By the time Rob had moved his stuff and had a meal, it was still only 1900 hours. He went looking for Mike and found him sitting in the security room with the doors slightly ajar, watching the monitors. Rob pulled a chair into the small room and sat next to him. Neither of them said a word for nearly an hour. There was occasional traffic, but it was a quiet night even by Westerham standards.
"Bike," Rob said, pointing. "Second time."
"Can't tell if it's the same one." Mike stretched and yawned. "Might just be a return journey."
It was a long half hour before anything else happened. "Van," Rob said.
"Have we seen that before?" Mike swivelled his chair and bent down to check a recording. "Yes. An hour ago."
There was still nothing that warranted immediate attention. Eventually Mike leaned forward and pointed at the feed from the cameras facing the lay-by.
"She's back," he said. The infrared image of the car was clear, but they couldn't see the driver. "I'm going to take a closer look."
Rob got up. "No, I'll do it."
Dru wouldn't keep coming back at night if she was confident doing a recce in daylight. But maybe she had some NV kit they didn't know about.
"Okay, but you're just going to ID her, right?"
"Come on, I know what I'm doing, mate."
Mike looked sheepish. "Sorry."
Rob realised he'd snapped at him. He was back in Afghanistan for a few inexplicable moments, choked with frustration because he could
see
some bastards were up to no good, but he had to wait for permission from up the line to engage them.
Fuck that.
He was never going to let himself be put in that position again.
"Look, we've already got loads of images, plus Andrews to back us up," Rob said. "We could call Maine's finest right now."
"No, I need her to do something that looks more threatening than just parking outside," Mike said. "Okay, stay on the radio. I'll warn Livvie and get up on the roof."
Mike was talking sense. Rob knew it. He made an effort to get his head back in the right place while he kitted up in the utility room. Everything he needed for a night op was in Mike's impressive store at the back of the garage: night vision kit, infrared imaging, camouflage, and radios. He adjusted his earpiece under his wool cap, amused for a moment that the place was so big that he might be out of range at the boundary. If Dru saw him dressed like this, she'd shit a brick.
"Lights," he said. "Give me five minutes."
Mike had to temporarily disable the sensors around the house so that the lights weren't triggered. Rob moved between cover, assuming that whoever was out there might be at least as well equipped as he was.
"In position." Mike's voice was suddenly in his ear. "Glad I wore my thermal lingerie."
He'd reached the roof faster than Rob expected. It was just as well there weren't neighbours overlooking the property. The sight of a bloke perched up there with a sniper scope would have been a bit worrying.
"She's still there, yeah?"
"Confirmed."
Rob skirted the lawns to the west of the house and headed into the trees, working himself from trunk to trunk and eventually along the wire that separated Mike's land from the neighbouring forest. It was the only clear demarcation of Mike's land, and it wouldn't have deterred a one-legged granny with arthritis. Rob stepped across it. He ended up near the road, looking back towards the lay-by.
"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?