Thunder (12 page)

“Fuck off,” a second deep voice mutters back gruffly. “There are no cameras on this street. No-one’ll see us. Let’s have the fucking lot. The rich bastards won’t even miss it.”

A second man appears in the inner doorway – perhaps it’s the adrenaline pumping within my icy core but all of my senses feel sharpened and I recognise this invader as being one of the Travellers from earlier today. He too moves to the doorway, with a second bulging bin liner. They must invest in heavy duty polyethylene for their thievery: good quality plastic so their swag won’t go falling out of the bottom. They wouldn’t want a perfectly sellable DVD and satellite box to get damaged now, would they?

He deposits the bag next to the other one, turns, and propels his dirty stinking flesh back through the inner entrance to our warm nest.

I move to the top of the stairs.

~~~~~

Kołobrzeg

Jack waited for a few moments, then rose and followed Ebrahimi out into the cold night. The sky was clear and the slim moon, past zenith, cast baleful light across the thinly street-lit industrial landscape.

The boy was heading toward the river and town, following directions he had procured from Jack during their stunted conversation over dinner. The boy wasn’t to know that there was a wider, much more heavily trafficked, and substantially better lit street a hundred metres south of here. He wasn’t ever going to find out either.

Jack hurried along to close the gap. Ebrahimi was already staggering slightly.

Jack scanned the nearby buildings for darker alcoves or alleyways.

~~~~~

Barfold

Vengeance waits patiently in front of me, a thin black line of pent up fury.

I can hear them shuffling into position and then they emerge. Well, the first one does – the one I didn’t recognise. He has his hands behind his back and our large, black plastic, plasma screen stretches into the inner doorway behind him. His comrade must be holding the other end.

I pull the carbon shaft back, feeling its cool rigidity sliding over my left forefinger until the barb touches my flesh. Vengeance creaks slightly, like a far distant coffin lid being prized upwards by some vampire-hunting hero.

The thief hears the noise, looks up, and freezes.

“What the fuck,” his friend grumbles angrily from within the living room.

The foremost thief turns his head toward the living room doorway. “We’ve got company,” he mutters. I’d expected him to sound surprised or angry at being discovered, but this guy just sounds casual, like he’s in the right and I’m the one who’s in the wrong. Like it’s me that’s in their home, not the other way round.

He stoops and calmly puts his end of the television on the floor and the plasma’s extreme angle is then slowly corrected as the other man puts his end down too.

“Listen Mister,” he starts, and the other one appears in the lounge doorway. “Let’s just make sure nothing stupid happens here, right.” He doesn’t sound at all concerned. If anything, I’d say his tone is bordering on threatening. I gently let the tension back out of the cord, feeling the carbon shaft gently returning forward – I’m not at my best when I hold the draw for too long. “We’ll just be off with this load of old junk, and you say nothing about it, right.”

The second one chips in, “Yep, you just take yourself back to bed like a good little boy ’n we’ll piss off out of here and forget all about you. Then, in the morning, you can call your insurance people and get yourself some nice new stuff.”

“And then we won’t have to do anything nasty to you, or pop back here from time to time just to make sure you’re behaving, right.”

Most definitely threatening.

I’m amazed at how calm I feel. No, I’m more than calm, I feel free for the first time since the bomb. As I face potential injury, and maybe even death, I feel enlivened. I realise, in one split second, that I really don’t care. Not one iota. Live or die, there’s nothing I’m afraid of any more. I can feel my mouth twisting into a genuine smile of pleasure.

The one nearest the front door stoops to pick up our television again.

“Not a good idea,” I grunt deeply.

He stands angrily and spins to face me. “Listen fuck-wit,” he rasps. “We know exactly where you live, right? We’ll be round every fucking day and night, to do your sorry fucking head in, till you wish you’d never been born. Want some of that? Eh?”

I smile down on them: unequivocal, merciless, anger personified. I feel no emotional attachment whatsoever for the creatures in front of me. In another life – a happier life – I would likely have been empathic – live and let live – we all have to find our own way to make it through, etcetera – but this is not a happier life.

