Hyde stared into the blank lenses and saw ghostly reflections of himself. “It wouldn’t pass inspection.”
“You overrode it.”
“Yes. Those things happen every now and again. All I did was verify that he was a citizen and he was on his way.”
“Why did you take the trouble to do that?”
Hyde nodded at the dead man. “Because I liked him. The father. I know what it’s like trying to raise a high-spirited young man. Simon Cross was twenty-three years old. It was time for him to stretch his wings. Either that or drive his poor father mad.”
“Simon Cross has been gone from London for two years?”
“I don’t know. He might be back.”
The man regarded Thomas Cross in his metal shell. “Did you know this man was one of these people?”
“You mean the knights?”
The man frowned, obviously displeased. “They are not knights.”
Anyone who would put on armor and go tilt at monsters has my vote, Hyde thought. “I didn’t know about the suits, no.”
“Would it surprise you to learn that prior to his son’s arrest for base-jumping, Thomas Cross didn’t exist as an official British citizen?”
“Yes,” Hyde responded honestly. “It would surprise me very much.”
“My people—”
Hyde couldn’t help automatically wondering who the man’s “people” were.
“—performed a thorough background check on Thomas Cross after we found him in that suit. As it turned out, his image and his fingerprints were on file in a case that you handled as chief superintendent.”
Hyde waited for the other shoe to drop. He’d been in the politics of police work long enough to know that it would.
“Prior to that time, neither Thomas Cross nor Simon Cross existed. Our boys in computer forensics backtracked the trail the hackers left while putting Thomas and Simon Cross’s identification into the system.”
The news caught Hyde off-guard. “I don’t understand.”
“This isn’t the first armored man who has fallen into our hands,” the man said.
Hyde knew that was true. The rescue services had gotten several of them from around St. Paul’s Cathedral.
“But this is the first one we’ve been able to identify. The others were able to escape.” The man’s face soured. “Or they were dead and couldn’t tell us anything.”
Anger stirred within Hyde. He’d liked Thomas Cross. The man had brimmed with integrity, and he’d loved his son in spite of the legal difficulties they’d dealt with. “Why are you treating this man like a criminal? He laid down his life trying to—”
“Get himself killed?” The man’s eyes curved upward in a smile.
Hyde said nothing.
“Trust me, Chief Superintendent: whatever these people are doing, they’re doing it to suit themselves. Not out of any altruistic reasons.”
“I heard some of the knights were there when the military first engaged the invaders.”
“The demons you mean?”
Hyde firmed his jaw. “Yes.”
“How do you know,” the man asked, “that these people weren’t the ones who brought those bloodthirsty things into our world?”
That wasn’t a new thought to Hyde. As a police officer, he was trained to be suspicious of everyone. The first witness, usually the person who called in to report a crime, was always the first suspect. The knights had fought the demons, pouring everything they had into the effort at St. Paul’s Cathedral. He just couldn’t see them as villains.
“You see my dilemma, don’t you, Chief Superintendent?” the man asked.
“No,” Hyde replied. “Nor do I see your interest. You’ve offered me no credentials as to who you are.”
“Can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
The man shrugged. “To the best of your knowledge, Simon Cross is still in South Africa?”
Hyde hesitated, then nodded.
“Splendid. Can you identify this picture of him?” The man held up a file and opened it to a picture of Simon Cross’s booking photo.
Simon Cross looked young and innocent and worldly at the same time. Hyde wondered how the young man would take the death of his father. Not well, he thought. Children who warred with their parents were often as not very close to them. Hyde had the feeling that the two were close, just in different places in their lives two years ago. They shared the same strong features, the same hint of…nobility. That was the word that came so readily to mind.
“Yes,” Hyde said. “That’s Simon Cross.”
“You mean, the man you knew as Simon Cross.”
Hyde didn’t respond.
The man closed the file and tucked it under an arm. “Have a good day, Chief Superintendent. Stay safe.” He turned smartly on his heel and walked away.
Four men of average height and average weight stepped away from the back wall and fell in behind them. While they’d been still, they’d almost blended into the room. But now that they were up and moving, they felt dangerous.
In that moment, Hyde knew them for what they were: part of a special operations group. MI-6 or perhaps something even more clandestine.
Occasionally in the past Hyde had encountered such men. Usually at the scene of violent death. Sometimes they’d even committed the murders. But in the end it didn’t matter. A quiet letter would get issued from the prime minister’s office and the men would disappear as if they’d never existed.
But why were they investigating the knights when the streets were filled with terrifying creatures? And what did they want with Simon Cross?
After the entourage had gone, Hyde turned his attention back to the dead man. “What can you tell me about him, Smithers?”
“Very little, actually. ’E was in good shape. Until ’e ran into whatever it was that killed ’im, of course.” Smithers grinned and looked crafty. “I think you’ll be better served tryin’ to figure out where the armor came from. I’m sure it’s more unique than the man.”
As Hyde watched, circuitry within the armor pulsed electric blue and died. The armor was amazing, but the chief superintendent didn’t think the man who died inside it was any less remarkable.
Five
CITY LIMITS
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
A rmed policemen and soldiers blocked the road into Cape Town. One of the policemen held up a white-gloved hand and waved Simon over to
