Sleepers

“Sleepers”

a story as seen through the eyes of three people

by Jill Baggett

Mark is drawn to the window, he swaggers as he walks. His clothes fit in a tight though comfortable fashion. He swings, rather than puts his coat on. Hitches, adjusts the collar, shifts to his other foot and buttons the front, adjusts, pats to make sure all is neat and looks intently across the street to the woman standing under the dim street light wearing the red beret and shoes, his contact.

The street is in Vienna, beautiful, elegant Vienna. Mark is familiar with the city. He’s going to an important meeting here this morning. The World Powers need anonymity in their meetings and puppets. The city masks the sinister meeting about to take place.

Mark feels important, his role is important, he knows that. He doesn’t yet realize he’s expendable. Doesn’t yet realize that the years ‘they’ have spent grooming him for this night are expendable too. Others have been groomed, conditioned, taught and, although they don’t know it, are sleepers and could just as easily have been chosen for this night’s work in Vienna as Mark.

He rests his head against the window for a second as arranged. He turns and adjusts his collar, more from habit than neatness and feels to make sure the revolver is sitting neatly in its holster. It is. It reassures him. It surprises him to find he needs reassuring. Maybe a touch of the little boy from the Iowa corn farm is still there.

        Red wasn’t her choice of colour but it was the signal and she was bound to follow orders. Red beret, bad enough, red shoes … lucky this job pays well she thought.

She was pondering on what Mark probably thought was going to happen when he made his appearance at the window. The second floor was low enough for her to see his features. Balding head topped the angular face, nose pointing like an arrow to the pursed lips as he laid his head briefly against the window.

“He’s seen me, good,” she thought. She watched him fidgeting with his coat, adjusting the collar, patting the front down neatly. “I bet he’s made the bed,” she mused.

Mark turns from the window, fidgets with his coat and skirts the bed, made up tidily, as is normal for him and picks his keys up from the bedside table. It’s an old polished wood table, matches the wooden canopy over the bed, expensive décor, somehow typical of Old Vienna. The television flickers in the corner. He’d have liked to watch the midnight news but he can’t wait. He switches the set off as the riot scene of last night in Berlin reaches a climax.

The last image is of a policeman falling. If he’d looked closely the space left vacant by the fallen policeman’s body is filled by the woman in the red beret and shoes. Standing beside her is a tall man with a pencil moustache – Jed Blume, his neighbour.

“Whatever is he doing in Berlin with Sondra?” he’d have thought. “Why were they there last night?”

 He’d have expected she’d been in Vienna for at least a day waiting for his arrival, his important arrival. He is the key after all, but he didn’t see the couple, he’d flicked the switch and was placing the control on the walnut coffee table beside the empty ashtray.

She could see the flickering television set reflecting on the walls and felt an air of unease as she remembered the scene in Berlin earlier that night night. Hadn’t there been a TV cameraman just in front of her and Jed when that police officer fell on the pebbles thrown under his feet by the rioters? Rioters or protestors, she pondered, such a difference our minds attach to the perpetrators of demonstrations with the use of one of these two words. Is there something noble about protestors? Probably not, she decided, it’s just how the media perceives and reports that balances the decision. That night’s riot had been carefully planned by ‘them’ and ‘they’ were satisfied with the way she and Jed played their part. That was all that mattered.

“I feel like an old movie queen standing here,” she thought, “come on Mark, hurry up. What if he saw me with Jed?” she began to worry.

Relief washed over her for an instant as Mark walked into the Viennese night to greet her.

Jed Blume started the car and kept it idling slowly from his vantage point down the road. He clasped the wheel unconsciously harder when he thought of the events the night was programmed to unfold.

          He watched Mark’s confident swagger and moved his lips in a way that could almost be interpreted as a grin.

“They all think they’re number one, so important, poor devils,” he thought. He’d watched a lot of young men with self confident swaggers go to their deaths in the cause of democracy the way ‘they’ saw it.

An uneasy thought tried to surface. “What if … then … my turn,” but he squashed it before it had fully formed.

Mark crossed the road, dodging between the cars and ignoring the blare of horns aroused by his confidence in the drivers’ ability to miss him. His mind was focussed on Sondra. “An alluring woman,” he thought, “look at her standing there, who would guess her mission this morning?”

“Hello Sondra,” he greeted her, taking her arm, “hurry, where’s the car?”

“This way,” she noticed his immaculate, “prissy,” she thought, appearance, as she led him quickly to Jed and the idling black mercedes, tinted windows concealing the interior.

She opened the door quickly and slid into the front seat, leaving Mark no alternative but to sit in the back.

Mark had adjusted his coat collar and smoothed the front from habit before he looked at the driver. His mouth dropped open in astonishment. “Jed! What?” Then cold realisation washed over him.

 Of course, his neighbour had the perfect cover to watch him, friendly, unassuming Jed. What information could he have passed on? Mark’s brain scanned the preceding weeks like a computer. The trip to Berlin? No, he was sure Jed wouldn’t have known about that, unless he followed him. No, he was sure he’d followed the rules for detecting shadows. The contacts in Berlin had been satisfactory, more than. The demonstrations had gone to plan and resulted in this mornings’ gathering of The Powers.

The black mercedes had sped up and taken the exit road leading out of the city. Jed still hadn’t spoken, wasn’t going to, Mark thought, looking at the determined set of his chin.

“No,” Jed was telling himself, “don’t talk to him, it’ll make it easier.” He quite liked Mark, for all his irritating ways, “If our lives were normal we could have been buddies,” he grimaced wryly, “but there are more important things, like the implications of last night, control, power, for the right people, hopefully the right people,” he squashed the dangerous thought before it had time to develop. He could feel the revolver in its holster, resting firmly against his chest. “Don’t think, just do,” he told himself, “this is the moment all sleepers are trained for, your chance to make a difference, and there’s the money.”

“Take the next turn right, go down the road to the windmill and stop,” Sondra ordered, “we’ll meet the others there.”

“They didn’t tell me it would be someone I knew,” Mark tried to squash the uneasy sensation in his stomach. “Don’t get involved with anyone,” he’d known the rule. The pay had seemed good, great even, when all he had to do was wait for the call to perform. The training had been rigorous and he was able to resist the temptation to think or ponder on the tasks he was asked to perform. All he had to do was follow orders, set events in motion, without asking, or wanting to know, why. Trust the system, the leaders, and survive, survive and be wealthy. Of course one did pick up some very interesting bits of information along the way, but, so long as you kept them to yourself…

The windmill loomed up ahead, the gun felt suddenly leaden in his pocket. “I wonder what Jed’s been told we’re coming here for?” he mused. “Must think we’re going to a meeting from Sondra’s last comment.”

        Jed braked the car to a sudden halt.

       “Let me go in first, I’ll check they’ve arrived,” Sondra slid from her seat and walked swiftly to the windmill’s heavy door. She pulled it open without knocking and turned to wave to her comrades, “Auf wiederseh’n,” she called.

     “Auf wiederseh’n, that’s the signal!” Jed reached for his gun.

      “Auf wiederseh’n, this is it!” Mark reached for his gun.

       Sondra pushed switch on the remote control and the mercedes exploded in a great ball of flame. She watched for a few moments to make sure nothing was left before dialling the prearranged number on her cell phone.

      “The sleepers are sleeping,” she reported and sat down to wait for her pickup.

ends