Dreamspinner Press Year Four Greatest Hits

by Felicia Watson

  “He’s okay, he’s not a problem now. Someone will send instructions for him, I expect. But there’s still someone out there, the one who was to blame for the shooting.”

  Junk raised an eyebrow. “Maybe. Reckon I’m better off relyin’ on Dylan’s instincts, myself.”

  I smiled. “The dog? I’m not sure he can track someone who’s long gone.”

  I didn’t understand Junk’s grimace, but he stretched and yawned and the moment passed. “So you got this someone on their way? You gonna be leavin’ with ’em?”

  It had been a mild enough comment, but I looked up at him quickly. “That’s not on my ‘to do’ list. You after my trailer? Because it’ll cost you.”

  He laughed even more loudly, and Dylan twisted his head around to gaze at him. “This piece o’ shit? I wouldn’t let Dylan sleep in here, let alone any fuckin’ human. You only got it ’cause no one else would touch the repairs. And I get the hint, no discussion about your strangely official-looking friends.” He turned towards the door. “You sure you’ll be okay with Mr. Charm? You can trust him?”

  The description of Niall made me smile, albeit wearily. “Whatever I think about Niall, there’s no one I’d trust more than him if I were in danger. No one I’d rather have on my side.”

  Junk raised an eyebrow. “Can’t make you out, Mac. You’re full o’ mixed messages. Despite you sayin’ that, it seems you’re not sure. If he’s on your side, that is.”

  Before I could even think up a reply, he moved away, clicking his fingers for Dylan to follow. He nodded very slightly to Niall as he passed, and the door squeaked shut behind him.

  Tuesday 20.35

  THE REST of the day was a bit of a blur. The painkillers seemed to have been mixed for a patient the size of a small bush elephant, thus knocking me out of action for most of the afternoon. I was conscious of Niall moving around the trailer, and at one point there was the smell of food. But it only made me nauseous again, and I let myself drift back to sleep. Voices were only murmurs in the back of my semi-conscious mind. Then, finally, I wakened properly.

  The light in the room was dim. I peered over at my watch on the table. Someone had obviously taken it off my wrist when they sewed and bandaged me up. I was startled to see it was already late.

  Niall sat across from the couch, cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by his precious papers. He’d shucked off his shoes and socks and had changed into a thin white undershirt over his jeans. For a second or twelve, I watched how the muscles tightened across his shoulders, how the ends of his dark hair teased at the exposed nape of his neck.

  “Hey?” My throat was dry but my voice sounded stronger than before. He looked up at the sound of it, and his expression was completely unguarded. Maybe that was the same for both of us. I sank swiftly—surprisingly! —into the concern I saw in his eyes. Then he got up, slowly straightening as if he’d kept that position for some hours, and came over to the couch. His hand brushed quickly but efficiently across my brow.

  “Your temperature has gone down a little. You’ve been pretty feverish. The wound seems better too.”

  “You dressed it again?” I looked down at my arm, a little groggily. The bandages were clean and unstained, and rather better wrapped than Hans’ earlier efforts. I was also wearing an old blue tee shirt I’d forgotten I had. Niall had presumably grabbed the first thing in a drawer, just to cover me up with some extra warmth. Maybe it was the effect of the drugs, or the shock, or God knows what, but it felt good to think of his hands on me again, on my skin, working on me. Albeit for medical reasons.

  Get a life, MacKay. Get a new life.

  I heard Niall say “I’ll get you some water,” and I nodded dumbly.

  “SO WHAT have you found?” I was propped a little more comfortably now on the couch—Niall was far more efficient with the cushions than Junk had ever been—and was toying with the idea of getting up and moving around some more. Didn’t know how Doctor Sutherland would feel about that. He’d already helped me hobble to the toilet, and I’d been impressed with the way I showed off my recovery, like I managed not to fall down more than once, and I tried hard not to wince at the stiffness in my limbs. But I needed to change my sweats, and I needed something filled with more caffeine than water, and I needed—

  Anyway. At least my brain felt back on the right track.

