Mark’s body went rigid. His father? How could Lundon know his father?
‘What do you mean?’ Mark hissed back at Lundon, not convinced Lundon was telling the truth.
‘Oh, the boy doesn’t know the truth. Well my boy, let me fill you in.’ He laughed manically. ‘Yes, I knew your father. In fact, we were close, long before YOU were born. We were close, right until I was diagnosed with epilepsy, and then it became a different story.’
Mark shook his head in confusion.
‘You LIE!’ he shouted, pointing the gun at Lundon.
Lundon wasn’t scared. He was far too angry to worry about someone pointing a gun at him.
‘Oh, his “friendship” wasn’t so strong then was it? He, just like the rest of them, laughed at me, especially when it came to making new friends, because the stress of interacting with new people used to bring on a seizure. Oh yes, they all thought it was hilarious, look at him, they used to cry, the madman. People can be cruel, Mr King, and so I learned that I could be cruel too!’
‘Even if this is true, what did it have to do with Marie?’ Mark cried.
‘I wanted you to feel the way your father made me feel. When you were born and grew up to become a successful lawyer, I thought you would work for me, but then Azidi was caught and guess who was prosecuting him!’
Mark’s arm loosened as he remembered back to the trial.
‘Naturally I thought you could work for me, but then I saw the man you had become, and that you would never abandon that ridiculous sense of “justice” you hold onto so tightly. This, what we do here, THIS Mr King, is justice!’
Mark stared at the madman who stood before him, arms outstretched, eyes bulging almost out of their sockets, sweating and red in the face, and, for a while, Mark pitied him.
‘What kind of a life have you known?’ he said sympathetically in a low voice, lowering his weapon and walking towards Lundon. ‘How has the world treated you?’
‘The world hated me!’ Lundon screeched. Mark stepped towards him again. ‘Just like the way you used to mock that journalist, the same way your father mocked me.’
Mark remembered Ian Hawking and how even Marie had scorned him for the way he spoke to him. He instantly felt regret at having been so cruel to Hawking. Lundon calmed down, thinking maybe Mark wasn’t as much like his father as he first thought.
‘I don’t “hate” you. Not even for killing Marie. Hate destroys people, like it has destroyed you. You’re not dangerous,’ he explained.
Lundon almost smiled as the tone of the conversation dropped into one of pity and sympathy.
‘It’s purely “business”,’ he replied, putting his hands in the air casually.
Mark moved closer and Lundon’s face changed into one pleading for his life.
‘What business?’ Mark questioned.
‘The weapons for Azidi were to instigate a terror attack from Germany to the west so the west would retaliate, forcing them to upgrade their weaponry. As I own a weapon supply company which sold to world governments, the west would have no choice but to buy from my company, as would other countries that would be drawn into the war.’
The way Lundon saw it, he was the one to benefit.
‘Marie was just a way to get to you and force you to run,’ he said, half smiling at his accomplishment.
‘Why?’ Mark spat at Lundon.
‘You are part of a world you do not understand, Mr King,’ Lundon smiled softly.
Mark gritted his teeth angrily.
‘With too much of an inquisitive mind, just like your father’s, you had inadvertently uncovered the first parts of this during the Azidi trial but you were never in one place or predictable long enough to pin down,’ Lundon explained in a trembled voice. Mark gritted his teeth and stroked the trigger gently. ‘You were at the shooting club and Roman Vose and Hix Lomas only had a narrow window to eliminate you. On my orders, Hix killed Marie to make it look like you killed her, getting you permanently out of the way.’
‘You’re just mad,’ Mark said calmly.
Lundon’s face turned from calmness to anger as he screamed out loud at Mark and ran at him. Mark looked at El Toro, then at Lundon and saw Marie’s face. He knew the only way to end this was for Lundon to die. He gripped the rifle with sweaty hands, steadied his breathing and, just as Thomas Lundon moved closer to him, he squeezed the trigger.
Thomas Lundon fell backwards. A look of confusion and shock contorted his face as the blood ran down the side of his head. He stumbled backwards and fell over the edge of the barrier holding the staircase up and dropped. Instead of a thud as his body hit the dust and dirt below, he heard a smash. El Toro and Mark ran to the edge to see the body of Thomas Lundon, smashed, half in and half out of the roof of a Lincoln limousine, windscreen smashed and alarm sounding. Mark could make out the body of Roman Vose, bloodied and eyes closed, in the driver’s seat.
‘Eh, er, Señor. It’s a time for a ’oliday, no?’ El Toro shouted to Mark.
Mark nodded and made his way toward El Toro, who put his arm around Mark and led him back out of the mangled perimeter fence which was still sparking from the explosion, and into the woods, to El Toro’s waiting four-by-four.