The Shadow Project

sure he would be interested in these documents you mentioned, unless he already has them, that is.’

‘He doesn’t have them,’ Ben said. ‘I know that for a fact. How well do you know this Lenny Salt?’

Jarrett shrugged. ‘About as well as you’d know anyone you spent half an hour over a pint with. Like I said, we chatted about Kammler, then we argued, he called me a Nazi prick and left.’

‘I think you have that effect on people, Jarrett. In fact, I’d say you got off lucky.’

The boat was approaching another bridge. There was a stone stairway leading up from water level to the street. ‘This is where I get off,’ Ben said. ‘Enjoy the rest of your tour.’

‘So you’re done with me?’ Jarrett said nervously. ‘You’re not going to shoot me now?’

‘I don’t think that would do much to change the world,’ Ben said. ‘You kill one rat, you have to kill them all. That’s someone else’s job. But I wouldn’t sleep too easy if I were you.’ He tapped the boatman on the shoulder and had him pull over to the side. Climbed the smooth stone steps and walked away.

As he was crossing the bridge he looked down to see Don Jarrett staring up at him from the back of the boat. Then it passed under the bridge and Ben didn’t see him again.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Adam O’Connor knew the exact number of paces up and down the length and width of his poky hotel room. He knew where every spider’s web was in every corner, and he’d spent so long staring at the gaudy flower design on the faded wallpaper that he could have drawn it with his eyes shut.

After nearly two days of waiting, he was going stir crazy and beginning to feel as though he’d been trapped here all his life. His stomach was knotted with worry, so cramped it hurt to move. He’d barely touched the plates of stinking stew that room service had been bringing him. His door wasn’t locked, and a few times he’d wrenched it open and peered out into the dim corridor. Nobody was even guarding him. Once or twice he’d wanted to run, and keep running until he got to a police station. But he knew that would be the worst thing he could do. They’d kill Rory.

If Rory was even still alive. At this moment, Adam had no way of knowing how – let alone where – his son was.

He checked his watch. The afternoon was ticking by. Then it would be evening. Another night of waiting. Why were they doing this to him?

Unable to prevent the image from looming up, he visualised Rory’s face again. It was too much. Adam felt the salty tears well up and the next thing he knew he was sobbing uncontrollably, his shoulders heaving. Then his stomach heaved and flipped, and he dragged himself off the armchair and just made it to the bathroom. All that came up were a few strands of acid bile. He washed his face at the sink, splashed rust-coloured water over his cheeks and tried to calm himself.

People had always told him he looked younger than his age, but when he gazed in the stained mirror he saw a gaunt, unshaven, crazed-looking man a decade older staring back at him. His eyes were red, puffy and ringed with black, his cheeks looked hollow and the lines on his face were etched so deep they might have been carved with a knife.

That was when his resolve tightened even more and he knew his plan was the right one.

No other way.

What if you’re wrong? What if you’re misjudging the situation?

No other way, Adam. No choice. You were committed the moment you left home.

He stumbled back to the other room and slumped on the edge of the bed, feeling hollow and brittle. Time passed; he didn’t know how much. He sobbed again for a while, then dried the tears with a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose, staring numbly into the middle distance.

Far away in the dark, misty world of his thoughts, he barely heard the footsteps outside. They walked up the creaking boards of the corridor and stopped at his door. There was a pause, then the door suddenly flew open and three people walked in.

Adam looked up and saw a woman standing there. She looked about thirty. Thin fair hair scraped back from her face, a square set to her jaw and a hard, impassive look in her eyes.

He hated her immediately.

To her left was a tall, lean man. The man to her right was half the height but twice the width, muscular, with arms that strained the seams of his jacket and a neck like a bull’s. All three of them were watching him intently. The stocky guy had a black pistol in his hand. It was pointed at the floor but the way he was fingering it, he looked as though he wanted to use it soon.

Adam’s thoughts focused through the fatigue. A woman and two men had taken Rory from Teach na Loch.

The woman spoke. ‘You’re Adam O’Connor?’

Adam couldn’t place the accent. Something European, vaguely eastern. Maybe Czech.

‘I’m O’Connor,’ he said weakly. His own voice sounded strange to him, after not speaking to anybody for so long. ‘Where’s my son?’

‘You’ll see him soon enough,’ she said. ‘Keep your mouth shut and come with us. Try to talk to anyone, try to run, and he dies.’ She held up a phone. ‘I only have to press a button.’

They made him get his things together, then ushered him out of the room and down the dingy corridor, making him carry his holdall while the tall man held on to his briefcase. They passed rows of doors. No sound coming from behind any of them. No sign of life anywhere. Adam was glad to get away from this hateful place, and his heart soared at the idea that he was going to see Rory again. He was alive.

‘Keep moving,’ the stocky guy muttered, prodding him down the corridor. His accent sounded similar to the woman’s.

‘Who are you people?’ Adam said.

The stocky guy cracked him on the back of the head with the pistol, hard enough to make him bend double and gasp with pain.

‘I told you, keep your mouth shut,’ the woman said without looking back at him. The tall man grabbed Adam’s arm and forced him onwards. They went through a doorway marked ‘PRIVAT’, down a bare, narrow staircase that smelled of damp. The winding staircase led down to a rear exit that opened into an alleyway. Adam followed the woman out into the pale sunlight. The alley was edged with piles of old beer crates, cardboard boxes and bins that stank of rotting garbage.

A black unmarked van was waiting for them. The stocky guy wrenched open the back doors while the tall one took Adam’s holdall from him and threw it in the front with the briefcase. A wave of the gun, and Adam clambered into the back. There were no windows, and it was empty apart from a mattress on the hard metal floor. The back doors slammed shut with a hollow clang, and he was in darkness.

More doors slammed, then the engine fired up and he was jerked almost off his feet as the van pulled away with a lurch.

The drive lasted a long time. Adam curled up on the mattress as the van chassis squeaked and rattled and the vibrations pulsed up through the floor. He could tell from the steady, dulling roar of the engine that they were on a fast road, maybe a motorway.

After what seemed like days, the engine note dropped to a rumble and the vibrations diminished as the van turned off onto a slower road and started swinging and swaying through bends. From the angle of the floor and the number of gear changes, he figured that they were climbing steeply up some kind of mountain road.

For a horrible moment, that made him think of Julia Goodman. Back in Dublin, what seemed like a lifetime ago, Lenny Salt had suggested that someone might have thrown her off a mountain. Adam hadn’t believed him at the time, but now everything was different. Anything seemed plausible. Was the same thing going to happen to him? Was his son already dead, and now he was going to die too?

But the van didn’t stop, and nobody pulled open the doors to haul him out and pitch him over the edge of some terrible drop. The journey continued. It was colder now, as though they’d gained a great deal of altitude. Adam found a crumpled blanket on the mattress and pulled it over him. As he lay there huddled, the van left paved