"Zombie, I've got eyes on the Sonic." He braced himself against a low branch and took out his NV scope. "Confirm one driver. She's just sitting there."
Rob watched for a few minutes. As far as he could see, Dru wasn't using any optics. She was just watching. He could see her profile.
"Vehicle approaching," Mike said. "Wait."
"Problem?"
"It's slowing ... it's stopped. Fifty, sixty yards west, to your right. Dark-coloured van."
"Seen it before?"
"It might be the same one. Chrysler, I think."
"Has it got line of sight with her?"
"Appears so."
"Can you save the image?"
"Not with this scope. I'll check the recording later."
Rob waited. He was tempted to see how close he could get to the car, but he had no idea what the van was doing. He was depending on Mike to call it.
"The van's not moving," Mike said. "Assume that's her backup."
Rob waited half an hour, completely still and remembering what a cold night patrol felt like. Then the door of the Sonic opened. He saw Dru clearly for the first time as she stepped out and walked around the car to stand on the verge looking back at the house.
Go on. Please. Be a good girl and cross over. Walk onto Mike's land. Then I can grab you and knock this shit on the head once and for all.
But she stayed put with her hands thrust into the pockets of her jacket. Then she walked down the road towards the entrance. Eventually she headed back to the car, sat inside for ten minutes, then started the engine and drove off towards town. Rob waited to see if the van followed.
"The Chrysler's backing up," Mike said. Rob could hear a distant engine. "Turning around in the entrance to the trail."
"So is that her backup or not?"
"I'd say yes. Come on in."
At least Rob had something active to worry about for the next hour or so. He checked the monitors with Mike, occasionally fending off visits from Ian.
"You'll be doing this for months," Ian said.
"KWA hasn't got months." Rob gauged their urgency by how fast they'd cracked on with this. They probably thought Ian was about to do a runner. "They'll make a move soon."
It was more hope than prediction. Rob was still no clearer about the Chrysler's role in this. Eventually they spotted the Sonic passing the drive again, heading in the direction of the hotel.
"There we go," Mike said. "Back on plan. We'll drop by the hotel just after eleven."
There were too many what-ifs for Rob to rule anything out. He could only assume the worst and roll back from there. When it was time to go, he let Mike do the driving for a change. Livvie put the house in lockdown and switched the lights off to let the Jag exit in total darkness.
"Assholes," Mike muttered. "This isn't fair on Livvie. It isn't fair on you, either."
"Come on, if Dru even reaches your front door, Livvie's going to be on her like a coked-up stoat. Your missus is nails. And armed."
"Sorry. I'm out of my operational comfort zone."
"What are you, a traffic warden? Christ, Zombie, we fucking shoot people."
"I mean doing this on home turf against civilians."
"Weaver's the one doing the doing. Not us. We're just bimbling out on patrol to invite Terry Taliban to take a pop at us. They were civvies too. Fuckers."
"But that's straightforward, and this is Machiavellian and Byzantine and all the doublethink I'm just not good at." Mike paused. "You realise you said Weaver, not Dru or Lloyd?"
Weaver. Yeah, that was who they were dealing with. Rob decided to keep him as the mental picture of the threat, not some little HR drone. "She's just the infantry."
"I know. It's a mental shift I should have made months ago. Maybe Weaver hasn't told her everything."
"She's here because she saw the mall video. Does Weaver believe it? Kinnery said he never knew Ian existed."
"Belief doesn't matter. He knows enough to work out what he might have lost by way of future profits, so it's worth pursuing just to rule it out."
"Zombie, don't mega-rich bastards have off-the-shelf solutions for this? Buy KWA, or whatever they call themselves now, and shut them down. Or have someone ruin Weaver's day."
"Threats need maintenance. They don't erase knowledge or suspicion. Sometimes the rich are as screwed as the rest of – " Mike glanced at Rob just as he almost said us. Rob could see his lips forming the shape. That was truly weird. "What makes the moneyed class different is that we can afford to run away or sue people back to the Stone Age. But neither case applies here."
