The Horse at the Gates (46 page)

‘You have a family, Mac. Two young boys, right?’ Mac’s eyes narrowed ‘So?’

‘I told you, that first night, my being here can put you in harm’s way.’

‘I remember.’

‘That means your family too.’

Bryce flinched as Mac slammed a hand on the table. The mugs jumped, coffee slopping across the polished oak surface. He jabbed a finger towards Bryce. ‘Right, that’s it. No more fucking around. You’d better start telling me what’s going on. Now.’

‘Like I said, it’s complicated,’ Bryce muttered, snapping a couple of paper towels from a roll and mopping up the spilt coffee on the table.

Mac’s hand snaked out and grabbed his wrist. ‘I don’t give a shit,’ he growled. ‘I don’t care who you are or where you’ve been – if my family’s in danger then I need to know what sort of threat I’m facing, got it?’

Bryce looked down at the tough, calloused fingers gripping his wrist. ‘Alright, Mac.’ The younger man released his grip and Bryce rubbed the reddened skin. ‘You must understand that I never meant to involve you in any of this. The simple truth is, I had no other choice.’ Mac said nothing, but just stared at Bryce from across the table. ‘If I tell you the whole story, what I know, what I think I know – well, that can only increase the danger to you.’

‘I get it.’

‘Do you, Mac? Because the people we’re dealing with are ruthless. They’ve killed before. Our lives – me, you, your family – are meaningless to them.’

Mac tapped the table with a finger. ‘Listen, I don’t care what it is, or how deep you’re in it. Just give it to me straight. You owe me that much.’

Bryce drained his mug and pushed it across the table. ‘Jesus, when I say it out loud it’ll sound so ridiculous. And the drugs – I can’t remember everything.’

‘Try,’ ordered Mac.

Bryce inhaled sharply. ‘Ok, short version? The bomb in Downing Street had nothing to do with any rightwing conspiracy. Instead, it was a deliberate attempt to wipe out the Cabinet and replace it with another – what we politicians like to refer to as regime change. When I inconveniently emerged from the wreckage they kept me hospitalised and heavily sedated, ensuring I was unable to retake the reins of office. Later they had me moved, under the pretext of another bomb scare, to a secure psychiatric facility not far from where you picked me up. There they kept me locked in a decrepit isolation ward, fed me all sorts of powerful drugs, and half-starved me to death. The media reports about my condition were a complete fabrication. There was no stroke, no mental deterioration – apart from my own desperate feelings of hopelessness, of course. I was being held prisoner, hidden from public view, until I could be conveniently disposed of, no doubt in a considerably less dramatic fashion than previously planned.’

Bryce hesitated. He lowered his eyes, his voice suddenly quiet. ‘But I fooled them, the people who kept me locked away, until the day I escaped. That’s when I killed them both.’

For several long moments the only sound in the room was the ticking of the cooling kettle. Mac’s face was a mask of disbelief. He stared at Bryce, a hand massaging the grey-flecked stubble of his chin. When he finally spoke his voice was incredulous. ‘You did what?’

‘Don’t make me repeat it, Mac. It’s bad enough having to relive it in my head every hour of the bloody day.’

‘Ok,’ Mac soothed, ‘take it easy.’ He grabbed the coffee pot from the kitchen counter and brought it back to the table, filling both their mugs. ‘Right, forget the short version,’ he said, leaning back in his chair and sipping the hot brew carefully. ‘Tell me absolutely everything. From the beginning.’

So Bryce told him, about Heathrow, Cairo, about Tariq and Hooper, Sully and Nurse Orla, and every detail in between he could possibly recall. It took almost an hour, during which time Mac interrupted maybe half a dozen times to ask pertinent questions. When Bryce finally finished his monologue he felt a strange sense of calm, as if he’d unburdened himself of some of the guilt that plagued him. But only some of it. He knew, at the end of the day, when he lay in his bed, the faces of the dead would emerge from the shadows to haunt him.

For a while Mac sat motionless, his fingers gently drumming the table top. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he eventually whispered.

‘It’s true, Mac. All of it.’ Bryce thought he looked a little paler than before.

‘You weren’t joking when you said it was complicated.’

