their mouths. People will find out that they put you into my hands and I’ll be in as much trouble as you. But I’m not working alone. We have other agents in place who’ll keep going after the Obidins, at least the ones you Brits didn’t decide to assassinate. My job was to get hold of you before the Obidins and find out what the hell you lot were playing at.’
James shook his head. ‘Wasn’t assassination,’ he said wearily. ‘They were setting up a deal to buy missiles.’
Eric turned away from the road and shot James an angry glance. ‘I saved your butt, kid. If you ain’t straight with me, I might just turn back and dump you in the snow.’
‘They can’t have,’ James mumbled.
‘James, I know that part of the story. I’ve got the whole freaking incident in glorious black and white.’
10. BLOOD
The safe house was a ground-floor apartment in one of Aero City’s better housing blocks. TV shows and cooking smells drifted in from the neighbouring homes, but the plumbing worked well enough for James to take a shower.
Eric told James not to lock the bathroom door in case he collapsed. Once James had washed the worst of the blood off, Eric helped him into a bathrobe and led him towards a double bed. There was an angle poise lamp on the bedside table and Eric swung it over James and began attending to his cuts and bruises.
The shower had cleared James’ head and washed away a lot of blood, but he was still in serious pain, particularly his face, stomach and balls.
‘Do you reckon my nose is busted?’ he asked.
Eric was cleaning out a deep cut on his shoulder. ‘Look for yourself,’ he said, and he slid a hand mirror across the bedclothes.
James gasped as he saw his crumpled nose and swollen eyes. ‘If I see that Joe again, I’ll kill him.’
‘You’ll have to stay awake for at least twenty-four hours.
If you fall asleep, there’s a chance you could drift into a coma. I’m also concerned about the cut above your left eye. I’ll have to put a stitch in it.’
‘Are you a doctor?’
Eric shook his head. ‘I was an army medic. I’ve got local anaesthetic here, but I’m reluctant to give you anything that makes you drowsy after the knock you took to the head.’
‘So how can you stitch me?’
‘I’ll give you something to bite down on.’
James gawped. ‘Maybe if it was my leg or something, but you can’t stitch my face without anaesthetic.’
‘I can give you a couple of paracetamol if you like.’
‘What’s that gonna do?’
‘Not much,’ Eric shrugged. ‘Sorry kid, but your T-shirt and jeans were drenched in blood. You’ve lost a pint, maybe two. If you were in a hospital you’d get a transfusion, but all I can do here is get those cuts sealed up before you lose more blood and pass out.’
James felt sick as he saw Eric tear a pre-threaded needle out of sterile packaging.
‘Put this in your mouth,’ he said, as he handed James a rubber bit.
James put the rubber in his mouth, clenched his hands and screwed up his eyes.
‘Keep ’em open. I can’t sew the cut if the skin is pulled apart.’
James thought he was going to be sick as he opened his eyes. His vision was blurry, but he could see the needle as it pierced the swollen flesh above his eye.
‘AAAAAAGGHHHHHHHHH,’ he moaned.
‘Keep the noise down and your head still,’ Eric said firmly. ‘This is nothing: an old buddy of mine was out in the Gulf, got trapped under a tank track and we had to take his arm off with a fire axe.’
James bit down hard and bunched the sheets up in his fists as the needle pierced his eyebrow for the second time. Maybe having your arm hacked off was worse, but he found it hard to imagine how anything could be more painful.
‘Good man,’ Eric smiled as he tied the fourth stitch off and snipped the thread.
James groaned with relief, but then Eric started untying his dressing gown. ‘What the hell?’
‘You said you got kicked in the balls. So spread your legs, I need to take a proper look.’
‘They’re fine,’ James spluttered.
‘If your testicle has ruptured, I need to drain the fluid. And believe me James, I don’t wanna be poking about down there any more than you want me to.’
*
An hour later, James sat in an armchair. His cuts were all patched, his balls were only bruised and he’d managed to