Doctor Who: Drift (18 page)

The man, Parker, spread his hands wider. ‘We’ve got some time to talk, pity to waste it.’

‘Shut the hell up! I’m trying to think.’

The clerk hadn’t budged and Curt could see the tiny nervous tremors in his facial muscles. Those minute tics were starting to aggravate. He thought about putting a bullet into that stone face - then another in the face beyond it. The one with all the pretence of friendship.

‘I don’t know you. You’re not my goddamn friend.’

‘Hell, no!’ shouted Parker, and the volume was like a shock of hot water. ‘You’re pointing a gun in my approximate direction here and it’s making me nervous I get real talkative when I’m nervous, it’s a bad habit I know but what can you do to break a habit. Huh? I mean. I have a hard enough time trying to kick the smokes, you know what I’m saying?’

The rising tone was driving Curt into a panic. He felt pearls of pure ice standing out on his forehead and his breathing was feverish. He was on the verge of whimpering as he poured every grain of energy into keeping the gun on Parker.

He could sense a danger heir, feel it coming at him like a freight train, but all he knew for sure was he couldn’t take his eyes or the gun off that man. Not for a second.

‘Drop the gun and get down on your face
NOW!’

The power of decision was gone. He was pure reflex. He wheeled around, swinging the gun onto the woman. Two shots shattered the air. The noise burst inside of him.

Then he was dropping, straight down, listening to the pinprick chimes of breaking glass. The golden smell of whisky sprayed everywhere.

He was on his hack and the store was spinning.

The woman stood over him with her gun aimed down at his chest. His chest, where it hurt the most. He didn’t know where his own gun had gone. He couldn’t feel it in his hand any more. Then he heard it, skittering down the aisle, as the woman kicked it away.

The man, Parker, floated into view.

‘You tried looking in a mirror lately, pal?’ he said. ‘You really don’t look so good.’

Curt cried, feeling the tears pool in his eyes Shadows gathered inside him.

‘Amber? My little girl?’ His voice sounded small, like a child’s.

‘I’m sorry,’ the woman told him. She tucked her gun slowly out of sight, and she knelt beside him with one hand outstretched. Her palm came down over his eyes and suddenly it dawned that he was never going to see Amber again. He fought to build a picture of her in his mind, but somehow it kept coming out as a blur of white.

Then the storm in Curt Redeker’s head fell silent.

Bad visibility was so much worse when you were riding down the mountain flat on your back. Despite all the painkillers, Paul Falvi felt the stretcher ride bouncing his gut around, as he watched his world go by through a filter of cold and pain.

There was no shine to the silver In the branches overhead, the surrounding white having lost the last of its brightness.

Withered arms of trees tossed blanched confetti down on the procession and Falvi thought, blearily. that this was no wedding march.

No, man, this is my funeral. No offence to Eastman’s skills, but he wasn’t expecting to make it down this mountain. But every time he felt a shaft of pain, he’d grab onto it and use it to strengthen his resolve. Oh yeah, he
was
going to make it.

He was in good hands, the best. Cocooned in a sleeping bag, plus an extra blanket, borne along by a couple of angels.

Well. Eastman and Barnes. Probably lost their halos a long time ago. but they both had sun in their eyes, even on a cold day. Shame was, he was getting all the wrong view of Barnes

- and he had to lift his head for a proper view of that.

‘I know what you’re doing. Falvi,’ spoke Eastman from on high

Falvi laughed, and winced. He let his head drop back again.

Man, that was hard work. ‘Hey. tell Barnes these uniforms don’t do squat for her figure.’

‘Let me know when Donna Karan lands that Army contract.’ Barnes tried a glance over her shoulder, tough work in the hood. ‘How you doing back there?’

‘Been better.’

Falvi rolled his head to the left. Pelham was tramping along by their side, the grenade launcher giving his M4 rifle a serious double chin. Seen through a haze of drugs, mist and pain, he was a lot less ugly. Falvi wanted to laugh again but it felt like he might fetch.

