*****
Half past seven, Jason had said and I’m in the pub from four, so there’s no way I’m going to be late. And also a good way to get over my thirst and forget those mad policemen, that sad funeral, and get myself into the mood for whatever’s going to happen tonight. I figure I’ll need my wits about me so I’m going light on the chasers, and lining my stomach with crisps.
I’ve even remembered to pack a bag, clothes, music (although Mark’s taste was pretty dodgy) and all the credit cards I can find. Jason’s texted me four times – remember 7:30, thinking I’m unreliable and he’s also reminded me to check out the website that he gave me, but somehow I seem to have lost the sheet of paper. Better not tell him.
“Hello” says a voice behind me, I’m thinking Jason must be early but when I turn round I see someone else, a big man and it takes me a second to place him. Jesus. It’s what’s his name, Jane’s bloke.
“Thought I saw you here” he smiles, “mind if I sit down?”
“Erm, no, well, I’m supposed to be meeting someone…”
“Oh” and he looks a bit disappointed
“Yeah, he’s coming in a minute, at half seven, and…”
“Oh!” he smiles, “well that’s in half an hour, we can have a quick chinwag then can’t we.” He sits down on the chair next to me and seems to drag it all the way over so we’re almost touching.
Shit.
“Is he a … friend of yours?” he asks tentatively.
“Well, yeah… no!” I laugh, “not like that!”
“Oh!” and his eyes light up.
“Well, you know, I mean, I’m not, you know, gay….” I say quickly.
“Well, neither am I” he laughs and puts his hand on my knee. “But what happened between us…”
I’m pushing myself back a bit, “But yeah, you know, maybe that was, like, a … mistake?” I say quietly.
“It didn’t feel like a mistake at the time” he says brightly. “Look, look, let’s just have a chat. I’m sick of Jane, anyway, I’m not sure how you can stand her at work, to be honest, with her high and mighty ways and always being right. It was so good when we talked that time, wasn’t it? I just felt so relaxed, so free. And we talked for hours, didn’t we.” And now he’s doing some gazing into the distance.
“Yeah, er, I guess we did, but you know, we were both drunk and…”
“Yes, of course we were, but it frees us to be who we really are doesn’t it? Look, Mark, I’m not saying we should have an affair or do anything silly like that, I just think, let’s have a few drinks sometime and see how things go. You know, if we want to kiss again, then fine, if not, we won’t. But we should definitely find …”
His phone starts ringing, we both glance down and it’s saying “Jane calling”. He makes a face but he still answers it. “Hello darling” he says in a big, happy voice.
“Yes, yes, I’m just on my way … yes, I did remember … yes, I got those too … Oh, yes, sure, yes, of course I can darling …. No of course I won’t forget … no of course I won’t be late, I’ll just finish here and …. No, of course I’m not in the pub, no I’m just at the till … yes, it’s quite busy, they’re …. Yes of course …. Love you too, bye.”
“Ah well” he shrugs, “looks like I better go. I’ll call you, OK? Let’s meet for a drink after work” and he reaches forward, squeezing my shoulder then leaves without looking back.
“Ah well” I shrug.
“Friend of yours?” asks Jason who just seems to have appeared next to me. I just sigh and shake my head.
“Right, are you ready? You haven’t been drinking have you?”
“No” I smile, and I grab my bag and follow him out to the car park.
Jason’s car is a sleek red number, a two door coupe which I have to duck into, the doors are so low. I like that. Inside it’s all black leather and black instruments, strange dials with strange names that I ignore as I let myself fall backwards into the seat and close my eyes, feeling the vibrations coming through the car as Jason starts the engine and we start moving.
“It’s about half an hour’s drive” he says. “Now, tell me what happened with the police this morning.” Eyes closed, I recount the details as far as I can remember them and try not to fall asleep. Jason makes a few muttering noises like “Hmmm” and “I see” but doesn’t really react other than that. When I finish he says “Yeah, well that all seems fairly obvious. You’ve really pissed off this guy Jelfs, clearly he wants you to back off, so I’m thinking there must be a fair bit of cash. You definitely didn’t mention me, or him, or anything, to the police?”
“No” I mutter. “Ouch!” as he punches me. “Wake up!” he shouts, and I pull myself up out of my slumber. “Look at me!” so I look at him and his intense eyes. “Concentrate. You didn’t say anything, about any of this?”
