Edge (37 page)

    "Oh, goody."

On the third day of preparation, it was nearly noon when Suzanne turned from the coffee machine and stood with hands on hips.

    "Josh? Weren't your friends supposed to be here an hour ago?"

    Leaning against a wall cupboard, Josh answered, "The RV was your place, right here, at eleven hundred. Fifty-seven minutes ago."

    "RV?"

    "Rendezvous. I believe that's a French word, cherie."

    "
Ouais
. I had the impression your punctuality was a professional habit."

    "We're never late for an RV. On operations, a few minutes late can mean disaster, so we learn to be on time."

    "But fifty-seven minutes late, and you don't look worried, Josh."

    "I'm not."

    "I don't–"

    At that moment a shape unfolded itself from behind the couch, and another rotated around a corner from the bedroom door.

    "
Merde! Qui êtes-vous? Espèce de–Josh?
Who are they?"

    Suzanne backed up against the cooker.

This handsome reprobate is Tony." Josh gestured. "And the lady over there is Hannah."

    "I…" Suzanne's hand was at her throat. "That's not… How long have they been there?"

    "Since 11 o'clock," said Hannah. "Like your boyfriend says, we're never late for an RV."

    "
Merde
," murmured Suzanne.

    "Sacred blue," said Josh. "Cause I'm too polite to say shit."

    "You know, you're sensitive and intelligent and overwhelmingly observant–"

    "Ta lots."

    "–and there's a part of you that's incredibly creepy. Did you know that? All of you?"

    Tony advanced, holding out his hand. "Sorry. Professional habit. I'm really pleased to meet you, Dr Duchesne."

    Behind him, Hannah said: "I'm looking forward to hearing about Josh's creepy part. Is it as small as everyone says it is?"

    Suzanne giggled and Tony laughed, failing to shake hands; then the four were in hysterics like schoolkids.

    "Even smaller," said Suzanne eventually, and set them off again.

    On the fourth day of preparation, Suzanne taught Josh, Tony and Hannah how to put each other into trance. They took it in turns, two sitting at right angles to each other, while the third observed.

    "Remember to synchronise your voice with their physiology," said Suzanne. "And use tonal marking as I told you."

    Hannah was the best with voice control, leading Tony into a deeply altered state.

    "That was amazing," he said when he came out of it.

    "It's a slow process, this trance induction," said Josh. "I mean, there might be uses in preparing your mates for a contact – a firefight – and for the post-traumatic stuff. But you can't sit an enemy down and talk them down like that."

    "If you think of them as an enemy," answered Suzanne, "you'll never lead them into trance. Hannah, did you realise that you were going into an altered state along with Tony? Actually, ahead of him?"

    "Er… Yeah. My vision went a little weird, yet I was totally focused."

    "Exactly."

    "But Josh is right, "said Hannah. "It takes a while, doesn't it?"

    Yet there were other approaches to combat than fast and hard. Josh remembered the single aikido class he had trained in, where most of the people practised exaggerated sweeping attacks, and when grabbed, they went with the flow of every technique instead of wrenching away. Few looked as if they could stop an angry ten year-old; but the instructor had forearms like a bear, and an attitude that was implacable. He stepped straight into the centre of rotation when his students attacked – the concept of
irimi
, entering the heart of the whirlwind – and slammed them in all directions.

    It was strange that he thought of aikido with its wristgrabbing techniques, because just then Suzanne reached for Tony's hand as though about to shake it, but when Tony started to respond she twisted his hand, pushed it against his face and said one word:

    
"Sleep."

    Tony's head rocked back and he was under.

    "Holy fucking shit," said Hannah.

    Josh looked at her; she stared at Josh. In the automatic choreography of amazement, they all turned to Suzanne.

    
And you thought
I
was scary.

On the seventh day, Vikram came to visit, wearing a thin raincoat and mild disguise. Tony had taken the disguise kit back to the Docklands apartment, and this was the result. Suzanne led him inside.

    "I thought you were just going to materialise like a ninja," she said. "Isn't that what you guys do?"

    "Not me. I'm a tech-head." Vikram grinned. "And a mere mortal."

    "But he's OK, all the same," said Josh. "So what goodies have you brought us?"

    Vikram opened his coat. "I feel like a flasher."

    "But I like what you've got, darling," Josh told him. "A rather beautiful pair."

    Under each armpit hung a small, neat handgun.

    "I thought you said…" Suzanne stopped. "Something about gunpowder being detectable, wasn't it?"

    "That's right." Vikram removed his coat, then struggled out of the shoulder holsters. "These electromag babies are strictly illegal. All ceramics and superconductors, no gunpowder involved. You'll want to use them only if necessary."

    "We're going to be in front of cameras," said Josh. "I don't want viewers having any reason to think of special forces."

    "Uh-huh. Cop hold of these." Vikram gave Josh the weapons, then turned back to his raincoat and pulled open the lining. "Here's your shirts, neatly folded. Hannah guessed your size, Suzanne."

    "That's nice. Dark blue, not black?"

    "So you could pass for an innocent person and still hide in the shadows." Vikram held up the shirt by the shoulders. "See those nice buttons?"

    "Sure."

    "They're fake. Josh?"

    Josh took hold of the shirt-front and ripped it open, accompanied by the sound of Velcro.

    "Very stylish," said Suzanne. "But what's the point?"

    "You'll wear the shoulder holster under the shirt," answered Josh. "If you need to use it, you'll tear open the shirt and whip out the gun."

    "Oh."

    "So wear a bra," said Josh. "Unless you really want to distract them."

    "I'll never remember how to do that. Not under pressure."

    "Sure you will." Josh smiled at her. "I'll teach you."

