Read The Watchers for Free Online Page B

a clock in the same place.
    Playing the drinking game in a one-room flat. Telly filling the dark room with blue flickering light. Holy Crusaders on the screen, slaughtering their way to Jerusalem in the name of Jesus. Streets running with blood. Telephone rings. He stared at it. Couldn’t remember the last time the telephone rang, couldn’t even remember where the hell he was. He got up from the sofa bed, pulled aside the window shade. Huge yellow brick building across the road. Clock tower atop the building reading eleven eleven.
    ‘Where the hell am I?’
    He closed the shade and sat back on the bed. Let the phone ring, thinking the bloody thing would give up sooner or later. It didn’t. He grabbed the remote and turned off the telly. The room wholly dark but for the glow of streetlamps against the window shade. He picked up the receiver, didn’t speak, just waited. Silence. Till a man’s voice came down the line:
    ‘Good evening, Mr Harper.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Jay Harper, on the Euston Road at King’s Cross Station?’
    ‘King’s Cross?’
    ‘Yes, the yellow brick building just outside your window. The one with the clock.’
    His eyes scanned the bed, the floor. Bottles of vodka in varying stages of emptiness, a wallet, British passport, an ashtray stuffed with dead butts, a couple of packets of smokes. He reached for the passport. Photo inside with a name: Jay Michael Harper. Born: London, 1971.
    ‘Who the hell’s this?’
    The voice on the line answering as if the question was for him.
    ‘Guardian Services Ltd, Mr Harper. Representing freelance security specialists such as yourself. We’ve engaged your services many times in the past.’
    Harper had no idea what the voice was talking about.
    ‘Little late for a bloody sales call, isn’t it?’
    ‘This isn’t a sales call, Mr Harper. We’ve been trying to contact you for three days.’
    He rubbed the back of his neck, looked around the room. Books, newspapers, rubbish scattered about. He shook his head, trying to come to.
    ‘Right.’
    ‘There’s a job for you in Lausanne.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Lausanne, Switzerland.’
    ‘Lausanne.’
    A wave of sickness came over him, his head throbbed with pain. Coming to was proving difficult.
    ‘Look, this really isn’t a good time.’
    ‘I apologize for the hour.’
    ‘No, it’s not … look, I’m not up for any sort of job, not just now.’
    ‘Mr Harper, may I ask you if you are in a position to choose?’
    ‘To choose?’
    ‘Our records indicate you’ve been without work for some time. One would have thought you could use the work.’
    The voice let him think about it. He grabbed the wallet and opened it. Thirteen pounds sterling, no pence. No other forms of ID, no credit cards, no bank cards. Like the voice said, no choice.
    ‘What kind of job are we talking about then?’
    ‘Oh, the usual sort of thing.’
    Harper had no idea what the fuck that one meant. Then again, when there’s no choice, there’s no choice.
    ‘So, what next?’
    Walk across road tomorrow morning, six o’clock. Find St Pancras Station around the back of King’s Cross. Second-class rail tickets to Paris in your name at the Eurostar desk. Guy waiting on platform, holding a sign, ‘Guardian Services Ltd’. Doesn’t introduce himself, doesn’t say a word in English, mumbles in French. Somehow Harper catches the drift. Métro strike, need a taxi to Gare de Lyon, running late already. Hands over a ticket for the Lyria TGV to Lausanne, leads Harper to a waiting taxi on Rue de Dunkerque. Driver speeds through traffic, talks non-stop. Harper listens to the guy babble about the state of the world. Très mal, monsieur, on marche complètement sur la tête . . bloody world’s been turned on its head – in a bad way. Stares at the back of the driver’s head, wondering, Where the hell did I pick up French? Makes the train for Lausanne, just. Four hours of clickity clack later, Harper was in a small office of smoked-glass windows