Whoever these two people were, they were being very quiet for a reason. Slowly inching herself away from the log, she turned her head to look in the direction she had come from. She saw nothing to concern her, but nonetheless made sure that her escape route was clear to the best of her knowledge.
Shuffling back centimetre by centimetre, her body shook with the effort of being quiet even when she desperately needed to open up her lungs and breathe deeply. Judging that she had moved enough, she rose slowly and walked as carefully as she could, nodding for Ash to follow. Dropping onto slightly lower ground, she reckoned she had put enough distance between them and quickened her pace. Another hundred paces and her nerve broke; she sped up into a run as fast as her own safety would allow across broken ground littered with tree roots. Ash kept pace effortlessly as she burst into the camp to find most people already assembled by the gates.
There was a visitor.
~
Neil was on watch when the lone wanderer came into his sight. Raising a quiet alarm resulted in him being joined by Mitch only seconds later as both watched the approaching figure through telescopic sights.
By the build and the pinch of the waistline above the hips, Neil guessed that the unexpected visitor was female and by all indications from the silhouette before him, nicely put together at that. She walked steadily, not too fast or too slow, with her arms out to the sides. As she came closer, Mitch spoke to him without raising his eye from the rifle.
“Female. Mid-thirties,” he stated.
Neil could see that well enough for himself. She was wearing tight jeans and a T-shirt which didn’t quite meet the leather belt she wore.
At a hundred paces, just before Mitch was about to issue a challenge, she stopped. Keeping her arms out to her sides, she performed a slow circle, showing the watching sentries that she was unarmed. Turning around a second time for good luck, she continued her methodical approach to the gates.
Standing and slowly loading a round into the chamber of his rifle, Mitch watched as the metallic sounds echoed down to her. The message was clear: she had come far enough.
“Bonjour. Je suis Christine,” she called out in a curiously deep voice for such a slim woman.
Mitch’s language skills were limited to only English and foul but thought he recognised enough to believe that the woman had just said hello and was called Christine.
Happy with his cultured and very metropolitan experience, he jumped down to further the international working relationship by searching her at gunpoint. She complied readily enough, although she exuded an air of boredom as she responded to the sign language and grunted orders from Mitch.
Neil watched on, part mesmerised by the appearance of the woman who he would describe as striking more than attractive, and part worried about an encounter with another group. His experience of others over the last in recent history had left him cynical at best.
When Mitch was satisfied that the woman really was unarmed, he lowered his weapon and asked her what she wanted. As a typical Brit abroad, he was sure to speak loudly and slowly as though that would aid her understanding.
She looked at him, her eyes boring through him and making him feel distinctly uncomfortable. There was something of a feline manner about the way she looked at him. The way she moved made him mindful of something predatory, and he decided that he didn’t trust her.
“What do you want?” he said again, loud and slow.
“Talk?” she said with a heavy accent, unsure of the word.
She shrugged and rattled off a sentence in rapid-fire French, never taking her eyes off him or dropping the slightly amused look that a cat would give a mouse.
She tried again, pointing at Mitch.
“Français?” she said, mimicking his unintentionally condescending tone. Exasperated by the lack of understanding, she shrugged and dropped her arms to her sides petulantly.
“I come again,” she said as she turned and walked away, “in English.”
They could only watch as her hips snaked away down the long approach road. At that point, both men were snapped out of their voyeurism by a shout from inside the camp. Mitch ran back inside to see Leah jogging into the square.
“Two men in the woods,” she said succinctly, barely out of breath, “just sitting still.”
Ash sat obediently and looked up at the pair, unsure if the conversation would turn to him with praise. His head switched from soldier to teenager as though he was watching a tennis match as they took turns to speak.
“We’ve just had a woman turn up here,” he told the girl. “She didn’t speak English and just left. Too much of a coincidence that they aren’t together.”
Questions were fired from both sides, questioning whether the waiting men in the woods were armed, and Leah gave her responses before asking her own questions about the woman. All around them a buzz of excitement was growing as the others gossiped about what they had heard and what it could mean.
Leah became very aware of the small crowd gathering, and she twitched her head for Mitch to walk away with her.
“So what do we do?” she asked in a hushed tone when out of earshot of the others.
“Nothing until Dan gets back,” Mitch replied dutifully, “but we need to prep. Two-minute drill?” he asked her with eyebrows raised.
“Two-minute drill. Yes,” she replied after a moment’s thought. This was something they had worked on with the whole group. When instructed, they were all to be ready to leave within two minutes. That meant that everything they weren’t immediately using was to be packed up and ready to go at any time. It meant sleeping with your boots on. It meant raising the panic levels considerably, but it reduced the chances of them being caught with their collective trousers down.
Orders were given, extra guards posted and the group busied themselves packing all their gear away. Just as Leah was preparing to lay some noise traps in the woods with Jimmy, the sound of a motorbike engine pierced the sky.
