Ник Харкуэй - Tigerman

There had been no time to seed paranoia in the Fleet captains. He weighed the pros and cons of a call to Kershaw quietly suggesting some outrageous betrayal, asking that Kershaw keep it under his hat until the Sergeant could confirm. The Chinese are coming to take North Africa for its oil . That would do. It was insane but not absurd. China was hungry for resources, had been buying rare earths and shale gas reserves everywhere. The American hawks would believe it. India and Pakistan had nightmares about Chinese expansion. The Chinese would know it wasn’t true but would worry about where it was coming from. The Europeans would try to cool things down, but individually each nation would be trying to gain advantage.

And telling Kershaw was like whispering in the ear of the Fleet, talking too loudly at the next table. Although it might conceivably start a war somewhere, which would be a crime on a level for which the Sergeant did not have a word.

The road was slick. He had to pull back from the urge to accelerate. Brighton House was seven minutes away, but it would be much longer if he went off the road. More haste, less speed. In his rear-view mirror, Beauville lay quiet against the sea and the hills. The warning howled in him, the bone-deep certainty: something is bad. Something is not as it should be.

I am holding the gun by its barrel.

He could feel the edges of it, knew it for a real thing. But until it was clear, he had to keep moving, keep advancing, because if he stopped now the window of opportunity would close – and the opportunity was there, he knew that, too.

Already the storm was ominously close. He needed to be in the water, sneaking between the ships. He needed to talk to Jack again, revise the plan. Half of him wanted to turn around and go back to the Grande, but the wiser part knew there would be no Jack. Jack did not hang around, could not afford to. Arafat, it was rumoured, had never slept twice in the same bed. Jack was more invisible, more cautious, in a smaller place and with a less loyal following. He was somewhere else by now, if he had ever been in the room at all. The speaking tube suggested that he had, but there might easily have been a radio on the other end.

Lester Ferris snarled and thumped the steering wheel. Everything was obvious. Nothing was simple. He was trying to hold it all together with his mind and his will but the pieces were not elastic and they were pulling away, coming apart in his fingers.

He had the gear, at least. He was getting through the armoury’s supplies, but he was nearly finished. God knew how he’d account for the wastage. The riots, perhaps, and some shipping errors. A timely fire. Opportunistic crooks among the refugees. Small potatoes for now. At worst, he’d just say he’d grown bored and tried the stuff out, offer to pay for it. It would be in character. So he had grenades, a couple of inflatables with outboards, remote detonators and flares for his diversion.

Which left Beneseffe. A bribe might be out of the question now, he might just have to go in there and stare him down. What if Beneseffe regarded his job as a sacred trust, or if he was more frightened of the Fleet than he was of Tigerman?

Will you make him afraid? And then trust him not to betray you when you have gone? Or will you tell him everything and hope he doesn’t sell you to Kershaw or Hasp?

Gravel crunched under the Land Rover’s wheels, and he put the handbrake on too hard, felt it complain and shudder, released the brake a little and ran for the door.

Inside the door he stopped cold. There was someone waiting for him, and it wasn’t the boy. He could tell from the feel of the place, the nature of the quiet. The refugees had moved to the far wings, and the house murmured with them, but his little space was still his own. None of them came here without asking. The boy did, but he was at home here and his presence was calm and unobtrusive. This was not him. It wasn’t soldiers, either, with an arrest warrant, or Kathy Hasp hoping for more indiscretions.

For one moment, the Sergeant thought it must be Jack, then he hoped it was Inoue, and then he was terrified it might be Inoue, because he would have to get rid of her or tell her everything and he could not get rid of her. Could not. If she was here she had chosen to miss her flight out, and something in him would not permit the vandalism in turning her away. It would – he was amazed and delighted to find – break his heart.

He had given himself most improvidently in these last weeks.

It was neither of them. He knew as soon as the other man moved. He could hear the breathing, the sigh of effort with each step.

White Raoul.

He was alone, and he had abandoned his crutch. Perhaps he no longer needed it, or perhaps for moments of great significance he rejected it. The Sergeant was amazed by the force of certainty that he carried. It was like meeting a general in your living room, an unexpected eminence too big for the space. He wondered how much courage it took for the man to stand there. The scrivener could tell the world, if he chose, who had made the Tigerman stele – and for whom. Was it courage or trust that let him stand there unafraid of the man who wore it and did mad things? Because surely men had been murdered for less dangerous knowledge.

There was no time for whatever this was, but the Sergeant was caught in it, and somehow it was of a piece, it was important.

‘I ain’t here to stop you, Honest,’ White Raoul said. ‘I think you’re crazy, but I ain’t going to tell you to stop. You done well enough, I guess.’

The Sergeant nodded.

‘And now you goin’ to do some other fool thing for that boy.’

‘Yes.’

‘Honest, you are a very strange man. You ever consider just telling him you love him like a son?’

Considered it every day. But never done it, and it was hard to say exactly why. Well, no, it wasn’t. ‘Too scared, I think.’

White Raoul snorted. ‘Face down guns. Can’t talk to a boy.’

‘Seems funny when you put it that way.’

‘You need practice, is all.’ White Raoul eyed him. ‘Why don’t you tell me now? What you’d say to him if you weren’t too chicken. I’m his grandpappy, after all. If you die out there, someone oughta know.’

‘Not planning on it.’

‘Tcha. Whoever does?’

And this logic seemed abruptly unassailable. ‘I’d say… what would I say? I’d say he’s my friend. He’s not the sort needs a dad like a straightforward sort of dad, not any more. But he needs a place to hang his hat. He needs a bed and a roof and someone to dust him off when he falls, take him out for his first beer. He’s probably had his first beer, I suppose. But his first beer as a man. You know what I mean. And sort him out when he gets in a tangle over a girl. And teach him how to change a tyre, or… well, I suppose he can do that already too. And he knows computers, which I don’t.’ He was drying up. What exactly could he do that the boy couldn’t do for himself? Not much. ‘I can show him how to be the right sort of stupid. How to put your hand in the fire for someone you love. I can do that.’ I do that quite well, it turns out . ‘But I think I just want him to know he doesn’t have to be alone. I don’t want to buy him, I want to give him whatever I can. Me. For a dad. For however much he needs me.’ He hung his head. It sounded very small. ‘I just want to be there to help. To be who we are. I don’t care where. Mancreu. London. Japan, even. I do wonder about Japan. He’d like Japan. They have ninjas there, and crazy blokes who go scuba diving to rescue their mothers-in-law, and temples and Zen and that. It’s been amazing being a superhero, by the way. It’s totally mad. But I don’t need it. I don’t want to be this… character. Not much. What I want… I want to be his dad. And that’s all.’