Hurricane Heart

Arjan

Hours passed and, just the same as yesterday, we seemed to drive endlessly. The sun climbed higher, and the clock on the car’s dashboard ticked away the hours, but nothing much happened. During the morning, we crossed into Poland, and we carried on driving through there, still on the highway; still travelling to some unknown destination.

As the clock reached three pm, I started wondering, perhaps to while away the time as much as anything, whether even Hurricane knew where she was going. It seemed doubtful. Although she had been talking on the phone yesterday about heading to Warsaw, I had reason to believe otherwise. We had stopped following signs for Warsaw after midday, and didn’t seem to be following anything in particular.

The screaming music had also started up again sometime around mid morning, though this time it was much quieter so as not to be heard by other drivers in the vicinity.

Eventually, after hours of boredom and general frustration, I plucked up the courage to pose my enquiry. What was the worst that could happen?

‘Hurricane?’ I said, not liking calling her by this pretend name, but not really having any other way to get her attention.

‘Yes?’ I could detect no emotion or particular mood in her voice.

‘Where are we going? We’ve been driving for two days now, and we just seem to keep heading across Europe. Yesterday, you said on the phone—‘

‘Ignore everything I said on the phone,’ she said abruptly. ‘Things have changed since then. We had to rethink the plan.’

Well, this proved that there was such thing as ‘a plan;’ I just didn’t have any idea what it was.
She didn’t seem about to answer my original question, so I asked it again.

‘So, where are we going?’

Sitting behind her, I saw her shoulders shrug. ‘I don’t know.’

Why had I even started up the conversation? Stupid mistake. This was only frustrating me even more.

‘You don’t know?’ I repeated, my voice rising a little louder. ‘So what; you’ve kidnapped me so that you can drive us aimlessly across Europe?’

I thought I heard her smirk, but it was hard to tell over the music; it might have been any general sound. Smirking was not something that Hurricane seemed to do often.

‘You’ve pretty much got it, Arjan.’ She still sounded downbeat and cold, even though I’d finally got her into a conversation.

I wasn’t having it. Whilst Hurricane was evidently enjoying my antagonism, I most definitely was not.

‘Where are you taking me?’ I demanded.

Without warning, she skidded across the lanes over to the hard shoulder, and braked heavily until we stopped. Snapping off her seatbelt, she rounded on me, her long hair flying over the back seat, her eyes bleeding evil.

‘Don’t talk to me like that!’ she threatened. ‘You don’t know anything.’ Suddenly, I was afraid. She was strong. She had a gun.

‘I just don’t get it,’ I mumbled in a small voice. ‘You’re just driving me from country to country; down highways and whatever. Where are we going? What do you want with me?’

‘That’s an improvement,’ she snapped, turning to face the direction of the steering wheel. ‘A bit of respect.’ Still, she didn’t answer me. I’d probably blown my chances with her once and for all. I didn’t dare ask again, and she didn’t plan on elaborating.

Another full hour of silence passed. The screaming album finished, and a new one started. It sounded much the same as the previous one, though I personally preferred this new one.

Wow, I was not only listening to, but showing preferences in screaming ‘music.’ What was I turning into?

Hurricane

I could still sense them following me. They were in the forest, so close by. They had caught up, though I had no idea how. I just had to dearly hope that Carl had phoned Warsaw, and that they were going to dispatch a few of their workers to come and deal with the situation.

The boredom was killing me, and I could sense that it was doing much the same to Arjan. The Master had described this mission as ‘exciting,’ but so far all I’d done was drive along the highway through Germany and into Poland. This wasn’t what I would personally consider exciting.

Maybe it would pick up. There was no final destination, but there would come a point where we’d have to leave the safety of the highway and the cities, and venture into comparatively unknown territories.

I realised also that we were going to have to find a place to stay tonight. I was getting tired, and I needed to sleep. The car wasn’t safe enough, even if Arjan was tied up. And it wasn’t just prisoners escaping that I was worried about. I was also just as worried about them getting in...

I was far too proud to admit defeat and phone Carl—he’d never let me hear the end of it, so instead I continued until there was a turn-off into the city of Olsztyn and drove down that route, into the comparative safety of tall, solid, populated buildings.

And then I remembered: I’d followed the Soulless into Hamburg. They weren’t afraid of the cities, not when they were in numbers like they travelled in these days. Once upon a time, they stuck to undeveloped country, but they were growing in workers, and it was only a matter of time. Now, they scoured the underground and patrolled the cities almost as they pleased. Although the government liked them a lot more than they liked us, they weren’t allowed to become too public, but they did the best they could.

Even so, I felt a little safer in the city. Now, the question was simply where to stay for the night.

A hotel? That would mean I would have to hide my gun and let Arjan loose. It was not something I was happy about.

I had to think about it. Olsztyn...there had to be some of our lot round here somewhere.

And then I remembered. After World War Three, the city of Olsztyn had some brilliant underground tunnels. I had been here once or twice before on missions not so different to this—travelling, hiding, staying unseen. We could hide down there. I even knew an entrance.

I drove off through the city as the day began to turn into night. Twilight was a deep and dusty blue, lit a murky orange by the countless streetlights and car headlights. I parked the car down a small, deserted side road, not so far from the subway I was looking for.

