Going Grey

by Karen Traviss

  "Okay, end of line," Rob said. "I'll take you through."

  Ian felt obliged to say goodbye to her properly and got out of the car. Dru stood in front of him for a moment, shifting from foot to foot as if she was working up to saying something.

  "I'm glad we got a chance to talk," she said. "I just want to thank you again. That was incredibly brave."

  Ian saw what he'd done more as immediate necessity than courage, but he didn't want to ruin Mike's careful work to make Dru more of an ally than a liability. "You're welcome."

  "And thanks for telling me about the Dunlops. I hope you find someone who knew David."

  "Yeah, he was the brave one," Ian said. "He made choices. I just cope."

  Dru reached out as if she was going to shake his hand, but Rob gave her a withering look. He probably thought she was after some DNA. He still didn't trust this not to go wrong. She settled for giving Ian an embarrassed touch on the shoulder instead.

  "Take care of yourself, Ian."

  He watched her walk off with Rob, wondering if she found secrets painfully restless things or if she could bury them and forget she even knew them. Ian had surprised himself by being able to befriend Tom without feeling that he was deceiving him. The guy was open about not being able to discuss his own career. They both knew that there were questions about each other that they should leave unasked, and it felt perfectly fine. Ian could live with this.

  While he waited for Rob to come back, he sat listening to the car stereo. One of Mike's music compilations was already loaded, slightly mournful songs that were hard to sing along to, which explained why Rob didn't play it much.

  Ian was worried that Mike would be the one who had to live with the real problems. All kinds of stuff would churn up from the shooting, even if he wasn't going to be charged, and instead of crap following Ian, it would now dog Mike's steps. Was it going to be on some file? What would happen when he and Livvie tried to adopt a baby? Would he look like a murderer to whoever decided these things, a bad choice for a parent? Mike said his money could make things disappear and almost everything had a price tag, but it seemed like a lot to pay to put things right for someone else.

  It was some time before Rob returned. He jumped in the driver's seat, bouncing on the leather upholstery with exaggerated relish.

  "Peace at last," he said, backing out of the parking bay. "I've got five days left with Tom. If there's anything you want to do now, speak up."

  "Are you still pissed at me? On a scale of one to ten."

  "I'm back to zero, mate."

  "I don't want to fall out with you."

  "Look, friends have fights. Even Mike lost it with me yesterday. You laugh about it later and forget it."

  "What would you have done?"

  "That's a trick question. Look, remember when you thought you wouldn't have the balls to step in and save someone? Well, now you know you have." Rob turned up the volume on the stereo as he hammered along the road. "Oh, bloody hell, not Mike's wrist-slashers' greatest hits, please. Find something cheerful, will you? Go on, lift that cover. There's a memory stick in there somewhere. Just plug it in there."

  Ian rummaged through the console. "Mike seemed a bit better this morning."

  "It's all a bit too close to home for him to shrug it off yet."

  "And you criticize me for doing something extreme to draw flak."

  "Okay, I admit we all try to out-Oates each other."

  "I got that."

  "I know."

  "It might all be for nothing, though. You don't know what's going to come out of the woodwork now the police are looking?"

  "Maybe there's a shit volcano about to erupt, too, but I know this – we haven't broken any laws."

  Ian wasn't sure how he felt about Mike shooting someone to protect him. He'd never say it, but he knew Mike hadn't opened fire to save his own life. He'd put himself on the line to draw that fire so he could kill the knowledge of what Ian was. Mike would work that out, but Ian didn't know if Mike had admitted it to himself and understood that it was a sacrifice, not a crime.

  Ian was still unravelling his own reactions. Now he understood why it rubbed all the awkward nerves that he was afraid to acknowledge. He'd never known a father. The gaps in the sketchy chart of how to be a man had been filled in a textbook kind of way by books and movies, and he understood why Gran had done that, but it wasn't just about what he was supposed to be. He also needed to know where that sense of manhood should have come from.

