Desecration

1 Persecution

1 PersecutionThe engine revved gently, delivering its poisonous cocktail into the

occupant’s tainted blood stream. Her pulse became erratic as her body fought its losing battle with the carbon monoxide. Outside the vintage Bentley, the large garage contained the noise of the deadly motor as the arriving estate workmen passed by, still discussing the previous evening’s football results.

‘Ronaldo was a bit special last night. Still, he needs some support out on the left hand side,’ the resident Estate Supervisor, Ritchie Blacklock, explained to his uninterested hired help, Nigel Roth.

‘That Chinese bloke – just there to make up the numbers ain’t he. Runs around like a headless chicken. Don’t you think?’ continued Ritchie, failing to involve his vacant companion.

‘Don’t talk much do you?’ Ritchie stated, pulling his green overalls over his bony shoulders.

By this time Nigel was busy surveying the finely manicured lawns whose edges hemmed the solitary garage. He was thirty years old and never tired of grass. Long, short, fat and even thin, it all met with his pleasure and he sighed with frustration as the luxuriant green spread was brutally cut short at the perimeter of the lavish fourteen-bedroom house four hundred metres away.

‘Nigel, do you want to keep your f*****g job or what?’ exclaimed Ritchie, glaring at the back of Roth’s head.

‘Not really,’ Roth replied, to his boss’s astonishment.

‘What?’ he asked, scratching his boyish bumfluff.

‘No. Not really,’ Nigel repeated, now turning to face his employer.

Momentarily, they regained eye contact. Ritchie quickly averted his scowl, choosing instead to ignore the familiar insubordination from this most recent of a succession of transient labourers.

‘Yeah, as I was saying. Ronaldo, you see, he’s… Where are you going now?’ Ritchie moaned as Roth began to walk towards a ploughed field that beckoned in the sunny distance.

Roth began removing his restrictive overalls as he strode away from the revving engine, now heard only within his wildly spinning mind. Ritchie fought to control the reckless anger that had let him down on many occasions in the past but, failing to do so, he ran to the nearby Land Rover and grabbed the keys from the ignition switch.

‘Oi! Where d’you think you’re bloody going? We’ve got to dig those drainage ditches this morning and I ain’t doin’ ’em on my own,’ Ritchie raged, running to the garage door and frantically slamming one key after another into the worn keyhole.

The distance between the two men increased considerably before Ritchie eventually found the correct key and wildly swung open the garage door, ever more conscious of the engine noise from within. Ritchie stepped inside and took a lungful of the deadly fumes that had filled the vintage Bentley and then spilled out to overwhelm the air. Choking uncontrollably, Ritchie forgot all thoughts of retrieving the spare shotgun shells that he had hidden in the garage. He shot out of the doorway even more rapidly than he had entered, gagging convulsively as his lungs fought to expel the poison.

‘What the f**k?’ was all he could whisper as he dropped onto all fours and struggled to recover.

The gas mask was a snug fit on the face of the intruder hiding in a dark corner of the garage. Emerging from the shadows, the figure did not bother to remove the black rubber and glass device when stepping into the fresh morning air. The immaculate black suit and white collar would have looked more at home on the steps of any number of Catholic churches. But it was the well-worn military boots that betrayed their wearer’s true vocation.

Ritchie began to retch, then vomit, as the inhaled fumes seeped into his blood. Not enough to harm him seriously - but more than enough to cause his breakfast kippers to leap from his guts like spawning salmon. The intruder walked forward boldly until he was behind Ritchie and with calculated precision removed the shotgun from the rear of the open vehicle. In one of his black gloves nestled two of the elusive shotgun cartridges for which Ritchie had been about to search. Placing them safely on the Land Rover’s roof, the dark figure slowly c****d the shotgun. Deliberate movements slotted the ammunition into place and the first noise that Ritchie heard was the weapon snapping shut. Perplexed, Ritchie looked up, only to see the fast-approaching twin barrels stop millimetres from his mouth.

‘Open wide,’ the muffled voice ordered.

Ritchie obeyed without hesitation, confusion diluting apprehension almost before it could be felt.

‘This’ll teach you to turn up early for work,’ the intruder said an instant before Ritchie’s head exploded.

The blast, somewhat stifled by the insulating effects of the bone and flesh, alerted Nigel to the threat. He had been worried ever since he had agreed to supply information to an unknown stranger for fifty quid. Without turning, he began to run, rapidly at first but the ploughed field soon slowed him down. Unable to resist checking the distance between hunter and hunted, Nigel craned his head to the left, tripped and fell onto the hard lumpy ground.

‘s**t!’ Nigel bleated.

Gingerly getting to his feet, he began to edge forwards - swinging each foot forward onto the next solid piece of ploughed earth - as if he were walking on stepping stones teasingly placed on a riverbed. The cool summer’s morning did nothing to abate his fearsome perspiration and the sweat began to drain annoyingly into his eyes and mouth.

Out of sight, the black-clad figure circuited the difficult terrain of the ploughed field seeking a rendezvous with Roth where he could guarantee the outcome of the pursuit. Quickly passing over the crisply desiccated August lawn, his battered boots continued their easy passage towards the gate that led to the safety of a passing road. Meanwhile Nigel had neither the courage nor the breathing space to risk looking back again.

The boots were crossed in a casual manner by the time that Nigel reached the five bar gate, his utter exhaustion inversely proportional to the assassin’s deadly calm. Nigel stopped in a forlorn attempt to regain what little composure he had started the day with. He had only wanted to help; make a statement for the green lobby and earn a few quid in the process. Murder was never on the agenda - nobody should die. I’m trying to save lives, not take them, he thought naively. A pretty straightforward piece of low-key espionage was how it had been sold. And now it had come to this: struggling to escape a death sentence. Nigel rested his forehead on the tall wooden post by the exit gate, breathing heavily, fatigue overriding the terror that had driven him on earlier. The panic soon returned though and eventually Nigel moved to his left, grabbed the top of the gate as firmly as his trembling hands could manage and straddled the wooden barrier. The sinister movement of an obscure shadow caught his attention and he frantically checked for imminent danger. Then he heard the pleasant whistling of an unseen passer by. Safety in numbers, he thought and, relieved, dropped heavily from the gate onto both feet. Checking both ways, Nigel scanned the road as far as he could see for the cheery walker but without success. Strange, he thought, where’s that damn whistling coming from? Nigel shuffled his way to the middle of the road, unsure which way offered the best escape all the while on the lookout for the source of the annoying yet reassuring melody.

‘Where are you God damn it?’ Nigel whispered under his breath.

‘I’m here,’ whispered a voice out of nowhere.