28
NATHAN
5th October 2020. Elderwood Plantation mansion, USA
The sky overhead was a rich hue of blue, and the lawn seemed to glow with an oversaturation of green, drizzled with a shimmering mist of bronze from above. The flowerbeds were an explosion of candy colours frozen in motion, and the walls of the enormous mansion were spotless enough, on this bright day, to cause snow blindness. Nathan Deveraux puffed contentedly on his pipe, watching Samuel and his friend Callum racing across the grass, their arms extended horizontally as they pretended to fly. At the poolside, Susanna was lounging on a deck chair, applying bright green paint to her toenails with careful strokes. Nathan stared at the teenager for a while as his thoughts moved, as they often did, to future possibilities.
The girl had won the genetic lottery; she had inherited the best genes from both sides of the family while avoiding the worst. She had her mother’s model looks and lithe, long-limbed figure, but possessed neither her air-headed stupidity nor her weak, instant-gratification-driven personality that catalysed so many of her addictions. From her father – Nathan’s son – she had inherited his charisma, sharp intellect and calculating edge for diplomacy and manipulation, but not his squat form, excessive body hair and coarse, unattractive features. A successful career in Hollywood was assured her; indeed, with Nathan’s connections it was a given.
He didn’t like the fact that he could hear the music blaring in her earphones from across the pool; that could cause permanent hearing loss, and he did not want to see his future investment damaged. Before he could chastise her, however, the phone started buzzing.
‘Nathan Deveraux here,’ he said curtly. As he listened to the words the voice on the other end was saying, his face folded into a grim frown. ‘I understand,’ he muttered after a few moments. ‘I’ll be there shortly.’
With that he cut off the call and stood up with the aid of his narwhal cane. He waved to Susanna, who only looked up after some rather wild gesticulating on the part of her grandfather.
‘Yeah grandpa? What?’ she yelled, trying unsuccessfully to disguise her annoyance at the fact that he had unplugged her from total social media immersion.
‘I have to go out,’ he answered curtly. ‘Business call, urgent matter. You keep an eye on your brother now please, and for your own sake keep the volume in those damned headphones down!’
He hurried over to the house to get changed, dragging his gammy left leg, as he always did. In the thickness of trees and vegetation at the edge of the expansive grounds, a waifish figure, dressed in camouflage and armed with a suppressed M-16 assault rifle, glided with swift and silent purpose, shadowing his every movement.
Half an hour later Nathan was being ferried along the interstate in the back one of his Range Rover SUVs. His chauffeur accidentally met his eyes, while glancing in the rear-view mirror to check that the bodyguards were following on their motorcycles at an appropriate distance. The man quickly averted his gaze; a lowly driver did not look Nathan Deveraux in the eye. Ever.
Next to Nathan, in the passenger seat, sat his primary bodyguard, the one who had been patrolling the forests of his mansion grounds – an East Asian girl, from the secret facility in China. She was an A-grader; Nathan wasn’t going to take any chances with his life, anywhere or any time. She remained silent, but her eyes were everywhere, always scanning, always analysing.
Nathan’s phone buzzed again, and before he answered it he set down his tablet, upon which he was examining a digital brief.
‘Deveraux,’ he answered flatly.
‘This is Agent Silveira, sir. He’s going to wake up any moment, and when he does, well, he’ll be pissed, sir. If he shifts forms, we’ll have a situation on our hands. We’d obviously hate to have to terminate him … but we’ve been given the authority to do so if such a course of action becomes necessary, sir.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Nathan growled, ‘not until I get there.’
‘Permission to terminate the subject comes from the very top. I’m afraid you don’t have the authority to overturn that … sir.’
‘I’ll fucking terminate you if I get there and the subject is dead, is that understood you fucking piss-ant?!’
‘Understood. Try make your way here ASAP though, sir.’
‘Fuck off!’
With his temper boiling, Nathan reached for the door, wanting to fling the phone out onto the freeway. He forced himself to stop, though, before actually undertaking that course of action.
‘Useless goddamned sons of bitches,’ he growled. ‘Pieces of rat shit, fucking diseased whores’ haemorrhoids. Driver! Step on that fucking gas pedal! Go, go!’
‘Sir, um, the possibility of—’
A pulsating vein threatened to burst through the skin of Nathan’s crimson neck as he leaned forward and roared at the driver.
‘I don’t fucking care! Step on it, you worthless cum-stain!’
The driver nodded, shifted gears and floored the accelerator without any further protest.
Around thirty minutes later they arrived at their destination: an abandoned US Airforce base – or, at least what appeared to be an abandoned base. As the Range Rover pulled up to the rusty gates, two men in black suits and sunglasses came out of a crumbling guard hut, brandishing M-16 rifles, which they shouldered and aimed at the car as Nathan rolled his window down.
‘At ease boys,’ he said, staring coolly down the barrels of the assault rifles.
‘Sir,’ they barked in unison, immediately lowering their weapons and saluting.
One man scanned the road for anyone following the convoy, while the other unlocked and heaved open the decaying gate.
‘Lock it up again, and lock it tight,’ Nathan commanded, staring out the window at the nearest man as his chauffeur drove into the base, followed by the two riders on their motorcycles.
They rolled past rotting planes and other rusting hulks, and then pulled up in front of an enormous aircraft hangar. Two more men were waiting there, and they
