Identity X (20 page)

“There have been all sorts of people in
trouble over what has happened, and I have lost good people over this.  So far,
they haven’t made the connection back to me, but they will, and that’s why they
want me back at Headquarters.  They want to know how I could have made such a
mistake and thought you dead when you weren’t.  If they knew already about my
involvement, I’d already be dead.”  She reached over with her left hand.  She
wanted to feel him, a connection to the man that she still loved, and who she
hoped still loved her.  She let her hand rest onto his leg, and whilst she felt
his knee tense a little, he didn’t brush her away.

“So what now?  What are you planning to
do?” he asked.  She reached forwards and across him, opening the glove box. 
Inside, he saw her pull out three burgundy red passports, but they looked
different to what he recognised.  The lettering was different, and in a
language that he didn’t understand.

“We run.  Together.  These are our new
names.  Our new lives.  Ben Stone is dead.  So is Hannah.  Matthew too.  But
our new lives are here.  You just have to trust me to get him out, and trust me
to love you.  This kind of thing cannot be organised in a couple of hours Ben. 
This was my plan all along.  Please believe me.”  She reached into her pocket
to retrieve her telephone as Ben thumbed the passports, staring at his new
photo and new name.  “I have to call Mark.  Keep quiet.”  

“What will you tell him?”

“Like I explained. That there has been an
accident and that we are with the van.  He will expect that.  That should give
me enough time to get in, get Matthew, and get back out.  By the time he
realises, we will be long gone.”  She waited before sharing her next thought,
immeasurably scared to hear the answer. “That’s if you will come with me.”

His arms hung flaccidly in his lap, his
hands cupped like a choir boy, and yet still somehow his stance appeared
defiant and obstructive.  He was motionless and it only worked to reinforce his
untouchable facade, like a bronze statue, lifelike and beautiful, yet cold and
unresponsive to her touch.  His eyes flickered downwards to see her hand
resting on his leg.  He thought about his options, and how narrow they really
were. Her words seemed genuine, and as much as he wanted to bolster his anger,
he was in no position to be difficult.  It was hard to argue with the
arrangements that she had made, and harder still to deny his feelings.  His
mind was at war, wanting to hate her, but yet utterly incapable of ignoring her
plea.  He reached out his hand, just his finger tips at first which brushed
against the side of hers.  It was the signal she needed, and immediately took
his hand in hers, relishing the warmth of his touch and the life in his veins.

“I still have no idea how you could do
this, but I believe in you.”  He took a big breath, and she motioned to speak,
but he shook his head enough to show her that it was still his turn.  “I know
this has been difficult, and you have risked a lot.  Most importantly, you are
Matthew’s only chance.  You have to save him.  Anything else we can work out
later.”  Her head dropped as she started to cry.

“I love you Ben.”  He took her face in
his hand in the way that made her skin pucker and her heart flutter in her
chest.  He held her cheek, and her tears trickled over his finger tips.  He
brought her in closer to him and he allowed their foreheads to rest together,
and he felt her breath tickling his eye lashes.  “Ben, I’m so, so, sorry.”  Her
body started to shake as the built up tears and fragility of their situation
weighed upon her shoulders.  He pulled her face up, their eyes never as close
as he looked to find strength enough for them both from somewhere in his soul.

“Stop it now.  Focus.  It’s only you that
can save Matthew.”  He saw a wave of composure creeping in and she released his
hand to wipe the salty tear streaks away from her face.  She nodded her head
agreeably, understanding the enormity of his words, which replayed over and
over in her head. 
It’s only you that can save Matthew.  Only you.

“I need to call Mark.  I will let him
know about the accident, and that I and the team are at the van.  I will tell
him that I am on my way in as soon as possible, as he requested.”  She stuffed
the smoke bombs into her inside pockets, and pulled out her holstered gun to
check the magazine.  “You will be in the driver’s seat.  We will only be a few
minutes from the entrance.  When I call you, start driving in the direction of
Headquarters, I’ll show you where.  It means that I am on my way.”

“Then where are we going?”

“We will be following Second Street
straight and turning into Fourth. We will be heading towards the old docks.  We
need to swap seats.  Shuffle over here.  Don’t get out of the car.”  He
shuffled across the seat as she lifted her weight up on clenched fists and
stretched arms.  As he brushed past her, their bodies crossing midair, he felt
the two guns poke at him as they sat concealed underneath her coat.  It was
hard to accept this new version of his wife.  He tried to accept it,
I
will
try, I will,
or for now at least to ignore it, and sat down in the
driver’s seat.  She had parked the car as far away from any cameras that she
could remember, but it had been many years since she had worked in a position
where she had to remember all of the cameras in the centre of the city, and she
just hoped that the unnamed side street just off Twelfth was a good option.  

