by Tim Heath
It was also getting late in the Lawrence household, Robert having been invited to stay for dinner, when over discussions it was found out that he had nowhere else to go that night. It was Tommy who actually offered him a room there, which Robert was happy to accept.
This had given them more time to chat. Jessica had regained control of her emotions, apologising many times to Robert for her outburst, Robert repeatedly saying that she had nothing to be sorry for as of course it was hard to hear.
What Jessica had also found hard were the contrasts between her two lives, as she now viewed them. It seemed all the hurt and pain was with her in this life whereas her previous one, it appeared, was filled with the opposite. Indeed, in that one, she reached and surpassed all the things that now she could only dream.
Robert had deliberately not mentioned anything about the plane crash that had killed Tommy and effectively, therefore, her also. An incident she never really recovered from, the emotional hurt of losing him doing far more damage than the physical scars which had themselves kept her in the hospital for such a long time after the crash.
There was no way of balancing these things out though. Robert tried, unsuccessfully, to tell her that what he had said to them was just one way that things had worked out and what they now had was just another way, both of equal value, and it took nothing away from what they had now compared to the previous way things had been. That of course held no ground in Jessica’s mind, having been amazed to hear of Hollywood films, worldwide stardom and all the good that they’d been involved in together. And after all that, the one sadness and tragedy that there seemed to be from that other life, the only downside, her infertility, undoubtedly would also now be the same for her there, even if she had only just found out about it.
Robert, on a different tack altogether and therefore rather more successfully, had then gone on to paint them as the victims in this whole thing with Nigel. Their very success and popularity were the specific reason why they were targeted in such a way, something working in the mind of Nigel Gamble that said he didn’t want to see them happy, or successful, unless it was for him. This is when the anger had started to bubble inside Jessica, helped no doubt by the fine bottles of French wine they’d got through over the evening, her emotions reaching a new level of disgust, but this time focused on the one man who had portrayed himself as a friend, as a rock, her new father figure. He’d made himself available at all her vulnerable times and yet all along he was this snake, this poisonous viper of a man who had caused her all her harm, bringing down her father’s business, killing him and then messing with her ever since––in a frantic run of emotions, in which she was almost spitting her words out in a performance that would have impressed any cinema audience, she now had fixed all her anger on the one man she could actually get to––Brendan Charles.
The following morning Brendan had awoken on the sofa in his lounge, quite unaware why he was there, but the pain now thumping in his head quickly reminded him that he’d got home late, having felt so overcome by events of the previous day, he’d gone out drinking by himself after work and had somehow made it home. He didn’t even remember getting in, and the fact that he was still fully dressed probably meant he had just fallen asleep down there, clearly not wanting his wife to see him like that, that is if he had even thought about her, with the amount of alcohol he must have consumed.
He wasn’t a big drinker but had been known on rare occasions to hit the bottle hard; some learned behaviour from his youth when binge drinking in the UK had got out of hand and now much of his generation was dying early in their 40s and 50s from liver disease. Somehow he was among the lucky minority that seemed to have escaped, so far.
It was just before seven, the light filtering through the trees at the back of his garden, their leaves starting to fall now, the lounge curtains having not been closed the night before. The light only made his head feel worse, and Brendan made his way with difficulty into the kitchen and hunted through the medicine drawer. He was searching out something strong enough to lessen the pounding now going on in his head.
And only then did Brendan realise that the feeling was still with him, the sick sense of failure, of emptiness, and of defeat. Having been made to turn on Robert, given no choice as Brendan had seen it, and things had fallen into place so quickly. Still, it had gone so wrong with another victim, that stranger in the lift, a female who would remain nameless as the body was already destroyed. Brendan was a trapped man, with nowhere to go. On the one side, he had Nigel, this puppeteer who for too long had had so much power and influence over everyone, especially Brendan. Now Nigel had more power than ever, holding the very lives of his wife and three children, not to mention millions of others, in his hands and only rewarding Brendan with rescue once Robert was dead.
And there was Robert on the other side, this guy in whom Brendan had believed and had come to like, who had offered Brendan a way out and every opportunity to reach his potential finally; yet he’d turned on Robert in such a way, betraying that man's confidence like only a traitor could. The thought sickened Brendan to his core, so disgusted was he with himself that he could act in such a way, and yet even though it was Nigel who was responsible for it all, there was no way out for himself as he saw it. There was no way that Brendan would trade Robert for the lives of his family, aware that even if he had sided with Robert against Nigel, there would have been no guarantee that they would have reached Nigel anyway, and with all things now open as they were even less chance.
And out there somewhere, in the light of day, these two characters walked around, one he had no choice but to follow, the other now with every reason to kill Brendan for what Brendan had tried to do to him at the hotel when he’d arranged the meeting.
And where would it end? Brendan thought to himself. Would there be an end? How did Brendan fit into any such end, given that he wasn’t even sure if Nigel would keep his side of the bargain if Robert were no longer a threat?
