Don't... 04 Backlash (6 page)

Silence.

Frustrations
had set in since a letter had arrived from an Italian solicitor,
noting Jack Harrison’s mother’s disappearance a few weeks ago, and
the fourth tap at his shoulder marked the worried mood. Along with
Fortello’s disappearance and threatening note, the three men
onscreen had been split and distanced, for the past five months and
with Harrison’s time in the psychiatric unit, all of them
offering... nothing, avoiding society and giving... nothing. But
Lego bricks built on unstable platforms were made to be pulled
apart and reshaped. Sometimes for the better, mostly for the
worst.

He was funded
for the worst, with a need to find out just who funded Raoul for
his worst side away from MI5 and the Masters’ Circle. Raoul’s bank
details showed a very refined price tag from an untraceable source,
but he knew Raoul’s payment sometimes came for free, for the
pleasure of doing the act. And everything was there to say that
Fortello been caught in that... free attention of Raoul’s. But then
no mother should have her son and his lover raped, so Kes could
appreciate that... free attention. Raoul’s wait beyond the manor
gates was still for free now. There’d be no payment for catching
those who’d funded the rape done to his, just the pleasure found
behind brutal cause and effect.

And from within
the S-Class Coupe, it came; just a gentle shift of head towards the
woods. Kes’s heartbeat skipped at the possibility of being seen, of
Sallows being seen.

“Your art,”
Sallows mouthed. But Kes called it business, nothing more. Raoul
would see the art found in that.

An unhappy
glance down off Sallows saw Kes slide open a drawer, then slip
something into his ear, still drawing the smoke into his lungs as
much as he could. He flicked the intercom button on the conference
table and waited for the device in his ear to settle.
“Luh-Luh-Luh—”

“Liz here.”

Breathing
became controlled, flat as he watched Sallows and spoke to the
man’s personal assistant. “Ryan Keal’s fuh-fuh-file. Want to say
good morning to Luh—” He wrapped his mind carefully around Keal’s
son’s name. “Luh-luh—”

“Logan?” came
the reply, and he briefly closed his eyes.

“Yes. Thank
you.”

“Understood.”

A slow smile
crept to Sallows’s lips, and Kes held the look in the man’s eyes.
They cried out something much deeper than business, where skin
colour, race, and gender blended into one as extremism took
control. Part of it was directed at the screens behind, part at Kes
himself. Kes had taken his Master’s at eighteen when most people,
including this young man, were just scratching piles from
indecision over which haemorrhoid cream to choose, let alone which
university to attend. Like most—the looks, Liz’s replies—they
always carried such a sarcastic edge, impatience over always
needing to rush life. No respect. Kes cut the call and took the
greatest of comfort in removing his hearing aid. That was his way
of saying conversation was done for now to all concerned. Only
Sallows didn’t seem to understand, and this time the tap at Kes’s
shoulder broke his concentration.

“This was meant
to be handled months ago,” mouthed Sallows. “For each week I’m
forced to wait, a grand will be taken off your wages. Now get the
job done.”

Kes leaned
forward slightly and took out an envelope. After he tipped the
contents onto the conference table, he eased back.

Now it was
clear all communication was done.

Sallows backed
away, and Kes commended the man for not trying to reach and take
the photos. Aware of how still Sallows stayed, Kes caught the bound
and burnt man on screen pass out from the branding. He hadn’t
needed the hearing aid during the meeting, lips giving away most
secrets, but in all honesty, it didn’t matter what was said,
decided, and paid for.

All final game
play came back to his hands. And Sallows was about to find out
why.

This was Kes’s
world, where speech was lost to the beauty of imagery and the
comfort of planning. He loved the silence—lived it. Those who had
been in this lounge fretted and shifted despite the cool and early
August winds; those onscreen had no doubt drowned in it, but
him...?

