Sebastian Moran woke from a sound sleep to the sharp trill of his phone.
He groaned and pawed blindly at the bedside table, nearly fumbling the phone onto the floor. It automatically silenced itself from midnight to 0600; only calls from a handful of numbers were allowed to override that. Sebastian peered at the screen, squinting at the brightness in the dark.
Jay was calling him. He thumbed the “answer” button and put the phone to his ear with a sleepy, “Yeah?”
“Sebastian?” There was a tremor in Jay’s voice.
Sebastian’s eyes snapped open as he sat bolt upright in bed. “What’s wrong?”
“I need you.” The words were rushed and stumbling. “Help me.”
Sebastian kicked the covers aside and leapt to his feet. “Where are you?”
“Home, but—but I can’t stay here. I think they followed me.” There was a sharp intake of breath—a reaction to something Jay had seen. “Fuck.”
Sebastian hurried to the dresser, yanking drawers open. “Who’s following you?” No answer; only silence. “Jay?”
With a beep, the line went dead.
Sebastian tossed the phone aside and dressed as quickly as possible—jeans and an old Henley, clothes he wouldn’t mind getting bloody. Same went for the worn bomber jacket he shrugged into as he made for the door. He hesitated with his hand on the doorknob and circled back, retrieving the nine-inch Bowie knife he kept under the mattress and shoving it into his belt.
Then he was out onto the street, phone in hand as he called for a cab.
Three days prior to that late-night phone call, Sebastian received a typically direct text from Jay:
Dinner?
Sebastian, accustomed to this by now, texted back:
Sure. Chinese?
It was only once they’d arrived at Sebastian’s favourite dim sum place that he realised Jay was anticipating some run-of-the-mill takeaway, not the upmarket two-story art deco establishment they were now sitting in. The restaurant’s polished wooden tables were small and packed tightly together; Sebastian and Jay might as well have been in each others’ laps.
Jay ordered the prawn fried rice but spent most of the evening stealing bites from the dishes on Sebastian’s side of the table, to the point where Sebastian simply pushed them all into the centre. This was also typical, ever since they got back from Spain. Sebastian chose to take it as a compliment.
They chatted idly about Sebastian’s work (he’d been approached to consult on a video game, which somehow involved more confidentiality paperwork than when he’d been working for the government) and Jay’s latest project (an attempt to build his own fully-encrypted messaging app) until the small-talk petered out and Jay took on a tense, awkward air.
“I’ll be out of contact for a few days,” he said.
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “Work?” he guessed.
Jay nodded. “I don’t take my personal phone with me on jobs like this.”
Sebastian snatched a vegetable dumpling away from Jay’s chopsticks; there were only a few left, and Jay had inhaled the bulk of them. “What kind of job?”
“Art museum.” Jay took advantage of Sebastian’s distraction to nick one of his steamed buns instead. “I’m handling security.”
It would hardly be the first time Jay dropped out of contact for a few days. Depending what he was working on, he had a tendency to forget other people existed. Still … “Need any help?”
For a moment, Jay seemed intrigued by the idea; then he shrugged. “It’s not your sort of thing. You’d be bored to tears.”
Sebastian elected not to point out his own capacity for boredom was much better than Jay’s. “So when do you start?”
“I’m meeting my contact tomorrow afternoon.” Jay fidgeted with his chopsticks, the delicate joint in his wrist flexing as he flipped them back and forth. It was warm in the restaurant, and Jay had dressed for the cold outside; his hair clung to the faintly damp skin at his temples and around his ears. Sebastian succumbed to temptation and reached across the table to brush it back.
Jay glanced up and met Sebastian’s eyes with an intrigued look.
With false innocence, Sebastian asked, “No plans tonight, then?”
Jay’s mouth opened a little, teeth dragging across his lower lip. “Not yet.”
The knife was a comforting weight at Sebastian’s side as his cab dropped him off near Camden Town, far enough from Jay’s place that he could approach on foot without drawing too much attention. The bars and pubs were still open, the noise of them fading at Sebastian’s back as he made his way along the canal to Jay’s converted warehouse flat.
There was a car parked on the street outside: a nondescript grey sedan that hadn’t been on the road very long. Sebastian could just make out the shadows of two people sitting inside.
The lock on the building’s front door was broken, subtly enough that it wasn’t visible from the street; the damage wouldn’t be noticed until morning. Sebastian slipped carefully up the stairs to find the door of Jay’s flat resting on the latch, cheap particle-board slightly crumpled where a crowbar had pried it open.
Inside was utter disaster: furniture shoved aside, drawers pulled out and dumped. Jay’s laptop was absent from its usual spot on the desk, but the auxiliary monitors and other equipment were still in place. Nothing broken or overturned; someone had thoroughly searched the place, but there was no sign of a struggle or a fight. At least, not much of one.
Behind him, the door opened.
Two men let themselves into the flat; both were about Sebastian’s size, although one was bulkier through the neck and shoulders. They wore similar clothes—black shirts and jeans, heavy canvas jackets—and had the same severe crew cut.
The pair radiated the familiar irritation of men who’d been sitting around doing nothing for at least half an hour, and clearly looked forward to venting it. The nervous tension in Sebastian’s neck and shoulders eased.
