Kingdom: The Complete Series (9 page)

“
Easy
to say when you're bulletproof. I'm not, and neither is she,” Jamie points at
Chloe across the room, who is kneeling beside the King as though he were a
wounded animal.

“
That
man is our ticket,” says Mark. “We use him to get to the King, and we can end
this entire thing.”

“
Who
says I want to? I just want to get my money and leave this sorry, forsaken,
piece of shit city and live my life in peace.”

Mark stops, squinting
in confusion at him.

“
Money?”
he asks. “Really?”

Jamie frowns. “What?”

“
That's
what
you want? You've been given this incredible power, whatever it is that you can
do, whatever the fire gave you, and you just want money?”

“
I
wouldn't consider an imminent brain haemorrhage a blessing,” Jamie shrugs, “but
yeah. I worked for that money, the King owes me it. I want that, then I want
the retirement package I was promised. I want my life back.”

“
You
could do so much with this power, man. I can guarantee you that the King's
money won't bring you what you want.” Mark lowers his voice and takes a step
forward. “Do you even really
know
what you want?”

“
You
don't know me,” says Jamie, his finger tightening on the trigger. “You don't
know what I've been through.”

“
Living
a hard life doesn't mean you're entitled to inflict pain on others,” says Mark,
and takes another step forward.

Jamie lowers the gun,
keeping his eyes locked on Mark's, and then points the gun down at the writhing
figure of the King.

“
This
man,” says Jamie, “doesn't deserve your sympathy, or your mercy. He'd show you
none.”

“
And
what about you, Jamie?” asks Mark.

“
What
do you mean?”

“
Are
you any better? Are you going to show mercy?”

“
Jamie,”
Chloe whispers, and Jamie's eyes flicker, “put the gun down.”

“
We're
on the same side here, Jamie. We both benefit from bringing the King to
justice.”

“
There
is
no justice in this bloody city.”

“
There
is now.”

Jamie lets out a long,
harsh sigh and drops the gun. Chloe flinches as it clatters to the floor.

“
If
this gets her hurt -” Jamie begins, and Mark holds up his hands to stop him.

“
It's
all on me, I know.”

“
As
soon as this is over, we leave the city -”

“
Of
course,” says Mark. “First, we take down the King.”

“
What's
the plan?” asks Chloe.

“
Well,”
Mark walks over to the King and kneels down over him. The King's pain-crazed
eyes swirl with impotent rage, and Chloe leans back as though the heat of the
King's anger were burning her. “I
was
going to throw him to his own
wolves but since that will no longer work... We need somewhere that we can
hide, until this poor little King tells us where to find his superior.”

“
Do
you know somewhere we can hide?”

“
Actually,
I do,” Mark says. “Getting there might be difficult. There's a lot of men with
guns outside and my strength is failing. I could break us out if I can get a
drink.”

“
I
told you, he has bottles in his office,” Chloe says. “Ideally, we won't have to
get shot at; surely the King has some kind of escape route?”

“
That
does sound like the King,” says Jamie.

The King snarls
something under his breath, and Mark leans in to hear better.

“
What
was that?”

“
I
said...” the King whispers through gasped breaths, “that you'll never get out
of here alive.”

Mark gives him a
condescending smile. “I could say the same for you, mate.”

“
You're
not going to kill me.”

The King tries to laugh
but his clenched, blood-lined teeth turn it into the snarl.

“
No,
I'm not,” Mark's smile turns from warm to cold in a second – something changes
in his eyes, “but there are worse things than death for you, I bet.”

The King gives him a
venom-filled stare as Mark stands and rubs his temples, letting a tense breath
out.

“
You
ok?” asks Chloe.

“
Yeah,
just... hungover, I think. I
really
need a drink.”

“
Your
nose,” Jamie points, and Mark sniffs the blood away, wiping it clean with his
forearm.

“
Ok,
let's get to the King's office and work it out from there. I think we're
relatively safe for now, nobody is going to be coming in.”

The King thrashes in
protest as Mark picks him up, straining more than before, and hefts him over
his shoulder. Breathing hard with effort, Mark is the first to walk up the
stairs, back into the King's castle.

Trespasser One, clad in
black armour, watches the burning street below, standing on the edge of the
roof. The helicopter has laid ruin to the side of a building, its tail rotor
sticking out of the wall like a broken limb.

