by Shaun Baines
“I never thanked you for saving my life,” Daniel said.
Bronson’s face darkened. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You’ve already done things you didn’t want to do. I know you didn’t want to kill my brother. You sure you want to add blowing yourself up to that?”
Rivulets of rain ran down Bronson’s frown, around his angry eyes and perched in his moustache. “I’m not going to get blown up. We’re going to arm the bomb. We’re going to have a nice little sit down while we wait for Fairbanks. We watch him go sky high and then it’s off to the pub. Okay?”
“Nothing we’ve done has worked so far. What makes you think this will go according to plan?”
“For fuck’s sake, Daniel,” Bronson said, plunging his hand into the sports bag. “No-one dies today.”
He froze while Bronson fumbled for the switch. There was a click and the bomb was armed.
“Now take your hand out. Nice and easy,” Daniel whispered.
Any disturbance to the bag and the bomb would be triggered. He could tell Bronson was thinking the same. His face was contorted in concentration and he held his breath. Daniel held his too as Bronson lifted his hand free. And then he stopped.
Daniel looked at him alarmed. “What?”
“My hand.”
“What about it?”
“It’s stuck.”
Daniel peered into the bag and saw only darkness. “What’s it stuck on?”
“How am I supposed to know? Why don’t we swap places and I’ll take a look?”
Daniel saw the mercury ball quiver as he gently pulled back the lip of the bag. His hand shook, but with more light, he saw the problem. “The lining’s snagged on your watch. I’m going to have to loosen it.”
“There’s barely enough room for my hand, never mind yours. Just leave it.”
“How can I fucking leave it? What am I going to say to Fairbanks? Here’s your ten million quid and guess what? It comes with a free idiot.”
Daniel took a deep breath and reached into the bag. His fingers quaked. He rested them delicately on the face of Bronson’s watch, waiting until his nerves subsided. The switch and the mercury were hidden from view, but it didn’t matter. If the mercury moved, they’d know about it one way or another.
The lining of the bag was hooked over a link in the wrist band. Using his fingernail, he scratched the edge of the metal.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Bronson said. “You arm the bomb.”
The rain made the material slippery. Twice he thought it was loose before Daniel eventually freed it from the watch. He pulled his hand from the bag and watched Bronson do the same.
“Fuck,” they said in unison.
Jogging to the perimeter of the picnic area, they found a spot behind a thick dog rose and settled in, the drizzle soaking into their clothes.
***
At five pm, nothing happened. Daniel’s clothes clung to him like wet rags and his fingertips were wrinkled. The soil under his boots had been churned into a quagmire. He resisted stretching his legs. It might give away their position and although Fairbanks hadn’t shown yet, Daniel sensed he was nearby.
Bronson checked his watch. “Is this tart going to show or what?” He eased himself into a more comfortable position, stepping on a pocket of air under the mud. It escaped from his foot to the sound of a fart and he looked at Daniel. “That wasn’t me.”
Daniel ignored him, scanning the picnic area through a curtain of grey rain. He nudged Bronson and pointed at a path between two bushes. A small figure stood alone, arms clasped to their chest, the rain clinging to its clothing. The heavy drizzle masked their identity, but it wasn’t Fairbanks.
“Who let’s their kid out on a day like this?” Bronson said. “Should be in bloody school.” He settled back down, careful about where he placed his feet.
Daniel wiped the rain from his face, his cold fingers finding the furrows of his brow. Who was that? Why were they alone? He searched the treeline, but there was no-one else around. “They’re staring at the bag.”
Bronson cupped his hand over his eyes and looked again. “Probably wondering if it’s worth nicking,” he said.
The kid inched forward, checking over its shoulder, peering into the darkness of the trees. Whoever it was, they were hesitant, scared. Daniel shifted for a better view. As he moved, the kid ran into the picnic area.
“Shit, Daniel. They’re going for the bomb.”