“No! I didn’t. I told them it was probably her, trying to set me up or cry for attention or something sad like that, you know, those kind of things that women do…”
“Ok. That was a good answer.” He nods. “But they won’t be finished, they’ll be sniffing around you now, they’ll have a bit of a scent and they’ll want to know more. What did you say their names were?”
“Erm, Dredd and Maker I think”
“Dredd and Maker, Dredd and Maker. I’ve got a couple of contacts in the police from my military days, I’ll see if I can find anything about them. Don’t want them making trouble do we.” Couple of contacts in the police, how cool is that. Maybe I should get into the military, so I can say things like that. Maybe straight after I get my tattoo, still need to do that. I can’t help noticing that Jason has one, can’t quite make out what it is. “Listen” he says carefully, “I know you may not want to do this, but you should probably go and see Vanessa. You know, build some bridges, make some connection, you don’t want her sniffing after you too, and pushing the police. Especially if you say this Dredd dude has a thing for her.” Dude?
I nod non-committaly, I mean thinking what if she gets the wrong idea? What if she thinks I want to get back together, you can never tell with women, and then I’m back at square one, having to start again. “Yeah, I’ll think about it.”
We’re driving into deep countryside, leaving the town behind, trees on either side of us making a canopy over us and throwing us into darkness. “Where are we going?” I ask.
“This, my friend, is going to be the final stage. We’re going to the meeting place, top secret, afraid I can’t share the location with you, only a select few of us know.”
“But I can see where we’re going?” I’m confused.
“Yeah, well, don’t look, all right. Technically I should put a blindfold on you or something, but you know, seeing as it’s you and anyway you almost certainly won’t be able to remember, so I didn’t bother. Don’t tell The General, though, for God’s sake.”
“He’ll be there?” I gulp.
“Hmmm. Perhaps. He may send one of his lieutenants. He needs to keep far away from the actual action, to protect the movement.”
I feel a sigh of relief. “Of course he does” I reply. Jason glances at me but doesn’t say anything.
“Right” he says, “we’ll pick up on your problems later, we’ll get a plan in tomorrow. I don’t think the police changes anything, we just need to be a bit more careful, and we need to move quickly. Don’t want Vanessa losing anything else, do we?”
“Well…” I answer and then decide to shut up. I close my eyes again and thankfully this time Jason leaves me alone, letting me drift off into my peaceful world.
And now he’s shaking me, “Come on, Mark, we’re here.” I shake myself awake and climb out of his car. I may not have noticed this before but the doors seem to just disappear when you touch the opening button.
We’ve come out of a set of dense trees and are on a large gravel square, lit up by the rays from the evening sun. I walk over to the edge and I realise that we’re at the edge of a steep drop, a large ravine
and I tiptoe to the very edge and look down, but I can’t see anything, it’s that deep. There’s a hand on my back and Jason’s next to me, looking down. “Good spot for it, don’t you think? Nothing for miles, fenced off land, all owned by The General. No one else even knows this is here, it’s not marked on maps, to all purposes it doesn’t actually exist. I tell you, Mark, we would have got nowhere if it hadn’t been for The General, he has such influence, so many connections. But it’s also his drive, his presence, his organisational skills, I mean, that man is really a legend. If all was right with the world then he would have been knighted by now, but instead he has to stay in hiding, work undercover, because the laws of the land DO NOT UNDERSTAND what is happening in this country.” His voice is shaky when he ends and I have to look away, look at the sun, to stop feeling embarrassed. And then we just stand in silence, looking down into nothing.
“So” I say eventually, “what happens now?”
Jason snaps out of his reverie and checks his watch. I glance down at it and can’t see anything, it’s a black watch with a black face and black hands on a black dial and I have no idea how he says “They should be here in about thirty seconds”. I wonder sometimes if Jason is overdoing the ex-military cool thing, I’m not sure, maybe we can discuss it later when we are at his place.