“There is so much about you that I don’t
know.”  His words were soft, non-judgemental, with sadness rather than anger. 
He shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, scratching at his face, his nose,
fluffing at the side of his hair and brushing nonexistent strands away from his
eyes.  “I don’t even know what to call you.”

“Hannah.  Hannah Stone.”   She said it
without a second for thought between his words and hers.  She looked hopeful,
desperately willing the name to not repulse him.  “That’s my name.  It’s the
only one I want.”

“Not Catherine Mulligan?”

“She died a long time ago Ben.  The
Catherine Mulligan that signed up for this job, that wanted to be an agent,
that was happy to sell her life away to them,” she paused as she considered the
passage of her life and the loss of who she was, “she died a long time ago.  Even
if I wanted to be her anymore, I couldn’t.  They destroy who you are, Ben.”

“If they destroyed who you were, who are
you now?”

“Your wife.  Matthew’s mum.  Hannah
Stone.  At least for the next few hours,” she said as she picked up the new
passports and handed them to him, “but after that we all have to start again.” 
He smiled at her sweetly, and the idea of the empty space in the back seat of
the car being filled with Matthew’s laughter as they explained the adventure that
they were all going to take made him wish that they already had him so that
they could just get out of here.

“I wish there was something that I could
do to help Matthew.  I feel so useless.”

“Being ready in the car is all you need
to do.  You’ll get us out of here.”  She took a long hard breath before picking
up her telephone from inside her pocket.  “Are we ready?”  He nodded, and this
time it was Ben who rested his hand onto her leg, and as he squeezed her skin
between his fingers, hard enough to hurt, she knew he was with her.  The pain
she could take.  She had always told herself that the people who hurt you the
most are the people worth caring about.  She had made it a mantra, making
herself believe it until one day she just did.  She had no clue if Ben felt the
same.  She hoped so.  She wanted him around.  She couldn’t think of anybody
else that she would rather have on her side.

The telephone
rang
eight times
, seven more than she
expected as she counted them one by one.  Just as she convinced herself that
something was wrong, and that somehow they had traced her location, Mark
answered the telephone in his usual abrupt way.

“Yes?”

“Sir, Agent Mulligan calling in.”
 
The sound of the name made Ben feel
uneasy as she sat next to him in the car, talking to Mark, his best friend and
worst enemy.  He still couldn’t believe Mark to be fully responsible. 
There
must have been pressure from The Agency.  There must have been. 
“We have
an issue.”

“What issue?  Are you at Headquarters
yet?” Mark asked.

“There has been a car accident involving
our vehicle.  It was compromised and our GPS is down.  Sir, I am…”  He didn’t
let her finish.  His voice sounded edgy on the telephone and she was trying to
read it as he spoke.  To her, he almost sounded excitable.

“Yeah we know about your little
accident.” Panic immediately set in. 
How could he know
?  T
here was no accident? 
She felt her heart racing
.  She
remembered her training and began
counting in her head to slow her heart rate in order to relax and shield any
anxiety in her voice that may betray her, her once perfect Pavlovian responses
struggling under the reality of her captive son.  She fiddled with her trouser
button.  It didn’t help.  “We realised that we lost your signal.  Thought you
had slipped off the grid for a while.  But it doesn’t matter.  Just get in
here.  We got him.”  The immediate response from Hannah as she turned to face
Ben signalled to him a development of which they were not aware, and Ben felt
an immediate injection of anxiety, and willed their plan to remain intact.

“You’ve got him? Where?”

“East of the city.  He got a long way. 
Don’t worry about it though.  It’s over Catherine.  Come in.  You’ve earned
your freedom.”

“Yes, Sir.”  As she ended the call she
considered how much she always hated his overdramatic statements, his
I’m
the one in control, I make the decisions
quips.  She looked at Ben,
assuming that it must be her intended plan falling into place.  The transmitter
back at the cottage would be faithfully emitting its signal, and she hoped that
it was indeed this that they were tracking.  It would mean that all resources
would be out of Headquarters, if she knew Mark as well as she thought she did,
heading east to claim their bounty.  There was no chance a stationary target
like the signal that they had detected, or the prospect of letting Ben go free
again would be taken lightly.  If she had judged Mark correctly, he would send
every agent, every hit man, and any set of hands that stood a chance of
catching Ben to bring him in.  He would have gone himself if he didn’t know he
was so useless.  This time, there would be no faith in the system.
 There would be no trust in a junior
officer.  He would want that body on his doorstep, head on a stick or over a
barrel, with the chance to walk all over it before he would believe that they
had captured Ben.  As they both sat in the car, Hannah trigger-ready and Ben
with his hands positioned on the steering wheel, ready at her command, they
were no more than ten minutes away from Headquarters.  But she also knew that
meant a team of fast moving agents was less than half an hour away from her
beloved boathouse.  It was time to move.  Time for delay, for consideration, or
for anything other than setting her foot back into Headquarters and executing
her only chance to save their son, had passed them by. 

