Newton’s Fire

II

Luke watched warily as Walters crouched his way inside the van. ‘I’m not to hurt you,’ he told him and Rachel, showing them the taser. ‘Not unless you try something. So please try something. Pretty please.’ He unlocked Rachel’s right cuff, released her from the chest handle, cuffed her to Luke instead. Then he removed and pocketed Luke’s cuffs. ‘On your feet,’ he said.

Getting down from the back was awkward, attached together as they were. They found themselves in an aircraft hangar so vast that it made the sleek white jet inside it look small. Walters herded them to and up the forward steps. They turned away from the cockpit, passed between toilets and some kind of hi-tech comms’ suite into a passenger cabin opulently fitted in white leather and polished walnut. There were two banks of seats on either side. They currently all faced forwards but Walters swivelled the front left bank one hundred and eighty degrees, locked it in place. ‘Sit,’ he said. They sat. He took out the second pair of cuffs, closed one around the central seat-belt fitting, the other around the chain of the handcuffs shackling Luke to Rachel, thus securing them neatly to their seats. ‘Comfy?’ he asked.

‘A glass of champagne wouldn’t hurt,’ said Luke.

Walters snorted. ‘I’m going to enjoy how this flight ends,’ he said.

‘Why’s that?’ asked Luke, striving to sound casual, not quite succeeding.

Walters sat sideways on the facing bank, put his right foot up on the white leather to flaunt his freedom. ‘All in good time.’

Luke nodded. ‘I have to tell you something,’ he said. ‘I think your loyalty does you credit.’

‘My loyalty?’

‘Sure. Your boss is bound to need a scapegoat when all this is over. And it’s got to be you, right? I mean you’re already up to your neck in shit for murdering Rachel’s aunt, so you’re-’

‘I didn’t murder her.’

‘… the obvious candidate and I-’

‘I never even touched her.’

‘… just think it’s commendable that you’d sacrifice yourself so that he can-’

Walters leaned forwards, jabbed his taser into Luke’s chest and gave him a vengeful two-second burst that made him arch and yell in pain. ‘Do you honestly think you can drive a wedge between me and the boss?’ Walters asked rhetorically, tucking the weapon back into his waistband. ‘Think a-fucking-gain.’ But there was a more reflective look in his eyes, for all the bravado of his words. Not much. But something, perhaps, for Luke and Rachel to work with.