What Next?

Chapter 8

Damon grabs my shoulder and spins me around to look at him. “What happened to Tiffany? You didn’t say in there.” David has stopped and so has Sera.

I look him dead in the eyes, “she died crying in my arms two years ago. It still haunts me that I couldn’t save her from herself.”

Damon recoils and wipes his eyes before evidence of tears are able to form. I know how he feels; we were all the same when it happened. It hit Helen harder than any of us. He walks past me and we head for the common room as music is coming from it.

We walk in the door and see everyone mixing and talking. If you didn’t know better you’d think they had all known each other for most of their lives. Draven and Claire are still together but are surrounded by the five youngest ones. Draven looks at us as we walk in, and tenses for a second, but drops it. Archer is showing off as usual by doing a head stand for a couple of the girls, and showing one of the boys how to do it without falling on your back. Lucia is coming from the kitchen with toast and juice for everyone and takes some over to Draven’s group. Even Lisa looks more settled, reading a book with a couple of the new girls. I glance at David and see his Cheshire cat smile spread all over his face. This must the biggest achievement he’s ever had since he bought the hotel.

I walk in and make my way over to Lucia, who is hovering by Dana, a twelve-year-old girl with fiery red hair and sparkling green eyes, who is only four foot eight. Since coming here sixteen months ago has seen every episode of the X-files. She did want to be called Scully, but realised it would raise to many questions at school. I go over to them and they stop talking, “don’t want to interrupt anything, I was just wondering what’s going on between Rain and Lisa.” They look at each other and then back at me with a puzzled expression. “David said Lisa had a bad night and Rain stayed with her. Is this a regular thing or…”

“No,” Dana answers, “she woke up screaming something about how they were coming for her, which spooked all of us, so we all went to make sure she was okay.”

“Rain, Draven and myself decided one of us should stay with her and make sure she was okay,” Lucia says, “and when David got there Rain had said she would stay with her and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Archer and Claude even went outside to make sure nobody was lurking around.”

“That’s what I love about you guys, you band together even when there’s nothing to worry about.” I do admire that about them, if ones having problems then they all are.

They both look at me like they’ve never seen me before, “you’re the one who told us if we stay strong together nothing can beat us.” Thanks for reminding me Lucia.

“Yea, Lisa’s been one of us for four months now, she’d do the exact same thing for any of us.” Dana’s temper is matched only by her hair colour.

I look around the room again and see what they mean. Everyone is getting to know everyone else, everyone is moving around the room except Draven and Claire but they will when they’re ready. Even Lisa is being more sociable than I’ve seen her be since I brought her here.

I head into the kitchen to do Sera and myself a drink, when I see a shadow move quickly across the window. I go to the window and see movement in the trees out the back. Please not here, not now, not when everything is going so well. I hear a noise behind me and turn to see David trying to sneak up on me. I turn back to the window and can’t see anything, only I know I didn’t imagine it.

“The people who attacked Helen are sizing this place up aren’t they.” He doesn’t ask, he tells me what’s going on. “I assume you and Damon are going outside to deal with them before they get inside, right?” I’m amazed he can keep so calm, its almost like he knew this was going to happen.

I turn around to face him, “Sera and I are going out to deal with it. I want Damon to stay inside in case any get past us.” I walk two steps forward and stop without looking at him, “Sera is no killer. If they get past us tell Damon to use deadly force.” I walk back into the common area and catch Sera’s eye as she’s standing near Claude. Without any provocation she walks over to me and follows me out of the common area and we see Damon waiting by the front door.

“Saw ‘em through one of the windows,” he says, “we going to let ‘em trespass? Or are we going to teach ‘em a lesson they wont forget?”

I look at Sera and can tell she’s worried. “New plan. Sera stay inside and help David get the children upstairs. If anyone gets into the hotel, don’t hang around knock them out. This is your next evolution.”

She nods her head and heads back to the common area. I’m assuming whoever is out there is tooled up so Damon and I need a few ourselves. I point to the cupboard next to the door and he opens it and his jaw drops. Any weapon that has been snuck in here has been put in that cupboard. I make my way over and grab the bow, the seven arrows and slide a couple of knives down my back. “Grab what you know how to use, but don’t reveal till we know what they have.”

He turns his back to me and I see the butt of a gun. He turns back around and grabs a couple of knives for himself and closes the door. “What’s with the archery gear?” he asks, “from what I saw out the window it didn’t look like Robin Hood and his merry men.”

“I saw someone moving through the woods out the back. That and arrows are quieter than the piece your packing.”

“Hey, someone shoots at me I want to be able to shoot back. Not everyone fights honourably like you do.” I simply nod.

I unlock the door for Damon to go out and lock it behind him. I run upstairs and open one of the windows out the back and stand on the thin ledge. I close the window behind me and drop down to the ground. I’m lucky the grass is wet or that would have hurt a lot. I scope out the surrounding area and also strain to hear any sounds being made. Not hearing or seeing anything I move stealthily round the side of the hotel to the front. I peer around the corner and see what we’re up against. Four heavily armed men have positioned themselves around the van while two more are at the door of the hotel. I can also see Damon lying on the floor not moving. Guess it’s down to me then.

