by David Gilman
Now, three hours later, Max’s need to know about his mother was like hunger. It drove him on as it had done since he first learned of the doubt surrounding her death. When Mr. Jackson had phoned St. Christopher’s, they had asked him to call again in a couple of days, because right now Tom Gordon was not in good enough mental condition to see his son.
Jackson would have informed anyone asking about Max’s dad of the man’s condition, which might also have bought Max a few hours. As for the rest? He didn’t know. The killers on the moor were still around. They were hard characters. His dad had told him about men like them before. They took to violence like a bird to the air-effortlessly, unthinkingly-a natural state in which to exist. There would be no reasoning with killers like that. You’re not a thug, Max. You don’t fight because you can’t control yourself. You’ll know when to strike first. It will be in their eyes. And then, God help you, but you have to do it. You’ll know when they want to kill you.
Dad.
Almost there. The knot in his stomach tightened. There was no sign of anything unusual at the gates of the old mansion grounds, at the driveway or at the entrance of the house itself. Max lowered the small 8?20 rubberized binoculars from his eyes. Everything seemed normal, but if the people chasing him were as determined as they seemed, then odds were they’d have someone, somewhere, watching the main entrance.
He checked his watch, unconsciously wiping its face-it had been to the top of the world. His dad had worn it when he climbed Everest. Now Max’s emotions were as daunting as that climb. Concentrate! He scanned the perimeter, searching for anyone concealed in the shadows. He knew his dad’s schedule by heart. In trying to heal a man’s mind, the caregivers had established a definite routine. Scattered thoughts were placed neatly into a timetable.
The patients here were well looked after. Some of them, because of their government work, might be at risk. Max studied the grounds and remembered walking the parkland with his dad, whose old habits, learned at the sharp end of life, still made him ever watchful. They won’t always let you come to see me. See that corner? See where the two cameras cross each other’s line of sight beneath the tree branches on the corner of the wall? That’s a blind spot. There’s always a way through. Don’t forget.
Max found a foothold and eased himself across the top of the three-meter wall. In the distance, there were one or two people sitting in the late-afternoon sun or walking the grounds. A few sat in wheelchairs, a blanket across their legs. Max crouched, then dropped down between the trees, glancing over his shoulder at the diagonally placed security cameras and hoping he’d learned the lessons his father had taught him about concealment. He pressed himself against the bole of a tree, mentally scolding himself to be patient.
Then he saw his dad. Max’s heart thumped.
He was with a big man, taller than his wiry companion. They jogged effortlessly round the grounds’ outer limits.
Ex-Royal Marine Marty Kiernan stood 1.83 meters tall and weighed 112 kilos. As a combat medic, he had saved others, but he had paid the price fighting in Afghanistan. Bullets had slammed into his huge frame and ripped away his right arm. Now he worked with men whose injuries were psychological-and Tom Gordon was one of his patients.
Max watched as the two men, sweat glistening on their faces and staining their running vests, passed thirty meters from where he crouched. Max stifled the yell that almost burst out of his chest. Dad!
He just had to play this cool and get his emotions under control, but, like trying to keep a pack of hunting dogs from tearing their prey apart, it was impossible.
He swallowed the bile that soured the back of his throat. His stomach twisted in anxiety. He was about to confront the man he loved more than anything in the world.
Max ducked beneath the low branches and ran quickly into the shadows. He did not see the man watching him through a pair of binoculars more powerful than his own. The observer stood in a raised road-maintenance platform, dressed as a workman, pretending to fix a streetlight a couple of roads away. His view between the houses gave him a clear line of sight toward St. Christopher’s. He pressed the fast-dial button on his mobile.
“The boy is here.”
Riga sat in a coffee shop in London. He had placed his own men around the nursing home. The boy was bound to turn up sooner or later.
“Wait till he comes out. Then deal with him.”
“I can finish him inside the grounds. It’s like a park. Outside is busy. The kid sneaked in. He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s there.”
“Then do it. Damned boy is a nuisance.”
