The Alex King Series, A BATEMAN [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

have turned somewhat,” he paused. “Since last I saw you.”

King smiled. “But I still haven’t pissed my own pants.”

The Scotsman stared at him, lowered the pistol a touch. “You’re not wired up right,” he said. “Or you never actually believe your time is up.”

“If I were wired right, I wouldn’t be in this stupid job,” said King. He glanced at the pistol. It was low and un-aimed, but the dangerous end was still close and lined up somewhat unnervingly at his groin. “You look well,” he added. “I see retirement didn’t agree with you.”

The man moved the pistol, pulled his hand out of his pocket and smiled. “I think perhaps you actually saved me,” he said. “But why go to all the trouble of seeking me out, drawing a gun on me and then let me go?”

King shrugged. “My world was in turmoil. I was outcast, I’d taken revenge and had disappeared. When it came down to it, I just couldn’t see what difference it would make. None of the other deaths had. Not really. Vengeance doesn’t change a thing. What’s done doesn’t get undone.”

“Nothing to do with me being your mentor? Of saving you from a lifetime rotting away in prison?”

“Well, perhaps the sight of you pissing your pants…”

“Pity?” the Scotsman’s eyes flashed. “Go fuck yourself, Mark!”

King smiled. He hadn’t heard himself called by that name in twenty-years. “Mark Jeffries died while escaping Dartmoor Prison. He drowned in a bog on Dartmoor. It’s Alex. You should know, you gave me the name…” King shrugged. “You screwed me over, Peter. I was angry.”

“Survival,” he replied callously. “You of all people should have understood that. Nobody has a survival instinct like yours. There’s nothing you won’t do.”

“And you certainly exploited that.”

The man shrugged. “It is what it is,” he paused. “We all have jobs to do. And you always did yours. So, why let me live?”

“I guess I saw the rest of your days filled with shit daytime TV game shows, your wife knitting sweaters you’d feel you had wear to avoid offending her while she comments on her soap operas, of you sitting in your magnolia lounge in tartan carpet slippers and an M and S cardigan and thought it would be better revenge than a bullet,” King paused. “Let you linger, rather than give you a quick release.” He smiled. “Like an old, retired stud horse that has to stand limp-dicked in the corner of the meadow while the new stallion sorts the mares…”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Stewart paused. “Bastard.”

“Exactly right.”

“Cruel bastard,” he added. “I closed my eyes, waited for the gunshot…”

“They never hear it.”

“I wanted it,” he growled. “I closed my eyes and thought, you know, maybe this is better? Maybe this is the way I should go out…”

“What? Pissing your pants on a canal bank. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“That’s the thing,” he said, ignoring the quip. “I was. Disappointed, that is. I opened my eyes and you were gone. A fucking ghost. The Reaper. Only you had done worse by letting me live. I knew I would die festering away in domesticated purgatory. Shit, I’d spent my life in the Paras, the Regiment, the Firm. I went back to MI6 and threw myself on my knees and told them I’d take anything. I’d go freelance, work for free even. I’d even drive rich little Oxbridge dickheads to the embassies. Anything. Just give me something to keep me alive. Keep the blood coursing through my veins!” He glanced behind him as the barman returned with a full ice bucket. The barman had made no noise, yet the Scotsman had known he was there. You couldn’t teach that. Trained killers were only ever guided. Their skills honed by training. Instinct and reaction were either in you, or they weren’t. Fight or flight.

King looked at the man. He was in his mid to late sixties, but still fit-looking and as hard as nails. He had beaten King down, built him back up again. He had taken King to the edge – a place where death hovers like a foreboding spectre. A place where you learn what and who you really are. The foundation from which to build everything you choose to become. He had taught King how to fight – really fight, not brawl. Taught him how to use every type of firearm on the planet, how to survive every environment, every situation. And when he had taught him everything he knew, he had given him his assignments, debriefed him and taught him to be better through reflection. He had been King’s mentor. But more than that, he had felt like a father figure. And King had never known one of those. King held out his hand and Stewart took it in his own calloused bear paw and King said, “The past is buried. Let’s get a drink.”

“Aye,” the Scotsman said. “We’ll make it a large one.”

18

 

King chose the table. He never sat with his back to the room, and he knew Stewart wouldn’t either, so they sat opposite each other, side-on to the room and the bar. King worked his left periphery, Stewart worked his right. There were two couples and a young family dining. The three young children were a little boisterous, but that suited the two men. No dangerous sudden silences where people heard a snippet of what they shouldn’t.

Stewart drank down his neat whisky. Twelve-year-old scotch. Glenfiddich. Stewart’s minimum standard. The amber residue ran down the sides and gathered in the bottom of the glass and he supped again. King downed his and placed the glass back down on the table. They had drunk to absent friends. It was a general toast; there wasn’t enough alcohol in the hotel to drink to individuals no longer with them. Such was their trade.

The waiter bought their pâté