"Well, can I get a message to Maggie?"
What do I say? People forget who they knew forty years ago. I can brazen this out. Worst case, it's mistaken identity.
"Do I write her, or what?"
"I can pass on a message." He wasn't giving anything away, not even his name. Maybe he didn't believe her. Maybe he shouldn't have been there himself, or perhaps Maggie had warned him to keep an eye out for nosey strangers. "You want to give me your contact details?"
This wasn't how it was supposed to pan out. Even pausing to think of a safe number to give him probably made him more suspicious. Dru rummaged in her purse to buy a few seconds' thinking time and wrote the number of her burner on a paper napkin.
"There." She handed it to him. "I'm going home tomorrow. So if she's available, I'd love to see her."
The guy looked at the number and nodded. "I'll see." It was definitely Dru's cue to go. "Where are you staying?"
"Spokane. Thanks for your help." She decided to risk asking about the Seattle number to see what reaction she got. "Actually, I did call a number from my aunt's address book that I thought might be Maggie's. But I got some British guy."
"I'll pass that on," he said, giving away absolutely nothing. She'd played her last card. "Safe journey."
Dru got back in the car. He'd probably check her cell number, which wouldn't tell him anything, but Maggie Dunlop would probably call Kinnery now – if Dru had connected the pieces correctly.
Damn. What did I say when that Brit answered the call? I didn't mention Maggie. I hadn't even thought up that lie then.
There was still the post office to try. She stopped in Athel Ridge and plucked up courage over a coffee, watching the rain pepper the diner window for half an hour. The town was a couple of bars, an agricultural supplies store, and a garage. More small stores stretched past the crossroads. Eventually, she couldn't spin the coffee out any longer, and got up to walk to the post office.
She really did intend to go in. She got to the doors, but the adrenaline ebbed away. This was a small community. If she grilled the USPS staff, the guy at the ranch would probably get to hear. A temporary tactical withdrawal was called for. The trip had been fruitless unless the man believed her and gave Maggie Dunlop the message.
Dru drove back to Spokane. She'd wait to see what shook out, but meanwhile she'd turn her attention back to Kinnery. Grant was still keeping tabs on him. Sooner or later, Kinnery – a guilty Kinnery, anyway – would slip up. Everyone did.
She already had, after all.
Here's the thing they never tell you about politics, Micko. There's no such thing as a government. There's a loose gathering of people in the shared business of running a country, but they're just trying to steer their small fiefdom. They're not even steering the same course, or for the same reasons. I don't just mean opposition politics or lobby groups. I'm talking about government departments and agencies too – intra-agency and inter-agency strife. What voters call a government is just a country within a country, in constant civil war with itself.
Leo Brayne, discussing governance with his son,
Thanksgiving 1998.
CHALTON FARM, WESTERHAM FALLS
AUGUST.
Beer, birds, BMW.
Ian stumbled up the slope, sagging under a rucksack packed with six 5lb plates while Rob ran alongside him, yelling and swearing. All he had to do was reach the top of the paddock.
Beer, birds, BMW.
His legs were jelly, but he'd get there if it killed him. He felt like it would. And he'd never been happier.
Phys, as Rob called any kind of fitness training, was now embedded in his routine.
Beer, birds, BMW.
Those were important, yes, but when he was training, his focus was on making himself more like Rob, not just physically but mentally. Rob could take anything. So could Mike, but Rob had made a religion out of it. Rob had so much confidence that it was almost luminous.
"Come on, you slack bugger. Get a fucking move on." Rob yelled right in his ear, point blank and painful. "Move, move, move, move,
move
!"
Ian almost fell a few times, but momentum kept him upright. He was only yards from his goal. The last obstacle was a frame made from a ladder of logs that he had to run up before jumping from the platform at the top. He launched himself off the first log and almost made the second before slipped and hit one of the verticals as he fell, crashing onto the grass.
It was no great height, but it shook him. Now he couldn't stand up. His rucksack was too heavy. He struggled like a beetle on its back, unable to make his legs obey. Rob reached down to pull him up.
Ian batted his hand away, humiliated. "I can do it."
"Come on. That's what your mates are for."
Rob helped him roll onto all fours and scramble to his feet. He staggered the last few yards and fell against the fence, gasping for breath and hurting everywhere. He'd done it. That was all that mattered.
"Get your Bergen off." Rob lifted the weight of the rucksack. "This is what we brain surgeons call
blood
. Let's have a look."
Ian took a moment to work out what Rob meant. His right sleeve was wet with blood, ripped to the elbow. It was just part of the general pain of exertion, nothing specific yet. Rob peeled back the sleeve and pulled a worried face.