  Mike slotted neatly into place as the source. He was all those things that Gran said made a good man, and therefore a good father; he was also rehearsing his own father stuff for the day that had never come, when he'd have his own kids. Ian's gaps snapped into place with Mike's like puzzle pieces. Ian felt weird about the shooting because a voice inside said the unsayable: that's how much my dad loves me, that's how far he'd go for me, and I'd do anything for him. It all made sense now.

  The house felt empty when they got home. The cars were still garaged, though, and Oatie was stretched out next to the radiator in the kitchen. Rob looked around the usual places for a message.

  "Shit." He pulled a face at a sticky note on the fridge door. "Livvie and Tom are having an airsoft battle in the kill house. Bloody hell. Now who's inappropriate?"

  "Where's Mike?" Ian walked up the hall, listening for movement. "I can't see him wanting to join in with that."

  The alarms were on, so Mike must have heard the drive's motion sensors activate even if he hadn't heard Rob switch off the alarm panel by the front door. Once the interior doors were closed, most of the rooms were pretty well soundproofed, so Ian had to go looking. Mike's study was empty, door open. He wasn't in the utility room, either. It wasn't until Ian reached the other end of the house that he heard the faint, sporadic plink of piano keys.

  Most of the rooms in the house were left furnished but unoccupied, like a museum tableau. The door to the music room, a library with a piano and some frighteningly expensive audio equipment, was ajar. Ian knocked in case he'd caught Mike at a bad moment.

  Mike sat at the piano, phone held to his left ear while he tapped one key with his right forefinger. He was listening to some long conversation and punctuating it with grunts and sighs. Ian couldn't guess what was going on at the other end until Mike shut his eyes.

  "Oh, for God's sake," he said. "It's not an admission of anything. Just send me the rest of it by e-mail. Goodbye, Scott."

  So it was the lawyer. The goodbye sounded weary. Mike stared at the phone for a while, still not acknowledging Ian, and finally looked up.

  "Hi, buddy. You shipped her out safely, then?"

  Ian sat down in the window seat. He could hear Rob coming, whistling some tune he didn't recognise. "Yeah, she seemed fine. Are you okay?"

  "Not really."

  "Was that your attorney?"

  "He was updating me on the case." Mike looked towards the door as Rob came in, followed by Oatie. "Hi Rob."

  "Ooh, I didn't know you could play the piano." Rob stood over Mike and tapped a few keys. "You've never touched that thing in all the time I've known you."

  "I had lessons as a kid. Good discipline, Mom said."

  "Well, if contracting goes tits-up, we can open a bar. You can be the pianist and I'll be the bouncer."

  Mike looked up at him. "I just heard from Scott. The police have a better lead on the man I killed."

  "That's harsh, Zombie. It's okay to say the dead bloke."

  "So who is he?" Ian asked.

  Mike cupped his hands over his nose for a moment, then folded his arms. "He was an Iraq vet."

  "Oh, shit." Rob seemed to know what was coming. "Mike, you didn't kill a puppy, okay? No fucking breast-beating."

  "They're checking the Army fingerprint database. The medical examiner found a tattoo that clued him in."

  Ian could guess what Mike was going through right then. Being responsible for the death of someone who'd served would hit a very raw nerve, whether the guy was a
criminal or not. It was the worst thing he cold possibly hear.

  Rob didn't fire off a reassurance straight away. He was picking his words.

  "There had to be a high chance he'd be one of us," he said. "Who else would you hire? There's lots of blokes like us out there."

  "Sure, but I bet that when he was downrange, he didn't think he'd come home to die in a tourist-trap town at the hands of another American."

  "He should have thought about that before he took the money to do an armed abduction," Rob said.

  "He's probably got a family."

  "The worst shit-bag I ever put down probably has a dear old mum in Baghdad who still cries over his photo every day, but it doesn't make him a saint."

  "So this guy's service doesn't count for anything?"

  "It counts, but he still came to your home with firearms, and he wasn't planning to invite you out for a day's grouse shooting, was he?"

  Mike unfolded his arms and did a few more plinks on the keyboard, then managed a chord or two. "Anyway, I mentioned to Scott that if the guy had a family, they might be in real hardship, so I asked if there a way of helping them out. He lectured me on making it look like an admission of guilt. We didn't agree."

