Going Grey

by Karen Traviss

  Dru took the room phone over to the window and dialled Larry's number, half-watching the parking lot below as she waited for him answer. Her credit card would place her here anyway. She wasn't adding any more to the audit trail than she had already, and if anything went badly wrong – wrong enough to pull phone records and credit card data – everything she'd done was legal, if a little seedy. She wasn't counting Kinnery's phone records.

  But she was spying on a senator's family. Legality didn't matter. It was serious trouble waiting to happen.

  Someone picked up. "Hey Larry," she said.

  "Hi. Want to talk to Clare?"

  "I want a word with you first. Did you tell her where I was? No, don't answer that. Who else could? Well, thanks a bunch. She posted it on her page. I was trying to keep that quiet. This is a goddamn staff investigation."

  Larry went silent for a moment. "Jesus, Dru, you should have spelled it out."

  "Well, it's done now. But I'm going to ask her to delete the entry."

  "As if your staff read kids' pages. Anyway, when are you coming back?"

  "Not for a few more days."

  "Did your boss get hold of you?"

  "What?"

  "He rang me asking for your contact number. He said he'd lost it."

  Dru paused to unpick the detail. Was Larry's cell number still on file as her emergency contact? Damn, it probably was. There was nobody else local to call to pick up Clare if anything happened to her.

  But I didn't give Weaver a hotel number.

  He wasn't the kind of man to forget whether she had or not. The bastard was checking on her. Dru felt the room shrink to suffocating tightness like one of those horror movie focus effects as the maniac's knife paused above the victim.

  "Dru? You still there?"

  "You gave him the number?"

  "Oh, I got that wrong as well, did I? How the hell was I supposed to know you hadn't told your boss?"

  "I didn't tell him for a reason." Larry's carelessness wasn't Dru's main problem now. Weaver didn't trust her. At least it was mutual. "Okay. I'd like to talk to Clare, please."

  Dru waited, watching guests in the hotel parking lot. The guy who'd been checking her out in the restaurant registered on her in the near-subconscious way that those primal things did. He climbed into his Chrysler but didn't drive off, then got out again after a few moments. Dru looked away as Clare came on the line.

  "Mom? It's me. Did I do something wrong?"

  "Hi sweetheart. No, you didn't. Nothing at all." Yelling at her wasn't the answer. "Your dad shouldn't have mentioned Maine to you. If the person I'm checking up on saw that, they'd know I'd found them. Can you delete it? Then they might not see it."

  "Sure. Sorry, Mom."

  "It's okay." Well, if I don't get anything else out of this, then at least I've learned not to take things out on my daughter. "Can you do it right away?"

  "I'll do it now."

  "Okay, I've got to go, but when I come home, I'll make this up to you. We'll have some fun. Do something really different. I promise."

  Dru gave Clare a few minutes before checking the page. The entry was gone. It might have been archived somewhere, but that was only a potential problem that might never happen, not a big here-I-am sign. Now she'd have to come up with a list of standby excuses for Weaver. She was stuck, certain that Ian Dunlop was involved with Kinnery's off-the-books activity, but unsure who he was and whether she wanted to be an accomplice to whatever Weaver was planning.

  I could just walk away now and tell him it was a dead end. That's the sensible thing to do. But I still need to know.

  Dru braced herself for more freezing cold tedium and went down to the front desk to see if she could borrow a Thermos. A hot drink would make all the difference. Should have remembered that. It's not like I haven't staked out a house before, is it? Then there were bathroom breaks. She could only keep watch for as long as her bladder let her. She couldn't recall her favourite detective show ever dealing with the thorny issue of needing to break off surveillance to pee.

  While the concierge was busy finding a vacuum flask, Dru chatted to the receptionist. "Have there been any calls for me, by the way? I've been out a lot."

  The receptionist disappeared into the back office and came out thumbing through a notepad. "Yes, there was a call, and we tried to put it through," she said. "But the caller got cut off. Number withheld. They didn't ring back. I'm sorry."

