Spiral (27 page)

They lay entwined.

Panting.

Together.

Gradually their heat left them and the cool air soothed them.

They wriggled beneath the solitary sheet, holding one another. They kissed softly, enjoying each other’s heat, each other’s gentleness after the violence of their love-making.

‘You just get better as you get older, Mr Carter.’

Carter grinned. He couldn’t help himself, despite the deep throbbing in his ribs which had returned to haunt him.

‘You get wilder.’

‘I try to please,’ she said softly and smiled, nibbling his chin.

‘How did you stop Gol from shooting me?’

Natasha pouted. ‘Carter, how can you ask such a question when we’ve just been fucking?’

‘I need to know.’ He propped himself on one elbow and looked down at her. His free hand traced twirls in the sweat on her breasts and he reached down, took a nipple between his teeth, bit mischievously.

She squeaked in mock pain.

‘I didn’t stop him.
You
stopped him. Your words, your actions.’

‘What actions?’

‘The battle. Inside you. It was on your face—’

‘Battle?’ Carter closed his mouth, his teeth shutting with a sudden
clack.
Then he sighed.

‘I don’t understand what goes on inside you,’ she said. ‘It’s complicated.’

‘Try me.
Trust
me. I’m an intelligent girl. Something was tearing you apart; something was burning you up and you were—‘ Natasha grappled to describe what she had witnessed ‘—you were like two different people. One side of you wanted to attack Gol; one side of you wanted to roll over and give in. I saw it, Carter. I saw it on your face; I heard it in your voice.’

‘Do you believe in possession?’ he said suddenly.

‘Like in
The Exorcist -
possessing a child sort of shit?’

‘Sort of. You see,’ he paused, uncertain. Natasha squeezed him reassuringly. ‘I am haunted,’ he said. ‘Something haunts my mind - talks to me. Feeds voices into my head, tries to take control of me.’

‘And that’s why you’ve asked me about schizophrenia, in the past?’

‘Yeah. But this is different - it talks with me, argues with me - tries to take control but I have to let him ...’

‘Him?’

Carter met Natasha’s stare then, and she could see it: the fear. The fear that she would think him - mad.

‘Tell me,’ she said softly.

‘His name is Kade.’    

‘Can you talk to him now?’

‘No. He comes when he smells the promise of a fight ... if I allow him to take over he gets the job done. Gets the killing done. It was Kade who had control - too much control - when I earned myself the title of The Butcher ... but that wasn’t me, Natasha, I swear it, you’ve got to believe me...’

Natasha was silent for a long time. She hugged Carter tight.

‘It sounds like a guilt complex.’

‘I know exactly what it sounds like. I understand what I would be thinking if this was reversed and
you
were telling
me
this pile of shit. That’s why I don’t speak of Kade; that’s why he lives alone, burning in my soul, and I rarely set him free...’

‘But you do? You do set him free?’

‘If I give up hope. If I resign myself to death ... and that’s the sad thing. Take Schwalenberg in Germany - I was as sure as fucking dead. Betrayed by those I thought I was there to protect. I lost my mind, literally and physically. I no longer cared and I gave myself to Kade ... he revelled in the killing and bought me my life for another few days. You understand?’

‘This is too weird,’ said Natasha.

‘Don’t be frightened. I have complete control...’

‘I am not frightened. And I believe you,’ whispered Natasha. She kissed Carter’s ear and held him for a long time until she felt his breathing become regular and he was sleeping. Her fingers traced gentle patterns on his spine - and time after time she returned to a spiral. A spiral against his flesh. A spiral leading—

Down.

Carter awoke in the gloom. Natasha slept in his arms, a sticky warm embrace. Carter disentangled himself with care, then, pulling on his trousers and stealing Nat’s cigarettes and lighter, he crossed the room and stepped outside.

