John glowers. He has been careless—too careless. The mission is irrevocably compromised and the shame of it scorches him from the inside. This Tracker is a huge step ahead of him and he knows it. He calmly lowers his gaze, twists the ignition and with commendable composure, eases the sedan onto the street.
FourBees wouldn’t see a morning crowd if not for the spouses of wealthy expats living in the posh neighbourhoods around Dempsey Hill. The café offers just the right balance of sophistication and finesse to beat the competition and have the loaded mistresses flocking to it. Raymond even designed portions for their trim tummies to have them mop up every morsel on their plates. Dishes licked clean make for good publicity.
They breeze into the café every morning with their Stokkes and Fendis, and Sam receives them at the door with a sprightly toss of her head and a practised grin. Table for four? Right this way. Pets leashed to the columns outside, please. We’ll have water served to them in clean, stainless steel dishes, free of charge.
The front door jingles and John walks in, dressed in denims and a chequered shirt that conceals a pistol. Sam gets to him like a hawk and leads him down an aisle full of whinnying toddlers and their mothers dressed in sweatshirt fleece, and offers him a freshly-vacated corner seat by the window, farthest from the bar. John sidles into it and manages to catch Landon’s attention from behind the hulk of a coffee machine. He smiles and Landon snaps a patronising one in return.
The café settles into its usual lull after lunch. John sits alone with his third coffee, surrounded by empty tables and used crockery. When Sam tells him they’re closed for the afternoon, he idles by the lawn outside and smoulders away two cigarettes in succession. He lets the third one linger between his fingers.
Sam passes Landon and nudges him with a shoulder. “Got your wife waiting. Maybe you should call the police.”
Maybe he should. Landon storms out of the café and into the sun. His eyes rove over the lawns and find them empty.
“Home isn’t safe.” A voice drifts across the sultry afternoon air. Landon whips about and sees John ambling towards him in the dappled shadows of sindora trees.
He stiffens. John’s unexpected appearance throws him off the script he’s rehearsed for their encounter. “Who are you?”
“John.” He extends a hand and retracts it because Landon wouldn’t take it.
“What do you want?”
John taps a cigarette over his palm. “We should find a better place to talk.”
“Are you a police officer?”
“In some ways.”
“You got ID?”
“Not the kind you’d expect.”
“Quit following me or I’ll call the real police.” Landon starts walking away.
“Where’re you going?”
“None of your business.”
John succumbs and pops the cigarette between his lips. “I wouldn’t go home if I were you.” He flicks a lighter and Landon walks on.
He ejects a stream of smoke. “Fine. Go straight home and find out what’s waiting. Or you can take my advice and live a great deal longer. Your choice.”
The cigarette-flavoured interior of John’s sedan titillates something in Landon’s memory but fails to give it clarity. They leave Fort Canning Road and round into the driveway of a NeoPalladian masterpiece. It stands on high ground, its dome rising over a handsome porte-cochère that has received a great many nobles since the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria.
“Why are we going to a museum?” Landon asked.
John nudges the gears into reverse and backs into a lot. “Museums are nice.” He strains to look behind him and leaves Landon hanging on his response. “Never trusted the rear sensors. I like museums. Don’t you?”
“Just cut to the chase, okay?”
“I’m an operative.” John kills the engine. “Quasi-government. Coterius Extra-Terrenus—an inner circle of scholars founded in 1627. Two centuries later it was assimilated into the League of Nations and renamed Coterie of Discarnate Extra-terrestrials, or—CODEX.”
A smirk breaks across Landon’s lips. “ET?”
“It is known as the Unknown,” says John without humour. “We safeguard its existence.”
“That’s an easy thing to believe.”
“Even kids know better than to go along with a stranger.” John looks at him through the congenital severity of his face. “Unless a part of you thinks I can be trusted.”
The response drums the sick feeling of inanity into his chest. He wants to jest about it, to ridicule its absurdity. Yet he stands ready to believe fiction because he already knows how much of a freak he is. And he loathes admitting to the precision with which John has read him over. “Museums are safe.” John tells him. “Their cameras cover everything.”
“Wouldn’t matter if someone’s out to get me,” Landon says. “The guy’d just walk up to me and shoot me in the head. It’s that easy.”
“Ease up on the movies, Landon.” John leads him into a perfumed lobby fitted with omni-directional cameras. “In our profession the death has to be all-natural. Spilling brains doesn’t do anyone good.”
“All-natural like what?”
“Like a cardiac arrest.”
They enter a lift and John stares down at Landon, scrutinising the discomfited look on his face—one he’d seen many times over in the faces of Chronomorphs who had died in his charge. In time, he might have to tell Landon about them.
“Who is after me, then?” Landon asks.
“The Other Side of CODEX.” John says. “The faction that seeks to kill Chronomorphs like you, whom we seek to protect.”
“Chrono-what?”
“Chronomorph—one who’s become immune to time, figuratively.”
“Why isn’t the government stopping them?”
“The factions were born of a rift inside CODEX.” John looks up at the ticking numbers. “And they’re both very much backed and funded.”
“How? By who?”
“Recall how we met?” John’s lower lip twitches knowingly. “That explosion was the fruit of home-grown terrorism.”
“I thought it was out to get me.”
“You haven’t got that important yet, Landon. But it wouldn’t have occurred if it wasn’t backed by a faction that’s out to destabilise this country.”
“No—” Landon whispers. “A rift in the government?”
“I’m afraid so.”
The lift drops them off at a rotunda that accommodates galleries at its fringes. They enter one titled “700 Years” and John leads Landon past one exhibit after another without according any attention to them. A corridor opens to a larger room that displays crusty artefacts entombed in glass boxes. There is a broken shard of limestone set into a wall, and John goes to it. “I’m about to tell you a short story,” he raps a finger on the glass. “The Stone. Know anything about it?”
Landon squints at the information board. “Whatever that’s written here.”
“A boulder inscribed with the riddle to an ancient mystery once stood at the river’s promontory called Rocky Point.” John draws Landon’s attention back to the artefact. “Blown up in 1843 for the expansion of Fort Fullerton. This piece is what’s left of it.”
“It says here that it’s about some strongman legend and a—”
“Forget about the text.” John interrupts. “Truth is the boys who built Fort Fullerton were in a big hurry to blow it up. A chamber was buried underneath it, and the fort was built over this very chamber.”
“Never knew we carried such secrets.”
John ventures a rare smile. “Where’s a better place to hide secrets than a god-forsaken tropical island at the southernmost tip of the Asian continent?”