Some other so-called fellow human being has changed all of that.

The thief continues unabashed, “Got a missus, eh? Yeah, I know, I’ve seen the picture of the kid too. Let’s be very clear, right. It’s not just you at risk here. Anything happens to us, anything at all, and we’ll hurt them too, right. We’re a big group. There are lots of us. Is it really worth it, big man? For the sake of a few things and an insurance claim?” The carbon slides slowly over my finger. “I’ll happily hurt anyone, me. I’ll happily hurt a fuck-wit like you, or your missus, or your kid...”

And that will be his last thought: he is not going to threaten my loved ones.

Those will be the last words he will ever utter: he is not going to steal our precious memories.

That is the last, malicious, unnecessary burst of oxygen and energy that the shriveled malignant piece of human detritus will ever waste as my steel-tipped carbon shaft blasts its way into his wrinkly eye socket and smashes through his head, thrusting him bodily down and backwards and pinning his lifeless form neatly to the inside of my doorframe.

“Wha...,” manages the second as I pull the next shaft slickly from the quiver strapped to my back, notch it, pull, and loose in less than a second. With a mighty crack and a thump he collapses backwards and his heels drag the plasma over with a secondary clump.

I watch impassively as the second man’s leg twitches a couple of times in the darkness, then it goes still.

“Bullseye,” I mutter to myself, then wander downstairs, collect the two bags from my doorstep and pull the front door closed.

~~~~~

Kołobrzeg

Sergei came round quickly.

He jerked himself up into a sitting position and wildly scanned around in all directions. He was in a small alcove between two of the tall warehouses. Weak orange neon light splayed over the scene from the nearest streetlamp.

Jack watched him carefully from another, much darker and narrower alleyway, further along the street.

The young man shook his head and patted himself down – yes, the old Russian army-issue pistol was where he’d left it. Then he checked his watch – which lied and told him he’d not been unconscious for long – Jack had wound it back a few minutes before giving him the wake-up jab. Then the terrorist wrestled his way out of his backpack straps and went though his bag. All would be perfect, untouched. It hadn’t been touched. Not recently anyway.

Jack breathed gently and remained motionless. He wasn’t overly concerned by Sergei’s searching. He had checked that the first bug was properly hidden, bedded into the gauze padding at the base of the pack. That first tag, inserted whilst in the cafe, had been his ‘banker’ and it was planted perfectly.

When Ebrahimi had passed out, Jack had not quite been close enough to stop the man from clattering to the ground. Fortunately, the dimly lit backstreet had been deserted, so no public theatrics had been necessary, and Jack had only had to drag the young man’s unconscious body swiftly into the back of the nearest alcove. There, he had swiftly checked the aforementioned tag – number one – put a second tag in the thick lapel of the man’s coat – number two – then pulled out the injector. This was the tricky one.

“Find soft flesh, it mustn’t go into muscle or he might feel it and find it,” Deuce had said. “I doubt you’ll be able to plant this one, Tin. This is
professional
stuff.”

Jack had been quietly pleased when Ebrahimi had fallen and hit the deck and, as expected, when he’d jerked down the unconscious boy’s jeans and exposed the fuzzy peach of the kid’s soft buttocks, the right cheek had collected a large patch of hazy purple-red grazing from the hard impact. This would helpfully mask any residual soreness and Vittalle had stuck the injector into the middle of it, pulled the trigger, and embedded a tiny pinhead-sized device under the kid’s skin. Job done.

A quick re-clothing of the youth – he’d been heavy to lift, but no worse than his bro’s had been when paralytic after a big session. A quick adjustment to the kid’s watch – back three or four minutes. A quick jab in the arm to wake him up, and then he’d shuffled him back, next to the pavement, and retreated to observe his handiwork.

Ebrahimi rubbed his head in confusion. As you would, if you had passed out for a few seconds. Losing consciousness would be a disconcerting experience for anyone, but it didn’t seem as if anything was missing, did it...?

Jack watched, pleased, as the boy pulled the rucksack back onto his shoulders, and then tentatively started to make his way toward town. As he walked, Jack saw him reach backwards and rub gently at his sore cheek.

“Yep, that’s gonna be a good bruise,” Vittalle muttered knowingly to himself.

