The Border Reiver (15 page)

He removed the light weight sniper’s rifle from across his back and placed it on his left, he took the silenced revolver from the holster under his arm and gently put it next to his right hand. He carefully adjusted the weapons so that both barrels were exactly parallel with his thighs; he couldn’t help himself, over the years the detail became everything to him.

It was at these moments of calm that he could reflect on his forty-eight years, twenty-five of which had been spent in solitude, in the shadows behind enemy lines mostly. His history was remarkable even in military circles; in fact, if there were no dusty old battered file holding a full account of his service history somewhere in the military records office, his life would be unbelievable. He had a skill for evading death or detection, a lust for solitude and a detachment which meant he carried on where most would break.

He had the same eyes as his brother, but where Baines had puffed and rounded a little due to the comforts of middle age and position, the ghost had wizened. He was no bad man, but he was focussed on his task. His eyes betrayed that determination by offering no emotion, no deviation from the plan, which often in practice resulted in no mercy. Right then he pulled the phone from its case on his chest and dialled the only number he ever dialled. The call was answered immediately.

“Things have changed, Tom,” Baines spoke urgently; he had not used the agent’s first name in years.

“Tell me,” said the spectre sitting in the darkness in Nat’s barn, his voice no more than a whisper.

“I am having some problems here - I have been usurped, but he can't risk kicking me out. I am the revolution, he needs me.”

“What about the Establishment, the international community?”

“No and no, I'm adrift.”

“You’re in the shit, Ben. Can I stop babysitting this farmer now?”

“No, he is possibly a good distraction for us.”

“Who’s ‘us’?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said ‘for us’?”

“Right, I contacted Trevor Eastman.”

“Ok well, he will support you while you’re useful.” There was a pause and then he continued,

“What now? No, let me have a guess, they want you to carry on as you were, the puppet leader, mole to the very system you sought to change: the irony of power!”

“That will never happen; you know how I love to be written off!”

“What do you want me to do?” whispered the shadow sitting in the hay loft. “I’m on this hillbilly, I saved his life today - hope that’s OK? But I thought there was no point in you sending me up here if I was just to watch him being target practice for a couple of regime mercenaries. He’s been joined by another man and a young woman; from their body language I think it’s his daughter. One thing's for sure though, Ben, this guy is no Bin Laden; everything he's done so far he has done it alone, with his own bare hands. He is a cold hard bastard, but he’s no terrorist mastermind and he’s definitely not beaten; he’s sitting up there in the woods living his life.”

“Just stay on him please, you did good, don’t let them kill him. I think he may turn out to be the thorn in the NSO’s side or the catalyst to begin a greater escalation in resistance to Start’s new regime.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Ok, Tom, and look, I'll see you when this sorts out, yes?”

Baines was answered by the dial tone - the shadowy figure perched in a barn in the Northumbrian wilderness had hung up long before Baines finished his sentence. The barn was silent bar a few boards which rattled in the soft breeze. It was a cool breeze that softened the smell of the farmyard to a sweet, pleasant aroma. He ripped open a packet of oat biscuits, peeled back the lid on a small tin of pate and he ate.

*    *    *    *    *

Lucas Start reclined in a large leather armchair positioned next to the ornate Victorian fireplace in his office. He had just taken a huge bite of a fat pastrami and gherkin sandwich. The mustard pickle seeped from the corners of his mouth. He could only really enjoy it if he stuffed so much in his mouth that he nearly choked on it. He listened to the animated South African voice through the mobile phone that he held to his ear with his free hand.

“I need heavier weapons and some people who can handle themselves and the weapons! I mean this is ridiculous, Lucas - it’s like the Wild West up here. I’ve got insurgents picking us off at every step. They have infiltrated my teams. They seem to know what we are up to all the time. Then I’ve got that psycho up on the hill who is becoming a cult hero. I can’t even get close to him because my teams don’t have the first idea of military procedures! This is making a mockery of your security machine, Mr Start. It’s weakening your position and I am losing men to the rebels whilst listening to stories of this marvel living in the hills!”

“Don’t worry, Rudi,” replied Start, swallowing his sandwich and licking his lips, “as always, I’ve got this. I’ll have weapons aplenty to you within days, including armoured vehicles and light artillery - more than enough to crush your problems.”