  Niall was sitting back on the floor, although he’d shifted around to face me. The papers were in neat piles, and he had a transcript opened up on his lap. “Brad seems to have found a hacker in our e-mail system. Some confidential memos had been diverted to another e-mail address. It bypasses the normal security prompts, though fairly clumsily. Depending on how long this tag was in place, they would have had access to everything we planned.” He twisted the paper as if it might make more sense the other way up. The gesture made me smile. It was so very unlike the precise Niall I worked with.

  Had worked with.

  “But it’s unintelligible.” He frowned. “A numeric address, with no obvious key.” It obviously frustrated the hell out of him, not being able to find a solution on his own. “This isn’t my area, computer investigation. Maybe the address is purely random, but I hoped it might have a clue as to the perpetrator.”

  “Human nature doesn’t like random,” I said, matter-of-factly. “People can’t resist setting up addresses that reflect something about them personally, even if it’s a code. In reality, the most secure passwords are those based on whatever happens to be on your desk that day. Think up anything more easily memorable than that, and you start to let yourself slip. But that’s what people do.”

  “They fear not remembering at all?”

  I nodded. He was watching my face, and the leap of pleasure in my chest at sharing things with him again was disturbing. “Pass it over here,” I said. “We can try it out on my warped mind, right? It’s the sort of puzzle that’ll help to while away my injured hours.”

  He looked unconvinced, or maybe he was too possessive of this whole thing.

  “Niall.” I very carefully kept the emotion from my voice. “Neither of us wanted this to happen, did we? Neither of us feels comfortable, thrown together like this. Fuck it, neither of us wanted to see the other again this side of Armageddon. But you’re here now, and we’re in danger, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that we can work well together if we put all the personal crap aside.” I saw him shift uncomfortably, but I hurried on before I lost my nerve. “Don’t have any other choice, do we, until we can get in touch with someone to bail us out. Look, I know I’ve been the worse culprit, always prodding, always angry with you.” Call me childish, I deserve it. “But like you said before, this is too important to be hampered by my resentful shit.”

  He took a very deep breath. Then he nodded. “Like a truce,” he said, softly. I couldn’t really gauge the tone of his comment, but I didn’t hear any overt sarcasm. His eyes looked full of confusion. I didn’t think I saw hostility, but then let’s face it, I’d been wrong before. We just had to be pragmatic about this. We had to swallow our personal antipathy and knuckle down to solving this situation.

  “A truce,” I agreed. “We need to face the crisis together. I can be sensible about it.”

  Why did I think that was the biggest crock of shit I’d served up since this all began?

  “SO WHAT did Judith say?” I hadn’t been able to ask while Junk was still around, and then I’d been out of action for all those hours. I wasn’t sure I liked the answering frown on Niall’s face.

  “I couldn’t reach her. Cissy said she didn’t know where she was.”

  “Crap,” I said, with some enthusiasm.

  “Tanner, I know. It’s likely that Cissy does know. But she’s not saying.”

  “She’s very protective of Judith. Always has been.” Cissy was Judith’s friend as well as her assistant. And Judith inspired the best in people.

  Niall hesitated, then spoke again. “There’s been another attack. A letter bomb, sent yesterday to Ju
dith.”

  “Shit! Anyone hurt?”

  “Judith’s okay, apparently. But this time it got all the way to her office. Cissy wasn’t on post duties, apparently, and the new junior didn’t know enough to guess what it was. It blew up in his hands. He’s in the hospital now, though they think he’ll be okay. But Cissy was very shaken. She says they’re evacuating the main building and bringing in Government security forces.”

  “Where has Judith gone, then? Has she gone into hiding?” I realized for maybe the first time that I knew very little about Judith’s personal life. Where she lived, who she cared about. Who cared for her in return. Who she dated, if she dated. “How do we really know she’s okay? And who the fuck is doing all this?” I was totally perplexed. “Just one thing after another, all aimed at the Project Team. What the hell is this all about, Niall?”

