The Assassin Drone, Part 10
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Lucas awoke with a start, his heart racing. He'd been dreaming about Lina, he remembered. He'd been inside a prison camp, or some other place with a barbed wire fence that separated him from her, and the only way to reach her was to crawl through a narrow tunnel. He'd started to worm his way through, and could even see her silhouette in the light at the other end, but then the tunnel had collapsed in front of him, pinning his forearms in the rubble.
He dreamed a lot about his arms. Ever since gangsters from the Russian Mafia had broken both of them in December, Lucas often had nightmares in which his arms were injured, caught in something that immobilized them, or even amputated. This had been one of the more benign versions of the theme, but it had still left him both shaking and shaken. And as for the part about Lina, well, he didn't need Freud or Jung or anybody else to tell him what that meant.
Pushing the dream away, Lucas got out of bed. He'd forgotten to close the curtains the night before, and the room was light enough that he didn't need to switch on the lamp. Halfway to the door, however, his bare heel came down on something sharp, and he cried out in pain and surprise. He lifted his foot to see what it was, and spotted a small blue piece of plastic, just visible against the blue carpet. Grimacing, Lucas kicked the Lego away under the bed and limped on. He was halfway across the hall when Olivia opened the door to her bedroom and glanced out.
"Did you scream?" she asked.
"I stepped on a Lego," Lucas stated, and Olivia winced in sympathy. "I swear those things get out and wander around at night. I'm always tripping over them, too. Are you permanently crippled?"
"Not permanently," Lucas said. "Maybe next time, though."
"Mm." Olivia had lifted her gaze from his foot, and now she was squinting at his chest, staring quizzically at it until Lucas glanced down as well. He hadn't thought about putting on a shirt, and the burn scars left behind after his torture were clearly visible. Lina had been horrified when she'd first seen them, because she had understood the cause. Olivia simply looked puzzled, as though she were unable to decide what kind of medical procedure had left such odd tracks behind, but Lucas still felt embarrassed.
"Ladies first?" Lucas asked, prepared to let her go ahead to the bathroom while he got properly dressed. She shook her head, and he shrugged and went in. When he came out, she had pulled on an ugly brown bathrobe, old enough to be a hand-me-down from her father. "Are you coming to Tarla with me to-day, Scott?"
"No," he replied. The plan was for him to stay in the house, at least in the afternoon, so he'd be there when the call about her broken arm came through. "I thought I'd lay about for the weekend and wait until Monday before even thinking about work again."
"Then I can have the first shower," Olivia stated, and Lucas stepped aside to make room for her, relieved that she hadn't seen his back as well.
To help pass the time after Olivia went to work, Lucas opened the garden shed and found the lawn mower, then cut both the front lawn and the back. It was difficult, because the grass was wet after the night's rain, but it was better than sitting in front of the telly watching inane programs. Once finished, Lucas went out for Indian takeaway and ate it while leafing through the photo album he'd found on the coffee table that morning. Owen was a cheerful boy, grinning happily in every picture, and Lucas thought back to the baby that Lina had miscarried almost nine years ago. If the child had lived, he or she would be just about a year younger than Owen now, Lucas realized. Lina had thought it was a girl, but Lucas thought longingly of a son, even though he was sure that treading on Lego hurt more than tripping over a Barbie doll.
The awaited telephone call finally came at shortly past three, and Lucas hurried from the living room into the hall to pick up the receiver. "Olivia Stephens' residence."
"Scott," Olivia said. "I need your help. I've broken my arm and I need you to pick me up."
She'd been right when she said she wasn't an actress; she sounded as though she were reading aloud from a book. Knowing that Tim had been scheduled to escort her from Tarla and drive her to the hospital, Lucas wondered if he had coached her in what to say, or had even written it down for her.
"You broke your arm?" Lucas asked. "How'd you do that?"
"Uh, the stairs were wet and I slipped down them?" Uncertainty quavered so audibly in her voice that Lucas winced.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"Central Middlesex Hospital. I'll wait for you at the northwest entrance."
Lucas repeated the details for the listening devices, then added, "Don't worry, sis, big brother will take care of you."
"Do you have to call me sis all the time?" she asked, sounding completely normal, and Lucas laughed silently. "I'm on my way. And, Olivia?"
"Yes?" she asked warily.
"I'm glad you're talking to me again."
Olivia hesitated, obviously not knowing what to say, and Lucas made it easier on her by hanging up. He then dialled a certain number to order a taxi, and when it came, he was pleased to see a familiar face behind the wheel.
"Hello, Malcolm," he said, sliding into the back seat.
"Hello, Lucas," the older man replied, looking searchingly at him in the rear view mirror. "Did you get your ear pierced like I told you to?"
Lucas reached one hand up to his earlobe and fingered the gold stud that he'd got yesterday afternoon before appearing at Olivia's doorstep. "Yes."
"Good, because I've got a miniature two-way in a very masculine earring, just for you."
"Oh, thank you," Lucas said in a slightly exaggerated way, and Malcolm smiled. "We already had one, but it was in a diamond, and that would have been just a little too flashy. And by the way, there's been some news."
"What?"
"The River Police pulled the body of Emily Owusu out of the Thames earlier to-day," Malcolm said. "Apparently she's been dead since approximately Monday night or Tuesday morning."
"Jeremy's mother?" Lucas asked.
"It would have been her seventieth birthday next week," Malcolm added.
"It couldn't have been an accident, could it?" Lucas wondered. "Because all this time we've been assuming that Jeremy Owusu was working with the terrorists for money, not because they'd taken a member of his family hostage."
"Connie's looking into the money trail," Malcolm said. "You're supposed to keep on with your operation until further notice."