  "No problem." If Weaver had genuinely needed to contact Dru, he'd have tried again or e-mailed. He must have been checking the number to see where the hotel was. Clare's gaffe hadn't made any difference, then. "Thank you."

  Her plan for today was to walk around the Braynes' boundary, which would at least keep her warm. Binoculars, a couple of wildlife booklets, and a change of clothing – a gilet over her jacket, a headscarf, brown cords instead of jeans – created the right disguise for prowling around. Before she set off, she studied the pictures of Mike Brayne and the guy who might have been Ian Dunlop. The more she compared the two versions of his face, the less she trusted her own judgement.

  At least it was dry and sunny today. The visitor centre at the top of the trail was busy, with a group of mountain bikers poring over the display map outside the office and ten or eleven cars in the lot. Dru took her GIS map and phone compass and headed down the trail. How hard could it be? She couldn't get lost. After a hundred yards she started looking for a point to turn east through the trees and find the fence that marked the Braynes' property. If her math was right, the boundary was more than three miles long. The estate fanned out from the road like a blunt wedge, extending at least a mile into the woods.

  Rob and Ian. Rob and Ian ...

  As she walked, she replayed the conversation with the Braynes' neighbour. Another element now bothered her, not a missing piece but one that didn't quite fit the hole she'd shaped for it.

  He said Rob and Ian. Like they were always there.

  The old man obviously knew them well enough to use first names. How did that fit with the scenario of a gene mule, a smuggler? If this was a safe house, when was Ian moved here? And if he was worth that much to biotech and the Braynes had some financial interest, why was he hanging around like a member of the household? They would just have taken what they needed, paid him, and said goodbye. And if they couldn't trust him to keep his mouth shut about it, wouldn't he be locked away or worse by now? Something still didn't fit.

  Dru got to within a few yards of the fence. It was just wire, a token boundary she could have stepped over. But she stuck to public land. She tracked the binoculars along the tree trunks at eye height, occasionally tilting up so that anyone watching would think she was looking for birds. The estate had to be hundreds of acres. The most she could do was work out what was at the back of the house and perhaps find another line of sight. The buildings on the satellite map might have been barns. It was hard to tell from an aerial view.

  I could just cross the boundary and see how far I can get.

  But Dru lost her nerve. If it was a safe house, they wouldn't give an intruder the benefit of the doubt. Right now, she could still go home and tell Weaver something he didn't know about the existence of Ian Dunlop, if she wasn't worried about being implicated in whatever he did next. She didn't need to do any more.

  Just one glimpse, though. For the record. And for my grip on reality, I'd like to see him morph as well.

  Dru walked a couple of miles, intending to circle around the perimeter, but the land to the north-east of the boundary was marked as private property. She'd have to retrace her steps and skirt around the front. In a few places, it was hard to tell exactly which side of the line she was. The flimsy fence vanished into undergrowth for long stretches or wasn't there at all. There wasn't even a keep-out sign. Security here was either non-existent or it was some technology she couldn't imagine that had already recorded everything about her down to her shoe size.

  Maybe I really do have the wrong guy.

  When
Dru got back to the visitor centre, there were different cars parked out front and people walking with their kids. She carried on and turned left down Forest Road.

  Okay, five hundred yards.

  She started counting her steps and eventually drew level with the approximate boundary. She couldn't even see the curve in the road yet, let alone the lodge house. That was the scale of the estate. It was a lot of land to get lost in, or hide a thief.

  As she passed the house, she glanced up the drive without slowing, but she couldn't see any cars. The eastern boundary that was marked on the GIS map ran parallel with a rough path, but she couldn't see the house from that side. It was no use as an observation point. All she could do was turn around and retrace her steps.

  I'm starving. Damn, it's way past lunchtime.

  Dru picked up her pace. A guy walking his dog headed down the road towards her, shoulders slightly hunched and chin buried in the upturned collar of a bright orange ski jacket. He looked as cold as she felt. As he got closer, she dithered over whether to do the usual I-can't-see-you urban stare to avoid eye contact. This was the country. It would be weird to ignore someone in the middle of nowhere, but nodding or saying hi might make her too memorable. She focused on his dog instead, a brindle greyhound. All that registered on her before she looked down at the dog was a dark-haired guy in his late teens or early twenties, just another stranger like the cyclists outside the visitor centre.

