Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(18)

“Listen to you!”

“I’d have been a great music producer. I’ve got loads of hidden talents.”

“Like what, then, Mr. Music Producer?”

“Oh—I dunno. I bet I could play the piano. Or guitar, or something. I just never tried, that’s all.”

“Yeah. I bet you could, too.”

“Ooh. Sarcasm.” But then I said, “I’m glad I’m here.”

“Well, me too.” She gave me a sideways look. “You OK?”

“No. Don’t think I am.”



It happens, every now and then. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, and nothing will ever get to you again: something does. It’s that kind of a job.

Mostly you skate over the top of it. Things go the way they go, you deal with them, you move on. Then you see or do something, and it just gets inside your head and messes up your brain and nothing in the world can shake it loose.

I left the job once, for a few years. Found out I wasn’t all that good at anything else, and that I liked the independence and the perks of Field Ops much too much to quit.

But I never saw somebody kill themselves in front of me. Or had anyone embroil me in the run-up to it like that, either.

We drove in a sort of cloudy silence for a while. Then we broke for coffee and I started telling her about what happened, and once I’d started, I just couldn’t stop. She listened. She was good at that. She didn’t comment or try being helpful, just nodded, said, “Uh-huh.” Stopped me when I said something she didn’t understand, but that was all.

It took another hour to get to Angel’s parents’ place. A neat lawn sloped down to the street and a row of various ceramic owls guarded the porch. The house looked big to me, a great, wood-fronted, yellow and white mansion, but then, I’m English, and the scale of things is different here. As we headed in, she warned me, “Watch out for the canine cannonball.”

She got the screen door open, slid the key into the lock, and right away, I heard the barking start. “He knows it’s you,” she said. “Don’t ask me how.” The door opened. The dog raced out, yipping like a lunatic—first excited to see her, then seeing me, taking a few steps my way, swinging his head and racing back to her, then looking round at me again. “Guy’s so happy,” she said, “there needs to be two of him.”

The little, high-pitched squeaks were a bit at odds with the pit bull’s fearsome reputation. Still, when I bent to pet him, he jumped at me and almost knocked me down.

Thirty seconds later I was shaking hands with Angel’s mum and dad. We’d never met before. I felt like I was sixteen all over again, dragged inside to meet the girlfriend’s parents. I just about remembered I was in the States and called them “Sir” and “Ma’am.” “It’s Charles,” said Sir. “Evelyn,” said Ma’am. Evelyn made coffee. They all sat down like adults. But for me. I sat there like a gawky teenager, wondering how, after all these years, I still hadn’t grown up.





Chapter 15

Man to Man




Charles Farthing was a big guy—tall the way Angel was tall, and with a broad, high-cheekboned face that seemed to mirror hers. I’d guess he’d been an athlete in in his youth—football, basketball—but the years had piled the weight around his waist and these days when he sat he looked as if he’d stuffed a beach ball up his shirt. His belly made a perfect dome. His hair was thinning, and the light caught flecks of white in his goatee. Evelyn, by contrast, was small and rapid, constantly darting back and forth into the kitchen, to make coffee, or check on dinner.

I liked them both immediately. And I wanted them to like me, too.

Charles asked about my journey, and my business in New York. I bluffed and told him it had gone about as well as I’d expected, thanks very much. He told me he had been there for the US Open, and I pretended to be interested in that. He named the players, and I nodded.

Angel said, “Chris isn’t a sports fan.”

I protested. “I watch the odd match. You know—the big ones. But I travel a lot—”

I wanted to keep things light, and ordinary. Soon, though, Angel and her mum went off into the kitchen, and Charles said, “Time for a real drink,” and I was pretty sure that I was going to get the man-to-man stuff, the what-are-your-intentions-for-my-daughter speech. But it didn’t go like that. We drank JD and ice. He asked about the Registry. He asked about Field Ops. And I fell back on the easy answers, the company-approved line. He listened. Then he put his glass down, steepled his fingers.

“I want you,” he said, “to tell me the risks.”

The light in the room was dying. The sun was going down. Deep shadows filled his face, and his eyes were steady, gleaming with the last of the day’s sun.

“You understand me?”

“I . . . understand.”

His gaze didn’t let up. I took a drink. I shifted in my seat.

“I won’t deny—there’s been moments . . .”

But I told him there were protocols, procedures, safety checks. I told him there was less danger than being a cop, or a soldier, or—

“You were in hospital, she said.”

“That was a while ago. And it was more . . . peripheral factors. You know?”