Mr Hook's Big Black Box

Kris Alexandros: The Delivery

Montgomery dashed over to the turret and looked out of the window to see who was at the door. This space was a little larger than it had looked from outside, a half-circle window seat filling a space that would otherwise have been unusable because of the roof coming so low at the edges of the room. There was a little wire table there, just about large enough for a pot of tea, and I could easily imagine her with one guest, maybe two, sitting in the turret to look out on the garden.

"It's a tow truck," she informed us, "I think it's Marco's friend?"

"I'll get it," Marco stood, and Ferrari tossed him the small bunch of keys I'd left on the table.

"We really are sorry," Dwayne couldn't meet my eyes, "I mean, it was my idea. It seemed like such a great idea at the time, and it was pretty much all I could come up with. I hope you don't think it's personal or anything."

"What, because I got Spenser involved? That's pissing me off as well, I know it was at least partly my fault, but I didn't think. I just trusted a guy my family had done business with before." That much was true, and I felt I was really being honest with them. That was how I felt, the connection between my family and the mafia had no real bearing on the situation. "I'd understand if you blamed me. Because I do."

"No, don't think about it like that," Montgomery came over and looked me straight in the eye. It was probably then that I realised how much we'd all been underestimating her. I don't know what her childhood had been like, how she could have grown up like that, but I could see now that buried under the vague cloud of good intentions and dreams that seemed to surround her, there was a core with the strength of iron. The determination to make everyone happy.

"I think that we were dumped into something very strange," she continued, "Something nobody should have to deal with, and something we never expected would involve us. It might feel like you made a mistake, when really you just did the best you could in the situation you were in. There was no right answer, maybe. I bet we've all done just as bad. And this one seems important to you because you can see your mistake. But how do you feel if you think about all the mistakes you didn't make? All the things that could have gone wrong if you hadn't avoided them? You don't know; you never saw them. You only blame yourself for the errors you can see, even though there's no way you could tell if the consequences would have been even worse if you didn't act. You can't blame yourself, because you can never know the alternatives!"

I looked into her eyes, and you couldn't believe the strength that I saw there. From the last person you'd expect. I wasn't sure what to say, because I didn't have anything like as deep. But a thought from my subconscious, something I'd wondered earlier but not quite had the time to ask, came back to the forefront.

"What happened to Marco's truck?" I asked, "Why were you in that van? Is that what the mechanic is here for?"

"Oh, we didn't tell you?" Dwayne seemed genuinely surprised, "We sent a truck round to tow your car. It's kind of our fault, and one of Marco's cousin's friends drives a tow truck for a breakdown company. Friend of a friend, but somebody we figured we can probably trust. A couple of favours, a bit of cash, and when we kind of bent your car out of shape, it's the least we could do."

"Shouldn't I be speaking to the tow truck driver, then? If it's my car they're dealing with?"

"Yeah, that makes sense," Ferrari nodded, "We'll be down soon."

* * *

By the time I got downstairs, I could see a vehicle driving away through the frosted glass of the front door. Marco wasn't visible, but I could hear sounds of movement from down another flight of stairs. I hurried down as quickly as I could, and discovered a small basement area. There was a garage here, with shelves carefully arranged along the walls to store an array of tools while still allowing enough space for a car which – judging by the tyre marks on the concrete floor – was only slightly smaller than the room itself.

On the other side was a small anteroom, a couple of store cupboards, a washing machine and drier, and the back door. The room was decorated differently from the rest of the house, with bare brick around most of the walls, and several bulky metal pillars supporting the ceiling. They looked like overkill, but the architecture here was probably mostly for show, a stylistic choice.

And there, right in the middle of the floor, was the Box. I stared, eyes wide, and paced slowly around it, looking at this strange gothic creation from every angle. The last time I'd seen the Box it had been inside a crate, but there was no way it could be anything else. At least one of the text messages I'd skimmed through during this morning's lecture had said it was shaped as a coffin, but I had no idea that it would be so imposing. It drew my eyes in and wouldn't let them go.

"I was just checking up on it," Marco leaned back, "I'll be up in a minute."

"Yeah," I nodded, "Is my car around somewhere?"

"They took it straight back to the shop," he muttered, "Going to cost a fair bit to fix. But it turns out that Monty's got a special trust fund just to pay for breaking other people's stuff. Her parents really don't trust her, and while she approved the plan she's prepared to take money out of that to pay the damages. Don't worry, we got it sorted."

"And what happened to your truck?" I felt like I had to ask. It was a little detail that had been nagging at me, wondering if there were bits of the story they hadn't decided to tell me for some reason. I couldn't understand why they would have been driving the Box around in a plumber's van, or even where they could have got one from.

"Uhh..." Marco hesitated, "It kind of got shot at. Those CIA guys." My fists clenched involuntarily. I didn't know anything about the CIA, and I couldn't see why they would be operating on British soil. But Spenser had told me that some of his men had posed as CIA, figuring it was the easy way to make the LUSARS a little nervous. If he had shot at my friends, then he was certainly going to pay for the damages. I didn't know how I could manage that right now, but getting the Box back to Uncle Sal seemed like a good place to start.

"Is that at the same workshop?" I asked, not knowing the right words to express my anger with Spenser and his goons. I could offer to pay for repairs, anyway, and I was sure Uncle Sal would be willing to take the cost out of Spenser's cut of their next deal.

"Government impound, probably. Couldn't drive away, so we just left it. It'll come back sooner or later." I shrugged. In that case, there was nothing I could offer to help more than a pat on the back and some mumbled condolences. I had to keep an eye on the Box, though, and make sure I did the job I had been given.