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Chapter Thirteen: History
It was cold and dark inside the warehouse. The only natural light was that which slanted through high windows; long, thin diagonal slants that fell on empty crates of animal testing equipment. Leon didn't know where they had come from; he'd never heard of the company, but he was sure they were fake too. He disregarded them and pointed the camera he was holding at Lucas, zooming in on his hands as he primed the very real explosives that had been wired up to the high roof beams of the warehouse. Slowly, he tracked the length of the cables, following them as they spiralled up a support pillar, to where they were wound round a crossbeam, where the plastic explosive was nestled in the corner. Zooming in on the bomb as much as far as he could, he let the lens linger there for a few seconds. The device was so small, Leon wondered whether it would even be enough to bring the roof down.
To his left, Lucas was tapping at an old laptop that had been retrieved from the bowels of Thames House. Obsolete, unwanted, no one would miss it once it had been blasted, along with the rest of the warehouse. The floor was damp, the concrete long eroded by the intrusive river waters that now seeped in through the holes in the foundations. It was easy to see why the structure had been condemned; even the rats had abandoned it. The walls were stained were rust from unseen pipes bled down the inside walls, scenting the air with a tang of old steel and dust.
"Okay," said Lucas.
Keeping the camera focused on the wiring, Leon turned to the other man. "Is it done?"
"Not quite. But stop filming and get ready to run."
Lucas remained focused on the laptop screen. Leon knew it was somehow connected up to the small device on the roof beam, so packed away the camera as requested. At the same time, Lucas carefully placed the laptop down on the ground. Once it was secured he took the camera bag from Leon and slung it over his shoulder. For a moment, their gaze met through the dimly lit space.
"Ready then?" asked Lucas. "You know where you're going? Straight out the door and straight ahead. No stopping until we reach the others."
Leon nodded and Lucas responded by nudging the space bar of the laptop with the toe of his shoe. Half a second later, the digital clock face lit up from the crossbeam overhead. Leon glanced upwards at it, counting down two minutes exactly. After just enough time to be certain that all was as it should be, the two of them bolted for the door. It had become so flimsy it fell clean off its hinges as Lucas and Leon simultaneously kicked it open. They burst into the open, squinting against the brightness even though the sun had begun to set.
After days of moribund self-loathing, Leon was suddenly shaken back into the land of the living as nervous excitement coursed through him the moment his feet hit the beaten earth track. He could just see the others, well away from the detonation site behind a hastily erected Perspex wall. But when he glanced over his shoulder to make sure Lucas was close behind, he couldn't see the man anywhere. Panicked, Leon crashed to a halt, falling flat on his face in the process. Without turning a hair, he scrambled back to his feet and hurtled back towards the warehouse. Lucas had fallen, the camera bag had snagged on a jutting piece of the doorframe and tripped him, somehow the strap had gotten tangled round his ankle.
"Leon go!" Lucas urged him, pulling his ankle free of the tangled shoulder strap. "Just run."
He pulled himself free, but lost his shoe in the process.
"I couldn't just leave you!" Leon retorted, wrapping the still snagged shoulder strap round his wrist.
Once it was secure, he pulled with all his might, freeing it and bringing a rotten section of the doorframe with it. With no time to disentangle it properly, he grabbed a hold of Lucas' wrist and hauled him up. Together, propping each other up they ran together in a three legged race to the others. Leon dragged the camera case behind him as they sprinted as hard as they could down the dirt track, sending up a dust cloud in their wake. But Lucas was in difficulty because of his ankle, the clock was closing in on their two minute's grace and the detonation due any second.
"Shit, shit, shit…" Lucas cursed fluidly into the slipstream.
Flustered, with his heart feeling like it was beating its way out of his chest, Leon acted on raw instinct alone. He shoved Lucas hard to the side, down a steep grass bank into the river itself, before dropping the camera case and hurling himself down after the Spook. They landed in the freezing, murky waters with a loud splash that was soon drowned out by the sound of the thunderous explosion a few feet away. Leon and Lucas clung to each other, pushing themselves into the steep bank as loose bricks and detritus from the warehouse was blasted all around them. Leon could only liken the sound of the falling bricks to a herd of horse's hooves pounding the hard, dry earth above them. It could only have lasted for a half a minute, but to Leon it seemed to take an age for the deadly storm of masonry and wood to end. Some of it crashed into the water, directly in front of them, but most mercifully hit the ground before sliding harmlessly down the banks, only to plop into the water; causing them a splash at most.