About 20 seconds later we hear a loud rumbling, and I look over at the forest to see a large, black truck lumber its way through and out into the clearing. It sweeps around in a large loop and slows down, breaking and stopping a few feet away from us. The engine is cut and we wait for a few seconds before the driver’s door is hauled open and a man steps out, and onto the side step. He stretches his arms out and yawns. He has swept back hair, dark glasses, a huge cigar in his mouth and it makes me realise that I haven’t had a cigarette for a while, so gratefully I light up. Jason frowns at me then raises his hand and says “Frank! Great to see you!”
Frank looks down and salutes. “My man Jason. How are you. Glad to see you here. Is this here Mark?”
I nod, smile and say “Hi, Frank.”
“Got a light?” he asks, stepping down and walking up to me. I hand him my lighter, and when he’s finished he tosses it into the ravine. “Thank you for that” he says, and I just shrug. He turns to Jason.
“At my end we are all set. I have two of the cargo here in the truck. The other three are at point B. We have until eight thirty to complete our business, then Control will rendezvous with us, check our work and we regroup at headquarters. No celebrating until it’s done, it will need to be verified and all controls completed.”
The truck’s massive, a big engine and a full forty foot trailer behind it, all black, emblazoned with a logo written in red saying “FRANK’S TRANSPORT” and underneath “We’ll Take Anything Anywhere.” I wonder how he managed to get the truck through that forest and the small, windy roads, but I guess that was his problem.
“Great, good work” says Jason. “And do we know how we will complete the activity?”
“You leave that to Uncle Frank,” says Frank, “I have put together some really clever kit to do it.” He nods at me. “Can we trust him or do we need to resolve that too?”
I start to say something but Jason puts his hand on my shoulder. “Yes, of course we can trust him. I’ll look after him, don’t worry.” Oh, I realise they are talking about me. Frank comes up to me and pinches my cheek. “Ouch” I say but he ignores me and studies me, looking me up and down. “You sure? Seems a bit of a lightweight. And The General told me that he almost lost the cargo.” He pauses. “Listen, I know he’s your friend but we can’t afford to take any risks, I think we should…”
“I like your truck” I say.
“What?”
“Your truck, it’s cool. Do you really run a transport company? Only, I’m thinking of moving house and…”
“No. I don’t” he says curtly and turns back to Jason. “He seems to have a bit of a screw loose. I’m really thinking…”
Jason takes Frank by the arm and leads him away, and they stand talking and glancing over at me for a few minutes. I wonder what Frank meant earlier, I guess cut me out of the operation, which would be a shame because I’m actually starting to enjoy it. Anyway, best leave them to it. I wonder whether Jason’s got a cigarette lighter in his car, I’m about to go over and find out when Jason says “Mark!”
“Yeah?”
“Okay, it’s all sorted” he smiles. Frank comes up to me and slaps me on the shoulder. “Sorry, my friend, can’t be too careful these days. Sorry to hear about your women problems. Me I just don’t bother any more, too much hassle. Keep myself to myself, smoke cigars, drink whisky, drive my truck…”
“Yeah” I nod, “maybe I should get a truck like that.”
He nods, happily. “You really should. I have a huge house but I don’t normally stay there, I travel around in my truck and sleep in the back. I’ll show you later, when we have unloaded the cargo. I have a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room with this huge cinema screen and – get this – if I park within a mile of a cinema – I can stream the film from the cinema and watch it in my truck. It’s awesome, some technology I put together myself.”
“Wow. How do you do that?”
“Well” starts Frank, “you get a….”
“Guys, guys, guys, we’re on a schedule” Jason put his arms up. “Come on, we need get going.”
Frank turns to him. “You’re the man, Jason, you keep us on track.”
“Does it have a bar?” I ask Frank.
Frank nods. “A bar, fully stocked, we get a delivery every day, all sorted, all over the web. There are little sensors under each barrel and bottle that detect when it’s about to run out and send the order through. And, because I do it through the VDW, it’s all free. I’ll show you later…”
“Guys…” says Jason
“That’s awesome. What else does it have?”
“Well,” says Frank excitedly, “it’s got a sauna, a steam room and even a mini gym. And it’s got this system where, when you’re not using them, they get transformed into bedrooms, so I can have a real party in there. And you can crash all the walls down, and move everything out of the way – automatically, of course, and it becomes a huge dance floor. And I’ve got the disco equipment and a remote DJ…”
“A remote DJ? Whoa. How does that work?”
“Guys…” Jason shouts, exasperated.