“What about men? I need people with military experience to keep the idiots I have at the moment in line. Dedication does not mean you know your arse from your elbow, you know?”

“Ok, ok, look, we have thousands of men in full military training at the moment, I will see to it you are sent the first trained to crush any rebels in the north. Patience, Rudi. The North East will be your little honey pot, but you have to keep the locals in check long enough for us to get the troops to you.”

“No problem, if I know they’re coming we’ll hold out, I mean Newcastle to Middlesborough we’re all sewn up…the beauty of deprivation! All the old industry has fired up again and employing the masses, you’ll be reliant on my little patch.”

“It won’t be your patch unless you contain the resistance…that reminds me - I have a small job for you in the interim: find that fucking reporter from last night’s report on our farmer and nullify his future comment.”

“Fine, I’ll go to it, I know the one.”

Start hung up, looked at his sandwich and stuffed another mouthful to capacity and picked up the paper that lay on the coffee table in front of him. It was a report on the capability of the country for ninety percent self-sufficiency; he read it with excitement. The fact he had just ordered a man’s death was history. To Start, it was history similar to that which he created when he ate his sandwich.

Rory Jones had hardly stepped over the threshold as the damp smell of his rather decrepit cottage hit him. He stood in the cramped yet open plan hallway. As one arm slipped out of his damp mac, he stopped at the mirror in the hallway and looked at himself. A broad grin spread across his face and the pride oozed out of him. He made guns with his fingers and pretended to shoot with a ‘piow, piow’ then he chuckled to himself, shaking his chubby head, cringing slightly at his own actions.

He looked around the pokey cottage with its dusty sides, broken gas fire and ancient radiators. He thought to himself that this was the first time in his career as a journalist that his life was taking a turning point for the better. His report on the Northumbrian rebel was receiving acclaim from his peers and his bosses wanted more. For the first time, he was the lead reporter on a story and this was a big story. It was unusual for a journalist from an editorial backwater to get to sink his teeth into such a big story.

He stepped away from the front door and the main part of the house, across the galley kitchen towards the door leading into the garage where he kept a large fridge. He hopped up the three steps to get something to eat - successful or not, he still had to eat. As he opened the door, the reassuring jangle of edible goods wobbling rang in his ears and the glow of the fridge light washed over his face. His hand moved towards ham when he heard the click of the lock on the front door. A pleasant surprise, he thought to himself, as he heard quiet footsteps pad into the sitting room. He had only given his girlfriend keys a couple of days previously and now she was surprising him at lunchtime. He suddenly felt like one of those guys he wished he had been when he was younger: successful, popular, paired off with a pretty girl, dare he say it…‘cool.'

Instead of calling out, he wanted to savour this experience: she knew he was coming home; he had only spoken to her half an hour or so earlier. Maybe, just maybe, she was heading up to the bedroom and he wasn’t going to spoil her plans. So he crept to the doorway of the garage and standing at the top of the three cold stone steps he peeked around the door frame. He glimpsed the figure moving slowly, quietly creeping into the sitting room through the door on the other side of the kitchen.

Rory pulled his head back into the garage, his brain locking into an alternative reality. His heart had stopped momentarily, then started again at an alarming rate; he was shaking and he could not control his hands and shoulders juddering. The person in his house was not his pretty girlfriend. The person in his house was a man, dressed in black, and he was carrying a gun.

He searched the garage for an escape route. The garage door was blocked by shelving; he had only ever used the space for storage. There was a man-hole cover, no windows and the big fridge; he was not going to hide in there. His thoughts were muddled, too many for his brain to digest. He couldn’t move, the front door was already closer to him than the man moving further into the house but his muscles wouldn’t react to the synapses his brain was releasing. It was as though his feet were set in concrete. The man looking for him had a gun anyway: he could not outrun a bullet. He began to cry; silently. the tears rolled down his cheeks as he stood with his back to the wall, ears pricked to hear every creak and squeak from the old cottage.

He picked up the heaviest thing that he could find within arm’s reach. So he stood waiting to club the intruder over the head with a pitchfork as he came up the stairs. He was to the right of the door, feet apart, the gardening tool in both hands pointing at the open doorway, like a soldier in the trenches waiting to run an enemy through with his bayonet.

