The lights were off, the curtains closed, but he could just about make out his brother sitting on the side of the bed. He was toying with his favourite handgun, a Beretta 92 – cocking it, checking the sight and then dry firing.
Carefully, Charlie closed the door behind him.
John loaded a clip into his pistol, cocked it, and checked the sight. He was angry and this was his way of calming down – it scared the crap out of Charlie. He hesitated at the foot of the bed, waiting for John to unload the gun a second time before seizing the opportunity. When it came, he sat beside his brother. Anyone else wouldn't get close. He wasn't even sure Rachel would make it this far.
“Jay's on board.”
There was no response.
“I want Roxy in too and I'm not arguing with you about it,” he told him. They'd had this chat before and they would have it again and again. “We've got to work quickly and he can do this in his sleep.”
“We can't trust him.”
“We don't need to. We've got Rachel now. She's going to see through any scam he tries to pull on us. And we need him.”
“We don't need him.”
Charlie licked his lips and glanced at the door. “We need him to distract Rachel. To distract her from what we're going to pull without her.”
His brother frowned.
“I've been thinking about our friend Colonel Moore,” Charlie explained. “She's not going anywhere near that bastard, but she'll want to be involved. I'm going to send her in after the doctor and ask Roxy to watch her back. Me and you will get rid of Moore, tell her an opportunity came up and we took it.”
“You're going to lie to her?”
“No, an opportunity will come up and we'll take it. The Institute knows nothing about her. It's going to stay that way.”
He took his brother's gun and inspected it in the darkness. He handed it back and turned to John, resting his hand on his ridiculously tense shoulder.
“So we need Roxy, but I did promise you could hurt him and he does need to go to hospital.”
John's hand clasped around the butt of the weapon and his mouth twisted into a vicious smile.
14
“So you stuck it out with them, then?” Roxy asked, nodding to the closed door.
“You didn't think I would?”
The awkwardness between them was starting to get boring. Rachel could appreciate he felt bad for locking her in the boot of a car and nearly getting her killed, but she wished he would just get over it already. She had. The whole charm of Roxy was his ability to laugh off everything – without it he was just dull.
“They're not the easiest to live with.”
She couldn't hide her agreement there. The Smith brothers were usually impossible. Charlie was bossy and self–important, John was headstrong and bad tempered, and throwing her general defiance into the mix was always a risky compound.
“No, they're not.”
“So why stay with them?”
“I like them.”
She was being deliberately cryptic, trying to spark some nonsense from Roxy and it was starting to work.
“You like them? I see. You know there was a time when I thought you liked me.”
“Oh yes, I remember. I think that attraction fizzled out about the time you handed me over to Riva Morris,” she said with a smile. The more they talked about it the quicker they would get over it.
For a moment Roxy paused and looked as though he was going to huddle back into himself, but he caught her eye and her playfulness was infectious.
“Well some girls like the caveman approach, others I suppose are too far evolved.”
“Was that a compliment?”
When he smiled the air around him seemed lighter. He was a good looking guy in a dishevelled kind of way, but when he smiled he was probably the most charming person she had ever seen.
“So, out of interest, which one is it, mysterious John or charismatic Charlie?”
Rachel rolled her eyes, secretly cheering that they were back to their old ways.
“Neither.”
“My backside! Which one? It's John, isn't it? Those cheek bones are irresistible. And he's very brooding. Women like that, don't they? And you know he's going to be very thorough. He's a perfectionist after all. I'm guessing borderline dominatrix cross-dresser, but you look like a girl that might like that.”
She elbowed him in the ribs. “John and I are on the same page. We look after each other. He's a friend. And I can always count on him.”
“Unlike me, you mean.”
“You said it. But that is all he will ever be and you know it too so shut up.”
Roxy scratched at the wisps of beard on his cheek. “Then it must be Charlie. I suppose the father figure might be important for a girl like you. And he can be charming, when he's not hobbling around like an invalid. Sarah used to say he was quite something in the bedroom.”
Rachel put her hands over her ears. “Don't want to hear it. Charlie is like twenty years older than me. He's ancient, don't even go there.”
“You're right and I don't imagine his hip gyration is up to much these days.”
She hadn't heard Charlie come back and startled when he spoke. “Firstly there's a nine-year age gap. Nine. Not twenty. That's not fucking ancient. And,” he said slapping the back of Roxy's head, “there is nothing wrong with my hip gyration.”
He sat down, still scowling, but the look was outdone by John. Whatever Charlie had said had worked and, although he wasn't happy about it, John was out of his tantrum. Rachel shuffled away from Roxy slightly, just in case John wanted to check whose side she was really on.
“So, Roxy. John figures you owe us big time.”
“Fine but I can only do you one at a time. Do you want to take me into your respective bedrooms or shall we do it out here where you can all watch?”
Rachel stifled a chortle and nudged Roxy again to shut him up.
Roxy held up his hands and leaned forward. With an unusual amount of sincerity in his voice he looked at John. “I am sorry, darling. Truly I am. I screwed up and I put your bonnie girl at risk. It was out of order and I swear to you that was the last time.”