“A remote DJ? You don’t know? Well, you can do a few things, I mean first, I can hook up any live DJ and he can hook in remotely and…”
“GUYS! STOP!” shouts Jason, loudly. We both turn round. “Come on! We need to get this moving! We’re wasting time. The rendezvous will be here in … “ he checks his watch - “forty five minutes and we have work to do. Frank, get to it! Unload the truck.”
Frank winks at me. “Sure, sure, Jason, don’t worry, you’ll see, I’ve got everything ready. I have this amazing machine in my truck…”
“Enough about the truck, already! Just get it moving.”
Frank shrugs, nods and me and says, “come over, give me a hand.” We walk together to the back of the truck, and Frank touches a space on the back, exposing, magically, a lit glass panel.
“That’s cool” I nod.
“It is, isn’t it” smiles Frank, “Watch this.” He places his right palm on the panel and you can hear a click. The back door of the truck seems to fold in on itself, disappearing slowly and exposing a grill, like a prison grill, iron bars going from top to bottom in front of a dark, empty room. I peer in to see what looks like two figures huddled in the back.
“You see,” nods Frank, “this is clever, so we can avoid them running away when you’re not looking. It’s like a little prison cell. And, when I’m not using this of course, this is what becomes the cinema room. You see that over there? “ he indicates one of the walls of the truck, “all of that becomes the screen, and there are sofas and a popcorn dispenser and any drink you want, all automatically served by
this robot that I have.”
I shake my head. “That is genius.”
“And look” he continues, “it’s voice activated. Listen…. Lights please!” he shouts, and the cell is illuminated dimly to expose a dirty floor, greasy walls, and the two people at the back, dressed in what looks like sheets, hoods pulled over their heads. “Great isn’t it?” says Frank, “you know this effect is all manufactured to make it feel more authentic, a bit like a prison should be. It gets cleaned automatically and then recreated when I want it. Guys!” he says,“ snapping his fingers, and rattling the cage, “guys, get with it!”
The figures simultaneously look up and I recognise Gary, looking tired, his hair gone, his head shaved.
“Hey Gary!” I smile, “how’s it going?” but he gives me a blank stare. Maybe he has a short memory, I guess I shouldn’t judge, people like him must meet so many people that it’s easy to forget them. But then, he did try to kill me, and I think that does give me some sort of right to be remembered by him, so I’m not sure I’m happy about his reaction.
“What do you think?” beams Frank.
“Well, they look tired. Do you think they’re all right?”
Frank slaps me on the back. “You’re the man!” he laughs. “Do I think they’re all right, hey, that’s a good one! Well, let’s see, torture, starvation, sleep deprivation, I guess they’re doing fine!”
I laugh with him. “Who’s the other guy?” I ask.
“That’s Mark” says Frank, “he was one of their singers, remember. Gary was the clever one, the creative one, wrote most of the songs, Mark, he was a singer but the girls thought he was something. Not any more now, I guess, look at the fucker”
Mark has wounds on his head that are still bleeding, his eyes look dull and lifeless, his mouth drooped in a kind of comic version of an O, and I’m struggling to see that any girls would have found him attractive. “Hi, Mark” I say, weakly, but he doesn’t respond.
There’s one other thing in the cell, a kind of wooden contraption I don’t really understand, but Frank gestures at it and says “What do you think?”
Jason has come over and joined us and is studying the contraption intently. “What is it?” he asks.
“What is it? What is it? Look! It’s…” he pauses. “Tell us, Jason, what’s our mission here?”
“Our mission?”
“Yeah, what’s our mission? What do we need to accomplish in the next forty five minutes?”
“It’s thirty five now you two jokers have been mucking around” says Jason, curtly.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, what do we need to do in the next thirty five minutes?” Frank asks, impatiently.
“Well. We need to … dispose of the cargo.”
“Yes. And how?”
Jason pauses. “Any way we want” he says, carefully.
“Yes, any way we want, but in a manner that causes…?”
“Maximum pain” Jason nods.
“Right. And this little baby here is designed to…”
“Cause maximum pain!” I say, excitedly.
“Exactly” smiles Frank. “The man may not look quick but he can string a few coherent thoughts together. This clever device, that I put together, is designed to cause maximum pain… AND” he puts his hand up, “this is clever – it’s not just physical pain, but emotional pain as well. I’m talking about fear” he whispers the last bit.
