The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August(71)

Did I have time to plan?

Time to prepare a stash, gather together the necessary tools?

I doubted it. There had been a look in Vincent’s eye. He knew, as I knew too, that I was no longer his man. I did not doubt that the man who had torched the Leningrad Cronus Club would soon strike against any threat to his security. I had to get out before he could take action against me, and time would be short.

I threw together only what I’d need to survive. Money was irrelevant, as was a change of clothes beyond a pair of socks to keep dry. Paper for kindling, matches for fire, electric torch and spare batteries, a penknife for cutting wood, a metal cup from beside my bed, the plastic sheeting from my rubbish bin, needle and thread. I packed fast but carefully, slung my bag over my back and headed to the lab to pick up a small lump of black magnet and a length of copper wire, waving cheerfully at the lab assistant as I did so, for I was often to be seen grabbing random bits. I broke the lock into the canteen stores and grabbed as many tins of salty food as I could find, burying them in my bag, but was interrupted by a sound in the dining room outside, forcing me to scurry for cover. The noise went by and I marched upwards, heading back through the cold corridors of Pietrok-112 towards the armoury. I would need a weapon, light and reasonably adaptable. No Kalashnikov this time; a revolver would do. The armoury was guarded, but the sergeant on the door knew me and smiled as I came up to him, right up to the moment where my arm went across his throat and a tin of sardines crashed down against the side of his skull, plunging him into darkness. I fumbled for the keys on his belt, and found none. Cursing, I turned to the armoury door. Unconsciousness in humans is usually of two sorts–brief or terminal–and I doubted if my sardine-led assault on the sergeant was going to buy more than a few minutes. Was there time to pick the lock? I tried, using the copper wire from the lab and my penknife, cursing at the crudity of my implements, biting my lip every time a tumbler slid into place. A click, a turn, the darkness of the armoury beyond. I stepped inside, turned on the light and…

“Hello, Harry.”

Vincent stood right there, calm as anything, leaning against a box of grenades. For a moment I was frozen in his stare, a thief caught red-handed: no denial, no chance to beg or run. I said, “In the time it takes me to load and fire one of these guns…”

“No,” he agreed. “You won’t make it.”

He didn’t move, didn’t try to stop me. I sighed. At the end of the day, having nothing better to do, I had to try. I grabbed the nearest pistol, had the safety off and the empty magazine out in a click, reached down for the live ammunition on the shelf below, grabbed a fresh magazine, pushed it into the butt, felt it lock, raised it to fire–not at Vincent, but at me–when several thousand volts administered from behind sent my body first into paralysis, then convulsions, then nothing at all.





Chapter 55


A padded suit in a padded chair in a padded cell.

How had I worked in this place for so long and not found this room?

Bright light and an IV drip. The drip fed into a vein in my hand. My hand was strapped to the chair at the wrist. I wondered if anything would be achieved by trying to wrench the drip out of my skin. In the long run, probably not. There were straps along the length of my arm, stopping at the bend in my elbow. More straps across my legs, around my ankles, across my chest and even, to my annoyance, my forehead. It was designed to make death by anything other than an act of God impossible. I reflected that it was probably also the best my posture had been for a very long time and was thus innately uncomfortable.

Vincent sat in front of me and said nothing.

A phrase written on his face.

Not angry–just sad.

I wondered if, in another life, Vincent had been a primary school teacher. He would have excelled at the task.

Finally I said, “Assuming I refuse to eat or drink, how long do you think you can keep me alive with nutrients and force alone?”

He almost flinched, pained by the vulgarity of the task in hand. “In a few years’ time the IRA hunger strikers will live for over sixty days before death. I’m hoping, however, that we can find some better way of sustaining you than by putting a tube down your throat.”

My turn to flinch. Sixty days is a long time to be a prisoner with no thought of escape but a prolonged, painful death. Did I have the will to refuse food when dying of starvation? I didn’t know. I had never put it to the test. Could my mind reject life even when my body screamed for it. It depended, I concluded, on what that life was for, and worth.

Silence.

I couldn’t remember there ever being silence between us before this day, or at least a silence which was not one of shared excitement and contemplation. There seemed no need for communication, no need to spell out all the obvious things which polite society required were said. Indeed, it seemed to me that in that silence we said it all anyway, and almost at the exact instant I had run out of things I wished to say to Vincent in the imaginary conversation in my mind and begun back again on a loop of it, he raised his head and declared, “I need to know your point of origin.”

The question stunned me, though it shouldn’t have.

“Why?” I asked, mouth suddenly dry.

“Not to kill you,” he blurted hastily, “Dear God, I would never do that, Harry, never, I swear. But I need you to know that I know it. I need you to realise that you could be aborted in the womb, not-born. I need you to know that, so that you will keep my secrets. I know you will never again be my friend, but the rest… is more important.”