The Final Reckoning

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

He was dreaming of Rebecca. She was scraping something from a wall, it could have been paper or paint, it was hard to tell. But the more she scraped, the more the wall began to crumble. Whole hunks of plaster were coming off, crashing onto the floor. But still she carried on, apparently oblivious to the rubble piling up around her and the dust powdering her face. She occasionally looked over her shoulder, so that he could see her. She didn't seem angry so much as determined. Finally, the wall gave way, a huge oval opening up like a mouth. Somehow the ceiling stayed in place, but Tom could see through the hole and so could Rebecca. They both could see it, the light bouncing off the ripple of solid black and deep red. There, on the other side, was a grotesquely oversized swastika.

His eyes snapped open, his breathing hard. He squinted, trying to focus on the wall ahead. It seemed to be plain white. There was no window, just a cross-hatched square in the door on the left.

He swivelled his head around to the table at his side. A small wooden cabinet, with a plastic jug of water. Above it, fastened to the wall, was a sign warning of the correct evacuation procedure in the event of a fire. Where the hell was he?

He tried to get out of bed, but his legs were thick and leaden. He pulled away the tight, starched sheets covering him and saw he was wearing green surgical scrubs. My God.

His mind raced. Had he had some terrible traffic accident? Is that what this was, the intensive care unit of a hospital? What had happened? And then, halting this torrent of thoughts with a thud: Rebecca.

He had to think back. What was the last thing he could remember? He could picture her: jeans, boots, a white buttoned shirt. He felt a sensation that was wholly unfamiliar: the anticipation of great sadness, a kind of pre-grief. He was imagining the pain he would feel if he could not see her again.

They had been in Starbucks. He had been buying the drinks, he had turned to her. There was a man there, the man they had arranged to meet…

Tom tried again to get out of bed. This time he picked up his legs with his hands, grabbing his own thighs as if they were someone else's, but once his feet were on the ground, he buckled and had to grab the bed to stay upright. He steadied himself. Now, his jaw clenched in determination, he headed for the wall and shuffled his way along it to the door. Stretching up, he got a view through the rectangle of glass of an empty corridor and, opposite, what he guessed was a nurses' station. It all seemed too uncluttered, too neat and hi-tech to be an NHS hospital. Was this some private clinic?

He would step outside and find a nurse or a doctor to explain everything. And maybe he would see Rebecca. Perhaps she would be sitting there, flicking through a magazine, waiting for him. Unless…

He reached for the door handle. The metal was so cold in his hand, it made him shiver. But it would not turn. Perhaps whatever accident he had suffered, or treatment he had endured, had weakened him. He tried again and came up against the hard metal stop of a lock. He was locked in.

He stayed there, leaning against the door, too exhausted to risk the trek back to the bed. He was panting. He needed to think.

Starbucks, Rebecca and him at the counter. He could see the woman who had taken their drinks order, the tiredness in her face, the streaks in her otherwise blonde hair. The man who had greeted Rebecca. So the meeting had happened as planned. But then what?

A remembered emotion bubbled upward, arriving somewhere in his chest: jealousy. Instantly, he could picture Rebecca's smiling face, warm and friendly towards the newcomer. Richard.

And now Tom could see the three of them, stepping outside the café. There was a car, a silver car… he could see no more.

Tom rubbed his temples. It was like trying to dredge up a dream, a fragment would appear, only to slip through his fingers, sand from the bottom of the sea. He could not remember. Weary of supporting himself upright, he slid to the floor.

He had not noticed the small camera in the far corner of the room, nor the other one diagonally opposite. Nor did he know about the motion sensors placed under the mattress of the bed, which sounded an alarm as soon as the normal ups and downs of breathing ceased for more than thirty seconds – and which were, of course, triggered when the patient left the bed entirely. So he wasn't to know that he had set off an alarm at the nurses' station. He couldn't hear it because his room was thoroughly soundproofed – chiefly to ensure that no sound ever got out, but which, naturally, also ensured no external sound ever got in. Such were the demands necessitated by this ward's usual patients.