As Ben drove the car away in the
direction she indicated they remained silent with the only interjection
s
her
instructions as she guided him.  Ben
wanted to ask questions.  He wanted to know timings and locations.  Where
should he park the car?  What should he do if somebody came to him?  Would she
leave him
the
gun
he was wearing
?  Should he use it?  Ideas raced through
his mind like the whirling and swirling cars of the waltzes at the local fairs,
brightly lit and colourfully painted spinning at speed, disorientating you from
the ground.  The same sense of nausea came over him as he drove along the road,
and more than once he wanted to stop the car to throw up.  Instead he kept a
steady pace and with a tightly clenched fist across his mouth, stifled that
feeling, knowing that there was no way in the world he would stop this now. 
Hannah instead looked calm.  She held her hands delicately in her lap, almost
as if she were meditating.  Every now and again she would pull out her gun and
check the magazine, all the while making sure that the safety lever was engaged. 
The way she handled it was expert, her hands moving smoothly and freely over
the weapon, her fingers trained and precise, and the only giveaway of her
nerves was the repetitive manoeuvres of inspection.  She could have operated
this gun with her eyes closed, and as he considered what her past training must
have been like he assumed that she had indeed done so.  She holstered the gun
for a final time.  She pulled down the sun visor and wiped her eyes clear of
smudged mascara with spit on her fingers, and swept up the loose hairs that had
escaped.  As she pushed the sun visor back into place, she held out her left
hand and instructed Ben to pull into a small layby, tucked into the edge of the
pavement.

“Just pull in here,” she said as she
waved her hand out to the left.  “Take the first space so that there is nothing
in front of you, and leave a bit of room in front too.”  He followed her
instructions without question and left at least three feet in front of him
where he could easily swing the car out when necessary.  He turned the key in
the ignition, shutting down the engine, and as it slowed into silence he knew
this would be the moment that she would leave him, and potentially the last
moment he would see any remnant of his old life, and his old love.

“Hannah, what do I do now?  Just wait? 
Just wait here?”

“Yes Ben.”  She nodded, her words calm
and cold as if she were talking to a stranger.  Again he
felt
the void between the woman he knew as
his wife and the woman that sat before him who looked so alike, and yet was
nothing like the woman he loved in any other way.  She snatched at his hand,
held without emotion as nothing more than an access point to view his watch. 
It was quarter to five, and as she looked out of the window, she could see the
first shadows as the sun began to fall in the sky.  “Ten minutes, and I’ll be
calling you.  Watch the time.  When it’s five minutes to five I will have
called you.  When I call you, drive straight up this road and take the last
right.  You will see us outside on the pavement walking towards you away from
the glass fronted building with all the steps.  Don’t stop the car until I am
next to it.”  He nodded in agreement, desperate to emit an air of
steadfastness, commitment and belief, but his fear of failure was stagnant and
would not leave him.  It’s heaviness in the air made him feel like he was
choking, like a cat retching silently with a fur ball stuck in its throat, and
yet Hannah seemed to suffer none of the same difficult
ies
.  She was composed and calm.  Ready to
move. 

“Hannah.  What do I do if you don’t call
me?”  His words were small, and venially apprehensive.  He wanted to take them
back as soon as he had said them, as he bowed his head away from her, hoping
and failing to hide his fear.  She took his chin in her hand and gripped his
face, holding it in place. 

“Don’t you dare think that way, Ben. 
It’s not an option for me not to be here.  It’s not an option for me not to
call you.  In ten minutes time I will be walking out of that building with
Matthew in my arms and towards a new life all together.  A real life, where I
don’t have to lie to you anymore.  Don’t you dare imagine that not to be
possible.”  She didn’t wait for his agreement.  Instead, she placed her hand on
her gun for one final check.  She took both guns from her body and before
placing each one back in its holster, she flicked up the take down levers
,
activating
their
power.  With her hand on the door
handle, she stopped only as she felt Ben’s hand against her arm.  As she turned
to tell him to let go she felt his other hand on her face, holding her, his
fingertips brushing past her ears.  He placed his lips against hers, and kissed
her passionately, his lips never once breaking contact as he kissed his wife
for what felt like the first time, but
what in reality he knew might be the
last.

“I love you, Hannah,” he whispered to
her, his words like drops of heaven.  She closed her eyes as she heard him say
the words, words that she had feared she may never hear again should he ever
discover the truth about their life together.  Yet here in the intensity of
their situation she felt his forgiveness, and faith, and promised herself that
she would live up to it.  She promised herself that she would make his
sacrifice count.