This Other Country by This Other Country

Author:This Other Country
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-11-19T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Nikolas had no part in cleansing the mill. He knew what Squeezy and his friends would be doing. He’d done it hundreds of times in a previous life. Not now though. Now his job was to stay with Ben.

Kate kept him updated. Apparently “live” TV was never live. Which media mogul waiting for his knighthood could take the risk of the public seeing British politicians being pelted with eggs, see banners being held by protesters denied their right of free speech and trying to get their message over any way they could? Live feed was always fed a few seconds late so a hasty chop job could be done…breakdown in transmission…technical fault…back to EastEnders. The British public—those who’d still been watching once they’d been informed of the cancellation of their soap—had seen that first blur of movement. They might have seen an arc of blood. Some claimed they had, and stills of this were appearing on various shockhorror.com websites.

Ben was unconscious. Nikolas drove him to London, and Andrea Gillian was waiting for them. She examined Ben—the only explanation Nikolas could give for his lack of consciousness was that he’d sustained a bang on the head. She could find nothing, but she stayed by the bedside, holding one of Ben’s hands. There was nothing maternal about Andrea Gillian. She was holding the hand like she might have once held a cadaver’s—professionally, thoughtfully.

She had Nikolas tell her the whole story. She was the only one of the ANGEL team who had her Nikolas Mikkelsen lie-radar permanently on. Consequently, he never bothered lying to her anymore, so he told her the truth. She narrowed her eyes and continued to study Ben’s limp fingers. Suddenly, she stood up and straightened her pencil skirt. “Give him time.”

Nikolas folded his arms. She was too small to bully as he did everyone else with his daunting physicality. “Time?”

“Hmm. There’s nothing physically wrong with him. It’s possible they’ve given him some kind of drug…to make him more compliant.” Nikolas thought back to the rolling, severed head, and wondered if his English had finally let him down. Compliant? Didn’t that mean…? She briskly snapped her medical bag closed and left.

Nikolas turned on the news and flicked between channels. No one knew anything. They’d not known where the feed of Ben Rider had been coming from or why it had cut out. He was reported as missing.

Nikolas had a thought, dialled a number, and had a brief conversation with a man at the other end.

Within an hour there was more breaking news. It hadn’t been ex-Special-Forces-expert Ben Rider, so their unconfirmed sources were telling them. A man had called anonymously to say he’d been on a course with a professional look-alike. This man had gone missing. Suddenly, everyone was saying it hadn’t really looked like Ben Rider at all—blond hair, thinner. Definitely thinner. Ben hadn’t made any TV shows since they’d returned from Russia, and he was thinner now than in his documentaries. And, of course, the most important thing as far as identification went—Ben Rider wasn’t gay.

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