"Normally I'd say it's only pain, mate, but you're a bit complicated, medically speaking. Are your tetanus shots up to date?"
"Kinnery did them when he visited," Ian said. The wound had started to throb but it couldn't be as bad as it looked. "I used to cut myself all the time working on the ranch. It's not serious."
Rob began walking back to the house. "Come on. Better safe than sorry. Is Kinnery licensed to do doctor stuff, then? Well, if he isn't, it's the least of his problems."
"I never asked. Look, I'm okay. Really."
"Let's not push our luck, eh?"
"But I finished, didn't I?"
"You did. Good effort, mate."
Rob took him into the workshop washroom to clean the cut. It was a two-inch rip in the skin, just above the elbow and deep enough to make Ian feel queasy as he watched the blood well out. He didn't dare look away in case Rob thought he was a wimp. Rob had dealt with open abdominal wounds. If he could face that, then Ian had no excuse for being squeamish about a goddamn scratch.
Mike stuck his head around the open door. He must have seen them heading back. "What's wrong?"
"He fell off one of the obstacles. Caught himself on a bolt or something." Rob squirted some gel down the line of the cut. "Make yourself useful, Zombie. Hold the skin together while I tape it, will you?"
"For Chrissakes, Rob. You
kno
w we've got to be careful with him."
Ian tried to keep the peace. "Mike, it's not serious. I used to snag myself on wire fences all the time on the ranch."
Rob stuck small butterfly sutures along the cut, then covered them with a big strip of waterproof dressing. It was like being mummified a limb at a time.
"We'll keep an eye on it, and if it doesn't look like it's healing normally, we'll have a rethink, okay?" Rob held up a tube from the first aid kit. He looked like he was going to ram it up Mike's nose. "Antiseptics. Antibiotic gel. My first aid genius. And Ian says he's up to date on his tetanus. Sorted."
Mike sucked in a breath. "Ian, we've got a personal physician who makes house calls. He's very discreet. There won't be any tests that you don't want."
"I don't need a doctor," Ian said. "Thanks, but I'm okay."
"Okay, then take it easy for the rest of the day." Mike made it sound like an order, and judging by the look he shot Rob, it applied to him too. "You'll heal faster. Now go clean up."
Ian took a shower, holding his taped elbow out of the water as far as he could. Cuts and bruises were minor scrapes compared to his dented pride. Mike and Rob probably took far worse injuries without stopping, and so would he.
When he checked his face in the mirror, there was no change at all. Adrenaline didn't make him morph every time, then. Okay, it had been worth it. He'd learned something.
Mike and Rob were having an intense conversation in the kitchen when he went downstairs. It sounded close to an argument, and they stopped talking as soon as he walked in. Ian looked from face to face.
"Sorry, mate." Rob's arms were folded across his chest. It was hard to tell if his tight-lipped expression was annoyance or embarrassment. "I'm just getting a bollocking from the boss. He does it so I don't miss the good old days."
Ian couldn't imagine anyone trying to bust Rob's balls, especially not Mike. But the two of them were definitely looking a little tense. Mike carried on as if nothing had happened.
"How are you feeling now?" he asked.
"I'm fine. Really."
"We're going to Porton to pick up something for Rob. Do you want to come? It's time we got you your own laptop."
That wasn't enough to divert Ian. He needed to clear the air first. "Can I say something?"
"Anything you like, buddy."
"Don't blame Rob. I'd do the training even if he wasn't standing over me. I need to know if I could have been good enough."
Mike nodded a few times, chin lowered. "Sorry. I'm being a soccer mom. I haven't been through the parental learning curve of skinned knees like Rob has."
"I'm not handicapped, Mike. Just different. I probably heal faster than you older guys."
Rob chuckled to himself. "There you go, Granddad. You've been told to wind your neck in." He winked at Ian as he walked out, slapping a car key fob against his palm. "See you outside."
Mike waylaid Ian to check that the dressing was firmly in place. Even Gran hadn't been this anxious about accidents when he was little.
"I'm fine," Ian repeated.
Mike did his awkward shrug. "Sorry. Rob's a natural dad and I'm not. He says that kids have to be allowed to take risks. I'll butt out."
"I'm eighteen." Ian said it to make Mike feel better, but he realised it sounded like he was telling him not to be such a nag. "I used to handle sheep. Rams can get cranky and kill you."
"I just don't want anything happening to you on my watch. Not after the start you've had in life."
