Down Among the Dead Men (51 page)

Concentrate
.

Fuck everything else. None of it matters. Frank can hear Jesus's voice in his head.
Just the here and now, Frankie lad, that's all there is
.

Just the here and now.

Frank forces himself to shut out everything except the fight. For twenty seconds the only sound inside the restroom is the panicked breathing from both men, the rustle of clothing and the squeak from boots skidding on wet rubber.

Frank's losing strength.

Sensing a weakness, Noone redoubles his efforts. He pushes against the handbasins and uses his body weight to drive Frank back into the disabled stall, part of which buckles as they hit. They land awkwardly on Hoy's wheelchair and Frank feels something sharp gouge into his side and something bad happens to his elbow. He makes an agonised grunt and clings on but there's no doubt that Noone is gaining the upper hand.

Heaving with the effort, Noone gradually works his head out from Frank's loosening grasp and elbows him square in the face as he does. Frank falls back and smacks his head against the toilet. Noone reaches down and punches him. Frank feels his nose break.

Frank grabs hold of Noone's shirt, pulls him close and crunches the thick bone of his forehead into the American's nose. There's a satisfying sound but the effort makes Frank's head swim.

'Motherfucker!' Noone hisses, reeling backwards.
Muddafudder
.

He clamps a hand over his busted nose, blood spurting from between his fingers. Frank gets to his knees and aims two quick punches to Noone's ribs. They land but there's no solid connection; there's nothing left in the tank.

Blood is pouring from the wounds on his scalp and it washes down over his eyes. He can feel the life-force pumping out of him. Fuck, this is too hard. He needs rest.

Frank leans back against the wall and then slides down. He tries to shout but all that comes out is a wet croak. Noone staggers upright and kicks Frank square in the ribs. Frank can hear the bone break and rolls up into a ball. All he can do now is hang on. He squints through a curtain of blood at Noone. He's done. He's gone, his vision blurred, his breathing shallow.

All Noone has to do is get the gun and finish Frank.

Behind Noone a figure comes into focus.

It's the girl.

She's a nightmare. The walking dead, her head and shoulders coated in blood, her face a red mask, teeth bared in a rictus snarl of agony and grief and retribution. Fat drops of blood slap the floor.

Frank looks at her and can't see a child. The bloodied wreck in front of him holds the Micro Tavor in her hands, the black muzzle aimed squarely at Noone.

Outside the anthem draws to a close. There is cheering and Noone turns to see what Frank is looking at.

When he sees the girl he laughs. 'You got to be fucking kidding.'

He steps forward.

'Put the gun down,' barks Noone. 'This isn't a fucking rap video, you little bitch. You're not going to shoot anyone.' The girl takes a pace forward, lifts the gun and bullets disintegrate a door next to Noone. The gun shakes in her grip but she holds onto the Micro.
My daddy let me fire his gun sometime
.

'Jesus!'

Noone scrambles away, slipping on the wet floor. Backed up against the wall he holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

The girl points the gun at Noone.

'You shot my mom,' says the girl.

'No, I didn't,' says Noone, as if by simply saying the words they will be so. He smiles winningly. 'Come on, kid.'

'Wait,' says Frank, but the word is slippery in his mouth and he's not sure anyway what it is he wants to convey. A warning? A plea? With the anthem over there will be someone coming to the restroom soon. They could call for help. Get this dealt with.

'You can't do this,' says Frank. 'He's not worth it.'

The girl looks at Frank, turns back to Noone and shoots him in the chest. Noone is flung backwards against the wall. He looks disbelievingly at the hole in his chest and then back at the girl.

She leans against the wall facing Noone and slowly slides down into a sitting position. On the plasterboard an abstract expressionist brushstroke of red follows her downward path. She sits, catatonic, the Micro Tavor held neatly across her lap.

The only sound in the room comes from the burst pipe and from the wet sucking noises from Noone's open chest.

Noone tries to say something but Frank can't hear him. The girl keeps her big eyes on Noone until he dies. Not long after, the door to the restroom opens and someone wearing a uniform comes in.

It's over.

