Final Days

I’m not sure, Saul tried to reply, but Mitchell’s grip around his neck was too tight.

Mitchell came to a halt. ‘You’re talking to someone.’

‘No,’ Saul managed to croak. How the hell could he have known?

‘Bullshit, you think I can’t tell?’

He let go of Saul, shoving him down on to the tiles, where he sprawled helplessly, his right arm completely numb.

‘I can see you,’ Amy muttered inside his head. ‘I’m some way back, next to a fountain in a courtyard. I could take him out from here.’

Mitchell checked the readout on his Cobra, then gazed intently across the concourse towards the courtyard. Had he, Saul wondered, somehow heard Amy over all that distance?

If Mitchell had any idea where Amy was, she wouldn’t even see him coming.

‘Mitchell,’ Saul croaked, ‘there’s something I have to tell you.’

Mitchell spared him only a brief glance. ‘Whatever it is, I don’t have the time,’ he muttered.

‘It’s about your brother, Danny.’

Saul licked his lips and struggled to avoid looking at the courtyard. He wondered if Amy had picked up one of the Cobras; there had been plenty of them scattered about. Of course, she was getting old, but the Cobra targeting systems were designed to do most of the work for their users.

‘Jesus, Saul,’ said Mitchell, his expression almost pitying. ‘I don’t know what you’re up to, but this is low.’

‘I never told you the truth about him,’ Saul persevered. ‘He wasn’t dead when I found him. He was still alive.’

Mitchell blinked and shook his head. ‘What?’

‘You asked me to try and find him.’ Saul remembered telling Olivia the same story back in Orlando, but with one vital difference. ‘Well, that much I did manage. I tracked him down, all right.’

It felt like lancing a festering wound, with all the old poison spilling out in a rush. ‘He’d been left there to guard the place and, when I turned up, I tried to talk him into leaving with me. I told him I could keep him safe, make sure that no one ever knew he’d been involved. Instead, he tried to kill me.’

‘No.’ Mitchell shook his head. ‘That’s not possible. Danny would never—’

‘He was in very, very deep, Mitch. He shot at me, but he didn’t know how to use the gun properly. All I got was a flesh wound.’

‘You told me you’d been in an accident,’ said Mitchell, his tone numb. He had turned his back towards the courtyard, the Cobra dangling forgotten from one hand.

‘I killed him. To save my own life, I had to. I never toldat because I didn’t think you could handle knowing what really happened.’

‘You’re lying!’ Mitchell screamed. ‘You miserable son of a bitch, you’re making this shit up!’

He lunged at Saul, enraged, locking both hands tight around his throat.

Do it now, thought Saul, desperately pushing the heel of one hand against Mitchell’s jaw, to try and force his head back. The shimmering haze had spread, tiny specks of light like fireflies dancing everywhere under the high ceiling of the concourse.

Saul heard a damp cough, much like the one he’d heard before Colonel Bailey had died, and Mitchell jerked forward. He stared down at Saul, his mouth hanging open with shock, and a look of utter disbelief in his eyes. He staggered upright, with evident difficulty.

‘You don’t know what you’ve done,’ he gasped at Saul, then sat down hard on the tiles. There was a dark circle of blood in the middle of his chest, growing wider.

Saul pushed himself upright and grabbed hold of the Cobra that Mitchell had dropped. ‘I’m sorry,’ he wheezed, meaning it.

‘True?’ asked Mitchell. ‘About Danny?’

Saul nodded. ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’

Saul peered across the concourse, and spotted Amy crouching to one side of the fountain.

Mitchell nodded. ‘I wish . . . I wish things had been different.’

Saul realized his own cheeks were damp as he levelled the Cobra between Mitchell’s eyes. ‘That makes two of us,’ he said, and squeezed the trigger.

THIRTY-ONE

Lunar Array, 11 February 2235

Saul let the Cobra rifle slip out of his fingers and tried to make sense of the emotions warring inside him. There was anger, but also regret and sorrow, in equal measures.

He turned away from Mitchell’s lifeless body and saw Amy Rose come jogging towards him. She was still wearing her spacesuit, minus the helmet, her grey hair tangled into knots. She bent over, once she reached him, hands resting on knees and gasping for breath.

‘Wait here,’ said Saul, and quickly made his way back to where Bailey’s body lay. He dug through the dead man’s pockets until he found the same keycard Bailey had deprived him of.

‘You okay?’ she asked, standing up straight again as he came back.