The Henchmen's Book Club (25 page)

29.
TIME’S DRIFTWOOD OF FORTUNE

The odd trip to the cell block asides my first three years in McCarthy were
pretty uneventful – as you’d expect. I didn’t get gang-raped. I didn’t
challenge Mr Big for supremacy. I didn’t make it over the wall or even try. And
I didn’t earn the wrath of Lieutenant-General Major despite continually referring
to him as Lieutenant-Major General whenever I knew the long range microphones
were on me. I just survived. This was the minimum, maximum and only requirement
at McCarthy.

I don’t know why I chose to survive. There didn’t seem much
point. Some of the guys I’d come in with, Mr Deveraux for instance, opted for
early release and went out in a wooden overcoat, but I didn’t. Not because I
was scared or still hankered after a life outside the perimeter wire but
because I was in no rush to go anywhere just yet. That’s the best way I can
think to describe where my head was. Death would eventually find me. And when
it did it would last for a million billion trillion years, until the end of
time in fact, if such an event even occurred, so what difference did my measly
lifespan make? I wasn’t suffering, I wasn’t living in fear and I wasn’t in
pain. I didn’t need my misery to end (it would’ve been nice but it wasn’t a
deal breaker) and I didn’t need to get back to any loved ones so I was
perfectly resigned to my confined circumstances.

I think it also helped that I’d died under that avalanche
in Greenland, or at least, thought I had, because as hopeless and as bleak as
my situation now was it was still preferable to that. Being alive counted for
something. Not much, but it counted for something all the same. And as long as
I could feel the wind on my face for an hour a day, see the clouds in the sky
or hold a thought in my head, it always would.

“Prisoner 2248. On your feet.”

I swung my legs over the bunk and dropped to the floor,
leaving Elizabeth Graver spread open on the bunk behind me – not
literally, but I had been in prison a few years so I wouldn’t have said no
(maybe).

Mr Rousseau started getting to his feet as well but they
told him, “Stand fast 2212 and stay on your bunk,” flicking my trouble antenna
in ways that got me grumbling.

“Against the wall,” I was ordered, so I did as I was told
and listened to sounds of my belongings being tossed, before being slapped into
cuffs. Steel cuffs at that. Not plastic draw-straps.

Something was definitely up.

“Turn around!”

I turned to find Major-General Lieutenant, or whatever the
fuck his name was, standing tall and regarding me with deep mistrust.

“2248?” he asked.

“That’s my number, don’t wear it out,” I replied, figuring
we could both stand a little levity right about now.

“Otherwise known as Mr Jones? Mr Mark Paul Jones, formerly
of Petworth, West Sussex,
Enger
-
lund
?”

“What’s all this about? I haven’t done anything,” I said,
before amending that statement. “Well nothing I haven’t already been sentenced
to ninety-nine years for.”

“Read a lot of books do you Mr Jones?” the General hinted,
his eyes flickering towards Ms Graver on the bed then back to me.

“That’s right,” I told him. “I’ve gone right off
snow-boarding just lately.”

Despite the giggles I was genuinely worried for myself.
Like I said, the authorities in here came down hard on any sort of organising
activities, even over something as innocent as reading. They liked to deal with
four hundred individually broken spirits, not a single working resolve. That
was dangerous. That was a challenge. That was absolutely positively not
tolerated. It had taken them three years to find me but it seemed they’d
finally located the mouldy old apple that was daring to corrupt the rest of
their carefully harvested barrel. It didn’t matter that our book club hadn’t
caused them any problems since its inception – all that mattered was it
could.

“Bring him,” was all the General said before about-turning
and wheeling away up the landing.

I caught Mr Rousseau’s eye and blinked three times to give
him the order to shut up shop, but it was clear from his expression that he’d
already swung the sign around.

I was frog-marched in the General’s wake, through the
special prisoners wing, past a couple of hundred locked doors and towards the
elevators, where two more heavily-armed Deltas were waiting for us. They
snapped to a crisp salute at either the sight of me or the General then we all
piled into the elevator and rode up two levels to the interrogation unit. Here,
the door opened and yet two more Deltas joined the Conga, dancing me past a
long line of cells and on to the main interrogation suite.

I remembered this place from my time under the desk lamp.
It was an imposingly big room, even bigger than I remembered, probably thirty
feet by a hundred, which looked vast to someone who’d spent the last thousand
nights sharing an eight by ten. And it was dark. The edges of the room were
lost to shadows while the centre was bright and stark. An empty table kept two
plastic chairs apart and a chunky microphone hung from the ceiling like the
Eden snake.

Two of our party dropped off to guard the door outside
while four Deltas accompanied us inside to sink into the shadows of the four
corners of the room. On his way past one of the Deltas relieved me of my cuffs
so I rubbed my wrists and tried out one of the chairs for size.

“You will sit when you are told to sit,” the General
barked.

“When you start paying me you can start telling me what to
do. Until that time blow it out of your fucking arse, Major,” I suggested. Well
whatever they were going to do to me, they were going to do to me regardless,
so I indulged myself and enjoyed the paradox freedom of the condemned.

That same Delta who’d freed me of my cuffs moments earlier
was just about to slap them back on when a new different voice told them to
stand down. The hairs on the back of my neck almost parted when I recognised
the voice and turned to see the last person on Earth I’d expected to see in
this God-forsaken place.

Jack Tempest.

If ever there was a face to make a man rethink suicide.

“I don’t believe it!”

“Nice to see you too, Mark. You don’t mind if I call you
Mark, do you?”

“My friends call me 2248,” I told him, prompting the
General’s features to chisel a few shaves.

Tempest looked around and raised an eyebrow, then asked the
General to wait outside. “And take your men with you.”

