"God," she said. "Oh my God."
Ian walked back towards her and let her take a closer look. She wasn't imagining it. It wasn't a trick of the light, either. It was so fast and complete that she started to doubt what she'd seen.
"There." He turned to walk off again. "You believe me now."
"We can't have done that. It can't happen." The more Dru blathered, the harder it got. None of the intelligent and necessary things she had to say could reach her mouth. Horrified confusion blocked their way while her shock got its questions in first. "Hey, you come back here."
Ian was about to disappear into the trees. She couldn't let him go now. If nothing else, she had to see him change again to really believe it. She trotted after him, falling further behind and with no idea where this was going to end, but she couldn't turn her back on this and pretend nothing had happened.
"Ian, wait," she called. "Ian? You can't hide forever. Talk to me."
Dru snapped twigs and pushed branches aside trying to catch up to him. Then she heard thudding coming up fast behind her. She didn't even have time to turn around.
Bang
. A weight cannoned into her, winding her, and she was instantly on her knees, face almost in the dirt, fighting for breath with a gloved hand clamped over her mouth and her arm twisted up her back.
I'm going to die. I should have known. He's got buddies.
She tried to pull free and scream, but she was pinned. She was past the point of thought: there were just wordless ideas, animal ones, just
hand
and
teeth
and
bite
. She sank her teeth into the glove as hard as she could.
But the guy hung on. Dru found herself curling up instinctively, torn between trying to gulp in air and sinking her teeth in harder, struggling and unable to scream. Then something else crashed into her and the guy suddenly let go with a loud
oof
as the breath was knocked out of him. She gulped in air.
It was Ian. He'd come back for her.
She scrambled to her feet to see him beating the crap out of the guy who'd jumped her, one hand raining punches while the other stabbed with a crowbar in a rapid staccato. It was fast and savage. The man – taller, broader – looked like he was fighting for his life. Ian reached out to pull off his helmet.
That was when the guy's hand went into his jacket, and Dru saw both the pistol and his shocked face.
The man in the hotel. The Chrysler guy. It's him
Perception was supposed to slow down at times like this. Now things were running too fast for her to take in. Ian grabbed the man's fist, pistol still in his grip, and twisted the wrist outwards without even breaking the rhythm of his punches. It was simultaneous, almost choreographed
,
as if Ian had rehearsed this all his life. Something black and oblong went flying from the gun into the undergrowth
Dru had never seen a real fight at close quarters. It didn't look at all like the cop show version. She'd always thought she'd pitch in and help, too, but by the time she'd worked out where she could land a blow – it was only seconds, she was sure of that – Ian threw the guy on the ground and started kicking him with the same oddly detached ferocity as he'd punched him. Damn, he was
fast
.
"Come on, move." Ian turned and grabbed her wrist. "I need your keys."
For the first time, she realised he'd changed back to himself. She ran and stumbled, dragged through the trees, dodging branches and with no idea where she was heading.
"How the hell did you
do
that?" She was panting already. "How can you fight like that?
Ian let go of her wrist for a moment. He had the pistol. She hadn't even seen him take it. He dismantled it as he ran, lobbing one part into the forest.
"I released the magazine. Glock. Easy." He hurled another part into the undergrowth and grabbed her arm again. "This is in case he's got a spare. I don't want it found on me."
"
Nobody's
that fast." It almost took her mind off his shape-shifting. "And you're a hell of a lot stronger than you look."
"I train.
Keys
. Come on." Ian now had the short crowbar in one hand. She hadn't seen where he'd stowed it. He would have made an amazing card sharp. "I'll drive."
Dru ran her guts out and stopped trying to work out how Ian functioned. Everything hurt. She wasn't fit, but her legs pumped regardless and refused to stop. Branches snagged her hair. The only thing in her mind right then was what people would think if they saw her like this. Was she covered in blood? Was Ian?
She could see the trail just ahead. Ian slowed down and looked back for a moment.
"Just walk now," he said. "Nice and calm. We don't want to look conspicuous."
Dru struggled to get her breath. She shook off Ian's hand and felt in her pocket for the key. "Where is he?"
"Not behind us. Come on."
People were coming out of the visitor centre and others were sitting in their cars. If the biker caught up, he couldn't do anything in front of witnesses.
Oh God, is he working for Weaver?
Ian took the key and helped her into the Sonic, then backed the car out of the parking bay and drove off as if nothing had happened. He only picked up speed when he was fifty yards down Forest Road.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
"I don't know." Dru was still bewildered by his strength and speed. "Are you?"
"I'm fine. Don't worry about me."