“Hmmm” says Jason, looking unconvinced, “how does it work, exactly?”
“Help me unload it and you’ll find out” smiles Frank
He touches another hidden control and the cell bars glide out of the way. Gary and Mark don’t make any attempt to run as we pull the device out, luckily it’s on wheels, but it’s still seriously heavy, as Frank guides us, telling us to be careful as we manoeuvre it to the edge of the ravine. Frank gets to work on it, moving some bits of wood around, assembling others, and gradually the contraption begins to take shape. “There!” he says, satisfied, after a few minutes. “Now, wait here”. He disappears back to the truck and returns a few moments later, leading Gary towards us. Gary’s arms are fastened together with rope and he’s walking slowly, looking down. Frank guides him towards us and pushes him down, so he finds himself sitting roughly on the dusty gravel. “Not so much a pop star now, are you?” he asks, jokingly, and Gary looks up and gives a warped, cracked smile, but doesn’t answer.
“So” says Frank, “what do you think?”
“It’s a gallows” says Jason, unimpressed.
“Well, yes, it’s a gallows, but it’s not just any old gallows, it’s a suspended gallows. That’s what makes it so exciting.”
“Wow” I say, “a suspended gallows.”
“Before I get too speechless, tell me what a suspended gallows does” says Jason.
Frank gives me a look. “Well, it’s very simple. You put Gary on this platform here”, he says, indicating a rough square bit of wood, and it’s levered so that it goes out like this.” He gives it a push and it swings out, hanging over the ravine. “Got that?” he asks, “then, you get our friend Gary here, and put him on the platform and hook the noose over his head. With me so far? Good. Then… you pull this lever here and the platform swings away, strangling our good friend. How about that then?”
“So…” says Jason slowly, “your suspended gallows is actually … a gallows?”
“Well, no. That’s not right. It’s easy body disposal isn’t it. Plus, if he doesn’t die straight away, you can cut the rope and he falls to his death. Clever, don’t you think” and he looks at me encouragingly.
“I just don’t get it” says Jason. “First, strangling is easy. We were supposed to make this really painful weren’t we, strangling is over in a few seconds and that doesn’t sound painful to me. Second…”
“But!” says Frank, “it’s also psychological torture. When we’re about to strangle him, he’s looking down at the ravine and thinking, what if they just let me drop down there, how scary would that be. He doesn’t know if we’re going to strangle him or let him fall…”
“Well, except that you’ve just told him” says Jason. They both glance at Gary, who is sitting quietly, staring up at us, but there’s nothing in his eyes. A true player.
“Well, yeah, maybe, but I’m talking conceptually…” says Frank.
“Conceptually, it’s crap” says Jason. “We may as well just unexpectedly grab him and throw him down the ravine. That would be much scarier for him.”
“What, like this?” I ask, and I grab Gary by the waste, pull him up, and shove him over the edge. He seems to stay there, suspended in the air, for a few seconds, a bit like in a cartoon. He doesn’t protest much when I grab him, and he’s kind of light, it’s like he doesn’t really realise what’s happening, but he does start to kick out a bit as he’s going over the edge and, happily, he does start screaming as he goes down.
The three of us stand there looking over the edge at his gradually disappearing figure. “I wonder if there’s water at the bottom” I say.
We hear a crash, then a small puff of dust cloud appears for a few seconds. “I guess not” says Jason.
“Hey, that was kind of cool” smiles Frank. Jason studies me. “It was, actually.” Frank comes up and slaps me on the back, and then says, “give me a hand with this” and walks over to his gallows. “You’re right” he smiles, “it was shit.” He starts to heave it towards the edge, and as we realise what he’s doing, me and Jason go over and help him and together we push it over the edge. It gains speed quickly and makes a bigger crash than Gary did. “I wonder if it landed on top of him” I say, absently.
Jason smiles, “didn’t that take you ages to make?” he asks Frank.
“Yeah, well, didn’t stop it being crap” Frank replies. “Right, let me get Mark. We going to do the same to him?” he asks, going over to the truck.
Mark sits on the floor, in much the same way Gary did. There’ s a little more life in his eyes, but not that much, and
though he’s tied up pretty well and it wouldn’t help anyway, he seems to have no interest in running away.