On the eighth day, Tony returned. Josh got him to hold up an impact pad on each hand as a target, while Suzanne whipped palm strikes and punches into them, using plenty of hip twist.

    "Whoa," said Tony. "That's what I call power."

    "She's doing all right." Josh winked at Suzanne. "Really good."

    "Thanks to my teacher here."

    Josh wasn't so sure. She had deconstructed what went on inside his head when he fired off techniques, then reproduced his state of mind inside herself.

    "When I hit the pads," he said now, "I hear Lofty's voice inside my head telling me to hit harder. Though I'd not been properly aware of it."

    "So…"

    "So Suzanne does the same thing, hears someone encouraging her on."

    "Auditory hallucination," said Suzanne, "if you like."

    Tony looked at the pads he was holding.

    "That sounds nuts, except I've never known a beginner hit that way. There must be something in it."

    Suzanne smiled at him.

    "Josh tells me you were one of the best shots in the Regiment."

    "
One
of the best?"

    "He also said you were modest."

    "Ah."

    She picked up a coffee mug, walked to the far end of the room, and held it up.

    "Imagine you were going to shoot this."

    "All right."

    "Really imagine it, as if you were holding a weapon."

    From nowhere, Tony drew a real gun and pointed it. Josh remained relaxed.

    "Interesting," said Suzanne. "How big is the mug?"

    "About ten inches. But my wife would say three and a half."

    "Yes, but how big does it really look?"

    "It… Jesus." Tony lowered the gun. "It looks about four feet tall, but only in my head, you know? My mind's eye."

    "Hmm. That's a common strategy among top marksmen," she said. "But I'd only read about it. You actually use it. Hallucinating – visualising – the target bigger than it is."

    Tony looked at Josh.

    "And you've been in this woman's company day and night for how long now?"

    "I've lost track."

    "When Amber moved in with me first, remember how she rearranged my furniture?"

    "Er, yeah."

    "At least she didn't refurbish the insides of my head. On the other hand, I didn't need it, whereas you clearly did, old mate."

    Josh looked at Suzanne, whose reply was a beaming smile, full of innocence and wicked intent, all at the same time.

    "Have you tidied up my mind," he said, "just cause you're a neuropsych and you can?"

    "Oh, no."

    "Well, thank God for–"

    "It's because I'm a woman."

    Tony laughed.

    "She's well and truly got you, mate."

 

    "There are five different possible OPs," Josh said. "We could lay up here, this crawlspace, which is the closest to the action, but the hardest to keep quiet in."

    He had analysed the hiding places in various ways: ease of access – getting in without tripping alarms even he could not subvert – and ease of exit on the day, to get close to the action; the acoustic properties, for silence was going to be key; ventilation and the amount of room available. All were part-way reasonable; none of them was perfect.

    "Not bad." Tony leaned forward, pointing. "What about going in through the–?"

    "Hold on." Hannah looked at Suzanne. "Didn't this all start with your friend Philip Broomhall? And isn't he stinking rich?""I don't think Broomhall considers me a friend," said Suzanne. "But he is rich, yes."

    "Well, what kind of person lives in the Barbican?" asked Hannah. "It's your city financiers, and a bunch of rich actors, all that kind. That's who."

    "So–?"

    "So what kind of friends does Broomhall mostly have? You think maybe rich ones? Could be, he knows someone who lives there."

    "That's not bad," said Josh.

    "Come off it," said Hannah. "It's fucking genius."

    "Yes, you are." Tony saluted her. "We bow down before you, oh great one."

    "Good. Just keep that adulation coming, minion, and we'll get on fine."

 

    "We're getting there," Josh said.

    "Yes, we are," said Suzanne.

The fifteenth day was a nightmare for Josh, in contrast to everyone else, who performed superbly on the assault course.

    "What's up?" asked Tony afterwards.

    Suzanne said: "He didn't come to bed last night. At all."

    "Josh?"

    "Call me a geek." Josh shrugged. "I went through the subversion ware from start to finish, and re-edited the data archives. Philip came through with good stuff."

    Combining Philip Broomhall's corporate awareness with Josh's tech knowledge had paid dividends in triangulating on footage that neither the prime minister nor the Tyndalls would want the public to see.

    "So it's going to make an impact?"

    "Oh, yes."

On day seventeen, they were in a converted Georgian house, surrounded by its own grounds, in the heart of Herefordshire. It was a training facility, normally rented out to companies teaching management techniques; but occasionally the people who hired it were ex-Regiment, and the training that took place was light-years removed from anything an MBA would expect.

    When a dark-clad figure grabbed Suzanne's shoulder from behind, she spun and slammed a palm-heel into a visor-protected chin, slammed a shin-kick into a padded thigh, and knocked the man down with a curving elbow strike.

    "Nice," said Josh.

    Suzanne looked down at the half-prone man.

    "Not now, Kato," she said.

    They spent the rest of the day either springing out on people to ambush them or else being the target, reacting to random attacks as they wandered through the building. She called it Clouseau training, a reference that Josh failed to catch, which meant an evening of watching old Pink Panther movies when the day's work was over.

    Her viewing was interrupted by a call from Peter Hall, her client who had cancelled on the day she met Adam and later Philip Broomhall. Peter was distraught, and she calmed him down, taking him to a more resourceful neurophysiological state, able to cope with the sudden loss of his job that had triggered the reaction. By the end of it – including a trance induction over the phone – Peter had coping strategies in place. He would be ready for jobhunting tomorrow, while managing his emotions.

    Finally, she closed down the call and looked at Josh, Tony, and Hannah.

    "That wasn't just a wandering conversation, was it?" said Josh. "We sort of appreciate how you did some of it, at least. Now we know the basics, that was a bit of a masterclass."