‘They say they did all they could.’
‘Well, they’re fucking liars,’ roared Ward furiously.
‘Listen, I know this must be a blow. I’ll call you back in a day or two and we’ll talk about what we can do —’
‘Don’t bother, Martin,’ Ward said coldly. ‘Don’t call me back. There’s nothing more to say’ He hung up.
Ward stood up and walked out of the office, slamming the door behind him.
DESOLATION
The drive to the local shops took less than five minutes.
Ward found the off-licence and bought two bottles of Jack Daniel’s, a bottle of Smirnoff and a bottle of Glenfiddich. Then he drove home.
He carried the bottles into the sitting room, sat down in one of his armchairs and set about the first bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Less than thirty minutes later, it was empty. Another hour and Ward was unconscious.
REALITY
Clinical depression sometimes causes the sufferer to sleep for abnormally long periods of time. The desire to escape from the cause of that depression is overwhelming and the best way to escape is in the oblivion of sleep. Combined with alcohol or some other form of drug, this state of mind can be dangerous.
Christopher Ward was in danger. He woke briefly at around 11.30 p.m. but immediately fell back into a deep, almost comatose sleep.
THE END
Ward sat in front of the blank screen. His head was throbbing, his mouth was sour. He hawked and spat on the carpet beside him.
If he had been in a position to appreciate it, the irony of the situation might have amused him.
The character he was writing about had lost his job. Ward himself had lost his job.
He rested his fingers on the keys.
Ha, ha. Very funny.
Ha ha.
He began to hit the two letters with increasing force.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhh He slumped forward on to the keyboard.
THE BEGINNING
It was dark inside the office. Ward lifted his head slowly from the desk and blinked in an effort to clear his blurred vision. The only light was the silvery-grey glow coming from the computer screen.
Ward looked at the clock on his desk. 3.11 a.m.
He groaned, his gaze drawn to the screen. The print icon was showing: Print 1
to 30.
Ward pressed the return key and the printer whirred into life.
Pages began to spew from the machine.
Doyle watched as the steam rose slowly from his coffee.
The cafe in Dorset Street was barely large enough to accommodate ten people but, at present, only the former counter terrorist and two members of staff were inside.
Doyle looked down at the scratched surface of the table where he sat.
Obviously no one from the Environmental Health Department had put this place on the list for a visit lately.
A heavily built woman emerged from the kitchen carrying a bucket of soapy water and proceeded to wash the tiled floor with a mop.
The cafe now smelt of soap suds and frying bacon.
The former counter terrorist looked around for any No Smoking signs, saw none and lit up.
So that’s itYou’re finished.
He drew heavily on the cigarette.
Out of work. Discarded. Unwanted. Sacked.
It didn’t matter which description you used, it amounted to the same thing.
Game over.
He glanced at his watch, wishing the pubs were open. Wishing he could walk into one, sit himself at a bar and drink until the world disappeared in a haze.
Why not just drive home? There’s booze there.
The initial feeling of fury he’d felt upon leaving CTU headquarters had subsided into something he’d experienced only once or twice before in his life. A feeling of utter helplessness.
He knew that no matter what he did or said, there was nothing he could do to change his fate. It was over. Everything he had ever known. Everything he’d trained, suffered and sweated for had been taken away from him at the whim of some fucking politician.
Had all the pain and loss over the years been for this? To be told he could no longer do the job he loved. The job he was made for?
The only job he could do?
He took another drag on his cigarette, the knot of muscles at the side of his jaw pulsing angrily.
The woman mopping the floor moved to his table. She reached for the small disposable ashtray but Doyle shook his head and she moved away.
No one had ever beaten him in his life. Every man or woman he’d ever set out to hunt down, he’d caught. All those who’d tried to kill him he’d killed first.
He’d survived bomb blasts, bullet wounds, knife cuts and God alone knew what else. But what weapons could not achieve, a few words had.They had destroyed him more completely than a bullet in the head.
Where do you go from here?
He looked at the woman with the mop.
Cleaning fucking floors?
Doyle drew on his cigarette then ground it out in the ashtray. He lit another then ordered more coffee. No rush. He had nowhere
to go and the pubs didn’t open for another half hour.
BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND:
Daniel Kane drove the white into the triangle of pool balls and watched as they spun off in all directions. The sound reverberated around the inside of the pub for a moment. Seeing he hadn’t potted anything Kane took a step away from the table and reached for his drink.
The Huntsman had only been open for an hour or so and aside from Kane and his three companions, there were just two customers. One was sitting at the bar running a nicotine-stained index finger over a copy of Sporting Life, the other was sitting in one of the booths near the main doors sipping at a pint of Murphy’s.
They’re making fools of us,’ Kane said, his face set in hard lines.
‘They have been ever since that fucking Good Friday Agreement,’ Ivor Best added, walking around the pool table, trying to spot his next shot.
At thirty-two, Best was four years Kane’s junior. A tall, wiry individual with jet-black hair which was receding rather too quickly for a man of his age.
Kane was shorter but more powerfully built. Apart from his cleft chin the most immediately noticeable thing about him was the scar that ran from just below his left earlobe along the line of his bottom jaw. The result of a car accident twenty years earlier. Kane, however, was content to allow those who believed it to be the legacy of a fight to cling to their illusion. In the part of Belfast where he’d grown up reputations were respected and if some of his own was built on hearsay then so be it.
Like Best he had been active within the Ulster Volunteer Force for the past twelve years. Unlike his other