Fifty-Two

A metal fragment from the handbasin had ripped through Frank's cheek and taken off the top part of his right ear. Another gouged a shallow trench in the thick part of his skull and more splinters from the restroom slaughterhouse are lodged in the fleshy part of his shoulder. His nose is broken and he has dislocated his elbow, ripping the tendons in the fight with Noone. It takes six separate operations over a two-month period to repair the damage.

The room he's in looks like a high-end private hospital room, but there are touches that tell Frank he's not in a civilian medical centre. The TV does not have outside reception. The only channels are movie channels. No news. There's no phone. The call to Searle takes place on a handset brought in for him by an orderly and then removed. The solid metal door to the room is always locked.

The doctors, nurses and orderlies don't answer his questions.

They're not hostile, just evasive. Sometimes they'll just point blank tell Frank that they don't have the authorisation to give him the information he's asking for. From their careful demeanour he guesses that he is being observed via CCTV.

As he starts to become more mobile he is given access to a second room containing another, larger TV, a shelf of books, an exercise bicycle and, thrillingly, a sealed window. From here Frank can see mountains in the distance, some fences and the occasional military vehicle. Planes can be seen coming and going but it's not an airport. Frank's guessing he's on some kind of US airbase.

In the time between operations he is visited on several occasions by Ashland and Baines, who pick over the details of his investigation into Noone. One day they turn up with what looks like a genuine MIT file on the murders in Liverpool. When Frank asks
them about it they don't answer. As he gets stronger the visits from the pair decrease.

At no time does Frank see anyone from the police or federal authorities. One day, about a month in, and to Frank's great surprise, Ashland brings a phone and allows him to speak to Charlie Searle. Searle tells Frank in no uncertain terms to keep quiet, take the treatment and return home when they let him. If they let him.

'This is not a fucking game, Frank,' says Searle. 'I had a call from the PM. He said he hopes you get well soon and don't suffer any – and I quote – "adverse reactions" to your wounds. Adverse reactions. Are you understanding what I'm saying here, Frank?'

Frank can hear the tension in Charlie Searle's voice all the way across the Atlantic. He had thought that being mixed up in all of this was beyond his own pay grade. What he's discovering is that it's beyond Searle's too.

'Where am I? They won't tell me.'

'I don't know,' says Searle. 'A military hospital, they said. You'll be released when you're fit enough to travel. Officially, you're nowhere. You're off the grid.'

'Jesus.' Searle doesn't know where Frank is?

'And what about Koopman? The girl and her mother?'

'We don't know about Koopman. The Australians are dealing with his affairs. There's some doubt about the jurisdiction as Koopman had a citizenship application approved but not finalised. The others I don't know about. I have no details.'

Searle signs off and that's all Frank gets. He pushes for more information but they ignore him. After the warnings from Charlie Searle, Frank doesn't push hard. The thread guiding him back out of this labyrinth is stretched so fine that Frank's not sure it exists at all any more. Off the grid. Terra Incognita.

Here be monsters
.

A week after the last operation on his shoulder Frank is watching TV. He's dressed in trackpants and sweatshirt and is feeling as good as he's felt during his hospitalisation. Or imprisonment.

The door opens and Dennis Sheehan walks in.

He looks a little older than Frank remembers but there's no disputing who is the alpha male in the room.

Sheehan holds out a hand. 'Don't worry,' he says. 'I'm not contagious.'

Frank shakes the man's hand.

'You're looking better,' says Sheehan. He sits on an armchair and Frank takes a seat on the couch.

'Compared to what?'

'Compared to when you were brought in. I saw you being prepped for theatre the first night. You'd lost some blood.'

'Your son shot holes in me,' says Frank. 'Blood leaks out when that happens.'

Sheehan nods. A fleeting look of pain passes over his face before the mask is replaced.

'He didn't shoot you,' says Sheehan. 'At least that's not the story that anyone will ever hear.'

'Unless I tell them.'

Sheehan shrugs. 'You can try,' he says. 'You might even succeed in convincing somebody. There are people out there who believe we're ruled by a race of alien lizards. I have dozens of websites dedicated to proving how evil I am. You could throw your hand in with those nuts, see how it goes.'

