Going Grey

by Karen Traviss

  I've talked myself into believing Weaver's theory, haven't I?

  The Seattle Kremlin-phone number nagged at her. Maybe it wasn't too early to try calling it. She was almost starting to enjoy the immersion in the puzzle before a sobering thought about retrieval surfaced again.

  Do I want to be party to anything illegal or violent?

  Then she thought of what she owed Clare – a college fund, good healthcare, a roof over her head – and decided that thieves probably deserved whatever was coming to them.

  It was late. She plugged the burner phone into the charger and headed for bed. She'd call the Seattle number tomorrow.

  FIVE

  Here's what I know about Rob Rennie, Charles. He risked his life to save a stranger who happened to be my son. He's watched over Mike like a brother ever since, and he's never asked for a cent. All he wanted was the chance to find a job. Now that's someone I can respect and trust, and therefore you'll respect and trust him too. Do we understand each other?

  Leo Brayne, explaining his conditions to Charles Kinnery.

  FLIGHT TO LEWISTON, IDAHO

  JULY.

  Rob walked backwards out of the Gulfstream G550's lavatory as if he was exiting from an audience with the Pope, then sat down opposite Mike with a big grin. He laid his cell phone on the table between them.

  "You videoed the john?" Mike asked.

  "Yeah, so Tom can see how Gucci it is. The only time blokes like me usually get on private jets is when we empty the shit tank." Rob craned his neck to look out of the window onto cloud-shadowed ground below. "Sometimes I wonder why you and Livvie don't just spend your time swanning around the world in this thing. I would."

  Mike saw his own privilege anew and a little more kindly through the filter of Rob's delight in it. It was like taking Charlotte's kids to the zoo, a way of reminding himself that some things really were amazing and that he didn't have to feel guilty for enjoying them. Dad's jet was a novelty even for him. He didn't use it enough these days to be indifferent to it.

  "Shall I ask Dad to send it to pick up Tom when he's ready to visit?"

  Rob's grin widened. He seemed particularly cheerful today, probably because he had something challenging to do. Somehow he managed to be both a careful planner and live in the moment. Mike envied that.

  "Can you?" Rob said. "He'll be thrilled. And he doesn't thrill easy."

  "Sure. A limo to collect him up, too. The works."

  "Thanks, mate."

  "When are you going to learn to just ask? Whatever you want, you can have."

  "You know my brain doesn't work like that."

  "I'll just have to think rich for you, then."

  Mike went back to studying the paper map of Athel Ridge. It seemed more familiar than his own life right then. His personal landscape had shifted as soon as he and Livvie had finally agreed to adopt after the next round of IVF, which changed a vague if — if he would ever be a father, something that had faded into a remote fantasy without too much detailed aftermath — to a definite when. Now he'd need to spend more time at home. He wouldn't be able to deploy whenever he wanted.

  And there was Rob to worry about. He didn't need Mike to hold his hand on a daily basis, but Mike felt responsible for recruiting him for Esselby and upending his life. He couldn't expect Rob to suddenly ground himself just because Mike liked having him around all the time.

  Mike had learned at his father's knee to beware a legion of threats, from gold-diggers to the random jerk waiting to punch him out and teach a rich brat a lesson. Don't flaunt your privilege, Micko. Don't trust anybody. Be careful who you let into your circle. But now Mike had a buddy, the kind who'd take a round for him, not some casual acquaintance made over cocktails. He didn't want to lose touch with him in the same way he'd drifted apart from the men he'd served with, or never even got on with in the first place. Rob was unbuyable and irreplaceable.

  There were few problems that couldn't be solved with money, though, even if it did breed dilemmas of its own. Mike would think of a solution.

  "We've planned the ass out of this now," he said, refolding the map carefully. This was old-fashioned opsec. Maps had to be folded exactly the way they were made, in case an enemy got hold of one and worked out the area of interest from the extra fold lines. Nothing was written on the map itself, only sketched lightly on a sheet of layout paper placed over it. Mike decided that if you acquired a habit, overkill beat cutting corners. "We're only assessing the situation."