And the thing that bugged Brendan most was the realisation that it was no longer just Nigel who was fake, but life itself seemed fake as if nothing mattered because the very understanding of the truth made it all one big joke. Walking away from these thoughts as best he could, because they were now permanent additions in his mind it seemed, Brendan went to get showered, using the guest shower in the downstairs bedroom so as not to wake anyone up and bring to their attention his current condition.
By the time he’d finished and dressed there were signs of life from upstairs, doors opening and banging, water running, voices being heard calling one another, one of his girls asking her mother where a specific top was. Brendan made his peace with his wife, who again didn’t ask any questions, and two hours later things on the surface seemed back to normal, with Brendan getting breakfast ready for them all, which they ate together before the kids went their separate ways and his wife got on with some washing. Brendan sat reading the paper in the conservatory, his mind never far from those earlier thoughts, with nothing exciting in the newspaper anyway.
It was not until much later, once he’d made it into the office, that Brendan checked his private phone and found a message had been left there from Nigel, his voice ever as lifeless as the relationship they shared with each other. It briefly told him that a call had been recorded between Jessica and Tommy from earlier that morning, mentioning that Robert had made contact. Nigel put it in no uncertain terms that Brendan should quickly sort things out with those under his control, remembering what was on the line; as if Brendan could forget. Nigel ordered Brendan to deal with the issue once and for all, doing things personally if those he employed were too stupid to get things done themselves.
The man in Brendan thought about just ignoring the message and doing nothing, but as always he realised he had no choice and instead picked up the phone to Tommy, getting through via his secretary. Tommy’s rather more hostile than normal reception told him straight away all he needed to know.
“You know I can have you f
ired today!” he said, after five minutes of increasingly heated discussion.
“What, for speaking to someone?” There was contempt in Tommy’s voice now.
“Don’t play games with me, not now, not after the week I’ve had. If you’ve met him, then you’ve heard what Robert has to say. And if you’ve heard that, whether you believe it or not, you have a choice to make. I’m not your problem, my boss is.”
“The man Nigel Gamble, you mean. Yes, I’ve heard about him.”
“Cut the crap, Tommy. You have no idea what you are playing with here, and it’ll get you killed. Jessica also. Is that what you want?”
“Are you threatening me, you good for nothing son of a...”
“Now you look here!” Brendan shouted, angrier than Tommy had heard him before; he had touched a nerve.
“One more step out of line from you and you’re history! You hear me? We made you, and we’ll break you, no matter what Robert has told you about who you might have once been. That is no more, that’s history, or more accurately, that’s never going to happen! You’ve got to think about yourself now, and about Jessica. What are you both going to choose? If you oppose Nigel to help Robert, you’ll lose. Can’t you see, Nigel holds all the Aces, Kings and Queens! We’ve all got things at stake here if Robert gets away. I was taken in by what Robert said as well but on his own, he’s powerless to change anything, and anyone who steps out of line to help wouldn’t last a moment once Nigel finds out.”
Brendan was more aware than ever that soon Nigel would be listening to this conversation and therefore needed to show that he was doing everything possible to press the case.
“What are you saying then? Do we turn Robert in? What would that achieve?”
“It’s not your war Tommy; it’s theirs. But anyone getting too near to the other side without turning Robert in is going to end up dead, you do realise that, don’t you? It isn’t a game anymore. I’ve seen too much blood in these last few months to know that Nigel doesn’t take prisoners. He’ll stop at nothing to win, you know.”
“Then what hope do you have?” If ever there was a more pertinent question, Brendan hadn’t heard it. Tommy was right, of course, but Brendan had to try at least.
“Look, let’s meet, and we can chat further.” Suddenly the thought that Nigel would be listening wasn’t right. Maybe there was still hope, and maybe Brendan could make things right again after all. Tommy, thinking of what Jessica had said last night and aware of all the hurt Brendan had caused, smiled to himself as Brendan finished.
“Yes, meeting up would be great,” Tommy replied. “I’ll put you through to my secretary, and you can arrange a time.”
Nigel Gamble had wasted no time that day, the early morning sunshine looking glorious above the mountains that were now visible in the distance as he left the hotel on his way for the final part of the journey.
He’d found the house exactly as he’d left it. Nigel knew he would need some household staff eventually, but there were far more pressing things on his mind at that moment as he pulled the car around the back of the house. He entered through an old servants’ door on the side of the house, a door hidden from view by a tall line of evergreens that stood just feet from it.
His primary objective now was to start up the engines on his operation Wipe Out, knowing that if he was to carry it out, he needed to be sure that he had the firepower in place to do so. After a dozen calls to various bases across Europe, as well as to his only weapons factory on the mainland just outside Amsterdam, Nigel was satisfied that such a strike could be carried out. The beauty and simplicity of the weapon he would use was its advanced design, meaning it couldn’t be traced on radar nor could it be spotted being launched. The only absolute indicator of such a weapon having been fired was its massive explosion as it hit the target. In this current time Nigel knew he could win any war with just a dozen of these rockets, so deadly would they be to an unsuspecting world yet to know about their existence. And the thought of such power at his fingertips gave Nigel another rush of adrenaline.
