Passing the Baton
Can you go with Gareth? You’re so much better at this.
Nico’s words looped through Daniel’s mind, repeating like a broken record.
He’d never claimed specialist knowledge about clothes and colours, but he could tell when Nico was upset and not in the mood for people.
Forcing him into a busy shopping centre on a muggy Saturday afternoon when he was in that frame of mind would be cruel. And not fair to Gareth.
Fortunately, Gareth hadn’t asked after Nico when Daniel had come down alone. They’d planned dinners for the coming week and made a grocery list on the drive into Kingston, which was such a familiar activity that Daniel had finally relaxed and enjoyed the shopping that followed.
“Let’s have a break before we tackle the clothes,” Gareth said after loading the groceries. “You can tell me what you’d like to wear.”
They headed for the cafe and Daniel settled himself at a small table, his back to the wall.
“I can’t wait to be done with the dance lessons,” he blurted, when Gareth set down an iced frappuccino for Daniel and a pot of tea for himself and took the remaining chair.
“That’s really sad, if you think about it.
Shouldn’t dance be fun? Instead, we’re all dreading Friday afternoons, and nobody is looking forward to the ball. Not the way they should be.”
“Dancing is fun, Daniel. Don’t let your memories ruin it for you. Remember your bravery instead.”
“‘Bravery’?”
“Yes, bravery. You were relieved when Manville booted you from the dance class. You’d escaped, and you could have stayed away. But when I talked Fenton into letting you go back, you went. All four of you.”
“I never—I didn’t think about it like that.
” Bravery was for other people. Daniel was never the one who stood up.
He’d shaken out of his skin back in that hospital when the tracker had wanted to drag them back to Goran.
It had been Nico who’d remembered what Jack had taught them, who’d remembered the knife and had used it. If Daniel had been alone—
“Daniel.”
Gareth’s voice dispelled the memory. Daniel blinked. Recalled where he was. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologise. You know that. I was just pointing out that you’ve convinced yourself Nico’s the brave, upstanding one and that you’re hiding behind him—which isn’t true. From where I’m standing, you take turns protecting each other. You just have different ways to show your spirit.”
“Do you really think that?”
Gareth rolled his eyes. “Would I lie about something so important?”
“No, but… You know I get scared. I have nightmares.”
“So do I and so has Jack. Everyone has something they’re afraid of, and if someone tells you they don’t, you can call them a liar and I’ll back you up all day long.
Daniel, you protect people by looking after them and making them feel good.
Nico protects people by speaking up when they can’t.
He protected you by challenging Manville.
You are protecting him by coming out with me to shop for clothes for a ball he doesn’t want to go to.
You both returned to the dance class to help us collect intel.
Different situations call for different strengths, different kinds of courage. ”
Different kinds of courage. The phrase resonated, and Daniel knew someone had said it to him before. He just found it hard to believe it when he wasn’t a fighter. He didn’t even like to argue. Not like Jess did.
“Come on, finish that frappuccino,” Gareth said. “I can see you’re not hearing me yet.”
“You’re not angry?”
“Never. Good things take time, right? Besides, we’re here to buy suits, not discuss courage and cowardice. Tell me what Carol and Jess are wearing.”
He meant every word. Daniel could hear it. He wished he could switch tracks the way Gareth did. Put aside the fears and disturbing thoughts until he had time to process them. He could do it when he cooked. Or when he held on to Nico.
“Daniel? Should we do this another day?”
Daniel shook his head and fished out his phone. “No. It’s just… Nico’s upset, and…”
“I see.” Gareth slid his chair to the side and offered Daniel a shoulder to lean on.
Daniel leaned. It helped. “He asked Jack to teach him to hunt.”
“Yes. Jack told me.”
“Jack said Nico must step away when it becomes too much, and now Nico worries about that.”
“About it being too much for him?”
Daniel shook his head. “Not that. He worries he’s not strong enough and that he’ll disappoint Jack and you, after all you’ve done for us.”
Gareth growled under his breath. The sound was so unexpected, and fit so little with their surroundings, it startled Daniel into a giggle. “I’m not scared of you.”
“Good.” Gareth ran both hands through his hair, leaving it standing on end before he smoothed it down again. “Since you already know what I’m going to say to that nonsense, tell me something else. Are we getting suits for you and Nico, or are we going home to hash this out?”
