by R T Green
My eyes fell onto the bands of light around my wrists that were really starting to piss me off. Unless I could get rid of those, there was little I could do.
And something else was bugging the hell out of me. The why. Somehow LaTiri and her pals knew I was involved, back then. They knew my name, knew where to find me on the other side of the world.
That was scary enough. All-powerful was maybe nearer the mark than I thought.
But that was just a fly in the ointment compared to the real issue.
Why?
If she’d somehow been watching me all the time, the all-knowing LaTiri could easily have exacted her revenge and taken me out any time she wanted. On my grief-stricken run on foot from Dawson’s Hill; on the airfreight plane to Tobago arranged by my dad and his pilot pal; at any time in the last four weeks as I’d stumbled home drunk from Joe’s.
So why now? And why go to the trouble of drugging me and carting me here? Lisa’s sleeping pill could just as easily have been deadly poison; just as easily have taken me away into a happy sleep from which I’d never wake.
Why am I alive?
Why am I here?
A shiver I couldn’t stop ran through my body. Something else was playing out. Surely my new best friend couldn’t know how I’d tortured the evil Arik before I sliced the head from his body?
The shiver turned into a shudder. If she did, then my eventual fate was pretty much cut and dried.
I would be swatted for sure, like the fly in my proverbial ointment. But I’d very likely have my wings and legs removed, one by one, before I was splatted into oblivion.
Time passed. Maybe an hour, maybe a lot more. The Rolex was somewhere I couldn’t find.
I’d reanalysed everything I knew, more than once, convinced myself unspeakable torture would shortly be heading my way. Without any more hard facts, that was the only scenario.
I’d flashed the room once more, as much for something to do as anything else. Some kind of alloy frame was set into one wall, looked like it might be a window, but a black metal panel sat in front of it. I couldn’t find the magic switch to open it.
Some of the built-in cupboard doors and drawers wouldn’t open. I guess LaTiri didn’t want me raking through her most personal possessions. I was exhausted; whether the lingering effects of the drugs, or the recent effects of over-thinking, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t care. Unless a miracle occurred, my life was destined to end in extreme pain, so it seemed only right to take what comfort I could, and see if sleep would come. While I had the chance.
I grabbed the duvet from the bed, curled up on the sofa, and wrapped it around me. It was heaven, warm and incredibly soft, caressing my slightly-trembling body in the most perfect of ways. I was cocooned, safe for the moment in a very unsafe world. In moments consciousness faded, and beautiful sleep drifted across me, so gently I didn’t even know it had taken me away.
I didn’t hear the hiss of the door opening, as it slid aside and she entered the room. I didn’t hear her walk to the sofa, or see the smile as she silently gazed down on me.
But something in my subconscious made me stir, half open sleep-filled eyes. For a moment I saw Zana, and my heart began to beat harder. Then my brain caught up with my eyes, and I knew who it was. Still half-asleep, I tried to sit up.
She put out a hand, eased me back. ‘No, Madeline. You are tired, so please stay where you are.’
I found a little voice, mumbled the words. ‘Why am I here, LaTiri?’
She leant over and smiled again, gentle fingers caressing my cheek. ‘You call me by name.’
‘At least we’re even on that one.’
She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. Her hand drifted to my hair, brushed a lock away from my eyes. ‘You need your sleep, Madeline. And I am tired too. We shall talk in the morning.’
Her voice was soft, warm. She turned away, slipped off the white robe. I watched her as she walked over to the bed. Taller and a little leaner than Zana, she moved with a similar grace, like she was totally comfortable in her own skin.
She pulled another duvet from a tall cupboard and slipped into the bed. Semi-conscious as I was, and given my thought process of a few hours ago, I should have been petrified. But somehow I knew being petrified could wait a few more hours.
Whatever game she was playing, she was in no hurry. The next move wouldn’t come until tomorrow.
Chapter 92
‘Don’t even recognise half this stuff.’
