Josh clapped and cheered along with the others.
"Come on, Paula. You can do it!"
She adjusted her hair, tugged at the jacket of her trouser suit, then settled her stance. Not bad, on the basis of ten minutes' instruction. The cheering filled the corporate classroom: twenty-two delegates and four instructors, including Josh, while Vikram and Pete held the smooth plastic "board" ready for breaking. A vertical hair's-breadth line bisected the plastic, almost invisible, for it was designed to split apart under the same force as one-inch pine, all very traditional.
Paula twisted and thrust out her palm "Ha!"
– while the two halves clunked apart and fell as the guys let go.
"Yes!"
"Way to go, Paula!"
Whoops and backslapping, fists pumped in the air. Paula's face flushed beneath a shining lamina of sweat.
"Good work." Tony raised his thumb, nodding to Josh as well as Paula. "Well done, team. So, let's sit down for the wrap-up."
The delegates had filled in their online feedback forms after the afternoon break, when they were relaxed, not rushing to get home. Tony was a professional, and knew exactly how to direct corporate training.
"So." He spoke as they took their seats, and a list of checked-off bullet-points appeared on the wallscreen. "There's our objectives from the start of the week and, well… those ticks or check-marks might be a little hint" – he smiled at the delegates' laughter – "that we've achieved them all. So this is like the finale of special forces selection, and I hereby declare you all special operatives in systems development. Well done, everyone!"
There was applause, the pushing back of chairs on carpet, then the shaking of hands and the delegates slipping out, chatting and laughing as they went. Tony, Vikram, and Pete went with them, saying final farewells in the corridor. At last there was quiet, as Josh turned to regard the empty room. A last tidy-up, and they were done.
"Fuck it."
He had wanted the training to finish. Now there was an empty weekend to face. Going forward felt awful; going back in time was impossible.
Sophie. I could have saved you, if I'd been there.
There were six board-halves lying on the floor, the relics of three teams breaking simultaneously, boosting their self-belief, the confidence they could achieve anything they wanted. (Like Sophie, whole and well.) Slotting pieces together, he created three unbroken boards, then tossed them into the air. Lightning flew through his nerves as his fists cracked one, one-two and the shards were down once more.
"Not bad." Tony had returned. "Braced at the edges is one thing, but boards in the air? Good focus in those punches, well done."
Josh did his best Bruce Lee voice: "Boards… don't fight back."
"Uh-huh. So you're OK, then?"
"Sure am."
"Lying sod."
"Sure am."
"You know," said Tony, "Vikram could teach your course next week."
"I thought he was teaching genetic algorithms."
"Sylvie can do that."
"I don't know…"
"If it's the money, we can come to some arrangement. You bill me for next week as course development, and I'll pay you. You can actually write a course later. What do you say?"
In the end Tony would probably want more than five days' effort for the money, but this was still was a favour, and a big one.
"When do you need to know?" asked Josh.
He really didn't feel like teaching next week, but what else could he do?
"Sunday lunchtime, latest."
In the Regiment, before a mission, you came clean about any weakness, told the commander in private necessary, because the boss needed accurate information to obey the Seven-P Principle: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.
"OK. Good."
"So what are you up to this weekend, mate?"
Josh found himself wincing. He stared out the window over Docklands.
"Going to Hereford."
"If there'd been a change, you'd have told me, right?"
"Sophie's the same. I'm going to see her teacher, not sure why. Other than she asked."
"A good-looking lady teacher?"
Josh, not knowing the answer – Kath was female but he had no opinion about her looks – ignored the question.
"She wants me to meet the parents of another boy injured in the… When it happened. I think she's trying create a mutual support group."
"Maybe she's got the right idea. You ring me anytime, all right?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
"And call me lunchtime Sunday for sure."
"You got it."
Josh arrived twenty minutes early, but Kath Gleason was already sitting there, at a clean aluminium table in front of a cafe, at one end of a colonnade.
"Hello." She looked up from her milky tea. "I thought I'd get here in plenty of time."
"In case I came early, then changed my mind?"
"No, I just thought… you'd be super-punctual, and all."
Most often, Josh had missed parent-teacher evenings, while Maria had attended. Had she and Kath Gleason talked about his military service, and the itinerant life of a corporate trainer? Or perhaps, since this was Hereford, Kath had drawn independent conclusions, for many of the ex-Regiment guys continued to live in the area, unable to tear themselves away from the life.