  His voice was tired. “I don’t know. Cissy also asked where Greg was. As if she didn’t know he’d been here. As if—”

  “As if Judith didn’t know he was here.” I knew our thoughts were in accord. “So it obviously wasn’t an official visit.”

  And it was then that I realized we were all alone in the trailer.

  YEAH, I don’t know why it took me so long to notice we no longer had our visitor with us. Blame the drugs, blame my distraction with someone else. But there was no Greg hovering in the corner of my living room, no frightened protests, no wide young eyes pleading with me to believe him. No Dylan, guarding him for me.

  “He’s gone, then?”

  Niall nodded. “While I was talking to Cissy, she got an e-mail message from Simon saying to send Greg back as soon as possible. It was very urgent, so she said. I protested we hadn’t really finished questioning him—but Cissy insisted.”

  When Cissy insisted, it was the equivalent of Judith’s own orders.

  “The dog—Dylan—was nosing around outside, under your trailer. Greg was so damned nervous about him that I had to ask one of Junk’s girls to see him safely off the site. He said he had a car parked just outside the perimeter. He’ll be okay to get himself back.” He saw my frown. “He had no more information for us, Tanner. He didn’t see the attacker in detail. I saw no reason to hold him any longer.”

  “So did you talk to Simon?” I was a little alarmed at all the things that had been going on while I’d been out of it.

  “I tried, but no luck. Seems Simon is in hiding now, too, the same as we are. Or else he’s looking for Brad.” His voice shook, surprising me. “The whole damned Team seems to have gone AWOL! No one’s answering the security cell numbers, no one’s left any messages as to where they are or what their orders are.”

  Running scared. Not something Niall Sutherland would have much tolerance for. We may have handled dangerous situations in the Project Team, but these direct—and potentially murderous—attacks on us were something else. But I was surprised that Judith wasn’t pulling things together. “How was Cissy?”

  “Still disturbed. Evasive.” He looked carefully at me but said no more. He stretched the muscles of his shoulders, and the shirt tightened across his torso. His hair looked less than neat. I felt a shiver run through my body.

  “Something’s really odd here, Niall. Judith hiding away, Simon on the run too. Still no word from Brad.”

  “Joe in the hospital.”

  “Yeah. Everyone’s been affected, yet there doesn’t seem to be any common factor. We’re just being isolated, one by one. It’s sort of clumsy, but whoever’s organized this, they’ve known just how to strike at us. They’ve infiltrated Judith’s own office—her inner sanctum. Threatened her staff. That’s exactly what would really distress and disturb her. Then they’ve split Simon and Brad apart, breaking down any communication between them. Again, the worst thing for those two to cope with. They tried to hit you at home, as if they knew what a familiar base would mean to you, and the misery of losing it. And it’s been a blow to Joe’s confidence too. One of his greatest frustrations must be immobility.”

  “And you?”

  I shrugged. “Guess I’m pissed they found me in the first place. I was rather hoping to savor my own space just a little longer.”

  Niall made the smallest of noises, like he’d stubbed a toe or something.

  “I don’t think we should try to contact the Team again,” I said, quite firmly, despite the sick churn of nausea that was resurrecting in my gut. “I want to wait for some of them to contact us, you know?” What was I trying to say? Basically, I was worried about who to trust.

  “So you also think the threat is coming from an inside source,” Niall said. “Someone who knows us well.”

  For a moment, all we did was stare at each other.

  AN HOUR later, we’d finished several more glasses of water and eaten some soup and thick slices of ham and buttered toast—Junk’s family had restocked my paltry larder with rather embarrassing riches—but the words and numbers on the reports were now swimming before my eyes.

  “You should sleep again,” Niall said. He’d have made a useless nurse, really. His bedside manner sounded like military command, not concern. But I didn’t react, didn’t have the energy. It had been a long day.

  “Not yet. Sleep when I die,” I said, not caring how that might sound or how close I might actually have been to that. I could feel the edges of something tingling in my mind as I searched the mystery e-mails and the scribbled notes from Brad. “This threat. It’d have to be someone senior, someone with access to everything.” When I registered a fresh silence in the room, I looked up. “What are you thinking, Niall?”