At least he still had some rich brain cells firing, then. "If this Dru was a bloke," Rob said, "we'd just get him in a badly-lit alley and beat some sense into him."
"And then what? There's only one way to ensure permanent silence. And that comes back to bite you in the ass when they find the shallow grave."
"You're not digging it deep enough, then."
"Look, I'm not squeamish."
"You fucking are. You still want to be the good American."
"I'm a soldier, and so are you. Not an assassin."
"Well, I'm glad there's nice tidy line. Because every situation in combat's always crystal-clear, isn't it? No ambiguity at all, no sir." Rob wondered how the Braynes had ever made their money without bending the rules a bit. He struggled with the idea of people with that much power having to sit back and take this shit. "Has your dad ever had anyone done over?"
"Dad? Hell, no. My great-grandfather, and his father, though — possibly. I'm pretty sure they hired heavies."
"Seriously?"
"I'm not proud of it. You did ask."
"That's normal dispute resolution where I come from. Except the hiring bit. We do our own hand-crafted artisan violence."
"If I can do things by the book, I will."
"Yeah, but if it comes to a choice between compromising our people and hitting a girl, I'm not going to be a gentleman. There's no ROEs here, Zombie. If there are, we'll be the only ones playing by them."
"It needn't come to that."
"I just want you to know where I stand. I'm happy to break a few legs to save you the paperwork and embarrassment."
Rob added a second condition to his belief that you knew everything about a bloke if you fought alongside him. It wasn't until a man went up against a female enemy or a ten-year-old with a rifle that you understood where his taboos and non-negotiable lines lay. Rob knew where his were.
"I think we're going to have to tell Tom more than we intended," Mike said.
"Maybe we can do it without making Ian sound like the Hulk."
"We'll think of something."
"What a team, eh? Nazani looks like a piece of piss compared to this."
The Byway had an open car park that wasn't well lit except for the area right in front of the door. A few people were wandering in and out of the building as Mike drove slowly along the rows like he was looking for a space. Rob recognised the silver Chevrolet Sonic and checked the licence plate.
"That's hers."
Mike stopped right behind its rear bumper. Rob slid out, crouched as if he was checking under the Jag for a radiator leak, and stuck the magnetic unit under the Sonic in one quick movement. He was back in the passenger seat in a matter of seconds, wiping his hands.
"Now where's the Chrysler?"
Mike carried on crawling along. "Can't see anything similar." He pulled into a space near the exit. "Wait here."
He jumped out and jogged towards the hotel entrance. A few minutes later, he came back and drove off, shaking his head.
"What was that about?" Rob asked.
"It might have been dumb, but I asked at the desk if any of the guests had a van because I thought I'd hit its wing mirror earlier, etcetera etcetera. The clerk checked. Nothing. So if it's backup, they're staying somewhere else."
"Or they're local PIs. Your dad got the phone numbers checked, so can he call in a favour for licence plates if we get the van's?"
"That means involving more people. I want Dad kept clear of this until we've nailed Weaver."
Rob had never needed to question Mike's judgement in Nazani, and he had even less reason to question it here. Mike didn't just know the system. His family bloody owned it. But everything depended on whether Weaver would press the button that put Mike into survival mode. Rob wasn't sure he was willing to wait for that.
"How far are you prepared to go?" he asked.
Mike didn't even pause to think. "One step further than they are. Like you said, they probably don't have any rules of engagement."
"Yeah." Rob hoped he meant it. "Me too, mate."
CHALTON FARM, WESTERHAM
0630, NEXT DAY.
Ian's leather holdall was sitting under the console table in the hall when Mike got up.
He stared at it for a moment, unprepared for the sense of panic, loss, and failure. Didn't we make him feel safe? Can't he see that we're here for him? This was a test of his insistence that Ian had a right to make his own decisions. Suddenly he didn't feel so reasonable about it. He wanted to tell him to unpack that damn thing and not be so dumb, and by the way, was he crazy abandoning his one safe haven? Ian couldn't leave. He damn well couldn't. Why was he doing this now, when he always did as he was asked?
