First Light (12 page)

‘Oh, so this your bodyguard now, is it? Don’t think I’m scared of a teenager, Ronnie, because I’m not! You’ve always made your sister feel second best when it came to your father and now you’re trying to take what is rightfully ours – hers,’ he corrected. ‘I won’t have it. This house belongs to her and if I have to, I’ll get my own lawyer to sort this out and you won’t get anything because you’re a minor.’

‘Ha!’ I retorted, hot tears stinging my eyes. ‘Rachel wouldn’t be in charge of her own head if it wasn’t firmly attached to her neck!’

I heard myself yelling and both Rachel and Cloud crying, but not much was sinking in besides the notion that I’d always made my sister feel second best. It was a new low of sadness and I felt myself shrink back from the man yelling at me. I didn’t care any more.

Jared’s words were nothing more than a blur. ‘... So you can tell your boyfriend here to get stuffed, because I’m taking control of this situation from now on.’

‘That’s not her boyfriend,’ came a voice from behind him. ‘I am.’

Jared spun around. Startled by the new visitor standing inches from him, he tripped down the porch steps. Muttering a string of profanities, he steadied himself in front of Kal and pushed his chest out. ‘So, which one are you?’

‘I suggest you stop yelling at her,’ Kalen’s mouth pressed into a thin line, his fists clenched by his sides. In the time I’d known him, I’d never seen him overwhelmed with any type of emotion and though I was aware there was a lot I didn’t know about him, his intense anger came as a shock to me.

Jared stared at Kalen. ‘She’s my sister-in-law. I’ll talk to her how I like. Who the hell do you think you are to tell me any different?’

Kal took a step closer so they were toe to toe. ‘It doesn’t matter who I am. All you need to know is that I don’t care who
you
are. I’m warning you, leave now.’

Scared Jared might throw a punch, I held my breath. Thankfully, Rachel stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.

‘Babe, don’t yell at Ronnie, she’s just a kid. She doesn’t know what’s what with the house. We’ll look into it, okay?’

Jared’s thin face darkened with rage as he looked wildly between me, Kal and Rachel. Finally, he grunted. ‘Ronnie, I’m sorry I yelled,’ he said flatly, clearly not sorry at all. ‘But we’re here to take care of you now. Rachel and I will deal with it.’

‘Jared, Dad lost all the money. I wish he hadn’t, but he did. If Rachel had bothered to turn up to the meeting with the solicitor she would know all of this. We have a bit in the bank, but after the funeral costs there’s very little left. You can check it all you want,’ I croaked, holding my chin up defensively, ‘but I’m not wrong. I am sorry for the situation that Daddy got us into – but I’m not wrong.’

‘We’ll see. Rachel and I just want what’s best for you and hanging out with these idiots is not a good start. We just worry about you, is all.’

‘Thanks Jar, but I can take care of myself – just like I always have.’

Rachel clucked at that and stalked off towards their car with Cloud still whimpering unhappily in her arms. ‘Leave her now, Jar,’ she yelled over her shoulder. ‘We come over to visit the little madam and this is the thanks we get.’

‘Will I see you Christmas Day, Rach?’ I called over, ignoring her insult.

‘If your new friends aren’t around, then of course I’ll spend Christmas here, like I do every year. It is my house too, Ronnie – don’t forget that.’

Jared pushed past Kalen and darted down to the car with Rachel. As they pulled away Denver nodded a goodbye and left swiftly over a side fence, leaving me alone with Kal.

‘It’s not Rachel’s fault,’ I said, instinctively defending her. ‘She’s had a hard time and Jared is just looking out for her the best way he knows how, I guess.’

‘So you keep saying, but it’s not okay for anyone to yell at you like that,’ he said, following me back inside and closing the door behind him.

I sighed. ‘Still, you can’t put me in that position, why did you all have to behave so violently?’

‘I think a grown man yelling in the face of a teenage girl is quite violent, personally.’

‘Look, I really appreciate you sticking up for me, but he’s my sister’s partner and for the sake of my tiny family, which is all I have, I have to try to keep the peace. It’s what I’ve always done.’

His eyes softened. ‘I’m not apologising for defending you, but I’ll leave you alone if it’ll make things easier for you with your family.’

‘I don’t want you to do that. I don’t even know if we’re friends or what? Where have you been?’

‘I had to tend to some business out of town.’

‘Business was it? What was her name?’

He frowned. ‘That’s a little juvenile. Not like you at all.’

‘How would you know what I’m like?’ I snapped.

‘This is getting ridiculous. You said you just wanted to be friends. Are you jealous or do you want me to stay out of your life?’

‘I want you to tell me who you are.’

He closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. ‘I can’t do that.’

That was that then. If he couldn’t be honest with me about who he was, how could I side with him over my own sister? My stomach knotted painfully.

‘Then,’ I struggled, ‘it’s best you leave me alone for a while. I need to take care of my family.’

He dragged one hand down his face and nodded. ‘I won’t go anywhere, Red. I’ll be at the house if you need me.’

He left silently through the back door and I collapsed back on the settee.

Beirut, Lebanon – 25
^th
December 2004

It was Christmas Day and colder than it had been all week. He’d checked in to a local motel with a single sponsor: the father, a humanitarian working for the Red Cross.

