“No,” Rebanks said, shaking his head, insolent. “But tell me, Major, are they worse than the ones for armed kidnapping?”
He let that one drift for a moment. In the confines of that dirty cell I could hear each man breathing.
“All right, Mr Rebanks,” Gilby said through his teeth. “What do you want?”
Rebanks never got to state his terms. I barely caught the flash of movement out of the corner of my eye as someone made a dash for the doorway. There was a scuffle behind me. By the time I’d turned, O’Neill was on the floor, thrashing about with Sean’s knee firmly planted in the middle of his back.
Sean looked up and nodded briefly to Figgis. “Nice moves,” he said.
Figgis gave him a faint smile as he uncoiled that long body back into its normal inoffensive mode. Todd was fast enough himself, but he was left just gaping at the pair of them.
Gilby watched O’Neill’s struggles impassively, then turned back to Rebanks. “Well,” he said, “I suppose we won’t be needing your help in this matter after all, Mr Rebanks.” He tried to keep the smugness out of his tone, but couldn’t quite manage it. To Sean he said, “Get him up.”
Sean stood, yanking the Irishman to his feet, seeming totally unconcerned by the other man’s weight and exertions. At one point O’Neill managed to get an arm loose and took a savage swing at Sean’s head.
Sean ducked out of the way almost negligently, hooked both O’Neill’s arms up behind him and locked him tight. He applied just enough pressure on the joints so that O’Neill had to rise up on his toes to try and lessen it. Sean kept him there, teetering.
Gilby frowned at his man. “Why?” he said. “What the hell had Blakemore done to you?”
O’Neill just glared at him, the scar twisting his face into a sneer.
I stepped forwards. “I think I can help you here,” I said. I took the Swiss Army knife out of my pocket and folded out its largest blade. For a second as I approached, O’Neill’s eyes bulged and he renewed his struggles, nearly popping a shoulder out in the process.
“Don’t be an arsehole, O’Neill,” I said mildly, and cut his military style green jumper in two straight up the centre. I put the knife away and unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it wide open. He was one of those men with a distinct hollow at his breastbone. The skin covering it was pale and he was visibly sweating.
Below his ribs on the left-hand side – the same side where Elsa had been shot, I noticed – was a large square of white dressing, held in place with strips of surgical tape. I looked straight into O’Neill’s eyes as I reached for it, saw the dismay there as it came away from his ribcage with a faint rip.
Underneath was nothing. No wound, no blood. Just unmarred, smooth, clear skin.
I glanced down at the dressing. It was clean.
“Looks like I’m not the only one who’s not a team player,” I murmured, then turned and dumped the wad of dressing into Gilby’s hand. He was staring backwards and forwards from me to O’Neill.
“But he was wounded,” he said, confusion making his voice blank. “I saw him—”
“He faked it,” I said. “It wasn’t hard. He has to fake something very similar on every course during the night shoot. Blakemore knew that he’d panicked under fire and bottled out, and he was threatening to tell. That’s how you were compromised, Major. That’s how Kirk was shot.” As I said this last part I met Sean’s gaze. That’s it, I thought. Now the job really is over. But where do we go from here?
Gilby looked at O’Neill, and saw the truth of what I’d just said written in the other man’s face. He gestured to Sean, unable to speak over the top of his disgust.
Sean released O’Neill, throwing him contemptuously onto the camp bed next to Rebanks. The Irishman bounced against the wall and huddled into the corner.
I looked at Todd and Figgis. Their faces held much the same expression, not of shock, but of recognition. They were going back over the same events, viewing them in the same new light, as the depth and scale of O’Neill’s betrayal hit them.
“Congratulations, Major,” Rebanks said then, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “If you lock all of us away down here, who’s going to fight your battles for you?”
“I’d rather have a handful of good men than a battalion of rotten cowards,” Gilby shot back. He turned for the door, then paused and added grimly, “Besides, Mr Rebanks, if Gregor Venko does carry out his threat to slaughter every one of us, I’ll make it my last mission in this life to personally make sure both you and Mr O’Neill are included.”
Twenty-five
Gilby gathered the students and the rest of the Manor staff together in the dining hall to deliver the bad news. He took to the dais, with Figgis and Todd flanking him, seemingly unaware of how lonely a figure he presented up there.
Sean preferred to stay down on the main floor, hitching a hip onto one of the window ledges, watching the reactions from the ground. I leaned against the wall off to one side of him. Close enough, but still keeping my distance.
I felt rather than saw him turn his head to study me, but I refused to meet his eyes. I’d said what I had to, for better or worse. It wasn’t up to me to push him for a response. Besides, we had other more pressing things to worry about right now.
I checked the time on the clock on the wall high above the Major’s head. It read nine thirty-two. Just over twelve hours to go before Venko’s invasion.
Perhaps Gilby was aware of the shortening of time, also. He spelled it all out for them in brief, clipped sentences. Somehow, the situation sounded so much more desperate laid out that way, with no attempt to soften the blows he was delivering.
At first there was a kind of uncertain astonishment, teetering almost on the edge of laughter. As though this was all part of the course and their reactions were being monitored towards a final graduation mark. It was only as the Major ploughed on, relentless, that the gradual realisation spread.
The cooks and domestic staff didn’t need much convincing. They’d already experienced first-hand a taster of the kind of treatment they could expect from Gregor Venko’s army. I caught their nervous glances and knew there wouldn’t be many who’d have the stomach for a second run.
When the Major wound up his short speech by extending an offer to leave immediately to anyone who wanted it, for a moment there was a silence brimmed with shock. People shuffled uncomfortably in their seats, began making surreptitious eye contact with their neighbours. Desperate to leave, nevertheless nobody wanted to be the one whose nerve was first to break.
Eventually, one of the cooks stood up, truculent as he unknotted his apron and dumped it firmly on his chair. His exit broke the surface tension. More people rose, students and staff alike, gathering momentum with mass. By the time the movement slowed, only a pathetically small group remained resolutely in their chairs.
The big Welshman Craddock had stayed put, but he probably would have done the same if you’d told him nuclear war had just been declared. He just had that kind of placid nature. Michael Hofmann was another, his face blank as he rolled slowly through some inner thought process. Maybe the realisation of the danger he was in was just taking a long time to reach his brain. Romundstad was hunched forwards, looking poised for flight as though he might change his mind at any moment, but he stayed in his seat.
There were two surprises. Declan Lloyd was one of them. He was lounging back in his chair putting on a good show of airy lack of concern, with only the jerky swinging of his casually crossed foot to call him a liar.
The other unexpected volunteer was Ronnie. He was the sole member of the domestic staff who’d stood his ground. The Major’s gaze tracked slowly across everyone, showing neither approval nor disappointment at their decisions. He nodded once, briefly, to those who’d elected to stay.