  "Exactly."

  "So why did Dad stick with the story?"

  "Not that again, for Chrissakes."

  "He knows I can keep my mouth shut." Mike tried to ignore it but it kept nagging him. "So why not level with me?"

  "Look, what's your dad?"

  Mike calculated. "Sixty-six next birthday."

  "I mean what word describes him. He's a politician, isn't he? Not some toothless inbred banjo-player. And Kinnery's a boffin with PhDs coming out of his arse. They can't possibly believe this paranormal shit. It's just some kind of manoeuvre."

  "Surveys say fifty per cent of the electorate believe in alien abduction. They didn't all marry their cousins."

  "Maybe, but your dad's not one of them. He's humouring Kinnery because he needs something from him. Kinnery might be a psychiatric case, or just spinning a dit for some reason, but either way it suits your dad to nod and smile. So he's going to keep that act up in front of you. If he tells you, he's compromised you. Deniability. If it all goes tits up, he can say, 'Oh, my son knew nothing.' Has he ever let you in on any secret squirrel stuff?"

  Mike had to stop and repeat all that to himself. Rob was capable of impressive feats of Byzantine logic, another thing Dad liked about him. Rob leaned back in the beige ostrich leather seat and folded his arms in his argue-with-me-if-you-dare posture.

  "Just once," Mike said. "And it freaked me out so much I never wanted to hear it again."

  "There you go. He's into something awkward, and he's still totally sane. Are you sure you've got a first in politics?"

  "History and politics. But there wasn't a lecture on applying theory to your own family."

  "Well, whatever it is, we're paying a surprise visit to an armed paranoid. Even if he turns into an aardvark, he'll still be an armed, jumpy aardvark. Prioritize the threats, Zombie."

  Rob scanned Mike's face as if he was searching for symptoms of rabid superstition and banjo playing. Mike had a strange out-of-body feeling about all this. He was taking something seriously that he didn't actually believe. He wasn't even sure that was psychologically possible, but here he was, doing just that because he trusted his father. They'd brought handguns, stun guns, body armour, short-range radios, and even ballistic helmets. As Rob had pointed out, whatever else Ian Dunlop turned out to be, he was probably armed and scared, and that overrode any other complications.

  All they had to do was observe. The chance of anything happening that required their intervention was near zero. Mike went to get coffees from the galley and started refilling the machine. Rob wandered up behind him and leaned against the door frame.

  "Have you thought what you're going to do when you're a family man?" Rob asked.

  "Is this about the job, or diapers?"

  "You'll need to be home more."

  "You're right."

  "Don't worry about me." Rob knew his every thought. "I can take all the yacht gigs."

  "Am I that transparent?"

  "Yes."

  "I don't want you to think that I pick up and drop people when it suits me."

  "Yeah, but you're a big boy now, and you've got a life."

  "You know you could retire tomorrow. I could fix all that for you."

  "No. I need to work. For the same reasons you do."

  Mike said the next thing that came into his head. "We could set up our own security company. We don't need Esselby to do something meaningful. Hell, look at all the companies and consultants who trained me."

  Rob squatted to open the frid
ge and gestured with carton. "You could always buy a PMSC. Your family picks up companies like pints of milk. 'Ooh, we better get an extra one, just in case, 'cos it's the weekend.'"

  "I'll put in the capital. But it'll still be a partnership." Mike was only spitballing, but it was making more sense with every second he thought about it. "Equal shares."

  "I'd be okay working for you. Really."

  "You're my buddy. Not the help."

  "Okay, dig out that gold-plated address book, then. You must have made some interesting mates at Oxford. Some of them might be defence ministers by now. Or tinpot dictators."

  "Dad thought that when I was President, I could just call up some despot and say 'Hey, Binky, old man, remember our undergrad high jinks? How about not invading your neighbour, just for old time's sake?' And I'd save the world."

  "Seriously?"

  "I've told you that before, haven't I?"

  "Not that he made you go to Oxford so you'd have some dodgy statesmen on your speed dial and save the world, no."

