Chapters (45)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Prologue
- 2046
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- About the Author
She focuses on the fruit in her hands, tearing pieces away and eating without a trace of emotion or feeling. He is Ben Ryder. The actual Ben Ryder. He was the reason she joined the police and the reason she chose Close Protection. Now he is sitting opposite her eating fruit in a bunker in the dinosaur times after being told they’ve got to save the world. Oh, and Mad Harry Madden is at the table too. She takes it in. The whole of it. The all of it and the one thing that forms in her mind is that she will never again have to be touched by that vile man again. Not here and not for anyone, and what’s more, although she doesn’t know Harry, she already feels a bond with him and knows he will have her back, like she did for him during the fight. Downing Street was the first time she’d killed another person and she’d always wondered what it would be like to deal with something like that. To know you had taken life. As it happens, she feels nothing. They attacked. She did her job. Same with the men in this room. They could have done what they were told to do and restrained Harry but they attacked him with weapons, and used those weapons on her when she went to help. It is what it is. She looks round at Harry eating thoughtfully then across to Ben and her eyes linger on the faded scar on his right cheek. Ben Ryder. It’s really him. She suppresses the smile that wants to form in memory of him running in to the fight earlier. He is completely undisciplined and without technique but he’s brave enough. Smart too. Very smart. He’s Ben Ryder. The Ben Ryder.
Harry eats the fruit. He’s hungry and four years of warfare have taught him to eat when you can. None of this is surprising to him. His mind is desensitised from a life of seemingly never-ending missions, firefights, sabotage raids, guerrilla warfare, open warfare, hand-to-hand combat, dirty fighting in back streets and parachuting on to open fields to cover behind tanks as they laid waste to towns. If the fast boat had got him out of Norway he would have been patted on the back and sent back out. It is what it is. He likes Safa though. That she is a woman doesn’t factor in his head. Plenty of the resistance fighters he worked with were women and she can fight. Blimey, can she fight. He muses inwardly and has to suppress the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth in memory of Ben flailing his arms about in the fight. The man lacks training and control but he is brave and has the right stuff. Clever too. Got a quick mind, he has.