Hoods and Bots: Part Eleven by Irena Szirtes

credit: Canva/Irena Szirtes

 We’d pulled over on a snaking Lakeland road where silence was so thick, you felt you could reach out and grasp a big ball of it. Sheer, scree-scarred mountain menaced above, and dropped steeply below us. We stared in disbelief at the messages we'd received a few moments before. In a  different code for each of us, the meaning was clear: ‘No further route information to be transmitted. Mission aborted, return to base.’

 For a moment, none of us spoke. There could only be one explanation: security had been compromised. I knew there’d be another opportunity, but for now, the only sheep I’d see would be from the vehicle. I was about to say I’d appreciate taking a walk on my own, to drink in the scenery and make peace with this unexpected blow, when Roland spoke.

“So that’s it then. We return... to Gloucestershire.”

“Or do we?” Victor jumped out, and by the time he reached the front passenger door, he was pointing a smart weapon at Roland’s head. “Get out. It’s your turn to drive.” 

“Victor, what are you doing?”  I kept my voice steady, but feared I knew: Victor had discovered Roland’s Bot past. Radicals were adamant such backgrounds could not be tolerated, even in defectors.

“Roland’s defected, he’s done missions, he’s with us now, “ I went on. It sounded weak. Against reason, I hoped Victor didn’t know about the locket. Leadership had a plan, I told myself, Bhuresi told me so. We were to play along. Why should Victor be judge and jury? The anger that overwhelmed me at the ancient oak flaunted itself before me. I'd come close to being Radical myself that day, close to becoming the thing I hate.

“Shut the f*** up... this has nothing to do with you.” He bellowed at me, shocking the mute rocks in this vast, unsullied space.  “I told you, girl, you’re not supposed  to be here.” He flung a ‘bug’ – an explosive device operated by the setting on his smart gun – onto the back seat.

“I don’t have time for you or your scruples. Move one f****** muscle, there’ll be Imiołczyk scattered where it belongs - all over the hills you love.” 

“Or over this obsessively-clean vehicle,” I remember thinking. 

“Drive ,” he barked, looking at dashboard map, still keeping his weapon trained on Roland’s skull. 

  It probably didn’t take too long to reach the remote lake, though it seemed the longest journey of my life. I felt a growing tumour of dread deep inside. It  sapped my body strength, but my mind was energised, acrobating, rehearsing  every possible scenario, seeking a way out, as the bug kept clicking a reminder it was live and ready for detonation. 

 The handbrake engaged, and Roland turned to look at Victor.  

“What the hell... do you think.... you’re doing?”

Victor laughed.  “I don’t have to think, Bot.” His voice was quietly sinister  now. 

He clicked the gun and the ‘ready’ indicator flashed. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

My eyes instinctively screwed themselves shut, but instead of a shot, I heard Victor say, “I know who you are, Agent Jason Pargeter.”

The name Pargeter rang a bell, but I couldn’t quite place it. What came next beggared belief.  “You’re Benson Parry’s Spymaster Mars, are you not? Would you like to know who I am?”

Roland took a moment, perhaps playing for time, and I had to admire his cold, calm demeanour.

“t seems a good day... for introductions,” he said. 

“Then you’ll be delighted to know, Agent Pargeter, alias Mars, that I am... “ He paused a moment, as if to bring the revelation home. “I am Sully.”

My spine turned to splintering  ice. Sully: the legendary Radical every Bot feared! No one knew Sully’s identity, but Hood and Bot alike knew his reputation. He’d earned almost supernatural status among Bots, thanks to superior Resistance technology. He could appear undetected anywhere,  kill unheard and unseen.  Roland was doomed.

Terror sharpened my instincts, and I sensed it briefly wash over Roland, as he took a second or two to consider his answer. Did he protest he was a true defector, able to supply vital information from inside the Regime? Did he plead disillusion with Benson Parry, pledge loyalty to the Resistance, or beg for a chance to prove himself? Surely, he must!  

No. He said the last thing I expected.

“If I’m Mars and you’re...  Sully, then why the hell are you pointing that thing...  at me, instead of...  her?”

My jaw dropped. Nothing made any sense. If Roland was really Parry’s Spymaster, why would he say such a thing when confronted by the most feared Radical in Resistance history? 

“The same reason you’d be pointing it at me, Agent Pargeter, if you’d known who I was. There are rumours, always rumours: even about you. The barrel of a gun has a way of blasting rumour and getting to the truth.” 

He turned to look at me. “See how easy it is to kill Bots, Little Hood? You should try it sometime. But I only kill selected Bots. This one gave the right answer.”

   He turned back to Roland, leaving me more confused than ever. That Roland was undercover was no surprise, though he hardly fitted my concept of a Spymaster; that Victor was with the Regime seemed impossible.  If he was, why did he kill Bots? How could he serve Benson Parry, then go out murdering his henchmen? 

“I’m not wasting this opportunity, “ Victor went on, to Roland this time. “We’re within spitting distance of Resistance farms and bases. I’m near to completing the map. Let’s check in at some local HQ and see if we can get some intelligence  together.” 

“Agreed,” Roland replied, “but we have.. Hood.”

“Hood after a fashion. Hell, if they’d  just listened!” He turned to me again. “I told you not to come, didn’t I, girl?  Fortunately for you, I’m better than Bot. I don’t kill women for the hell of it.”  

I spat at him and missed, just as he added, 

 “Unless I really have to.”  With that he turned back to Roland. “Do we execute her now, or take her in?”

“No execution... yet. She’s wanted on account of her father, on account of her uncle, the one that tried to...  assassinate the cabinet. You know -  ‘All Imiołczyks to be apprehended as... enemies of the state.’ HQ will want... to question her.”

“What can she tell them we don’t know? She’s a waste of space, not important  enough to know anything.  We’ve lived on the base – bases in my case - long enough to tell them every f****** thing they need to know.”

“Speak for...  yourself.”

“Believe me, Agent Pargeter,  the map’s almost complete. I’ve a pay check coming, Resistance bases are doomed. So is she. Whether you proved loyal to Parry or not, she was always going to be unnecessary complication.”

I was still too confused and angry to speak, even when Victor finally deactivated the bug. As he handcuffed me, I spat in his face, but he simply wiped his cheek. 

 “And don’t even think about trying to run,” he added, “Agent Pargeter inherited all his mother’s skills.” He opened a locker behind the back seat, pulled out a fine automatic rifle, and handed it to Roland. 

   It was then realisation dawned: the sweet, elderly face in Roland’s locket was not his mother, and I realised I’d known all along deep down. But the connection I made with the name Pargeter beggared belief. Ellen Pargeter, who died of ovarian cancer around the time I was born, had fought WW3, long before heat-seeking weapons were standard issue. She was a Resistance heroine, a sniper whose daring choice of targets had shortened the war as she racked up more kills than Lyudmila Pavlichenko. Lyudmila's nickname was Lady Death, but Ellen’s was Death’s Face, a reference to the paleness of her skin, eyes and hair. Roland was certainly about the right age to be her son, and I remembered seeing images of her with a small, insignificant-looking boy. But that made less sense than ever. How might a Resistance heroine produce a Spymaster for Benson Parry? 

They swopped seats, and Victor took the wheel again, while Roland sat nursing the rifle, looking it up and down, checking out its features.

 “Good to handle...  one of these again,” he said. He glanced at me through the sun-shield mirror from time to time.