Whisper For The Reaper, Jack Gatland [good books for high schoolers txt] 📗

the word WINTERGREEN written on it; ever since he’d returned to the house after Westminster, he’d kept that on him, like some kind of good luck charm.

Fat lot of good luck it’d given him so far.

There was a dip; the van was moving downwards. An underground car park, perhaps? A swing to the right, the van moving slower now confirmed this. Declan attempted moving his hand; it tingled as he tried, but it moved a little. He moved onto his arm—

The hood was pulled off, and Declan saw Trix, her face a mask of concern as she peered at him, checking his eyes as she did so.

‘You’re awake?’ she asked. ‘Good. Thought as much. Here, smell this.’ She cracked open a phial in front of him, allowing the smell to waft up Declan’s nose. It made him gag with the stench, but within a couple of seconds he found he could move his muscles again.

‘Neat trick,’ he muttered, flexing his neck, allowing the kinks to release. ‘You’d better have a damned good reason for that.’

‘She didn’t know I was going to do it,’ a male voice said as a young man, dark-haired and in his late thirties, leaned around from the driver’s seat. ‘I thought it was the best way to get this done. We couldn’t let you see where we took you, see. It’s a secret.’

‘Sorry Declan, but believe me when I say it’s for your own good,’ Trix stepped back now, out of the van, through the sliding side door and into a nondescript, half-empty underground car park. Declan didn’t follow; instead he looked back to the young man.

‘And you are?’ he asked calmly.

‘Tom Marlowe,’ the man replied. ‘And yeah, I’m not commenting on if that’s a real name or not.’

‘And you work with Trix?’ Declan continued. Marlowe shrugged.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ he replied. ‘I work with her in a specialised department. We’re actually taking you to our boss, though. She’s been wanting to chat to you for a while now.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Declan asked. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Because you’ve been making a bloody noise looking for her,’ Marlowe climbed out of the van, indicating for Declan to follow. ‘Her name’s Emilia Wintergreen.’

Declan hadn’t expected this. Quietly and suspiciously he clambered gingerly out of the van, the after affects of the drug still in his system, making him unsteady on his feet. He wondered if this was how Monroe had felt a week earlier when the man with the rimless glasses had attacked him, but he put that thought aside as he followed Trix and Marlowe to the car park doors.

‘So you’re a spook?’ he asked conversationally. Marlowe decided not to reply, pressing a button on the elevator and waiting beside it.

‘I’m guessing you’re a spook because of the hood and the covert shit you seem to employ here,’ Declan continued, warming to the task. ‘I mean, I know I’m in Central London, and I think we came up the M4, maybe the A40. I’m thinking down into London somewhere near Euston, so we’re maybe in Holborn or somewhere near Soho.’

‘You learn that in copper school?’ Marlowe entered the elevator as the doors opened.

‘Military Police,’ Declan replied as he followed him.

‘Look, Declan, I told you. You’re toxic right now,’ Trix explained as the doors closed. ‘You’ve pissed a ton of people off recently, and we can’t walk you in through the front door.’

‘But you won’t even tell me where the door is,’ Declan replied. Trix shrugged.

‘Until we know if you’re an asset or a threat, we’d rather play on the side of caution.’

‘So I’m a threat now?’ Declan chuckled as the elevator stopped at the third floor. ‘If I pass your tests, do I get to know where we are?’

Trix glanced at Marlowe, who stared at the doors, waiting for them to open.

‘Above my pay grade,’ he said.

‘And what is your pay grade?’ Declan asked, but the doors sliding apart interrupted him. The elevator had opened up into a corridor, and Marlowe and Trix walked Declan left, towards a pair of old looking blue double doors, each with small windows embedded in the middle. There was a faint smell of what seemed to be curry powder, which didn’t fit the location and as Declan entered through the doors behind Marlowe, he felt like he’d fallen into the eighties, with the decor of the office space that he’d now entered looking older than the offices of Temple Inn.

The office floor was open plan, with brown carpet tiles leading to grey cork walls. It was filled with rows of desks; cheap wooden ones, placed in lines of two so that each desk faced another, with the surfaces comprising cheap looking computer monitors, phones and a page of telephone numbers beside each one. It reminded Declan of a summer telemarketing job he’d had when he was sixteen, selling carpet cleaning services to people who obviously didn’t want them. Marlowe, seeing his expression, smiled.

‘All for show,’ he explained. ‘Management is up the stairs.’

‘What is this place?’

‘Whatever we need it to be.’

They continued to the end where another painted door led them to a set of stairs that continued upwards to a second, more intimidating door. This one was steel and had no window. A fingerprint scanner was to the side; Marlowe placed his own into it and, as it opened, he waved Trix and Declan through. On the other side was a security area; a metal detector and a rolling conveyor that led to an x-ray machine, just like the ones that airport security had. Marlowe meanwhile moved once more to the left, bypassing this by taking Declan through a door to the side.

Now the room was more modern; monitors on the walls and desk unit setups made this look more like mission control than a telemarketer’s office. As Declan glanced around, taking in the people at their stations, most of whom ignored him, he realised that this wasn’t a world he was used to. This wasn’t a world of justice by arrest. This