Ethan Justice: Origins

14: Saturday 24th September, 23:35

MY JAWS ARE clenched, my muscles tight. I walk stiffly to a seat in a dingy Bayswater diner, a stone's throw from my hotel. I'm not sure which of the two rat holes smells worse. This place is known only as 'The Pit'. Whoever named it wasn't kidding around. This was the price of anonymity - hanging with the lowlifes. A smell of rancid fat and stale onions hangs heavy in the air. I doubt it will leave my clothes when I return outside.

I look at my stainless steel Seiko watch, a present from my mother when I joined the Parachute regiment over twenty years ago. I wear it to remind me never to bend to anyone else's will. A lesson she never learnt. It is half past midnight, nearly two hours after the explosion.

Two men sit, side by side, at the table by the exit. Their smiles are wide and their faces close. They are gay. I cannot hear their lewd conversation - probably discussing flavoured lubricants. I don't mind their kind but they should keep it to the privacy of their own homes. There is no need to rub it in people's faces. Failure has made me less tolerant than usual.

I had suspected extra reinforcement underneath the Mercedes and made adjustments accordingly. The explosion should have torn through the undercarriage like butter, but instead the car had risen like a NASA rocket launch.

Perhaps attempting to disintegrate the occupants had not been my best plan. It had been risky, careless and worst of all, unsuccessful. Nobody could have been badly harmed and I am now public enemy number one. But it could have worked and if it had, I would have the gun and the agents would be out of the picture. Missing out on torturing the two fools to their slow and ultimate deaths would have been a small price to pay for the ultimate pleasure the gun promises.

A young girl in an orange uniform requests my order without speaking, simply grunting and displaying a readiness to write on a dog-eared pad of paper. Her plastic nameplate is skewed. It says her name is Olga. She is sixteen, at the most, with short blonde hair and the blank stare of a person without hope. I could snuff out her pointless existence and we would both benefit from the transaction.

I have bigger plans and the temptations that constantly appear must be avoided. I see needle tracks on the inside of her elbow. Her worthless life of drugs, alcohol, and unprotected sex in parked cars will continue. One day soon, one of her indulgences, necessary to dull her inescapable insignificance, will end her wretched being. Self-destruction is inevitable. I order a cup of tea and a salami sandwich.

Who was the scruffy kid in the anorak? I'd written him off as a threat and he'd given me away. He'd been frantically looking for something or someone. I can't picture anything but slim, mid-twenties, shortish hair, ripped jeans and an old blue anorak. Is he with Earthguard or the girl perhaps? Yes, the girl. He had looked harmless. He is a possible danger to my goal. I had let the excitement get the better of me. It is a mistake I will not repeat.

The orange waitress slams down a cracked plate beneath a withered-looking sandwich. An overfilled mug of tea, the colour of oxtail soup, follows.

"Anything else, luv?" she says, hands on hips as if daring me to ask for something else at my own peril.

A smile, a decent plate, bread instead of cardboard, a cloth for the mess of spilled tea? The possible responses are too many.

"Nothing," I reply, looking deep into her tired blue eyes, wondering if I should ask her back to my hotel and snap her neck. I decide against it. She will not get a tip.

I pull out my phone and flick through the photos of the girl. The resolution is good. She has a face and a physique easy to remember. Living amongst the lowlifes has given me contacts and she will be easy to locate. The girl will lead me to Anorak man. Between Anorak and the girl I can extract enough information to lead me back to the agents and the weapon. Four deaths to enjoy along the way.