Attention was
drawn back to the screen, to where Jack Harrison regained
consciousness once the branding iron had been removed. His body had
been raped, mind torn, perception skewed, and now there was
stillness. Quiet. Harrison knelt there, staring at the hand holding
the collar around his throat.

There was
beauty, but for one reason only. Harrison had reached the point
where nothing outside of the rise and fall of his chest existed.
And—

“
...react, Jack, fucking hurt the bastards... fucking make
them bleed.”

Eyes
closed, Kes inwardly cried it again for Richards. He was still
bound in the corner of the video, forced to watch his lover’s
branding, the brutality. Harrison headbutted one of his rapists,
shattering the black visor of the gas mask that the man wore. And
as the images played out, a smile crept to Kes’s lips.
Make them
bleed...

“
Make
them fucking bleed, baby,”
he mouthed for Richards. Jan’s cry reverberated around
Kes’s chest as Jack’s look back at Jan barely registered that they
were supposed to be lovers. “
Not yours. Never fucking
yours
,” cried Jan
at the rapists.

Kes switched
his look to the stillness of the third screen.

Despite
his home being so close, Raoul still looked so far away, the echo
of Jan’s cry of how Jack’s
Not yours. Never fucking yours
was called out now in Raoul’s
silence.

Silence. Now
that was the true art. Not tears that dampen pillows, not the cries
that bled into the darkness, but the point where all that was left
behind was this...

Silence.

Present
Day

The alarm clock
blinked a timid 5:30 a.m. as Gray made sure it stayed quiet, easing
his touch over the reset button as he fought down the usual
sickness hitting his stomach. He cast a look at Jack and Jan,
cuddled up asleep in bed together.

The position
was odd. Usually, Jack would have slept between him and Jan, his
pious throwback to science lessons and that test to see if ink
would mix well with water, if only he was allowed to move and stir
both up, therefore losing even the slightest schoolboy innocence he
swore he had. Now Jan took his place in the middle, Jack there,
coming in close from behind. Both eased into sleep with the same
look of... listening for something, facing the bedroom door.
Sometimes Jack was relaxed enough to look away for a few moments,
but his attention always drifted back to the crack of light falling
across the soft carpet, watching to see if it would widen in the
darkness.

Security was
there; Gray was there, but that look in their eyes just before they
eased into sleep, that one instance where pretence eased away and
relaxed into fully dilated and exhausted honesty, it showed how
Gray hadn’t always been there, not when it mattered. The look
wasn’t intentional, both just faced ghosts that carried on haunting
no matter the location, and it showed most when they dropped their
guard and held on to each other as if nothing existed beyond the
bed.

Easing away,
Gray lost his battle to keep hold on the bile twisting his insides,
and quiet footfalls took him over to the en suite before he threw
up.

Three quick and
fast vibrations came off Gray’s mobile back in the bedroom, and
when the caller didn’t get the hint to quit it after the fourth
attempt to get his attention, he went and took it, discreetly hit
reject, then let the phone rest back in his pocket. Trace got in
touch via instant message, Thames House through a beeper, so this
meant someone else, and that someone else needed to learn pretty
quickly to disappear.

He needed
privacy, and someone’s bollocks would be put in a horse twitch for
interfering with home life again.

A glance back
saw he hadn’t disturbed Jack and Jan, and wiping a hand over his
mouth, he shifted over to the double wash basin. The one next to
his took his attention as he reached for the toothbrush, and he
frowned. With Jan staying here, too, a third basin would no doubt
find its way in here after some interior designing. Jan had the
option of another room, as Jack did, but neither of them took to
it.

The phone made
its presence known again in Gray’s pocket, and this time he eased
back a touch when four discreet vibrations came through, then went
dead.

That
changed things slightly. When the same pattern was repeated, Gray
picked up. “
Sut
mae
?”

Quiet,
then—“
Shw
mae
.” There was
little difference between the phonetics of the two; Gray’s
how are you?
marked a greeting from North
Wales, the male caller’s
hello
came
from the South. Both sounded like the same interrogative, but few
would recognise the difference away from Welsh shores. Not even
Trace.

