Paul’s head twitched in agreement. “So do I.”
Screams could be heard from the lounge as Eva and Nancy embraced as only best friends could. Sophia soon joined them and introductions were made. Paul and Eva went to work making sandwiches for everyone with supplies picked up on the way. The way the two quickly dropped into friendly banter and teasing reminded Nash they had been friends for many years, long before Eva became a spy. These people all had intricate ties binding them together. Nash would do everything in his power to keep them all safe. He had to.
A loud thump on the front door made Nash smile. Of course she wouldn’t knock the same as everyone else. Opening the door, Nash was greeted with an aging punk rocker who looked to have fared better than the rest of them in recent times. Harry may have had a gruff exterior, but she pulled Nash into a fearsome hug and gave a relieved sigh. She didn’t seem to want to let go.
Besides Sophia and Paul, Harry was one of Nash’s oldest friends. She, along with Nancy, were the ones Nash most regretted becoming embroiled in these circumstances. Neither woman was a spy. Neither had been trained to deal with the ever-present threats hanging over their heads. Harry was a formidable private detective but, generally speaking, her clients didn’t have teams of armed assassins and tended not to leverage every espionage agency in the world to haul you off to prison for treason.
Harry made her way inside and greetings were exchanged. She hadn’t met Nancy, Paul, Sophia or Bishop in the flesh. She held the latter’s hand a little longer than the others.
“Fuck me, the Swedes can be boring twats,” Harry observed, dropping her backpack on the floor. “Lovely people, but they wouldn’t know a good time if it sat on their face, and god knows I tried.”
“To have a good time or to sit on their face?” Eva asked.
“Yes.” Harry pursed her lips and turned to Nash. “Where’s the booze at?”
“It’s ten am?”
“Your question didn’t answer my question.”
Paul and Eva dropped a mound of sandwiches on the kitchen table and the group tucked in. It warmed Nash’s heart to see them all engaged in friendly chatter and camaraderie. It was amazing how everyone meshed so seamlessly together, as if they’d known each other for years.
“So, what’s this end game plan of yours?” Harry asked between bites of an egg and lettuce sandwich.
Holding a cheese and pickle aloft, Nash replied, “Not yet.”
“The gang’s all here though, aren’t we?” Harry looked around quizzically.
“Not quite.”
There was a rap at the back door. With a chuckle, Nash half suspected the knocker had waited until that exact moment to knock. He always had impeccable timing. Opening the old door revealed a bald, grey-bearded man with arms the size of tree trunks. Nash always joked he was a cross between a lumberjack and a badass Santa.
Sebastian Hawk was the school principal who’d given Nash the teaching job at the local school, the reason he’d moved to Devil’s End in the first place. Hawk had been Nash’s SAS instructor back in the day and the two had been friends ever since. He’d been on sabbatical in Spain when Nash was attacked by Tartarus’s assassins, and Nash had disappeared by the time Hawk returned.
Nash had borrowed a drug dealer’s scrambler satellite phone in transit to the UK to call Hawk and ask for his old friend’s assistance. The cost of the call was Nash’s vintage Rolex, but he considered it a bargain. Once Hawk heard what Nash had been through, the challenges he faced and a broad outline of what he had in mind, the Scotsman was not only in, he’d already started to make a list of the gear they’d need. His old friend had offered to put his life on the line for the man who’d once done the same for him, no questions asked. Except to check how many guns Nash needed.
Introductions were made all over again. Hawk had a way of ingratiating himself with people quickly. His green eyes would hold someone’s gaze and he’d ask them questions in his relaxed Scottish brogue, rapidly building rapport. Within no time at all they intermingled like old friends. It was remarkable to watch.
Over their early lunch the group traded stories, mostly about Nash, and filled his old house with laughter. He had to admit that was something that had been lacking even before Tartarus arrived. The place was filled with light once more.
The table was cleared and dishes washed, then they congregated in the now crowded lounge room. Ignoring the hour, Hawk helped himself to Nash’s liquor cabinet and dispensed the most expensive whiskey, which was fitting as he’d been the one to buy it. He also handed out Nash’s cigars.
Hawk told a tale about how Nash had gotten his foot wedged in a barbed-wire obstacle in a particularly brutal SAS course, much to the amusement of the rest of the group. When he’d finished, Nash spoke up.
“You’re missing the last part of the story.”
“Am I?” Hawk asked, his tone making it clear he knew perfectly well he had.
“Yes, you are. The next month I did it again and broke the course record.”
Hawk lit his cigar with his silver lighter. “That so?”
“You know I did, you old bastard.”
The two men laughed and clinked glasses, and a lull fell over the group. Now was the time to lay everything out. Sophia, Eva and Bishop had heard his plan, at least parts of it, on the long trip to the UK. For the rest, it was new. Nash took half an hour to let them all know what he had in mind.
The silence that followed was hard to put a name to. Nash hoped it was awe, but had to admit it was more likely stunned, or perhaps even dumbfounded. It was a lot to take in.
Hawk leaned back and took a drag of his cigar. “Nash, I always suspected you were a crazy son of a bitch but never in my wildest or drunkest imaginings did I suspect you were this crazy.” He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees, and in his best Scottish accent said, “I’m fucken’ in.”
The Hangman’s Inn was a four-hundred-year-old pub in the centre of the village. It was an intimate setting, with a smattering of tables and booths under a low ceiling with the bar taking up one entire wall. Deep chocolate wood, it was decorated with exotic bottles and knick-knacks accumulated over the pub’s long history. Nash had forgotten how much he’d loved this quaint little slice of Devil’s End.
Once everyone had gotten to know each other and planning had begun in earnest, Nash needed a break. More importantly, he needed to talk to Paul. The two were alone in a corner of the pub. It was late afternoon, not exactly peak time, which suited both men as they sat nursing their pints.
It had been an hour since Nash had sent the email. It contained only a few lines, but no doubt would have large ramifications for all. He’d sent Paul’s father an unencrypted email stating that he was withdrawing from their fight. In an unemotional missive, Nash explained that New York had shown him what he was up against and he couldn’t do it anymore. In no uncertain terms, he conceded to Ramsay Cavendish. All Nash wanted to do was retire to Devil’s End, and he asked Cavendish to respect his wishes. The IP address would confirm where the email had been sent from.
It was bait, of course. There was no way the architect of the greatest deception of the twenty-first century would simply allow his nemesis to wander off into the sunset. He couldn’t allow Nash to live, knowing the information he possessed.
While the two sat drinking, there was no doubt Paul’s father was busy planning to exact his revenge for all the pain and suffering Nash had caused him. The entire plan counted on it.
Sitting with his friend, Nash found it was impossible say the next comment casually, so he didn’t even try. “I spoke to your father in New York.”
Paul bobbed his head. “That’s funny, last time I checked I no longer had a father.”
The silence was only magnified by the empty pub. Denise, the publican, was the only other person in the pub. She stood at the end of the bar drying glasses.
“Has he changed?” Receiving no answer, Paul added, “Did he ask after me?”
