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High Wire
Chapter 5
Insurgence
Daniel awoke with a start when the plane rocked gently on a small wave of turbulence. He blinked, and pulled the shade down on the window to shut out the piercing white glare of the sun, then turned to see Michael reading a paperback, his brow ever so slightly furrowed.
“Sleep well?” Michael asked, amiably, glancing up from his study and
flipping the book closed. It was with
mild interest that Daniel saw that it was his own copy of Steppenwolf, the one that he’d taken to
He’d been meaning to try to introduce his friend to the novel. Daniel himself had found that while it was moderately hard going, it was well worth the effort. He wondered idly when and where Michael had picked it up; he appeared to be more than three quarters of the way through and so, despite appearances, it was doubtful that he’d only begun to read once they’d boarded the plane.
“Up until now,” Daniel said, philosophically, as the plane shuddered once more. He detested flying, for this and many other reasons both great and small. “Enjoying the book? I wouldn’t have thought that was your sort of thing.”
“Me neither, but I’m always open to change, and this is good. Besides,” Michael continued, curling his lip slightly, “there’s not much else to do in livestock class, and making up captions for the illustrations on the safety card can only amuse for so long. When do we land?”
Daniel checked his watch. “Should be about another half an hour,” he confirmed, “although you know how it is. Mike, can I ask you something?”
“If I said no, would it stop you?” was the amused reply.
“Not really. Anyway, I was wondering if you were planning to go back to the circus.”
“Now there’s a loaded question. Planning on it? No, but then again I didn’t plan to work there in the first place. Life has a habit of happening to me, not the other way around.” Michael sighed softly, stowed the book away down the side of his seat, and turned to face his friend before continuing.
“If this is about Jules, then come on out with it, you great
“It’s not,” Daniel said, and then noticing Michael’s cocked eyebrow, “it’s really not. I’m not going to try and stop you going back, not for that reason or any other, okay?”
At this point, the flight attendant moved up to them and took their order for drinks. They waited until the plane had finished another kangaroo hop on yet another pocket of turbulence, and then set their drinks down carefully.
“Like I said, mate,” Michael reiterated, “I’m not planning on going back, anyway. What fun would it be without you? All I’ve got to look forward to is Cathy still not fancying me, Bryan still being a tosspot, and the lion shit still smelling.”
“Thus spake Zarathustra,” Daniel commented, stifling a sudden, ticklish laugh.
Daniel’s mother picked them up at
On the way back, Daniel had impressed upon his friend the necessity
of keeping quiet about the protest planned for the next day. Though he wouldn’t have changed his mother’s
essential nature for the world, he was and always would be careful to keep the
worst of his adventurous excesses from her, as much for her sake as his own,
and she could be guaranteed to panic at the thought of his rabble-rousing in
Sandra had taken a shine to Michael in the relatively short space of time that she’d known him, and was always asking after his welfare when she spoke to her son. Daniel was very well aware of all of this, and he found it fascinating how well Michael concealed his basically anarchic elements from other people when required.
Like now, in fact. Daniel was in the hall of his parents’ home, but he could hear Michael ushering Sandra through to the kitchen – where he would undoubtedly offer to make tea for them all – and spilling a lively stream of Italian as he went. Daniel knew that his mother, though she couldn’t understand a word of the language, loved to hear Michael speaking it.
“All right,” Daniel whispered, when Sandra went to wash the teacups, “what was all that you were saying in the kitchen?”
“I was telling the joke about the two midgets in the brothel,” Michael confided, with his best deadpan face plastered on. Daniel paused for half a second, remembered the punch line, and smacked his friend on the shoulder quite amicably.
“Don’t tell my mum jokes like that, even in Italian,” he warned, even though he himself was smirking furiously as his mother returned from the kitchen.
“So,” said Sandra, sitting herself down and smiling brightly at the two young men. “What do we do with you two now?” Michael returned her smile with one of his own; the most dazzling in his repertoire.
“Don’t quite know yet, Mrs. Gibson,” he ventured. “Daniel needs a job, I agree, but I can survive quite nicely on my good looks and devastating charm.” Sandra laughed, though she did so through a sudden, blossoming pink blush.
“Well,” she said when she’d recovered her composure, “you’re both welcome to stay here until you get settled, okay?”
“Thanks, Mum,” Daniel said, echoed by a nod from Michael.
Frank returned home soon enough, and took the two young men out into the garden to show off his roses, which were now in full bloom and sprawling elegantly across the beds with that ultra-relaxed ease that only truly gorgeous flowers seemed to be able to carry off.
“What breed are these, Mr. Gibson?” Michael inquired. Daniel smothered a disbelieving grin; if Michael knew anything about roses, he’d certainly been covering it very well. Frank, however, seemed genuinely pleased about the interest.