Gray kept an
eye on Jack and Jan in the bedroom.

“You’re getting
a visit at 9:00 a.m. this morning.”

The caller got
all of his attention. “Someone I need to worry about?”

“Perhaps.
There’s a call to lift the Exclusion Order over information
surrounding MI5’s involvement with Ryan Keal’s death.”

Surprising.
Usually the exclusion orders were enough to waylay public interest.
This was the next step up and suggested the Security Service
Tribunal panel was getting serious. “My office or the
district-general’s?”

“District-general’s.”

Now he winced.
That was a little more than serious. “Who from the SSTP?”

“Thomas
Reignfold.”

Gray didn’t
recognise the name.

“He’s a
friend,” said the caller.

“Enough of a
friend to get him into the director-general’s office in an attempt
to lift the ban?”

“No. I said he
was a friend; you’re business. I won’t entertain the two
together.”

He liked this
man, and that was a rarity. They’d met only once and this caller’s
attention was demanded with four rings off a mobile, something that
even sent him quiet and still. But Gray always knew where he stood
with him, and likewise.

“Watch your
back.” The Welsh accent was very soft now but evident. “This
meeting with Reignfold stains the air with connections.”

The irony
there was laughable. As high as both UK and European Parliament,
the caller himself set the precedent for “connections,” although
his name was only mentioned behind closed doors when tied to the
cullers. Both Field Marshal and Chief of the Defence Staff, the man
and his military coalition with MI5/6 was rivalled by only one
other intelligence/military-led agency: Israeli’s Mossad. Those who
briefly came into contact with this caller’s team knew them as
cullers, but the official name within the military and the Secret
Service was
Sicarius
.
Gray worked for MI5, but when it came to handling domestic and
foreign business beyond MI5/6 control, his orders came from the
British military, a call to business that the district-general for
MI5 had no jurisdiction over. By the time Sicarius were called in,
there was only ever one order: catch and cull. So Gray didn’t laugh
at the irony over hearing how Reignfold’s investigation stank of
connections: he was speaking to one. “Understood.”

“No
game-playing here. I’ll have a Public Interest Immunity Certificate
mailed to your office by the time you get there. SSTP need to back
down now.”

A PIIC... and
in a few hours? “Any idea who’s behind Reignfold? Who’s calling for
Ryan Keal’s file to be opened when it was made clear enough it was
to be remained shelved?”

“Logan
Keal.”

“And Keal’s son
pushed for an investigation into my actions specifically?”

“Yes. I don’t
like how your name has been mentioned now. Use the PIIC and get the
panel and his lawyers out of the picture. Somebody is pushing for
this. Are personal issues dealt with?”

Gray glanced
back into the bedroom. “No.”

“
Understood,” said the man. “Same procedure applies as with
Keal: a call within an hour of the finished contract if it needs to
be called. But get this with the SST panel wrapped up and find out
who’s pushing Logan Keal’s buttons, and why. He’s getting your name
from somewhere.
Nos
da
.”

“
Nos
da
,” said Gray,
flatly, and he couldn’t have made that goodbye sound any more
neutral.

The phone went
on the unit and Gray buried a second wave of sickness that nearly
burned its way up to his throat. Mouthwash only managed to twist
his stomach a little more, and Gray’s grip on the basin
tightened.

Movement from
the bed broke his grip, and hooking his thumbs in his waistband, he
slipped the silk of his pyjamas over his hips, then down his
thighs. Clothing found a home in the laundry chute before the
shower was switched on. As steam breathed over the cool of black
granite tile, Gray stepped under the fine spray of water.

Cleaning became
mechanical, just a process, or a means to drown out everything
beyond the fall of water and the turn of stomach. Dipping his head,
feeling water pelt harder into his neck and shoulders, he reached
up, gripping the showerhead and focusing on the white noise going
on around him.