"You need another coffee, Ms Gleason? I mean Kath."
Lightning cracked somewhere in the distance.
"Jesus."
"Are you all right?" asked Josh.
"Electric storms worry me. Do you know we've had more this month already than the whole of last year? Which was more than the whole decade before that."
"Really?"
"Yes, and I-I'm sorry. Did you see Sophie last night?"
"This morning." He had driven from London before dawn. "Still the same."
"I'm so sorry."
"Drinks," said Josh. "I'll just be a minute."
This was such a bad idea.
Twenty minutes later, in Kath's car, they drove into a plain residential street, and pulled up before a house coated in pink pebbledash, the front door inset with amber glass. No sign of an alarm system; trusting to the high-mounted neighbourhood watchcams.
"Don't worry about what to say." Kath switched off the engine. "I'm sure they'll be nervous too."
The doorbell had no fingerprint recognition, but the door opened straightaway, pulled back by a blank-faced man.
"This is Carl, Marek's father." Kath gestured. "This is Josh."
Entering the front room, Josh scanned from near to far, and above, checking the overstuffed furniture and cluttered ornaments, the photographs on shelves. Then a thick-waisted woman came through from the rear, holding out her hand.
"Hello, I'm Irina. Good to meet you." She looked at her husband. "Carl, you want to offer our guests drinks?"
"Um, would you like something? Beer, vodka, tea?"
"I just made a pot," said Irina.
Josh and Kath chose tea; Carl, head down, went out back.
"I'm sorry about Carl." Irina gestured. "Please sit."
The placement was not tactical, but ordinary people had no thought of preventing clear shots in through their living-room window. Not liking it, Josh sat down. Kath blinked at him, then turned back to Irina.
"Marek's at home, I presume."
"In his bedroom. He spends his time there."
"Is he seeing someone?"
"The GP, every Thursday." Irina turned to Josh. "I'm sorry about your daughter. So sorry."
"Thank you."
Kath said, "Everyone's devastated. And our safety record is good, had been so good."
"So." Irina's expression closed in. "The boy who started it, from St Joseph's, not even the same school, but he was hanging around and no one cared."
"The pupils have siblings who attend other schools. At the start or end of a day, it's not unusual-"
Carl came in with a laden tea tray: mugs, teapot, milk in an open carton, a packet of plain chocolate McVities. Irina shook her head. Perhaps she had expected a milk jug and nicer cups. After Carl handed around the mugs, he stood looking down at his own tea, then walked out saying nothing, closing the door behind him. A clink sounded, and everyone waited, Josh expecting the crash of shattered crockery or glass; instead, there was nothing.
"Would you like to meet Marek?" said Irina finally. "I mean, if it would help."
"Sure." Josh put down his mug. "Are you going to call him down or-?"
"You could go up." Irina pointed to the hallway. "Upstairs on the right. You'll see."
"Just me?"
"Better than all of us." Kath tucked in her lower lip. "Don't want to look like a delegation."
Josh breathed with conscious control, getting ready.
"Upstairs. Right."
He felt disengaged from his body, almost floating on automatic up the stairs, not knowing how he felt about meeting the boy – the other victim of the incident that turned Sophie, his beautiful Sophie, into a small warm body with no mind. Beneath a bright graffiti notice – Marek's Room – he knocked.
"Hey, my name's Josh. Can I come in?"
Nothing.
"I'm Sophie Cumberland's father."
There was a reply that sounded like "Ugh", which was enough. He turned the handle.
Inside, on the wall behind the boy's chair was a poster of Fireman Carlsen in half armour, blade in hand. A white blanket covered the boy's lap. These were the things Josh noticed first, before he processed the too-pale, almost blue complexion, the bruise-purple hollowness of the eyes.
"Hi, Marek."
It took a second, but then Marek nodded, then he pushed PAUSE on the unfolded control pad attached to his phone, freezing the wallscreen display.
"What are you watching?"
"Firefly," he said.
"The old Joss Whedon thing, or the remake?"
"Huh? It's just out."
"The remake. Any good?"
"Still on the first chapter. There's no way out of Serenity Valley, no third-level choice till later."