“Hey, you didn’t drug them did you?” asks Jason, who seems to be thinking the same as me.
“Nah, man, course I didn’t. Where would be the fun in that? Just broke their spirits” he smiles, “ain’t that right, my friend?”, giving Mark a friendly kick in the shoulder. Mark flinches, glances up at Frank and then looks away. “Time to make your confession, my friend” Frank says, “now do you regret everything that you did? I could tell you stories…”
“Leave it, Frank” says Jason. “So, what are we going to do now, the same as before?”
“No, man, we want to be more creative. Mark! “he says, turning to me, “come on, you were the one with the idea, what else can you think of?”
Maybe I have got a talent for this. “Well,” I say, thinking quickly, “we could tie him upside down to a tree, cover him in something tasty, and wait for wild animals to come and eat him?” I’m sure I saw that in a film somewhere.
“Hmmm” says Frank.
“Nice idea, Mark” says Jason, “but I don’t think you get that many wild animals round here that would actually eat a live human being.”
“Well, we could send Frank to a zoo to steal one?”
“Hmmm” says Frank.
“Mark, we have half an hour” Jason says, “I don’t really think that’s going to happen.”
“What about rabies?” I ask.
“What about rabies?”
“Well, we could find a rabid dog, get it to bite him, tie him up and wait till he gets rabies, then let him die. It’s supposed to be a really horrible death and there’s nothing anyone can do about it, there’s no cure. I saw this programme on telly…”
“Got a rabid dog in the back of your car, have you?” asks Frank.
“Well, no, but…”
Jason shakes his head. “No, Mark. No wild animals, no rabies, nothing like that. We just don’t have the time, we need to do something now and make sure he dies. I really don’t want to fail on this.”
I think carefully for a minute. “Right,” I say, “I have got an idea. I saw this film once where this woman, she’d been raped by this guy and in revenge, she took him into her bathroom, pretended to seduce him, but instead, when he was naked, cut off his dick, and then locked him in there with nothing that he could use to stop the blood, and he bled to death from his dick. How cool is that.”
“Well….” says Frank.
“So,” I continue, “we could tie him up, cut his dick off and watch him bleed.”
“But” says Jason, slowly, “that would mean holding his dick and there is no way I’m doing that.”
“Good point” says Frank, “me neither.”
We all look at Mark for a minute, who does look a bit relieved. “So” asks Jason, “what the hell are we going to do?”
“Okay, okay,” I say, “now this is a good idea. What we do, is we each grab an arm, and pull as hard as we can, and we’ll split him in two, and there you go.” I should really be a mad, evil genius.
“We each grab an arm?” asks Frank.
“There are three of us, and he only has two arms” says Jason.
“Yeah, details” I reply. “You can grab a leg”
“And then we pull with such force that he splits in two?”
“I’m pretty tough, I think you’ll find that hard” says Mark suddenly and we all turn round and look at him. “You’re just scared” I say.
“I think he may have a point though” says Jason, “I think it may be quite hard to pull someone apart like that.” He reaches over to Mark and yanks his arm.
“Ouch” says Mark.
“Yep, he seems pretty solid” says Jason.
Frank replies, “Well, I think we should have a go, after all, what do we have to lose?”
“Well, not killing him in …” Jason checks his watch “the next twenty minutes, and I don’t really want to face up to The General that we haven’t been able to do that.”
“Are we going to try this or what?” I ask.
“I think we should keep it simple” replies Jason. “I think we should just cut through his neck with a blunt knife, and let him bleed to death, and then if we run out of time we can just throw him off the cliff. I’ve got a knife in my car I think, let me just go and get it.”
“Good idea” says Frank.
“I still think…” I start, but Jason puts his hand on my shoulder. “Maybe next time, my friend. Maybe you should think in advance and bring a couple of rabid dogs and a lion with you.” He gives me a big smile and Frank laughs.