Bryce tried to read the expression on Mac’s face. He’d seen it once before, in the glow of the fires of Downing Street. It wasn’t outright fear – Mac certainly wasn’t the type to scare easily – but it wasn’t a million miles away, either.

‘Why don’t you just march into the nearest TV station,’ he suggested, ‘tell the world you’re still alive? You could end all this right now.’

Bryce shook his head. ‘Trust me, Mac, it’s not as simple as that. You can forget any notion of an objective, independent media coming to my rescue. The people that run the newspapers, the news channels, they consider themselves part of the same intellectual elite as mainstream politicians. They don’t see themselves as public servants – they believe they exist to educate the masses, not inform them. I’m on the outside now. The minute I walk into a TV studio I’d be whisked into a nice quiet room out of the way. A call would be made. I’d disappear within the hour. Ditto the police, or the army.’

Mac scraped his chair back and got to his feet. He leaned against the sink, arms folded across his chest, lost in thought. Then he fixed Bryce with a hard stare. ‘Listen, I’ve helped you this far, but this is way over my head. I won’t expose my family to this sort of risk. You’ll have to find somewhere else, another friend who can help.’

Bryce stood up and joined Mac at the kitchen counter. ‘I’ve given that some thought. I think I might have a plan.’

Mac’s frown evaporated. ‘You do? That’s good.’

‘I need to get to Tortola.’

‘Tortola? In the Caribbean?’

‘The very same. I know someone there, an old friend. I’m certain he’ll help me.’

Mac’s frown reappeared. ‘Really? And how the hell do you plan on getting there? You’ve got nothing except the clothes on your back.’

Bryce pulled a dog-eared, crumpled business card from the pocket of his sweat pants and held it up. ‘I know a man, one whose business is carrying out boat deliveries. Worldwide, it says here.’

Mac’s eyes flicked to the card then back to Bryce. ‘Convenient.’

‘Remember what I said when we spoke on the phone, Mac? Well, the same rule still applies. You say the word, I’ll walk out that front door. You’ll never see me again. And I promise you, when they eventually catch up with me – which they will – I’ll do my best never to reveal your name.’

Mac’s face darkened. He stared at Bryce for several long, intimidating seconds. ‘You bastard,’ he breathed, ‘you’ve had this planned all along.’

Bryce stood his ground. ‘It was you that sparked the idea, Mac. Look, I’m not superstitious or anything, but somehow the gods conspired to bring us together. The first time was in Downing Street, the night of the bomb, when you appeared from nowhere to save me.’ Bryce held up the crumpled business card. ‘The second time was in the hospital, when I started to feel that something wasn’t quite right. That’s when this arrived. You see? On some strange, metaphysical level you reached out, threw me a lifeline–’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Maybe,’ Bryce countered gently, ‘and yet here we are again, together, with danger closing in.’ He placed the worn rectangle of card on the worktop, sliding it across the smooth granite towards Mac with a single finger. ‘Whatever the reasons, you are my only option. There’s no-one else I can trust. I’ve no family here to speak of, no real friends I can rely on. You and I can’t be connected, we’ve proved that. And you can offer me a way out. If you want to.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Mac fumed, spinning around and bracing his hands on the sink. He stood that way for a while, watching the sleet lancing past the kitchen window. Bryce kept quiet. There was nothing more to say now. His fate would be decided in the next few moments, that was certain. The cottage was silent, broken only by the sound of the wind rustling the wisteria outside the window, the occasional vehicle passing at the bottom of the lane. After a while Mac straightened up and turned to face Bryce with hostile eyes.
This is it,
Bryce realised. Everything would hinge on this moment. He held his breath.

‘You’ve really dropped me in the shit, you know that?’

Bryce raised his hands. ‘Not intentionally, Mac.’

‘Don’t bloody lie to me.’

Bryce could see the anger etched across his face, the spidery vein that pulsed on the side of his forehead, the white-knuckled hands that flexed by his side. He’d pushed the man hard and now guilt consumed Bryce again, stirring the acid in his stomach. ‘Think about it, Mac. Think about everything that’s happened to me, everything I’ve told you. What would you have done? In my position?’

Mac swore and turned away. He stayed silent for a while, eyes fixed on the falling sleet as it turned to icy droplets against the window. Eventually he sighed, shaking his head. ‘Same thing probably.’ He watched the sleet for a moment longer, then turned around and reached for his jacket.