There was an armed guard outside their room, a man named Marcus, sporting dreadlocks to his waist. His chest was heavily scarred. The huge black man grinned the sort of sheepish knowledge-filled grin that said, ‘You sure don’t know how to keep the noise down.’ Carter returned the grin, padded down the hall and went outside.

A cool breeze whispered across his skin. He lit a cigarette, sat down on the wooden steps and gazed out across the dark silver-gleaming orange-tree orchards. The stars were bright against a dark canopy and Carter tilted his head back to allow a soft plume of smoke to escape his lips and rise into the infinity of the warm night sky. The nicotine buzzed through his brain, the harsh tobacco burning his lungs, and he blinked dreamily as a soft call echoed across the orchard.

‘How are you feeling, Mr Carter?’

Carter turned and smiled up at Gol who was standing with his hands on his hips, breathing in the night air and the rich scents deeply - a love affair with the ambience. His eyes were unreadable, his grey-flecked beard - actually more grey than black now, Carter noticed - was neatly combed and oiled. Carter caught the distant scent of coconut oil.

‘Much better.’

‘Would you care to walk with me?’

‘It’s a fine night. That would be good.’

The two men stepped from the porch of the white-walled house and the sandy soil felt soft, comfortable under Carter’s feet. They moved beneath the trees, inhaling their fragrance, moving through the gloom a little uncomfortably at first: untrusting. As they walked, Carter offered Gol a cigarette. They both lit up and stopped within a small circle of trees, lifting their faces in an attempt to attract the slightest of breezes to evaporate their sweat.

‘This is a warm place to choose to live,’ said Carter eventually.

‘Yes,’ rumbled Gol uneasily. The cigarette seemed tiny in his huge hand. ‘But we don’t always have a choice in these matters. Spiral is a harsh mistress. She commands, and we mere mortals obey.’ He smiled a smile without humour, bloodless in the moonlight.

There was a pause. Something called through the darkness. The breeze whispered between the trees.

‘I think I am following in your footsteps,’ said Carter.

‘Yes. I have just researched your recent - ah, shall we say
exploits
in both Germany and Scotland. Natasha has, of course, filled me in on some of the details. It would seem that you are a wanted man Mr Carter.’

‘Well, I’m wanted
dead,
if that’s what you mean.’

‘Hmmm. That would be one eventuality; a thought which does leap to mind is that you have been used. Set up. A tracker with the function of leading somebody to me. After all, the other DemolSquads were wiped out by three Nex - and yet they only sent one after you. Strange, don’t you think?’

‘Yes.’

‘And further moves have been placed across that great gaming board we call the Earth.’

‘Such as?’

‘Another Spiral base has been destroyed.’

There was a long, long silence. Gol enjoyed his cigarette. ‘Forty minutes ago, Spiral_M was also wiped from the face of the Earth. It’s now just a pile of rubble surrounded by emergency services and brave people trying their hardest to find survivors.’

‘Fuck.’

‘My sentiments exactly,’ said Gol softly.

‘But...’

‘Carter, I
know
for a fact that Spiral do not want you dead. We have bigger problems... And the assassin, the Nex who came for you, I fear these killers are not used by Spiral any longer - not for many, many years - even though it was Spiral’s loins from whence they sprang.’

‘Who sent them?’ asked Carter, voice hard, humour vaporised.

‘I don’t know,’ sighed Gol, rubbing at his beard. He ground his cigarette stub into the earth. ‘Although I have a few suspicions.’

‘I have a few fucking suspicions of my own,’ snapped Carter. ‘Now, I know you want me dead Gol - and I can’t really say I blame you after what we went through: I thought I had misjudged you when we arrived here.’

‘You had,’ said Gol softly.

Gol faced Carter, who looked up at the huge man. Gol rubbed at the scar on his leg self-consciously and Carter noted the movement, remembered in mild embarrassment that it had been his own bullet that had wounded Gol’s flesh.