By the time it was over, the two of them were up to their necks in the river and had to claw their way up the bank soaking wet. They could only manage it by gripping tufts of weeds that were growing from the banks and dragging themselves upwards, back to dry land. Lucas managed it first, and he stopped to help Leon up too. Once they were both safely back on the bank, they collapsed on the sloping earth and took a minute to get their breath back. Dirt and loose gravel clung to their wet clothes and there was no sign of Lucas' lost shoe anywhere. His sock was stained black with dirt and now exposing his bare toes.
"Sweet Jesus!" Lucas gasped, looking up at the sky. "That's one to tell the Grandkids."
Despite everything that had just happened, Leon laughed. It hurt his ribs, his throat, knees and his elbows to do so, but he laughed all the same.
The air was still thick with dust by the time they re-emerged over the river bank. What was once a warehouse was now just a pile of rubble. It looked, to Leon, like a giant had come along and just stamped on the building, like a person steps on a snail and leaves a mangled wreckage. There was still a support pillar, now jutting from the ground like a broken tooth, standing in the middle of the rubble. But everything else had been levelled. Before Leon had much time to look, however, Lucas had thrown a protective arm round his shoulder and began steering him back towards the others. Harry Pearce was already rushing over to them, with Jo Portman and Ben Kaplan bringing up the rear. Only Ruth hadn't been able to make it. Those that had were now frantic.
"What the bloody hell just happened?" Harry Pearce, wide eyed and ghost white with fear, demanded of Lucas.
Lucas peeled off from Leon to go and explain everything, leaving the teen on his own. A moment Leon took to get his scattering wits back and process his day so far: he had been made homeless, beaten up and then blown up. He doubled over, hands resting on his knees and grinned, despite it all.
Still dripping wet, with one missing shoe, Lucas drove cautiously back towards Thames House. Harry was in the passenger of the car, still shaking and grey in the face after their near miss. Lucas could still feel loose grit from the river waters scratching against his skin, beneath the sopping shirt he wore. It was grating on his nerves as much as it irritated his skin. But he couldn't fault Leon; they would both have been blasted back to Thames House in bits if he hadn't have shoved him out of the way at the last minute. For all that, Leon was sat in the back looking thoroughly fed up. The bruising round his throat now looked even more livid against his cold, wet skin.
"I'm afraid you ruined Malcolm's shot," said Harry, as Lucas pulled over onto Milbank.
"Sorry about that," Lucas replied, flatly.
But when he glanced over at Harry, he was smirking. "He'll get over it."
Malcolm was also filming from afar, hoping to get some footage to leak to the news outlets. But now every frame he had had Leon and Lucas charging over the scene like a pair of misguided missiles before leaping into the river. Most important, however, was their footage of the bomb being set up and that was safely locked away in the boot of Lucas' car.
"Now that's interesting," said Harry, glancing over to the pavement outside Thames House.
Lucas parked up and turned to see what Harry was looking at. Ruth was some way off, with a bag over her shoulder and bidding farewell to David Shelley. Sensing that it was far too soon for father and son to be accidentally reunited, Lucas turned to instruct Leon to remain inside the car. But it was too late, he'd already seen his father and was getting out of the car. Lucas followed, sticking close to Leon as father and son looked at each other. From a distance of at least ten feet, nothing was said. Their gaze met, but David Shelley turned and walked away, back to his own car that was parked up a side street.
"Go sit in the car," Lucas urged him, gently. "You're soaked; you can't be out here."
For a long moment, Leon carried on watching as his father walked away. Eventually, however, he nodded and did as he was told. The arrival of David Shelley, so soon after Leon had begun to settle, had irritated Lucas. He strode over to where Ruth and Harry were chatting by the door, ignoring the amused look of a passer-by who smirked at the state he was in.
"What did he want?" he demanded, turning to Ruth.
Ruth's eyes widened in surprise as she took in his appearance, her gaze wandering the full length of him. Evidently, his dishevelled state rendered her speechless.