  “You know whose name keeps cropping up here? In all this mess. In all these unusual events.”

  “No.” Wasn’t sure if I were being entirely truthful. That shiver was back, plucking icy fingers down my spine.

  “Simon is pivotal to this,” he said. He’d dropped his eyes to some papers on his lap, but I knew he didn’t want to meet my gaze.

  What the fuck?

  “He knows everything about the Team.” Niall’s words plowed on, even though he looked like they left a foul taste in his mouth. “How it works, what the missions are. He’s the closest to Judith, sharing most of the strategy with her. He always knows where we all are. He brought me here, for God’s sake.”

  “Sure, but that’s not sinister. He’s at risk, too, he’s just as upset as we are.” Wasn’t he? “He has Brad in the field, in danger.” I could feel an indigestible mixture of fear and anger rising up in me. We came here because we can trust you, Simon had told me, his tone genuine, his expression honest. “How can you even think that one of us would do this?”

  “I don’t want to.” Niall sounded wretched now, but dogged too. “Don’t you believe that? But then we see one of his guys creeping around the site and acting suspiciously when we try to probe him for identification of your attacker. Not sent officially, it seems. Then he’s called back, out of our hands, before we can find out any more. By an e-mail from Simon, with no further explanation.”

  “So…?”

  “Simon’s the only one who hasn’t been targeted so far.” Niall was shaking his head, as if he were arguing with himself. “Brad’s notes are full of discussions he had with Simon about where the original attacks may have been planned, none of which seem to have been reported officially. Simon could organize anything he wished. He has access to all the Department’s resources—”

  “No!” Why did my head ache so much at the thought? Why was I even listening to such crap?

  “He could do all of this,” Niall said. “He has the ability, the intelligence. His previous… career… was dubious. He’d still have that knowledge.”

  “Shut the fuck up! Why the hell would he behave like this? Threaten us? Attack us?”

  “I have no idea,” was Niall’s reply. He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. “Just thinking aloud, I guess.” Some of the papers slid off his lap, but he didn’t bother to pick them back up. His whole body looked rigid with tension. I knew the look too we
ll to mistake it. Anger and distress. For once, I wasn’t the cause.

  “I can’t accept that, Niall. I trust him.”

  “So do I.” He looked back up at me then, and his eyes were full of misery and frustration. “But how do we know what’s really going on in people’s minds?”

  I stared back, almost challenging him not to take that thought any further. “Don’t talk about it again.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  The room fell silent again, but now the air was charged with shock and confusion.

  And more damned fear.

  I needed to rest. But I had ideas and worries in my head, and quite a few other disturbing gremlins. Time had been passing in a very disjointed way, and I wanted time to marshal my thoughts before the evening passed altogether.

  Niall came over to take the glass from my hand. I hadn’t realized it was slipping in the first place, but I’d sunk further down on the couch. He stood above me for a moment, looking down on my tired body. “I’m okay,” I muttered. I was annoyed. Shattered. Defensive. Fuck knows what else.

  “I know,” he said, surprising me with his calm tone. “He did a good job. Hans, the mysterious doctor. You’re okay indeed.”

  I smiled slightly. First time he’d really acknowledged the community around me. “They’re good people here. A little far from convention, of course, but they’ve all welcomed me. Junk’s a friend. A helpful guy—”

  “He may well be,” Niall broke in dryly. “But I’m talking about the guy that you are.”

  “Huh?”

  Niall shook his head, and smiled in return. “How do you do it, Tanner?”

  “Do what?”

  “It never ceases to amaze me.” His voice was quiet; perhaps he thought he should be lowering it in the presence of invalids. “The way you get on with people, the way you blend in wherever you are. I’ve seen you with politicians and diplomats, and they accept you easily and discuss the relevant mission points with you. Then you’re here, and just as much a part of this community as with the Team.”