Chapter #15An Unexpected Guest by: imaj   The doorbell rings.
You sigh impatiently, with the girls finally in bed you’d hoped to get some work done. Not your real work, that of the Stellae, but the more mundane variety that is required to keep your cover as Siobhan Connor: A half written psychology paper that might make it into medical journal that needs to fill out a few extra pages next month. It’s very good, of course, because you absorbed the memories of some of the better psychologists you could find once you realised you’d be staying as Siobhan for a long time, but you prefer to keep a low profile.
You save your work with a keystroke and push away your laptop. Who would be at the door in a typically wet autumn night in London. Through habit, you walk cautiously towards the door, your soft footfalls not making any noise. Your cloak leaps to your fingertips, ready to blind any hostile visitors. The lights stay off as you move through the Churchman house. You don’t want to alert your visitor that anyone is awake within.
Their response is to ring the doorbell. Again. Insistently. You reach the door and slowly, gradually, press your eye against the spy-hole. You want no sudden change of light coming from the tiny glass aperture to give away to the visitor that someone is on the other side of the door. As you look through, all you can see is an eye. Someone is pressing against the outside of the door, despite the impossibility of being able to look within in this way. The eye pulls back, revealing at first a face, then a head, then a person.
Oh…
It’s Hal Swann, one of your colleagues – albeit one you have no particular love for. His wavy hair is plastered against his head by the heavy rain. For a few moments you are almost tempted to leave him there. Then he looks to one side and mutters something inaudible at someone. You can’t see anyone else, they must be just out of sight. Hal pulls a suitably trendy – and no doubt heavily customised – cell phone from a pocket and taps at the screen. Further back in the house you hear the sound of your phone ringing.
He isn’t going to give up, you realise, so you unlock the door. You pull back the heavy deadbolt, undo the chain and finally turn the wrought iron key in the lock. The door swings open.
“… ‘ll just be a minute, see,” says Hal to his unseen companion. “Oh hello Siobhan.”
You nod curtly, acknowledging his presence.
Hal stands stationary, the rain still hitting him hard. You remain quite dry on the inside of the door. “Can I come in Siobhan,” he asks. “It’s a touch wet out here.”
You raise an eyebrow but say nothing.
“It’s just I’ve brought someone you might want to meet,” adds Hal, putting the phone back in a pocket and rubbing his hands together.
“Who is it Hal,” you ask tiredly. “I was in the middle…”
You tail off, for Hal’s unseen companion has stepped round from his hiding spot. Though you only met him briefly, you instantly recognise him as the workman from the hotel where Rosalie’s wedding was held. Bobby, you think his name was.
“What is this Hal,” you ask frowning. What’s the angle here? “Why did you bring him here?”
“Hello again Siobhan,” says Bobby with a soft smile.
“I don’t think you were properly introduced at you first meeting,” says Hal with an annoyingly cocky grin. “Siobhan, this is Bobby Anderson, ex Fane mercenary.”
You jaw drops. “You’d better come in,” you say quietly.
****
“I was the tech expert for my team,” explains Bobby once you have your two guests sat round the dining table inside the house. “I’d done the same during my tour with the Marines, but once I left… Let’s just say the fuckin’ government doesn’t want to know about soldiers that get injured on black ops in the Iranian desert. No pension, no nuthin’.”
You set a couple of bottles of beer on the table. One for Bobby, one for Hal. The former marine thanks you with a curt nod. Hal barely notices. He’s busy setting up a museum piece of a laptop on the table.
“I heard about Fane through a friend I’d served with about three years ago,” continues Bobby, taking a swig from the bottle. “I needed a job, they were taking on guys with my skill set. It seemed like a perfect match. They fit me into a team with three other mercs. Guy named Gustavo was the team leader, sniper by the name of Drew and a psychopath called Travis Rice.”
You’re good enough that you can conceal your reaction from him. At the same time, instinct suggests you tell him the truth. “I killed them at the wedding,” you say softly. “They were threatening to shoot Bea. I’m sorry.”
Bobby blinks a couple of times. “Don’t be. Gustavo was a decent guy, I feel sorry for him, but we all knew there was a risk with what we did. Drew was a cold hearted bitch. She killed for kicks and had it coming. Travis? It’s about time someone put him down. Fane was going to send us to our deaths one way or another sooner or later.”
“That’s why you left,” you ask.
“If it was just that, I’d have left after my chest got used as fukin’ a monster’s scratching post up the Appalachians,” snorts Bobby. “No, it was your little girl. I might be many things but I ain’t gonna kill a little girl.”
“Thank you,” you reply.
“It’s your girl I should be thanking,” states Bobby. “I defused the bombs I’d set up…”
“Bombs,” you interrupt with a gasp. “There weren’t any bombs at Rosalie’s wedding.”
“I said I defused them,” continues Bobby. “Then I walked out door and didn’t look back. Not until your limey friend caught up with me. He’s a persistent little fucker.”
“Hmm,” murmurs Hal looking up from his laptop. A pair of goggles make his eyes look ridiculously big. “I was surprised to find anyone that had walked away from Fane to be quite perfectly honest, thank you,” he explains as he pushes the goggles down round his neck. “They have this thing that’s a little like reformatting a hard drive you see. Only with peoples brains, and they use it liberally.”
“Yeah, apparently I’m ‘quite the find,” interrupts Bobby, mockingly imitating Hal’s accent.
“Bobby gave me enough to start tracking down the Fane cell responsible for the attack on Rosalie’s wedding,” explains Hal. “His price was he wanted to meet you and Bea again.”
The hairs on the back of your neck prickle. “I’m not sure about that.”
“I already said,” replies Bobby. “I want to thank her, but I understand if you want to be careful.”
“We can work it out later,” says Hal, waving his hands as if it is an inconsequential detail. “Let me show you what I found. I emailed it to Charles and he said I should show it to you, which was handy because I was already on the flight over.”
You stare daggers at Hal. This is so typical of him: Running straight into things without thinking them through, or waiting for others.
“On the way home,” insists Hal, reading your meaning instantly. You can only guess he’s used to accusations of this sort. “I was on the way home.” He turns the laptop round so you can see the screen. The desktop is like nothing you’ve ever seen on a computer before. “Take a look at this,” says Hal, pressing a key.
A movie starts playing on the laptop screen – surveillance footage of some kind. That shouldn’t be a surprise, Hal is into all sorts of technological wizardry. It takes you a few moments to realise that you recognise the research park in the video.
“That’s Saratoga Falls,” you shout.
“You know it,” asks Bobby in surprise.
You mouth works uselessly for a few seconds. Though you were entirely truthful with Bobby a few minutes earlier, something tells you that you need to obscure the reality of your origins.
“It’s where Siobhan is originally from, apparently,” says Hal.
“I thought you were Irish,” says Bobby, suddenly suspicious.
“It’s where I was from before I was from Ireland,” you say obliquely, giving Bobby a dark look to warn him off asking any further. His eyes lock with your own for a moment, but a little touch Eldibria dampens his curiosity before it goes any further.
The video continues to play. “So here’s the thing,” says Hal. “There’s a Fane operation here that we need to shut down. Charles suggested you might want to be on the team he’s putting together. Are you in?”
You have the following choices: 1. In 2. Out indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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