The Gruinard Project chapter 9

[khandy]

Contains adult content.



Comments really welcome

Chapter 9

The Plaza On The River

Lucas pushed the door closed with a firm shove, they certainly didn’t need any witnesses. Kate pulled him into the room, her arms circling his waist. Pulling her closer, Lucas allowed his fingers to play with the short silky strands of her hair, as he changed the angle of his kiss, his teeth scraping over her lips causing heat to spread down her body, as she returned his kisses with equal passion.


“Please Lucas, I want to see you, touch you,” she whispered.

Reluctantly he released his hold and allowed her to pull his shirt over his head. Kate’s eyes widened in surprise, the tattoos had gone from his chest. She slowly walked around him, her fingers softly grazing his skin as she moved. The domes remained on his back but all the other marks that had blemished his skin had gone. She wondered why but now wasn’t the time to ask. She stood behind him her arms looped around his waist. Her hands moved to stroke his toned abdomen while she showered kisses over his back. Her tongue traced the outline of the domes. Eight of them, was that significant? She moved back round, her finger tracing the area where the image of Blake had been.

Lucas saw the unasked question in her eyes.

“Later,” he whispered. “Let’s get more comfortable before we continue this,” he whispered moving her towards the bed.

**************

Sated they dozed for a while, content just to lie in each other’s arms. Kate’s head lay nestled on his shoulder her hand making lazy circles on his abdomen. She felt his gentle kiss against her hair. She reached to pull the duvet over them both. Looking up, she spoke first.

“You should come with a health warning Mr North, sex like that could kill a girl.”

“I take it I’m forgiven then?”

“Yeah.”

“How was your afternoon with Jo and Ros?” he asked.

“Good, it was good. They are good people. Ros tries to be a hard ass but I suspect she is quite vulnerable. I asked her if she had slept with you and she said no. Was she close to Adam?”

“She told you about Adam?” Lucas was surprised. Ros must really like Kate to have discussed Adam.

“Yeah, Lucas how come nobody knows that it was an intelligence officer who died?”

“We didn’t want the press knowing an officer had died. It’s complicated a lot of what we do the public must never know of.”

“So was she close to him? Adam I mean.” Kate repeated the question.

“I don’t know for sure, I never saw them together but I was with Ros when he died. Her reaction struck me as being of a lover not just a colleague. For a day it destroyed her, then that outer shield she has was back in place.”

“What about Jo? I sense she was fond of him as well.”

“He was the section head. Jo and Adam were on an operation that turned nasty. Our working relationships are very different to most people’s, we see, hear and do things that most people couldn’t begin to understand. We are beyond close to each other. I never saw them together either, but I would say he was like an older brother.”

“When you say you did not see them together is that because you were in Russia?” she asked.

Lucas sighed, he knew they had to talk of Russia but that didn’t mean he wanted to.

“Yeah I was in Russia. Adam was killed two days after I came back.”

“You told me that you were away for eight years. Were you in Russia all that time?”

“Yes,” Lucas replied dully.

“Were you undercover or something?” Kate asked remembering he had said he could not come back.

“Yeah initially I was. I got a call from Harry on that Sunday morning I left you. I was in Russia by the evening.”

“Only initially, what about the rest of the time?” she asked.

“The whole operation went tits up forty eight hours in. I was found out and arrested. I was a prisoner for eight years.”

“Eight years,” Kate whispered. Her arms tightened round him instinctively offering comfort and support. Hadn’t she always suspected he had spent time in a Russian prison, from the moments she had seen the tattoos?

She lifted up and studied his face, the pain so evident in his exquisite blue eyes. She stroked his cheek. She had no idea what to say, how could anybody know what to say? She couldn’t begin to imagine what it must have been like taken away from everything that you knew and love. Her mind returned to her comments from yesterday.

“Of course you wouldn’t have a clue about that, would you Lucas? Being held against your will, not knowing what you’ve done. Not knowing when or if you will be able to go home.”

“Oh God, Lucas I’m sorry for what I said yesterday, that’s why you collapsed isn’t it?”

“Hey you didn’t know, no blaming yourself. I had a flashback to the prison that’s why I passed out.”

“How did it happen? How did the operation go tits up in the first place?”

Lucas sighed, he could lie make up some clever story but he wanted to be honest with her. He had told Elizaveta too many lies.

“I was sold out by a double agent.”

Her mind protested, this only happened in films and novels not real life; spies and double agents, what kind of world had she been drawn into?

“Do you know who?”

“It was Connie.” The pain of her betrayal was still raw.

“Connie who died defusing the bomb?” she whispered.

“Yes we found her out. It’s funny because I knew her, or rather her reputation as an excellent officer before I went to Russia, she was a legend. I said as much to her when I returned. I should have realised when her response was ‘the stuff of nightmares’ that something was not right. After she was exposed as a traitor she cut a deal; she would help us locate and defuse a nuclear bomb and we would give her a new life and protection.”

“A nuclear bomb!” Kate stared at him in disbelief.

“Yeah you’ll never believe how close we came.”

“Lord no wonder you all looked at me so strangely.”

“Anyway she realised that she would die disarming the bomb to prevent it going critical and seconds before she died she told me she was the one who had betrayed me.”

“Lucas I don’t know what to say, eight years in a Russian jail. I can’t begin to imagine the hell it must have been or how you survived,” said Kate sympathetically.