THE ENEMY WITHIN
Eventually, Steve was summoned to see the major.
He instantly swallowed his involuntary scoff at the self-awarded promotion in a hierarchy which no longer held any semblance of credibility. He had no legitimate lieutenants or captains, nor did he answer to any colonels or generals. He was a self-styled military dictator, and no floral display of humility or service could hide that fact.
Still, Steve thought, play along. Play the weakling, don’t be a threat, and keep your head down. If Richards saw him as a broken and beaten man, then he could not be forced to play a role in the subjugation of the occupied citizens. Could not be bullied or threatened into trying to fly again, not that he had any hopes of recovering the strength required to do so.
He had to appear weak, and although he had been preparing for this summons for days now, he still made a show of seeming flustered and confused. Although his wits were restored, he knew that his body was not. He couldn’t hope to fight his way out of an ambush conducted by babies firing water pistols at this point, and he had to show the world for all he was worth that he was finished.
To allow even a flash of his inner fire to show through his eyes could spell his death, and if he died then his hopes for realising the plan he was hatching would die with him.
He shook. He twitched as he spoke and seemed to lose his focus. He seemed racked by sudden pains in his head and body and he could barely walk unaided. If Richards saw him as just a half-soaked cripple, then he would not try to use him and would not need to kill him.
He had to act it out perfectly.
The guard who had brought the summons was pre-empted by the news which was brought by a runner to the window at the back of his damp and breezy room. Jan’s eyes shot up and fixed on Steve as he heard the gentle knock, knock, knock at the window before the unknown courier vanished into the sprawling camp. The agreed signal, whispered among the underground rebels over mealtimes, that Richards was planning to bring Steve to him.
The two nodded to each ot
her, both aware of what they had to do now. Steve lay back and half curled up, feigning the pains that racked him as his body cried out for more morphine. Jan sat in the chair and silently ignored his pretend pain. Moments later, the door opened without warning and an armed man strode in. He had the look of a soldier in that he carried a rifle and wore a green camouflage uniform shirt and trousers, but the ill-disciplined and wild look he wore showed no signs of training. This man wanted to be on the winning side, and he enjoyed the power it afforded him over others. Had he been living somewhere else when it happened, then he would have become a follower of the King of Wales or Bronson. He was a bully, nothing more.
“Get up,” he growled at Steve, who only responded with a whimper and curled up into a tighter ball. “The major wants to see you. Now!”
He offered no more words, merely glared at Jan until, with an annoyed sigh, he carefully folded the page in the book he was reading and placed it down before getting up and manhandling Steve upright. He was sure to treat him without any obvious sign of care or respect, like he was just doing the job he was given by watching over the sick man until he was told to do something else.
“On your feet, you bastard,” Jan grumbled without any real malice as he forced Steve up into a sitting position, bringing him his crutches. Still he had to half hold him as he made his slow progress in leaving the cabin. Jan was sure to wrap him in an extra blanket to show just how much he felt the cold even though the temperature of early autumn was still warm. All part of the act.
Twice Steve feigned a stumble, and twice he had to be helped back up to continue on his way to the meeting.
Richards was not a man who liked to be kept waiting, and every minute Steve wasted getting there was likely to be a minute less spent in the company of the man as he no doubt had a schedule he intended to stick to.
Eventually, he found himself at the bottom of the stone steps which were originally a library or museum, he guessed, the top of which sported a sandbagged embrasure complete with crew-served machine gun. Whatever the steps once led to, they were now the way into the headquarters of the camp commander. Already, Steve had heard reference made to Richards as “The Commander” as much as people called him “Major”, and he guessed this distinction was one that the man would happily allow as it afforded him the highest rank in people’s eyes.
There is no higher power than him: that is what the message said loud and clear.
Sweating and exhausted from making the short journey seem infinitely more difficult than it truly was, Steve collapsed onto a hard wooden bench where he was told to wait. His chest heaved to recover the expended energy, and although he had pretended to be physically broken, he had to admit to himself that the truth was not a quantum leap away from the imagination.
Heavy, dark oak double doors which stretched halfway to the tall ceiling were thrown open, and out strode the magnanimous Major Richards, resplendent in his uniformed glory and flanked by his ever-present personal guard. This personal guard, if met under different circumstances, would raise hilarity of epic proportions. Dressed in camouflage as all the other “troops”, these men stood out because they wore their combat trousers tucked into high boots, sported a bright red sash tied about their right arms and wore full-face balaclavas like terrorists filming a propaganda video. Maybe next they planned some thunderbolts on their collars.
Again, Steve had to fight to keep a laugh inside at the stupidity of how seriously this man took himself.
All comedy aside, he wondered just how hard a job it would be to overthrow this dictator; heavy machine guns guarding his headquarters against the general populace as well as anonymous guards flanking his every step indicated a man who felt threatened. A man who felt comfortable and safe would likely surround himself with beautiful female assistants, not faceless armed men.