  A little way down the road, something made her glance over her shoulder. She couldn't see him. Had he turned off? He couldn't possibly have walked around the bend in that time. For a moment, she thought she was losing it. When she reached the lay-by where she kept watch on the house, she wondered if he'd turned straight onto the Braynes' land after he passed her.

  No, that was crazy. He must have been walking faster than she'd thought and crossed the road to the woods on the southern side.

  This was what low blood sugar did to you. It was nothing that a good lunch wouldn't cure. Then she'd come up with a better plan to grab that single glimpse of Ian Dunlop and end nearly twenty years of Kinnery's lies.

  CHALTON FARM, WESTERHAM

  FRIDAY.

  At 0430, the house had its own unique soundscape.

  Ian concentrated, memorizing what was normal ambient sound for the early hours, and tried to stay alert. The faint chattering from the central heating was like a chorus of distant voices, while the security room had its own soundtrack, ranging from a high-pitched tone more like a change in air pressure than a noise to the quiet hum from the power supplies. Oatie added the tapping of nails on tiles. The dog tiptoed into the small room and put his head on Ian's lap, looking reproachful.

  "You want to go out?" Ian whispered. "I can't take you. Wait."

  Lack of sleep was wearing him down. It was getting harder to focus or even keep his eyes fully open. But Mike and Rob were twice his age, and they were watching security displays or patrolling the grounds around the clock. He had no excuse.

  Ian caught a sudden glimpse of Rob as he passed one of the cameras along the driveway. It was no way to spend the holiday. Ian felt terrible.

  This wasn't Rob's problem, or Mike's. If anything happened to Rob when he returned to security work, all that Tom would remember was that his last visit with his dad had been ruined by some asshole called Ian and his dumb problems.

  Ian thought again about Scott of the Antarctic. A man really had taken the hard way out to spare his buddies. But there was a solution for all this that didn't involve anybody dying. There was no need to let this drag on. If Ian didn't morph, nobody would ever be able to prove that he could do it, no matter how many tests and scans they gave him.

  All they'd find were the genes. That didn't mean a damn thing, any more than sharing genes with humans let a chimp morph into a man or vice versa. The big problem was working out the safest way to turn himself in. He could walk into a police station and tell them he'd been the victim of an experiment without his consent, and not even mention morphing, and that a concerned senator's family had brought the crime to light. Kinnery would be looking at jail; KWA would take some serious damage. He'd have to persuade the police to run DNA tests, though, and that might take some doing. Whichever way he worded it, explaining that he had animal genes in him sounded kind of crazy.

  But the hiding – the real hiding, the truly scared kind – would be over. It would just be the media wanting to take a look. He'd have to go away for a while to give Mike and Livvie some peace, but he could come back when the world had grown bored with a shape-shifter who couldn't morph. It was worth facing temporary harassment to spare his friends a life under siege.

  So, call the cops? The media? I could ring Zoe Murray again.

  Ian tried to ignore the buzzing in his head, then felt himself fall. But he was still in the chair. Oatie was gone. Shit, he must have nodded off for a few seconds and started dreaming. He dug his nails into his palm a few times to wake himself up and inspected the burn, which was now healing into a tight, itchy red patch. It was another painful thing he'd had to do as a means to a better end.

  Okay. Focus. The GPS says Dru's at the hotel. She might come back at any time.

  But the security room was too warm and cosy. Ian rubbed his eyes and started to feel the world receding around him like the tide going out.

  Come on, come on ...

  His eyes wouldn't obey. He was seeing double. Then he couldn't see anything at all.

  Bang. He was fully alert again.

  "Did I startle you? Sorry, mate." Tom was sitting next to him in a sweatshirt and tracksuit pants, drinking coffee. "You haven't missed anything. I've kept an eye on it. I didn't want to wake you."

  "Thanks." Falling asleep on watch was unforgivable. "How long was I out?"