Robert Ridgeway did not have the resources for his Security Service agents to be tracking down Max Gordon, but a rogue assassin on the loose, and a carefully placed word of warning from someone in his own government to leave alone that which he knew nothing about, agitated him. All governments had secrets-even from their own people. All governments told lies-especially to their own people. The less individuals know, the better; the truth could be a burden. But Ridgeway wanted to know more. What was it about Danny Maguire’s death that was causing concern? Why was his body taken from the mortuary, and by whom? And just what had Max Gordon stepped into? Whatever Ridgeway decided to do, it had to be done quietly and, he realized, unofficially.
Charlotte Morgan was due some leave. This tough, no-nonsense agent would not think twice about going it alone. She could find Max Gordon and help unravel the mystery.
As he picked up the phone and dialed her number, he felt a chill of apprehension, a sixth sense that years in the spy business had imprinted on his DNA. He hoped he was not sending the girl to her death.
“Max, how the hell did you get in here?” Marty Kiernan asked as he opened the door.
Max smiled, but his eyes quickly moved to his dad, who stood slightly behind the big man. Both men were breathing heavily from their last hard sprint on the run, and Tom Gordon looked uncertainly at the boy stepping into the middle of his room.
Would his father recognize him?
No one spoke for a moment. Then Tom patted Marty’s shoulder.
“Don’t ask daft questions, Marty. My boy could break into the Bank of England if he had to.”
He stepped forward and hugged Max. Max smothered his face in his dad’s shoulder and held him tightly, wanting to capture every moment of the embrace. The smell of the outdoors, mingled with sweat, seeped into his nostrils. It was an earthy scent that he remembered from other shared times with his dad.
Tom Gordon eased Max away to arm’s length and looked at him. The moment of recognition began to flit away like a sun-chased shadow.
“Tom?” Marty saw and understood the look. He needed to emphasize Max’s name again to embed it into his patient’s mind. “Max has come a long way to see you.”
Tom Gordon smiled and nodded. “Max,” he said, as if reminding himself. “Yeah. Of course he has. Stick the kettle on, Marty. Let’s have a brew.”
The one-armed man winked at Max as he stepped through to the small kitchen. His dad should be all right for a while longer.
Tom Gordon gestured for Max to follow him through to the bedroom. He peeled off his running vest and toweled the sweat from his body. There wasn’t much heating in the rooms-Max’s dad preferred it that way-but he made no concession to the cool air as he pulled on a clean T-shirt.
“They said I couldn’t come and see you, Dad. Mr. Jackson phoned, but they said … well, y’know.”
His father nodded and put an arm round him. “Some days are bad. I just don’t know who’s who or what’s what. It’s horrible. I’m sorry. I know it hurts you.”
A wave of emotion swelled in Max’s chest. It was like having his dad home after a long absence. His father understood the uncertainty and pain he must feel. The gentle words stroked his anxiety away. Just as Max’s mother used to stroke his hair when they all sat on the big sofa in the house they once had. When all three of them would splutter popcorn as they laughed at a crazy movie. When the log fire burned,
when the world was warm and safe. When she was alive.
Mum.
Max swallowed, took a deep breath and almost whispered the question. “I want to know how … Mum … died.”
Painful memories creased his father’s face. “You know all that, son. I told you.”
“No, you didn’t. You said she died in the jungle. That she got sick.”
“That’s right.”
“You’ve never taken me to see her grave. You said we could go one day.… I don’t even know where it is.…”
Max’s dad struggled with the memory. “It’s a difficult … remote place.”
Max shook his head-he had to get rid of the horrible thoughts implanted by the man who once had been his father’s best friend.
“Dad, when I was in the French Alps and I saved Angelo Farentino’s life, he said … he said …”
He couldn’t bring himself to say the words that the Italian had desperately whispered-that he had loved Max’s mother, that Max’s dad had abandoned her to die alone. Vile images.