‘You not much of a cook then, Miles?’
‘I know how to keep a takeaway warm.’
Coop shook his head at his partner’s lack of culinary knowledge, cast his eyes around the bustling food stalls, and then caught site of a shop that made him smile. ‘Hey Miles, you fancy a little memento of your Caribbean holiday?’
He waited for the reaction. He wasn’t disappointed.
‘A gold tooth shop? You have got to be bloody well kidding me!’
‘All the rage back in London, I hear. A glint in your eye, and another in your gob!’
‘Don’t believe you.’
‘Ok, give you that one.’ He glanced around again, pulled an exasperated expression. Today they’d decided to hit Scarborough street market, thinking it might be easier to ask around for sightings of a Muslim woman in a niqab when there were plenty of people in one place.
There were plenty for sure. Too many. Milling around the jumble of canvas-roofed stalls and tiny shops, it wasn’t leaving much room to get about. It might have had something to do with the dark clouds gathering over the sea; everyone hurrying to buy what they needed and get home before it hammered down.
The market place was a riot of colour. The bright canvas roofs and crazy-painted shop fronts tried to outdo each other for colour clash. Almost as colourful were the clothes of those selling and buying; and the produce itself, strange and wonderful fruits, vegetables and pretty much everything else, in every colour known to man.
‘God damn it, mate.’ Miles echoed his partner’s frustration. ‘This is impossible. Never seen so many people in one place.’
‘Not been to Waterloo station?’ Coop grinned, and shook his head for the tenth time in the last hour. ‘Come on, let’s go grab a coffee, work out a game plan.’
‘They got a Starbucks here?’
‘Next best thing, bud,’ he grinned, and steered his partner in the direction of Rituals.
They sat at a table in the window, sipping lattes, watching the mass of people milling around. Black clouds drifted across the sun, and the shoppers began to thin out. In a few minutes the rain would come, and that would put an end to outdoor activities.
‘So spill, my Caribbean friend... what’s the master plan? We’ve been trawling around on foot now for three days, and not one positive sighting of Zana. We need to do something different, before my shoe leather wears out.’
Coop nodded. ‘Maybe we gotta come at it from a different angle.’
Miles was on the same page. ‘Find Madeline instead.’
‘Yeah. Now Zana has shed her tracker, the game’s changed. I... I just didn’t want to do it that way round.’
‘I know, mate.’ Miles looked straight into his friend’s eyes. ‘This was never about marching them back to the UK to face the consequences, was it?’
‘Nah. Well, it might have to be if I want to keep my job.’ He threw his hands into the air. ‘I failed them both, Miles. Now I gotta be there for them... keep them safe.’
‘Sometimes your heart’s too big for this bloody job, Coop.’
As the rain began to fall, they talked about changing the game. Locating Madeline’s father would inevitably mean finding her too. But they already knew David deWinter had gone off the grid a year ago when he’d moved.
They’d not been concerned about that; chasing Zana’s tracker had been the primary focus up until today. And they both knew finding an ex-pat on a small island like Tobago wouldn’t be that hard.
But then, as they sat watching the rain fallin
g heavier with each passing minute, something happened to make finding the ex-pat in question a whole lot easier.
A white Landrover pulled up on the opposite side of the road. As they idly watched, not paying too much attention, a woman got out. She looked like a local; pretty, not too tall, her hair in a short bob. She fastened a notice to the lamp post, climbed back into the car, and it drove away.
Two minutes later Coop and Miles finished their coffees, and decided to head back to the car. The market place was all but deserted, and their time would be better spent back at the hotel, firing up the laptop and searching for any indication of where Madeline’s father was living.
As they hurried through the rain, passing by the lamp post, something caught Coop’s eye. He stopped dead, and his heart sank through the floor as he read the words, and stared desolately at the picture of the woman on the notice.
‘Fuck,’ he whispered.