“Ah, that’s a new one I’m trying this year. They’re Scarlet Carsons. A hybrid variety. Doing well, aren’t they?”
They were indeed. Daniel stepped closer, lifting one head with the softest touch, mindful of its saddle-shaped velvet petals as he admired the flower. He watched a tiny spider meander over the heart-petals, its gait fractured by the uneven terrain, its abdomen as round and glossy as a seed pearl against the deep, organic crimson of the rose itself.
“What are you lads up to this weekend?” Frank was asking, his hands plunged into his pockets, eyes wrinkled against the sunlight. Daniel cast a highly communicative glance at his friend in the hopes of reminding him of their pact of silence; Frank was somewhat more pragmatic than his wife in all areas, but he would nevertheless be disposed to disapprove of their plans.
“Not much,” Michael answered. “We’ll probably start looking for somewhere to live.”
“Didn’t your mum mention that you could both stay here? It’s on offer, lads, and we mean it.”
“I know you do, Dad,” said Daniel, reminded in one headlong rush of just how much he loved his stepfather, and of all the reasons why that was, “and we will, but it’s not fair on you two to have us under your feet long term. Give us a couple of weeks, and we’ll have our own flat. I promise.” Frank laughed genially, slapping them both on the shoulder at once.
“That’s my bluff well and truly called,” he said, still chuckling, “but please stay for a while, anyway. Your mum’ll appreciate it. Now, let’s go and get some lunch, eh?”
Saturday morning had brought an unexpected blast of heat with it,
and the two friends lurked in the paltry shade of a newspaper stand near
With characteristic timing, Daniel started to speak just as the grand old bell above them began to mark the hour, and Michael waved a futile hand beside his ear for a few seconds as they mouthed words like goldfish. Finally, Ben fell silent, and Daniel waited a moment before trying again.
“I was saying,” he repeated, “let’s go and find a pub for a bit. It’s too hot out here.”
“Good plan. Unbelievable bloody weather for May, eh?” said Michael, a man wearing a high-collared black serge overcoat even in the midst of a freak heatwave, over a t-shirt featuring a twisting and esoteric Rorschach inkblot pattern. Daniel took all of this in, but forbore to comment.
They found a pub by the fascinating name of The Summer Season, and installed themselves in a corner with three beers each. After all - Michael had pointed out with an air of legitimate reason - it would save on trips to the bar.
“So, what’s the deal with you and Claire?” Daniel asked, after he’d basted his courage with half of his second pint. He had the slight satisfaction of seeing Michael’s eyes narrow infinitesimally, before creasing with a genuine smile.
“There’s no ‘deal’ or, at least, not now,” was the reply. “We had a go round in our last year at school, that lasted about two weeks, and then she went off to college while I went off the rails. After that, aside from the occasional perfectly matey phone call or e-mail, I didn’t see her again until last month.”
Michael finished this spiel with a deep draught of his beer and then a lazy overarm stretch. He watched Daniel very carefully for the space of a few heartbeats then, when he didn’t seem about to pass comment, continued in the same laconic tone.
“Why d’you ask? Are you interested?”
“Bit too early to say that, my friend,” Daniel mused, “but she is fascinating.”
“Glad to hear it. It’s about time you settled down.”
“Go and fuck yourself,” quipped Daniel. Michael grinned like a gibbon with a banana and raised his glass in salute. Then, he glanced out of the window, set his pint down and moved to the door, shouting out a hearty, “Oi!”
Three familiar figures filtered in; Jake, Stephen and Claire. Daniel ran his eye over the assembled company, and with a faint start of surprise he noticed that Claire’s hair, bleached almost white the first time he’d met her, was now a glossy blue-black. In one abominably painful moment of relapse, he recognised that it made her look a hell of a lot like Julia.
If Daniel winced, Claire either didn’t notice or, having noticed, disregarded it. She simply flopped into the seat next to him and clapped him on the shoulder.
The two men, just as they had been in Perugia, were clearly trying for dégagé in black but, given the warmth of the day, were now wilting somewhat. Daniel had lavished all of his sympathy on Michael, and for that he was glad. He’d have hated having any left to spend on either of these two. What Jake came out with next, however, pushed this thought aside quite neatly.
“Folks, we have an issue,” he said, and it may have been an indication
of the level of his concern that he removed his sunglasses as he spoke, “we
just took a look down
“A few,” Michael chipped in, bluntly. “And how many would ‘a few’ be?”
“There’re about a thousand down there already, give or take. And there’s a police presence, too.”
