The Oktober Projekt by R. J. Dillon

Author:R. J. Dillon [Dillon, R. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-04-18T23:00:00+00:00

Ten

Some Friendly Advice

London, November

Nick made it back to London just before seven that evening, recklessly accelerating through curtains of spray as he overtook one articulated lorry after another on the M6. Exhausted more than he wanted to admit, Nick coaxed himself up the flights of stairs to his seventh floor room in an economy hotel a couple of minutes walk from Baker Street. It was a double room complete with plastic flowers, a panoramic rooftop view and a series of framed prints of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson covering the stains on the flowery sateen wallpaper. There was a wardrobe in knotted pine straight from Taiwan and an electroplated brass effect bed, though the cobwebs strung in festoons around the corners were thankfully real.

Uncapping his bottle of Laphroaig, Nick picked out a dark hair inside the tooth mug and settled himself on the bed. Sometime before nine his phone rang. Not Hawick, Jane or Roly calling to make amends or pledge a fresh start, but Paul Rossan cutting off a yawn, asking for his location, no he couldn’t tell him why, just that Nick should be outside in ten minutes.

The driver was young, fierce, a natural blond; his lips making a scar in his pale face as he nodded to Nick in the passenger seat. Confidently, assured, relaxed, the blond drove without a word; briskly, business like, as though born for a life behind the wheel, an air of showmanship in every move, perfected to demonstrate his ability, his skill.

The rain had lessened as they reached Greenwich, to a few weak drops that hit the car with no real effort as they turned onto Shooters Hill Road.

‘This is as far as we go,’ the blond informed him, stopping with a jolt. ‘The shelter on the mound. Would seem that you’re expected there, sir,’ he said with anything but respect. ‘In the park, Mr. Torr, it’s been cleared,’ he added rudely, Nick wondering if Rossan had them specially bred.

Left on the pavement under a clear sky with too many stars to count, Nick began to walk. A brisk wind had dried the road and it might never have rained he thought, entering the park, except for the grass still wet, sodden and slippy as though from a heavy dew. Behind him he heard the occasional car as he climbed into the night, through chestnut trees coiled against the sky like barbed wire. His eyes adjusted gradually to the light, to the dim outlines, brittle silhouettes and fuzzy shapes formed by the street lamps below. He pressed on, a bonfire haze in the air, stopping twice to look back and once thought he saw movement, standing his ground, his eyes straining until they hurt. He saw nothing more.

The shelter covered the centre of a well-trodden mound; the grass worn into mud by the many feet of a varied army who for one reason or another made it the target of their assaults. Not tonight though, for Nick glimpsed the vague outlines of three teams he guessed Rossan had dispatched from internal security discreetly ringing the shelter.

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