  Ian thought it wasn't a great idea either, but he knew it was Mike's reflex to reach for his wallet in a crisis.

  "If I was his family, I'd be really upset if someone offered me money," Ian said, trying to talk him out of it. "Blood money. That's how they'd see it."

  "They don't have to know it's me. There are always ways to give people things."

  "Of course," Rob said, "he might have strangled his wife for the insurance money. Or she might be a drug dealer. Or very rich, like you. Or there might be a bunch of his mates biding their time to come back and finish the job. Who knows?"

  "Yes, Rob, I do understand the point you're making." Mike read from his phone again. "Scott says the medical examiner decided the bruising developed before the guy died, so they're not going to re-interview me about that."

  "He got all that out of them? Seriously?"

  "He's good. And they've found a micro SD card in the guy's jacket lining, but no phone yet. Or vehicles. There were three images that they want to identify."

  Mike held the phone so Rob could see it. Ian had to peer over his shoulder. It was Dru in the woods, apparently with Tom, not a very sharp picture but good enough, and another of Tom walking down the road with Oatie.

  Ian knew the one in the woods was him. The one with Oatie was definitely Tom. They were pretty damn close, though. He expected Rob to erupt, but he just let out a breath.

  "At a distance, it would have fooled me as well," he said.

  Ian knew it would slip out sooner or later. He should have come clean. "I'm sorry, Rob. It just made sense at the time."

  "Subject closed."

  "Well, they recognised both as Tom," Mike said. "An officer saw him when he called at the house. I'll confirm that's Dru Lloyd and feed them the same story we're giving Weaver about her coming to see us. He'll say neither of them saw the guy taking pictures, which is true up to a point."

  "Okay, but I will not be fucking happy if my boy's dragged into this," Rob said. "He'll know he wasn't in the woods talking to her."

  "Okay, I'll get Scott to answer neutrally for them and confirm who they are. It fits what the police think a whole lot better than the truth, doesn't it? The guy was staking us all out." Mike had slipped back to being in quiet control and telling everyone how things were going to be. "If they find something else that points to a KW-Halbauer link with Dru, we've got our story covered, and it's down to Weaver to explain it. I'd buy tickets for that show. Dad's seeing him tomorrow."

  "But the guy didn't get an actual shot of me morphing." Ian tried to recover the situation. He couldn't bear to upset Rob again. "He probably took out his phone because he saw it and wanted proof if I did it again. Except the next time he saw me looking like I do now, I jumped him, which kind of ruled out taking more pictures."

  "Well, if has, we can't do anything about it now," Mike said. "So let's just sit tight. Dad's seeing Weaver with Dru, by the way."

  Rob puffed out a long breath. "That's suicidal."

  "It's Dad's show now." Mike tapped out a scale on the keyboard. "He'll do the final polish. He'll turn Dru from being someone who can't afford to expose us to someone who actually wants to give evidence if Weaver ever ends up in court over this. She's our weapon now."

  Rob shrugged as if he wasn't convinced but was deferring to someone who played this kind of political chess for a living. "I'm glad I'm not one of your dad's opponents." He snapped his fingers at Oatie. "Come on, useless. You haven't had your dinner yet."

  The dog trotted out after him, head down. Mike looked at Ian and shrugged.

  "I know what you're going to say, but Rob's disturbed by the Tom thing." Mike tried a few more chords. It was starting to sound like proper music. "You know, I haven't played in twenty-five years. I quite like struggling with it, though. It takes up all my concentration. Like meditating. Do you still do that?"

  "Yeah. It's a habit now." Ian wanted to clear up the tension for good. He didn't feel he could move on until he had. "I'm sorry. I feel stupid about the Tom thing."

  "No need, buddy. You're entitled to get a few things wrong. Nobody wrote the rulebook for this." Mike stood up and closed the keyboard lid. "Okay, until we rule out any accomplices for this guy, I still want to see good security practice."

  "Is it safe for me to call Joe?" Ian hadn't spoken to him for ages. That was no way to treat someone who'd stepped in to help with Gran's funeral when Ian didn't know how to handle the outside world. "It can't do any harm now."