Scurrying through the
smoke and the fire are soldiers. No rescue workers, no emergency services to
combat the flames: only soldiers. They form firing lines, stacking up and
surrounding the huge wooden doors that lead into a building that nobody seems
to want to talk about.

The Trespasser checks
his kit, and then takes a breath and focuses himself like he does before every
confrontation. He counts at least forty armed men, clad in black like himself.
They surround a building that has an open wound half way up it, a hole where
something crashed through it.

Something roughly
man-sized.

Smiling under his mask,
he lifts a device from his belt and unfolds it until it resembles a
rifle-frame. A single metal tipped arrow head juts from the front of the
weapon, and he lifts a small gas canister from his belt and screws it into the
gun. He checks it and, satisfied, loops a thin steel wire through part of the
gun and secures it to his belt. He aims upwards, and it fires with a pop and a
hiss, and then the rope is trailing off of his belt as it trails behind the
arrow. It smashes into the concrete at the top of the building and a hundred
tiny mechanical components secure it against the wall. He tugs the wire to test
it, judges where he's going to hit, and then pulls it taut and drops off the
roof.

He swings over the
street in silence, and then vanishes through the hole in the side of the
building. Tumbling into the hallway, he leaps to his feet and clears the
corridor, scanning both ways with his pistol in one hand and the empty rope gun
hanging in his other.

With the corridor empty
and silent, he hits a button on the side of his belt and the rope whips back in
like a tape measure. He folds the rope gun back down and clips it onto his
belt, lowering his pistol.

He listens.

There are voices and
heavy footsteps echoing throughout the building. Unable to tell which voices
are coming from the clamour outside and which are coming from inside, he begins
to move forwards towards the staircase, assuming that his target – the janitor
that he is chasing – has gone higher up.

Find the janitor,
he
thinks,
and I find out who – or what – the King is.

He stops.

Two dead bodies lie on
the floor, the walls splattered with blood and bullet holes. He pauses to check
the men, confirming that they're dead.

He flicks the safety
off on his pistol, and ascends the staircase.

Episode
7

Safehouse

The
Trespasser hears them before he sees them:

A man announces his
presence with a booming, amicable voice that sounds as though he is always on
the verge of a joke. He recognises it: the same thundering voice from the
helicopter.

The janitor; the
target.

Training kicks in, and
the Trespasser searches for a place to hide.

The corridor runs the
length of the floor he is on, broken by unvarnished wooden doors that look much
younger than the flaking plaster of the walls, lit by head-ache inducing
fluorescent lights.

With nowhere else to
go, he tries the first door that he comes to: it clicks, locked. The voices are
louder now, echoing off the crumbling walls.

He picks out another
two voices, one low and conspirational – a keeper of secrets – and the other a
warm, feminine voice: the kind of voice you'd like to welcome you home at
night. Cursing, he grabs a device from his belt that resembles a short, black
plunger with a metallic cup.

Placing it around the
cheap, balmy handle, he depresses a green button on the handle. A pneumatic
hiss rattles the door and a metallic cough announces his entry. As he lifts the
plunger away he catches the loose handle as it falls like a dead bird, and
enters the room like a breeze with his pistol raised.

An empty room filled
with dust-covered filing cabinets and coffee-stained desks greets him, cold and
musty. He closes the door behind him, holding his breath as he waits for the
voices to pass. Though he tries, he can't make out any words clearly, apart
from one:

“
-
King -”

That one word cuts
through the muffled warbling and he jerks his head up.

“
That's
my cue,” he whispers to himself, and checks the safety on his pistol.
Satisfied, he throws the door open and comes out with the gun raised. “Don't move.”

Three people stop,
halfway down the corridor, and turn around.

One of them is a pale,
dark featured man wearing a bloodstained white shirt, and he is holding the
hand of a petite blonde girl with short curled hair and a hooded top. Beside
them stands a man who is naked save for his underwear, his mottled skin bruised
and damaged beyond human endurance. Across his shoulder rests an unconscious
man who was once well dressed; now he looks like a roughed-up kidnap victim.

