Caleb’s Range Rover purred as he drove down the corkscrew ramp from the airport car park.
The pitch had gone well. Porter would string out calling him as long as possible, he knew that, just to make a point, and the negotiation would be noisy, as it always was when a client realized Caleb’s services were essential. But the job was his.
Caleb twisted the steering wheel, letting the car glide on to the exit road leading back to London. As he did so, he slowly allowed the mental tap he had fastened before the meeting to loosen, releasing the anxieties that had preoccupied him this morning to return.
You are one in a million, Caleb.
He could still hear his mother’s voice, clothing the phrase in her sing-song voice.
That was her way of describing his remarkable ability to see beneath the surface of things. It was a proud mother’s way of naming something she could not understand. And prescient. After years of studying the fields of intuition, Caleb discovered her phrase was a near-perfect description of the percentage of the population with similar skills.
This month was the tenth anniversary of the launch of his company. The start had not been auspicious. His partner and former best friend had bailed on him at the eleventh hour, almost collapsing the company before it started.
The betrayal turned out to be a blessing of sorts, fuelling Caleb’s desire to make the venture succeed. His abilities quickly put him in demand, but then a challenge surfaced that would become his perennial problem: finding others like him.
It turned out it took an intuitive to spot an intuitive. It began with a clue – maybe an unguarded expression, maybe some pattern in personal history. Sometimes it snagged Caleb without him even registering it consciously. But the moment it did, he plunged in immediately, a deep data dive into the person’s background and history. Extraordinary empathic ability was like a radioactive isotope, leaving hot traces in its wake: schooling, likes and dislikes, relationship history, all data points became binary to him as they were processed to see if the person was unique. A sensitive. With a threshold amount of biographical information, Caleb had learned to spot a fellow member of the tribe in seconds.
But quantifying ability didn’t turn out to be the problem. The issue was finding enough candidates so he could beat the odds. One in a million. The phrase now haunted him.
With his small consulting network already straining to capacity, and without an ability to find the required million subjects, the Heathrow job was a pipe dream.
Caleb’s mind was brought back to the present by a black Mercedes E Class sliding into the lane in front of him, close enough that he pumped his brakes and lurched forwards in his seat. There was something unusual about the car that Caleb couldn’t put his finger on. Without lingering on it, he swore under his breath and checked his mirror to see if the fast lane was safe to overtake.
At the same time, an identical Mercedes accelerated along the fast lane and drew alongside Caleb’s car. It had the same tinted windows as the car in front, making it impossible to see inside.
Caleb then realized what he had missed before. The bodies of both cars hung low to the ground. That meant their shells were armour-plated, bullet- and bomb-proof.
He looked into the rearview mirror to see a third car pull into position immediately behind him, and on his left a fourth car appeared from nowhere and drove up parallel to him.
He was boxed in.
The passenger window of the car on Caleb’s driver’s side glided down, revealing a granite face and a weightlifter’s body jammed into an Armani suit. The man’s jacket was open, exposing a shoulder holster and the thick black handle of his gun. He jabbed a finger towards the next exit ramp.
The Mercedes convoy moved as one, sliding across the lanes, corralling the Range Rover and herding it towards the off ramp.
Caleb guided the SUV with care, trying to keep within the tight space the four cars created. His heart pounded in his chest as his mind scrambled to stay ahead of the situation.
Making enemies was not difficult in the private security business. Indeed, it was inevitable. He made a living from thwarting the plans of very bad people, and they rarely took kindly to it. Within the last six months alone he could think of a handful of people who would want him out of business. Permanently.
Observe and analyse: the first step was to know who he was dealing with.
The cars were expensive. Armour plating isn’t cheap. This wasn’t the cortège of your average gangland thug. The manoeuvre they were executing was not easy either. The drivers were professional, not just muscle taking wheel duties. The man in the passenger seat: there was no sadism in his face. It wasn’t the look of someone savouring a prospective kill. It was the blank face of someone communicating an order. This convoy was charged to get Caleb somewhere, to someone exercising the power. But everything about the person behind it remained hidden.
His antenna for threat had kept him safe so far, and he cursed himself for drifting off in a reverie.
His eyes flicked down to his car phone, and he snatched it from its cradle and dialled the police emergency line.
‘Can you hear me? Hello?’
The line was dead. There was no static, nor clicks of a call trundling over an exchange, just silence. The phone may as well have been dead. With a chill, he realized they must be using a jammer.
As they approached the exit ramp, two of the cars drove in front of the Range Rover and two dropped behind. The lead cars stopped at the roundabout and then took a turning that was signposted as a dead end.