The next minute was the worst of her life and somehow the most intense. She wasn't dead. The world was clearer, sharper,
brighter
than it had ever been. And there was no biker behind them. She was sure that weird elation wouldn't last.
"Who's he working for?" Ian asked. "He's been following you every day."
"I wasn't followed."
Oh yes I was. I must have been.
It's got to be Weaver.
"Have you been spying on me?"
"That's rich, ma'am. It really is. There was a guy in a blue Chrysler minivan. Is he the biker?"
Dru could hardly think straight. "Yes, I think it's the same guy."
They were already at the entrance to the Braynes' house. It seemed to have taken seconds. Ian turned in and raced up the drive.
"Don't worry, the house is secure," he said. "It's the safest place to be."
Dru could see the front door of the farmhouse and a guy running across the turning circle out front, coming straight for the car. He skidded to a halt in their path and aimed a pistol two-handed right at the windscreen. It didn't take much lip-reading skill to pick out the word
stop
. Then he jerked the pistol upright and swore.
Fuck
was easy to lip-read, too.
Ian slammed on the brakes, stopped dead, and got out. Dru could hear him calming the man down.
"Sorry, Rob. We've got an armed guy after us. Biker. Okay? Sorry."
"Jesus Christ, Ian, I can't see past the bloody reflection on the windscreen. I could have blown your head off."
The guy looked furious. And he was English, with an accent Dru wouldn't forget in a hurry. So this was her mystery phone man. This was Rob.
He stalked around to the passenger door. "Get out and put your hands on the roof
, ma'am."
Her legs were shaking so much that it was harder to stand still than she thought. He patted her down while she tried to work out what was happening. Normally she would have been outraged by a strange man touching her, but she was just grateful that he hadn't shot her. She heard running footsteps.
"Everybody okay?" The guy who peered into her face was Mike Brayne. She recognised him. Everything was slotting into place now. "Get inside. Quick."
Rob grabbed Dru's arm and frog-marched her to a side door. "Move the car, Mike. Ian? Are you hurt? What the hell were you thinking?"
Dru couldn't make her legs obey. She almost tripped over the metal frame at the bottom of the door. Shock had set in. If Ian hadn't tackled the biker, she would have been lying injured or dead in the forest, and nobody would have known where she was. No job was worth that.
"He saved me," Dru snapped, suddenly offended. Maybe Rob really was Kinnery's bodyguard. He certainly looked like one. "That asshole out there has a gun."
"Yeah, and you led him here, didn't you, love?" Rob snapped back. "So until you prove otherwise, you're complicit in this. Got a lawyer?"
I'm trying to trace any surviving veterans who served with my great-grandfather. He was a helicopter pilot. I never knew him, but I wish I had. Where do I start? What information do I need to provide?
Ian Dunlop, in an initial letter to a Vietnam veteran
s' group found on the Internet.
CHALTON FARM, WESTERHAM
1630 HOURS, FRIDAY, 90 MINUTES AFTER THE ASSAULT.
It had been so long since Mike had yelled at anyone that he couldn't actually remember it.
There was no point in shouting at Ian anyway. Mike had understood how his mind worked since the day he and Rob walked into Dunlop Ranch and saw all those movies on the bookshelves, Maggie Dunlop's definitive illustrated guide to being a Proper Man. Proper Men threw themselves on grenades to save their buddies. Mike should have seen it coming. It was pure Ian. He'd almost warned Mike what he was planning.
And he left his GPS watch as a decoy. I didn't even know he was gone. How can I trust him now?`
Mike examined the Sonic in the garage, groping underneath for the tracker while Ian watched. The damn thing was definitely there. It was still transmitting.
"So she's seen you morph," Mike said. "You think the biker did, too?"
"He must have been following her. So yes."
"No sign of anyone else? No van?"
"I don't think so, sir."
"I'm still
Mike
, buddy. I'm not angry."
"You should be. I didn't see him. I should have."
"I know you did it for us, but you really have to stop and leave it to me now."
"It could have worked."
"Maybe. But we don't quit. We hang in there and we finish the job. And if you're going to work with us on contracts, you follow orders or you'll get us killed. You're suspended until you can show you me you can do that. Okay?"
Ian took it calmly. It was strictly commander to subordinate, not a dad grounding a son, a more dignified and adult sentence.
"Yes, Mike."
"Ian, it's not just KWA you have to worry about if you're exposed. You think you wouldn't be useful to anyone else? To another company or country? Most wars
are about economics and trade, one way and another. Maybe all of them."
It was hard to tell if Ian realised that. It was better to give him a good reason than to rely on obedience.
"Okay," Ian said. "Fine."
