Gray Resurrection Read online

  He’d been in the process of creating the warehouse and distribution side of the business when he’d met Alma. She was twenty seven and had been working in the department store for a couple of years, having travelled up from the southern islands to stay with relatives in Manila, and having previously worked in a wholesale company she had plenty of contacts that would help him in his quest to start selling direct to the public. That revelation had prompted him to offer her a job with his company at double her current wages, and she had accepted without a moment’s hesitation.

  They’d parted that evening without so much as a goodnight kiss, Grant heeding the words of an ex-pat he'd met in a bar when he'd first arrived in Manila.

  “It takes time to court a good Filipina,” he'd said. “You should never try anything on the first three dates.”

  It wasn't until he'd got into the taxi to take him home that Grant had thought about his wife and son. Was he being disrespectful towards them by flirting with another woman? All it had been was coffee and a chat, yet deep down he knew that he wanted a whole lot more.

  He'd wrestled with his conscience during the days leading up to their second date, and had come clean with Alma about the fact that he was previously married. He'd lied when he'd said wife and child had both died in a car crash several years earlier, but at least she now knew about them.

  It wasn't the third but the fifth date before he kissed her, by which time he'd come to terms with the fact that he had to move on, no matter how much he missed his family. Their relationship had moved on at an advanced pace from that first kiss, with consummation following soon after and Alma moving in with him a few weeks later.

  She had certainly made her mark on the house, adding a woman’s touch to his barrack-style minimalism. Pictures now adorned the walls and a sensible spread of ornaments brightened up the living room. She had also introduced him to Filipino cooking in a big way, with Sinigang Na Hipon, fresh prawns and vegetables in a sour tamarind broth, being his favourite dish. The food had certainly piled on the pounds, which was one of the reasons he wanted to get back into his five-miles-a-day routine.

  The muscles in his calves were beginning to cramp as he neared the end of the eighth lap but he felt confident that he could get another in before calling it a day. He tried to ignore the pain as he pounded the road, instead reflecting on the great shape his new life was taking. All would be wonderful if he could just cut James Farrar out of it.

  He turned the corner into his street and saw the black SUV parked up in his driveway, and he used that as an excuse to cut his exercise short. As he strolled up to the vehicle the driver's side window hummed as it descended and Farrar's face appeared, looking ridiculous in aviator sunglasses.

  Speak of the Devil, Grant thought, and his shit-filled illegitimate son will appear.

  “Get in,” Farrar said, polite as ever.

  Grant climbed into the passenger seat and the blast from the car's air-con hit him like a frozen sledgehammer, chilling him to the bone – much to Farrar’s delight. Grant appreciated air-conditioning and had it in every room in his home, but nothing as ferocious as this.

  “We have some work for you,” Farrar said without preamble.

  “What kind of work?”

  “I’ll give you the details later. Just be ready to board a plane in five days time. That should give you plenty of time to sort out your affairs here.”

  Grant stared at him for a moment, the anger building.

  “No thanks,” he finally said, and made to open the door. Farrar was apoplectic.

  “What do you mean ‘No’? You’ll do as you’re damn well told.”

  Grant turned back to him. “Not until I get some answers.”

  “Such as...?”

  “I want to know who I’m working for.”

  “You are working for Her Majesty’s government.”

  “I gathered that, but which branch,” Grant asked, exasperated.

  “That’s need to know.”

  “Yes, and I need to fucking know.”

  “No you don’t,” Farrar said. “All you have to do is follow instructions. Now, there are rumblings of terror cells operating in Europe and we want you to go and do what you do best.”

  “You’re not listening, Farrar. I want some answers before I do anything for you.”

  Farrar sighed and angled himself to get a better view of Grant. “It wouldn’t do you any good to know who my bosses are. We’re so black, even the prime minister doesn’t know the full extent of what we do, and you won’t find us in the Yellow Pages. All you need to know is that we are the cutting edge of anti-terrorism and we have a proactive agenda. We like to stop attacks while they are in the planning stage, and do it in such a way that they don’t know that we know, if you know what I mean.”

  Grant’s expression barely changed, waiting for Farrar to elaborate.

  “We take down cells at the earliest possible stage, causing accidents so that the men at the top don’t know we’re on to them. Their people die in car crashes, in street robberies, all manner of different ways, but crucially they are explainable accidents. However, you can only have so many of your people die in a crash before it becomes suspicious, and so we need to think of more ingenious ways. That’s where you come in.

  “Your little stunt last year was well thought out, and we need that kind of lateral thinking to enable us to ramp up the body count. We’re taking down our fair share of terrorists, don’t get me wrong, but there are just too many others willing to replace them.”

  “Then go for the main men, not the foot soldiers,” Grant said, despite his reticence to engage in conversation with the man, his training and planning skills kicking in before he had a chance to stop himself.

  “You see, that’s what I mean. You hear the problem and immediately have the solution."

  “Don’t try and blow smoke up my arse, it won’t work. Besides, I’m out of that whole business now. You’ll have to find someone else.”