Just calm down. No histrionics. It'll only make him feel worse.
He found Ian in the kitchen, cleaning the espresso machine as if nothing had happened.
"I hope that bag doesn't mean what I think it does." Mike took a fresh can of coffee beans from the cupboard and snapped the seal, trying to sound seen-it-all and reassuring. "Because we made plans, you know."
Ian took a few moments to look up from the sink. "I think I should go away for a while. I can see the damage I'm doing."
"Ah, come on."
"Rob can't go back to work. You've put your adoption on hold. Now all this crap's on your doorstep. You can't leave the house without treating it like exiting the Green Zone."
"You've been rehearsing that, haven't you?"
"Mike, whatever you do, it's never going to end. It's always going to be this way. It's going to ruin your lives. Drop me off at the bus station when you collect Tom and I'll lie low somewhere."
"That's not going to solve anything." Poor kid: he was blaming himself, taking responsibility for the sins committed against him. Mike felt that protective anger kick in again. "Just keep your nerve and sit tight."
"Would you sit back while Rob bent himself out of shape protecting you?"
"That's not what's happening here, Ian."
"You've given me everything. You've given me the ability to survive on my own, too, and that's priceless."
Mike didn't want to get into the habit of pressing psychological buttons. Manipulation was what you did to strangers, and he couldn't do that to a kid who needed to be able to trust him. But he found himself grabbing for anything that would persuade Ian to stay.
"Well, unless you're planning to call Dru Lloyd and tell her you won't be here, she'll still be staking us out," he said. "And it's going to be hell on a bus the day before Thanksgiving."
"I'm sorry. I know I've hurt you."
"Hey, you're an adult. The whole point of ..." Mike balked at the word rescuing. That sounded like a debt. "The point is that I wanted you to have the freedom to make your own choices. Do you really want to leave?"
Ian was starting to look defensive, chin lowered. "Of course I don't."
"Then stay."
Mike judged that was a good time to stop. Dad had always let him make his own decisions even as a child, on the condition that he lived with the consequences and understood that he wouldn't get bailed out. It hadn't felt harsh at all. It had been a privilege, control over his own life and the adult respect of a father he adored. Mike had learned at the age of eight that if he blew his monthly allowance in one go and then decided that he didn't really want that pet rabbit after all, that Mom and Dad would simply ask him how he planned to take care of it. It had been a seminal lesson. He chose what he wanted very carefully after that. He also took good care of the rabbit.
Ian rubbed his eyes as if he'd just woken up. "Sorry. I must seem like an ungrateful asshole."
"Not at all. You've had a tough time. You think this'll be easier on us."
"Why are you so patient with me?"
Mike found it too hard to say because you're our boy, because we love you. It might have sounded like pressure. He diluted it. "Because you're a good person. A nice guy. Livvie and I are very fond of you. Now go put the bag away before Rob sees it, or we'll never hear the end of it."
Ian reassembled the coffee machine and disappeared. Mike heard the rasp of the leather bag as Ian lifted it off the tiles and went upstairs. The crisis had been averted.
I'll tell Livvie later, when Tom's here and everyone's distracted.
Tom was finally arriving this morning after months of on-off arrangements, and Mike didn't want to spoil the reunion for Rob. They'd swing by the hotel on the way to Odstock to check that Dru's car was where it appeared to be on the GPS log, confirm that it hadn't moved all night, and then get on with the holiday. Mike could cover this without Rob.
Persuading Rob to leave it to him wouldn't be easy, though. Mike found him found him sitting in the Mercedes in the garage, eyes glued to his phone as he watched the auto-tracking sending back data as a moving point on a map.
"Alien," Rob murmured.
"What is?"
"This. Like the movie. The bit where all you see is the monitor with one dot moving towards another dot in the air ducts, so you know the alien finds the bloke and rips his guts out." Rob looked up. "It's okay. She isn't slithering around the ventilation system."
"They claim that thing's accurate to within a few meters."
"Only one way to find out." Rob started the car. "You ready?"