“You said that the time before,” John said.
“Yes, but I was lying back then. This time I mean it. We're all too old, especially Charlie, for messing around like this. Now I appreciate you might not want to work with me again, but there's no reason we can't all be friends, right?”
“What if we do want to work with you?” Charlie said.
With his mouth hanging open, Roxy paused. It wasn't what he was expecting, but then it wasn't what Rachel was expecting either. She watched the men around her size each other up and try to get a feel of what each was thinking.
“What if we say you can come back if you do this one thing for us?”
“I'd say I'm your man,” Roxy said utterly serious.
“There's a doctor we need to get close to,” Charlie began. “I need you to find a way to get Rachel into his confidence.”
Rachel was as surprised as Roxy.
“Consider it done.”
“There's just one catch. You see I made John a promise. And I can't go back on it.”
Roxy's eyes narrowed. “What kind of promise?”
“You're going to need a cover story,” John said. The gun was outstretched before Rachel could move. She went to scream but the bullet was already fired, slicing through the air from the silencer and striking Roxy in the right shoulder. Roxy squirmed in agony, squeezing his teeth together to fight through the pain.
“What the hell, John?” Rachel shouted and tried to fight Roxy's jacket off.
“Rachel leave him,” Charlie ordered. “John's going to take him to hospital now.”
“You shot me! I can't believe you shot me. Again!” Roxy panted.
“Doctor Curtis,” Charlie said, holding Roxy still. “You want to be treated by him. However much it costs, you get onto his rota. It's good to have you back, Rox'.”<
br />
“You're an asshole Charlie, you motherfucking, shit eating, arse–wiping, wanker!”
John grabbed him by the wounded shoulder and led him whimpering to the door. There was a noticeable spring in his step. When the door closed Rachel threw her hands up in the air.
“You can't just shoot him.”
“Clearly we can. Relax, he's going to find this hilarious in the morning. Besides, we needed to fix the tension. And it's not like this is the first time.” Charlie shrugged.
“So what now?”
“Now we get to work on getting into O'Connor's office.”
15
They shot him! He couldn't believe it. His shoulder throbbed in agony. The bullet was still lodged inside and he knew John had planned it that way. If it was a through and through they might not keep him in. This way he would have to have surgery. Goddamn surgery! The hospital wasn't far away, but John didn't seem in much of a hurry. He slowed at two sets of traffic lights, watching the yellow light turn red. He was doing it to torment Roxy and maybe Roxy deserved it a little, but at some point John was going to take it too far. He always did. Roxy was starting to feel sick with pain.
“Will you just hurry up,” he shouted. “And when you get back you can call my mother and tell her what you've done. Ow! Easy on the corners.”
John was cheerful. It was the most unsettling mood of John's he'd ever encountered. A car cut them up and John just smiled – no cursing, no chasing after the driver, not even an attempt to blow the vehicle up by staring at it. Roxy reached out and, despite the pain, flicked John in the nose. That at least wiped the good humour from his face.
“What did you do that for?”
Roxy glanced at the growing red stain on his shirt. “For shits and giggles. You shot me, you utter bastard. I can't believe you did this. I'm wearing my good jacket for God's sake.”
John started to laugh.
“What's so funny?”
“That's your good jacket!”
“When I get out I'm going to bleed on you!”
The hospital entrance was empty. John pulled up the car and handed Roxy an envelope of cash to pay for the treatment upfront.
“Remember, Dr Janus Curtis.”
“Are you not coming in?”
With that John sped off and if Roxy could have done so he would have given him two fingers. Unfortunately, the blood loss was making him woozy. He pressed his arm to wake himself up and pushed on to the front desk. If it had been anyone else taking the bullet he would have commended Charlie on a brilliant plan.
John drove casually towards London Paddington and pulled up in the temporary parking bay. The commuting traffic was starting to ebb away, leaving expanses of empty pavement dwarfed by chalk white buildings, open for pigeon shit and litter. John kept the engine running and inspected the remaining passengers waiting at the edge of the station entrance. Jay wasn't a noticeable guy. He was small and wiry, usually wrapped up in a hoodie with a backpack on his back. He was in his thirties, dressed like a teenager and acted like a petulant six-year-old. When he was trying to be inconspicuous somehow it was like he was carrying a big flashing arrow over his head and doing a hula dance.
As John wound down the window the most obvious passenger in the whole station stepped forward – his head lashing from side to side frantically. He opened the back door of the car and fumbled inside, struggling to fit with his bag still on his back. John sighed – this was espionage for amateurs and he felt tainted by association.
“Drive around, make sure you're not followed,” Jay said anxiously. His head continued to dart around, never stopping on anything long enough to get an impression of it. His eyes were bloodshot, unaccustomed to daylight after weeks of hiding out in his mother's basement.
They hit the road and Jay began to unpack his rucksack.