"Uh, right."
When he'd been Marek's age, games, novels and movies had been separate things. Phone accounts had not been bank accounts; and phones were not computers.
Marek's gaze returned to the stilled image on screen.
This is stupid.
They had nothing to say to each other. He should leave the poor kid alone, let him immerse himself in imagination, forget the reality of what occurred. Up on the wall, the flat muscularity of Fireman Carlsen – motto: Sh*t hot with a blade – was a mockery. It was the end-of-fight shot from the rematch against Slicer Stross, the Fireman's comeback from defeat, a classic fight. Why had no one taken the poster down?
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry about… everything."
"Sure." Marek's lower lip seemed to be swelling.
"Look, I can-"
Then Marek was sobbing. "He sliced me." He pulled the white blanket aside, pulled up his pyjama shirt, revealing white plastic, an abdominal shell. "They were slipping out, my things, my insides. They're soft and, and… wet."
"Yes."
"You don't know. Nobody-"
Josh's voice dropped. "I know."
Marek stopped. His eyes went wide as Josh touched the plastic with one finger.
"This is bad," Josh went on. "Real bad, and you can get through it. You ever heard of Ironman?"
With a sniff: "The remake?"
That was promising, the slyness of his humour.
"I mean the event. Run, bike, swim. You ever seen it on screen?"
"I guess."
"Friend of mine competes, fittest man I know. Had one of these" – Josh tapped the plastic – "for nearly two years."
"He's… all right?"
"Oh, yeah." Apart from rippling scars, the hollow curvature of skin and missing muscle. "Super, super fit."
"Oh."
Josh stood up. For some reason, the movement brought back his memory of the movie – game, whatever – that Marek was watching, and the military disaster it began with.
"You know, if the events at the start hadn't happened, there'd have been no story. They survived the hard times, got through them."
"Oh."
"Take it easy, my friend."
He let himself out of the room and went downstairs, not quite smiling, but aware that he might have done some good.
Sophie. Oh, Jesus, Sophie. Some good, but not enough.
Tears like acid came from nowhere.
Finally, Irina showed them out, her smile sad but her eyes bright; and she watched them until they reached the car, then closed the door. Josh reached for the door handle, but Kath stood unmoving. Then tipped her head back toward the house.
"Take a look at this."
She walked back to the wheelie bin out front, and pointed to one of the recycling boxes behind it. Then she raised the lid.
Vodka bottles filled the box.
Josh said, "He's having a hard time of it."
"Not Carl. He doesn't drink."
"But-"
The brightness in Irina's eyes. The near-permanent sad smile.
"Shit."
"I wish I could help, but I don't know how. Eileen would kill me if I tried."
As headmistress, Eileen O'Donoghue would be worried about legal implications.
"I don't know how, either."
Kath opened the car door. "Maybe you need someone to look after you."
This feels wrong. "You go on. I'm all right."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll walk back. Be glad of the exercise."
"It must be five kilometres."
"Right."
He turned away and began walking. After a minute, he heard Kath's car hum into life, then roll past him. She continued to the road's end, then sped up, and was gone from sight.
Just trying to help.
Maybe. Or maybe she was a vulnerable woman looking for a vulnerable man to connect with, which made sense only if the Cumberland marriage was over, which half of him couldn't accept while the other half took it as read.
Both halves felt awful.
• • •
He was in his own car when a call came through. The image was of Haresh Riley, known to everyone in the Regiment as Raghead Mick and seeming not to mind. Josh pressed to accept.
"Did Tony tell you to call me?"
"Tony who?"
"Shit."
"Oh yeah, Tony Shit. He did ring, come to think of it. Said you were a miserable fucker who wasn't going to see his mates unless they called him first."
Josh had no idea what to say.
"So the RV is the Bunch of Grapes, seventeen hundred precisely. Be there, or we'll have your nuts."
"You'll eat all the peanuts in the pub?"
"See? You're better already. Out."
The phone blanked out.
"Tony, Tony, Tony."
Silly bastard, trying to be helpful. And then there was Kath Gleason, and her Maybe you need someone to look after you. They were wrong, all of them; for the person who needed help was Sophie, but no one was doing anything, achieving anything, while she was trapped in a hell whose entranceway read Persistent Vegetative State, the abandonment of hope, a sentence no one seemed capable of commuting.
