Panic (8 page)

Her father was gone.

She wept, her palms pressed tightly against wet cheeks, and allowed the shock and the grief to sweep her up in its hard, unforgiving embrace. She cried forcefully then, choking out painful sobs, feeling them torn from her lungs by the catastrophic morning.

Lost in her grief, Rachel a
lmost didn't hear it.

Almost.

A thump, in one of the rooms above her head.

Someone else was in the house.

*

They've finally found me
,
Victor thought to himself as he watched the police officer moving stealthily through the trees on one of the bank of CCTV monitors that dominated the small strongroom. The small black and white image was fuzzy, but unmistakeable. Odd that they would send in uniformed police, though. He had expected SWAT at the very least, if not military.

The surprise he felt at seeing the man creeping through the trees toward the small surface building that served as little more than an entrance to the safehouse was unexpected.  After all, he had been prepared for discovery, and Victor was a man who prepared thoroughly. Discreet motion-sensitive cameras had been installed in trees covering a half-mile radius around his property, along with remotely controlled explosive charges, tripwires and mines that would
kill or maim anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves within the blast radius, and which were certainly loud and plentiful enough to give pause to anyone thinking about a direct attack. Both counter measures offered plenty of time for Victor to assess his options, of which there were two; the same two that were left to any cornered animal: fight or flight.

His home was a fortress, and there were defensive weapons he could operate without ever surfacing, but the
fact of the matter was that if the organisation had done its homework properly they would come in force, and Victor was just one man.

And the truth of it was that Victor was no fighter. If it all came down to a physical battle then the war was already lost. He was under no illusions about that. No, the scale-model fortress and the cloak of invisibility he thought he'd thrown over himself was Victor's hand, and he had already played it. 

Slowing the attackers down would give him enough time to get to the fourth subterranean level of the building; to the escape route that led to a tiny cave on the coastline a few hundred yards distant, barely visible from all but one oblique angle. The cave opened to a miniscule beach that was home to a small boat which would get him across the channel to Ireland, from where a phone call to a man who owed him an enormous favour could get Victor a flight to anywhere on the planet.

Australia, maybe. Victor had always liked the sound of Australia. One of the few places in the world that was inhabited and civilised, yet simultaneously wild. A land of dangerous predators. A place to call home.

The surprise Victor felt at seeing the approaching cop was, he guessed, more to do with the timing of it.

He had expected to be found at the start. Hell, he had expected that his building of this place over a period of two years under their damn noses would have left some trace, some loose end that the investigators would pick up and slowly wind in despite all the care he had taken to make his visits to South Wales, and the money spent on building a military-style complex in the forest as untraceable as possible.

Still, actions caused ripples on the surface of the world, no matter how small they were, or how stealthy their intent. Ripples that might go unnoticed, but not if an experienced fisherman was searching for them.

During those first few months, he had maintained a state of high alert. Defcon fucking One, at all hours of the day, certain that they knew where he was, and were coming for him. As the weeks dragged on he told himself that the delay was simply down to them plotting out their strategy. When the weeks became months, and the paranoia kicked in, driven on by his life of absolute isolation, Victor told himself that their waiting game was simply a ruse. They were waiting for him to lower his guard. Toying with him. He raged impotently.

Finally, when a year had passed, he began to relax, and to believe that maybe, just maybe, he had gotten away clean, and all their searching had yielded no lead. He allowed himself a night of celebration, chugging his way through two dusty bottles of wine, congratulating himself on his ingenuity. He knew the way they thought, knew that they would expect him to have made his way to another country. Right now they were probably wasting time and money trawling through non-extradition slums in the far-flung corners of the globe, while their quarry hid in their very own cellar.

Victor
had maintained a strict observance of security, of course, for he knew that people who try to hide from anything are usually caught through their own carelessness. His systems were kept up to date and well-maintained, his vigilance never truly abated.

On the very rare occasions that he had to leave the safehouse for supplies, he did so using the boat, under
cover of darkness, and travelled to Ireland, where he paid in cash for whatever he required. It was a chore of course, to travel by sea for three hours just stock up on canned food when there were perfectly good convenience stores a couple of hours' walk away, but Victor would be damned if he would give away his position through laziness.

