Barely asleep, Jake jerked awake. Liz was staring at him, her cheeks flaming, mouth half-open, eyes wide. And Jake didn't need a degree in psychiatry — or in parapsychology — to understand what had happened here. Whether as a deliberate voyeur or an innocent observer, Liz had been in his mind. She'd seen that last scene. And as for what it meant: that was his fear surfacing, his ongoing suspicion that Ben Trask was simply using him, now complicated by the notion that Trask was also using her as some kind of bait — like a carrot for a donkey? — to keep him happy as he plodded on. He could be right at that, or he could be wrong. But if Liz were the carrot, then what did Trask have in mind for the stick? Everything remained to be seen.
'I… I…' Liz mouthed words at him — mouthed them, but nothing came out — as she quickly, selfconsciously, ashamedly slid her jean-clad legs from the gunner's arm rests and sat up straighter in the bucket-seat. And:
Serves you fucking right! Jake snapped back, but silently, in his head. And he knew he'd reached her from the way her head jerked. And now keep the fuck out!
Following which, as his anger cooled, it took some time to get back to sleep…
Snatches of conversation drifting back to him. But in his ears or in his had? Perhaps he was still on Liz's mind, and unsuspected even by the girl herself where she sat in her bucket-seat midway between Jake in stowage and the others in their seats up front, she had become some kind of mental relay station. For in the few days she had known him Liz had established something of a rapport with Jake; it was possible that the sending technique she had used to taunt Bruce Trennier had 'fixed' itself and was now developing more rapidly in her special mind. Maybe this was simply her way of making amends: by letting Jake in on the conversation. The conversation about him. Or was it something, or some one, else entirely?
Trask's hushed voice, asking: 'But why him?' Lardis Lidesci: 'Does the why of it really matter? If Jake has been chosen, he's been chosen.'
And lan Goodly: 'There are certain similarities. Maybe we shouldn't overlook them. I'm sure mental characteristics — how Jake thinks — are more important than the purely physical way he looks. When we look at him we don't see Harry, that's true, but the Necroscope was a hard act to follow. Perhaps we should give more thought as to how Harry sees him. And there are similarities.' Trask: 'Go on.'
Goodly: 'For one thing, they both lost loved ones. Both of them drowned, murdered, too.'
Trask: 'Granted, but that's where it ends. And as for losing a loved one, murdered, you could say the same about me. But where is Harry's humility? Where's his compassion, his warmth? This Jake… he's abrasive, a roughneck, spoiled and wild.'
Goodly: 'A roughneck? But in the right circumstances that would be — and it already has been — a positive bonus. A rough diamond, maybe. Surely the Necroscope would know better than to choose a weakling for a job like this?'
Trask: 'But a hard man? A killer, even if he does have his reasons?'
Lardis: 'Me, I say they were good reasons. I like him! And I say it again, if he's Harry Hell-Lander's choice, that's good enough for me.'
Trask: 'And me… well, within limits. So don't misunderstand me — I'm not arguing the Necroscope's choice — it's just that I don't understand it. I have this feeling that Jake's not only fighting us but fighting Harry, too.'
Goodly: 'Oh, he is, be sure of it! But aside from his manners and tendency to aggression, there are similarities.'
Trask, dubiously: 'More similarities?'
Goodly: 'Indeed. For Harry believed in revenge, too. Don't you remember? An eye for an eye? He was just a boy when he went after Boris Dragosani. If like attracts like — mentally speaking, that is — then I can well see how Harry would be drawn to this one. And that's something else you might give some thought to: if you want Jake firmly on the team, and his mind exclusively on the job in hand, you could do a lot worse than find this man, this Luigi Castellano.'
Trask 'And then what? Let Jake go after him?'
Goodly: 'This Castellano is rubbish and should be disposed of — we're all agreed on that. I think Jake will chase him down no matter what, which makes Castellano a distraction. But if he were to be taken out…. no more distraction. And we would have Jake's gratitude.'
Trash, mildly surprised: 'Well now! And just listen to the cold-blooded one! But you're right, and we're checking into it. Interpol and other friends abroad. If we could just bring Castellano to justice, that might suffice.'
Goodly: 'No, it wouldn't.' (A sensed shake of the precog's head). 'When he is dead, that will suffice. You know as well as I do how Jake dealt with the other members of that gang. Do you really think he'll be satisfied to see their boss nice and comfortable, all warm and well fed behind bars?'
Lardis: 'Anyway, in case I haven't already said it loud or often enough, I like Jake Cutter. And so does Liz.'
Liz, heatedly: 'I do not! Well, not especially.'
Lardis, chuckling throatily: 'See?'
Then silence for a while, the darkness deepening, and Jake finally adrift in dreams. And a strange cold current taking him in tow, steering him to an unknown yet oddly familiar destination…
A river bank, and below its grassy, root-tangled rim, the water swirling in the eddies of a small bight. A boy, sitting on the edge and leaning forward at what seemed an unsafe angle, dangling his feet close to the slowly swirling surface. His elbows were on his knees, his hands propping his chin, and he appeared to be talking to someone. Perhaps to himself.
Jake's shadow fell on him, and the boy turned his head to look up at him. He didn't seem at all surprised by Jake's presence (but then, neither did Jake). On the contrary, he smiled a pale, painful, yet appreciative greeting. 'Hello, there! So you came. Why don't you sit down a while and talk to me?'
'I, er, didn't like to cut in on you!' Jake answered, not knowing what else to say. And then, because he wasn't sure what else to do, either — and wondering if he knew the other — he finally followed his suggestion, sat down, and asked him: 'Er, do you think it's possible we've met somewhere before?'
Beginning to feel the strangeness of it all, he looked the boy over more closely, perhaps even warily.
Apart from the obvious fact that the other had recently been fighting, there didn't seem to be anything especially odd about him. He could be any scruffy boy, though for some reason Jake found himself doubting that. Maybe eleven or twelve years old, sandy-haired, freckled; he wasn't skinny yet barely filled out his ill-fitting, threadbare, second-hand school jacket. The top button was absent from a once-white shirt that hung halfway out of his grey flannel trousers, and a frayed, tightly knotted tie with a faded school motto hung askew from his crumpled collar. His lumpish nose supported plain prescription spectacles, small, circular windows through which dreaming blue eyes gazed out in a strange mixture of wonder and weird expectation.
Then, suddenly aware of Jake's inspection, the boy looked down at himself, wrinkled his nose in disgust, said: 'This will be the school bully, big Stanley Green's work. He's got it coming, has our Stanley. In about a year from now, or maybe two.' And his lips were thinner, tighter, more determined.
There was dried blood on those lips, a gash in the corner of his mouth, but little or nothing of fear in his dreamy eyes, which were now other than dreamy and contained a certain glint. Indeed, they looked older than the rest of him, those eyes, and Jake thought there was probably a pretty mature mind in there, somewhere behind that half-haunted face. But he could never in a million years have guessed how mature — or how wise in otherworldly ways.