The Alex King Series, A BATEMAN [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

“I know,” King conceded.

“Have you told her?”

“No. She’s got enough on.”

“Damned decent of you. She used your real name and photograph to verify the authenticity of the MI6 contact sent to help her when her back was against a wall. It was good thinking, but it’s bitten you in the arse. That contact got himself into some bother of his own. He told tales to get himself out of trouble. MI6 not only found you, but MI5 know for sure who you are. Forrester had you down as a long-serving black-ops unofficial agent who he bought in and put in the system. It was a good way of seeing you legitimised. But your girlfriend cocked all that up.”

King shrugged. “It wasn’t her fault,” he said. “She was in a tight spot.”

“You love her?”

“Of course!”

“But she’s on sabbatical.”

“So?”

“Distance, methinks. She’s letting you down gently, I expect.”

“Fuck off…” King put down his cutlery. He’d lost his appetite.

Stewart shook his head. “If you get out of this…” he said, draining the remnants of whisky. “I think you should disappear properly. Lose the name, start a new life somewhere.”

“Your arsehole in my face again?”

“Opinion.”

King said nothing. He drained his glass and stood up. “I’ll get the bill,” he said. “You’ll have to pay for your own dessert if you want one.”

Stewart smirked. “I just thought you should know…”

“Know what?”

“To watch your back.”

King said nothing as he walked away. He generally took such comments in his stride. But this was the second time he’d heard those words in as many hours.

19

King always travelled with two wooden wedges which he jammed tightly under his door. There was no tool created that could push the door inwards, short of blasting the hinges out of the doorframe with a shotgun and a Hatton round. It was a simple trick, but one he employed as a matter of course.

He had showered before bed and slept in his clothes. He placed the Walther and spare magazine on the bedside table. His snow clothes were folded on the chair and his bag was packed. Everything in place for a quick departure, although he only had the snowmobile parked behind the hotel, he would not be caught on their terms. He was ready for a fight.

The fight never came, and King showered and shaved and took everything he had with him to the dining room where he ate a good breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and tea, which he took black and sweet to get past the suspect reindeer milk. He didn’t check out, keeping his stay for another night as part of his false trail. He dressed into his overclothes in the foyer and stepped outside into a dark, clear morning. He estimated it to be around -25°C.

The Volvo estate pulled across the road in front of him and King was reaching for the comfort of the pistol in his pocket when he saw it was Peter Stewart behind the wheel. He made like he was itching a scratch on his hip and stopped walking.

“Getting in?”

“I have a ride, remember?” King said. He hadn’t told Stewart about the IED he had found, but he suspected the MI6 man wouldn’t have let him leave without an intervention. The ride would be handy, he hadn’t thought much further than taking the police Subaru.

“Mine might be more practical,” the Scotsman quipped.

“What makes you say that?”

Stewart hesitated, then said, “It’s petrol and that old heap I got you is diesel. It will be getting colder where you’re heading.”

“I might be going out of your way.”

“I doubt that. By happy coincidence, I find myself heading to The Eagle’s Nest Hotel this morning, too.”

King opened the rear door and dropped his bag on the seat. He opened the passenger door and slunk down onto the seat. The heater was on full and the car must have been running for a while because it was uncomfortably hot inside. King loosened his jacket and took off his gloves. He dropped the beanie in the footwell.

“How long is the drive?” King asked.

“How long is a piece of string?” Stewart grinned. “There’s only one road, but we have the delights of moose and reindeer on the road, snowdrifts, maniacal lorry drivers and the storm, which is heading straight towards us. The news reports are telling everybody to stay off the roads. But we didn’t hear that, did we?”

“I don’t recall hearing anything about a storm,” King agreed.

Stewart moved off and drove far more quickly than King would have expected. The car held the road well, the snow chains on the front wheels gripping in the dry snow.

“I don’t find this stuff too bad,” he said, as if reading King’s thoughts. “The snow we get in the UK is a bloody nightmare. Firstly, we don’t get enough for people to be confident driving on it, or even have winter tyres fitted. Then the councils can’t grit the roads fast enough, or have spent their gritting allowance on fact-finding trips to the Maldives, and after twelve-hours of utter chaos, it melts and that’s it for another three years…” He accelerated up to fifty-miles-per-hour when the road both widened and straightened out. “This snow is dry. It’s weird stuff, because you can’t make snowballs out of it.”

“You’ve tried?”

“Don’t be daft! But I’ve scraped it off my car and it’s like that sugar they make cake icing out of.”

“What, icing sugar?”

“Yeah, that stuff.”

King smiled to himself. Stewart knew his way around a ration pack, but he doubted the man even knew where the biscuits were kept at home. “I looked on the map and I couldn’t see a road near The Eagle’s Nest.”

Stewart shook his head. “You’re right. Well, technically. There is a track they dug out