The one-eyed man had parked his Bentley in one of the outhouses. North pushed open the huge wooden doors and the Bentley slid out on to the cobbles of the yard and through the gates, the sound of gravel under the tyres.
The one-eyed man broke the silence between them. ‘They’re dismantling Tobias’s weapons.’
North stared out of the window at the countryside they were leaving behind, the ancient hedgerows and grazing cattle, the picture-perfect village with who-knows what-secrets behind the handsome stone facades and leaded windows. Tobias had been years ahead of other scientists with Syd reaching consciousness. But that was unexpected. His AI systems were already giving machines the capability to make decisions on targeting and killing humans within parameters set by humans. Tip in the right data and let the machines search, identify and erase the target. Autonomous weapons were considered the biggest advance in defence since nuclear weapons – since gunpowder. Nobody was giving that up.
‘For a second there, Hone, I thought we were past the point where you open your mouth and a big ugly toad jumps out.’
Hone cracked the window and a fresh wind blew through the car. ‘I warned them you’d never believe me. Okay, wise guy.’ Keeping one hand on the wheel, Hone fumbled in his jacket pocket with the other. ‘Until there’s a ban, we’re all in. Of course we are. As are the Americans, Chinese, Russians, Israelis and God knows who else.’ He pulled out a box of matches and rested it on his thigh. ‘The General was right.’ Without looking at what he was doing, Hone took out a silver case and with practised fingers flipped it open to extract a cigarette, before putting it between his lips. He shut the case and slid it back into his breast pocket. With one eye and his smoking habits, Hone was the perfect customer for a driverless car, North decided. ‘Frankly, even when there’s a ban, we’ll still be all in. We’ll just bury the bunker that bit deeper next time.’
‘Good to know.’ North said, taking the box of matches and striking a match to light Hone’s cigarette. ‘You need to make things right for Fang’s mum.’
‘Sorted. You can pick her up tomorrow. Will Fang forgive me?’
‘I wouldn’t count on it. And when I say that, I mean never in a million years.’
‘I figured as much. I’ve another question for you. Two more in fact. Would you like a job? And are you done?’
Was he done?
North considered General Aeron Kirkham, shackled to a rack in a Cotswold sex dungeon. In a couple of hours, there’d be the flash photography of crime scene experts and sniggers from junior detectives as they wrote up a clear case of accidental death by auto-erotic asphyxiation.
And the Right Honourable Ralph Rafferty MP – the screaming patient whose wristband described him as Christian Rafferty, currently strapped to a gurney as he waited for electro-convulsive therapy.
And Lilith.
Was he done with the past Hone meant? And was the past done with him?
North thought about it, as much to make Hone wait as for any other reason. The strains of Maria Callas drifted from the speakers. An aria from Tosca, North guessed. They sat for a while as they listened.
‘This “job” – is there a pension?’
There was a noise that might have passed for laughter in anyone else, but when North checked, the one-eyed man’s face was as grim as ever. ‘You’ve a bullet in your head. You could die if you sneeze – you couldn’t be more expendable if you tried. Do you know what that means?’ Hone didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I can ask you to do any crazy thing I want and I don’t have to feel bad when it all goes wrong, which one day it most certainly will.’
North thought about what the one-eyed man would want him to do. To lie and deceive and to place himself in mortal danger. To acquire any number of dangerous enemies. To fight, and to bleed, and to kill over and over. To accept the pain of losing people he loved as both a blessing and a curse. The one-eyed man would want him to do ‘any crazy thing’. And at some point, probably far too soon, he’d want him to die. Who in their right mind would want a job like that?
‘I’ll think about it,’ North said.