‘You guessed right,’ Ben said.

‘And I guess that chopper earlier was out looking for you. Right about that too?’

Ben said nothing.

Riley’s old face creased into a grin. ‘I know what them helicopters are. I got no love for no G-men.’

‘They’re CIA,’ Ben said quietly. ‘They’re looking for us.’

‘I have no problem with that, son. If you was fixing to harm me or rob me, you’d have done it by now. I don’t know your business, and the less I know the less I have to tell. A man’s actions is all I care about.’ Riley grunted. ‘Now, the sonofabitch in the helicopter, he came down low while I was lying there in the dirt. Saw me and just smiled and flew off. If you hadn’t showed up, I wouldn’t have made it through till morning. So you ask me to pick sides, I won’t be picking his and that’s for sure.’

Alex came back into the room, holding a big jar full of greenish lotion. Ben examined it. ‘That’s comfrey, all right,’ he said. ‘It’ll help.’ He smeared it over the swollen ankle, then immobilised the foot with the cushion, rolling it carefully around and strapping it up with tape. ‘You need to rest up a while,’ he told Riley.

‘You don’t look too good yourself,’ the old man said. ‘I seen gunshot wounds before.’

Ben felt suddenly faint again. The old man’s lips were moving, but all he could hear was a rumbling echo in his ears. The room began to spin, and then he was dimly aware of Alex’s cry as he crashed to the floor.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Consciousness came and went. Like a slow-motion strobe effect, there were periods of blackness where he drifted and floated for what seemed like eternity. In between were bursts of sound and light and activity. He was dimly aware of climbing the stairs, an arm around Alex’s neck as she supported him. Then a room. A bed. The feel of crisp sheets against his skin. Blood on white cotton. Alex bending over him, her face looming large, concern showing in her eyes. He blacked out again.

When he opened his eyes, the red light of dawn was creeping across the wooden floor of the unfamiliar room. He blinked and tried to lift his head off the pillow. His shoulder was freshly bandaged. There was pain, but it felt different.

He felt for the ring around his neck. It was gone.

He looked around him. He was in a large bedroom, simple and traditional. In stark contrast to the downstairs, the room was clean and tidy, as though it was never used. He was in a brass-framed double bed, covered with a patchwork quilt. There was a wash basin in the corner, and on the wooden rocking chair next to his bed were fresh clothes, a blue denim shirt and clean jeans, neatly folded. Carefully placed on top of the clothes was the gold wedding ring with its leather thong.

Alex was next to him. She was slumped across the bed, her tousled hair across the quilt, one arm draped over his legs. He wondered how long she’d been watching over him before she gave in to sleep.

She stirred and opened her eyes, looking directly at him. She seemed to have that ability, which he’d only seen in wild animals and trained soldiers, to go from a dead sleep to a state of perfect alertness, with none of the yawning puffy-eyed waking-up stages in between. She smiled and sat up on the bed. She’d changed out of her woolly jumper and was wearing a farmer’s chequered shirt a size too big and knotted at the waist.

‘Welcome back to the land of the living,’ she said.

‘You did it?’

She nodded. ‘I had to go in deep, but it came out clean. It didn’t hit any bone. It flattened a little but didn’t mushroom. No fragmentation.’ She reached for a tin cup on the bedside table and rattled it. He looked inside at the crumpled bullet rolling around in the bottom. It looked small and innocuous now.

‘You saved my life,’ he said. ‘That’s twice now. I have some catching up to do.’

She took the cup from his hand and pressed cool fingers gently to his brow ‘You’re still burning hot. Get some rest.’

He lay back against the pillow. ‘We have to get moving.’

‘Not for a few days. Riley says we can stay here as long as we need.’

‘How is he?’

‘Sleeping. He’ll be fine.’ She smiled. ‘He seems to think you and I are an item.’

‘Where’s Zoë?’

‘She has a room down the hall. She’s tired, Ben. You need to go a little easier on her.’

‘I could kill her.’

‘She feels bad.’

‘She ought to.’

She stroked his forehead, brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes. Outside, the dawn light was brightening. He could hear horses neighing in the distance, and a dog barking. ‘I should go and see to the horses,’ she said. ‘Riley won’t be up for a while yet.’

‘Stay a minute.’

She smiled again. ‘OK.’

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

‘You were dreaming a lot,’ she said. ‘Last night. You were feverish for a while.’

‘Was I?’

She nodded. ‘You were talking in your sleep again.’

He didn’t reply.

‘You were talking to God.’

‘I don’t have a lot to say to him.’

‘You asked for his forgiveness, Ben. Like it really mattered to you. What happened? What did you do that you want to be forgiven for?’

He rolled over away from her.

‘I want to help you,’ she said.

He glanced back at her. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I just do.’ She smiled. ‘I kind of feel I know you now. I undressed you and put you into bed. I’ve been up to my elbows inside your shoulder pulling that bullet out of you. Your blood all over me. I’ve packed your wound and patched you up. Bathed you and sat here half the night mopping sweat off you. So why won’t you let me help you with this? It’s good to talk, right?’

‘Bad things have happened,’ he said. ‘Things I don’t want to talk about.’

‘Bad things happen to everyone.’

‘I know that.’

‘It’s not your fault Charlie died,’ she said. ‘I know you blame yourself, but it’s not fair. You didn’t know what was coming. You were only trying to help your friend.’

He was about to reply, then shut his mouth.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ he muttered. ‘Maybe you should see to the horses now. Just don’t stay out in the open too long. The helicopter might come back.’

She smiled. ‘You can’t get rid of me that easily.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘About Charlie. Maybe it wasn’t my fault.’

‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

He closed his eyes.

‘Tell me.’

After a long pause, Ben said quietly, ‘I can’t.’

Chapter Forty-Nine

As the morning rolled by, Ben could feel his strength slowly returning and his impatience mounting. He lay on the rumpled sheets reading his Bible, working through all the facts in his head.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Slater. Who was he? Not an agent. Not a cop. He wasn’t a warrior like Jones. He was a leader, an organiser, a brain. Obviously a man with considerable power at his fingertips. One of the movers and shakers. A politician, maybe, but not a prominent figure – Alex had never heard of him. Perhaps one who preferred to stay in the shadows, working behind the scenes. And one who, for some reason that was still a complete mystery, was politically interested in Clayton Cleaver and, by extension, politically threatened by Zoë’s ostraka discovery.

Religion and politics. Cleaver was aiming at governorship, but he was still only small potatoes in the larger game. What if someone else, someone far higher up the ladder, someone with much more to gain or lose, had a stake in this too? Votes and power were a big motivator, worth killing for.

But some inner voice told Ben there was something else to it. Did political ambition alone explain how Slater, or the forces he represented, was apparently able to hijack CIA resources to enable his plans? There was something bigger going on.