The Few (The Abductions of Langley Garret Book 2) (6 page)

'Let's go then,' Malcolm said, then got out of the car and opened Chara's door. I refused to wriggle my arse again, and got out from my own side. I caught sight of the driver looking at me in his side mirror and thought I recognised his eyes. I walked around the back of the car, with Chara immediately adopting her new habit of taking my arm, for reasons other than affection now I had calculated, and walked across the road to the auberge entrance. Malcolm's head still gyrating enough to attract the attention he was probably hoping to avoid. When we entered, he looked around suspiciously, then ushered us to the back of the near empty café and the last table that sat adjacent to the toilets.

'Keeping the back door in clear sight then?' I asked, as we sat down, and Chara glared at me.

'I'm sorry Mr. Garret, but I can assure you that it does pay to be careful.'

'I see,' I replied, but I was more interested in his suit. It was well cut, and probably tailored.

'What happened?' Chara asked him.

'Three people entered Mr. Garret's building about three-quarters of an hour before you arrived, and we confirmed their entry into his apartment three minutes after they entered the building.'

'You can tell me in the first person you know. I am here,' I said, with a little annoyance. 'And how do you know they entered my apartment?'

Malcolm looked at Chara as if to say, 'Will you tell him, or me?'

'I placed a few monitors in your apartment,' Chara said. I waited for more. 'Just for your safety Lang.'

'Just mine?'

'Ok then, our safety. But it's proved to be prudent.'

I was going to ask if she's placed any in the bedrooms, but I resisted. She probably had. The waitress arrived at a timely moment and took our orders. While they ordered coffee, I was to my word and ordered a cold beer. After the waitress left, Malcolm reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar object. He unfolded a small video screen, as thin as a few sheets of paper, and handed it to me. 'Maybe you should watch this. Sorry, there's no sound.'

I took it from him, and with my experience in using such a screen with Chara on Decem Filios; I found the play button without his help. I watched as my apartment door burst open and three men with guns drawn entered. The detail was so clear I could easily see the extensions on their guns that I presumed were silencers. From my front door they worked their way though each room, as different monitors caught them, still with guns drawn. There was a short blackout on the video, and I gathered that one of Chara's monitors had been found. The footage returned with one of the men searching my kitchen cupboards and emptying their contents onto the floor. His face appeared monetarily.

'He was one of the men I met on Tuesday morning,' I said, but neither Chara nor Malcolm said anything. They didn't need to, as I could sense them thinking how obvious my observation had been. I returned my attention to the video as the man walked from the kitchen then moved back towards my vitrine. I knew what he had spotted and felt sick as I watched him examine Helen's ring, and then put it in his pocket. Although I couldn't hear anything, I could see him calling out and the two others arrived. They talked together for a minute or so, gathered around my breakfast bar, and seemed to come to a decision before moving off in different directions.

The video then caught one man clearly; the stocky one I had met on rue de Musée. He was looking about anxiously near my dining table, and calling out something. It looked to me from his lips that he was saying hurry up, or something like that. He walked towards my front door with the other two appearing, whose backs I could only see, then following him out. My front door half closed, probably unable to be closed properly because of their forced entry, and I was about to hand the screen back to Malcolm.

'Keep watching,' he said.

I watched as nothing happened. Just an image of my vacant kitchen for a while, then my living room as the monitors changed views. A quick few seconds of the hall to the bedrooms then back to the living room for nearly a minute or so, before everything on the screen exploded in an instant, and the screen turned to snow, and then jet-black. I let the screen fall from my hands to the table.

'They're called air bombs. Not that lethal, and they don't make a lot of noise, but they shift air so fast, anything not tied down or made of concrete tends to break quite easily,' Malcolm said, all too blandly for my liking. I turned to Chara. Her face said I told you so, but at least she had the good grace not to say it out loud.