I pull back around and pull the bow off my back and gab one of the arrows. I load it up and move around the corner and let it fly at the two at the door. It catches the one nearest me in his right hand and before they have any idea what is going on I’m firing another one, which hits his accomplice in the heart and bounces off. Damn, they’re all wearing body armour. The four by the van have now spotted me and have their automatic rifles trained on me. I drop the bow, put my hands up and don’t move an inch in case they have itchy trigger fingers.

“HOLD YOUR FIRE! THE GENERAL WANTS HIM ALIVE!” I look around and can’t see where the command has come from. The two by the door come away and the one I shot with the arrow walks over and punches me in the temple.

“I owe you more for the arrow you prick.” He mutters at me.

I look him dead in the eye, “you and your friends throw their guns away and we’ll see what you can pay.” I don’t betray fear; if I’m going to die I want to go down fighting.

“PRIVATE I SAID ENOUGH!” I glance over his shoulder and see another man coming from round the back of the van. “IF HE WANTS TO, HE CAN KILL YOU WITHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT.” This must be their leader and he’s done his homework on me.

The ‘private’ walks away cursing me under his breath and this new man walks over to me. “Hands behind your back!” he orders. I glance at the other men who still have their guns trained on me and he follows my gaze. “Lower your weapons!” he orders and they all do it. I put my hands behind my back and tense the muscles in my wrist. He steps behind me and ties a cable tie securely around my wrists. “Start walking, if you show signs that you are going to show resistance, we blow out your knees, then come back for the woman and do the same to her” Damn he has done his homework. Who have I pissed off this time?

Before I make my first step I feel a needle in my neck and I blackout.

…………………

I come to and can still feel my wrists behind my back, tied with a cable tie. I open my eyes and see only darkness. I don’t move and slowly I feel everything around me. I’m blindfolded and lying on a concrete floor. Time to get up and find out where I am. I flex the muscles in my wrist and find I have some give in the tie, so I slacken my hands and slide my left hand through the gap I have. It hurts like hell, and I can feel the blood dripping from a cut I’ve made on one of my wrists. I reach up and pull the blindfold off and roll onto my back with both arms held up in the air. After a few seconds they start to ache, but I need to get feeling back in them. I bring them down and use the blindfold as a make shift bandage and tie it round the cut I’ve now got. It’s only a few millimetres long but better safe than sorry.

Now I take a good look at my surroundings and see that I’m in some sort of interrogation room. In the middle of the room is a table and a chair on either side of it. Four stonewalls and concrete ceiling with a camera and microphone make up the rest of my surroundings. “I’m awake now,” I say looking at the camera, “can we get this over with quickly? I have other things I need to be doing right now.” I still haven’t got up off the floor where I awoke. I don’t plan on doing anything till I get some answers and, for the sake of whoever’s doing this, Sera and the hotel better be okay.

I’m still lying on the floor when a woman in a suit walks in the door, and sits in the chair with her back to the camera. I watch her as she puts the folder she’s carrying down on the table and then she just looks at me. “Would you please sit down in the chair Mr Williamson?” Okay so she knows my adopted surname, doesn’t mean anything. “This is just an informal questioning. We would like some answers that only you posses.”

This sparks my interest so I get up off the floor and sit down in the chair opposite her. “Before we start lying to one another, if you or any of your people have harmed anyone in the residence you took me from, I promise I will hunt you down and make you suffer, even it takes my last breath to do it!” I lean back in the chair and smile before I go stone faced. Basic interrogation techniques, give nothing away.

A small smile shows on her face as she opens her folder, without taking her eyes off me. “For a weapon, you seem to care about a lot of people.” What is she on about? I’m no weapon. “You are a mystery Mr Williamson, you have no records anywhere and your alias,” she flips through the pages of her folder, “a William Stuartson, has a simple bank account, a simple apartment, and works as a social worker taking on abused child cases. What could you possibly be tying to hide?”

“You seem to have all the answers in that little folder of yours. You tell me, after you tell me why I’m here and if you harmed anyone I was with.” Please let them all be okay, Lisa was just starting to come out of her shell at last.

She smiles and slides the folder over to me. “If you think we have all the answers look for yourself. And I can tell you the only person who was harmed was the private you decided to put an arrow into. The only person we wanted was you.”

I spin the folder around and look at what they’ve got on me. A few photographs of me out and about, my bank records, the fake birth certificate that my Master had done for me and the school grades as well. The only thing that was changed was the name. Whoever these people are they know nothing about me. “The men that picked me up mentioned a General, I would prefer to talk to him and not one of his lackeys. He wanted me alive and I would like to know why.” I get up from the chair and go back to the spot on the floor. I sit in the lotus position and start meditating. I hear the woman get up and leave without saying a word.