The seconds felt like minutes, minutes like hours. He could hear hushed creeks and faint bumps as the stranger worked his way through the house systematically. Every so often the house fell silent for what seemed too long and he thought the man had left. But then the ghostly rumours would reverberate through the building once again and his throat would constrict. His eyes felt as though they were about to pop out of their sockets and his ears had taken on a life of their own seemingly twitching independently of each other to pick up every noise. His senses were reacting to the paralysing fear.

Rory followed the man in his mind through the rooms in his house. He pictured the intruder moving up the stairs, impossible to do it silently but he made next to no sound, probably stepping to the very edges of the boards to minimise the give. Then there was an eerie silence as the man must have gone to the far end of the house, Rory’s bedroom. This was farthest from the garage and Rory watched the dust drift across the open doorway and he tried to block out the tick of his grandfather’s clock. It annoyed him at the best of times, but this was something else.

Then the cupboard door opened in the second bedroom with a barely audible ‘click-crimph’. The next sound was the loose board in the third bedroom quickly followed by the cabinet doors, he was no longer being so careful. The footsteps above his head in the bathroom were no longer soft but regular. Dust fell from the ceiling of the garage after every step, Rory tried to swallow but his throat was dry, his stomach churned and he began to worry that he would be sick.

As the last footstep left the bathroom, the house fell silent. Rory waited for the next sound, sweat beading on his forehead, eyes darting but there was nothing just the click of the clock and the birdsong outside. He waited. Five minutes, ten minutes and still the tortured Rory waited. His arms ached from holding the pitchfork ready, he twisted the handle in his grip so that his arms did not go numb but still no sound.

Rory began to think the man had left. His heart began to settle slightly and his muscles relaxed slightly the pitchfork dipped from horizontal, but then he heard the barely audible scuff of the intruder’s boot on the stone steps leading up to the garage.

He had a silenced revolver leading before him in his right hand. No sooner had it split the door frame then Rory's primeval survival mechanisms kicked in: the chubby reporter lunged forward with the pitchfork out in front directed at his assailant’s gun. The prongs of the fork happened to thrust either side of the intruder’s wrist, but the uncontrollable force with which Rory had lunged had a devastating result favouring the journalist. It pushed the man’s gun and arm hard to the left, pinning it against the door frame for a split second before the bones gave way to the pressure and snapped with a horrific crack. The mysterious figure screamed in agony and bent double to take the pain as his weapon skidded across the cold stone floor. Rory lifted the pitchfork high and brought the edge of the prongs down on the back of the man’s head. The NSO officer fell to the floor prone. Rory threw the fork to the floor and jumped over his assailant, into the kitchen, out through the front door and into the empty street.

He looked left up towards the dead end, a black cat stopped still with pneumatic perfection, crouched, green eyes staring at the panting mass of human that had suddenly spilled onto the quiet street. Then in an instant it pounced into a darting run and underneath a red car. Rory turned and ran in the other direction down the hill, towards the centre of town. The narrow road made the ordeal more terrifying. There were small terraced cottages to his right and a high stone wall to his left; no escape route, so he pushed his legs as fast as they could carry him.

He stumbled out onto the main road through Hexham. The Fox and Hounds pub was in front of him and four hundred yards to the left was the police station. Which had now become the NSO command centre for the area. To the right was the centre of town and the market square from where he had made his report the day before. There were few cars around and even fewer people.

He stumbled right running aimlessly towards the town centre when a muddy black pickup truck with a huge bull bar and six lamps mounted on the roll bar above the cab swerved alongside the curb.  Rory fell back against the rough stone wall, thinking that the NSO had swooped down to take him. Had he been less panic-stricken he would have registered the pickup as Jesse Rowell’s. He leaned across the cab and pushed the passenger side door open, his blonde hair was cropped close on the sides and mopped on top, his face was serious but kind. He was the thinker. His brothers were the brawn.

“What’s the matter with you, Rory? You look mental, man, running like that...” he stopped as Rory gathered himself and realised he was looking at someone he knew and could trust. He pushed himself off the wall and jumped into the pickup screaming:

“Go, go, go!”