‘Come on,’ I ordered Arjan, getting out and dragging him with me. He groaned, but got himself out so as not to have to be pulled around by force. I opened the boot briefly and swung my large black bag onto my shoulder.

‘What will you do if I untie your hands?’ I asked.

He made an unimpressed grunting sort of sound. ‘What do you think I’m going to do?’

I pulled the rope roughly from around his wrists anyway, making sure that, whilst he was still looking, my hand oh so casually brushed the butt of my gun. It may only be a stun gun, but it wouldn’t be the first time...

I gripped his wrist, making it look so much more innocent to anyone who happened to see us than it actually was.

‘Where are we going?’ Arjan asked.

I gave him a look. ‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’

Thankfully, this side of town was fairly deserted. It was hardly the centre of the city after all. We kept into the shadows of the darkened side road for as long as possible, yet at the same time I was almost glad to get out into the open. I continuously looked around, scouring every inch of the road for any possible onlookers. At this stage, everyone who laid eyes on me could potentially be a traitor.

We crossed the road at a run, me dragging Arjan by the arm, until we got to the pavement on the far side. A slightly squashed Coke can rolled towards me across the cracked paving stones. Nothing had changed since I’d been here last. Well, apart from the graffiti. That had of course been washed away the instant the morning sun hit it and the authorities got word of its existence. Nevertheless, it must have given some silly goody-two-shoes a bit of a fright, and that alone made the risk completely worth it.

We rounded the now graffiti-free brick building as I continued to glance behind us every few steps. It didn’t take a genius to notice that I was either paranoid or terrified.

‘What are you looking for?’ Arjan asked. He sounded almost concerned; as though he’d felt comparatively safe with me compared to what would have kidnapped him otherwise. After all, I had no idea what those Soulless were going to do to him, but I didn’t expect it to be pretty.

‘Just checking that no one’s following us,’ I murmured. There were no streetlamps down this road. A car drove past, its headlights briefly illuminating us and the bricks we stood in front of, before grumbling past and carrying on its free, easy journey.

I couldn’t help but worry what could potentially happen to the car overnight, but that was far from the most important thing. As long as they didn’t know where we were, it didn’t really matter. If need be, we could wait a day or so until someone came along from Warsaw or Minsk to help us out and give us a lift.

We made it safely to the entrance to the subway. I looked down at the concrete steps leading into almost total darkness. Few people used this subway as far as I was aware—it didn’t really lead anywhere much, and there were many quicker ways of getting to the underground train station.

‘Stay there,’ I ordered, placing Arjan’s hand on the chipped, peeling railing that ran alongside the steps, as though that alone would stop him from going anywhere. As fast as possible, I ran round the immediate vicinity, checking and double checking down every side road. I got out my torch and shone it back down the road we’d just come from. I could see nothing and no signs of life, but for a couple of empty sandwich wrappers and crisp packets, plus a loose sheet of newspaper wafting towards us, dancing through the dirt as it drifted on the breeze. I caught it in one hand, not really caring where it had been. It was always important to stay up to date with the news. Sometimes, it was life-saving.

Unfortunately, though, my Polish was limited. I could make out a few simpler words—names of government figures; names of places, and dates; I just didn’t strictly know what had gone on there. Nevertheless, there were certain words that I had learnt in every European language, just in case. Amongst others, one was rebel. One was terrorist. And another was dream.

‘You don’t read Polish, do you?’ I asked, passing the dirty newspaper sheet to Arjan. It was a front page, and the date confirmed that it was only yesterday’s, therefore it could potentially be hugely useful.

Arjan smirked humourlessly. ‘I’m Dutch. I studied in Germany. Do you think I’d know Polish?’

He was getting far too confident for my liking, and I most certainly had to sort it out. I wasn’t here to be messed about.

‘No need to get like that,’ I muttered, saying it like we were an old married couple having a disagreement about something insignificant compared to what I was doing.

‘Come on,’ I ordered, grabbing him by the wrist and leading him down the stairs. For once, he didn’t moan and he didn’t try to pull away.

The sky above was long since devoid of light, growing a deeper blue by the minute, and the shadows were long and thick. Thankfully, though, I was still confident that there was no one around. The rest was down to luck.

The subway was dark. There were lights in the entrance, but eventually their reach faded into the blackness that lay beyond.

I felt Arjan tense up beside me. ‘What’s down here?’ he murmured.

‘Nothing much,’ I said. I’d faced much worse than the dark. What was the worst that could be down here? A drunken homeless man? I reckoned I could take them if it came to it.

I still took out the torch, mostly so I didn’t end up walking into any walls. Shining it into the tunnel revealed that there was nothing to fear but the unknown, so I proceeded.

It wasn’t too hard to remember where to go, as there weren’t a lot of choices. I went straight on until there was a turning on the right, so I took that, and walked down there until we got to the ‘dead end.’ Of course, at the dead end was a door, supposedly locked, and supposedly leading into a store cupboard. In fact, it was none of these.

The area inside the 'cupboard' was hardly big, and it was about as far from the hotel room I’d like to be in as possible, but it was safe, and that was better than nothing.