“Keep an eye out for a red Volkswagen. It's been circling the station since I got here. Goddamn agents, they're everywhere. I've got you a couple of dupi's. I designed them myself so even you guys can work them. Stick them in a computer port and it will run automatically. It will beep when it's done. You pull it out before the beep you don't get jack–shit. Did you get that?”
“I got it,” John sighed.
“I mean it – you need to let the program map its course or you get nothing.”
“I said I got it,” John snapped.
“Well excuse me. I can see you didn't get a sense of humour when you were away. When do you go in?”
“Tonight.”
“Drop them off back here at midnight. Don't be late. Pull up here.”
John stopped the car. He waited for Jay to get out.
“Remember the beep, John.”
Slamming his foot on the accelerator he sped off down the road. Jay may have been a computer genius but his mouth moved a bit too often for John's liking. He watching the tiny figure scurry off into the city and turned his attention to getting back.
In thirty minutes and running two red lights, he was entering the hotel room. He opened the packet Jay had given him and handed Charlie four plastic tubes. The internal wires were just visible beneath the white covering. It had a standard port fitting and as long as O'Connor had an up to date computer there was no reason this wouldn't work.
“We ready?”
“We're ready,” Charlie said.
16
The Voice had the biggest audience in London, and according to John was the biggest load of bull he'd ever read. A few straggling papers tried to compete, only finding readers in London's most liberal or most extreme. Everyone else bought the Voice, skimmed the headlines, picked up a few typos, and filled in the crossword each day before taking the paper down to the recycling bank, and getting their gratitude pennies back for the service.
Harvey O'Connor had been editor for six years, taking over from his mother Elaine after her short battle with cancer. There was no love lost between mother and son and when Harvey came to take over the Voice he made no secret of not caring less about the credibility of investigative journalism, the truth, or good writing. He evolved the Voice from a respectable news provider, into a glorified rag–mag, sandwiching propaganda beside DD–cup models just out of school. The step down from highbrow news production was a step up in sales, with elitist London showing her true colours, revealing herself as the scandal loving rubberneck she had always been.
The paper was Harvey's beacon, the thing that lit him up around London and he used it to highlight the points people paid him to make, appearing in as many articles as those he wrote. The lucrative set up made Harvey one of the most influential men in the city, but either he was just greedy, or he had some fondness for the editor's chair, whatever the reason he still worked in his office day and night, manipulating the news for his own advantage personally.
Charlie took in the building in front of him. The Voice HQ was one of the shiny new buildings they had erected on Bunhill Road. If a building could be arrogant then this one had the self–importance of an overpaid footballer. A news scroll ran nonsensical headlines while a larger screen flickered images of celebrities who had dared to go out without waxing and the new super fruit accused of giving people cancer. Periodically a woman came on screen and announced to anyone within half a mile: the Voice, speaking to the people for the people.
A heavy dusk blanket had fallen over the city. The night was thick and dense. It was hot and a wet heat was steaming off the pavement. London was turning in for the evening, taking a brief respite before the night life erupted in the darkness. The three of them stood in the shadows of the old graveyard across the street, watching the clock run down. To get into the building they had to pass through metal detectors and a dedicated security team. If the dupi's didn't set off the alarms, John's arsenal would.
Charlie flexed the muscles in his shoulders and settled himself onto his crutch. He glanced at John. He was his usual self; focused and calm. If he had any doubts about the plan they weren't bothering him. Rachel was more nervous. But then the wh
ole plan was riding on her powers. She reached for John's hand and gave him an apprehensive nod.
“See you on the other side,” Charlie said to them and turned around.
With a pronounced stagger, he hobbled across the road. The crutch made him less offensive and that extra lean made people underestimate him all the more.
Despite closing time drawing in there was still a queue to get into the main reception. Charlie joined the line, concentrating on his sudden isolation. He knew Rachel and John were at his side, but Rachel was concealing them both so well even Charlie couldn't sense them there. He gripped his crutch tighter and jingled the change in his pocket.
When his turn came he moved intentionally slowly, wincing with the movement. The guards were indifferent to his speed. They had no quota to fill for the day, the offices would close and people would either make it in or not. They waited, watching Charlie as well as the rest of the queue. He sidled through the detector. It went off. A siren bounced off the lobby walls. He paused, looking at the flashing red light in confusion. One guard gestured for him to go back through.
The security were a little more alert, but no more suspicious. This was something that happened a lot. A good detector could pick up filling cavities. It was better safe than sorry after all. And Charlie was harmless – he couldn't even walk straight.
“Have you got anything metal on you sir?”
Charlie thought about it for a moment and then clicked his fingers. He withdrew his loose change and tossed it into the plastic tub at the side of the detector. When he went through a second time there was no incident. He picked up his change and went further into the lobby. John and Rachel were sitting on one of the sofas placed at ridiculously jaunty angles around the reception. He smirked as he sat beside them.
He'd been worried he didn't give them enough time to slip through the detector, but it worked. He couldn't hide his satisfaction. Rachel's powers were getting stronger every day, which was good because they were sure as hell going to need them.
Border Lines (Reachers Book 2) Page 8