"He wants a meeting," Harry replied for her. "I told him to come back tomorrow morning. It's nothing we can't handle, Lucas. Carry on as normal; get him back with Black Flag and you and Ros will be listening in, as planned."
There was more to it than that, Lucas could tell by the way Ruth shifted one foot to the other. Her gaze was cast down, like she didn't trust herself to speak. Still irritated, but also soaking wet and attracting stares aplenty, Lucas let the matter drop.
"Leon's Dad also dropped this off for him," said Ruth, handing Lucas the sports bag she had over her shoulder. "Spare clothes, luckily."
Lucas smirked and accepted the bag. "Thanks Ruth. Well, I'll see you both in the morning."
They convened in Harry's office, the following morning. Ruth and Harry sat side by side, while the Secretary of State took up at the opposite side of the desk. David Shelley looked agitated; he sat with legs crossed and nervously fumbled with the knot of his tie, even though it was already straight, from what Ruth could see. When she glanced over at Harry, she could tell by the look on his face that he was barely keeping his irritation contained. He had a file on his desk, face down so the name on it was not visible. But Ruth already knew whose it was; she had fetched it out of the archive herself.
Harry leaned forwards, hands folded neatly on the desk in front of him and fixed Shelley with a hard look. "You want to turn your son in to the police, is that it?"
Shelley frowned. "Of course I don't 'want' to; I have to."
"The thing is, Mr. Shelley, as I explained yesterday-" Ruth began, only for their guest to cut her off.
"I heard you," he assured her. "But as I told you yesterday, as a Member of Parliament, I am part of the body that makes the laws. If I make an exemption for my own son, how do you think it will look?"
"This isn't a bloody PR exercise!" Harry retorted. "Can't you just get one of your personal army of spin doctors to put it out there that Leon wasn't consorting with criminals, but that he'd merely found an alternative definition of the words 'classified information'? If past form is anything to go by, you'll even start to believe it yourself by the end of next week!"
Ruth disguised her chuckle as a cough, then discreetly reached over Harry to retrieve the file on his desk. When she glanced back up at David Shelley, she could see that he had taken the jibe with good grace.
"Unfortunately, Mr. Shelley, our operation comes first, and your son's continued cooperation is essential to our success," Ruth explained, taking the more diplomatic route. Harry glared at her, as though disappointed she wasn't joining the pile on; but that was what Ros was for. "If you shop your son to the Police now, it could ruin everything and we would lose our only way in to a group of dangerous individuals."
"Look, it's not that I take any great delight in sacrificing my only child at the altar of high politics," Shelley stated. Just for a moment, Ruth saw the flash of pain in the other man's eyes. Fleeting, though it was, and for a moment, she felt sorry for him. He was broken, disjointed and fumbling for the way ahead; not certain of which way to turn. "But he's ruined so much," Shelley continued. "I can't let him ruin my career and reputation as well."
Even Harry now softened towards the man. "Yes, but we cannot put your reputation or career above the Op," he tried to explain once more. "Please, can we leave what happens next until after we have used your son to bring down the whole of Black Flag?"
Harry and Shelley looked each other square in the eye. Ruth looked on, trying to guess what both were thinking. But, as the silence began to thicken, she opened the file on her knee and leafed through the first few pages. She selected the photograph she wanted, one taken a long time ago, and laid it down on the desk for both men to see.
Leon drew a deep, steadying breath before ringing Emma's bell. Someway off behind him, a Virgin Media van drew level with the pavement. He glanced over his shoulder, but only to make sure they were parked. Inside of it, MI5 had set up an array of listening equipment which would pick up every word he and Emma spoke via the mic that had been threaded through the hem of his jacket the night before.
When she answered the door, a number of expressions crossed her face. Anger at having been completely out of contact for the last three days, then horror when she saw the bruising down his face and throat. She threw the door open and almost dragged him inside with barely a word of greeting. Once she nudged the front door closed, she pulled him into the hallway and cupped his face in her hands.
"Lee!" she gasped, frowning. "Jesus, Lee, what happened to your face?"
He tried to pull away, but she held him fast. Then with one hand, she pushed back his hair, checking for further damage.
"My Dad found out I lied about where I was that night," he said. "He went crazy."
"That was it?" she asked, horrified. "That's all that happened to set him off?"
