Fourth Day (2 page)

The first time I saw Fourth Day’s California stronghold was through a pair of Zeiss ten-power binoculars from a little over six hundred metres out. I was propped on my elbows amid the dusty scrub, feeling the gathered warmth of the earth releasing up slowly into my body.

It was mid afternoon in mid January. Everyone had told me to watch for the chill factor, but I’d just been on assignment in London, where it had been mostly cold and sleeting and miserable. In the current windless fifty-five degrees, I was a basking lizard by comparison.

‘How’s our target?’

Sean’s voice was low, clipped, at my shoulder. He spoke without moving, without even a vibration. There was a preternatural patience about him that made him a master at covert surveillance operations such as this. He could have laid up for days, watching, waiting, if he had to.

‘Still in position,’ I said. We were taking turns to keep obs and it was easiest to pare our blips of conversation down to emotionless terminology. At least, that’s what I told myself.

I scanned across the area in front of us, keeping my movements slow. We were in the south with the sun behind us, where the twin lenses of the binocs would not readily catch and return the light, and where people were less likely to stare long enough to spot us in our careful concealment.

The compound itself was a huddle of squat prefab buildings, rather like construction site Portakabins, clustered around a dusty central courtyard. I assumed that was a defensive layout, although the building walls didn’t look able to withstand a hard-kicked football, never mind stronger ordnance.

There was an accommodation block to one side, and a main building with a higher pitch to the roof that I took to be some place of worship. Apart from that, all it needed was a flagpole and it could have been a barracks.

Throughout our observation, there had been activity in the compound. The land was not suitable for large-scale agriculture, but citrus and avocado trees had been planted around the buildings, fanning out into the scrubland beyond. From what we could see, there was also some kind of
hand-dyeing
fabric thing going on. Rainbows of it hung out to dry, draping listlessly in the still air.

The men and women who formed Fourth Day’s membership appeared to share the labour equally, with little regard for traditional male and female roles. And so, in the centre of the compound, on a bench set beneath an ancient juniper tree with a group of children clustered round his feet, sat a man who’d been identified to us as Thomas Witney.

Witney sat slightly hunched forwards, leaning in towards his class, some of whom looked as young as four or five.
His file had listed him as a teacher by profession, probably a good one. He spoke with animation, using his hands to give additional shape and colour to his words. I couldn’t help but wonder at the doctrine he was spouting to hold their attention so absolutely.

He wasn’t a big man, with a close-shaved head tanned to caramel. He looked so different to the photograph we’d been given that we had initially hesitated over confirming acquisition of our target.

The old picture had showed an altogether thinner, paler man, with a haircut designed to cover his inadequacies, and thick-framed glasses. He’d discarded both somewhere along the way. It was only his prominent Adam’s apple that had finally settled his identity.

Now, in khakis and a baggy hand-knitted sweater the colour of old moss, he looked a far cry from the successful vice-principal of an exclusive private school. Before he’d dropped out, gone in, gone under.

Amid all the other activity, I didn’t initially clock the girl who came out of one of the buildings with a
still-chubby
young child balanced on her hip. She was perhaps in her early twenties, small and dark. Her movements had a furtiveness about them, like a feral cat that’s consented to domestication but isn’t entirely happy to walk in human footsteps.

But Witney caught sight of her the moment she emerged, and I saw his hands falter as his thought process stuttered. A momentary hesitation, then his attention returned to his little al fresco class. But from the stiffness in his back, the sudden self-consciousness in his movements, it was obvious he was minutely aware of her.

The girl jiggled the child as she carried him around the edge of the dusty square, frequently glancing towards Witney. I read nothing but anxiety and distraction in her body language.

‘Report,’ Sean said, reaching for the camera with its telephoto lens.

With a wrench of effort, I closed out the image of the girl and the child. ‘We still have eyes on our target, but he’s surrounded by civilians. Minors,’ I added, just in case that wasn’t enough. I glanced across at Sean’s face, all hard planes and angles. ‘Lucky coincidence, or deliberate defensive position?’