  "I'm being glib. He just wanted me to have an international perspective. Not some America-fuck-yeah attitude. The big picture."

  "Zombie, it doesn't exist. There's no such thing as the world. Just individuals. And they don't all want the same saving."

  "You would have been really scary with an expensive education, you know that?"

  Rob squeezed past Mike and took over the coffee, feigning annoyance. "I've never known anyone dick around this long brewing two bloody wets. You'd have made a shit president. The country would be at DEFCON Three and you'd still be pissing around with the coffee machine."

  He was back to merciless slagging, so he must have been pleased with the idea. Mike took the coffee back to the table, reassured. His world was tidy again. Now he could spend the rest of the flight focused on the immediate task: Ian Dunlop.

  The options were finite. If they found a reclusive teenager instead of some drugs warlord or a heavily-armed cult, then the kid would either want to come with them or he wouldn't. They could try to persuade him, but they wouldn't need to snatch him unless he was in immediate danger.

  It was only when Mike played the thought back that he realised how feeble it sounded. He knew how certain agencies worked. They wouldn't think twice about assassinating inconvenient people, let alone kidnapping them. It was the line between being a soldier and some other creature entirely. He wondered what it would take to make him into one of them.

  Rob leaned across him to take one of the maps. "You okay, Zombie?"

  "Just over-thinking it."

  "It'll be fine. We'll know what to do."

  Rob gripped his shoulder and gave it a quick shake. Mike could imagine him talking fierce sense to young Marines under fire. It did the trick. Rob could make him believe anything. He was absolute certainty on two legs, able to instil the same resolve into those around him. Yes, Mike would know what to do when the time came. It would distil itself into something immediate and uncomplicated, and his training would kick in. He put on his ballistic vest and started getting focused.

  They landed near the Idaho-Washington border and found the car waiting. It was a suitably anonymous silver Toyota SUV from the fleet of a local firm that was somewhere in the complex maze of Brayne-owned companies. Mike's first task was to plug a GPS blocker into the lighter socket to cover their tracks, just in case the worst happened and the car's route became a jigsaw puzzle piece to compromise them. The zapper knocked out the on-board satnav as well. Rob loaded the bags.

  "You can drive the first leg, mate." He settled into the passenger seat and placed a selection of snacks at strategic points in the dashboard for quick access. "I promise I won't freak out."

  "You raided the galley."

  "Yeah, to avoid getting picked up by CCTV at petrol stations."

  "That's pretty paranoid."

  "I'm not the one who brought the GPS zapper."

  "I didn't say it was a bad thing, did I?"

  "Okay. Phones off. Batteries out. Deniability shields on."

  "Roger that. We're not here."

  "I can't even see you, mate. Whoever you are." Rob gave him a sideways look. "It's an urban myth about phone batteries, right?"

  "Not if the software's been infected."

  "Fuck me. I hate this modern world."

  Apart from getting picked up by traffic cameras, they were now as invisible as they'd ever be. Mike kept an eye open for suspicious vehicles, not that he needed to with Rob in the car. For once, Rob didn't sing along with the radio.

  They were now nearly two hours down the road, on schedule to reach Athel Ridge mid-afternoon. Rob opened a packet of cookies and started crunching while he checked directions with the offline satnav maps on his phone.

  "Want some biccies?" he mumbled, holding out the packet.

  "Sure." Mike grabbed a couple put them within reach on the dashboard. "You're quiet."

  "My mouth's busy. Chat away if you like. I'll just nod and spit crumbs."

  "I wonder how Mom and Dad are going to react if we adopt."

  "They'll be doting grandparents. Your parents love you whether you breed more pedigree Braynes or not. They think you're a cross between Superman and Bertrand Russell."

  "Why Bertrand Russell?"

  "That's the only philosophy bloke I know. Apart from Camus. Did I pronounce that right?" Rob fidgeted, checking the mirrors. "Anyway, I've just spotted a problem."

  Mike's gut flipped. He checked the rear-view. "Where?"

