Even as he sat on that aircraft over Johannesburg, he was only just beginning to fully appreciate the scale of what he had so artlessly embroiled himself in. It hadn’t occurred to Mikey that anything concerning RECAP, that slightly off-the-wall fringe area of scientific research that Ed and his dotty friends had been rabbiting on to him about since his teenage days, could really be of national importance. Let alone of international importance.
Mikey stretched his injured left leg. It ached constantly and still caused him to walk with a limp, but he realized he’d had a lucky escape from much worse. And he hoped that might be an omen.
All in all, Mikey was glad to have been despatched out of the country, somewhere well away from the furore over the RECAP affair which seemed to have taken hold throughout the United States, and indeed most of the world. He hoped that South Africa might prove to be a backwater in that regard. But on the other hand he realized that this international commotion meant that, almost certainly, any danger his brother may have been in because of him no longer existed. And that was a great relief to Mikey MacEntee.
Mikey didn’t realize that his superiors had sent him to South Africa simply because they now regarded him as something of an embarrassment. Why would he? After all, Mr Johnson had been almost kind to him.
He just wished he knew what was in store for him there...
At about the same time another aircraft was preparing to land in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Enforcer sat next to the Apprentice in business class. Just like Mikey, they’d been despatched out of New York to do a job, but they had yet to be informed exactly what the job would be.
The Enforcer assumed that there was someone on the tropical island who needed watching and then, perhaps, dealing with, in the way that the Enforcer and his Apprentice specialized in. Someone who was a danger to America.
The Enforcer had no time for anyone who might remotely be a danger to America, and he didn’t care at all if the occasional mistake meant that the innocent suffered.
The Enforcer believed in the greater good. He believed in George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and the Statue of Liberty, turkey at Thanksgiving, home-made apple pie, Coca Cola and footballs that weren’t round. And Donald Trump.
He also believed in the Apprentice.
They had not made a success of their last job. There could be little dispute about that. They had allowed Connie Pike to escape the Princeton explosion they had arranged, then failed in a second attempt to assassinate her, and instead maimed another woman. All the same, they remained indispensable, surely. Nobody else could, or would, do what they did. The Enforcer was confident of that. In any case, he and the Apprentice knew where far too many bodies were buried. It had been suggested to the Enforcer that, if they wished, they could stay a little while longer in Hawaii than might be strictly necessary. Indeed it had been indicated that it might be a good thing for the pair of them to be away from New York for a bit.
The Enforcer didn’t mind that at all. He considered Hawaii to be the most pleasant of places. And neither could he imagine a better companion. He turned towards the younger man.
Then he reached out, took the Apprentice’s right hand in his left and squeezed.
The Apprentice blushed.
Part Six
Truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it, but, in the end, there it is.
Twenty
A few days later Sandy Jones flew back to America with Ed, who now knew everything she did. Not only everything about the Ruders Theory, but everything about her meeting with Jimmy Cecil. She could think of no better confidante.
Ed was going home. He needed to return to his teaching job.
‘Before it’s not there anymore,’ he told her.
Jones was travelling with him partly, although she hadn’t quite admitted it to herself yet, because she simply wanted to delay their parting, and partly because she needed to see Connie. Marion Jessop’s condition had improved enough for her to be released from hospital, and Connie was caring for her at her Princeton home.
Jones and Ed arrived in Princeton late in the afternoon on a blustery Autumn day. They took a taxi to Ed’s apartment first. There was a postcard lying on the doormat. From Mikey. It had a South African postmark, and bore a picture of an elephant.
Ed was momentarily elated. He’d received no reply to a series of emails, and had continued to worry about his wayward brother.
‘What does he say?’ Jones asked.
‘“Over here on special assignment. Hope you’re well and everything sorted. See you soon. Ciao, Mikey”,’ Ed read. ‘Well that doesn’t tell us much, does it?’
‘It tells us he’s safe,’ Jones commented.
‘I don’t even know if he deserves to be safe. Not after what he did.’
‘We’re not really sure what he did do.’
‘I think we have a fair idea, Sandy.’
‘Maybe. But he would only have been a very small cog in the wheel.’
‘There’s not even any sort of an apology.’
‘Well, I suppose that would be an admission of guilt.’
‘Umm. I didn’t know Feds went abroad on assignments.’
‘Neither did I. But, hey, maybe your mad brother was only pretending to be a Fed. Maybe he’s really a spook.’
Ed chuckled. Jones was becoming increasingly fond of him. But she didn’t dare admit just how fond. Not yet. And certainly not to him. In any case, she was on a mission.
‘I’m going to go see Connie straight away,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you won’t come with me?’
‘I won’t. I need to get Jasper. Anyway, I don’t think I’d know what to say...’
‘It’s OK,’ said Jones.
‘Is it?’ Ed enquired rhetorically.
It took Jones about twenty minutes to walk from Ed’s apartment to the narrow, white-terraced house, in one of the university town’s leafiest streets, which Connie had inherited from her mother.
She opened the front door swiftly. Her hair seemed bigger and redder than ever. She was wearing a lime green top and bright orange trousers with a rip in one knee. In spite of all that had happened, some things didn’t change.
‘My God, it’s good to see you, Sandy Jones. Our saviour!’
She led Jones straight up the stairs to a light airy bedroom where Marion lay propped up in a big lace-covered bed, a cradle over one leg.
‘I’m getting to be a dab hand with bedpans.’ said Connie cheerfully.
Connie seemed almost unnaturally cheerful. Jones glanced across at Marion. The pain she was suffering was clear in her face, but she greeted Jones with a warm smile.
‘How are you doing, Marion?’ Jones asked gently.
‘Not so badly.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘She’s going to be just fine,’ interjected Connie, again with excessive cheeriness, Jones thought. ‘We can’t wait to get her a new leg, can we, Marion, sweetheart?’
Marion said nothing. She just smiled again. Rather more wanly, Jones thought.
‘Anyway, you’d never guess what’s gone on here since you hit the newsstands, Sandy,’ Connie continued, beaming at Jones. ‘They’re going to rebuild the RECAP lab. Only it’ll be even better than before. New equipment, new everything, and maybe even proper staff again. Certainly a proper budget.’
She glanced fondly towards Marion. ‘Thomas is fixing it all. Marion’s son, the Dean of Princeton, and now the other saviour of RECAP. After you, Sandy, of course.’