twelve

Tommy-Lee turned as the door opened and Paul stuck his head in. He didn’t say anything but checked everything with a look, then signalled for Tommy-Lee to follow him outside.

The man on the bed watched them, unblinking and silent, then turned his back and huddled up close, like he knew something bad was about to happen.

The evening air hit Tommy-Lee like a sledgehammer. It was warm and sweet and tasted of dust stirred up by the arrival of the van. But it was still a million times better than the rank air he’d been breathing inside the box. He winced at the brightness of the light after the gloom, and shielded his eyes. It would have been good to have his shades, but they were back in Dougie’s place and he was hardly in a position to go back and get them.

He took a deep breath and feasted his eyes on the open spaces. Wherever they were, the scenery went on forever. He turned and looked at his temporary home. He hadn’t seen it in daylight before. It was an ancient shed, like a small workshop, with warped overlapping wooden walls and a corrugated metal roof. A battered wooden door hid the inner door, and windows down the side showed the bare wood of the inner skin but nothing of the box inside.

Damn, he had to hand it to Paul and his goons; you’d have to come right up close to see that there was more to this old place than first appeared. He turned and looked round and saw the two goons scuttling away towards the hangar, kicking up spurts of dust as they went. It looked like they were in a hurry and he guessed they must have been told to shake it and get under cover before a car came along. Donny was hauling his toolbox as usual and struggling to keep up with Bill, who kept looking at him and waving at him to go faster.

Big, stupid dumb-ass, thought Tommy-Lee. Would have been quicker if he’d stuck Donny and the box under his arm and carried them both.

“What are they doing, rewiring the old place?” he said with a grin, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Paul fixed him with a stare that could freeze water and slapped a hand on his shoulder, making him turn back to face the door to the room.

“That’s no concern of yours. However, this is.” He moved round in front and pushed a slim nylon zip bag against Tommy-Lee’s chest. “Open it.”

Tommy-Lee did and found he was holding an electronic device with a plastic case, about the size of a hardback book. He turned it over and saw a screen with several buttons down one side. It had a hole in one edge for a jack-plug and another for a charger.

“It’s a DVD player,” he said. “I stole a bunch of these off a truck once. Got three hundred bucks back in Kansas City. Man, I got ripped off that time, let me tell you.”

Paul ignored him. “You know how to work it?”

“Sure. Enough, anyway. Had plenty of time to play with them before I unloaded the whole consignment. What’s on it?”

Paul nodded towards the room. “That’s for him to see. I want you to show him.”

“What, just that? No message?”

Paul hesitated, then said, “Show him first. Let him have time to understand what he’s seeing. Then ask him if he knows what it represents. He should answer yes, because it’s very clear. But he might pretend otherwise—that it’s nothing to do with him. He might scream and shout and plead with you, but you must ignore him, no matter what he might say, what he might tell you … or what he might offer you. Make no mistake, Mr. Roddick, no matter what he offers you, ignore it.” He leaned forward until their faces were inches apart, the smell of his cologne suddenly vivid and heavy in Tommy-Lee’s nostrils. “Do. Not. Listen. Everything he tells you will be lies. You understand me?”

“Yeah, sure. I got it. Ignore him. Then what?”

“Then we come to your special … talents, Mr. Roddick.”

“Huh?” Tommy-Lee wasn’t sure he’d heard right. What the hell was he talking about?

“Your interrogation techniques, of course. Don’t all prison guards have them?”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call that a talent—and we never actually interr—”

“No matter.” Paul cut him off mid-stream with a gesture of impatience. “Your part is simple. You allow him to run out of steam, then you impress on him that the contents of this disc were filmed just yesterday … and that my men are still in position where those films were shot, close by.”

“Will he understand what that means?”

Paul smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant sight, and Tommy-Lee figured there was something real bad about this man. It was like a dark light far down in his eyes, but you could see it if you knew what to look for. And Tommy-Lee knew sure enough. He’d seen the same light in the eyes of detainees in Iraq and a few other places, and it carried something rotten and twisted and dangerous.

Paul said, “I’m sure he will understand perfectly. But just to make sure—and I don’t care how you do it—see that he gets the point fully about what will happen if he doesn’t agree to do what I’ve already asked him.”

“What will you do to him?” The moment the question was out Tommy-Lee wished he’d never asked. It breached an invisible line he instinctively knew he should not have crossed, taking him from being an impartial, paid observer to something else altogether.

It made him one of them.

If Paul shared the same thought, he didn’t say so. Instead he murmured coolly, “Just bear this in mind, Mr. Roddick: you’d better convince him to comply.” He checked his watch. “You have until this time tomorrow, when we come back. Not a moment longer. Because if he says no, it won’t be a good outcome for either of you.”