Miles ran back, stood by his side. ‘Missing...’
Coop turned away, raised his eyes to the sky, the huge raindrops stinging his face as he cried out, ‘What the hell now, Miles?’
His partner put a hand on his arm. ‘Zana must have found her already.’
The big Jamaican put his hands on his head, trying to think straight. ‘No. That’s not it. Even if she had, Madeline wouldn’t just disappear without letting her father know. She’s in trouble, Miles.’
‘The number on the bottom Coop, it must be his. At least now we don’t have to spend ages looking for him.’
Coop rubbed the rain and the tears from his face with shaking hands. ‘Yeah, I know. But it ain’t much fucking consolation, is it? First we lose Zana, and now Madeline’s missing.’
Chapter 93
Joe handed out Caribs to the four people sitting in a line on the other side of the bar. Ryland Cooper took a sip, unseeing eyes fixed on the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree right next to him.
Somehow, he couldn’t seem to find any festive joy right then.
He turned to the man sitting by his side. ‘I guess you know all the sordid facts, David?’
Madeline’s father nodded. ‘She came right out with it all, as soon as she got here. Broke her heart, and ours too.’
‘Yeah, know how that feels.’
‘I assume you guys are here to cart her back to the UK, put her on trial?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘I don’t understand, Mr. Cooper.’
‘It’s Coop.’ He watched as Joe disappeared into the back room to grab fresh stock, spoke in a low voice. ‘For sure Madeline will have to face some kind of retribution, at some point. But Miles and me are here in... well, an unofficial capacity. This is a covert mission, which no one other than my boss knows about.’ He drew a deep breath, sighed out the words. ‘Mostly we’re here to put wrongs right.’
‘I’ll defend my daughter to the ends of the earth Coop, but surely the biggest wrong is one MI6 agent killing another?’
‘Is it? When that agent was fifty percent responsible for saving us all?’
‘That’s a hard one to call.’
‘You’re telling me?’
David deWinter let out a mirthless laugh. ‘You said “wrongs”... does that mean more than one?’
‘Oh yeah. This whole shitty mess is bursting at the seams with them. I was the one who messed up in the first place, and if I hadn’t, Madeline would never have been running at all. And then I...’ he paused, glanced desperately at Miles, sitting quietly sipping his drink.
‘You’ve got to tell them, Coop,’ he said.
A couple of punters had arrived, standing next to them at the bar. They moved to a quiet table in one corner, where they couldn’t be overheard. Tami put a hand on Coop’s arm. ‘Are you saying there is something Madeline hasn’t told us?’
‘Yeah. She didn’t tell you because she doesn’t know.’
‘I take it it’s not good news?’ said David grimly.
‘Depends how you look at it.’ Coop leant forward across the table, beckoned to the others to do the same. ‘What I’m about to tell you is known to Miles, me and my boss. No one else on the entire planet. Do you understand what I’m sayin’ here?’
‘It goes no further than this table, Coop.’
‘It better not, otherwise we’re all dead. I’m only telling you two cos there’s no choice, given the current situation. You hearing me?’
Tami nodded, said in a shaky voice, ‘Please just tell us Mr. Cooper. You’re scaring me now.’
‘Zana is alive.’
Tami let out a cry, tears welled up in her eyes and began to fall down her cheeks. David put a shaky arm around her. ‘Oh my god. How? Madeline said she died in her arms.’
‘She did. At least we all thought she had... including Zana herself. I took her body back to HQ, a while later she was talking to me. Seems her alien physiology mended itself. Even she was shocked.’
‘I bet you were.’
‘Me? Had a fucking heart attack... sorry, Tami.’
She was sobbing, her big eyes wide with shock and sadness. ‘Madeline has been going through hell believing Zana was dead. Oh David, we must find her quickly... she has to know the truth.’
He nodded. ‘I guess going back to the UK will at least mean they’ll be reunited.’
