“So they know who Ben is now?”
Nikolas shrugged then nodded.It was unrealistic to hope the connection hadn’t been made.
“You used your real names?When you went to the therapy in London?Your own fucking names?”
Nikolas frowned and pouted.He wasn’t about to be lectured to by Ben’s idiotic friend, or have to explain himself.He was having a hard enough time reconciling his own stupidity.Now, shaking, freezing, standing on a hillside with this moron, Nikolas could see the whole panoply of ridiculous failure playing out behind him from the moment he’d been woken at three a.m.by a bruised and battered Ben trying to tell him he’d found his friend breaking into a gay therapist’s office.From that moment, when Nikolas’s first thought had been to pity any therapist who had to counsel Squeezy, he’d not given this situation one moment of serious consideration.It’d been a game.Something to amuse himself with, to put Ben under some pressure, make him say the gay word, see him squirm, toy with him…Nikolas closed his eyes for a moment—it was an improvement on the blinking.“Let’s go get him.”
Squeezy eyed him for a moment.“Why’d they bring him here but try to get rid of you?Other than the obvious, of course.”
The obvious?Nikolas didn’t want to ask.He didn’t have to.Squeezy explained happily, “You’d be the one I’d fucking kill first.”This almost cheered Nikolas up until, “Unpleasant fucking bastard,” was added.Squeezy rooted around in his boot for a moment and held up an impressive hunting knife.“You want?”Then timed to perfection he asked, “Or did Spetsnaz fucking think to bring his own?”
Squeezy had another in his other boot.
They approached the mill from the rear, away from the river and vast wooden waterwheel they’d been able to see from their vantage point on the hillside.Whatever was going on inside the mill wasn’t being done covertly, as lights were blazing from the windows on the upper storey.
They squatted down behind a wall, which ran as a perimeter around the back of the mill.Squeezy made an odd noise and rummaged in his pocket.Slightly alarmed, Nikolas was glad to see he produced the phone, which had been set to silent and was vibrating.It was Kate.She was hysterical.
It was the first time Nikolas had ever heard his extremely competent colleague crying.She sent them a link.Glancing uneasily at Nikolas, Squeezy clicked on it.It was a video.It was being played on an almost constant loop on every national news station.According to the BBC, ex-Special-Forces-expert Ben Rider was being held by a militant Islamic cell somewhere in the northwest of England.They were claiming he was a homosexual (the BBC had faithfully translated the Arabic statement that had come with the video).Neither Nikolas nor Squeezy was listening to the reporter.They couldn’t take in anything else but the footage.
Ben was on his knees, arms behind his back, his face clearly visible and recognisable, and standing around him were four men in combat dress with black and white chequered face scarves, all framed by a badly hung white sheet.All were carrying assault rifles.More worrying, perhaps, they had large knives and one held a sword to Ben’s throat.The implication was clear.
He appeared to be going the way of Kenneth Bigley, Daniel Pearl, Lee Rigby, Nick Berg, James Foley and countless other victims of the religion of peace.Appeared to be.Nikolas knew better.What a superb opportunity they’d been handed—these insane men wanting their radical gay agenda.What a clarion-call for gay men everywhere to watch this and believe what they were seeing.Squeezy suddenly swore violently—which was unsettling given his normal mode of speaking.Nikolas laid a hand on his arm.“They’re actors.”
“What the fuck?”
“Actors.Trust me.It’s fake.They set us up in a pub one night.They’ve been mincing around all week.”
He felt Squeezy sag against him.“Okay.That’s why he’s not doing anything.”
“What?”Nikolas frowned and tried to stop the knowledge he suddenly knew coming into his conscious mind.
Despite asking Squeezy to clarify, he didn’t want to hear him say the words.But he did.“Ben…if he thought it was real…he wouldn’t be just fucking kneeling there doing sod—”
Nikolas could out-swear Squeezy when he wanted.He turned and sprang over the wall.“He doesn’t.He doesn’t fucking know.I didn’t fucking tell him.”
They made it to the back wall of the mill.
Another glance at the screen.The demands along the bottom in Arabic…the BBC announcer’s grave tone…This was one oftheir own—it was unthinkable.But what superb television…The announcer apologised for cancelling that evening’s showing of EastEnders.This was breaking news.This wasorgasmicallygood viewing.
Suddenly, there was a blur of movement on the screen.Nikolas cried out in despair, and they crashed in through a broken window, rolling, making for the brick stairs running up one side.The sound of screaming drove them on.
They arrived to a scene of medieval horror—blood splatters across a white sheet, a rolling head.A body tumbling without its head to guide it gracefully to the floor, ejecting blood to dying heartbeats.Another body, twitching, dying, and two men, one with a knife in his belly screaming, and another cowering and crying over and over, “We’re just actors for fuck’s sake, we’re just actors!”
Ben was listening to him, his hand on the handle of the knife in the other man’s belly, twisting it slowly.He held the body as it slumped, and the blood pumped down his arm, soaking it, adding to the blood that covered him from head to foot.Nikolas caught him and pulled him away.Squeezy smashed the camera, which had been set up to film the action.It had captured more than they’d bargained on.The uninjured man on the ground groaned and began to retch.He’d pissed himself.He curled up, arms around his head, and still repeating through tears and snot, “Actors.We’re just actors.”
Ben was watching him, still listening to him.Nikolas eased the knife from the bloody death grip Ben had upon it.The lights behind the smashed camera were painfully bright and created eerie shadows upon the sheet, a shadow dance of three men, two in an embrace and one hovering uneasily.For one moment, Nikolas thought he saw a fourth shadow.It crept across the sheet and…dissipated.Ben slumped in his arms.Beneath the blood, which coated him like a slick blanket, it was impossible to tell if he was injured.
Squeezy called some friends.
They were three hours away by road.They stressed they’d bring a bird and be there within the hour.Favours were pre-promised and expected.That’s what being in the family meant.
* * *
Chapter Fifteen
Nikolas had no part in cleansing the mill.He knew what Squeezy and his friends would be doing.He’d done it hundreds of times in a previous life.Not now though.Now his job was to stay with Ben.
Kate kept him updated.Apparently “live” TV was never live.Which media mogul waiting for his knighthood could take the risk of the public seeing British politicians being pelted with eggs, see banners being held by protesters denied their right of free speech and trying to get their message over any way they could?Live feed was always fed a few seconds late so a hasty chop job could be done…breakdown in transmission…technical fault…back to EastEnders.The British public—those who’d still been watching once they’d been informed of the cancellation of their soap—had seen that first blur of movement.They might have seen an arc of blood.Some claimed they had, and stills of this were appearing on various shockhorror.com websites.
