* * *
“A pub.In Burnley.”
Nikolas woke fully and focused on Kate.Squeezy and Tim were asleep on the sofa.They woke, too, grunting and sitting up.“His father owned a string of pubs in Lancashire.He went bankrupt.Some of the pubs have been sold for housing developments, but not the one in Burnley.No call for new apartments there.Give me another minute and I’ll have the address.”
“Don’t bother.I know where it is.Let’s go.”
“Burnley?”
Nikolas gave her a look.She ducked her head and closed her laptop.“Burnley.I’ve always wanted to visit.”
* * *
One by one, the men who’d left their lives—their families, the people that loved them—responded, summoned by a call they’d been equally longing for and dreading.
Universally, they recognised ex-Special-Forces-expert Ben Rider.It was too awesome to believe that they should intersect with someone so fabulous, so beautiful, so famous, so…ethereal.Benwasghosting along, hardly there in spirit or body.His memories so recently returned, his decision to do what he was doing so radical and unlike him, he hardly knew who he was anymore.Only one thing was keeping him grounded, but that was private and held down deep where it wouldn’t surface and distract him from what he now had to do.
He waited until they were all present.
Fergus Atwell seemed to be regaining his confidence.He swelled to his audience.He joined Ben at the front, the general bestowing approval on his most trustworthy lieutenant.
Ben studied the men.They were Nigel Stannis and Justin and Tim Watson and Samuel and James and Matthew.They were him and Nikolas and Squeezy.They were all men and no man, anonymous souls who’d been desperately seeking acceptance but sold something very different.What had Fergus done to guilt them into their radicalisation?Had he debased them as he’d intended to humiliate Ben?If Ben hadn’t been who and what he was—a killer—would he have cried and begged for mercy, would he have pissed himself at the thought of the sword cutting across his neck?And all of this degradation taped and held as a stick, goading him into committing an atrocity?Where was the tape of Jono?What had they made him do that led him to his death?
One of the men who appeared on the edge of breaking, his beard stubble thick, his clothes unkempt, his eyes restless and haunted, finally spoke up from the low rumble of speech in the room, asking, “What are we here for?What are we going to do?”
* * *
There were lights on in the pub.Nikolas told Tim and Kate to stay in the car.Squeezy took the front.Nikolas went around the back, the way he’d exited after the fight.He could hear angry conversation.He eased through the door into a short corridor.He heard one man speaking more loudly, caught, “What are we going to do?”and then he heard a voice he recognised reply.
* * *
Before Ben could answer, Fergus stood up as if on a stage.Ben sensed a messianic passion radiating from him.He spread his arms wide—a gesture more suited to a far greater audience than these six weary men.“We’re going to send a message to the whole world.We’re going to go to London.We’re going to assassinate the president of Russia.”
There was something of a commotion after this announcement.
Ben laughed.
He caught Fergus in a tight hug around the neck, asserted loudly to the room, “Actually, we’re not,” and elbowed the man in the temple, lowering him unconscious to the sticky carpet.
At the same time, two figures burst into the room.There would have been a desperate brawl, but Ben shouted, “Sit down!”and, as one, every single man in the group obeyed him.Nikolas came to a halt over the unconscious body.
They stared at each other, a reunion neither of them had ever expected to have to make, so much between them known and forgotten and remembered again.Ben turned back to the six men in front of him, giving a small nod of recognition to Squeezy who was hovering behind them.
“We’re not killing anyone.You’renot killing anyone.This ends here.This endsnow.You want to know what statement you can make?You wanna know what it’s all for?It’s for this.”He grabbed Nikolas by the lapels of his suit and heaved him closer, enveloping him, eating him with his mouth, his tongue seeking entry, his hands roaming in the blond hair.
Ben shoved Nikolas away, but held him close as well, his hands firmly on the beautifully tailored jacket.He turned triumphant to his stunned audience.“I’m gay, and I’m fucking glad of that, because this is Nikolas Mikkelsen, and he’s my boyfriend, and for me he’s all there is in this life worth living or dying for.And I’m not ex-Special-Forces-expert Ben Rider; I’m BenRider-Mikkelsen.”He kissed Nikolas again, just because he could, and because the expression on Nikolas’s face was too funny not to exploit.
* * *
Nikolas had been hit by a tsunami once.He’d felt less disoriented by that than by Ben Rider-Mikkelsen coming out in front of his would-be army of gay warriors.Still reeling, he stood on the sidelines as Ben began the process of de-radicalisation.He could only watch, stunned, as six men desperate to belong, to find meaning in their lives, found it in the same place he had when he’d been equally lost eight years before: in the perfect alignment of bones and flesh and the shade of a pair of green eyes.Ben Rider-Mikkelsen mesmerised these men as he had audiences for his television appearances.He was the genuine article.As Nikolas had pointed out so recently, Ben was a warrior, he was charismatic, and he was beautiful.And, of course, he was gay.Like survivors of a cult, the men in his tiny army were dazed and confused, but they were most definitely willing to be convinced of a better way.
Nikolas only dragged his eyes away from the talk at the back of the pub when Squeezy came to stand alongside him.“He’s in the car.”
Nikolas nodded.
“I’ll take him then.”
Nikolas nodded again.He sensed Ben’s friend was waiting for something from him.Permission?Forgiveness?“Don’t get my car wet.”