Anyway, he could just make out the lieutenant, moving down between the tires, all on his own and taking lots of looks around.

Well he might. He’d let everyone know how caution was his watchword.

‘Son of a bitch, He could’ve let you take them, Barnes. Eyes closed, no sweat.’

The words were a battle, but he had to say them. Pelham was close enough to hear, but Sergeant Bederman. with his permanently stern gaze and a face of bevelled edges, was out on the wing, past Pelham and safely removed from the conversation. Barnes was quiet a while.

She said. ‘Let it go, Falvi. It was Hmieleski’s call.’ The hang of her head and shoulders said the test. ‘The Kristal Ball is going after her.’

‘I heard.’

Falvi straightened his neck, aimed his eyes at the sky again. Except of course it wasn’t there The white ceiling was too solid and too low to be called cloud. It smothered the treetops, hurling flakes of itself everywhere, like a moulting blanket thrown in the air. If he slipped away now, unconscious or the alternative, he supposed he’d still be seeing white.

He rolled his head again for another glimpse of the Lieutenant. McKim was the vaguest of silhouettes, walking into a lot of nothing.

‘What worries me, it’s what they might be dragging her into.’ His thoughts travelled on ahead, following McKim into the snowfall. ‘You know?’

For a moment, he thought nobody had heard him. Like maybe he had drifted off and the real world carried on into his dream.

But then he could see the hollow response in Pelham’s gaze at least. Nobody wanted to talk about it. What they’d witnessed at the house. Before the fire, before Hmieleski got nabbed.

‘Maybe they’re still out there.’ he suggested hoarsely.

‘What?’ Barnes was annoyed at being spooked, he could tell.

The bad part was he wasn’t playing games. Suddenly Falvi really believed it. That had to be the truth: the cult had staged everything. Blown each other away in a frenzy, and now they were ghosts sulking the landscape. Ghosts, at one with the winter. Cold and dead and white.

It made sense. Scary sense.

Falvi blinked and lay back to get a rein on his breathing.

Stupid. Getting worked up over a hunch. He kept it to himself and watched the grey branches pass overhead.

The sound of the shots soared over the snowbound town like a couple of distant jets, one chasing the other’s tail. Makenzie pressed on Martha’s and Amber’s shoulders, as if to plant them where they stood, then he was running for the store.

He’d been trapped in a fight with Martha over that deal he’d made with Morgan. Fair enough; but he’d had a bellyful of quarrels since Morgan had turned up, and he’d been searching for a quick excuse to duck out. Gunshots, though, were not a welcome pretext.

When he reached that door, Makenzie knew the drill. He took it slow, stole a good look round past the edge of the window, and he went in with his revolver up. The adrenaline was up a little higher.

The bell sounded a lonely note as he entered. Hal’s store was routinely quiet. The whiff of smoke told him this wasn’t routine. Makenzie knew he was too late: the shots had been fired Hal Byers was on his feet, walking out from the end aisle and mopping his face and brow with a big handkerchief

‘Mak,’ he motioned to the aisle. ‘They took care of it.’

Taking him at his word. Makenzie holstered his pistol and went around to check it out.

He should have expected to find the CIA woman and her partner she’d said she was going to look for him here. The identity of the body on the floor, rather than the death, was the shock.

Makenzie felt like his gut had been scooped out. the rest of his insides sinking to fill the pit.

The Quartararo woman stood up from examining the corpse. Her partner, built broad like Makenzie, thrust out a hand and a smile way too warm for the situation.

‘Agent Parker Theroux, pleasure to meet you. We had a minor hold-up situation here, but as you can see it’s all under control. It’s cut-and-dried, open-and-shut, a closed case on your books. Chief.’ The smile perked up a touch. ‘I’m sure we’re not going to run into any jurisdictional difficulties on this one.’

Makenzie shook his head and chewed on the air between his teeth. He could see the gun on the floor and Hal had pretty much told him the rest. The paperwork was the least of his headaches on this one. Yeah, he’d definitely had a bellyful of squabbling

‘No argument from me,’ he insured the agent. Then he took a second look at the dead man. ‘What’s that all over his face?’