“I see.” Michael’s voice was still cool and flat but, as he turned, Daniel saw a spark in his eye, and further than that, the rider contained in it: If you don’t want to go, we don’t go. He held that gaze for a long time, making up his mind, and then he remembered a small but important point, and realised that the decision had in fact been made several hours ago.
“We’re still going,” Daniel said, finishing his drink and getting up from the table. He was halfway to the door when he realised that something was amiss, and turned back. Michael was still seated, although he was now turning a look at each of his friends in turn; a look that none of them seemed able to meet. Stephen was the first to speak up.
“The thing is,” he began, his eyes downcast and remaining so, “we didn’t bank on this many people, and we certainly didn’t bank on the police.”
“Excuse me? I seem to recall
someone saying not too long ago that they were a little bit disappointed at the
poor showing by the
“That’s not fair, Mike, and you know it.” This was from Claire. “What good is it going to do anyone if we all end up in the back of a paddy wagon with half our teeth missing?”
Daniel could sense the growing static crackle in the air now. Michael, he’d observed, was happy enough to argue with Stephen and Jake, and God alone knew why he elected to hang around with them in the first place. Claire, on the other hand, must have made enough of a point with her interjection to short-circuit Michael’s radar, and Daniel was sure that he knew exactly what it was. She was frightened. She wasn’t nervous, or apprehensive, or uneasy; she was terrified.
If Michael sensed this, however, he bit it back savagely.
“You too?” he barked. “These two posers are just staying in character; I don’t blame them for that, but you? Claire, you never backed away from anything in your entire life.”
Claire accepted this rebuke with nothing more than a short dip of her chin, but Stephen was quicker on the defensive. He slapped the table, half-rising, his mouth twisting into a curve of anger.
“You stupid bastard,” he snarled, “you can think whatever the hell you like about us, it’s no skin off my nose, but try to get it through your thick head that things have gone tits-up. Kaput. Pear-shaped. If we go in there now, it’s suicide. The very best we’re going to get out of it is a good kicking and a night in the cop shop.” Daniel had had more than enough. He stepped in, both figuratively and physically, placing himself between the two combatants, hands raised, placating.
Turning to Jake, he said, “All right. You don’t have to come, but you might want to consider that all of this was your idea to begin with, and we did show up, which I reckon is more than you expected us to do. Stay here, but don’t try to stop us. Okay?”
Without waiting for the slightest response from anyone at all, Daniel ushered Michael out the door, and he could almost feel his friend’s anger trembling beneath his skin as he did so. Michael turned back to the pub, just once, and spat disgustedly on the ground at his feet.
“Bloody cowards,” he commented, although his tone itself was more resigned than indignant. Daniel shoved him gently, indicating that they should get moving.
Michael put words around it. “These aren’t cops,” he said, levelly, though with a detectable undertone of concern, “they’re soldiers.”
The men wore spartan grey, giving the
silent assembly the look of a growing thunderhead, but each had an emblem on
his right arm: a black cross of
“Let’s go,” he muttered. “Right now.”
It was far easier said than done. The press of people behind them had closed in tight in the space of a few seconds and, glancing up at the Foreign Office, Daniel could see why. A figure had appeared at an upper window, drawing the heavy curtain back to appraise proceedings in the street. Despite the comparative gloom, after a few seconds’ study he made out the pinched, sour, infinitely loathsome features of Adam Sutler. He continued to watch as the man raised one languid hand, and gestured cryptically at the massed soldiery.
The soldiers started to move; not a slow tread that suggested that their only intent was to drive these sheep out of Whitehall, but a quickstep with every hint of incipient aggression about it. Daniel spared his friend a very brief look and, when he did, what he saw frightened him to his marrow and settled an encroaching coat of ice upon his veins.
Michael’s eyes were narrowed to poisonous slits, and he was regarding the approaching troops with the same febrile hatred as a cobra falling foul of a pack of mongoose. His nostrils flared, and Daniel was struck with a flickering, insane thought that he had never seen a human being look so animal. Then he grabbed Michael by the arm, not merely insistent this time, but commanding.
“Don’t be an idiot!” he shouted. “They’ll kill us both, now come on!”
The soldiers dropped all pretence, and charged. Daniel let his instincts take control, and he seized Michael by the collar and dragged him back through the crowd, most of which were now possessed by the same sudden hunger for self-preservation and were already streaming ahead of them in deadly, panicky silence, although not nearly fast enough. Daniel, still pulling Michael along with him, dodged around the stragglers and up onto the pavement. Out of pressure of necessity, he released his grip on Michael’s collar, and could only pray that his friend had now seen enough sense to know he should keep moving.
He hadn’t. Daniel swung back and, for one aching moment, had a vision of himself turning once more and continuing to run, and keep running until this armoured Purgatory was far at his heels. Then he shook his head to clear this ignoble imagery and stood his ground, battering down a rising tide of childlike terror as he did so.
