Nobody’s Hero (Ben Koenig #2)

Chapter 42

Three days later. The Scottish Highlands.

Koenig was cold and damp. An invasive cold that had gotten in his bones and stayed there. It hadn’t rained since they’d arrived in Scotland, but it hadn’t needed to. Not when the air itself was wet. It felt like he was taking a sauna in a meat locker. He took another bite out of a sickly sweet block of candy called Kendal Mint Cake. It was popular among mountaineers. Supposed to be a good source of energy. It would have to be. No one would eat it for pleasure.

He shivered but kept his eyes on the woman’s cottage. Judging by the slate roof, it was one of the newer cottages in the clachan , a small settlement in the heart of the Scottish Highlands, one of the last great European wildernesses. Age was all relative, though – at five hundred years old, her cottage still pre-existed any building in the US.

Overhead, gulls pinwheeled and screeched like banshees. Koenig thought gulls sounded like angry birds. Like they always had a beef about something. Guess that’s what happens when you stop eating fish and start eating trash.

‘Anything?’ Draper said in his earpiece. ‘It’s been six hours.’

As well as the equipment Miller had provided, Draper had gotten hold of some state-of-the-art surveillance and communication equipment. It was a pity neither of them had thought to ask for tactical sleeping bags. The kind used by snipers and close-target reconnaissance experts. Koenig had always been told that any idiot could be cold and any idiot could be hungry. And now he was both.

‘Nothing,’ he replied.

They were both three hundred yards away, but the military-grade thermal monoculars they were using had 4 × magnification. It meant they could see everything. Koenig was watching the front door of the cottage; Draper was covering the rear. Her view also covered the approaches; all Koenig could see was the cottage and the misty Atlantic Ocean. It was a spectacular backdrop.

But they had a problem. They’d followed Jane Doe all the way to her front door, then switched to thermal imaging. They had expected to see two heat signatures. Instead, they saw one. Jane Doe was alone.

‘Where the hell is Margaret Wexmore?’ Draper said for the tenth time.

‘Perhaps she’s dead. Dead bodies don’t give off heat.’

‘Then why collect a passport for her?’

‘She had thymic carcinoma,’ Koenig said. ‘She’d been looking into palliative care. Maybe she died yesterday. Or this morning.’ He paused five heartbeats. ‘No, I’m not buying that either,’ he added. ‘Something doesn’t add up. I feel like we’re bluebottles, and the cottage is a Venus flytrap.’

‘We should go in anyway,’ Draper said.

Koenig thought it through. Could see no reason to put it off. Venus flytrap or not, they had to move on the cottage. The only thing waiting would achieve was trench foot. He checked his watch. It would be dark soon. He weighed up the advantages and disadvantages of getting into position now. Decided the boggy ground would be easier to navigate while there was still some light.

‘There’s a dip twenty yards in front of the door,’ he said. ‘It’s hidden by a gorse bush and it’s in dead ground. I’ll see you there in thirty minutes.’