  "No, a moral one. If Kinnery's really turned some kid into a freak, he ought to serve time for it. But he'd never be charged, would he? Because then everyone would know about the kid, and then his life would be shit."

  "But Kinnery didn't manage it."

  "Does that matter? He must have tried. Sick twat."

  "It was only meant to be an enhancement for consenting spec ops personnel."

  "Yeah? Superpowers should stay in the comics, mate."

  Mike found it impossibly painful for a moment. He thought of surplus eggs and donor sperm and fertility clinics, and it was all far too close to home again. What do they really do with ours? He had to put that out of his mind. It wasn't helping.

  "I used to love the Fantastic Four," he said, trying to distract himself with trivia. "Did you ever wonder what it'd be like if you could really do all that? Change shape. Be invisible. Fly."

  Rob shrugged, straight-faced. "The costumes put me off, to be honest. Spandex always makes your dick look tiny. Even mine. Did you like Batman?"

  "No. He's too messed up."

  "What, a billionaire who's obsessed with saving the world, likes fighting, and has an ex-military English butler?" Rob started giggling. It was infectious. "You know that's what Brad calls us, don't you? Bruce and Alfred."

  Mike found himself laughing against his will again. "The bastard never says it to my face."

  "Anyway, if Kinnery was really, properly, paid-up-mad-professor mad, he'd have tried to cross humans with tigers, or give them lasers for eyes or something. Not squirt ink or change colour. Cuttlefish Man's a bit chad, if you ask me. Now, if he'd tried to cross a human with a giant squid, that would be something."

  "They don't make mad scientists like they used to."

  Rob fiddled with the radio to change stations. "Has your dad said where he's going to stash this Ian if he turns out to be real?"

  "No, which kind of confirms he doesn't believe it. It just involves more people. He'd want to talk that through with me if he thought it was a possibility."

  "Not if he wants to keep you deniable."

  "Well, we'll know by the end of the day, won't we?"

  "Christ, listen to us. We're talking ourselves into believing it." Rob let out a long theatrical sigh and went back to checking the map. "Time to do a dog leg, Zombie. Double back."

  Mike looked for an exit and turned onto a quiet road to let Rob take the wheel for the next hour. It was a much more tortuous route than they'd planned, with five or six detours to
shake off people who weren't even there. Mike figured that if he'd abandoned this much of his sanity, then ditching the rest wasn't going to make things any worse. He made a note of motels along the road where they could stop over if this dragged on overnight for any reason.

  Eventually the road signs started showing Athel Ridge. The landscape was hill-fringed pasture and fields purple with lavender crops. When they drove into Athel Ridge itself, it turned out to be little more than a loose collection of stores, bars, and offices strung along the road. Most of the parked vehicles were pickups. It looked even smaller than Mike had expected.

  "Cameras?" He needed to know where they were, just in case. "There's one facing the liquor store."

  Rob switched off the radio. "Traffic cam at the crossroads."

  "Post office, left."

  They left Athel Ridge and turned off the main road to head into the hills. Only one other vehicle passed them before Mike spotted the turning to Dunlop Ranch. Rob slowed as he drove past it.

  "That's it," he said. "Start looking for an observation point."

  Mike craned his neck to see if he could pick out the ranch, checking the position against the map. Distant smoke curled above the tree line. If Kinnery's annotated map was right, that was coming from the neighbours' place.

  Rob pulled off the road and parked under the trees. "There it is. But Kinnery didn't allow for the bloody trees being in leaf. Still, at least everything's more or less where he said it was."

  Mike scanned with the binoculars and picked up part of a roof. They couldn't carry out surveillance from here. The only way they were going to be able to see anything was to head back down the road and turn into the ranch. Kinnery had said the front of the house was visible from tree cover somewhere along the track.

  Rob held out his hand for the binoculars and got out of the SUV. "Okay, let's move in closer and hope Doc Frankenstein didn't forget to tell us Maggie had security cameras." He leaned on the hood to steady his grip. "If anyone challenges us, we say we don't know it's private property and we've stopped for pee break."

  "I could use one now."

  "And if we don't see any activity, I'll go and knock on the door."