Our drinks arrived, and I don't think I'd ever welcomed a beer so much in all my life. I'd almost finished it before the other two had taken their first sips of their coffees. Malcolm slipped the screen back into his pocket without a word. I could sense that they were both waiting for me to say something. Perhaps they were, but for the life of me, I couldn't think of anything I wanted to say. I felt more like crying. I let the moments, minutes and the threat of my tears pass. When it had, I beckoned the waitress and ordered another beer.

The silence remained until my beer arrived. I drank it only marginally slower than my first.

'I'm sorry,' Chara finally said. I answered only with my eyes.

'We're waiting for orders from Marcus,' Malcolm added.

'To do what?' I asked him.

'Keep you safe, Mr. Garret.'

I nodded, but was struggling to imagine what he meant by safe, other than being as good as locked up, again. His phone must have vibrated silently in his pocket, as he fetched it out and answered. He just said, 'Yes', and then only listened for about thirty seconds before putting the phone back in his suit coat. He took the bill from the table and paid it.

'I think we'd better get going,' he said.

'Do I have a choice?' I asked him.

'Yes. If you have a better idea, it's up to you,' Chara said, as she stood up readying to leave with Malcolm rising from his chair at the same time. I finished my beer in one gulp while Chara put on her coat. I hesitated, waiting for any idea other than lamely following them to come to my mind, which didn't, so I followed them out through the café and back to the car. As we left the front door, I suddenly knew who the eyes in the side mirror belonged to; the young man on the plane with Marcus, who had deposited me onto the sandy runway on Decem Filios.

We were back on the freeway and heading west towards Lausanne, as darkness was falling. Yverdon slipped by and as we passed Orbe, I expected we were heading for Lausanne or perhaps Geneva. We drove without a word being spoken, other than Chara occasionally firming her grip on my hand, which she had been holding since we had left, as if to offer reassurance. When I felt the car slowing, I was surprised that we were about to take the exit to Cossonay, a small rural town in the middle of the Vaud farming belt.

Expecting to go to the centre of Cossonay and be billeted in a safe house or flat similar to the one I had experienced in Zurich that first day I was abducted by Hazel Eyes, I was surprised when we turned into a long lane on the outskirts of town and ended up stopping in front of a rambling farmhouse. A man came out from the front door as our car pulled up and he was clearly more English gentleman than Vaud farmer. Rugby tweed is not a common sight in Swiss farming areas.

Our driver lowered his window. 'You got a message from Marcus then?'

'Yes. Everything is ready. Please bring your guests inside,' the man in tweed replied. Although it was dark, I could make out that he was elderly, and noticed his walking stick as he headed back toward the front door.

'Ok then,' Malcolm said. 'Our lodgings for the night.'

I got out of the car and Chara wriggled across the back seat and I helped her from the car. Malcolm came around to join us, and then the car pulled away. I presumed to be parked out of sight. We walked towards the front door that was dimly lit and met by the man in tweed, who was waiting for us.

'I'm Henry, welcome,' he said, as he extended his hand to me.

'Langley Garret,' I replied, as I shook his hand. And this is Chara.

'Delight to meet you,' he said, as he shook her hand.

'Thank you for your hospitality,' Malcolm added.

'A pleasure as always Malcolm. It's been a while though. Please, please come inside.'

Once inside, Henry fussed a little and made sure we all knew where the kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom and toilets were, before showing us to our rooms. A little surprised to find that Chara and I had a double bedroom, but I suppose even in deep Vaud, values had changed. We returned downstairs to find Malcolm and our driver waiting in the living room.

'I believe we've met before,' I said, as the driver stood and shook my hand.

'Yes Mr. Garret, we have. My name's Richard.'

'Well, nice to meet you, officially that is. And please, I prefer Lang.'

'Certainly. I'm sorry for…..well…..'

'Let's just get on with what's happening now perhaps.'

'Yes. Good idea,' Chara added, sensing a little awkwardness between Richard and me.

'Please sit down and I'll get some wine. Local if that's all right?' Henry said.

'That would be very nice Henry. I'll come and help you,' Chara said, and walked off slowly with Henry, leaving me to sort out any issues I may have had with Richard, or Malcolm.