Tom reached up for the doorhandle, using it to haul himself up. He winced as he tugged at it, the memory of early mornings on the monkey bars at the overpriced gym on Lafayette and Bond returning to him. That seemed like a different age. In truth, it seemed like a different person. Finally he was standing, his back resting in the corner where the two walls met. Now, with one last push, he heaved himself around so his eyes were level with the window-hole in the door. It was filled entirely with a face.

Tom rocked back with shock. The face had been just an inch or two away from his, separated only by glass. And now he could hear the sound of the door unlocking, an electronic release.

Two men walked in, accompanied by a nurse putting away a swipe card. ‘Thank you,’ said the less bulky of the two men. ‘We can take it from here.’ He waited for the nurse to close the door behind her before he spoke again. ‘I hope you slept well. In fact, I know you slept well because I've been watching you.’

Now that he heard his voice, Tom remembered him. It was Richard, the man they had met in the café.

‘What happened? Where am I?’

‘It's a long story, Tom. Put it this way. We were in London, we needed you to take a little trip. And so we took it.’

The smugness of this man, his smooth, chatty manner and his studiedly relaxed hair, sent the rage thudding through Tom's arterial network; the veins on his neck began to throb. Without planning it, and despite the sluggishness of his limbs, he brought back his right arm and curled his fingers into a fist.

He got within six inches of Richard's face but no closer. The bodyguard, or whoever the other man was, simply lifted up a hand and caught Tom's arm as if it were a stray twig. He didn't merely block the punch, but pushed Tom's arm back, twisting it in its socket. Tom let out a yelp of pain.

‘No need for any of that, Tom. Now as it happens, we-’

‘What have you done with Rebecca? Where's Rebecca?’

‘Let me finish.’ The bodyguard was still holding onto Tom's arm, keeping it in a half-nelson behind his back. ‘As it happens, I was going to come and wake you anyway.’

‘Where's REBECCA?’

‘She's here. In this same city.’

Tom gasped his relief. Then: ‘What city? Where am I?’

‘Don't you know? I'd have thought you'd have worked it out. You've been fast asleep in the city that never sleeps.’ He paused. ‘No? You're in New York, Tom.’

New York? It made no sense. How could he have been in Starbucks in the West End and now be in New York? He didn't remember flying anywhere.

‘Who are you?’

Richard ignored the question. ‘I'm sorry we had to do it this way, Tom. But the boss will explain everything soon enough. And look.’ He lifted the travel bag he had been holding at his side and placed it on the bed. ‘I even have your clothes.’

A few minutes later, Tom was in a wheelchair, watching as nurses and orderlies busied past him. Any risk of him crying out was tempered by the presence at the wheelchair's handlebars of the bodyguard: Tom did not doubt that, were he to cry out, he would soon be silenced, by a fist if not by some stray item of medical equipment.

Richard hadn't been lying. All the voices and accents he heard confirmed this was, indeed, the United States.

He was wheeled into an elevator. Richard pressed the button for the basement. It took them to a service area, the plush carpets and furnishings now replaced by steel doors and grey concrete. He wondered, for the first time, if they were planning to do away with him here, to crush his body in some industrial waste machine.

In silence they wheeled him out through a pair of double doors; he felt a change of temperature. He was in a car park.

They went into a side bay, one marked by a disabled badge. There was the electronic squawk of car doors opened by remote control.

The meathead pushing the chair now tucked his hands into Tom's armpits and lifted him. In a single movement that was more efficient than brutal, Tom was loaded onto the back seat of an empty car. Richard stepped into the passenger seat, the bodyguard took the wheel and fired up the ignition, letting the engine idle. Richard turned around and with a smile that renewed in Tom the urge to punch his lights out, he said, ‘We're just waiting for one more and we'll be on our way.’

How had he let himself get into this position? Somehow he had been so careless, so lacking in basic vigilance that he had allowed himself to become a helpless prisoner in the hands of… whoever the fuck these people were. That was the worst of it: he had no idea who was holding him or why. All those years detailing the human rights abuses of this regime or that tinpot dictator, compiling reports on ‘the disappeared’ of Latin America or Africa and look at him: he had learned nothing. He had made himself a victim.

Now there was a clunk and the opening of the passenger door opposite. He looked up and felt his heart squeeze.