“Suits,” Daniel said after a moment, and opened the gallery on his phone. “Here. This is Carol’s dress.”
The first crack of thunder brought up every head in the Corporate Security office.
When raindrops splattered the windowpanes, a collective sigh rippled through the room.
Gavin and Peter Ritz, who were the closest, hit the controls for the windows and then the first cool breeze in days drifted into the room.
Air conditioning was all very well, but fresh air was so much better.
Even Gareth, crossing from Julian’s office to his and back, didn’t have the heart to stop his people from gathering beside the open windows for a while.
Jack didn’t move from his desk, but he breathed the ozone-laden air and exhaled the muggy sluggishness of the year’s first heatwave.
God knew what summer would be like when May was this hot already.
Another roll of thunder rumbled overhead.
Maybe now tempers would settle, and this damned headache would finally leave him alone.
Dissecting his own network code, not in search of active intruders but dormant exploits snuck inside to be used later, was an intricate job.
Not least because he had to shift his thinking from defence to the sneakiest of offences, and allow for clueless, careless users besides.
On the first pass through each section, Jack collected anomalies—untidy, bloated code, outdated routines, caches of data in places they shouldn’t be.
Then he analysed each anomaly, purged the excess, and re-wrote the rest before documenting all his changes.
The work demanded complete focus, and progress came in tiny increments.
When his phone rang, Jack breathed a sigh of relief.
“Horwood,” he answered, pushing his chair back and stretching the kinks out of his back and neck.
“Can you come see me?” Aidan’s voice came across the line. “I’m at the Inn.”
Lincoln’s Inn, where Aidan kept his barrister’s chambers, was within easy walking distance from the Nancarrow Mining HQ on the Strand—and the chance to ditch his screen and stretch his legs sounded wonderful. “I can do that,” Jack said. “Give me a few.”
He didn’t ask what Aidan wanted. Had it been a topic that could be discussed over the phone, then Aidan would have done so.
Jack picked up his jacket, his slate, and his phone and left the office.
On the way down the stairs, he sent a text to Gareth, and then he was outside breathing the scent of rain on parched streets and dusty foliage and enjoying the breeze coming off the river.
Jack walked towards Saint Mary’s in the Strand before skirting the Royal Courts of Justice.
At their inception, the Inns of Court had lain just outside the jurisdiction of the City of London.
But London had grown over the centuries, had spilled out into the surrounding countryside so that now even Kingston and Richmond were part of the metropolis.
Not a complete, integrated part, the way the Inns of Court now were, but a part of Greater London.
Spheres of influence—whether his own or those of third parties—were on his mind far too often these days.
Had the times when his actions affected none but himself been better or worse?
Jack couldn’t answer that in any satisfactory way, not when he knew a return to that state to be impossible.
Like Rio or Paston, he’d started out as a solitary fighter, only to end up woven into the fabric of other people’s lives.
Whether he saw himself as an integral part of a greater construct or an insect trapped in a web not of his making…
depended on the kind of week he was having.
He crossed into Lincoln’s Inn and slowed his steps for his customary peek at the undercroft, the pattern of the vaulted ceiling fascinating and soothing in equal measure, but with Aidan’s request still in his ear, he didn’t linger.
Moneypenny waited for him as he trudged up the stairs. She gave him only a single look. “Coffee and aspirin?”
Jack shed his jacket and smiled at her. “Please and thank you. One day I’ll work out how you can always tell.”
“One day, you might. Go right in. I’ll bring your coffee.”
Aidan wasn’t alone in his office when Jack walked in. Skylar Payne perched on the edge of a chair, shoulders around his ears, and fingers tapping a tattoo on his thighs. “Finally!”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Where’s the fire?”
“I need you to take over this case I’ve been looking into,” Skylar blurted, not giving Aidan a chance to explain. “I’m off to Japan.”
“You what?” The quivering tension in Skylar’s frame took on a different hue. “You have a job in Japan?”
Skylar bounced from his chair and dipped a mock bow. “Chief stylist to Tempest’s Asia tour.”
Jack gaped. “Tempest? As in…”Oblivious”? “Heart in a Downpour”? That Tempest?”
“That Tempest, yeah. And he asked me.”