Every day for two weeks he’d sat on the same street, in the same cafés, playing football with the local boys, drinking tea and watching – waiting. Waiting for the call that was taking for ever to come. It had been seven months since his first job and there had been three others since – it all seemed second nature to him now. This was, however, his first war-zone assignment. It was also the first time things had gone wrong.

The call came at midday, the target someone he hadn’t expected. He’d spoken with the man on more than one occasion; he was the owner of a market stall that sold small, and somewhat useless, handmade leather goods. The man had even stopped someone from stealing from K just a day before. K had seen the thief coming, but for a bit of sport he was going to let him take his wallet before breaking his arm. Yet the man had chased the pickpocket away. Shocked at receiving help from a stranger, K had accepted an invitation to join the man for coffee. He was learning English and K’s cover was that he was a Swedish student. They conversed together, idle chitchat in broken sentences and misplaced words. The man often laughed at his attempts to explain the simplest of subjects.

Now, knowing he was supposed to kill him that very evening, K found he was quite perturbed. Having never pondered the reason for his job before, he couldn’t help but consider it then. For the very first time, he was aware of what he was about to do and it bothered him.

The target was by his stall, just a hundred meters away when K received the call that sealed the man’s fate. Tormented, he swallowed two espressos before leaving the bustling square to consider his plan of attack. The man was not even remotely covert, so he did not need to follow him. Down the back of his right trouser leg he placed a thin skewer, which he would later plunge into his target’s heart before shoving him down a flight of stairs. It would be a long time – if ever – before anyone realised the cause of death wasn’t an accidental fall resulting in a broken neck. By which time, both he and the sponsor would be safely back in the United States. The plan was made, it just needed to be executed. K picked up speed as he went over the arrangement in his mind.

His hair was shorter than usual and dyed a white blond; his skin tanned and dirty. He looked nothing like the boy from the room in France all those months ago. Today he was Karl, a schoolboy from Sweden.

He spent the day observing from a position where he could see the entire street without being noticed. He watched the man eat some food, watched him laugh at a joke as he drank from a pitcher of water after thanking the woman who handed it to him. All the while, as K studied the target, his stomach churned. He thought perhaps he was falling ill, yet somewhere inside he knew that was not the case.

Cursing, he turned from the street and entered a back alley, muttering to himself, desperate to pull himself together. Not completing the job would be a tremendous failure and he did not understand what it was to fail. It would be an entirely unacceptable outcome. Eventually, when his mind stopped racing he returned to his lookout. From what he knew of each local’s routine, the target would be there for at least three more hours until the last of the tourists or potential shoppers had gone. He decided to return later, going back to his own room to read until the time came.

Following the target two and a half hours later was easy. He expected nothing and was completely unaware of any danger. It was the second time K wondered just who this man was and why he needed to be eliminated. Inside the target’s apartment building, he waited as the old man scaled the first flight of stairs, before following silently after him. It was a long process, because his apartment was on the fifth floor and his right leg seemed to give him pain. Each step he took was agonisingly slow.

When finally he reached the top, K heard voices above him; the greeting of a wife and a young child. He hadn’t been told there would be others. He had orders to kill the man and that meant whoever could witness it, but this was not what he had planned for. A quick decision to return later was just as swiftly quashed when, in turning to leave, he was stopped in his tracks by a voice calling down the stairwell to him in Arabic.

‘
What are you doing down there?’

The man was staring over the banister. That was it then, no going back. K looked up into the eyes of the man he was about to kill. He hoped the man would see it coming, would fight back and try to kill him, too. It would make everything so much easier.

But of course he didn’t.

‘Karl! It’s you!’ the man said happily in broken English. ‘Come – I want you to meet my son, he is a little younger than you but he is smart! Learning English too – you come!’

With what felt like a lead weight inside him, K ascended the last flight of stairs to the man waiting with open arms. His tiny son’s smile was more genuine than his own had ever been and the wife – a petite cherub-like woman, with rosy red cheeks – was beaming too. K swallowed, telling himself that he didn’t care, that people were fickle,
life
was fickle, and if he didn’t take the life of those he was supposed to, his own would be forfeit. Still, his weapon stayed hidden. His guard remained down.

‘Come, Karl – come in,’ repeated the man. Uncertainty clouded his features.

‘I can’t. I am very sorry,’ K answered in fluent Arabic. The target’s face dropped somewhat at the change. Confused that the boy from Sweden could suddenly converse so perfectly in his native tongue.

K leapt over the banister and dropped the four flights down. Landing in a crouch, he stood and fled the building. Outside in the bitterly cold winter air, he vomited onto the pavement. Wiping bile from his chin with the back of one dirty hand, K’s first thought was that the man’s reaction had not been one of any real suspicion. If anything, he had almost seemed impressed that K could speak Arabic. Surely, someone he was supposed to kill, a man who must know there were people who wanted him dead, would be more cautious of such a thing – even of a thirteen-year old boy?

K left Lebanon with the sponsor the next day. His mission failed.

13 – Family

The day weighing on my mind had finally arrived.
I’d prepared most of what was going to be our traditional Christmas dinner and Rachel brought pudding and mince pies. She and I cried over brunch, which usually saw Dad leading us in Jingle Bells and other carols. Jared played with Cloud while my sister and I wept, tight in an embrace I wasn’t used to. We spent the rest of the day making it as fun as possible for Cloud, which ended up making it really fun for us too.