A mile further, a chain-link barrier separated the road from a private airfield. The procession of cars stopped, and a man exited the front car and unlocked the barrier, pulling the gates open.
The airfield was abandoned. Tarmac stretched out in every direction, its surface raised above the surrounding marshland like a concrete tabletop. The only structure was an enormous aircraft hangar in one corner, which the cars now drove towards.
Caleb considered peeling away from the other cars and making a break for it. But it would have been useless. The surrounding swamp meant there was only one way in and out.
They drove through the open hangar door and parked, sectioning off the SUV and forcing it to stop. Caleb stepped out of the car. It took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the dark interior.
The vast hangar was empty, other than a table set up on retractable legs in the middle of the space.
A man sat on a folding chair behind the table. He was tall, well over six foot, and built like a bear, with a bushy beard that was long enough to obscure his neck. An iPad lay on the table in front of him.
‘Hello, Caleb. It’s been a while,’ said the bearded man cheerfully.
‘Robert Waterman,’ said Caleb, shaking his head. ‘That explains the cloak and dagger.’
‘Would you have come otherwise?’ asked Waterman.
‘No.’
Waterman paused, segueing.
‘I was sorry to hear about Tara, Caleb.’
His tone was heartfelt, but Caleb didn’t respond.
‘You know why you’re here,’ said Waterman. ‘I need your help.’
Caleb shook his head.
‘The answer is still no.’
‘Try being a little less self-righteous, Caleb,’ urged Waterman. ‘What happened was a decade ago. I had a family. The government offer was too good to refuse. Would you have done any differently?’
Caleb said nothing, and Waterman let the moment hang before he broke away and lifted the iPad in front of him.
‘Tell me what you can about this. If nothing, then you won’t see me again.’
‘Should you be showing me secret material?’ asked Caleb.
‘We vetted you,’ replied Waterman.
Caleb looked over, despite himself. It was a black-and-white film, taken from an aerial view, of an airfield: buildings set around a single runway. A truck burst through a perimeter fence, followed by flashes that lit up the screen. A lone figure exited the truck and darted around, firing at the figures guarding the base. The clip lasted less than ten seconds.
‘This attack took place yesterday on a British army base in Scotland,’ said Waterman.
‘I didn’t read anything about it in the papers,’ said Caleb.
‘Nor will you,’ replied Waterman.
‘And you want to know who did it?’
Waterman didn’t reply.
Caleb shook his head and sighed. ‘I don’t work for free, but getting rid of you for good is worth it.’
Caleb took the iPad from Waterman and pressed play, stopping the clip several times to look at the frozen footage. He then handed it back to Waterman.
‘Looks like you’ve lost some top-secret equipment.’
‘Explain,’ said Waterman.
‘The attacker killed three soldiers in the clip I saw. But didn’t fire directly at any of them. He was aiming at the spot they were moving to. The only explanation is you must have a weapon with some form of predictive targeting device. And the attacker stole it.’
Waterman tugged at his beard meditatively.
‘What can you tell me about the attacker?’ he asked after a long pause.
‘Based on the body movements, it could be a man or woman. I would say between late twenties and early thirties. A killer by trade: there’s no hesitation or remorse. One of yours gone rogue?’
‘I’d forgotten what our interactions were like,’ said Waterman.
‘Thank you,’ said Caleb.
‘It wasn’t a compliment,’ said Waterman, his face draining of humour. ‘To respond to your theory: there is no secret handheld weapon with a predictive targeting device. But now I think I know who did this. And you can help me track them.’
Caleb shook his head. ‘Forget it, I don’t work for the public sector.’
‘We will make it worth your while,’ said Waterman.
Caleb turned and started walking back to his car.
‘I’m not interested,’ he said over his shoulder.
He had almost reached the hangar doors when his step faltered, like something had just occurred to him. He turned around to face Waterman.
‘OK, I’ll do it.’
Waterman looked at him with suspicion.
‘I haven’t told you how much yet.’
‘I’ll find a way to make it work.’
‘Will you?’ asked Waterman sceptically, his eyebrows raised. Without taking his eyes off Caleb, he walked forwards, closing the gap between them. ‘What are you up to, Caleb?’
Caleb shrugged his shoulders.
‘Fine, if you don’t want my help …’
‘Hold on,’ said Waterman, raising one huge hand, ‘I never said that. Tomorrow morning. 10 a.m …’
Caleb nodded and began walking briskly back to the car.
‘… no games,’ shouted Waterman to his retreating back, ‘this isn’t about you and me any more.’
But Caleb had already gone.