‘You are Carter, Spiral’s most resourceful man - or you used to be. No longer do you seek assassination contracts; you have become withdrawn, hidden away in the Scottish mountains with your dog and your own company and knowledge. And yet you possess the most awesome skills in tracking people down - and in killing them... Now, I had thought I would kill you,’ said Gol gently. ‘Here, now, in Africa ... but I have a greater use for you than that.’

Carter lit another cigarette. Offered the packet. Gol held up his hand in refusal.

‘Oh yeah?’

‘My anger has gone. You love Natasha. And because of your love for her, I forgive you; I will put aside our differences in this hour of need ... Natasha needs you, and Spiral needs you. Carter, somebody is trying to wipe out Spiral - why? Because Spiral is what stands in the way of chaos. Spiral is the final firewall; Spiral is the bullet in the firing chamber of the world; Spiral is death to those who oppose all that stands for good.’

Carter frowned. Gol was one of the strongest, most fanatical men he had ever met. There was no streak of weakness - Gol had shot sleeping men, wounded men, dying men. Carter would have been little problem... and this reinforced the notion that Spiral was in a world of shit.

‘What is happening here?’ asked Carter softly, turning his eyes away from Gol, scanning the orange trees rimed with moonlight. ‘Who is using heavy HighJ detonation to wipe us out? Where do your
suspicions
lie?’

Gol shrugged, but looked away. Carter caught a hint of something; something unsaid, something he almost grasped but missed in the darkness. Gol was hiding something. Hiding something bad.

‘Two mammoth Spiral divisions have been destroyed,’ he rumbled, rubbing wearily at his beard. ‘But more -nearly thirty DemolSquads have been wiped out in the last forty-eight hours alone.’ Gol turned to look into Carter’s eyes. Carter’s mouth had opened in a silent ‘O’ of shock.

‘Thirty?’ he whispered, awed.

‘Yes, thirty. And our little friends are looking for something - something retrieved by Natasha, and passed on to me for safe keeping. A possibility arises, Carter - the possibility that you were
chased
here. This base is highly classified ... Natasha knew of its whereabouts, but you sure as fuck should not have done. This is outside the boundaries of normal Spiral influence.’

Carter nodded, smoke pluming from his nostrils. He scratched at his forehead with his thumb.

‘You think it is that black and white? I lead the bad guys here, because they know you have something and they know that I know where you are? Are you fucking crazy?’

‘Why did you come here, Carter?’

‘For answers.’

‘And because you had nowhere else to go. Nowhere else to take Natasha. Where better than to her father, despite your earlier
differences?’

Carter dropped the cigarette. Ground it underfoot.

He turned to meet Gol’s impenetrable gaze and their stares locked.

Carter smiled bitterly. ‘What is it you have?’

‘Schematics,’ said Gol softly.

‘For what?’

Gol waved his hand dismissively. ‘I believe you will find out soon enough, my inquisitive friend. For tonight, I advise you to get some sleep. I have many things to show you.’

‘I am confused. You know who is behind this.’

It was not a question.

‘I know,’ said Gol, smiling - and his smile held no humour. It was the smile of a shark cornering a little fish. The smile of a tiger sinking its claws into the flanks of a lamb. The smile of the natural predator.

The wind blew. The trees shivered.

‘This Nex assassin has followed me here, then. To Africa?’

‘Not one, but many. The schematics I have in my possession are, shall we say, integral to the demise of Spiral. They need them, or else it is a chink in their armour; their
Achilles Heel.
They cannot let them go unretrieved, and they therefore cannot let me live. I hold their secret in my hands, like a God holding a newly born sun.’ Carter shivered as Gol’s words caressed him like a stench-breeze of corpse smoke.

‘They will come. And they will come soon.’

Carter frowned, lit another cigarette and blew a plume of smoke into the air. He knew that Gol was holding out on him, and it sat bad with him, like an act of incest.

‘We’ll fucking see,’ he said quietly.

Gol stood in the shadows of a tree, thankful that Carter had gone. The man made him uneasy, put him on edge. Gol did not trust him; his eyes held too much the look of a killer.