Reckoning Point, стр. 78
Mark’s eyes widened a little, and though he didn’t reply, the Colonel knew he was moments away from pleading for help. Luckily for Mark, the Colonel sympathised. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the syringe, held it up.
Mark smiled, something he so rarely did and never before had the Colonel seen that particular expression on the young man’s face.
“Not the same amount as usual, because you have to come down, you can’t get this while you are in here, not as regular as outside, you understand?” he asked, holding up the needle, and Mark nodded eagerly, shoved a meaty arm towards the Colonel.
“All right, then,” said the Colonel, and working fast he bound the strip of leather around the arm until the vein stood proud and welcoming.
Mark sighed, deliriously happy, the shiver stopped immediately. “Thank–”
He didn’t even get to finish his words of gratitude. His eyes rolled back and he stayed upright for just a second before falling back on his pillow.
The Colonel tidied everything away and leaning over, he closed Mark’s eyes.
He hadn’t lied; it wasn’t the same amount of Heroin that Mark usually took. It was more.
Much, much more.
At his home, that night, he sat in his office and looked out of his window into the fog that was laying like a thick blanket over the seaside resort.
The streets were cleaner now that the main perpetrators were gone. He no longer had to worry about dealing with criminals and drug addicts and natural born killers like Mark Braith, and stupid, nonsensical boys like Roland Van Brom. There would be more, of that he had no doubt. But they were few and far between.
Idly he flicked through the files from his other job, his respectable job. He had neglected his duties over the last few days, and oh my, what a difference it had made he saw now, looking at his most recent batch of test results that had come back.
Three out of the twenty girls he had tested were infected. Clicking his tongue in annoyance he noted their names down in his careful handwriting. He had always prided himself on his writing; a neat, readable scribe, not like the majority of his profession.
Sighing, he leaned back and reached for a tipple from the cupboard under his desk.
Perhaps it was time to change direction if he were to continue keeping the lovely streets of Scheveningen clean and tidy. Perhaps the Colonel had done his duty, and now it was time for the other side of him to shine. He could continue carrying out his same role, just in an entirely different way.
The telephone rang shrilly on his desk, startling him out of his daydream. He cleared his throat, picked it up, and injected warmth and a smile into his tone before he spoke.
“Good evening,” he said, “Doctor Bram Bastiaan speaking, how can I help you?”
66
ELIAN, LEV, BRAM, ALEX AND ERIK.
SCHEVENINGEN PIER
14.7.15 Late at night
There is light, Elian is sure, so sure that doesn’t even consider that it might be a hallucination. It could be, because she sure feels rough, but not so bad that she will consider giving up before she has tried her very hardest to get out of these stinking, damp, cold tunnels.
She crashes to a stop as her hands – held out in front of her now – touch something unfamiliar. And there is light, barely there, but something bright piercing through the edges of whatever she has felt under her fingertips.
It is metal, not concrete like the walls she has been running past for what seems like hours. This is metal, and … something else. She winds the unknown material in her fist and tugs. It comes free. She rubs it in her hands.
It is a plant, growing through some sort of metal lid.
A drain?
Elation lends her strength and she pushes hard with her hands, turning to use her whole body weight, and under her shoulder it gives a little.
“Yes,” she murmurs, and pushes harder. “Yes, yes, YES!”
There is a rush of air, the warm summer night air that she has come to love, and she tilts her face to it and lets it bathe her as she pedals her legs and moved onwards, upwards, clambering, emerging into the night. On her knees she sucks in great gulps of air, letting the panic settle before remembering the door that had opened at the top of the stairs in the basement. How close behind her was the doctor?
With a squeak she rolls the lid of whatever it was she pushed out back into the hole from which she crawled out of. Put a lid on him; keep him in there, she thinks.
But it was easy to move it, and she looks around, wondering if there is anything she can put on top of it to keep him inside.
As she plants her hands on the ground to stand up she feels damp wood underneath her palms. The light that had shone through the edge of the metal lid was the lamp posts blazing high above her.
Standing, she shields her eyes and looks around her.
The pier.
She is on the pier.
And far down it, not inside the part of it where all the shops are, but on the outside, now she can see and feel the sea underneath her, the waves spitting and crashing through the wooden planks.
Confused, she lays on her front and peers through the wooden planks. There is a pipe, large and round that comes all the way from the beach which she can’t believe she just ran through. But she must have, there is no other way for her to end up on this floating decoration where she had spent