Bad, bad, bad.
At 5pm on a Saturday, the Bunch of Grapes was packed. By the bar, a huge wallscreen was showing the opening credits of Knife Edge, the thirteenth season. Regulars were seated at small round tables, on the bench seats near the walls, and at the counter, beer in hand, their attention on the screen. At the back, five quiet men were gathered around a table.
You're here. Thanks, lads.
He was on time, because if you agree to a rendezvous you keep it. With a glass-tipping signal to Haresh, he established that they had drinks already, and there was a drink waiting for him. It would be Diet Coke, and he could trust them not to spike it without telling him. Threading his way among the crowd, he checked the environment – harmless, cheerful, and noisy – and the five guys: Haresh, Kev, Vinnie, and Del, plus a wideshouldered man he didn't know.
Haresh pointed: "Josh Cumberland, Matt Klugmann. Now drink."
"Hey," said Josh.
"Likewise." Matt's accent was American Southwest. He raised his beer. "Bottoms up, old chap."
"Jesus, don't let these buggers teach you how we speak."
"You mean, they might be less than truthful? Heaven forfend."
"Hey," said someone nearby. "Who are these fuckers?"
On the wallscreen, the picture changed to a news report. Two overweight men in suits were sitting at the bar counter, and one of them had the screen's remote in hand. It didn't take massive awareness to notice the tensing body language around the room, or the scowls as Knife Edge was replaced by pictures of President Brand failing to return Premier Han Lei's bow at the Geneva Conference.
"Asshole," muttered Matt.
"The guy who changed the picture?" asked Del. "Or your duly elected president?"
"Either one." Matt stared toward the screen, and a muscle at the side of his mouth jumped. "There."
The image changed back to Knife Edge.
"Er, we like to be more discreet," said Haresh. "Ghosts in the night, remember?"
"Shit, have I got cowflap on my boots again?"
"When don't you, good buddy?" said Del. To Josh: "Epsilon Force, been here four months, poor bastard."
The barman took the remote from the guy in the suit, shook it as though to demonstrate that it was broken, then put it below the counter. He made no attempt to change the image back.
"So who'd you piss off," asked Josh, "to end up among this lot?"
"Truth to tell, I can't rightly remember, there bein' so many."
"See?" said Del. "Fits right in."
"Too bad it's not a compliment," said Josh. "What have you been-?"
"Hush," said Haresh. "They're going back to the House after training. Should be interesting."
Everyone was looking at the screen, besides the businessmen finishing off their drinks, looking ready to leave.
"Why interesting?" asked Josh.
"Shit," said Del. "You missed the previous episode?"
"Well, yeah."
More important things to worry about.
"Two of the lightweights, Andre and Lynwood, had a little contretemps."
Matt mouthed the word: contretemps.
"Oh," said Josh. "OK."
Haresh leaned forward. "What he means is, Lynwood pissed down Andre's leg, standing at the urinal. In the training centre."
"And the cameras were there? Jesus."
"They're both on Fireman Carlsen's team," said Del, "so they're not likely to have to fight each other until much later. If they make it that far."
"Unless they go for it on their own time."
"Right. Exactly."
Knives and booze were banned from the Knife Edge House. But so were phones and wallscreens – only a few hardcopy fight mags allowed – which meant close confinement for sixteen semi-pro fighters, most from troubled childhoods or they wouldn't be there, although three fighters over the years had been PhDs, and a handful of pros in the Knifefight Challenge Federation held master's degrees.
A grudge match with its extra excitement accounted for the leaning forward in seats, anticipation as the drinkers focused on the wallscreen. Under other circumstances, Josh would have resonated with the mood.
"Come on, mate," said Haresh. "Let's check out the beer garden."
"All right."
On screen, two of the fighters, in the kitchen of the training house, were having at it with rolled-up hardcopy mags. Half of the regulars were laughing at the sight, but Del and Kev held still, along with several older men sitting quietly here and there. To some people, the use of improvised weapons to shatter a cheekbone or take out an eye was as basic as polymorphism and delegation in software design, or the inverse-power law of adaptive networks. Or perhaps Ghost Force thinking was a form of insanity, far removed from the thoughts of ordinary people.
Josh followed Haresh out into the garden. There were plenty of seats free, in contrast to the crowded indoor lounge.