“You took your time getting up here,” he said.
It wasn’t what they’d been expecting to hear. The two exchanged a wordless, hesitant glance, and the smaller one encouraged his burlier companion forward. The man grumbled and made a reluctant grab for Sebastian.
Sebastian caught the man’s wrist and slammed the palm of his free hand into the outside of his elbow, folding it in the exact wrong direction.
The man’s scream took on a higher pitch when Sebastian followed up with a stamp to his instep. He doubled over, allowing Sebastian to bring his opponent’s face down into the upward snap of his knee.
Sebastian shoved the man’s crumpling body aside just in time to dodge a punch from his partner, but wasn’t fast enough to avoid a brutal front kick to the gut. He stumbled back with a wheeze, colliding with the edge of Jay’s desk. A breathless little laugh slipped from his lips as he steadied himself against it.
He brought his forearm up in time to block the next strike at his head, prying his opponent’s guard open to deliver two counter-strikes to his throat. The stranger gagged, eyes wide and panicked as he gasped for breath; Sebastian ducked past him and, with a hand on the back of the man’s neck, levered his head down into the edge of the desk.
The stranger fell to the floor and didn’t get up.
Sebastian’s hands shook a little as the adrenaline in his system crashed and left him breathing in quick, deep drags. There was a frustrated itch under his skin. Too late, it occurred to him that neither of these men were in a state to answer any questions.
They wouldn’t be for a while. Possibly never, depending how the brain damage shook out.
He crouched next to the man at his feet. Something dark peeked from the collar of his shirt; Sebastian tugged it aside to reveal a tattoo. Five dots, arranged in a cross. There was a small prepaid phone in the man’s right pocket; in his left, a much larger and more expensive phone. Jay’s phone.
It was compromised now; Sebastian couldn’t risk taking it with him. He placed the phone on Jay’s desk and turned his attention to the other stranger. This one also had tattoos, this time on his left hand: two simple X marks on the first and middle knuckles. A quick search of his pockets turned up a set of car keys.
Sebastian dragged the two men into the stairwell of the building, then returned to the grey sedan parked out front.
It was a newer model, with a touchscreen in the centre console. The car’s built-in satnav kept a log of the last few addresses searched; most recent on the list was a nightclub in Farringdon.
Sebastian started the car.
There was a fortune in designer fashion occupying the line outside the club’s front door. It was a long line, even at this time of night; thudding bass and loud voices from within the building indicated a full house.
Sebastian could probably get past the bouncer, but the odds of doing so without drawing attention were slim. Instead he circled round to the back of the commercial row that housed the club: a crooked, poorly-lit alcove crowded with skips, spare furniture, and access doors.
Before long the club’s back door opened and a man stepped outside, retrieving a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. He was of a type to the two from Jay’s flat: same nondescript clothes, same close-cropped haircut. His eyes scanned the alley from one end to the other; someone had trained this man to check a perimeter, but not very well. If they’d done their job properly, Sebastian would have been spotted where he hid in the shadows of the alcove.
The edge of a tattoo peeked from the man’s sleeve as he lifted a lighter to the cigarette in his mouth.
Sebastian moved quietly back to the end of the row, then began a slow, stumbling walk toward the man and the door. “Hey, mate.” He flashed his own packet of cigarettes, sidling too far into the man’s space with an apologetic, drunken grin. “Got a light?”
With an annoyed huff, the man fumbled in his pocket for the lighter. He paused as the point of Sebastian’s knife pressed against his side.
Sebastian met his alarmed glance with a cool, flat stare and waited.
In a Russian accent, the man said, “What do you want?”
“You tell me.” The less Sebastian said, the more details his captive might let slip.
Sebastian’s Russian was a bit rusty, but the man’s response was rude enough to transcend the language barrier. He tried to twist away; Sebastian hooked an arm around his shoulders to hold him still and dug in with the knife, pricking skin.
His captive froze, then took a breath and said, resigned: “The basement?”
Sebastian’s only answer was a slow nod.
Moving stiffly, the man led the way back into the deafening confusion of the club. Sebastian kept his arm around his captive’s shoulders, elbow clamped a little too tight on the back of his neck, his free hand holding the knife low and hidden against his side. They wove through the masses of young, wealthy inebriates, looking for all the world like a pair of drunk friends helping each other across the room.
In a secluded corner of the club was an unmarked door. Sebastian’s captive unlocked it and guided him carefully down a set of darkened metal stairs. There was a light ahead, and the faint murmur of voices; the noise of the club served as more than adequate cover for the activities taking place down in the basement.
A demand drifted up from below: “Where’s the fucking painting?”
Then came the unmistakable sound of a fist impacting with someone’s guts.
Sebastian’s hand tightened convulsively on his captive’s shoulder, heaving him forward as the pommel of the knife cracked into his jaw, just behind his ear. The man tumbled down the remainder of the stairs, rolling to a stop at the feet of three others standing in a loose circle beneath a hanging light.
Between them, tied to a chair, was a man. He was small and lithe, dressed all in black, with the kind of sharp profile and delicate features that were often described as “aristocratic”—never mind that actual aristocrats tended to look like bulldogs.
He was, most importantly, not Jay Moriarty.
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