“Right, let me just find this knife. Mark, see if you can find a flat stone, we can use it to blunt the knife before we start.” I scratch my head and look around, all around me is gravel, or grass, so this is really going to be easy. Jason starts walking towards his car, but stops suddenly and looks over to the left. Me and Frank follow his gaze towards the dense forest, and you can see the trees at the front swaying, like there’s a breeze, but the air is still, and very faintly, there’s a noise in the background, a distant rumbling, a little like thunder, but the sky is clear. Frank glances at me nervously and Jason is rooted to the spot. I glance at Mark, who has felt it too, and is struggling to get to his feet, in anticipation of what may be about to happen, but Frank pushes him back down on the shoulder and he falls to the ground, and lays there, motionless, breathing lightly and staring up at the sky.
“What is it?” I whisper, and as if in answer to my question, the rumbling takes on form, a deep, loud noise and the trees suddenly split apart and fall, making a makeshift exit from the forest. And there’s a flash of light and like lightning something comes shooting out of the forest, going so fast it’s hard to see, and I put my hands in front of my eyes, Frank does the same and Jason jumps, as if out of the way, but out of the way of what.
“What the hell” starts Frank, and there’s a vehicle there, parked in between us and Jason, Christ knows how it avoided hitting him, it looks quite space age, the front looks like the tip of a rocket which tapers into the shape of a van at the back, but streamlined, circular, not square. There are windows at the front but of course they’re tinted, so dark that it’s hard to see anything inside, and the whole machine is painted black, but not a shiny black, a dark, hidden black, so dark that it seems to suck the light in from around it, creating a kind of hazy mirage that it sits in the middle of. And most bizarre of all, it’s not actually sitting on the ground, but it seems to be hovering a foot or so above it, completely still, completely stable and now, completely silent.
“What the hell” says Frank again, slowly, in wonder and we look at each other and wonder whether to approach. Jason has come over to stand by us, like he’s scared of it, like there’s strength in numbers and we all stand, looking, next to the Mark’s body. Frank puts a leg onto Mark, I’m not sure whether to protect our property or to rest his leg, but for a few moments everything remains silent. I can feel the sweat running down my face, and Jason actually reaches out and grabs my hand, and I don’t fight it.
And then there’s a soft noise and a panel slides sideways from the machine and I’m expecting little green creatures to run out, but it’s not, it’s two men, both dressed entirely in black, both wearing head visors and some kind of shiny clothes, both carrying weapons slung over their shoulders, and they walk towards us, fast but not running and stop right in front of us. They’re tall and lean and I feel myself shrink back from them. Jason lets go of my hand and I can see the tension in his face.
They glance down at Mark, and the one on the left nods slightly, as if satisfied. “Jason Friedman?” he asks in a hard voice.
I gulp. “That’s me” says Jason, his voice a little high. Both men have their arms on their weapons.
The man on the left looks down. “This is Mark Lecarr?” he asks. Jason nods. The man looks around, quickly, sweeping the vista.
“Where’s Gary Starr?” h
e asks.
“Erm… well, we, that is, Mark…” Jason gulps, “erm, well, took the action…”
“You mean he’s dead?”
Jason nods, uncertainly.
“Shit” says the man and spits on the ground. “Which one of you is Mark Forth?”
I point at Frank and the man turns to him. “Hey, hey, hey” says Frank, “it’s not me, it’s him”, pushing me forward a bit.
I laugh, looking down, “only joking!” I gulp. “Yeah, it’s me.”
“No time for jokes. We have a serious issue” says the man. “Now tell me,” he says, “tell me exactly what you did to him.”
“Can you tell us who you are first?” asks Jason, and I add, “yeah, good point.”
“Shush” says the man, “we’ll explain in a minute. Right now we have to assess. There’s no time to waste. What exactly happened? Exactly?”
So I stumble through an explanation of what happened, how I grabbed Gary and hurled him over the cliff, and I can feel my t-shirt soaking as I do, as I nervously watch the man’s iron grip on his weapon. When I’ve finished, he nods at his companion, who walks over to the cliff and looks down. “Looks deep” he says, and he takes his weapon off and lays it carefully on the ground, a few inches from my foot. I think what it would be like to grab it.
Man Two turns back and addresses me. “There’s water at the bottom right?” Frank, Jason and me just stare at him as he turns back to the edge and gracefully dives off. We all walk to the edge of the ravine and look downwards, seeing his figure disappear slowly as it hurtles towards the bottom.
“There’s no water at the bottom” says Jason and Man One looks at him and says “Fuck.” And then he laughs. “He’s always too fucking quick that guy, that’ll teach him, it will be a hard landing.” We all look down to see the little puff of dust emerge and faint bang as he lands.