Mike still couldn't find the tracking unit. He slid underneath the vehicle, knocking flecks of dirt and grit into his eyes. It had to be accessible
; Rob had slapped it on the car in seconds. Ah, there it was. Mike felt something just under the rear bumper and pulled it off.
But it didn't look like the model he'd bought. He checked again and found his own tracking unit. Someone else was playing the same ga
me, then, probably the biker. Mike almost switched the thing off, but decided to leave it so that it looked like it hadn't been found. The guy on the bike hadn't been on the radar, and Mike still didn't know where the van fitted into this, even if Dru said the biker was the same guy who seemed to own it.
"Okay, she's telling the truth." Mike got to his feet and blew the road dirt off the device. "She didn't know he was tailing her."
Ian examined his right palm, flexing his fingers. "Yeah, she was really scared. She wasn't acting."
"Are you going to tell me exactly what happened?"
"It's like I said. I morphed into Tom in front of her and walked off to make her follow me here so that you could call the police. But this guy came out of nowhere and grabbed her. So I punched him, hit him with the crowbar, got his pistol off him, and we ran for it."
"Just like that."
"Yeah." Ian probably didn't want to sound like he was boasting. "That's about it."
"I need the detail. Help me work out who we're dealing with."
"Okay, I heard someone go down. That's why I turned around. I think he put his hand over her mouth so she wouldn't scream. There were people out walking, and screams carry." Ian had that defocused look of recall, gazing at the Sonic's hood, then shut his eyes for a moment as if he was trying to concentrate. "I don't know why he didn't just shoot her, but maybe he meant to kill her silently so that I didn't know he was right behind me. I dragged him off her and punched him to keep him busy while I tried to grab the Glock."
"
You realise how crazy that was?"
"It's okay, I released the magazine. Well, it was the way I grabbed it. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Don't worry. No fingerprints. I was wearing gloves. I broke it down and scattered the parts anyway." Ian shrugged, suddenly looking like an embarrassed kid. "That's about it."
His matter-of-fact delivery was oddly endearing. Mike wasn't surprised that he'd laid into the guy, but his calm analysis in a split-second crisis was almost breathtaking. If Ian had amazed Mike, he must have been a hell of a shock for an attacker who thought he'd targeted a woman and an average teenager.
"He could have killed you," Mike said.
"Then he'd have done it on the spot. I'm worth more alive. Anyway, I couldn't just stand there and do nothing, could I? I reacted. I was on automatic. Like you and Rob trained me to be."
How did Mike argue with that? Ian didn't panic and he didn't run. He took control of the situation and beat the bastard. This was the guy you'd want beside you on the b
attlefield. Mike tried to find the balance between telling Ian how proud he was and not encouraging him to take more insane risks.
"This guy either makes mistakes or he didn't want bodies." Mike patted Ian's shoulder. "But for what it's worth, that took serious guts. You were awesome. You're still suspended, though."
Ian nodded. He didn't look pleased with himself at all. He seemed to be working out how to do things better next time. "Sure. Sorry."
"And don't tell Rob you morphed into Tom. I'll handle that when everyone's calmed down."
"But you know why I did, yeah? She thought I was him. It got her attention."
"I know. But let's forget it for the meantime."
Mike hoped that had taken the sting out of it. He also hoped Dru was suitably grateful for Ian's intervention. That would put her in a more cooperative frame of mind.
This wasn't how Mike had planned it
, though. They now had a hostage they really didn't want. Rob was keeping an eye on Dru in the guest cottage, making sure she had no contact with Tom in case she mentioned Ian's morphing. She couldn't go back to the hotel while the biker was still unaccounted for, and Mike couldn't call the police until he was sure she was willing to stick to the script he was going to give her.
Every minute he del
ayed made it harder to explain why he hadn't called 911 right away. He was probably past the credibility threshold now. It had taken him half an hour to find the spot where Ian said the gunman had been. There wasn't a trace of him.
The good news was that Dru was now Mike's to command, whether she realised it or not. She couldn't go back to KWA after all this. She was a single mom with bills to pay, and he was a man who could pay an awful lot of bills. There was only one sensible way out for her.
"Go sit with Livvie and Tom while I talk to Dru," Mike said. "And you
will
stay put unless I call you. Understood? Or I'll handcuff you to the goddamn furniture."
Ian still looked worried. "Mike, have you ever
really lost? Has anything gone so wrong for you that you couldn't put it right?"
Ian's questions weren't usually rhetorical or oblique. If he asked, he wanted a factual answer.
Have I ever lost?