A tap on the door. Marty stood there. A concerned look both for his patient and for Max. “Tea’s brewed. It’s on the table. I’m just outside if you need me,” he said, looking at Max. The boy wasn’t supposed to be there; he hadn’t come through reception, and the look of anguish on Tom Gordon’s face meant something was going on between them. Whatever the relationship, Marty Kiernan could not allow any distress to his patient.
Max nodded. He understood what the ex-Marine was saying.
Tom Gordon moved past his son into the main room, where late-afternoon sun caught the blemishes and smears on the small panes of glass in the French doors. Outside, trees morphed into silhouettes as sunlight dipped lower in the sky. Max’s dad sipped the mug of tea and watched the branches shudder in the breeze.
“What did Farentino say?” he finally asked.
It was easier talking to his dad when he wasn’t looking at him. Max told him everything, spilling the words out rapidly, wanting to rid himself of the poisonous thoughts. How Farentino’s love for Max’s mother eventually caused hatred for his father. How she had spurned their friend’s advances and how the bitterness of that rejection finally oozed hatred in Farentino’s heart like an abscess weeping pus.
“You think I abandoned your mother?” his father asked with an edge of uncertainty at his own memory.
“He said you left her to save yourself. You were there. You were with her in the jungle, somewhere in Central America. I remember you coming home and telling me she’d died. Soon after that, you put me in Dartmoor High … and went away again.”
Tom Gordon shook his head, like a man unable to find his way out of a dense forest when daylight is fading, panic creeping up his spine and smothering any rational thought.
“No …,” he whispered, reaching for the edge of a chair.
Max, scared his dad was going to collapse, stepped forward to help him. “No!” his father suddenly commanded, and sat down carefully, as if his bones would shatter under the strain of movement. “Your mother was ill.… I remember … she fell so ill.…” The words tumbled from him as he tried to see the memory. “The jungle swallowed her. It took me days to reach the ocean, and our people got me out.”
“The organization you worked for? Did they know what happened to Mum? Dad, please. Tell me what happened!” Max tried to shake the memory loose from his father’s mind.
“I tried to save her.… I don’t remember.… I … I ran …”
“You ran away?” Max couldn’t bear it. The lies were twisting themselves into truth.
“I ran. Yes. I ran. Through the jungle. I ran,” his father said quickly, as if seeing the event in his mind’s eye for the first time. Surprise and fear embellished his words. His hands trembled and then covered his face. A low moan came from his throat. It settled like an animal whimpering in pain, and then Tom Gordon crumpled in on himself. A dark star imploding.
“Dad,” Max whispered, going down on his knees in front of his father, barely able to stop the tears that threatened to blur his eyes, frightened at the change that had come over his father. He held his dad’s hands in his own, like a child begging not to be torn away from a parent.
“Please, Dad, don’t cry. It’s all right. It’ll be all right.”
Tom Gordon wiped a hand across his face. Tears dried, eyes glaring, he stared at the boy in front of him. “Who the hell are you? Why are you asking about my wife?”
All recognition had gone.
Max felt as if he’d fallen from a boat into the ocean-the boat sailing away, leaving him helpless in the vast expanse of loneliness. A shudder racked his muscles. He stood up quickly. He and his father were suddenly like two men facing each other in a dark alley, neither willing to give way. “You ask too many questions! I don’t know you!” Tom Gordon was on his feet.
“Dad! Come on! Please! Cut it out. You’re scaring me now!” Max shouted in his father’s face. Tom Gordon snatched out a hand and grabbed a handful of Max’s jacket. This was the side of his father Max had only occasionally glimpsed-a determined fighter who could respond immediately to any threat.
Before Max could do or say anything, Marty Kiernan swept into the room, stood behind Max’s dad and wrapped him in a gentle one-armed bear hug. Tom Gordon resisted for a moment, but Marty was whispering, gently calming his patient. “All right? Yeah? All right now, Tom?” Max heard him finally say louder.
Tom Gordon nodded. Marty released him and eased him gently onto the sofa, where he lay down, as if exhausted from a punishing ordeal.
Max’s dad gazed at the ceiling, locked in his own torment.
