The Betrayal

  The top of the clocktower is like a giant oak laminate bird house. The mid-day sunbeams cut through the cracks in the panels, illuminating the heavy dust the two mens presence has disturbed. On the wall facing the city square the back of the giant ornate black 3D LED clock hands can be seen through its one-way glass clock face. A crowd is gathered below for the Mayday festival. The brass band can be heard playing their festive tunes.

  Two men are seated, facing each other, on old wooden crates, adorned with faded images of red apples. The man dressed in denim navy pants and a dark brown hoodie has a long thin package just over a meter long, wrapped in burlap, laying across his knees. The package has a weight to it that far exceeds the physical.

  He taps a Red Label from the foil pack, brandishing a worn chrome lighter embossed with a simple bucket. With the flick of his wrist, the lighter is open, with flame and held to his cigarette. He takes a deep drag and snaps the lighter shut, tucking it away. The smoke meanders close to his head with a life of its own, a growing, gathering cloud in the still air of the room.

  Tentatively, he puts his hand on the package. The men's eyes meet. “You sure it's clean?” The older man asks. He's dressed in simple tan denim pants, a simple black jacket, his grey hair pulled back in a simple pony tail. Their reason for being in the clock tower; it ain't so simple.

  “Yeah, it's good to go, Vic.” The man in the brown hoodie says. He feels a slight twing in his face as he speaks. Hopefully Vic didn't see it. He carefully unwraps the burlap exposing the old hunting rifle, then gently takes the XR-304 self-adjusting hidden red-dot scope from his pocket and mounts it on the rifle. “You can't miss; strap on the shooting monocle, mark the target with a pin in your monocle and adjust the rifle whichever way the arrow points. It makes all the adjustments. Just hold it still. That is if you can keep your hands steady, old man.” He says with a wry grin.

  Vic shakes his head with a grin, then straps on the shooting monocle over his left eye. The brown hoodie man passes him the gun. He takes a look through the clock faces one-way glass at the stage, his back to the brown hoodie man he doesn't see his leg bouncing, the slight shake to his hand as he tries to calm his nerves puffing away on his Red Label.

  The brown hoodie man has been working on this for close to a year, a year's work all comes down to this. Yet, he feels no pride. When doubt lingers all he can think is he has a duty to perform.

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  “I can hear you fidgeting b'y," Vic says in his gravelly voice, "You need to relax. We're doing the right thing. Here, hold this.” He passes the riffle to man in the brown hoodie, pressing a black suction cup to the back of the clock face, he extends the arm, tracing a small 30 centimeter hole in the glass, the green lazer pointer melting the glass as his spins in. “Gertie made a whole extra tray of Yorkshire Pudding and you still ate it all.”

  “You're lucky to have found her Vic. She's one hell of a cook.” He says, a painful knot tightens in the pit of his stomach. The worst thing about being a piece of shit is being aware of the fact. It'll all be over soon.

  “Aye, and she's put up with me for 24 years, gave me two boys and two girls. You just ease up next Sunday b'y, make sure the little ones get their share first.” He scolds. “That is if you're joining us this Sunday again?”

  “If the invites there, always.” He says. He will never be welcome at that table again after today.

  “You're always willing to stay after the meeting. We've been talking about it, now you've only been part of the cause for a year, but most feel you're ready to be a Captain.” Vic says, glancing back at the brown hoodie man with a prideful look.

  He looks at Vic, plasters his best attempt at a smile and look of joy on his face at this news that tears him apart on the inside. He wants to call it off, but it's far too late, command gave him the explosive charge with clear orders. He doubled the charge, there will be no prisoners this day, it's the least he can do. It doesn't alleviate much guilt though.

  “This is quite a step up from poisoning the Royals cider so they have the shits, eh?”

  He chuckles, “Yeah, my contact told me everyone at that dinner party was in the crapper, some of them even shit their pants in the hallways.” But that's a lie, he had no contact on the staff—he was scolded for not giving his commander a heads up. He has a duty, but that doesn't mean the thought of a room full of Royals shitting themselves doesn't amuse him.

  Outside the music changes to a more serious, formal tune. This is it, the two men look down below at the stage. The Countess walks out on stage and starts to address the masses. Vic slides the barrel of the gun through the glass. The brown hoodie man moves his hand towards Vic's shoulder, wanting to stop him, but stops short. Vic's fate is already sealed; Tim, Harvey, Lacy and Tina will spend the rest of their life without their father. He will never taste Gerties Yorkshire Pudding again.

  He takes a few steps back, Vic zeros in on the Countess. He hears the click of the trigger.

  Then the shockwave of the small charge the brown hoodie man had placed in the rifle barrel explodes, blowing out the clock face, Vic is thrown back. The sunlight now streaming in from where the clock face once was, it surrounds Vic as he lays there, his face bloodied, a deep laceration on the side of his neck he clutches at it, trying in vain to stop the blood flow.

  Vic looks up at the brown hoodie man, at first he has a look of shock. But as he sees the look of tormented guilt on his face, Vic's eyes narrow and he sneers.

  He's been betrayed.