“
He's
not with the King,” the dark featured one says first, and the Trespasser notes
the lack of firearms present in the group. The mostly naked one, who he
recognises as the janitor, certainly isn't concealing anything.

“
Wait,”
the janitor savage begins, and then the realisation sets in. They recognition
hits. “You,” the janitor grins, “you actually followed me.”

“
Target
Four,” says the Trespasser.

To his surprise, his
target grins as though meeting an old friend at an airport.

“
Trespasser
One, right?” he drops the suited man from his shoulder to the ground, wincing
in pain. “I haven't seen you since I leapt out of your helicopter. You'd be
easier to recognise without the big face mask.”

The Trespasser takes a
step backwards, cocking the hammer on the pistol. The smile fades from the target's
face, whilst the couple behind him move closer in together.

“
What
are you doing?” the janitor asks him.

“
I,”
the Trespasser feels himself shaking. He hasn't felt this sense of helplessness
since his survival and evasion training. “I have to bring you in.”

“
I
thought you followed me to learn about the King?”

“
I
did,” the Trespasser blinks the sweat out of his eyes, “but my superiors have
put a kill order on you.”

“
What?”
asks the blonde girl.

“
If
you keep running, they'll find you and kill you. If you let me bring you in, I
can ensure your safety.”

“
I've
seen these men elsewhere, Mark,” says the dark featured one. “They're bad
news.”

“
No,
no,” Mark turns, silencing them. “Not this one. He's not so bad.” Mark turns to
the Trespasser again. “You already know I can't come in with you. I have things
to do – I need to take down the King.”

“
The
Agency will do everything in its power to stop you,” the Trespasser says.
“They're already getting ready to breach this building, even though it was
declared a no-go area before the mission began. If you tell me what you know, I
can take you in and then go after this King person myself.”

“
It's
not that simple,” says Mark.

“
Look,
I committed an act punishable by termination just to follow you. I disobeyed a
direct order. Men and women just as well trained as me are coming for you. I
need
to bring you in, for your own safety if nothing else.”

“
It's
not about my safety,” says Mark. “It's about my mother's.”

The Trespasser says
nothing for a while, and then lowers the pistol.

“
That's
what you were screaming about on the rooftop when I first saw you, wasn't it?
The King has your mother?”

“
I
don't know, but she's definitely on his list. I can't come in until she's safe,
and that means neutralising him.”

“
What
is he? Head of a family, dealer, what -”

“
He's
the King,” says Jamie. “That's all. Anything happens in Glasgow, you can be
assured that he's pulling the strings behind it. It's been that way for almost
a decade.”

“
Why
hasn't anybody tried to stop it? Why does nobody know about this?”

“
Fear,”
says Jamie, and shrugs. “Dependency. Believe it or not, everybody has a job in
Glasgow now. Nobody goes hungry or gets hurt unless the King decides that they
should. Too many people are comfortable, and afraid enough to let him carry on.”

“
Do
you have any leads on who he is? Anything to go on?”

“
Yeah,”
says Mark, and kicks the King on the ground between them. “This guy – he's a
body double for the King.”

“
Then
maybe I can help – I can at least try to keep the Agency off of your back -”

A booming thunderclap
rocks the building from its base, and the occupants of the corridor stumble and
reach to the walls for support.

“
What
was -” the girl begins, but the Trespasser already knows.

“
They
breached the doors. They're coming for you. Surrender, and I can get you out of
here in one piece.”

“
I
can get myself out of here in one piece just fine, thanks,” Mark smiles. “Come
with us. We can take this guy down together.”

The Trespasser rubs his
eyes through his mask, and shakes his head.

“
You'll
never make it. Look, I can stall these guys for a minute or two,” he says,
“that might be enough for you three to escape if you're quick. Maybe I can work
out a deal with my superior.”

Mark understands: he
nods and turns, picking up the false King as he goes, and runs off down the
corridor with the other two running hand in hand behind him.

The Trespasser turns at
the sound of hobbled boots crashing up the stairs, and raises his hands in
surrender.

Mark kicks down the
door to the King's office, his bloodshot eyes searching the room before his
foot hits the ground. Jamie and Chloe push in behind him as he drops the King
to the floor, kneels over him, and slaps his face.

He doesn't respond.

“
Start
looking for a door, or a hatch of some kind. The King wouldn't have an office
without an escape route.”