Mike wondered if he should go and tell Livvie about Ian and warn her to keep an eye on him. No, Mike had to trust him. If he'd wanted to sneak out, he would have been gone before Mike got up. "Let's go."
Just after 0830, Rob turned into the Byways parking lot. Mike could see the Sonic, still in the same bay. There was also a dark blue Chrysler van in the next row.
"There you go." Rob nodded in its direction. "There might be another explanation, but I'm buggered if I can think of one."
Mike held his phone as if he was checking for a signal and took pictures of both vehicles with their plates as discreetly as he could. The Sonic was local and probably a rental, but the Chrysler had Massachusetts plates. Slapping the spare GPS unit on it would have been ideal, but there were people around and it was too risky in broad daylight. He didn't know if one of the people in the parking lot was the driver, either.
"Bugger." Rob made an annoyed puffing sound. "We could always come back tonight and tag it. Let's go."
Mike wondered what people thought when they had their car serviced and found a tracker stuck underneath. "I check under our vehicles daily. Especially after the trooper fixed Livvie's light."
"He was real, you know. I check too. Mainly for explosives."
"Damn, life's made us paranoid, hasn't it?"
"And we're still here to tell the tale."
They had forty minutes to kill at the airfield before the Gulfstream was due to land. Rob was still mesmerized by the GPS tracker, but he was drumming one heel on the ground as he sat studying the map, a sign of his impatience to see his son again. Twenty minutes later, he nudged Mike and showed him the phone. The GPS marker was now moving towards Westerham. Mike tapped the map to zoom in for a closer look. He wasn't sure how much to trust the accuracy with a moving vehicle, but the car didn't go to the lay-by as he expected. It turned off onto the scenic trail.
He texted Livvie an update. She'd keep the alarms on and the doors locked anyway. "Dru's decided to recon on foot, then."
"Take the car back and leave me here," Rob said. "One of us should be at the house all the time now. Tom and I can get a taxi."
&nbs
p; "No, we'll be home soon enough. They can't get into the house. Let's see what they do today."
Mike thought through the permutations. Livvie hadn't left the house since Dru had shown up, so Dru didn't know she was there. Dru hadn't seen Ian, either. If she'd spotted anyone, it was just himself and Rob. They'd be able to use that to their advantage somehow.
Somehow. We track her and see what shakes out.
But Tom was finally here. The jet landed and he came down the steps with a big grin on his face, looking more like Rob than ever. He was wearing an eye-watering orange mountain jacket that flapped open to reveal an equally searing blue lining. Rob scooped him up in a ferocious hug.
When Tom extricated himself, he stepped back for a moment to take his phone and record some footage of the jet, arm outstretched in that universal stance of someone grabbing a piece of posterity. He turned around, still grinning.
"Mike, that was just the most amazing trip ever," he said. "Thanks. I'm gobsmacked. You're the best."
Mike calculated the correct level of man-hug for an honorary uncle. "Can't have the heir to the Rennie empire traveling with the sweaty peasantry, can we? So, Rob, you want me to brief Tom? Or will you?"
"Yeah, I've got something to tell you, kiddo. I'll explain on the way. Mike's driving." Rob put Tom's bags in the trunk. "Christ, what's that jacket the regulation camo for? Mars?"
They were laughing and nudging each other like kids, and just a little tearful. As Mike drove off, he caught Tom's reflection in the rear-view mirror, looking expectantly at his dad. Mike wasn't sure how much Rob was going to tell him. But there'd be no disguising the fact that the house was on alert.
"I need to brief you as well, Dad," Tom said.
Rob looked over the back of his seat. "You go first."
"Okay. I've been dying to tell you for ages. This work placement." Tom took a breath. "I applied to GCHQ. I got the placement and a sponsorship for my final year."
"Say again, kiddo?"
"GCHQ. Cheltenham. You know. That's what I was doing this summer."
Oh God. Mike felt that awful trickling water sensation down his back. Rob said nothing.
"Are we talking about the same GCHQ I think you mean?" Mike asked. "Signals intelligence?"