Frozen with indecision, Daniel watched the child, a girl, running full tilt toward their trap. She was young, dressed in jeans, T-shirt and a cardigan that was too big for her. Water splashed around her feet. Her tiny arms pumped maniacally by her sides. Her pale face was twisted in fear and he remembered the same face staring at him through the window of his car. He vaulted over the shrubbery and ran screaming toward her.
“Eisha, no. Stay away.”
She was almost at the table, her hand out for the bag. Seeing her father, she skidded to a stop, leaving tracks in the mud behind her.
“Stay away from the bag,” he shouted.
Bronson was seconds behind him.
Eisha ran toward him. His arms stretched for her. His heart thundered, not because he was running, but because of the fear in her eyes. Three more steps and he’d have her.
“Daniel,” Bronson shouted. “Watch out.”
He wasn’t sure what happened next. Did he hear the crack of rifle fire first or the explosion of the bomb? It didn’t matter. He was in the air, looking at the ground where the sky had been. A great hand of flame carried him upward and then vanished, leaving him to fall like a raindrop. As he hit sodden earth, his breath was stolen from his lungs. He was drowning. He crawled to his hands and knees, feeling the skin on his back tighten and split.
Daniel raised his head and roared in pain.
There were voices, but couldn’t tell where they came from. His strength disappeared and he collapsed, lying on the cool, wet grass.
“Daniel? Mate? Say something.”
Two faces hove into view as Bronson and Eisha peered over him. He reached out and fumbled for his daughter’s hand. “Are you alright, Eisha?”
“You shielded her from the blast,” Bronson answered. “Lucky her old man’s got a fat arse.”
His back felt like he’d been given a thousand lashes. His head was raw and cold, and he suspected the aroma of burning flesh came from his hair and scalp.
Daniel cupped his daughter’s concerned face in his hand. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Eisha started to cry. “I’m so sorry. It was this man. He lied to the nurses and said he was there to collect me. The Ward Sister said it was okay.”
He stirred, staggering to his feet. There was no way the Sister would give Eisha away to a stranger. Not after everything they’d done, but then he remembered telling her he would send someone to collect his daughter. It was a stupid mistake, but not the Ward Sister’s. It was his.
Bronson removed his coat and placed it around Eisha’s shoulders. She was shivering and forcing words through her chattering teeth. “He said that you wanted me to pick something up for you. I said I didn’t believe him. He said I was being naughty.” She looked down to her feet, avoiding Daniel’s stare. “Then I really did start being naughty, but then he started getting angry. He said he’d do things to me if I didn’t do as he said.”
Daniel dragged Eisha to him, pressing her trembling body to his. He hugged her, rubbing her back, anything he could think of to make her feel better until she squirmed out of his grasp.
“You’re being too hard,” she said.
He leaned down and gently kissed her forehead. The charred skin of his back tore with every movement, but he cast the pain aside. Flexing his hands open and closed, Daniel searched through the rain to the shade of the trees.
“He must be nearby,” Bronson said. “He shot the bag when you were getting close. That’s what set it off.”
“Take Eisha somewhere safe and don’t let her
out of your sight. Don’t go anywhere familiar.”
Bronson held out his hand to Eisha. She looked at it and looked back at her father.
“I want you to go with Uncle Bronson,” Daniel said. “He’s going to keep you safe.”
“I’m staying with you.” Eisha stamped her foot and her eyes flashed with the anger he’d been warned about.
“Don’t worry, girl,” Bronson said. “Your old man’s tougher than he looks and he looks pretty tough, doesn’t he?”
Eisha smiled, but refused to take his hand. “I want you to come back straight away, Daddy.”
Daniel nodded.
“I’ll be waiting,” she said.
He set off for the path circling the picnic area, silently promising his daughter to be the father she deserved. He searched his pocket, pleased to find his Heckler VP70 was where he left it. Jogging onto a track running parallel to the river, he stopped and dropped to his haunches. The river rumbled by. The drips from sodden leaves fell with the clatter of tiny bells. There was that alarm again; the sense that Fairbanks was near.