Leon let tears well in his eyes, summoning his best hang-dog expression in the process and managed a stiff nod. "He threw me out of the house," he whimpered, going all out to win her sympathy.
"Good!" she retorted, angrily. "You can't leave with an abusive control freak like that, Leon. Move in with me."
"Oh, it's okay," he replied. "I'm staying with a friend for now-"
"What friend?" she demanded, suspiciously. "Do I know him?"
There was a flash of anger in her eyes, just enough to snap Leon out of his exaggerated distress. At a loss as to why she would be even remotely angry about his having a friend she didn't know about.
"No," he admitted. "But you will know him and I think you'll like him. A lot."
Emma didn't reply. She led the way into the kitchen and started boiling the kettle. While she was distracted with that, Leon took out his iPad. It was a clean one Lucas had provided him with the day before. Tapping into the video files stored on there, he opened up the explosion video and held it out to Emma, grinning.
"Here," he said, eagerly. "Watch what we did yesterday."
Curious, but not especially enthusiastic, Emma took the iPad from him and tapped the play button.
David Shelley looked from the photograph on the table, back to Ruth. The smile had frozen on his lips and his eyes hardened. "I assume, Miss Evershed, that you're showing me this for a reason?"
It was a black and white photograph, showing a young David Shelley and some accomplices taunting a row of policemen, bricks in hand. One or two had a scarf round their faces, but Shelley – like his son – lacked the coy camera shyness the others possessed. All around them, detritus and refuse littered the background scenery, streets of terraced houses in a small town up north. It was the height of the Miner's Strike, when tensions were running at their highest and civil disruption boiled over into violence at the drop of a hat.
"Well, it's not just Leon that's been caught up in a moment of high idealism, is it?" she asked, glancing down at the picture.
"But I didn't kill anyone," he retorted.
"You look as though you're out to do some serious damage though," Harry offered his own interpretation of the scene. "Throwing heavy objects around like that, you could have."
Shelley rolled his eyes. "That was completely different to Leon's absurd flights of fancy. Our livelihoods were at stake; our way of life. Our communities were being destroyed by Thatcherism."
Ruth laid out some more photographs, showing crowds of protesters raining bricks and Molotovs down on advancing, mounted policemen. One showed a protester with serious head injuries after being baton charged; the injured and bleeding lay like broken dolls on the side lines. Once more, a youthful Shelley was leading the rioters on. When Ruth glanced back up at David, he was looking over the snapshots of his personal history with an almost misty-eyed sadness. Like he knew some vital part of what made him the man he is had been chipped away forever, once he had fought those heady days and lost.
"Of course we see the differences," Harry stated. "But please don't pretend you've never been above flouting the law and resorting to out and out violence when it suited you."
He was no older than Leon in those pictures. The only difference was that one of them had something real to fight for; something tangible. Leon had all the same passion and idealism, but nowhere to put it; not in this age of passive complacency.
"The Police fell on us like rabid, starving dogs," Shelley stated, voice distant. "But I think you'll find that I am not the only member of this Government who was present at those protests and strikes."
"We know that, but you're the only one threatening to blow our Op," Harry pointed out. "You hold back, and we'll keep a lid on your ghosts. How about that?"
Shelley sat back in his seat, agitated once more. "That's not really a question, is it?"
Harry and Ruth smiled back at him, beatifically.
Leon watched Emma's reactions carefully. It was hard to tell if she was impressed or not. But she was watching the video of their "attack" with acute interest. She didn't lift her gaze from the screen at all.
"There was someone else Liam knows filming from a distance," explained Leon, referring to Malcolm's clip of the explosion that had been tacked on at the end of his filming.
"Bloody hell, Lee," she gasped. "And you know Liam well? How come you've never introduced us before?"
Leon already had the back story memorised. "I only met him recently, to be honest," he explained. "After he set up this website. I didn't want to waste your time if it turned out he wasn't the real deal."
That seemed to satisfy her. She watched the clip of the explosion again.
"When can you introduce us?" she asked.
"Tomorrow, if you're free," he answered. "We've got a squat in South London. Come round sometime before four in the afternoon."
Emma let one finger rest on the screen, pointing to the media player's window. "And he's going to supply us with explosives?"