  Mike ushered him out of the room towards the kitchen. "Go ahead. Pity you can't visit him, though. Unless you remember what you looked like then."

  It was bittersweet. The one person Ian could have called a true neighbour couldn't be allowed to see him the way he was now. He wouldn't understand. He wouldn't even recognise him. Can I morph back to the way I was? Ian could just about remember how he looked a day or two before he left the ranch for the last time. Joe might not spot the differences after a long separation.

  But this was the Ian Dunlop he was now, and unless he had a real need to use his ability, this was how he would stay.

  He'd call Joe after dinner. He went to find Tom and Livvie and stay out of Rob's hair for a while. It was time to be sociable and make up for the disruption to Tom's visit.

  In the evening, the mood around the dinner table was more subdued than yesterday, when the shock was still fresh, and Mike had gone back to looking preoccupied.

  "Who's the designated worrier tonight?" Rob asked.

  Mike looked up. "Warrior?"

  "Worry-er. As in he who worries and has to stay sober in case emergency action's required."

  "I'll do it. I don't feel like drinking anyway."

  Livvie poured a very large peach margarita into a highball glass and put it in front of Rob. He studied the sudden bloom of beaded condensation on the glass for a moment and smiled to himself.

  "Right, movie quiz," he said. He ran his finger through the condensation, from rim to base, then downed the drink in one. "Name that film."

  "Ice Cold In Alex," Ian said. "John Mills."

  "Well done." Rob nudged Tom. "Ian's a bit of a movie buff. We've got boxes of his DVDs in the basement. We'll have to watch one later."

  Livvie went around the table again with the jug. "Top up, anybody?"

  "I'd better get a beer, Mrs Mike. You know what I'm like after a couple of your margaritas."

  "Go on, just a splash. It's worth it to see you laughing again. How about a toast?"

  Rob allowed her to pour a couple of inches into his glass before he raised it. "To us. There's Us, and there's Them, with capital letters."

  It seemed to have some significance for Mike. He gave Rob a funny look and raised his glass of water. "To the tribe of Us, then. Is that traditional?"

  "It i
s now." Rob made a gesture, thumb and forefinger indicating a very small gap. He tipped some of the drink into a saucer and put it down on the floor for Oatie to test it nervously with his tongue. "Remember. Us is just you and me and our nearest and dearest. Everyone else is Them. Wherever They may be."

  Mike returned the small gap gesture. "Us."

  After dinner, Ian watched Mike while he loaded the dishes in the washer. He reached for the bottle of hand wash next to the sink and turned on the faucet, then touched his wedding band to his lips before taking it off. When he finished washing and drying his hands, he touched the ring to his lips again before sliding it back on his finger. Ian had never seen him do that before.

  It didn't surprise him. Mike seemed to find comfort in ritual. It fitted with his insistence on his lucky plastic watch. The things you did when you thought nobody was watching told your whole story, Ian decided.

  When everyone was in the den later that evening, watching The Cruel Sea and drinking too much beer, he saw Mike slip out. He was gone too long to be taking a leak, so Ian got up to find him. He wasn't in the kitchen or the bathroom. It was just a hunch, but Ian had a good idea where he'd be.

  He picked up a pair of NV goggles from the utility room and headed for the woods. It took a while to find the right place, but he'd guessed right.

  Mike was squatting among the trees with his back to the house, shoulders hunched against the cold and head bowed, staring down at the spot where the body had been.

  Ian felt he had no right to watch, but he couldn't walk away. He waited until Mike finally straightened up, stood to attention, and saluted. It was so private and painful that Ian hated himself for not walking away sooner.

  Mike's shoulders relaxed and he turned around. "Goddamn." He almost took a step back. "That's the way to give a guy a heart attack, buddy."

  "Sorry." Ian walked back to the house with him. "I thought I knew you well, but now I'm sure."

  Mike didn't seem embarrassed or upset at the intrusion. Maybe it was easier for Ian to see it than for Mike to say it.

  "He wasn't the enemy," Mike said at last. "Just the guy who got shot. The enemy's the guy who sent him."