Sheehan adjusts his jacket. 'You must have wondered why you were brought here,' he says. He waves a hand around the room. 'Do you remember me talking to you in Los Angeles? I mentioned that you were swimming in very deep waters.'

Frank nods. 'I was right about your son. He wanted to hurt you. We just didn't know that he wanted to do that by killing others and shining a light onto you.'

'That's true. You were right about Ben. And you're a tenacious bastard, I'll say that for you. But only you and Koopman and a couple of other people will ever know what happened. The events at Mount San Jacinto didn't take place. There are no witnesses. The girl? Too young to be reliable. The mother who walked in the restroom? Disappeared. Presumed to have fallen from one of the lookouts. A tragedy. Happens all the time. Mr Ashland and Mr Baines fixed it all because that's what they do. We'll look after the girl; she'll never be the same but we'll see she gets the best. The guy who discovered the scene and the cop who arrived and
the emergency team who got you out are covered under the magic word of Homeland Security. No one questions anything. You saw something? Homeland Security requires you unsee it. You think you know something? Homeland Security requires you don't.'

'Why don't I just disappear?' says Frank. 'There was some talk of a plane ride to Afghanistan.'

Sheehan purses his lip. 'I thought about it. It could still happen too if you're dumb enough to take me on. But in the end I opted not to. You saved me. I'm not a monster, Frank, despite what you might think. I'm a patriot. No, really, I am. You hear that phrase about "the greater good" all the time but it's just a glib expression for most people. You're looking at the greater good made concrete. People like me keep the wheels turning. We make the decisions that others cannot or will not make no matter how painful they might be. My people do things . . . well they do things you don't want to think about. Believe it or not, and as painful as it is for me to admit it, this stuff with Ben is just local stuff, unimportant. If he'd killed the First Family that would have been a different story and we'd have had to cope with that. But every day I, and people like me, make decisions that cost or save thousands, sometimes millions of lives.'

'You should get a medal, Sheehan.'

Sheehan smiles. 'I have plenty of those. I got some of them for making the difficult decisions.'

'Like abandoning your son.'

'Exactly. Ben had everything but wanted something I couldn't give him.'

'Attention.'

'I watched over him as best I could – money, schools, health – but it wasn't good enough. I thought about stopping him; put plans in place to do just that, but even I . . . well, even I found that a step too far. Killing your only son. Too far.'

Frank closes his eyes and sees Nicky Peters.

'Did you know? About the killings in Liverpool, I mean?'

'We knew he was going off reservation. Since his mother died and he found out about our connection . . . he hadn't been dealing with it well. I did what I could.'

'Did you know?'

Sheehan nods. 'I could tell you I didn't; that we were unsure of his involvement, that although we had him under observation we never saw him killing, but I'd be lying to myself. I knew it was him, deep down.'

'And when I showed up here?'

'We thought we could control it. We never thought he had such . . . grandiose ambitions. We were wrong. I was wrong.' Sheehan pauses. 'We're very grateful for what you and your team did, Frank. Very grateful. But there's a wider picture which you can't see, and believe me, I sometimes wish I didn't see it either.'

Sheehan gets to his feet.

'How long will I stay here?' says Frank.

'You're leaving,' says Sheehan. 'Today.'

'Do you mean I'm leaving as in getting on a plane and flying home? Or is that some sort of complicated way of saying you're going to have me fall off a cliff?'

'I'm not playing games with you, Frank. I'm a human being. This isn't fucking James Bond. My son died trying to kill the president's family and I'd rather not have the fallout from that. It's not a selfish decision; if I go because of this then things will happen that end up with larger casualties.'

'According to you.'

'Yes, that's right. According to me. If not me, then who? Look, I'm past caring about games. You'll be flown back to the UK today on a regular commercial flight. When you get back there'll be no questions from your superiors, although you'll probably get visited by one of your more shadowy agencies. They'll want to know details and I suggest you tell them everything. Some of it they'll know anyway and the rest, well I can live with them knowing. There's no evil empire plan. If I wanted you gone you'd already be dead. Besides, you have qualities we admire, Frank. We're always interested in expanding our operational capacity.'