Leon nodded. "Yes. However much you want, Liam can get it for you."
She was seriously thinking about it. He could almost hear her weighing up the pros and cons; imagining what they could do if they had proper explosives. The days of breaking up match heads were finally over, as far as she was concerned. Only after a few minutes of pondering did doubt cloud her eyes. "He'll be looking for a fortune, I bet?"
"That's the thing," Leon said. "If we work together, he will supply the materials for free. I mean, why not, we'll all be working together anyway. Why not pool resources?"
To bolster her confidence further, Leon showed her Lucas' fake website. Together, they scrolled through the video footage of the lab break in, pausing to watch the clips. "He rescued one of the rabbits and keeps it in his squat," Leon pointed out. "Really, Emma, just come round."
She was smiling now, quite engrossed in the site. "Definitely," she replied.
Leon breathed deeply, relieved that he had finally got her on board. "It'll just be the three of us at first though. Leave the others out of it for now, just until you're confident that you like what you see."
Emma nodded. "Of course."
He shut down the iPad and slipped it back into his jacket pocket. Now that he had done what he came here to do, he knew he could start to wind things up. But there was one more thing he needed to do, before he could feel comfortable returning to MI5. He sat back, where they were now sat on the sofa in Emma's living room, and turned to face her pensively.
"Emma," he said, getting her attention. "I'm sorry I messed up last time."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
Leon shrugged. "You know, back in the bunker. I messed up and you had to … you know…"
Emma raised a pained smile. "You mean, when I had to shoot that woman in the bunker?"
Leon nodded, careful to keep his expression downcast. "That. Have you forgiven me?"
"There's nothing to forgive," she replied. "You let her get inside your head; that's what they do, Lee. But it's alright; I sorted it for you."
Leon smiled in return and held his arms out for a hug. A gesture Emma responded to with care, making sure she didn't hurt him, and held him close. Leon let her wrap her arms around him, holding him and stroking his hair. He even fell passive and silent as she kissed his forehead. With a heavy sigh, a closed his eyes and relaxed into her continuing embrace, letting her think that he needed to be held by her.
"Who was it?" he asked, at length. "Who was it that shot the Minister?"
"Why do you want to know that?" she asked.
She was curious, rather than suspicious, so Leon remained on the information trail. Lifting his head from her breast, he looked up at her in wide-eyed curiosity. "I just wondered," he replied, innocently – anything to avoid having to shag the information out of her. "I mean, whoever it was has already proved to be useful. Maybe they should be in on the explosives deal tomorrow?"
"I'll ask if he's available," Emma replied. "He's better with firearms, but he is co-leader of the group after all."
Leon sat back again. "Isn't that Theo Maitland?"
He had heard the name, but only ever dealt with Emma. It was their way of protecting themselves against informers; people like Leon himself. He didn't blush to think it.
"Yeah, that's him. He came back to London once it was done."
"Was he supposed to kill her?" he asked. "I mean, did you order it?"
"Of course," she answered, lightly. "I say 'co-leader', but I'm the one in charge here. I over-see everything."
All through the conversation Leon had to school his reactions carefully. Every small confession, every small piece of information that she offered up was a triumph. But it reached a stage, some time ago, where he simply had to pretend that he was not wired and that there was no one listening in. He pushed MI5 to the back of his mind with an ease that surprised him through the exertion of his self-defeatist pessimism. They're all asleep in that van, he told himself. The equipment's broken down and nothing is being relayed. His wire hadn't been calibrated properly. It'd be just his bloody luck. So he carried on the conversation as normal, until it came time to leave. They kissed each other goodbye on the doorstep, with the final promise of another meeting on the next day.
From there, Leon walked down the road without looking back. He walked past the Virgin Media van, right down to the bottom of Emma's street. The van didn't follow him and he didn't even look over his shoulder to check. It was another lovely, summer's day anyway; the air would be good for him. It was another mile before they did catch up. The van drew level with him, following like a corporate kerb crawler as he continued to meander down the road. They stopped at the same time and the back doors opened to let him back in. Lucas and Ros were waiting, grinning from ear to ear.
"Please tell me you got all that?" asked Leon, once inside.
"Every bit of it," Lucas confirmed.
Finally, something was going right.
Thanks again for reading; reviews would be welcome.