Forcing his head back into the game, Steve concentrated on taking in every detail he could while acting like a broken man who offered no threat. With a glance at the guard who had summoned him, Richards nodded into the office with his chin and walked back inside after offering a single, withering glance at the man he once thought would be his right-hand man.
Sitting behind his desk and producing a bottle with two crystal glasses, he was blithely unaware that he had tried the same forced camaraderie with Steve before. It had failed then too.
Pouring two ungenerous measures into the glasses as Steve was dumped unforgivingly into the chair opposite, he slid one over to him without a word. Playing the character well, Steve reached for the glass with a shaking hand and drank desperately as though he sought any temporary reprieve from the pain he felt. Coughing and choking on the fierce liquid, he wiped his mouth and leaned back in the chair, waiting.
Richards sipped his own drink and then swirled the contents in small circular motions as he looked intensely at the bottom of the glass. He stopped and looked directly at Steve.
“You caused a great deal of disappointment,” he said icily, “not that any of it matters any more.” He held eye contact with Steve a second past it feeling uncomfortable.
Smiling his false smile, he rose from his seat and waved a regal glass-filled hand at the window and the sprawling population centre spilling out as far as the eye could see.
“We’ve accomplished a great deal without your help and you should feel lucky; if you had done what you did now instead of then, it could be viewed as treason. The punishment for treason is death.”
Steve’s eyes widened at the revelation. The man had casually reintroduced capital punishment, demonstrating that he held the power of life and death and he wielded that power over the people like a spoilt child with a stick.
Satisfied that he had elicited a reaction of fear which he misread in Steve’s expression, he went on with a well-rehearsed speech about their achievements in rescuing people and the protection he offered the world now. His vitriol extended deep into his own visions for a strong, united future.
The sheer depths of the man’s depravity were becoming clear to Steve. He was the worst kind of lunatic alive.
A fanatic.
A powerful man so consumed by his own ideas that he would never be able to see how hated, how power-hungry and crazed he had become. He had brought back the death penalty to a desperately depleted population with no way of knowing if the human race could be propagated. He ruled with fear and violence to force people, who previously counted themselves as free and lucky, to work and fortify his compound. He put them to work in the fields farming to feed his growing army. He treated disobedience as treason. There was nothing more dangerous, Steve thought, than a man with power over others who wholly believes that he is the only one with the foresight to shape the future.
~
Finishing his podium speech, Richards sat down in his chair still wearing his ridiculous mask of the benevolent master. He saw Steve looking at him in horror, and his own ego made him interpret that as pure fear.
And why shouldn’t this man feel fear? He stole from him. He made him look foolish and weak. He disappointed him.
Still, it wasn’t hard to find him. Who else was flying around in a helicopter? It took only a few months for his scouts to report back with the location of their home, a prison of all ghastly places, and after that it was a simple matter to send in his best spies and then arrive in overwhelming force and take it all away from him.
Those he had selected for questioning had yielded a variety of different information; the fact that their leader and twenty others had left a short time before and not returned irked him considerably. He told himself he would have liked to meet this Dan character, to see if he stood up to all the things he had heard about him. If the stories were true, then this was a man who would surely see his vision of a united future. He would even have been worthy of a high-ranking position, which would obviously have helped integrate the rest of the group under his rule.
If he objected, or lacked the foresight to join him, then the virtuous opponent would have made a fine ad
versary and his eventual execution would have the same effect on the dissident members of his flock.
He sipped his drink again, staring coldly at the man who had embarrassed him once.
“Luckily for you, I’m feeling generous,” he said, leaning back and half expecting thanks. “Besides, executing an unwell man would hardly offer much entertainment. Now begone! I’m tired of your company.”
A nod was raised to one of the balaclava-clad guards and Steve was aggressively hoisted from his seat and sent back out into the hallway where Richards’s voice echoed out to him.
“Rest assured, I’ll want to speak to you again when you are sufficiently healed. Everyone must earn their keep here.”
Being so unceremoniously bundled from the grand office offered him a snapshot of a desk he had not seen when he entered. Behind the ornate wood, he saw a young man so elegantly groomed that he seemed almost feminine. The immaculately coiffed hair couldn’t hide the red-ringed eyes which burned intensely. Another strand to the unfolding scheme fell into place for Steve at that moment.
The waiting guards chivvied him and Jan back to their isolation in silence. When he collapsed breathlessly onto his bed, he grabbed the nurse’s arm and held tight.
“I promise you one thing,” he said through gritted teeth, “that mad man has to die.”
PRIORITIES
It was unfair for Dan to have implied any failing in the others. In fact, after he had calmed down from hearing the news, he recognised that he would have done exactly as they had done.
Everything except let the woman leave.
Now they had an unknown group in the area, with no communication, who obviously had knowledge of the ground and some form of skill set. He would have liked to ask the woman himself, probably loudly and slowly in English, but he couldn’t because they had simply let her go.
Sanctuary: After It Happened Book 5 Page 8