“Very well, but I’ll leave one man here if you don’t mind,”
the General replied, mistaking XO-11 for a man who liked to negotiate things as
he went along.

“I do, take them all outside,” Tempest clarified.

“This prisoner is a very dangerous individual, Commander. A
professional mercenary with dozens of kills to his name,” the General quibbled,
overlooking the fact that the court had awarded me only one kill.

“Mr Jones and I are old acquaintances. He’ll give me no
trouble,” Tempest assured him.

“That may be so but he is still a special prisoner of the
United States government,” the General pointed out. “And you, Commander
Tempest, have no authority over either me or my men…”

“Take it outside, General. That’s an order!” a new voice
barked off towards my left and my shoulders sank even further when these
particular dulcet tones struck home.

“Major Dunbar,” the General said, presumably to remind Rip
of his rank.

“I have Presidential authority over this prisoner and I
will bust you and your men down to privates and transfer you to the Iraqi army
if you’re still in my line of sight inside of five seconds! Are you clear,
General?”

The Deltas certainly were and started making for the door
before the General could flap his yap any more, and finally the message sunk
in: the cool kids were having a party and fatty wasn’t invited.

“Yes… Major,” the General mumbled, wondering for a moment
whether or not to salute before deciding not and simply leaving.

“You remembered my birthday?” I said, jogging a grin out of
Tempest and a glare out of Dunbar.

“That’s right, Mark. We hoped you’d be pleased,” Tempest
replied, pulling up a chair while Dunbar paced restlessly behind him.

“Since when did you two start working together?” I asked.

“Since my dick fucked your mama in the ass, you
mother
,” Dunbar shouted down my throat,
slamming the table between us before resuming his pacing pattern over Tempest’s
shoulder. Tempest shifted somewhat uncomfortably in his seat and confirmed this
was indeed a joint US and British operation.

“I see. Going well is it?” I deduced.

“What can you tell us about Operation
Candy Snatch
?” Tempest asked.

“That depends,” I told him. “What can you tell me about
it?”

“We ask the questions,
dick
wad
, so get talking!” Dunbar growled, balling up both fists to threaten the
table again.

“I know a few things,” I bluffed, wondering if I could con
anything out of them with a few strategic fairy tales.

“Bullshit. He’s lying!” Dunbar grunted.

“Why would I?”

“Garbage like you always lies. It’s in your nature
, douche bag
,” Dunbar replied. “This is
a waste of time. I told you we shouldn’t have come.”

“I don’t know if you got the memo, Rip, but I spilled my
guts for three months when I first arrived. Ask away and I’ll tell you what you
want to know, for the right price of course,” I invited, catching Tempest’s
eye.

Dunbar stopped circling and glared down at me. After a few
seconds he shook off his tight black Special Op’s jacket to show off his tight
black Special Op’s T-shirt. It had been three years since I’d seen him and it
was clear his
book shelf
had grown dustier in that
time by the way his shirt now bulged like a bag of apples.

“Brother, I’m gonna ask you just one more time then you’re
gonna start hurting,” he snarled. “Tell us about
Candy Snatch
.”

I mulled this over, shrugged, then asked Tempest how he’d
been keeping.

“Pretty fair,” Tempest replied with a shrug.

Dunbar was obviously disappointed at how poorly his “bad
cop” was going over but he resisted the temptation to insert any slap-stick
into the act and let “good cop” take it for a bit.

“So what have you got for us Mark?” Tempest asked.

“What’s on offer?”

“What do you want?”

“What do you think I want? A new wanking sock? I want out.
I want to go home,” I told him.

“That’s a pretty tall order, Mark. I don’t know if I could
swing that for you, not after all you’ve done,” Tempest said solemnly.

“Don’t give me that, you can do anything you want, you’ve
already said you’ve got Presidential authority. And you’re obviously desperate
for some sort of a lead otherwise you wouldn’t be in here talking to the likes
of me,” I pointed out.

“Not freedom,” Tempest said, shaking his head.

“Yeah you’re staying right where you are and rotting you
fucking
mother
!” Dunbar agreed,
promoting me from brother again.

“Then what can you do for me?” I fished.

“Well I can definitely get you that new wanking sock,”
Tempest conceded.

“Oh you’re hilarious you are,” I glowered. “Thanks for
looking me up, this so beats sitting in the hole for a month.”

“If they die, you’ll do more than a month in the hole, you
one-eyed maggot. You’ll do the whole of your fucking short-assed life down there,”
Dunbar snapped.

“If who…” I started to ask, before biting my tongue to claw
back the words.

Tempest picked up on my lapse and raised an eyebrow. “You
don’t know, do you?”

“I know enough,” I told him, frantically back-peddling to
refill my spilt bluff basket.

“Of course,” Tempest smirked. “So why don’t you tell me
about it?”

“I will, but first I want to know what’s in it for me,” I
insisted.

“Mark, you’ve got nothing to trade and no knowledge of
Candy Snatch
. You couldn’t possibly
have. We knew that already,” Tempest smarmed, opening a silver cigarette box
and tapping a cigarette against the side of it before slipping it between his
lips.

“Then what has all this been about?” I wanted to know. “Are
you just following hot dog vendors again?”

Tempest lit his cigarette with a glow from his cufflink and
puffed a long stream of blue grey smoke towards the microphone.

“I wanted to see how amenable you were to doing a deal,” he
said. “After all, if you’re willing to deal when you’ve got nothing to deal
with, just imagine how amenable might you be if you found you actually did have
something?”

“Is it Colonel Mustard with the candlestick in a fit of
self-indulgence?” I guessed.

“That’s it, asshole!” Dunbar roared, grabbing me by the
neck and pushing me out of my chair.