‘Does it matter?’ Sean asked, the last vestiges of his Lancashire accent flattening his vowels. ‘Either way, he’s going to be bloody difficult to extract.’

‘Of course it does. Whereas one is unfortunate, the other means they know we’re coming for him, in which case—’

‘Two Bravos,’ he interrupted as movement flared in my peripheral vision. ‘Inbound. North-east corner. Rifles.’

Still keeping it slow and smooth, I eased the glasses across. Two men had stepped into view between the buildings. One was tall, with skin so black it had a tinge of blue. He was built like an American football player, that impression emphasised by the way he carried himself. The other man was smaller, lighter skinned, with overtones of several races in his Eurasian features, combining to give him a certain regal air. From the way they interacted, the Eurasian was in charge, and it wasn’t just the way they were dressed that set them apart from the other occupants of the compound.

Both men wore desert pattern camouflage, like you’d buy from any outdoorsman store or military surplus supplier for
a weekend’s hunting. But the long guns in their hands were not shouldered on their webbing straps, the way returning hunters would carry them, but cradled ready, like a patrol.

‘M16s,’ I said, and moved up to focus on their faces. ‘When the hell did Bane bring in armed guards? Can you get a shot of them?’

Sean already had the viewfinder to his eye, adjusting to compensate for the falling light. The shutter release was set on continuous. It whipped quietly through a rapid series of shots as the men advanced. If they were on any databases, we would ID them.

I panned back and found we weren’t the only ones following the progress of the pair. Witney had stopped all pretence at instruction, hands resting limply on his thighs as he watched them pass. In contrast, his spine was tense enough to crack. I felt rather than saw him start to sweat.

The group of children still concentrated on their teacher as the two men walked by. The Eurasian man raised a hand from the stock of his gun in what might have been no more than a friendly wave, a casual salute. Or might not. Witney nodded in jerky reply.

A couple of his pupils also cheerfully returned the wave. The sight of men with unshouldered weapons was obviously so common a sight to the children in this place that it didn’t even warrant a second glance from the others.

That alone was enough to chill me to the bone.

I reacquired the girl with the baby. Like Witney, she too had faltered, her gait more uncertain now. Her unease communicated itself to the child who stiffened in her arms and began to struggle. There was a long pause, then a thin high wail reached us.

The two men with the guns halted, both turned almost blindly towards the sound. The big guy took a step in her direction. The girl whirled, hunching over the child as if to hide or protect it, and scurried towards the building from which she’d emerged, with the little figure clutched tightly in her arms. I watched her until she was all the way out of sight, feeling the wrench of isolation as the closing door cut off the child’s screeching cries.

‘What?’

I glanced across, found Sean watching me with darkened, piercing eyes. I could read nothing in his face.

‘There was a possible threat to the woman and the child,’ I said, aware of a sudden tension in my shoulders. Aware, too, that it was a thin excuse.

‘Maybe those two just don’t like the noise,’ Sean said, choosing not to call me on it. ‘Can’t say I blame them for that – it goes right through you.’

I hid the flinch, said quickly, ‘It’s designed to get your attention, otherwise we’d have all died out by now. I just didn’t like the way they looked at her.’

‘We’re not here to save them all, Charlie,’ he said, flat. ‘Don’t let yourself get sidetracked. Our focus is on Witney. One at a time, OK?’

I didn’t respond. We watched in silence as the impromptu class came to an end and Witney led the dozen or so children inside in what seemed unnaturally ordered pairs. Every other class group of kids I’d seen was more like a controlled explosion. I opened my mouth to comment, if only to try and ease the pressure shimmering between us, when the cellphone in my breast pocket began to vibrate. It was all I could do not to gasp at the sudden buzzing against
my ribs. I reached up and tapped the receive button on my wireless earpiece.

‘Fox.’

‘Charlie – sit rep?’ The voice didn’t need to identify itself for me to recognise the cultured New York tones of Parker Armstrong. Sean’s senior partner. My boss.

‘It’s quiet,’ I murmured. ‘We’ve had eyes on the target all day – and much good it’s done us. He hasn’t left the compound and he’s never alone. Looks like Fourth Day have got themselves some additional security.’