One bomb would take out around three square miles, an astonishing fact and something he had only read about in textbooks, having never seen its use in the real world. Using a highly sophisticated chain reaction not too dissimilar to a nuclear bomb, the team of scientists who’d made the breakthrough, a Chinese research team, managed to get the same amount of power as a nuclear strike but without all the radioactive mess that went along with it. The only other time either bomb had been used was way back in Japan in 1945.
Like dynamite, the Chinese had invented it as a means to end all wars. Even though it had initially led to a significant stand-off between them and the rest of the world, their willingness to share it along with the desire to build a proper defence and tracking system to alert anyone to the weapon’s usage, meant it worked, and things had calmed down considerably.
Nigel had obtained the blueprints and brought them back with him, and in this present time, no defence system existed to stop such a weapon. He made his final phone calls, alerting specific international groups and a few friendly governments to the potential position, playing each one off against the other, trading both money and power, seeing who would fall in line to become the world’s new superpower.
And it was after all this planning, in a morning that had seen Nigel calling all over the world, that he then sat down, preparing to make one last phone call. It was the very last time Nigel expected to speak to a man he had almost come to admire, someone who shared his same origins, his same journey. Although they were at opposite ends of the playing field, there was something in the persistence and endeavour of Robert that had now made him a worthy opponent, a David against his Goliath. Unlike that story, no small stones were lying around to tip it his opponent’s way. It was undoubtedly a mismatched battle from the start, and Nigel wanted to give Robert one last way out, one last chance to have his own life. As Nigel’s interest developed in his opponent, he had done much research, pulling out from his vast sources of information anyone suspected of murder around the years that he placed Robert as being born. Nigel knew that if they were all stopped, thereby not murdering anyone, Nigel could offer back to Robert his parents as an exchange for his standing down. Nigel picked up the phone and took a deep breath, glancing down at the sheet of paper in front of him that he’d been writing on that morning with all the details of the attack, as he dialled the number, and then waited for the call to be answered.
Robert was outside when his phone started ringing, having wanted to leave Jessica and Tommy to get on with things themselves knowing that Tommy would be off to his office before too long anyway. Glancing down at the phone, itself a piece of technology Robert had brought back with him from the future, he saw at once that the incoming call was from out of the country. The display even showed the satellite reference that the call was coming from, meaning it could only be Nigel himself, and the indication that he was no longer in the UK was an interesting but puzzling one.
“Nigel, I presume?” Robert said, answering the call after the third ring.
“The one and only. I hear you’ve been a busy man, talking to people who you shouldn’t be speaking to, putting them all in danger.”
“You can’t run forever.”
“What makes you think I’m running? And what makes you even think there’s a forever, come to think of it? Surely you know it’s only a matter of time now? Tell me, Robert, in your agent’s training, did they ever tell you about the NI889 which came out of China a few years back?”
Something in Robert knew what he was about to hear, completely aware of the weapon that had the potential to do so much damage, as he had been on the frontline when the threat arose with China and the world, it seemed, waited to see if World War III was about to break out.
“Yes, I’m aware of it.”
“I have it,” he said, pausing for effect before adding, “here, now.” Nigel could hear the sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line, as Robert�
��s mind raced.
“And what, you’re threatening to use it? Where?”
Nigel laughed out loud, the kind of laugh that showed he didn’t care about the fact that he was enjoying himself.
“Where? That’s an interesting question. You see, though the Chinese made one of them to show that they could, I’ve produced rather more. I could use them everywhere if I wanted to, but you can choose.”
Robert lowered his head onto his knees, aware that things had just got a hundred times tougher than they already were with no sight of the finish line, no chance that he could sprint the last bit and get it all over with. Nigel continued:
“I would place your location and therefore the location of the other Door, just somewhere on the outskirts of London, bearing in mind your ability to get in and out, remaining undetected as you have done, clearly lying low in some sleepy place, somewhere I presume the other Wentworth brother had once been. Therefore, I had planned to lay down a ring of fire around the capital, ready to strike at this very minute,” he said. He was twisting the truth a lot as things would take a day or so to get into place, before continuing, “circling the city, cutting it off while the outlying villages get obliterated. Along with these villages, if not you, the Door would also be destroyed, trapping you either here, or more likely back there.”
“You are crazy, you know. What kind of world would you then live in?”
“I don’t know. England would fall, yes, that’s true, but I would be there to step in. If London were to be taken out, you know that with the bombs, as opposed to a nuclear strike, the green would soon grow back, a blank canvas on which to start afresh, the battle to end all wars, all terror. I would step in as the hero of the hour, bring down the rogue terrorists responsible for such an attack, offering the world peace, bringing all nations together under my leadership.”