‘Well... not exactly.’ Coop shook his head yet again, discovering that explaining recent events to someone new just seemed to make them all the crazier. ‘There’s one more fact of life I ain’t told you yet.’
‘I’m not sure I can take any more,’ whispered Tami.
‘Zana’s not in the UK. She’s here.’
‘Here? On the island?’
Coop nodded, reluctant to say any more words that sounded more insane by the minute. But then he had to grit his teeth and do just that, as Tami asked a question.
‘Please Coop, will you take us to her? I must see her, straightaway.’
‘That won’t be possible right now.’
Miles, all too aware of his partner’s acute embarrassment, stepped in to give their shell-shocked guests the final piece of bad news. ‘We attached a secret tracker to Zana’s clothes. We’ve been following her movements for days, until it... stopped working. So now the harsh reality is that none of us know where either of them are.’
A frown lined David deWinter’s brow. ‘You don’t think... maybe Zana has already found her?’
Tami shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I have come to know her well in the last month. If they have been reunited, the first thing Madeline would do is to share her joy with us. But there was one thing we found in the trees... a pendant.’
Coop’s heart missed a beat. ‘What kind of pendant?’
Tami was diving into her bag. ‘I have it here...’
Coop groaned. He’d seen it before. ‘That’s Zana’s.’
Suddenly David looked distraught. ‘Now I’m more worried than ever. They must have found each other... so where are they? Coop, tell us what to do, because I’m running out of options here.’
‘Ain’t exactly got a master plan ourselves. But first off, I’ll tell you what not to do. You keep the local police out of this, ok?’
‘Bit late for that. The commissioner came round to see us yesterday. Fat lot of use that was.’
‘He said to let him know if Madeline hadn’t turned up in two days,’ said Tami.
‘Ok, we’ve got a little time then. But we must be careful what we tell them, and when. The way this heap of shit is panning out, it wouldn’t surprise me if they not only found a rogue MI6 agent, but also an alien being wearing a stolen Muslim niqab. You fancy trying to explain that one?’
‘Take your point.’
Miles tried to inject a positive spin. ‘One good thing now is that our search party has doubled in size. Four of us, looking for two different people... both easily recognisable to us.’
David pointed towards the bar. ‘And Joe too... he’s been there for Madeline since she started drinking here. A little too much on occasi
ons, it has to be said. He cares, and he’ll want to help.’
‘Sure. On a need-to-know basis only, ok?’
Madeline’s father lifted sad eyes to the beamed roof of the open terrace. ‘I can’t help thinking guys... that girl she met, Lisa, might hold the key to this.’
Coop groaned to himself, tried not to let the desolation show on his face. He’d been thinking the same thing. If Lisa was somehow responsible for Madeline’s disappearance, and given the discovery of Zana’s pendant in the sand, there was more than one terrifying possibility concerning the who, and the why.
Chapter 94
Light began to filter through my eyelids. I didn’t want to wake. Enveloped by the gorgeous duvet, I needed to keep all of it around me, hold onto its precious safety.
I turned onto my side, pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped an arm around them. Confusing thoughts stopped me drifting back into sleep. I tried to send them away, allow myself a blissful denial, but like the annoying friend who never knows when to go home, they wouldn’t leave me.
Maybe it had something to do with not knowing what horrors the day would hold.
LaTiri, sending the troops to kidnap me, and then allowing me to share her room, touching me so gently… what game was she playing?
It had to be a game. Didn’t it?
And then I heard movement. Still I hadn’t opened my eyes, but I could feel her presence, right next to me.
‘Good morning, Madeline.’
I turned onto my back. She stood next to the sofa, smiling to me. A cold smile, like she really didn’t want to do it. I tried to read her eyes, her expression. I could see no emotion, nothing I could recognize anyway.
‘I must leave you now, there is work to be done. For the time being you may enjoy the facilities of my quarters. Please have a relaxing day.’