‘He’s under guard?’ Parker asked, terse.

‘Not exactly,’ I said dryly. ‘If we’re really unlucky it could be more in the nature of a human shield. Oh, and someone needs to update the guy’s file. Just how old is the picture you showed us?’

There was a pause, an uncharacteristic hesitation, unusual enough for me to pick up on it. ‘Five or six years,’ he said at last, and there was a trace of reluctance in his voice, hardening as he added, ‘It’s what we had available, Charlie.’

Safely unseen, I let my eyebrows climb. Sean caught the gesture and fired me a warning glance of his own.

‘O…K,’ I said, knowing this was not the time to pursue the cons of outdated intel. ‘How long do you want us to sit out here and wait for a slip-up in the security arrangements?’

‘I don’t,’ Parker said dryly. ‘Pull out for now. The rest of the team should be landing shortly. I’ll bring everyone up to speed as soon as you get back.’

He cut the connection without wasting time on goodbyes, which was indicative of urgency, I judged. Parker was nothing if not unfailingly polite.

I glanced to Sean. ‘Right, we’re out of here,’ I said. His only reply was a raised eyebrow of his own. ‘Parker’s promised a briefing.’

‘About time,’ Sean muttered, taking his weight on his elbows and beginning to inch himself backwards out of our makeshift hide.

Even without the binoculars trained directly on the compound, I caught the flash of colour below us and we both froze, ignoring the natural reflex to duck back into cover.

The girl we’d seen with the distressed infant came bursting out of the doorway from the main building, arms windmilling, as though she’d just jerked herself to freedom. Of the child, there was no sign.

She hit the ground running, clenched fists pumping up to full speed, heading straight for our position. Unless she jinked, in less than four hundred metres she’d literally trip right over us.

The reason for her flight was only a couple of seconds behind her. The pair we’d seen with the M16s barged out of the doorway and started in pursuit. No longer armed, the two men were no less menacing empty-handed. And they didn’t waste their breath shouting. They knew she wasn’t going to stop unless they forced her to.

My hand snaked behind me to the SIG P228 that lay concealed in the small of my back, made sure it would glide out of the Kramer inside-the-waistband clip. ‘Sean—’

‘Hold your position,’ he cut in through clenched teeth. And just in case that didn’t dissuade me, he reached over and grasped my arm at the wrist. I tensed under his grip, felt the iron resistance.

This time of year, sunset was around five and the light was dropping fast now, grainy in its descent, smearing the contours of the terrain into deception. Two hundred and fifty metres from us, the girl misjudged her step and went sprawling. A proper face-plant in the dirt. She lay winded for maybe a second, then she was scrabbling onto hands and knees. Small whimpered sounds of fright escaped her as her pursuers gained and pounced. The Eurasian guy, lighter and faster, grabbed her shoulder. The big black guy latched onto her outstretched arm, yanked her upwards.

Automatically, all the right defensive manoeuvres unveiled behind my eyes, a rapidly expanding blur of sound and motion, as if someone had fired up an instant wireless link between us, so that I was right there, inside her head, inside her body.

Physically, we couldn’t have been more different. Where she was dark, I was fair. Where she was skin and bone, I’d worked hard to acquire muscle without bulk. There was maybe five or six years between us, but it seemed like a generation in terms of mindset and experience. She had already given in, but I had sworn a long time ago that I would never again submit.

So in my mind’s eye I watched my own ghosted image swarm over her and take command.

An elbow into the long thigh muscle of the one who’s grabbed my shoulder, dead-legging him. A clenched backfist up into his groin and he falls away. His partner’s thinking capture, not containment. The big guy’s trying to pull me to my feet. So I let him drag me up, swing me round, ignoring the hold he’s got on my arm. He’s not got a decent lock on yet. Big mistake.

The instant I’m up far enough to use my feet, I do so, exploiting his own grip for added momentum. A swift, hard, downward stamp to the outside of the knee, hearing the graunch and splinter as the joint collapses.

I shake him loose, and then I’m off and running again. Free, and filled with a fierce, raging pride…