Cast No Shadow by James Swallow

Author:James Swallow [Swallow, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, fantasy
ISBN: 9781451607178
Goodreads: 9772840
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2011-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

A chill was coming in off the Gulf of Sidra, kicking up loose sand that flickered around the street lights along the highway leading out of Benghazi, and along the Libyan coast. Overhead, the cloudless veil of night stole the warmth of the day, and what few people were outside stood close to doorways or around portable heaters.

The bearded man paid a couple of kids to watch his weather-beaten Volvo, before slipping inside the shuttered garage and locking the door behind him. Although he had been born thousands of miles from this shell-shocked city on the edge of the desert, his serviceable Arabic and his resemblance to the locals meant he could pass for a native.

The cover he was using was thin, but it wasn’t meant to be airtight. Part of the plan was that his fake identity would be discovered by the authorities. It was imperative to make sure that they left enough clues to lay the false trail and make it convincing.

He fingered his oily facial hair and glanced around, removing papers and a broken cellular phone from his bag, then placing them in a wastebasket. He arranged them to give the impression they had been disposed of in a hurry, then made his way towards the back of the garage.

The front half of the building had been left untouched, the elevator jacks, tool chests and storage cupboards still sitting where they had been when his partner had taken over the place from the previous owner. The old man who ran the garage lay where he had left him, wrapped in a dust cloth, the corpse half-hidden behind a pile of balding tyres. Stale blood from where the fool’s throat was slit had soaked through the cloth in a dark brown patch, and a colony of flies had made it their home.

The rear half of the garage was much changed, however. Double layers of thick polypropylene had been erected on a frame of scaffold bars, forming a box-shaped tent nested within the building’s interior. A makeshift inflatable airlock was the only way inside, and right before the entrance was an industrial shower hanging from another of the jacks, the metal head dripping water on the stained concrete.

The bearded man’s taller partner saw him through the clear plastic and made a sharp beckoning motion. He nodded and quickly changed out of his street clothes, stepping into a waiting hazmat suit. The all-encompassing bright yellow oversuit zipped closed and he took a quick self-check before venturing inside. Any rips or tears in the suit would have deadly consequences.

‘Where have you been?’ The taller man demanded an answer as soon as he came through the airlock’s inner door. ‘I’m almost done. This needs two pairs of hands.’

His florid, pinkish face looked odd framed in the bug-like shape of the suit.

‘I thought it would take longer,’ said the bearded man.

‘No,’ his partner replied. ‘Once the model uploaded, it was actually quite quick. They told me how to prepare the base elements.’

‘Well, fine. I had to wait a while to get the tickets.

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