“Oh you know it wasn’t so bad, some of these Russian prisons even have beds and cold showers. I think Billy Butlin gave them the blue print.” As a joke it was feeble Lucas knew, but it had become second nature to laugh it off.

She reached over and touched his lips.

“Lucas you don’t have to pretend with me. I am not Ros or Harry.”

“Thank God,” he half smiled. “I have an eidetic memory. I was able to retreat into my memories a lot of the time,” Lucas explained.” I would watch films, listen to music, and re- read my favourite novels all in my mind.”

“A photographic memory, how fascinating, that explains your recall of my office. That must make life interesting?”

“It is both a blessing and a burden,” he replied cryptically.

“Did they torture you? Scrub that, stupid question of course they did. I am sorry Lucas, just tell me to shut up,” she said.

“I sense you wanted to know about the tattoos?” Lucas looked at her.

She stroked his chest.

“I know that they are part of the culture and I am guessing the ones on your back represent the eight years you were imprisoned, but that is all.”

“Yes, the trick to surviving prison is to fit in. In Russia you fit in or you die,” Lucas explained. “So I chose to fit in. On the rare occasions I was not in solitary confinement I had these done. The prisoners use tattoos as a way of signalling both their contempt for the system and to indicate the criminal hierarchy. I also saw them done as punishment, men held down screaming while they were branded, almost like God marking Cain in the bible.

A prisoners initiation tattoo is usually done on the chest. I chose Blake’s “Ancient of Days” I’m not sure why; maybe because it depicts Urizen, who was the embodiment of law and conventional reason. The place I was trapped in was a place where the laws and reasoning were far from conventional. Or perhaps it was just because I liked the picture.”

“How did they know the picture?” Kate asked.

“I drew it for them and they copied it. Tattoos done in a Russian prison have this distinct bluish colour the outline is blurred because of the lack of instruments to draw fine lines. The ink is created from burning the heel of a shoe and mixing the soot with urine.” He watched her expression change to one of horror. “I know disgusting or what. It’s injected into the skin using a sharpened guitar string attached to an electric shaver. I can’t begin to explain the pain of having this done nor the risks, sitting in a filthy dirty cell. Using make do equipment. Many prisoners developed serious infections and quite a few died. I developed one myself. I nearly died, septicaemia,” he explained. “I was in the hospital wing for months.” He didn’t add that he wished he had died.

“I hated them, when I returned home I felt so dirty and unclean. It didn’t matter that unbelievably I had not picked up hepatitis or HIV, I stank. I’m not sure the stench of the prison will ever leave me. No matter how many times I scrub myself I never feel clean. The tattoos were such a visible reminder. I had to get rid of them. I am having them removed with laser. Don’t hate me I am having them done privately how bad is that? The only good thing is they seem to be responding well to the laser.”

Her heart bled for him, how many times had he scrubbed himself in those first days of freedom? What must it be like to feel so dirty?

“The problem though is in here,” He touched his temple. “I still see them so vividly. I still feel the pain of having them done. I cannot erase them in here”

The pain in his voice almost killed her; she rested her head back on his chest digesting all he had said. He shivered, as if he were cold she reached beneath the covers finding his hand, her fingers linked with his in silent support.

“Maybe you need to replace them with a different image, can you do that? I don’t know a lot about eidetic memories,” she said.

“I can block some things.Iit’s a bit like putting them in a folder like on a computer I guess. I then have to search to find the image in my brain. I have blocked a lot of what happened in Russia,” Lucas explained.

“Ok so let’s try something. Everywhere there was a tattoo I will give you another memory.”

She moved slightly capturing his wrist, her fingers tracing the area where the tattoo had been. She replaced her fingers with her mouth. He watched as she slowly licked the area causing the pulse to beat erratically.

“Show me where the tattoos were Lucas. This laser treatment is very good I cannot see any scarring.”

He pointed to his left arm where he had had the words “I don't hear nothing, I don't see nothing, I won't tell nothing to nobody” written. And he hadn’t for eight long years he had never told them a thing. Even when he had felt so alone, betrayed and abandoned; he had remained loyal.

He had never thought of his arm as being an erogenous zone but the way she was kissing his flesh was certainly doing the trick. She moved to kiss his chest where the Blake Image “Ancient of Days” had been so prominent. She kissed her way down his abdomen spending an age kissing his lower abdomen over where “Know Thy Self” had been written.

“Kate if you are planning to kiss the tattoos I have had removed from my back that might prove uncomfortable.” He groaned. She smiled as she moved lower.

“Ah Kate, I never had a tattoo there,” he gasped.

“That’s alright we’ll just pretend.”

What they shared was different this time as if Kate was trying to eraze the eight years from Lucas’ mind.

“Please don’t leave me, don’t let go of me tonight,” he pleaded as they lay together.

“It’s Ok Lucas I am not going anywhere,” she replied simply.

She reached to turn the light off.

“Please leave the light on dim…” he looked away ashamed to speak any more. Ashamed to admit he was scared of the dark.

Kate adjusted the light to dim without asking questions. Although not yet nine o’clock, cradled in his arms, she watched as he slipped into a deep sleep. She realised they had barely touched the surface of his time in Russia, and was left to wonder how many demons still haunted this man.

Outside the hotel two men watched, neither aware of the others presence, as the light in the room went dim. They both concluded that Lucas North would not be returning home that night.