Everything had gone according to plan, months became years and Victor lived on, the internet and a stray cat his only company.

He frowned at the CCTV screen. So why now, after eight long years, was a policeman moving stealthily toward him?

Victor cycled through the other cameras, finding nothing of interest. The situation made no sense. Of course, the man
must be a decoy – it was clear his attempts at stealth were clumsy and ineffectual; an obvious act that Victor felt insulted his intelligence somewhat. Had they forgotten who they were dealing with?

No, the attack would come from the North, that was obvious, but none of the cameras were picking up anything at all.

Victor flicked back to the steady line of cameras that picked up the man's movement, handing his passage to the next like a relay race baton, and stared at him thoughtfully. It was, of course, possible, that this man had no idea where he was, or that every step he took now might be his last; that his life could be extinguished at the touch of a button.

Indecision
shuddered in Victor's mind, an uncomfortable sensation for a man who had spent his life making decisions and sticking by them, no matter the cost. To reveal himself by blowing this beat-walker up, panicking and overreacting at a mere moment of chance, would be a loss of discipline that Victor could never forgive.

On the screen, the policeman picked his way across tangles of roots, navigating the uneven ground with the utmost care, blissfully unaware. Victor watched him intently. A decision made in the dark was always
a poor gamble.

He needed to know more.

*

Michael had finally lost them, and allowed himself a short moment of self-congratulation, alongside a powerful rush of relief.

His survival instincts had proven trustworthy: Carl and Haycock had steadily lagged behind once the forest became denser, and movement became a matter of picking a careful path through bushes and fallen branches. He had heard their ragged panting grow steadily dimmer as he pushed through the trees until the sound disappeared altogether.

When finally he hear
d a roar of primal rage that chilled the blood in his veins more than the freezing air ever could, and realised that his pursuers must be at least half a mile behind him, Michael began to finally relax his tensed muscles, almost gasping at the pain that accompanied the realisation that he had been clenching everything so tightly that it burned upon release.

He began to move more slowly then, making sure he made as little noise as possible. Sound seemed to carry easily through the mist, and he was certain that any noise he made loudly enough to reveal his location would draw them to it like a homing beacon.

He was grateful to be able to slow down, not just to spare the agony that had erupted in his calves and thighs an eternity ago, but also because the less rapid movement gave him a chance to avoid the low branches that had whipped him as he ran, leaving painful scratches and welts on his bare skin. Under his uniform, Michael's body was already beginning to protest at the sudden imposition of countless bruises.

Michael had no great love for the countryside, never had really. He had chosen St. Davids because it was quiet, and because it was the closest position to his estranged family that the Force had been able to offer him. Both of these plus points proved to be as advertised – if anything the miniature city was too quiet, and the day-to-day business of being on the beat proved stupefyingly dull.

The downside was that the place positively reeked of countryside. The town itself looked like the best way to travel to it was probably by time machine – and once you got beyond the borders of the town proper, there was little of note beyond trees and coastline in any direction for twenty miles other than the occasional cluster of ancient farm buildings.

For a guy who had grown up in the hustle and bustle of Cardiff, a city and port undergoing something of a boom period, bristling with renovation and new trends, the lack of technology and concrete constructions was jarring.

Michael enjoyed the survivalist TV shows, watching over-enthusiastic men setting out to tame the wildest parts of the planet single-handed and with little more than a rucksack to their name, but he never at any point felt the call of the wild that other people sometimes spoke of wistfully.

When people spoke about modern life missing a vital connection to nature, his mind simply went blank.

That was down to his father, he believed, to the infrequent and impromptu camping trips to the wilderness that had pockmarked his childhood. The trouble, it turned out, with a camping expedition led by a manic depressive was that the build up promised glorious days of excitement and adventure, yet the reality proved to be excruciating hours trapped in a rain-soaked tent with a dangerously sullen and temperamental beast. Permanently on-edge. Those trips were like living on the slopes of an active volcano. Not a case of if disaster would strike, but when.