The man’s laugh breaks the tension, strangely, and he wipes his brow, relaxing his hand from his weapon. He lifts his headgear and puts it on the ground. His head is shaved and he has a tattoo of a snake, running from front to back, and it reminds me I haven’t got my own sorted yet. That is fairly cool but I am not sure I’d get away with it, given my senior position at the hospital.
“So…” starts Jason.
“So,” says the man. “My name is Graham Cant. I work for The General. My apologies for intruding like this, but we learned some last minute, vital information that means we can’t continue on our disposal plans as previously anticipated. Myself and Hal were dispatched here, and another team were dispatched to the other site, to stop the process. It looks like we’ve secured all the other targets safely before disposal, and we have Lecarr here safe, so it is really Gary Starr we need to find. I’m hoping that Hal manages to secure him before it’s too late.” He reaches down and grab’s Mark’s face, kneeling down and looking in his eyes. Mark stares back at him and there’s something weird there, I’m not entirely sure what but it’s like something passes between them. Jason seems to notice it too, he looks at Graham carefully.
“What happened?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what happened?” Jason repeats, “you know, what was this last minute, vital information that we found?” Good question.
“Ah” says Graham. “The information. Well, it’s top secret. And vital.”
“But… what is it?” Jason repeats.
“Well, it’s top secret – I can’t tell you.” Graham shifts uncomfortably.
“But… I’ve got top classified status, I get to know everything” says Jason, looking annoyed.
Graham glances at me, and Frank, and says quickly “But they haven’t.”
“Well… I authorise you to tell me in front of them. They’ve been part of this, they have a right to know.” Jason’s staring hard at Graham, but Graham doesn’t say anything.
“You don’t know, do you?” asks Jason.
“Of course I know!” shouts Graham, defensively.
“Well, tell me then.”
“No.”
“Right” says Jason decisively, “I’m calling The General, and I will ask him to make you tell me.” He reaches into his back pocket and gets out his phone, unflipping it. It’s a flip phone which I thought was very dated, but it does look quite impressive when he did that and I think maybe I’ll get one, when I get my tattoo sorted out. In fact, maybe I’ll get a tattoo of a flip phone.
Graham puts his hands up “Okay, okay, sorry. You're right, I don’t know. But not because they wouldn’t tell me! It was just such a rush, getting things sorted, we had to get out of there quickly and stop the disposal process. The General told me personally that he definitely wanted to tell me, but it was quite complicated, so he didn’t have time. Honestly, he trusts me, he…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, whatever you say” says Jason impatiently. “So you don’t know, you’re not in the loop, fine…”
“I am in the loop!” protests Graham.
“Whatever. So what’s the plan now?”
“Well, we wait for Hal to get back, hopefully he has secured Gary Starr, then we escort them back to Base 1.”
“Hal, the guy who dove into the ravine a few minutes ago?” asks Graham.
“Erm… yeah, that’s him”
“And… you think he’s coming back?” asks Jason.
Graham looks at us carefully. “You think he isn’t?”
“Well, my friend” says Frank, “it was a hell of a drop down there. And there was no water at the bottom. And it didn’t look like he had a jet pack or anything on his back. So, I’m thinking, well, maybe he didn’t survive the fall?” There’s an uncomfortable silence as we all stand there, looking at each other. The sun is setting and it casts shadows all around us.
“Right, anyway, we’ll give him a bit longer” says Graham. I admire his optimism. “Let’s get Lecarr into the transport.” He hoists him up, and, holding his arm, walks towards his space truck. Jason and Frank start walking to their vehicles, and I run and catch up with Graham. “Can I, erm, ride with you?” I ask. His truck is even cooler than Starr’s black cars, and I have changed my mind, I want one of these, and maybe even a tattoo of one of these.
Just then there’s a crash behind us, and we all turn, at once, to look back at the ravine, to see Hal there, standing on the edge, holding a battered, bruised body in his arms. “It’s OK” says Hal, “I’ve secured him.”
“But…” says Jason
“How…” says Frank.
Graham has a huge smile on his face. “You’re not the only one with secrets” he smiles at Jason. “Right, come on, let’s get back to Base 1.”