Bryce pushed himself off the counter. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Where do you think?’ Mac zipped up his jacket and tugged the hood over his head. ‘If we’re going to get you out of here, arrangements have to be made.’

Bryce closed his eyes as an overwhelming wave of relief swept away the tension that gripped his body. He placed a hand on the counter to steady himself.

‘And another thing,’ Mac said, ‘from now on, what I say goes. No more secrets, no more bullshit, got it?’ Bryce nodded. ‘Good. Because, I swear to Christ, if I find out you’ve kept something back I’ll drive you to the nearest nick myself.’

‘I’ve told you everything.’

‘Keep it that way,’ Mac warned. ‘And there’s a financial cost involved here, too. Money will have to be spent. I’ll need to be compensated.’

‘It’ll be covered,’ Bryce promised, ‘every penny. Just get me to Tortola.’

Mac grunted and spun on his heel. ‘Stay inside,’ he called from the hallway.

‘When will you be back?’

‘Later.’ As he slammed the front door behind him the windows rattled.

Bryce went into the sitting room and slumped onto the sofa, flicking the TV on. Instead of dancing with joy, he struggled with a deep sense of shame. He’d forced Mac’s hand, manipulated him, and by extension threatened his loved ones. What sort of man was he?
A desperate one,
the voice inside him countered. It was true, he was desperate. His life was on the line and he’d deliberately coerced Mac into aiding his escape without divulging the true danger of his complicity. In short, Mac had been screwed. Bryce kicked his feet up on the deep cushions and rubbed his eyes. It wasn’t the first time he’d screwed someone for personal gain – he was a politician, after all – but not a man like Mac, a decent, hardworking type. Besides, his previous victims had all been fellow politicians who accepted the rules of the game. Mac, on the other hand, was more inclined to break his neck. He lay there for a long time, staring up at the ceiling, until his eyes began to close, the drone of the TV gently lulling him into a welcome sleep…

Bryce lurched upright, fumbling for the remote and shutting off the TV. The car outside rolled along the gravel then crunched to a stop, engine idling. Mac had returned sooner than expected. The last thing he needed to see was Bryce sprawled across his sofa having a mid-morning nap. He quickly plumped the cushions and trotted upstairs. On the landing he paused, listening for the sound of the key in the door. Nothing. He went into the spare bedroom at the front of the house, towards the window that overlooked the lane. If Mac needed help with something, then the least he could do was go down and–

Bryce scrambled backwards at the sight of the police patrol vehicle parked outside the cottage. He heard the crunch of footfalls on shingle, then three loud bangs on the door. Bryce froze, terrified. His first thought was Mac – had he gone to the police after all? No, he quickly realised, if he did there’d be no polite knock on the door. In fact, the door would be lying in the hallway. No, this was something else.

The knocking sounded again, echoing up the stairs, urgent, insistent. He heard another sound, someone else skirting the side of the house, the metallic click of the rear gate latch. Two of them. Bryce held his breath as the other person clumped across the back garden, heard the scrape of boots coming to a halt, the sharp rap of a ring finger on the patio glass echoing downstairs. Bryce pressed himself up against the wall, trapped like a rat.

‘Police!’ The deep voice boomed up the stairs, reverberating around the walls of the cottage. ‘Open the door, now!’

Bryce ducked into the bathroom and quickly ran his head under the tap, splashing water on his face. He kicked off his sweatpants and threw a bathrobe on, tying it around his waist. He padded downstairs in bare feet, heart pounding in his chest. The letterbox was open. A pair of suspicious eyes rooted him to the spot.

‘You. Open the door. Now.’

The eyes disappeared and the letterbox slapped shut. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to run to. His fingers shook as he turned the lock and yanked the front door open. The policeman was tall, filling the porch with black body armour, a heavy-looking pistol strapped to his thigh. He was hatless, his sandy blond hair cut into a severe short back and sides. Behind him was a large Toyota four by four with a blue and yellow checked band running down the side, silver paintwork gleaming in the rain. A cold wind invaded the hallway and Bryce pulled the bathrobe tightly around him. The policeman attempted a smile and failed miserably.