He was grateful for
the countryside now though, grateful for the cover it provided, even as his thoughts already turned to the very real possibility that he was hopelessly lost. He paused, breathing heavily, and squinted toward the treetops, hoping to catch a glimpse of the sky and gauge the direction of town from the sun. No such luck: the mist – thickening, it seemed – blocked out the sky, filtering through only a cold, unwelcoming light.

Michael grimaced, and pulled out his phone. As expected, the
no signal
symbol still mocked his attempts to communicate with the world.

His best bet, he figured, was to get to higher ground, and hope that the mist would thin out enough to offer him some sort of information about his location. Good old
Bear Grylls
. At least some of the advice on that TV show had sunk in, even if Michael didn't want to think about being out here long enough to get hungry, and find himself forced to resort to the sort of horrific meals the cheery presenter routinely choked down.

He set off again, keeping his eyes out for a large tree that might prove to be an easy climb.

The sudden clearing startled him, and the sight of the low, flat concrete building, looking for all the world like some nondescript military installation surprised him even more.

Neither though, proved to be as shocking as the butt of the gun that suddenly swung from behind a tree trunk immediately to his right, smashing into his jaw and sending the world black.

Panic buried dagger-sharp talons into Rachel's mind, and began to slowly twist. She was reminded of a school trip she had taken aged fourteen or so to the theme park Alton Towers, of the all-consuming terror she had felt on that first rollercoaster as it crested an incline after the long, tense journey to the top. Of the way she had felt so powerless, that she was being dragged towards something so fearful it made her bladder loosen and her hands tremble, with no way to stop the forward momentum.

The difference was that here, it was her mind getting dragged along by some invisible, omnipotent force.

When another soft thump sounded in one of the rooms above the basement, she came close to screaming, fearing that once she started she might never stop, as though sanity was a precipice on which she now teetered, one slip away from tumbling forever into the ravenous dark.

In the end, it was perhaps only the confusion of the morning's events that pulled her away from the brink. Or maybe it was the growing rage. Already her mind was turning over of its own accord, and throwing up questions to which there was no ready answer. Could Sniffer, a small dog weighing no more than twelve pounds really have killed her father? Jim Roberts was not a small man. Not exactly a fit and strong man – thirty years working in a bakery had seen to that, the odd nibble here, the occasional tasting there
; all adding up over the years.

Dad would have collapsed wheezing at the very thought of having to run anywhere, she thought, but he was a solid block of a man, six foot plus and strong as an ox. The dog would surely have been swatted away like a fly.

No, Sniffer had been driven crazy by something, that was obvious, but bringing down a man who weighed probably twenty times more than him just didn't add up. Sniffer had to be the vulture, feasting on the dying or the dead. Which meant whoever or whatever had killed Jim Roberts was elsewhere.

Thump.

Elsewhere in the house.

Rachel still clutched the socket wrench in white-knuckled fingers. Probably she should have searched the basement for something better to defend herself, something with a cutting edge. But her thoughts had become as foggy as the town's streets, her mind slowly filling with blinding anger. She had a pretty good swing on her. The wrench would do.

She turned to face the stairs. At the summit, the door to the basement had swung almost closed, but a gap remained, letting in cool, grey light.

She moved slowly, trying to remember from her descent whether there was anything on the stairs that might trip her, or that she might stumble across and alert whoever was in the house to her approach.

In her mind she saw something mirroring her actions, creeping slowly toward the other side of the door, drawn by the commotion her fight with the dog had caused. She wondered whether it too had a weapon, something that dwarfed the potential of her wrench. Something that had torn open the stomach of her father.

Gripping the wrench, the cold, hard metal against her sweating palm feeding her courage, she reached the door and stopped, listening intently.

She heard a click, something she couldn't identify. It sounded like it came from the entrance to the kitchen.

Rachel grimaced, and charged out into the light, her right arm already swinging as she dashed into the kitchen. A hulking, enormous figure stood in the doorway, head bent, staring at something in his hands.

