The Shadow Project

‘Lenny,’ he said, surprised.

‘Hi, Adam,’ Lenny Salt muttered in a low voice. He walked up between the empty rows of seats, glancing nervously about him.

So nothing had changed, then, Adam thought. Still the same old Lenny, always acting as though the Men in Black were just one step behind him. Physically, he hadn’t changed much either. A little more stooped, maybe. A little greyer and, as he came closer, it seemed to Adam as though his teeth were fewer and blacker.

Adam put out his hand. The limp handshake was still the same, too.

‘What brings you here, Lenny?’ he said, smiling pleasantly, while wondering what the hell this was about. ‘Good presentation, man.’

‘You’re in the market for a smart house?’ Adam knew he wasn’t.

Salt shook his head. ‘No, man. We need to talk.’

Ten minutes later they were sitting over coffees in the hotel bar downstairs. Adam wanted to make this quick. Salt was a rambler, especially when he got started on his pet subjects – and if it was radical and wacky enough, he was up for it. UFOs one year, the fake moon landings the next. He’d hold you with his glittering eye, and, three hours later, you’d still be sitting there none the wiser and your smile beginning to freeze on your lips, wishing you were somewhere else or just had the courage to ask the silly old bastard to shut up.

Today, Lenny Salt looked especially spooked. Maybe he was just getting crazier with age, Adam thought.

‘What did you want to talk about, Lenny? I don’t have a lot of time.’ He slipped a hand in his pocket and restlessly fingered the key to his Saab. ‘My sister’s coming to stay for a few days, I have a new housekeeper arriving after lunch, and Rory’s on his own. Need to get back.’ He reached for his cup.

But Lenny Salt didn’t seem interested in Adam’s home life. He leaned forward.

‘Julia’s dead.’

Adam’s cup abruptly stopped halfway to his mouth. ‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

‘Our Julia? Julia Goodman?’

Salt nodded.

‘What the hell happened?’

‘She fell off a mountain in Spain. They found the body last week. She’d been down there a while. Very nasty.’

Adam put the cup down on its saucer with a rattle. Sank his head in his hands, his mind suddenly filled with images and memories. ‘This is awful. Poor Julia.’

‘It wasn’t an accident, man.’

Adam looked up sharply.

‘Nah. It was just made to look like one. Nobody had heard from her in three months. She apparently just went off on her own. Doesn’t that sound a bit strange to you?’

‘She was into hiking in a big way.’

Salt raised an eyebrow.

‘Come on, Lenny. This is nuts. Isn’t it awful enough that she’s dead, without making up crazy—’

‘I know what you think about me. But this isn’t crazy.’

Adam felt a flush of anger in his cheeks. ‘Then tell me how you know there’s something strange about it. What makes you so sure?’

‘Because there’s more to it that I haven’t told you,’ Salt said. ‘If you’d let me finish.’

‘Then what?’

‘Michio’s gone too.’

‘Michio often goes off places without warning,’ O’Connor said testily. ‘His research takes him to every desolate corner of the planet. He’s probably wandering about on a glacier somewhere as we speak, collecting ice samples.’

Salt shook his head. ‘You don’t understand. He’s dead as well.’

Adam stared at him.

‘Died of a scorpion sting out in Arizona. Forgot to pack his anti-venom, apparently. Oh, and his heart pills too. Very convenient.’

Adam took a few seconds to digest all this, staring into his coffee. He couldn’t drink any more.

‘How come you know so much, Lenny? How come I haven’t heard anything?’

‘I’m not the one who cut himself away,’ Salt replied. ‘I didn’t turn my back on my friends, man. I stayed in touch with the rest of the Krew.’

‘Never mind the damn Kammler Krew. That was never a serious thing, and you know it.’

‘It was for Julia, Michio and me.’

Adam didn’t want to get into old arguments. ‘How did you find out about Michio?’

‘His brother emailed me a couple of weeks ago.’

‘And you didn’t call me about this? Two old friends die, and you don’t think to tell me about it?’

‘I didn’t have your number.’

‘I gave it to you.’

Salt shrugged. ‘I didn’t write it down. I don’t like to use the phone. You never know who might be listening in.’ He leaned across the table with a conspiratorial look. ‘Listen to me, man. Something’s up. Something bad.’

‘You’re not suggesting that Julia’s and Michio’s deaths are connected?’

‘Of course that’s what I’m suggesting. It’s obvious. Someone murdered them, and now they’re coming after us. We’re all that’s left of the old Kammler Krew. Now it’s just you and me.’

Chapter Four (#u2e3c221c-95c3-5f3d-ae25-f0909ea55eb0)

At that moment, deep within the acres of dense forest that surrounded the training facility at Le Val, Brooke was sitting reading a paperback in the specially adapted cottage that Ben Hope referred to as his killing house.

It was the place where the bulk of the tactical raid and assault exercises were carried out, the many bullet holes and ragged splinters in the plywood walls silent witnesses to the amount of live-fire practice that went on there. The two-seater sofa Brooke was reclining on, deep in her novel, had looked better in the days before it had become riddled with 9mm rounds; one end was resting on bricks, and the stuffing was hanging out all over the place.