The troops streamed past them, although the last rank encircled the two friends like a snare about the neck of a rabbit, and then halted.
Daniel was less in fear of the soldiery than he was of his friend. Michael bared his teeth at the press of men and then, hand moving faster than a conjuror’s and with just as much sleight about it, withdrew a short, double-bladed throwing knife from his pocket, twisting and curving it in the air. Daniel found enough time to think oh, no, not you too, and then he drew his own knife.
He knew that this was the end of the road and the end of innocence whether they fought back or submitted without a battle, and he came to the fiery understanding that nothing now remained to be lost. The two men stood back to back in this impromptu corrida and waited for the attack to commence. Fleetingly, Daniel pictured his mother’s face, and could imagine her with no other expression than the one she would surely be wearing when she was told of this day’s events. His heart shrivelled at this image.
Two of the soldiers stood back, ripping off salutes as they did so, allowing a newcomer to enter the tableau. Unlike the others, this one wore an immaculate black uniform with gleaming leathers that reeked of polish and high command. He was stocky, running to fat, and the collar of his tunic was just a little too tight around his thick, bullish neck, although Daniel doubted whether this fact alone accounted for the chthonic vapour of his expression and his flat, chilly gaze.
The officer stepped into the ring, which obediently closed behind him, and circled the two like a buzzard on the hunt. Michael turned to follow him, still making no secret of the blade that he held but, Daniel realised, with a stinging splash of despair, the man seemed unequivocally unimpressed by this display. At length, the officer spoke.
“You’re very lucky lads,” he said, almost affably, and the incongruity of this statement even reached behind the pall of Michael’s black anger to pull him up sharp.
“How’s that, fucker?” was his whiplash retort.
“Well,” said the officer, as if every single syllable of Michael’s question had just fluttered straight over his head, “let me make this clear. When we round up your friends – and we will round them up, believe you me – they’re off to prison, and don’t make the mistake of thinking we’ll bother with a reasonable charge first.
“But you two,” he continued, still with that maddening, bewildering air of fatherly beneficence, starting to circle them again, “seem to be perfectly fit and healthy young men, so I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you the chance to be of some use to your country for once in your miserable lives.”
Daniel stared. “And if we say no?” he asked.
“Don’t be stupid enough to presume you’ve got that option, kid,” the officer replied, the friendly veneer on his voice now cracking in places, showing the raw, bloodied meat beneath.
Michael, it seemed, had been waiting for any half-hearted distraction. He stepped forward now like a cat on an electric fence, realising that there was no room to throw the knife, and swinging with it instead. The officer, however, in spite of appearances, was quicker. He caught a hand around Michael’s wrist and twisted savagely until the younger man yelped, and the weapon went clattering to the ground. With his free hand, he drove a bulldozer fist into Michael’s solar plexus, and watched with eerie, nightmarish detachment as he folded up on the ground.
This whole dance had taken a mere handful of seconds but, even so, Daniel was already moving. His arm curled back of its own accord, the tip of the knife between limber fingers, his gaze fixed on the officer’s left eye, aiming straight for it.
He had forgotten about the men stationed close behind him. With a sharp gasp, he felt the knife ripped from his grasp, felt hands closing on his shoulders, and an arm wrapped itself around his throat and squeezed like a python. Through a kaleidoscope of white stars, he saw the officer sneer contemptuously and step back, allowing his subordinates full and free rein with their prisoners. One of them delivered a careless kick to Michael’s ribs, this action accompanied by a gut-twisting cracking sound, and then dealt another boot to the back of his head for good measure. Michael convulsed on the ground, and coughed up a frightening spray of fresh blood.
Daniel twisted in the grip of the two soldiers that held him, fighting like a fury to break free, trying to defend his friend, trying anything he could do to get loose, and still not believing that this was happening. He felt a hard, gloved fist slam into the small of his back with fierce and practised speed, and then his feet were kicked from under him. Driven to his knees, he bit his tongue, and in the grip of this abrupt, shrieking bolt of pain he was powerless to prevent his captors from strapping his wrists behind his back, their every move lean and perfectly professional.
The daylight vanished as a thick canvas sack was dropped over his head, the drawstring yanked tight like nothing else but a hangman’s noose. Daniel jerked back like a panicked stallion, and he heard a scrape and ring of steel behind him before a savage blow landed on the nape of his neck. His brain exploded, seeming to crack like thunder, and he felt a hot trickle of blood run from his nostril. The gloom of the sack grew darker still as he collapsed, and the last thing he heard, before the world drained away entirely, were muttered, echoing voices.
“Commander?”
“What is it?”
“Commander, I think this one’s dying...”
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