Rachel's mind pieced together the information too slowly to stop. It came in fragments, glimpses of the facts, like a stop motion animation running at half-speed.

Jason, her brother. Checking his mobile phone. Looking up, startled, eyes wide in shock at seeing his sister, hands and chest covered in blood, rushing toward him, swinging.

Hitting the ground hard as the wrench connected with his temple with a dull thud.

“Oh my G
od!” Rachel cried out as she watched her giant little brother fall to the floor, felled like an oak. “Jason! Are you okay? Oh, please be okay, please...”

She dropped to the tiled floor beside him, leaning over his chest and searching his face. Jason lay flat on his back, blinking at the ceiling. From the expression on his face, it was surprise more than pain that had dropped him.

“Hey, Sis,” he grunted, sounding bewildered. “Nice wrench. I'm afraid I only got you some chocolates.”

Rachel smiled despite herself. It was so good to hear Jason voice, to hear anything normal on the morning from hell. She half laughed, then burst into tears, wild, heaving sobs that tore through her, making her shake uncontrollably.

Jason levered himself upright and looked at her, mystified.

“Sis? Rach? What's wrong?”

Rachel threw her arms around him, feeling him tense for a second and then relax, and buried her face into his shoulder.

“He's dead, Jase,” she gasped between sobs, feeling his T-shir
t grow quickly damp as she wept.

“Dad's dead.”

*

Michael dreamed of betrayal. The dream was nothing new. It coiled around his consciousness, embracing him like an old friend. The words it whispered to him were steeped in familiarity, and each time the pain of them grew, filling the dark chasm in his soul. The places changed, the faces differed, but the unmistakeable message remained the same:
the people you trust will hurt you
.

For a while after The Cardiff Incident, Michael had been obliged to attend sessions with a therapist, an elderly woman by the name of Susan.

Susan had a nice smile and a kindly manner, and it was possible to forget, listening to her softly-spoken tones, that she was a healthcare professional at all. The ease of the conversation, the familial nature of their 'little chats' – like Susan was the grandmother Michael had lost years before – was impressive.

The illusion never quite drew Michael in, since he spent a good deal of time wondering how long Susan had studied in order to develop those subtle skills, but he appreciated the effort, and the 'little chats' were a pleasant
enough way to spend an hour.

Never felt like he learned much though. He went into therapy with a preconceived notion that he would be unravelling riddles in his psyche that he hadn't even known had existed. That each session would bring some
Eureka
moment; a sudden revelation of the self that would feel like the lifting of a lifelong burden so intrinsic he hadn't even known he had been carrying it.

Nothing of the sort ever
happened, and Michael wondered if somehow his cynicism had sullied the process and denied himself the epiphany. Susan had gently coerced him into talking about his childhood, about his relationship with his parents, his lifelong battle to keep the depression that had claimed his father at bay, the increasingly strained relationship with Elise, the stress of the job. All factors, she said, that had led understandably – perhaps inevitably – to The Cardiff Incident. The dreams, of course, stemmed from his mother's departure, and the years he had spent being raised by a man preoccupied with fighting his own legion of demons.
Textbook
.

Michael had smiled and nodded, and eventually even began to play out a role as a man astonished to discover such revelatory information. A man ready to begin a life of positive action and self-fulfilment.

In the end, during those last couple of sessions, he felt that he consciously led the conversation to places that would appease Susan; places that would allow her to tick the boxes on whatever forms she would need to fill out to release him, satisfied that she had done her job. He delivered an approximation of a
Eureka
moment in the end, mainly for Susan's benefit, and so he could bring the sessions to a close.

It struck Michael that her failure to uncover his obvious deception meant that he was either a very good actor, which he doubted, hearing the falsehoods that slipped from his own mouth; or that Susan, and by extension her entire profession, was a charlatan.

Sometimes, in his darker moments in the years since those sessions finished, he wondered if maybe Susan had known all along, and was as glad for their sessions to end as he was. Maybe Michael was too lost even for therapy to bring him back.

He
had returned to work cleared for active duty, and still broken.