“What happened, Max?” Marty said. “What did you say to him?”
“I just wanted to know about my mum, whether he’d tried to save her or not.”
“Course he did. He’s your dad. He’d move heaven and earth to help his family.”
Max shook his head vigorously, but the images wouldn’t free themselves. They clung like leeches to his mind, sucking all the love out of him. “He ran away and saved his own skin!” Max yelled.
“Keep your voice down. Remember where you are. Now, you listen to me, son. Your dad has never run away from anything in his life. He’s one of the bravest blokes I’ve ever known, and I’ve known a few. Don’t think of your dad like that. You’ve got it wrong.”
Marty had placed his hand gently on Max’s shoulder, but the boy pulled away. He grabbed his backpack and pushed open the French doors.
“Marty, he told me! He ran! Farentino told the truth. My dad ran away and left my mum to die.”
“Never! Your dad’s confused. He doesn’t remember things-you know that. Wait!”
Max ignored the big man’s plea and sprinted straight across the open lawns toward the trees, no longer caring whether he was spotted.
Marty glanced quickly at his patient. Tom Gordon had turned on his side and closed his eyes. His breathing was slow and deep. The big man pounded after Max. He couldn’t let the boy go without trying to talk to him about his father.
Max reached the edge of the trees; the wall was another sixty or seventy meters away. He ducked below the branches. Evergreens sucked in the light; pine needles cushioned his footfalls and saved his life. The man who stepped out of the shadows rammed his shoulder into Max like a fierce and dangerous rugby tackle. Max’s head whipped back as he was slammed onto the ground. If the ground hadn’t been so soft, his neck would have snapped.
Max had a blurred vision of the man who straddled him. It was like a slow-motion movie. The man said nothing, grabbed Max’s hair and raised a fist. One thing Max knew without any doubt was that, unlike in the movies, when someone hits you in the face, a real punch can shatter bones and kill. This was real.
He squirmed and bucked, twisting his body. Split-second convulsions powered from somewhere deep inside his brain. Max reared up, baring his teeth like an animal, spitting in the man’s face.
The man was too heavy to push off, but it made him falter.
Then, in the moment that he regained his balance, a tree trunk moved, blotted out the faltering light and fell across him. Max’s assailant was crushed and made only the briefest sound as the air wheezed from his lungs. The tree trunk stood up. It had only one arm, but it yanked Max to his feet.
The ex-commando dragged Max and held him effortlessly against an old oak. “Quiet,” he whispered, his eyes scanning the uneven shadows. Satisfied there was no one else out there, he let Max go.
“Thanks, Marty. I dunno who that bloke is, but he’s the third nutter who’s had a go at me.”
Marty was still cautious, but the danger seemed to have passed. No doubt security cameras would have picked up something. He could probably convince the nursing home staff that the man who lay prone was the intruder-Max would be long gone by then.
“What are you into? Tell me.”
Max knew he could trust his dad’s caregiver, and there was no time for long-winded explanations.
“The truth about my mum. Someone sent me a message. I’m gonna find out what it’s all about. Some phony MI-Five guys came to the school. A friend of mine was killed. Everyone thinks it was suicide. I don’t think it was.”
“Bloody hell, Max. You don’t half get yourself into trouble.”
“It finds me. Marty, I have a lead. I’ve got to try and sort this out. Please. If I go to the police, they’ll laugh at the evidence I have. Meanwhile, someone out there is trying to stop me.”
“All right. Look, you’re wrong about your dad. There has to be an explanation.”
Max said nothing, the anger still sitting like acid in his gut.
Marty nodded. “OK. Get out of here. My guess is the cops’ll get nothing out of this bloke. You call me when you need help. You get the info about your mum, and I’ll bet you’ll find out what really happened to your dad. Go on.”
Marty gave Max a push into the darkness. He ran for the wall, hit it at a run, reached up, grabbed the top and belly-rolled down the other side. Then he was back on the street. A bus turned the corner. He ran to the stop, flagged it down and jumped aboard.