He walked up the aisle, closer. ‘Ice?’

Joanna extended her arms behind her, ready to be bound again. She felt Jacks grab her roughly and wind the cord an around her wrists, and stood still through all of it.

‘You’re being remarkably cooperative. And it’s a little early in the day for Stockholm syndrome to be setting in.’ Jacks’

sarcasm was truly vicious. ‘I’m beginning to suspect you have a plan in that pretty head of yours.’

Joanna rolled her eyes, forgetting that her patient was in front of her. He had managed to stand, doubtless eager to prove himself to Jacks. He was wobbly already, leaning against a tree. Joanna was sure he wasn’t sharp enough to have noticed a facial expression.

She didn’t rate his chances. Three 9mm rounds were still lodged in his chest. The entry wounds were close together, down and in a few inches from the armpit. There were no exit wounds and God only knew where those bullets were now, rolling around in there, slicing and dicing as they travelled.

All she’d been able to do was dress the wound and attempt to staunch the bleeding. First aid on a major surgical case.

Ben McKim may have shot the guy. but she was going to preside over his death.

Jacks tested the cord with a hard tug, then yanked on Joanna’s arms to turn her around. ‘Maybe I’d best see if you’re packing anything else besides that nice H&K.’

Joanna’s spirits slumped some more. Knocked out of her hand right after the gas can hit her face, her weapon was probably nothing more than a puddle of molten metal and plastic in whatever was left of the house. About as effective, she concluded, as it had proved in her highly trained hands.

But no, the loss of her sidearm wasn’t any cause for depression. It was what Jacks was sure to discover when she started patting her down - like she was doing this instant.

‘Is paranoia like an entry requirement for cults?’

‘I just like to be careful.’ Jacks was working her way from the boots up. Joanna was grateful for the layers of her winter uniform, minimising the intimacy of those touches and preventing her skin from crawling. ‘No doubt your CO tells you the same.’

The patting and squeezing climbed Joanna’s hips to her waist. Finally, she decided she wasn’t going to stand it any longer. She backed off. ‘Hey, if this is what you do for kicks, hand yourself in and wait for a nice long prison term!’ She had to keep the words coming, not give the woman a chance.

Behind her, Mitch Lagoy actually laughed, which would hopefully spread the venom. ‘You’re not going to find anything. A knife, a pistol, I don’t carry any of that. I travel light.’

‘All you’re going to find,’ she reasoned a spoonful of the truth might be the best medicine for Jacks about now, ‘are documents - some kind of operation you people were planning, as far as I can make out, which I don’t think you’re in any position to carry out any more, what with two of you on the run and one of you dying.’

There it was: she’d blown her ace. And she wasn’t a gambler. She braced herself for the punch or kick or whatever was flavour of the moment with Jacks, but the woman only stood there, a scowling statue in the snow.

Joanna didn’t flinch.

‘Don’t be sure what I can or can’t do.’ said Jacks after a silent age. Her eyes burned black, but she spoke like she was drugged. ‘Keep them. They’re not going to do you any good.’

In light of what that implied, Joanna knew she’d be pushing her luck to take this any further. Still, the military had taught her that once the initiative was seized you take it as far as you can. Morgan Shaw used the football analogy: if you have the ball, run with it until somebody sacks you.

In those papers, she’d skimmed maps, schematics, plans of buildings, particularly the observatory, and even the Cog Railway that snaked up the state’s highest peak. There was even a host of meteorological data, including hard copy radar maps: downloaded via the web and printed on a cheap Desk-Jet from the look of it. A sketch plan of the Observatory had been penned over in red, marked with boxes and scrawled notations, energetically drawn arrows shooting in on the plan from all angles. Joanna had seen the kind of thing a hundred times, albeit more professionally rendered. Troop deploy-ments and tactical projections, each box representing what the cult might label an infantry squad. Terrorist squad, more like.