~~~~~

Barfold

It’s getting light by the time I get home.

I used my visitors’ own car to take the bodies, nicely shrouded in the conveniently provided heavy duty black bin bags, to a nearby reservoir. The one we used to go to, when we were courting. The one where we used to sit in our little old car and watch the water sparkling in the moonlight, where we used to whisper our undying love for one another and where we, often, practiced making our daughter behind misty curtains of breath-laden condensation.

Back then, you used to joke about how, if the brakes had failed, we could have rolled right down into the water and, looking back, I suppose we were pretty irresponsible breaking into the compound like that. We’d taken a big risk, but now it’s turned out to be a handy place for me to know about...

Tweedledum and Tweedledee, out of their plastic overcoats and sensibly strapped into the front seats, had trundled off at quite some speed down the slope and the splash that the SUV made as it hit the water had been impressive. It seems that the hardcore runway that we used to park up on must have ended in a near vertical drop into the dark cold depths and the heavy vehicle, with its windows opened, had sunk very quickly.

Then I’d walked for two hours or so, to get back here.

I pick up the phone to ring Steve and explain in a few grunts that I’m not feeling too good and will have to miss training. He laughs, says that our instructor will be relieved and that he’ll call in later. I say not to bother because I’m going back to bed and tell him to call round tomorrow – I’ll be fine by then. He asks if I’m sure, takes no response as a good sign, laughs again and says okay.

“Thanks,” I say and hang up. There’s a fair amount of cleaning, and a little bit of wood filling, I need to do.

~~~~~

Koszalin Bus Station, Poland

Sergei slammed the pay-phone back onto its cradle. The answering machine was still not kicking in.

Jeyhun had said there was a message.

He’d obviously been worried. Maybe he’d been discovered?

Well, the plans had been clear. If we lose contact, switch off the mobiles and go to exit plan Delta. Reconvene in Constanta rather than Budapest.

Sergei realised he might very well be compromised already.

It had been several days since Jeyhun’s call.

He’d have to take an indirect route.

~~~~~

London

Ellard looked up from his screen. “The brother’s just gone dark. Interpol have lost him in the middle of Poland. Shall I activate one of the tags?”

Greere’s mobile started ringing, “Nope. The kid’ll be running a random track for a while. He’ll know he’s probably compromised, so won’t go straight to the next rendezvous.” Greere’s rotund features creased in frustration as he saw the incoming caller’s identity. “Here we go,” he muttered, then answered. “Yes, sir,” he said.

Ellard could hear Sentinel’s shouting from the other side of the office.

~~~~~

Barfold

I don’t let the two policemen in.

They remain on the doorstep, getting gently dampened by the perpetual drizzling rain.

They’ve explained to me that they had to follow up on ‘enquiries’ and that a couple of Travellers have gone missing. They say that some of the other Travellers have vaguely suggested that the ‘Missing Persons’ might have been around this estate. Have mentioned this address.

“Why here?” I grunt angrily. “I don’t know any gypsies.”

They smile pleasantly and say that they’re not sure. “Have you seen anything suspicious lately?” one of them asks: whilst the other one does his best not to make it obvious that he’s trying to see into my hallway

I shrug and shake my head. Our choice of slippery gloss-stone tiles for the hallway had been a good decision. Not that I’d considered its current usefulness all those years ago. It’s been easy to clean. Blood doesn’t stick to stone.

They say that they are very sorry to be bothering me at this difficult time, that they know who I am, and that I should call if there is anything that I might need. Especially if I happen to see anyone suspicious hanging around in the neighbourhood.

“Okay,” I rumble; choosing not to mention the various times I’ve recently watched the other Travellers prowling around outside my home. “Are we done?”

They say it would all be a lot more comfortable if they could step inside for a few minutes... If I could have a look at the photos of the missing men for them...