“Oh it’s that one, come on, we can nosy round the back - they’re always in the kitchen and never hear the front door anyway.”
Emma took off across the pavement and snuck through a small alleyway that led behind the row of terraced houses that Alan Marsh’s belonged to. The alleyway was not unlike the one they had crept around in Blackpool. High brick red walls, long worn by years of community neglect. A can of lager stuffed in between the bricks was overgrown with moss. With Emma sprinting on ahead, Jack tried his best to keep up with her, but without knowing the plan, his heart was a little reticent to participate in the race.
Eventually she stopped and rested her back plane against the wall. As Jack approached, he saw that she was standing just beside a tall gate into one of the back gardens and he didn’t need a particularly high IQ to guess which.
“Is this part of the plan?” Jack whispered, pessimistic of the answer.
“Ish,” Emma replied, peering round the corner and pressing her eye between the slats in the gate. “I think that’s his wife doing the dishes…”
“What else can you see?”
“Not much,” she said.
“Was he meant to meet us here?”
“No, that wasn’t the plan at all.”
“Then what was?”
“We were going to the ring door bell,” she said, not removing her head from the gate.
“I’m sick and tired of your jokes right now - I nee
d to know what’s going on,” Jack said, frustrated by her casual attitude.
“No, that was the plan. We were going to ring the doorbell, he would answer and we would take him away so that his wife and kids would think he was arrested by the CRU,” she said seriously, “So long as they thought the CRU took him, they wouldn’t be in any danger.”
“Sound logic,” Jack said sarcastically, “But what do we do now? You clearly thought those guys earlier were CRU or you wouldn’t have reacted like that…”
“I can’t be sure, but yeah… it’s likely.”
They stood in silence for a matter of minutes as they both tried to conceive new plans. Jack’s mind was immature to the concept of rescuing someone from the CRU. He had no experience in defying the CRU in any great capacity. He had carried around a fake ID for years and had maybe slipped past Curfew on the odd occasion, but this was an entirely different sport. Right now he had to conjure an escape plan for not only himself, but for Emma and this Alan Marsh. Not only that but he needed to ensure that Marsh’s family remained ignorant to the plan. Whatever ideas he might have had, it was never going to excel Emma’s superior experience. Her mind was wired to this whole life. It worried Jack at how perceptive she was. Glancing around her shoulders, she could tell who was friend from foe in an instant. Next to her, any plan Jack had was not even comparable; indeed it was fallacy that they were even in the same league.
Inadvertently, Jack was staring at Emma blankly. Her features were knotted with concentration. Jack casually wished his own reflected hers. Instead he felt they were contorted with a concoction of panicked torture. Maybe they had seconds to decide on what to do, maybe they had minutes. Either duration was not the great basis for a lifesaving plan.
“What’s it worth, to just go in there and grab them all?” Jack asked.
Emma looked at him as if he were a foolish child, “It’s not what’s going to happen, it doesn’t matter how much it’s worth.”