  “This isn’t up for discussion, Sam. You either do as we ask, or things get very uncomfortable for you.”

  “What are you going to do?” Grant laughed. “Come and visit me every day? I’m a free man.”

  “I was thinking more of having the lease on your company offices cancelled, or maybe retracting your Barangay clearance to operate a business. That puts your staff out of work and your business goes down the pan. I can also stop all withdrawals from your bank account, leaving you without a pot to piss in.”

  Farrar nodded toward Alma, who was just finishing up with the hose. “Do you really think your dolly bird will hang around when she finds out you can’t support her anymore?”

  He enjoyed the pained look on Grant’s face at the thought of losing his bed warmer, a look that swiftly turned to anger.

  “I’ll do one job, but with conditions,” Grant said, more than a touch of hostility in his voice. Farrar started to object but Grant cut him off. “I want some of my old team with me. Sonny Baines, Len Smart and Tristram Barker-Fink all helped come up with the plan last year, and I want their help again.”

  “Impossible. The fewer people involved the better.”

  “It’s not negotiable, Farrar. As you’ve already said, they don’t need to know who they’re working for; they just need to follow instructions. I’m sure you’ll have front companies that can employ them at proper contractor rates, so make it happen.”

  Farrar wasn’t accustomed to having people dictate terms to him, and was determined to make that clear. “It’s out of the question. We have no idea where these people are. It could take weeks to track them down.”

  “That’s bullshit. I could call their mobiles and be talking to them in a couple of minutes. The only reason I haven’t spoken to them in the last year is because you told me not to. I’ve done everything you asked of me, so it’s time you gave me something in return.”

  Farrar considered the request a little more and decided the time was right to accede to Grant’s demand. “Oka
y, you can have Smart and Baines. Unfortunately, Tristram bought it in Iraq a few months ago.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t have all the details,” Farrar said. “All I know is he was doing some bodyguard work and his client was attacked by a large force. The agency he worked for couldn’t give us any further information.”

  Grant gazed out of the window, staring at nothing in particular as he thought about his good friend. Tris had served with him in the regiment and they had shared a couple of tours in Iraq, and Grant had subsequently hired him when he was managing director of Viking Security Services. When Grant – in his previous incarnation as Tom Gray – had first come up with the notion of kidnapping five habitual criminals in order to force the government to come down harder on repeat offenders, it was Tris who had been the most supportive, helping mould the initial spur-of-the-moment idea into a solid, viable plan. Tris had also been one of the people to administer CPR when he’d been seriously injured in the explosion that had brought his four-day siege to an abrupt end, and he had never been able to thank him.

  In fact, Grant hadn’t spoken to any of his friends since his arrival in the Philippines. He’d been tempted, obviously, but he knew that Farrar would be monitoring all of their incoming calls. If he’d tried to contact them, Farrar would have known about it.

  Farrar’s main concern, however, was that Grant might reveal the fact that he was actually Tom Gray, a man for whom the people of Britain had held a two-week protest demanding his release from custody. The official line was that Tom Gray had died from his injuries, when in fact he had been spirited out of the country to prevent him causing the government any further embarrassment. Grant had long ago considered the implications should the world find out that Tom Gray was still alive, and it didn’t look rosy. Farrar would certainly follow through with his earlier threat to have him killed, at the very least. He might even go as far as to terminate all others who knew about him, and that included some good friends back in England.

  Although he hadn’t asked to be placed in this predicament, Sam Grant knew he had to deal with it, and had been doing quite a good job up until the last few minutes.

  He turned back to Farrar, a steely look in his eyes. “I want Sonny and Len here before we set off, plus full details of the operation. We’ll travel together and I’ll brief them on the journey.”

  “Don’t push your luck, Sam. You may be good at what you do, but you’re not indispensable.”

  They sat staring at each other for a full minute, and it was Farrar who backed down first. “Okay, I’ll give you the details on Monday and get Baines and Smart here by Tuesday evening. Just be ready to fly on Thursday afternoon.”

  “How long will I be gone?”

  “It shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks. It all depends on how quickly you can devise and then execute your plan. We’ll give you the target, you do the rest.”

  Grant nodded and opened the door, glad to get back out into the warm evening air. He didn’t look back as he headed towards the house and he heard Farrar reverse off the driveway and disappear towards the subdivision gates.

  Inside the house he found Alma preparing pulutan for the evening’s game of Tong-its, a rummy-like card game the locals enjoyed playing, especially for money. The stakes were never high but it made for a good night’s entertainment, particularly when accompanied by a few San Miguel beers, his neighbours and a table full of pulutan, drinking-food to soak up the alcohol. Grant had always been one to drink first and eat later, but he had slipped comfortably into the habit of picking at the array of small dishes throughout a drinking session. Popular dishes included Sisig, which consisted of ground pigs’ ear and liver, and Tokwa’t Baboy, toasted tofu and boiled ham in garlic-flavoured soy sauce. Alma had become famous with the local men for her generous servings, and there was never an empty chair on card night at the Grant household.