The bark of an ash tree exploded into splinters behind him. He saw a flash of muzzle fire through the murk. It came from the other side of the river. He lurched forward, keeping low, skidding down an unstable embankment slick with mud. He fought to keep upright and Fairbanks fired again, but Daniel was hidden by the slope. The water made him gasp as he waded through the river, his legs numbing with the cold. Slipping on a rock, he fell. The river, swollen with rain, hauled him under. His burnt back scraped along the uneven riverbed. He cried out, the bubbles of his scream lost in the froth of the water. Jamming his feet against a boulder, he launched himself to the surface, scrambling to the other side, coughing and retching. Daniel gulped down air before pulling out his pistol, hoping it was dry enough to use.
Aiming his pistol into the trees, he was relieved to hear it sound off. He kept it in his hand and climbed through the brambles, using them to pull himself to the top of the slope.
“Fairbanks? Are you there?”
He peered into a copse of trees. Some of them were old and their trunks over a foot thick. Fairbanks could be behind any one of them, shrouded in darkness and drizzle. The river thundered on toward a waterfall that dropped into a broiling chasm. He could barely hear himself think, never mind detect the approaching footsteps of a killer.
He heard a voice call from nowhere. “Clever idea about the explosives, Daniel. My Uncle would have called it a Trojan horse. I think it was plain underhand.”
He was close, thought Daniel. Crawling to the twisted trunk of a buddleia, Daniel rested against it, ignoring the pain in his back.
“You shouldn’t have used my daughter, Fairbanks.” Daniel continued on his stomach to a patch of high earth. He kept his gun ahead of him, ready to fire at any moment. This was his chance. One shot was all it took. “The last man who did that is dead,” he shouted through the rain.
“Well done. I had my suspicions it was Scott, of course. You Daytons are a sneaky bunch. That’s why I didn’t trust you to make the drop off.”
Tracking his voice, Daniel shuffled behind another tree and waited. Fairbanks was over-confident. He had to keep him talking. “How did you know to shoot the bag?”
It came from Daniel’s right, closer to the river than he would have liked. “The way you came running out of the bushes like a madman, I knew there was something in there you didn’t want your daughter touching. I couldn’t know what, but I knew it wasn’t money so I gave it a little prod to find out.”
Daniel backtracked, placing one careful foot behind the other. He saw him. Fairbanks was about twenty yards away, lying on his front, protected by a fallen tree trunk. He was wearing another Tweed jacket and his moleskin trousers. His rifle was pointing in the wrong direction, but to shoot him, Daniel needed to be on the other side of that fallen tree. His only options were to trek in front of Fairbanks and risk getting shot or slip behind him and risk sliding down the embankment into the river. He tapped his gun against the side of his leg, wishing he could think of a way of finally out-smarting the man.
There was one other option, which in ordinary circumstances, wasn’t an option at all, but under the churning of the river and darkness of the trees, it might work. Twenty yards wasn’t far and he didn’t have to make it all the way. The river and shadows would hide his advance. By the time Fairbanks realised his cover was blown, Daniel would be close enough to shoot over the log and into Fairbanks’ spine. Not a kill shot, but good enough.
He leaned against a tree and counted down from five. He got to three and bolted toward Fairbanks. He dismissed all thoughts of failure, all his past defeats at the hands of this man. He concentrated on running and aiming his gun. Tearing through the undergrowth, he made the distance and fired. It was a hit. The bullet ripped between Fairbanks’ shoulder blades, but he didn’t move. Daniel fired again. He missed, but Fairbanks remained stationary, refusing to return fire.
And then Daniel realised his mistake.
He spun in a circle, his gun waving in front of him, stumbling over the Tweed jacket stuffed with leaves. He lost his footing and fell with a thump, his body crying out its protests. The gun slipped from his wet hand and was immediately lost amongst the bracken. He searched frantically, but stopped at the sound of someone whistling.
Fairbanks loomed into view, his rifle pressed against his shoulder. He stood in his underwear, his wet shirt plastered to his thin frame. He was smiling, but his eyes were deadly serious.
