Page 25 of No Man's Land

Dutta smiled. “The people who just saved your life, Mr Shepel.”

“And who put it in danger in the first place! Don’t try to pretend you were just taking an evening stroll through the fucking sewer. Whatever happened to that…that poor sod down there, you did it to him. And if you think I’m not going to tell the world about what this bloody government is doing to men—"

“Stop!” Alex barked.

Josef jumped. And he didn’t miss the way Alex had lifted his pistol. It wasn’t exactly pointed at Josef but was very clearly in play between them.

Grimly, Alex said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist you come with us.”

“Or what?”

Their eyes met, and Josef was surprised to see a flash of real discomfort in Alex’s shadowed gaze, something pleading. “I asked you to trust me once—can you do so again?”

“Last time I trusted you, you stole my camera.”

A pause. “That’s not all that happened.”

True, and Josef’s treacherous heart gave an unwarranted flutter at the memory of Alex’s soft lips on his skin, his smile, their cosy supper before the fire. The warm weight of his sleeping hand on Josef’s back. But Alex’s betrayal clouded the pleasure of all those memories, chilling them. He glanced at Dutta instead, dressed like Alex in a Norfolk jacket and boots, as if off to hunt grouse in the Highlands. His expression was studiously blank, a skill they clearly taught in the Intelligence Corps.

He didn’t want to go with them.

However, it occurred to him that, from a journalistic point of view, he had no choice. Despite Alex’s firm grip onthe Webley, Josef doubted he was planning to off him. If he’d wanted him dead, why rescue him from … from whatever Frankenstein creature lived in the sewer? Either way, he’d find out more by going with them than by nursing his bruises at home. Besides, he had a strong suspicion that, if he refused, Alex would order him into the car at the point of the gun. He realised he didn’t want to put either of them in that position.

Swallowing, heart jumping about in his chest, he said, “Alright, I’ll go with you.”

It felt rather like strolling into the lion’s den.

Chapter Nine

Josef had been expecting a faceless government building, or perhaps sinister army barracks. Certainly, an interrogation room. It was a surprise, then, when Alex parked outside the giant and rather ugly Queen Anne’s Mansions in Westminster, opposite St James’s Park.

“I’ll walk from here,” Dutta said, climbing out of the car. He rolled his right shoulder as if perhaps he was stiffening up after the fight. If so, Josef knew how he felt—which was about 110 years old. He staggered out of the back of Alex’s motor, grimacing. Throbbing head aside, his bruised back was killing him. And his neck, where the creature—man?—had tried—

No, he wasn’t thinking about that.

Meanwhile, Alex was speaking to Dutta in the low, familiar tone of long acquaintance. “Tell Saint I’ll be there in the morning with a report.”

A pause followed, and then Dutta spoke in another language. Impossible for Josef to know what he said, but he sounded serious and sent a couple of significant glances in Josef’s direction while he spoke. If Josef had had to guess, he’dhave said Dutta was issuing a warning.Be careful of this one. What a joke! The only one in danger here was Josef.

Alex replied curtly, in the same language, but then, perhaps without realising, slipped into English at the end. “…and I know what I’m doing.”

Dutta cocked his head. “That’s what you always say.” With that, he touched his forehead in a casual salute and loped away into the night.

Alex watched him go, lost in thought.

“You’re friends?” Josef asked. “Or is he your superior officer?”

That made Alex laugh, and he was still smiling when he turned back around. “A little of both, perhaps. We’ve known each other since Cambridge and spent a couple of years working together in Ambala. In the Punjab.”

“For the Intelligence Corps?”

“No.” He gestured for Josef to proceed him into the building. “As I’ve told you, repeatedly, I don’t work for the Intelligence Corps.”

“Well, you would say that.”

Alex huffed a laugh. “One day you’ll believe me.”

“That’ll be the day you give me a plausible alternative,Captain Winchester.”

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