  Grant hugged Alma from behind as she washed the rice in a large pan to get rid of the starch. He stood a good eighteen inches taller than her, and had to stoop to kiss her affectionately on the neck. He then checked the supply of San Miguel and saw that he was down to less than a crate, so he grabbed a five-hundred Peso note and headed towards the door.

  “Just gonna get some more beer,” he told her, and got a smile in reply.

  Like many Filipinas, Alma didn’t drink; they tended to leave that to the Filipino men. She enjoyed the card evenings immensely, though, as it meant the wives would join their husbands in the house. The men would sit out in the garden while the ladies spent the evening inside, usually doing cross-stitch while sharing the weeks’ gossip.

  Grant returned from the local shop within five minutes, his arms straining under the weight of two crates of San Miguel. The beers went into the drinks fridge, which he’d bought specifically for Saturday nights, and then he headed to the bathroom to have a shower.

  The guests began arriving just after eight that evening, with Mr. Lee the first as always.

  “Sam, how are you? How’s business?”

  “Booming,” Grant said. “How’s the Lee empire coming along?”

  Albert Lee had a string of shops in all the major malls dotted throughout Manila, and seemed to open a new one every time they met. “I’m meeting with two companies next week. If either of them can provide a suitable delivery service I will be in a position to sign up to your website.”

  Grant was happy at the news, but it reminded him that he had to make arrangements for his office manager, Alfredo, to take over for a fortnight. He also had to break the news to Alma, but thought it best to wait until they were alone.

  The evening began well, with each of the five guests doing their best to outdo each other in the business stakes. One would announce that he had secured a new contract with a major supplier, and another would trump that with an international order. The banter was light-hearted, but Grant wondered if they would put so much effort into their work if they didn’t have their Saturday night bragging rights to look forward to.

  Grant himself wasn’t one for getting into pissing contests, no matter how good-natured, so he settled for soaking up information about the current trading conditions. He just learned of a new competitor in the online market who had been canvassing his friends when the need to pee grabbed him, so he excused himself and made his way to the CR, or Comfort Room, the Filipino term for the toilet. On his way past the living room he saw Alma in tears, being comforted by her friends.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, taking a seat next to her, but Alma was too consumed with grief to answer.

  “Her brother died today,” a friend said. “She just got a phone call from her mother.”

  Grant wrapped his arms around Alma and hugged her tight. He knew she had a brother and a much younger sister as she was always talking about them, and was always sending a few Pesos home to help them out. She was so proud of her brother for being near the top of his class despite his poor background, and now that bright light had been extinguished.

  “How did it happen?” Grant asked her friends in a hushed voice, but all he got was shrugs in response. He wasn’t about to push Alma in her present state, so he let the question lie. A friend appeared with a glass of water and Grant offered her the seat next to his girlfriend, then he went outside to call an early end to the game.

  His guests were understanding and went inside to offer Alma their support, but by this time she had regained a little control and assured them she would be okay. After making some more consoling noises their friends began to drift off into the night, leaving the couple alone.

  Alma began to open up, and she replayed the brief conversation she’d had with her mother. “Arlan didn’t come home from school at the usual time and Mama was really angry. She thought he’d gone out with his girlfriend, but when Maritess called asking to speak to him she got worried and called the police. That was when she found out that he’d been shot. The police said it was a robbery, but Arlan had nothing worth stealing...”

&nb
sp; Her words tapered off as the tears came again, and just after midnight she finally drifted off to sleep in his arms.

  Chapter 2

  Sunday 15th April 2012

  Grant woke up on the sofa alone, a thin ray of sunlight blinding him as it broke through a gap in the curtains. He immediately remembered the events of the previous evening and went in search of Alma, eventually finding her in their bedroom. She was packing a holdall with clothes and a few toiletries and she looked up at him as he appeared in the doorway, her eyes still red.

  “Kumusta?” he asked.

  “I’m okay,” she said, resuming her packing. “But I have to go home for the funeral. I’ll be back in a couple of days.”

  Grant moved into the room and gave her a hug. “I understand. I’ll come with you.”

  “Are you sure? What about the office? Who will run things while you’re gone?”

  “It’s fine. Alfredo can manage.”

  “It’s not really safe in Isabela City,” Alma said, concern etched on her face. “Maybe you should stay here, I’ll be back soon.”

  “Darling, if it isn’t safe, I’m definitely coming.”

  Alma smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

  “How do we get there?” Grant asked her.

  “We can take a flight to Zamboanga City and then take the boat across the Basilan Strait to Isabela. There’s a plane leaving just after two this afternoon.”

  Grant checked his watch, added on three hours to get through the Manila traffic and realised he only had an hour and a half to get ready. “Call and book the tickets and book a taxi,” he said. “I’ll go and take a shower.”

  He finished washing in less than five minutes and as he dried himself he realised he would have to call Farrar to let him know where he was going. After getting dressed he punched the speed-dial number and the call was answered on the second ring.

  “What?”

  There’s no end to this guy’s manners, Grant thought. “I’m taking off for a few days,” he replied. “I should be back late Tuesday night, maybe Wednesday.”