  "About twenty minutes."

  "You didn't have to do that for me."

  Tom tapped his wrist, indicating an absent watch. "No problem. I'm still five hours ahead of you. It's coffee time back home."

  "Rob's out patrolling. I'm sorry this is spoiling your visit."

  "Not at all. I'm riveted." Tom hadn't asked a single awkward question since he'd arrived. He seemed to take it on trust that not knowing the details was for the best. "I'm good at forgetting to be curious if I need to. But if you want me to do anything, just ask. I must admit it was satisfying to eyeball her yesterday."

  "Is Rob still mad at you?"

  "Come on, Dad's never angry, not for real. I was wearing a vest like he told me to, wasn't I? I mean, that's an adventure in itself." Tom's eyes flicked from monitor to monitor, back and forth along each row. "Trust me, this beats sightseeing. Anyway, I understand dad's job a bit better, even if I haven't got a clue what's going on."

  Ian felt he owed Tom at least a partial explanation. "It's not about what I've done. It's about who I am."

  "Whatever it is, if it's okay by Dad, it's okay by me."

  "Sure. I just want you to know that if it wasn't for Mike and Rob, something pretty nasty would have happened to me."

  Tom turned and winked, just like Rob did. "I knew it would be something like that."

  It was hard to tell if Tom thought Ian had been saved from a cult, a gang, an abusive family, retribution of some kind, or even from himself. Ian was used to living with obvious questions that never got discussed. Tom seemed to be the same.

  Apart from a few deer and some extra traffic – a couple of trucks, a bike or two, and a few cars – there was nothing special going on outside. Mike came downstairs just after 0630 and stood behind Tom to watch the screens.

  "As exciting as a test match, isn't it?" Mike said.

  Tom seemed to find that funny. "No sign of the usual suspects."

  "Her car's still at the hotel."

  "What about the Chrysler?" Ian asked.

  "I should have tagged it on Wednesday when I had the chance." He clapped Ian on the shoulder. "Okay, buddy, you're relieved. Go have breakfast."

  Ian needed to take a nap first. When he woke, he
shaved again, concentrating on the contours of his skin. Individual faces looked so different, yet the variations between them were tiny in the scale of the human body. It seemed a lot of fuss and misery about nothing. A face wasn't the only way to identify someone, and it didn't tell you who was inside the skin, either. But faces ruled people's lives and determined their fate. Ian decided that evolution should have come up with a special kind of freckle or pigment that only appeared in nice people. There would have been some point to that, something concrete to judge strangers by.

  But I like looking this way. I'm just as superficial.

  When he went downstairs, Rob was standing in the hall, talking on his cell. Ian caught a few snatches of the conversation. Rob wasn't Rob the Marine or Rob the Dad this time. He sounded almost submissive. He was probably talking to that physiotherapist he was trying to date.

  "No, I'm not making excuses," Rob said, apologetic. "You knew my boy was coming over ... I wish I could ... yeah, but I don't know when I'm going to finish this job ... yes, I am working through the holiday ... fine, okay. You do that."

  Rob rung off without saying goodbye and stood with his head lowered for a moment. Then he noticed Ian standing on the stairs and snapped back to being relentlessly cheerful. It was a sobering moment for Ian.

  "Women." Rob did a comic shrug. "Ungrateful cow. I'll stick it in someone more appreciative, then."

  "Sorry," Ian said. "I couldn't walk past you."

  "It's okay." Rob checked the phone as if the call had interrupted something more important. "Just another bird I've failed to impress with my work ethic."

  And I'm the job that's got to be finished before you can get on with your life. Sorry, Rob. But this isn't going to go on forever, I promise.

  Rob had told him never to let the enemy dictate the time and place for a battle. Ian decided to pick his moment. It wasn't a matter of a few days' lockdown, or even five months' under Mike's protection. It was eighteen years of exile from the world. Ian had had enough. All the time and expense that Mike and Rob had invested in him had led up to this moment. They'd given him all the skills he needed to get the job done, and he owed it to them to do it.