Page 148 of Everything That Kills Me
Jack put his arm around him. “Thank you.”
“I’m really sorry about him.”
“I know you think he didn’t have a heart, but he did.”
“Of course he did. He loved you. And for that alone I’m sorry about what happened to him. He rescued you and though I’d rather he hadn’t brought you up in the way he did, he looked after you. Cared for you. And he loved Django. Oh, where’s the dog? Will he be okay?”
“There’s a woman who looks after him. He’ll be fine.”
“And will you?”
Jack kissed his head. “Yes. The way Thomas brought me up wasn’t bad.”
“But the aim he had in mind?”
“It was all he knew. He was in danger and he knew that put me in danger too. Everything he did, he did to protect me. I learnt such a lot from him and from the others he paid to teach me. It wasn’t all about killing. We discussed history. He taught me about the stars. I had language lessons. I learnt not to expect ice in a drink in France, not to step in right leg first in Egypt, flowers should be given in odd numbers in Estonia… Anything I was interested in, he found a way to show me more about it.”
And yes, Jack had also learnt the many ways to incapacitate someone, where to strike with a knife, how and where to shoot, innumerable ways to kill.
“How did you get work?”
“Always through Thomas. He only ever told me as much as I needed to know. Though I’ve met some of his contacts, those who got us what we needed when we needed it. I understood that limited knowledge was his way of protecting me.”
“When was the first time you did a job on your own?”
“On my own, but with Thomas around, it was the weekend I climbed in through your bedroom window. I’d been to Istanbul.”
“When you were sixteen?” Zeph gaped at him. “You had the day off school to go and kill someone?”
Jack nodded. “But absolutely on my own, it was when I was eighteen. I remember what he said when he drove me to the airport. That no one knew who I was and what I was going to do apart from him. That I’d trained all my life for this moment. Physically, mentally… I was as proficient as he could make me but I wasn’t infallible.”
Zeph stared at him without blinking.
“He told me that it was all up to me. I didn’t have to be a monster to kill a monster. He never let me become a monster.”
Something clamped in his chest and he took a shaky breath. “I realised then that he was afraid for me. It was the first time I’d seen that emotion from him. The second time was today. Fear for me, not him.”
Jack pulled Zeph in tight, pressed his face against his hair and absolutely did not cry.
Thirty-Nine
Zeph’s heart was thumping when he went into work the next day. Jack had tried to convince him to take a different route, just in case, or an Uber, but Zeph had argued doing anything out of the ordinary was a bad idea. Doing what he usually did was the best way to avoid raising concern. But after Jack had pressed the point, Zeph worried he might be under scrutiny. So, he did take a few evasive moves: went to a different coffee place, checked the windows of a few shops, took a moment to walk over to the Thames to look at the river. He saw nothing that alarmed him.
He imagined he’d feel easier once he was in Thames House, but he remained on edge. His boss’s door was shut, which meant he was already in a meeting and not to be disturbed. Zeph logged on and read all he could find about what had happened in Gravesend. It was now on national news as well. While he was unobserved, he went deeper and read what he wasn’t supposed to be seeing. Though there was no photo of Thomas. Zeph covered his tracks.
The ability to subvert MI5 systems was something he should have flagged with Robert. If Zeph could find a way in, then others could. At least he knew now why there had been nothing in the press until today. The CIA had asked MI5 for a news blackout. Zeph assumed that was because it was an ongoing operation. Or that they were rewriting what had happened.
Zeph was able to access images of all twelve dead men. He didn’t like seeing the damage bullets could do, but he didn’t linger. Strange that Thomas wasn’t among the dead. A couple more names had been attributed. Zeph took what the night crew had done a stage further using the software he’d designed. Someone had to have come up with the site in Gravesend forthe meeting, which suggested it was a person who lived in the London area.
An hour later, Zeph had eleven names. Al-Talib and four other Saudis. Tamaz Dolidze and five Georgians. One of the Saudis and two Georgians lived in the UK. So who was the twelfth man? He looked nothing like Thomas.
He was able to track where those who’d flown in had stayed. The twelfth man wasn’t in the system.
“Zeph!”
He looked up to see Robert beckoning him. Zeph shut his screen and went to his boss’s office. Robert was in there with a man Zeph had never seen before. He had short white hair, wore a sharp, dark-grey suit, and had bright teeth that didn’t look real.
“Close the door,” Robert said. “Take a seat.”