When Mike and Rob had shown up at the ranch, Ian hadn't known if he was handing himself over to the good guys or his worst nightmare. But Mike had turned out to be the generous, honest, eccentric guy that Rob had said he was. Rob had once taken a chance, just like Ian: he hadn't known that it was worth risking his life for Mike. They were just two strangers who decided to trust each other. Gran had warned Ian what a cruel, selfish, conspiracy-ridden place the outside world was, but she was another honourable stranger who'd taken him in because she felt it was right. Maybe she didn't see that as anything exceptional, any more than Rob thought he'd been a hero for saving Mike. And now Mike and Livvie had taken Ian in without question, just like Gran.
I haven't had a bad start in life at all. I've been lucky every time. Everyone's gone out of their way to keep me safe. Even Kinnery.
If there was a message from fate in there, Ian was happy to take it. He sat in the passenger seat of the Mercedes, wishing again that Gran had still been here to see that things were working out for the best after all, and wondered if he'd have the nerve to access the Internet on this promised laptop after all her warnings.
The mall at Porton was still a confusing assault course of noise and mirrors, but Ian found he was more adept at filtering out the clutter with each visit. He was starting to like the place.
Beer, birds, BMW.
There were plenty of girls around, but if he didn't learn to control his morphing, then they'd never be anything more than distant visions that he'd never be able to talk to, let alone touch. He had to learn other skills. He was starting to pick those up from Rob.
He watched while Rob tried on a jacket in a clothes store. He was a fit, muscular guy and he must have known that women checked him out, or else he wouldn't have worn those tight T
-shirts. The two girls at the cashier's desk kept taking sneaky looks. When he went to pay, they were all giggly with him, and he gave them a big smile, chatting effortlessly. He made it look easy. Maybe it was when you'd been around like Rob had.
There was clearly a different set of rules for married men, though. Mike didn't join in. He rolled his eyes at Rob as they left the store. "You're such a skank, Rennie. You only come here to flaunt your pecs."
"Shall I ask them to guess my inside leg measurement too?"
"Ignore him, Ian." Mike obviously found it funny. "He's a disgraceful role model."
Ian trailed them around the computer store, longing to sit down and rest his arm on something, and tried not to show how much it hurt. It was, as Rob said, only pain. He nodded acceptance of the first laptop that Mike selected for him, bewildered by the choice, and realised again that he wasn't worrying about being conspicuous. It was still a novelty. One day he'd stop morphing, take it for granted, and all things would be possible.
Beer, birds, BMW.
But not an Army career.
The thought still left him hollow with disappointment, but he had choices for the first time, even if he couldn't imagine them yet. He tried his first cup of green tea at an oriental snack bar while Mike bought a box of fortune cookies for Livvie. The tea tasted of grass and seaweed. Ian didn't like it. But it was a novelty, and any new experience was worth having.
Rob sat checking his phone. He was always waiting for messages from his son. Whatever he was reading wasn't good news, though, and he clicked his teeth in annoyance.
"Something wrong?" Mike asked.
"Tom can't make it until later this year," Rob said. "He's working for the rest of the summer. I'll have go back and see him during term time."
Mike nodded. "Sure. Let me know when you need the jet."
Rob just smiled to himself without actually looking happy and spun the phone around on the table like a party game. He was still fidgeting with the phone when it rang.
"Hello?" He didn't seem to know who it was for a moment. "Yes, Joe, this is Rob ... yeah, sorry, we got him a new phone to stop someone pestering him ... oh Christ, really?"
Rob went quiet, just listening with a defocused look while Mike stared at him. There was only one Joe it could be. Ian's first thought was that the ranch had burned down or something, but Rob felt in his pocket for a pen and wrote some numbers on a napkin. Then he thanked Joe and rang off.
Mike stared at him, head tilted as if he was asking for an explanation. "That doesn't sound good."
"Some woman called at the ranch claiming her aunt was Maggie's old college friend," Rob said. "She knew Ian's name. She didn't seem to know that Maggie had passed on, though. I'm betting that's Mrs Wrong Number from Lansing."
Mike's face fell. "How the hell did that leak? Kinnery?"
Ian felt instantly sick. He needed to focus: he had to stop himself from morphing. He concentrated on his breathing like Livvie had taught him, staring at the detail of pores on the back of his hand to shut out all other thoughts.
It seemed to work. There was no windburn or tightening sensation, and Rob didn't react when he looked at him.
"Don't worry, Joe kept his mouth shut," Rob said. "She called him Ian and he just said it wasn't his name. But she left him with a name and number to pass on."
He held up the napkin with the details written on it. Mike looked at it and shook his head, eyebrows raised.
"Drew Wilson. Description?"