…………………

I’ve no idea how long I’ve been here now, but I’m sure it’s less than twelve hours. I haven’t moved from my place on the floor and only heard the door open once, with someone bringing a bottle of water in for me.

The door opens again and the acrid smell of stale cigar smoke invades my nostrils. I don’t give any indication that I’ve noticed anything. I follow the smell to the table and hear the chair the woman sat in being pulled out. I open one eye and see a man in full military dress with medals all over his left side. He stares at me without saying a word so I open my other eye to get a good look at him. White hair swept under his hat, dull grey eyes that show years of combat experience and a scar across his left cheek.

I get up off the floor, grabbing the water as I get up, and sit back down in the chair I left a short time ago. “If you’re the General, then why am I here? I’m just a social worker, who works with abused children.”

He puts his hands on the table and stands up. “My title is General Liam McKay. Her Majesty’s Royal Marines. I am also a senior member of Interpol.” He starts to walk around the room, but I’m no longer looking at him. “And you my dear boy, have ruined one of our long term investigations.” Interpol? How have I got mixed up with Interpol? He stops behind me, “We have known about you for quite sometime, Colonel Thompson’s living weapon.” Okay now I’m confused.

I get out of the chair and spin round so I’m sitting on the table looking at the General, who is standing where I’ve been since I got here. “First, who the fuck is Colonel Thompson? Second, why the hell am I here? And third, why are you calling me a weapon. I mean yeah, I can fight but it does not make me a weapon.” He betrays a slight look of surprise and I jump on it. “You all think I know what’s going on?” I can’t help laughing, “For all the Intel you can gather, you’ve screwed up.”

He reaches down and pulls his gun out of his holster and puts it to my forehead. I go stone faced again; I refuse to give him the sense that he’s in control here. I lean into the barrel and he pulls the hammer back with his thumb. We stay like this for a few seconds before he pulls the gun away from my head. “You have no fear of death,” he puts the gun back in its holster, “very interesting. He did an excellent job on you.” He walks back around and I sit in my chair and watch him do the same thing. “The man I am talking of is your adoptive father. When he left us fifteen years ago he changed his name and became a simple architect. Pity really, he was one of the best we had.”

I sit still and keep stone faced; I glance up at the camera and see the camera has been turned off. I thought there was something odd about the way he raised me and now I know why. He was training me to be this weapon they keep going on about. Suddenly my childhood seems to make sense, why he took me in and adopted me, the relentless training, having to do well at school, why he refused to train his daughter, why he was unhappy with my decision to become a social worker. He was making me into some sort of weapon. And I did the same to Sera.

“I know this is hard for you, but you ended a long term investigation for us.” The General speaking wakes me from my thoughts. “We have known about Paul Sinclair for a long time now, but we are after his boss who is residing somewhere in mainland Europe. However since you killed him we may never know who it is.” I look down at the table. They must have had someone on the inside, reporting to them about his activities. “We have also taken care of your little outburst at the hospital for you, the police know nothing of it and everyone who saw it has said you acted before you thought about what you were doing. The hospital director was told you are military trained and would be facing a court marshal.” They’re doing a lot for me I wonder what they want in return.

We sit in silence for a couple of minutes and let what has been said and done sink in for the both of us. I decide to break the silence, “So what do you want from me in return, for all the services you’ve provided for me?” I will not allow myself to be their puppet, but I don’t like being in debt to anyone. I look up and see the General smiling. Shit. “I’m not one of your soldiers. I do one task and we’re even. Anyone threatens those close to me so I’ll do more, and I’ll show YOU,” I point at him, “personally, what kind of weapon I really am.” Huh, I almost convinced myself.

“You will be released from here in fourteen hours. You will be given another tranquilliser so you wont know where you’ve come from, and you will wake up in your own bed at your fathers house.” He drops the smile and leans forward a little. “We want the second in command to give you details of Paul’s boss. Do this and we will never see each other again. You will have four days to get this information, by any means possible, but try not to kill anyone.”

Great as if my life wasn’t complicated enough, they want me to do their work for them. Just because my Master was one of them, they think I’ll follow suit? Well I’ll just play nice for now and see where it goes. “I mean it,” I say with menace in my voice, “anyone close to me, and I come after you. No exceptions.”

The bastard is still smiling and simply nods his head. “We’ll have to do something about you though, bleach your hair maybe?”

“Whatever, I dye my hair black anyway, but I need to know who your man on the inside is. They’re going to come in very useful to me.”

He leans back and puts that damn smile back on his face, “You are already associated with him. We recruited him two and a half years ago when a price got put on his brothers head.”

“Please tell me your kidding. We’re close to killing each other as it is.”

“Sorry, but he’s working with you on this. After you get the information we require you can kill each other if you want.” He says laughing. Bastard.

He gets up and leaves the room, leaving me with my thoughts. To make sure Sera stays out of this world, I must work with a prick? Fine. At least now I know my life has a purpose. I make my way back to my spot on the floor and start meditating again.