“It was a decoy,” he said. “To lure you out into the open. I got the idea from your brother. He lured you back to Newcastle with your daughter, didn’t he?”
Fairbanks stopped smiling. “Can you stand?”
Daniel nodded and got to his feet.
“Can you walk to the river bank please?”
He followed Fairbanks’ instructions. As he approached, the sound of the rolling water grew louder. The river crashed into boulders and fallen trees, sending dirty spray into an air already soaked with rain. Daniel could see the waterfall further down, drumming relentlessly on the sharp rocks below.
“What happens now?” he asked.
Fairbanks cocked his head to one side, as if Daniel had asked the dumbest question he’d ever heard. On reflection, he probably had.
“I’m going to shoot you. Watch your body wash away. Then I’m going after your family.”
Daniel stepped forward, but Fairbanks halted his advance with a warning shot above his head. “I have to do it, Daniel. I can’t risk them coming after me for revenge. We both know how destructive that can be.”
“You don’t have to,” he said, wringing his hands. “It’s over. There’s nothing left.”
“What about your daughter? She said some very hurtful things to me. She’ll wait, but when she’s old enough, she’ll come looking, I can tell.”
Daniel smiled. His body relaxed. He looked over his shoulder at the grey water flecked with white and turned back to Fairbanks, shaking his head in disbelief. What he had feared most about Fairbanks was his ability to predict another person’s actions. He was always right and had been from the start. Fairbanks would be right until the moment of his death, which was only seconds away.
Eisha had come looking. She tiptoed through the woods, moving between trees and slipping through brambles like a ghost. He saw her eyes glitter in the darkness and she pressed a finger to her lips as she drew closer. Picking up a branch half her size, she hefted it behind her.
“I guess this is goodbye,” Fairbanks said, staring down his rifle.
Eisha swung the branch, her pretty face scrunched into a scowl. It connected with the back of Fairbanks’ head with a crack. His shot went wide. He toppled forward. Daniel scurried to catch him, but his daughter got there first. She lifted the branch again, bringing it down on an arm. It must have broken because Fairbanks squealed in pain, cradling it against his body.
Bringing the branch above her head, Daniel saw her bared teeth,
the thirst in her eyes. She was feral and meant to kill him. He hurried forward, snatching the branch from her hand.
She woke as if from a trance and stared at her father. “But I want to,” she said.
Throwing the branch to one side, he dragged Fairbanks to his feet.
“Thank you. I thought she was going to kill me.”
He looked at his daughter as she gaily pulled leaves from a bush. Her anger had passed. She was the little girl in the hospital bed; the little girl with her hand pressed against his car window. Seeing her now, playing in the woods, holding Bronson’s coat against the rain, no-one would suspect how close to madness she really was.
He had glimpsed his daughter as she really was for the first time. Daniel didn’t know who his parents were, but Eisha was her father’s daughter.
He dragged Fairbanks to the spot where he’d stood waiting to be shot. “I won’t let my daughter be corrupted. If there’s blood to be shed, I’ll do it.”
Holding him by his shirt, Daniel shoved him closer to the slope leading to the turbulent water below. Fairbanks’ face was blank, as it had been when Daniel threatened him with torture. He looked at the river with mild concern.
“And me without my fishing rod,” he said.
Daniel had many precious things in his life – his daughter, Lily, his dream of living a free life. They had all been made vulnerable by the man whose life he held in his hands. As far as Daniel knew, there was only one thing Fairbanks held dear and he nodded toward his earring.
“I know that thing is important to you. Do you want to die with it in or out?”
“In.” Fairbanks’ answer was fast and decisive, leaving Daniel in no doubt as to what to do. He reached for the earring.
Fairbanks’ bulbous eyes glistened with fear. “No, you don’t,” he said.
He kicked out, his feet striking Daniel’s shins in such a flurry of blows Daniel almost buckled. He held firm as Fairbanks wriggled like a dying fish, desperate to escape the hook. He spat in Daniel’s face, then clawed at his eyes. He weaved his head left and right.