“
You
think we can trust that soldier guy?” asks Chloe, searching through drawers and
cabinets.

“
Trust,
I don't know about,” says Mark, “but he wants the King taken down, and that
makes him an ally.”

“
Hopefully,”
says Jamie, “he can strike a deal with his superior and we won't be getting
chased by soldiers any more.”

“
Any
luck finding an escape passage or anything?”

“
I
think I found you something equally as useful,” Chloe breaks into nervous
laughter and throws Mark a heap of fabric. Recoiling away, Mark holds it up;
the pile unfurls into a pair of soft grey business trousers. He shrugs, nods
his thanks, and pulls them on. They fit surprisingly well for someone as slim
as he is.

“
He
must have kept spares.”

“
I
bet the guy practically lived here,” says Jamie, pulling the drawers out of the
desk and finding nothing but papers and – he pauses, lifting one piece of paper
out. It's yellowed, crumpled with age and dust. It has his signature at the
bottom.

Chloe sees what he has
and looks up from her search.

“
Found
something, Jamie?”

“
I'd
forgotten about your contract,” he says. He puts it in his pocket, and Chloe
gives him a knowing look devoid of any anger or disappointment.

“
Look,
I was all you had,” she says. “You just wanted to get us off the streets. I
understand.”

“
I'm
sorry,” he stares at the ground, unable to meet her eyes. “I should have told
you.”

“
Don't
worry,” she tells him, crossing the room to plant a delicate kiss on his lips
as Mark turns away, giving them a minute. 

He scans the shelves
and finds a dusty old bottle of brown liquid. To his sober, thirsty eyes it's a
litre of ambrosia, the waters of the fountain of youth. He tears the cap off
and pours most of the bottle down his throat before the sheer strength of the
spirits burns his nostrils like bleach and he splutters and coughs, dropping
the bottle.

It smashes on the
floor.

The false King's eyes
open, darting like a rabbit's around the room. Standing above him, flexing his
skinny frame and stretching his limbs out as though he had just been
resurrected, is the janitor, his stubbled jaw glistening with sticky, alcoholic
residue.

“
Are
those...” the false King points at the trousers, slurring as the pain in his
knees comes back.

“
Yeah,
thanks,” Mark quips, kneeling down and lifting the King with one hand.
“Ah,strong again.”

The King slides down
into the collar of his shirt, his chin buried behind his tie as the fear
returns to his eyes. The only sound is the rattle of drawers and cupboards as
the young couple search the room.

“
They're
coming for us,” says Mark, “which means you'll probably get hit in the
crossfire. I can get you out of here, but you need to tell me where the exit
is.”

The false King says
nothing.

“
Any
luck, Jamie?” asks Mark.

“
Nothing,
man,” Jamie says through gritted teeth. The King's eyes flicker towards a
bookshelf filled with leather tomes of varying dull colours. Mark grins,

“
Try
that bookshelf.”

Jamie and Chloe leap
for the shelving and start grasping at books and corners, trying to find
something to press or pull.

“
Where
are we going to go anyway?” she asks as thick books tumble off the shelf and
cascade over the floor.

“
I'll
tell you when we get moving,” says Mark.

“
I
don't think there
is
a secret exit, Mark,” says Jamie.

They all flinch as a
single gunshot rings out downstairs.

“
We'd
better decide quickly,” whispers Chloe.

“
I
have a better idea,” Mark announces, and looks up at the ceiling, thinking.

“
What's
your idea?” asks Jamie as he turns from the book case.

“
I'm
still thinking in too few dimensions,” Mark says, waggling a lecturing finger
at Jamie as the alcohol settles in. “World's got more than one direction I can
go in.”

Jamie's face clouds
with doubt as he realises that the drink is hitting Mark hard.

“
Mark?
What direction?”

Standing like a
cheerful scarecrow with his arms outstretched like a clock, Mark drops the
King, laughs, and says:

“
Up.”

Mark bends his knees
and leaps upwards, crashing through the ceilings and floors above them. They
hear a rapid-fire burst of crashing, crumbing masonry and wood. Jamie and Chloe
flinch away as debris rains down on them, filling the room with dust and the
smell of DIY. The King lies on the floor, confused and dazed.