And still the dreams stalked him.
When it wasn’t betrayal it was something far worse:  The corridor. The blood. The screaming. He had become used to waking from the terrors of sleep now, rarely troubled by the shakes and sweats that had often accompanied turbulent nights at the start. Nightmares had become routine.

Waking to find a shotgun levelled at his face, however...that was new.

It was the pain that hit Michael first, even before he opened his eyes, the insistent pounding in his head that felt like some mighty blacksmith had taken up residence within and was using his brain as an anvil. He opened his mouth to groan and another pain clamoured for his attention: the right side of his jaw felt like it had been dipped in molten metal.

And finally, a third pain. Far less crippling than the first two, yet at the same time far more troubling: a burning ache that started at his wrists and ran up to his shoulders.

Michael was tied to something, something large and cold; something that scratched at his wrists when he tried to move them.

He sat for a moment or two, keeping his head bowed, hoping that his captor had not noticed him stirring, straining his ears to pick up any sort of clue about the situation that might swing things in his favour. All he heard was distant birdsong, sounding strangely animated, almost hysterical, as though the bird in question had just spotted a cat sneaking up on it; and leaves rustling in a faint wind.

Finally, he opened his eyes, letting painful light rush in. That's when he saw the gun.

Things swam sharply into focus. Michael was still in the forest, though the last thing he'd remembered
before being knocked unconscious – the strange, squat building in the clearing – was nowhere to be seen. His arms were tied behind the trunk of a tree, which explained the pain in his shoulders, his tendons straining to accommodate the awkward angle of his arms.

A few
feet away, sitting on a stump, was a small figure dressed in black, face obscured by a hood pulled low, looking for all the world like the grim reaper with an updated arsenal.

The man holding the
shotgun was slight, and his clothes looked a size too large for him, as though he hadn't bought anything new in years, or was unaware that he had dropped a few pounds.

Michael coughed, tasting blood and feeling a couple of broken teeth wobbling in his gums, and tried unsuccessfully to find the man's eyes
in the dark space under the hood.

The figure did not move for a long time, save for the slight motion of his gloved fingers, which turned over a small pebble with surprising dexterity.

It was Michael that spoke first.

"Who are you? What do you want with me?"

He had aimed for an authoritative tone, but was disappointed to find he had missed. Fear was clearly evident in his voice, amplified by the eerie calm of his captor, who simply sat, almost nonchalantly regarding him from the depths of the hood.

"Look," Michael continued
. "Whoever you are, whatever you've done, we can talk about it okay? What you're doing here will only make things worse. So why don't you put down the-"

The hooded man flicked his wrist and Michael was silenced by the pebble he had been toying with catching him flush in the centre of his forehead. An infant pain
; a squalling new member of the family.

"You like movies
, Officer?"

Michael remained silent. The hooded man's voice was off somehow: guttural, forced, as though he was growling through his teeth, trying to disguise it. Michael thought he could detect faint echoes of an accent, though he couldn't place it.

"Sure you do. Who doesn't like movies right? I watch a lot of movies. Modern day parables: little bite size lessons on how we should react to almost any circumstance. You know that 95% of people, if they find themselves in a dangerous and unfamiliar situation, will be subconsciously scanning through their memory banks, trying to remember what Will Smith or Jean Claude Van Damme would do? Tragic, really, but understandable. These days, our field of experience is very narrow you see, very sanitised.

"Tell me
, Officer. I'm sure you've seen lots of movies, lots of cop movies, right? Justice catching up with the bad guys, big cheer, lights go up.

"Have y
ou ever seen a movie in which the guy tied to the tree asks the questions?"

Michael shook his head slowly.
Jesus
, he thought,
the guy's a lunatic
.

"That's right," t
he hooded man said. The tone of his voice shifted a little, and Michael thought he could
hear
the man smiling smugly.

"I will take your silence to mean that you are a quick learner, a
nd that is very good. Because, Officer, this is not a movie, and there is no convenient sharp rock for you to cut through those bonds with. There are real bullets in this gun, and I am fully prepared to use them. Will Smith is not coming to save you. All of which means I ask the questions and you answer them, yes?"