When he got to the toilet, he resisted checking in the mirror until he’d done a slow count to three with his eyes closed. Only then did he open them.
It was worse than he expected.
That was life.
He pulled out a handful of paper towels, wetted them and got to work. The bullet had clearly had a guardian angel guiding its path, for it had missed killing him by the thickness of his stubble. A few millimetres to the left and instead of a huge gouge under his cheekbone and a nick out of his ear, he’d have been shot through the mouth. He liked his mouth. More importantly, Ben liked his mouth. He smiled ruefully at his reflection, although it wasn’t a very familiar one, and realised that, for the first time, he now looked very little like his twin. Nikolas was always young in his memory. Even in the last sighting he’d had of him, Nika had only been in his early thirties, and his face had been beautiful, unscarred, perfect.
Now, the reflection of a man thoroughly battered and bruised by life stared back at him.
He shook himself, winced, so did it again. Pain was good. It centred him for what was to come.
He emerged into the other room, allowed Rachel to put butterfly strips across the wound as best she could, and then Ben was there saying they were ready.
Peter had chosen a six-seater Cessna. Snodgrass, he muttered, didn’t exist and wasn’t to be included on the passenger manifest. Aleksey smiled inwardly and thought of the very many times Radulf had been similarly smuggled into places he shouldn’t have.
He’d resisted thinking about Radulf on the island with the Black Death. But the awareness had been lingering there, nevertheless. For some odd reason, the knowledge that the old boy was with Molly kept him believing that, somehow, this would resolve well. The dog, unwanted and unloved as he had been when they’d first met—like him for the early years of his life—had survived this uncaring world to become someone very much wanted and very much loved.
Aleksey believed Radulf valued what he now had. He knew the dog would not lightly let anyone take it away from him.
Ben sat in the front next to their pilot.
Aleksey sat in the back with Harry, Rachel between them, with Snodgrass not existing on Harry’s lap. He did a pretty good impression of being invisible; Aleksey had to give the little white scrap that.
They all put their headphones on until Aleksey was reminded rather forcibly that he was missing the top of one ear. He gingerly adjusted them so he could hear what was going on with just the other one.
Peter got on the radio and sought permission to take off.
Before he knew it, Aleksey was watching the runaway fall away beneath them and the panoply of Exeter spreading out below. He could see the university and the cathedral, and ironically trace the line of the canal all the way to the river and on past Topsham. He put a hand forwards and rested it on Ben’s shoulder. Ben briefly put his hand up and over his, squeezing gently. Aleksey closed his eyes to the pleasure of not being able to do anything for a while, and to do that with the feel of Ben Rider-Mikkelsen’s muscles flexing under his palm.
Ben returned his attention to something crackling on the radio and Aleksey leaned back in his own seat. It was only as he felt himself drifting off to sleep that he jerked awake and thought to ask into his microphone, ‘Did you pass, by the way?’
He heard Ben huff through his phones. ‘Who do you think is flying this thing now?’
Aleksey glanced down once more.
His eyes went wide. He tapped Ben on the shoulder. Ben nodded. ‘I know. Do not mention lines or you’re getting out.’
They were flying right over their woods.
He could not believe it. Exeter Airport to the Scillies on a direct route went right over their Dartmoor valley.
He craned around with great difficulty and watched Horse Tor fade behind them.
He drifted off into a pain-filled, restless sleep filled with visions of death, and in these fearful nightmares, the Grim Reaper rode a horse made of living granite.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Three
It turned into a very bumpy ride the further down the peninsula they flew. The wind got increasingly gusty as they approached Land’s End, and Aleksey woke a few times to his head banging against the window and sudden drops from turbulence which made Rachel grab for a sick bag and sit holding it with a grim determination to not actually use it.
His ears were still ringing, his shoulder was hurting, and his face was pulsing with hot pain like a heartbeat. The irony that the buzzing and pinging in his ears might never go away, and that he might therefore be glad of Bellerophon Laboratories did not escape him. He was concentrating on the turbulence when he felt a hand tap him on the knee. Ben was indicating down.
They had left land and were now flying due west over steely-grey water. Directly beneath them, easily visible on the otherwise empty, churning ocean, was the Penzance to St Mary’s ferry, its wake a comet’s tail of white snaking away behind it. Peter reckoned the ship to be about an hour out of harbour, a good fifty minutes behind their own estimated arrival time.
When they landed, Aleksey didn’t have words to thank Peter Bennington adequately. But the pilot waved off any gratitude and seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. Running a small flight school was clearly less exciting than flying the F-35 Lightning II in combat. Peter seemed more concerned about Harry and made a point of shaking his hand. ‘Look, it’s good to see you again, Henry. Made my day, absolutely made my day. Of course, mum’s the word unless you say otherwise, but maybe when this is over we can meet for a drink? You can tell me your story?’
Harry was looking out to sea and only murmured, ‘Bid the mighty ocean deep its own appointed limits keep.’ Aleksey followed his gaze, saw what was on the horizon to the west, felt his stomach drop and agreed wholeheartedly with this sentiment.