"You remember Lofty getting us to read the Go Rin No Sho?" Haresh put his beer down on a table.
The Go Rin No Sho, or Book of Five Rings, was written by master strategist Miyamoto Musashi, the Japanese counterpart to Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz. Josh was never sure whether the three of them were geniuses or psychopaths. Musashi, unbeaten swordsman, stank with body odour, his skin scrofulous – after assassins tried to cut him down in the bath, he developed a phobia of bath-houses – and led an isolated, friendless life.
"That thing Musashi wrote" – Haresh sat down, scanning the environment – "about mastering one discipline gives you mastery of all? But then Lofty said, no matter how many times he hit the punchbag, he still couldn't play the fucking piano, because of specificity in training."
"And you said: Maybe you ought to take the gloves off, Lofty. Make it easier to hit the keys."
"Right."
"And Lofty made us do a hundred push-ups for laughing, as I recall."
"Yeah. So, look." As Haresh sipped beer, he maintained a clear view of their surroundings. "Marriages are casualties of war. Always have been."
"Except that I'm out of the life. Should've made things different."
"Civvie street. I have no idea how to cope with that. Not sure I'd want to."
"It's not so bad."
"Backstabbing shits for co-workers" – Haresh scowled – "and no sense of camaraderie."
"And no one trying to kill you."
"Good point. Look, you know software and combat. I'm wondering," said Haresh, "if you need a job. Something you're good at, cause like Lofty said, training is specific."
"I'm doing stuff for Tony."
"He seemed to think you need a break. Something different from teaching corporates."
"Like what?"
"I notice you didn't say he was wrong."
Josh rubbed his chin with his thumb, and stared up at the sky. It was empty of inspiration.
"I got something," Haresh went on, "from our Epsilon Force pal in there."
"You mean Captain Implant?"
"Yeah. They don't travel commercial, not those guys."
Joining the SAS had been a huge challenge of physicality and mental toughness; joining Ghost Force, the Service-inside-the-Regiment, had stretched his intellect in unexpected ways; and their missions lay within MI6 as much as Army territory. Josh, along with Haresh and the rest, had worked espionage/sabotage ops, looking like civilians, sometimes just sitting in a coffee shop or railway station, running infiltration code from a covert phone.
The Americans had travelled a different route, and Epsilon Force owed as much to the Marine Corps as to their parent Delta Force, their troops armed with as much implanted tech as they could operate. Storming military installations guarded with smart weapons was their forte, and they could take down enemy AI-drones in the field; but subtle they were not. This Matt Klugmann might be able to crash the systems at Heathrow, but to walk through the airport scanners like an ordinary person would be impossible.
"So what, is this a job in the States?"
"No." Haresh nodded back toward the lounge. "Our friend has a cousin, lived here for ages. She asked Matt about a missing person job, and he put her onto Geordie Biggs."
"Geordie's got guys who can do that."
"Sure, and he'd like you to be one of them. Freelance basis, like your training gig with Tony." Haresh raised his glass. "You know Geordie. Always looking out for new opportunities."
"I wouldn't know where to start."
"Missing kid in London? It's a systems problem."
"The police might have official access to surveillance, but I don't. And won't they be looking for the kid?"
"Like they say in movies, you can work the case fulltime, the cops can't. Also, you're better. Plus, you remember Andy's sister? Petra Osbourne?"
"Er, yeah."
He hadn't seen Petra since Andy's memorial service. There'd been no funeral, on the basis that Andy's body had been vaporised during a hostage rescue on the Ivory Coast, with nothing left to bury. Not unless you shipped a few tonnes of soil and rubble home, for whatever organic traces remained mixed up inside.
"She's still with the Met. Always seemed to have a thing for you."
"As I recall, she's a lesbian."
"So what does that say about your girlish charms, mate? Anyway, she's bound to help, provided you ask nicely."
"Fuck."
"Uh-huh." Haresh held up his phone. "Is that 'fuck' as in 'loadsa-fuckin-thanks-to-all-my-mates-for-doingme-a-good-turn'? The kind of thanks I can pass on to Geordie?"
Josh rolled his shoulder muscles as if loosening up for a fight. Then he blew out a breath.
"Yeah. That kind. Thank you."
"Any time."