'Um, well, thanks for your help this afternoon,' I said, not really knowing what else to say to them.

'It's just our job,' Malcolm said, as he checked his phone.

'And what is your job?' I stupidly asked.

Malcolm put his phone back in his pocket and glanced at Richard before replying. 'We just do as we're told.'

'Right.'

One of those long silences followed, when you really don't know where to look, but know that you really don't want to look directly at anyone else in the room. The three of us, all assiduously studying the walls of animal heads and old hunting guns, gathering dust, as we avoided each other's eyes. I was thinking that the wine might be good when it arrived, but the company wasn't really going to improve. I was right. Henry and Chara tried over the first bottle or wine, and then yet again over dinner of Pot au Feu, but Malcolm and Richard clearly weren't the sociable kind. I had the feeling that in their line of work that was probably quite wise.

When we finally made it up to our room after dinner, I was exhausted and just flopped onto the bed. Maybe it was the after effect of having watched my apartment explode, or the boring company over dinner, but I felt very tired. Chara disappeared off to the bathroom just after we arrived and I satisfied myself with the view of the ceiling above; lost in my thoughts, which was becoming more than a habit again and thinking back to when I was locked up by the Oxford Accent and friends. I only had my thoughts for company then and could feel that times like those were returning. My stomach, liver and spleen agreed, as the waltzed around my abdomen awkwardly. I might not have been in a concrete cell without a bed, and a foul shit hole in the floor in one corner, but I felt the eerie similarity of being imprisoned.

When Chara came back to the room about ten minutes later, wrapped in a green bathrobe, I got up slowly, rubbed my eyes, and made my way to the bathroom. Somehow, I just wasn't surprised when I returned, to find Chara, naked, beautiful and smiling, lying on the bed with her head propped up on one elbow and with the bed covers thrown to the floor.

'An invitation?'

'Tomorrows are such an unknown.'

'Live for the moment?'

'Is that so bad, Soter?'

I lay down next to her and she kissed me. 'Are you my reward for doing as I'm told, or my reason for believing the unbelievable? Or perhaps more likely, you're a siren, who will lure me to my to my death on a rocky shore.'

'Either, both or all of the above, it doesn't matter. I love you Soter, that's what's important.'

'You've been ordered to love me.'

'Does it make a difference?'

'My name is Lang.'

'Yes, Lang. And as I said, does it make a difference right at this moment?'

Summoned

'We're leaving in an hour,' I heard, just after a knock at our bedroom door. I checked my watch. Six-thirty. Chara rolled over, yawned, opened her eyes for a second and then fell straight back to sleep.

'Time to wake up Chara,' I said, as I pushed her hair back gently from her forehead, and wondered why life couldn't be as innocent and beautiful as she looked. If I could have made time stand still, it would have been at that precise moment.

After a quick breakfast and a polite farewell to Henry, we were back on the freeway and heading towards Lausanne.

'There's a plane waiting for you at Lausanne Airport,' Malcolm said, after a few minutes.

'To?' I asked.

'Kratos wants to meet you.'

'Right. And Chara?'

'You'll be meeting Kratos alone Mr. Garret.'

I looked at Chara but she seemed unsurprised and she just patted the back of my hand, which I felt was a little patronising. I slowly pulled my hand away from her. 'And where am I meeting him?'

'Marcus will be travelling with you, so he'll let you know.'

I had a sudden feeling of déjà vu as I thought about flying again with Marcus. The last time hadn't lead to a pleasant final destination. Thoughts of opening the car door and running as soon as the car stopped at traffic lights, as we entered the outskirts of Lausanne floated through my mind, but so did the face of the man who had greeted me in rue de Musée, and had taken Helen's wedding ring and then reduced my apartment to ruins. Whichever way I ran, someone would find me – friend or foe, although I was having trouble telling the difference between them. Any decision I might have made to run was negated by the fact that the car didn't stop on the way through the outskirts of Lausanne, just slowing from time to time in light morning traffic, and only pulling to a halt after we approached the plane waiting for me. Marcus was waiting at the foot of the steps.