The young couple left that night and Lomax knew the sub-text of his message would be understood: 'leave me alone'.
A month later his sister died and for a while Lomax was destitute. He became a labourer for some of the farmers he knew at the pub. After a while he settled down and began to feel more positive about the future.
That’s when he received the call from London.
‘Oh my God, Sean. What are you doing?’ Natasha’s hand covered her mouth.
Sean stopped and turned round. ‘Go back to the cabin and I’ll come up later.’
Natasha shook her head. ‘Later — why?’
Sean turned back to the man tied to the tree. ‘Meet Schaeffer. He’s the man that’s been trying to kill you these last few days. Right now I need some information from him.’
‘No, not while I’m here.’
Hesitantly Sean held her shoulders. ‘Natasha, you’ve been through a lot recently. God knows you’ve every right to be left alone. But as long as guys like the one behind me are around, you won’t have any peace. You’re lucky to be alive this evening.’
Sean let his arms drop and said quietly: ‘what you saw here is not as bad as it looks, but guys like this would not stop to think about your life if you got in their way. Now please, go up to the cabin and I promise I will be back inside ten minutes.’
‘I’m not going and leaving you alone with him.’
Sean sighed. ‘At least let me make sure they won’t come after us. Five minutes.’
Natasha reached over and grabbed his sleeve. ‘I don’t feel I can trust you Sean. I’ll stay while you tie him up and we’ll both go back to the cabin together.’
Sean turned back to Schaeffer. Lomax would expect some return for the pains he’d taken, but clearly Natasha didn’t want any more violence. A new thought popped into his head. What would he do if he were left to his own devices? He thought for a few seconds, but couldn’t immediately find an answer.
Sean checked Schaeffer’s bindings and they made their way up the path to the cabin.
As soon as Sean opened the door he knew there was trouble. The two men had moved towards each other and one was busy trying to untie the other’s hands. They both looked up as soon as Sean entered and the first guy began frantically trying to break the thick plastic cuff. Sean dragged him across the room to the radiator, using another plastic cuff to secure him to it. He dragged the other man to the main bedroom, tying him to the radiator in there. Before he left he collected the men’s guns, emptied their pockets and added their mobile phones to the pile. He carried the lot out to the ridge, throwing the hardware far out into the woods below.
‘Grab your coat, we’re going’, he said when he returned.
Natasha quickly collected her coat and followed him out.
‘What about the men inside?’ she asked, trying hurriedly to catch up with Sean.
‘They’ll be fine’ said Sean without stopping.
They made their way to her car, parked in a clearing not far from the cabin. Sean offered to drive and she handed him the keys. Once they were seated Sean started the engine and turned the car down the track. ‘Are you all right?’
Natasha bit her lip.
‘Natasha?’ enquired Sean.
‘I came here to get away from it all, but if you really want to know, no, I’m not alright. I want an end to all this. I won’t be right until it all stops!’
Sean found the metalled road at the bottom of the hill and turned along it. ‘So what do you want to do?’
‘Do?’ Natasha almost spat out the word. ‘Do? — I want to go somewhere where I can have some peace and quiet’.
‘They followed you here — what makes you think they won’t follow you wherever you go?’
‘I don’t know.’ Natasha clenched and unclenched her hands in her lap. ‘I know what I want. I want you to go. I don’t want you to follow me around anymore.’
‘What do you think would have happened if I hadn’t arrived? And if there is a next time, God forbid, what would you do if I didn’t show up?’ Sean’s voice was reasonableness itself. ‘But you’re right. I can’t go on protecting you forever.’
Natasha sighed angrily. ‘I know that. Before I met you, I had a quiet life. OK, it wasn’t the most exciting existence, but it suited me. I’m just not one of these people that crave adventure and excitement.’
She looked through the side window as houses from the nearby village started to appear. ‘I’ve had the feeling that there is so much you’re not telling me — right from when we first met. I believe in honesty and I need trust in a person.’ She looked at him directly. ‘I know you haven’t been entirely honest with me.’
They came to a junction and Sean turned right onto a main road.
‘I can’t tell you any more than I have already..’.
‘Are you working against my government?’ asked Natasha.
Sean shook his head. ‘No. I told you I work for the UK government and in this case both our government’s interests are similar.’
‘Have you come to steal my project’s secrets?’
Sean looked directly at Natasha. ‘No, I told you I came for Ben. Now he’s dead I want to find out who killed him and why.’ He shifted up a gear. ‘You haven’t told me everything either, have you?’
For a second, Natasha hesitated. Then she realised that her hesitation was a kind of an answer anyway.
‘Can I trust you?’ he asked.
Natasha hesitated and cleared her throat. ‘Yes’, she managed to say at last. ‘OK, if I was tortured I probably wouldn’t be able to resist revealing things. But short of that, you can trust me.’
‘Natasha, listen. I understand why you haven’t been completely truthful with me. I know how these obligations conflict with your own personal codes. Really, I don’t have a problem with that.’
‘Then what is your problem?’ Natasha shot back. ‘I know you had to deal with those men the way you did. But I was ashamed that you could torture one of them when he was helpless to defend himself. It’s something that I find…'. Her voice trailed off.
‘I don’t condone torture.’ Sean glanced at Natasha. ‘Sometimes people like that don’t deserve anything better, but I don’t torture people.’ He might have applied a little more pressure to the knife than was strictly necessary, but at this stage he felt Natasha wouldn’t appreciate that fact. ‘I just hope we never see Schaeffer again.’
Lomax glanced in his mirror. There was no doubt the opposition had caught up. His immediate instinct was to corner the chasing car and kill the driver. Then DD groaned in the passenger seat. ‘Hang on DD’ Lomax said grimly. ‘This is going to be a bumpy ride.’
Lomax’s major concern was alerting the local police. Speeding or any high-speed manoeuvres were likely to attract their attention. Lomax decided the suburbs would provide less chance of interference from the authorities.
Despite the pain in his side, Lomax was in his element. He shouted to DD to get strapped in tight, but heard only a groan in response. The next set of lights were on red. Lomax slowed down, looking right and left. In the late evening the traffic was light. In his mirror he saw the pursuing car approaching rapidly, headlights blazing. Lomax allowed his car to creep forward. Cars crossing the lights now had to move out of their lane in order to avoid hitting him. Several cars hooted angrily. Lomax saw the pursuing car loom up behind. He kicked the accelerator and wound the wheel right, screeching into a narrow gap between two cars. Lomax heard impotent revving, the pursuers unable to move until the next gap in the traffic. He used the small fraction of time gained to cut in front of oncoming traffic and make the next turn right.
Several turns later Lomax stopped the car in a narrow alley, estimating he had enough time to check on DD. A feel of the boy’s chest told Lomax enough. He had bruising and a possible broken rib. Lomax kept a look out, expecting the pursuing car to show at any time. He managed to get DD sitting upright and strapped in when he heard them.