Mike knew life had dealt him every possible winning hand; vast privilege, loving parents, health, looks, intelligence, and the ideal woman he'd only needed to smile at to win over. He had few friends, but both of them had been there for him when his life was on the line. He hadn't been able to have the children he'd wanted, but at the bleakest moment of accepting it, he'd been handed someone else's kid to look after, a boy who needed everything that Mike was uniquely placed to provide. No, either he'd never lost, or he only recalled the upside of whatever happened to him. He wondered how he'd deal with failure. Perhaps he wouldn't even recognise it. Maybe he couldn't see that it had already happened, and Ian had been right about what was necessary.
"I think I have a deal with karma," Mike said. "I try hard not to be the asshole my money could have made of me. It's worked so far."
He felt as if he'd gone through the entire cycle of fatherhood in a few months, from bewilderment at encountering a stranger he had to get to know and look after, through pride at seeing him develop and learn, to struggling with the idea that Ian had a life to lead and a mind of his own to direct him. It was surprisingly painful. He took Ian downstairs to the den and gave Livvie her orders as quietly as he could. Oatie shadowed her like a nervous ghost, pressed close to her legs.
"Ian doesn't leave this room, okay?" Mike said. "If he wants to take a leak, you stand outside the door. I'm going down to the cottage. The alarms are on."
Livvie patted the pocket of her jeans, indicating the outline of her Glock. "Nobody gets in or out. Don't worry."
"I'm so sorry, honey." He put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. "Things are going to get back to normal, I promise. I'm going to see how hard I need to lean on Dru to shut her up."
"It's her word against Ian's."
"And the other guy's, unfortunately."
"But if Ian won't morph, who can prove he ever did? Tell Weaver he's made a very expensive mistake and sue his company back to a neighbourhood drugstore."
"For what? Assaulting one of his own employees?"
"This is blackmail. Either you face it down or turn it back on them."
Livvie could always cut to the chase. She was right; it was two-way blackmail. Mike reset the alarm as he left the house and jogged down to the cottage. The security light blinded him for a moment. Rob opened the front door to let him in.
"How is she?" Mike asked.
Rob shrugged. "Considering she's been shocked shitless twice in an hour and she can't work out if she's been kidnapped or given a bodyguard, I'd say she's okay. Her mouth's working just fine. Can we worry about the bigger problem, please? The fucker who's stalking all of us now."
"What's she saying, then?"
"Nuremberg defence. Only following orders. She didn't know anything about freaky experiments and doesn't want to go down with the ship. Anyway, I've taken her phones, so she bitched about that. But I think it's dawned on her that she's served her purpose for Weaver and she's now surplus to requirements. A liability, even."
"I found a second tracker on the Sonic. That's got to be his. I'd say she's well out of the loop now. I left it switched on, so as far as he's concerned, we haven't found it."
"But you don't kidnap someone on a bike," Rob said. "He's got to have mates on standby with that van. I'd want at least four to pull off a snatch like this, and a lot more observation time. Is Weaver on a budget or something?"
"Perhaps this guy was just doing recon when he saw Ian morph and decided to go for it. He's got to realise how much that's worth. And he thought he just had to deal with a woman and a kid. Nobody knows how tough Ian is."
"Yeah, but a pro would have slotted Dru
right away. It's easier and it makes the other target behave."
"I figured that. Maybe Weaver said no bodies. I'm going with Ian's theory that he thought he could snap Dru's neck and sneak up on Ian. Still risky, though."
"Maybe he's not Weaver's man. We haven't ruled out another company being involved."
"
Only KWA knew enough to follow the clues. No, it's got to be Weaver."
Rob kept looking at his watch. "Let's sort out Mrs Gobshite, then
, so we can call the cops if we need to. If the biker's still logging that GPS, slap it on my car and I'll tool around to see who shows up."
"Maybe he didn't actually notice Ian morphing. People have missed it plenty of times before."
"I'm not sure if that helps the situation, mate. Whoever this bugger's working for, he's probably already called it in. We could have a dozen more armed bastards out there now."
Mike had to deal with Dru first. She could put Weaver in a difficult enough spot to finish him off, and maybe that would be enough. "Okay, let me talk to her."
Rob opened the living room door. The floor-length vertical blinds were drawn. Dru sat huddled in the china-blue wing chair, clutching a mug with a plate of untouched cookies on the coffee table in front of her. Rob was thorough with detainees. Her bag lay on the sofa at the far end of the room along with her coat. She had to get past him to go to the bathroom, and nobody could see her from the outside. It all looked like tea and sympathy, but she was being held in isolation. Mike pulled up a chair to sit facing her while Rob leaned against the kitchen doorframe.
"I'm Mike Brayne," he said. "But you know that. May I call you Dru?"
"Sure, if I can call a lawyer. Or the police."