“She’s my friend.”
“So you would risk your own life, and kill another man, to save a friend?”
How much longer was the old man going to keep asking these questions?
Logan’s stomach twisted as he thought back to the beating he’d given the aristo. The groans, whimpers and pleading in the last few seconds of the aristo’s life. The feel of bones breaking under his fists. This chat was beginning to feel worse than the beatings the cops had given him. They beat him for things he’d never done, to extract information he’d never had. But he’d done real harm to this man. Killed his relative.
“I did it, didn’t I?”
“And they claim you stole a boat in England, then you sailed it out into the Channel minefields, just to see what was on the other side?”
“I was running away from home.”
“You are a brave young man, Monsieur McCoy. Reckless, certainly. But brave, nonetheless. And I so hate to see a brave young man die for no good reason.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
Rousseau shrugged. “Sooner or later, the flics will kill you, yes. If you tell them what they want to hear, they will call you a spy and kill you. If you don’t tell them what they want to hear, eventually they’ll call you a murderer and kill you. It might be days, or it might be years, or it might be as soon as you leave this room, but they’ll never let you leave this place alive.”
Logan’s body shook again. This really was it. He’d never walk free under the open sky another time. His future was a world of stone cells and beatings, until they decided they’d had enough. Then the guillotine in the courtyard, while the other prisoners watched from their cells.
“I’m sorry for what I did…”
“You did what you thought was right at the time. It’s easy to question your decisions in hindsight, believe me. Particularly decisions where men die as a result. I didn’t come here so you could tell me you were sorry. I wanted to find out whether you were the right kind of man.”
“The right kind of man for what?”
“The right kind of man for my Legion. A man who would sail over the sea to a foreign land in search of adventure, despite knowing he would probably die that day. A man who could live on his wits for three years in a country where he didn’t even speak the language. A man who would kill another to protect those he loves.
“I came here to give you a choice. You can walk out that door and spend what remains of your life in a prison cell for saving some poor girl from one of my damn crazy nephews. Or you can volunteer for the Legion, pay your debt to France, and die doing some good for your new homeland.”
CHAPTER 9
Bairamov stood there between the concrete pipe and the rock as Logan scanned the hillside for any sign of more insurgents. But nothing moved on the hill, except a rat scuttling between two rocks.
The dark liquid pouring into the river from the pipe splashed as it hit the water, and glittered in the bright blue sun. Bairamov reached out his right foot, and flicked the shooter’s body over. His suit’s claws tore through what was left of the man’s shirt as they rolled the body onto its back.
The chest was a mass of blood and torn bone, where the shockwave of the hypersonic round from Logan’s rifle had ripped it apart as it exited the body. The entrails steamed on the ground beside the body in a blood-soaked, yellow mess, where they’d slid from his abdomen as the body rolled over.
“Like I said, kid. You’re a stone-cold killer.”
Logan stared down at the mess in front of him. It had been a man a few minutes before, until Logan ended its life, No, not even a man. He hadn’t seen the shooter’s face before, but, now that he could, he could see it was just a boy. Maybe fourteen? Fifteen? No wonder the shooter had only taken a few shots and run for his life.
He must have been scared out of his wits back there, after he’d shot at them. And desperate, to have risked taking the shots at all. What kind of parents would send their kids out to do something like that? Did they even know he was doing it?
Probably not. When Logan was that age, he wouldn’t have asked his parents’ permission to do anything.
This wasn’t like the first time Logan killed, back in Paris. He’d killed the aristo by mistake, in the heat of the moment. This time, he’d been quite deliberate and calculating. Taken his time to aim, then shot the boy in the back as he ran away.
Never even gave him a chance.
But, no matter he much he told himself he should feel bad about it, he couldn’t. If he or Desoto had been half a metre closer when the boy opened fire, they might be the ones lying on the ground with half their body missing, instead of the boy.
And, if Logan had waited a moment longer in cover beside the IED hidden in the dirt pile at the side of the house, he might be the one lying in the town square while Heinrichs tried to keep him alive, not Gallo.
No, he really didn’t feel bad about shooting the boy at all. He didn’t feel much of anything as he stared down at the body.
If the boy had wanted to stay alive, taking potshots at the Legion was a bad way to go about it.
“Any idea who it is?”
Bairamov backed away, into the cover of the rock. It wasn’t much, but it would stop small arms fire from further out in the fields, if anyone else was hiding there.
“My suit scanned their ID chip, and sent it back to Intel. They’ll let us know, if we need to know.”
Logan knelt beside the body and placed the butt of his rifle on the ground, using it to support himself as he leaned forward. At least the suit was filtering the air before feeding it into his helmet. His stomach churned just imagining what the body must smell like out there in the hot sun. He much preferred the rubber, plastic, and faint electrical smells of his suit.
His metal fingers grabbed the boy’s jacket, and pulled the front open. He reached for the pocket sewn into the lining.
The suit’s fingers were more than twice the size of a normal human, and the cloth tore as he reached inside. He pulled the pocket away, but it was empty. The pockets on the boy’s pants looked empty, too.
Whoever the boy had been, he’d left behind anything that might provide useful information, before he’d decided to start shooting at the legion.
He might be dead, but he wasn’t entirely stupid.
“On me,” Bairamov said. “Now, let’s get back to the square to regroup.”
“What about him, sir?”
“That asshole? Let him rot out here. No-one in the village should complain. And it’ll be good for the soil.”
Logan stood and shouldered his rifle, before he followed Bairamov back toward the village.
His eyes scanned the fields to the right. The corn was as tall as his head would have been if he was walking on his own feet, but, in the suit, his head was a metre above it. The stalks twisted slowly and gingerly in the wind, as Logan tried to peer into the shadows between them for any sign of more insurgents in wait.
But Alice would already have warned him if she’d spotted anything on her sensors.
“Good job, kid.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“But a damn stupid one. That boy could have had a dozen friends waiting in that field, while he drew you out into the ambush. And then you’d be dead right now. You should have kept eyes on him, and let the drones do the work. That’s what they’re there for.”
“I thought I might be able to capture him, sir.”
“Don’t worry about it, kid. You’ll learn. Or you’ll get killed. It’s really only a question of which happens first. Just remember, no matter what the officers might say, a live Legionnaire is more useful to me than a prisoner for Intel. Half the team is out of action thanks to that little asshole back there. I’ve seen this shit before, and don’t want it happening again.”