The big truck growled as it accelerated away from the curb and Rory slumped into the passenger seat, ducking down as the vehicle passed the police station. The truck left Hexham on the Haydon Bridge Road, and Jesse spoke to Rory again,

“Tell me what's going on, Rory.”

“They came for me, Jesse; they came for me - a journalist. How the fuck is that. He was going to kill me, I saw his gun!” Rory was staring out of the windscreen, tears rolling down his cheeks, gibbering as much to himself as to Jesse.

“Who came for you?” asked Jesse calmly, knowing all too well what the answer was.

“They came to my house...” responded Rory, losing energy.

“Look, I'll get you safe - you come with the rebels now, Rory. You won't be safe in Hexham anymore; they obviously don’t want anyone to hear what you have to say. They're killing people in the countryside, Rory; you could be our voice...”

“All I want to do is fucking survive, Jesse. I am not made for this.”

“Tough, this is life now; you think any of us saw this coming?”

A short while later the pickup pulled into Claire's driveway. For precisely the same reason that Nat had ended up at Claire's: due to her friendship with so many of the rebel families and her proximity yet safe distance from Hexham, hers had become the rebel safe house. Arms were being stored in her sheds and she was the field hospital and general hunker-down stop off. It was a burden that she was not comfortable with, but she knew these men and women. She was involved.

Jesse dropped Rory in the drive with instructions to wait, he would send someone to pick him up and take him north later in the afternoon.

Rory walked nervously to the front door checking behind with every step. He was scared of the wind in the trees, the gravel under his feet; he was sure that someone was waiting to attack him at any moment. He rapped on the delicate stained glass panel. Claire was worried by the urgency of the knocking at her door - she kept to the shadows, out of sight as she squinted to see who was behind the wobbly antique glass. Suddenly, she recognised him as his sweaty red face approached the window to look in.

Claire knew Rory a little, they spoke if they met in the pub, they said hello if they passed in the street, but they were not friends as such. Acquaintances would suffice. Claire was a good ten years his senior.

Right now, she rushed to the door realising that Rory was panicking about something. As she pulled the door open, Rory was holding himself up against the frame, he almost fell into the house already blurting out a string of words that Claire had to translate.

She came up with, “Someone’s trying to kill me…so scared!”

“Calm down Rory, you need to breathe you’re in shock,” she said as she glanced outside and shut the front door gently. Rory was pacing back and forth in the sitting room. He was like a zoo animal that had spent too long in a small cage; his pacing was disturbed, erratic, and if he wasn’t spewing saliva-filled sentences, he was gnawing at his fingernails. He had always bitten his nails and had little more than patches of nail at the top of each finger. He was a proficient nail-biter but hardly had enough nail to bite, so now it looked as though he was simply chewing the ends of his fingers.

“Please stop doing that Rory, it’s disturbing and not going to solve anything. Now come into the kitchen, I’ll get the kettle on.”

Rory sat down on the worn old three-seater sofa which nestled in the corner of the kitchen next to the fire. The dancing flames of the fire divided his attention. He was recovering some sort of composure.

“Tell me what happened,” Claire said.

“Simple really, I went home for my lunch. I thought it was fucking Jenny! I went to have a bloody look and there he was - some fucking paramilitary psycho with a gun.”

“It could have been a burglar…”

“Could it hell,” Rory retorted wide-eyed. “He was in the house for a good twenty minutes, didn’t touch my belongings and you tell me how many burglars creep around with silencers on their guns?”

“Ok, so you got away…”

“I think I killed him…”

“What? ...Rory?”

“I hit him so hard with a pitch fork…I was scared.”

“Who do you think it could be?”

“NSO I think, because of my piece on Nat Bell?”

“What about Nat?”

“You haven’t been watching the news, have you? He’s waging a one-man war on the regime, he’s slaughtered about ten of their enforcement squad already - and when I say slaughtered - he is exploring the realms of barbarism!” Rory momentarily forgot his problems as he sank into work mode, excited about his project. Then his face dropped again, “I asked some questions as to why a man like Nat Bell would start killing people…it was aired this morning and then two minutes after I get home this happens. There is no coincidence there.”

Claire was about to tell Rory about Nat but kept quiet as she was beginning to grasp the gravity of the situation. She understood all too well that the less Rory knew, the less he could say which might protect him and would definitely protect Nat and herself.