When they arrived at the hospital, Malcolm pulled into a parking space, then turned to Lucas. "Don't get out, just open the door. It'll be easier for me to inject you, and if you faint, I won't have to pick you up off the ground afterwards."
"I don't faint at the sight of needles," Lucas said, but Malcolm was already getting out of the car and didn't answer. He got a case out of the boot, set it on the ground by the tyre, and flipped the lid open. Lucas craned his head for a look, and watched Malcolm pull on rubber gloves, then take a syringe out of a padded slot, and remove the casing from the needle.
"The microprocessor is floating in a bit of saline solution," Malcolm explained. "Put your arms on the back of the seat in front of you, and lay your head down on them. I'm going to inject this right behind your ear."
Lucas rested his forehead on his hands. Malcolm pulled a lock of his hair back, then slid the needle into the skin over his skull and gently pressed the plunger.
"There," Malcolm said. "Just like a bone-anchored cochlear implant. Now, as long as your new earring is this close to the microprocessor, you'll be able to hear us and we'll be able to hear you. I'll put it in for you, if you like."
"Please." Lucas winced as Malcolm undid the gold stud, and the older man said, "Where did you get this done? It's infected already."
"A little shop close to Heathrow," Lucas replied, gritting his teeth at the insertion of the small hoop. "It was apparently less hygienic than it looked."
"You'll have to get it checked as soon as possible. I'm afraid I didn't bring any first aid gear with me." Malcolm leaned a bit nearer to Lucas' ear and said, "Testing, testing. TerraNova to Endurance, over."
Connie's voice sounded as though Lucas were hearing her through one-sided headphones. "Endurance to South Pole. Tell Malcolm all clear."
"South Pole?" Lucas asked, grinning at the code name, then looked up. "Connie says all clear."
"That's Endurance speaking, not Connie." Malcolm corrected him with a frown. "Right, here's a tracking device for the drone and you're all set, South Pole. Go rescue our damsel in distress."
"Thanks, Malcolm." Lucas got out of the taxi, stuffed the device into the pocket of his jeans, and went off to the entrance of the hospital. Olivia was pacing back and forth just outside the range of the motion sensors that opened the doors, and hurried over as soon as she spotted him. Her left arm was not only in a cast from mid-hand to above her elbow, it was also supported by a sling, and Lucas wondered if Tim had perhaps not overdone things a bit. Still, the message was clear; she couldn't drive or work a laptop with both hands, and that was what they needed to convey.
"Have you got a new earring?" Olivia asked, staring at it, and Lucas smiled. "Yeah."
"Is it a tracking device?" She lifted her arm slightly. "Your friend Chris put one in here."
"No," Lucas said, but didn't explain what it really was, or that he also had a tracker in his watch. "Shall we take the taxi to your car?"
"We can walk, it's not very far." Olivia turned to go inside, and Lucas followed as she strolled confidently from one entrance of the hospital to the other. From there, it was almost a ten minute walk to the Tarla car park.
"I was scared to go to work to-day," Olivia said awkwardly as they strolled. "I thought they'd find the wreckage of the helicopter and trace it back to me, and I'd get sacked."
"I took care of that," Lucas told her.
"I thought so. I know, it must be part of your job, and all that. But I just wanted to say, thanks." She glanced sideways at him, and Lucas smiled.
"It's all right," he told her, and she smiled hesitantly back. After a moment of silence, she suddenly asked, "Scott, how did you get the memory stick back?"
"I could tell you," Lucas said, "but then I'd have to kill you."
Olivia glanced sharply at him, then looked chagrined when she realized he was teasing. "Sorry, I shouldn't have asked. I should have known it was top secret and all that."
"All I can say is, we didn't smuggle it out through the window in the ladies' loo." Lucas watched, amused, as Olivia blushed and looked away. He didn't tell her that Tarla's security had called MI-5 to report the strange incident. He also didn't tell her that the MI-5 surveillance team had been watching the crash, too, and had seen Olivia's reaction. They'd set up a quick operation to retrieve the memory stick, only to discover that it had been shattered, and Ben had used Lucas' cardkey, along with a fake silicon fingerprint, to infiltrate the Tarla building and get a new one. Lucas' role had been nothing more exciting than finding an excuse to leave Olivia's house yet again, driving to the store, buying a few articles, then literally bumping into Ben in the car park and letting the younger man drop the memory stick into his shopping bag.
Once they'd arrived at the car, Olivia tried to hold her handbag open with her "injured" left hand while searching through it with her right. "I know my keys are in here somewhere."
"Shall I help?" Lucas offered, but Olivia shook her head and produced them only a moment later. She unlocked the car, then handed over the ring. "Here."
Lucas went around and opened the passenger door for her, and she gave him an astonished glance, obviously surprised at his courtesy. Except for a few directions which Lucas really didn't need, she was quiet all the way back to the house, but when she got out, she said, "Oh, Scott, you didn't have to mow my lawn!"
"I wanted to," Lucas told her, and she said, "Don't tell me, your last job was impersonating a gardener."
Lucas just grinned, and led the way into the house.
The rest of the afternoon passed slowly, and when it was suppertime, Lucas could see by the way she leaped off the couch that Olivia was as glad as he was for the chance to get up and do something.
"I can cook spaghetti if you'll help a little," she suggested, leading the way into the kitchen. Opening one of the cabinets, she took out a package of noodles, then added, "I've got a jar of sauce here somewhere."
"Let's get take-away," Lucas suggested, and even as Olivia sighed, he added, "I'll pay for it, just tell me what you want. Chinese? Indian?"
Olivia hesitated, and Lucas urged, "Come on, you've just broken your arm, you shouldn't have to worry about cooking."
"I can't afford to eat take-away every day," Olivia informed him, turning to the next cabinet. "There!"
With the ease of much practice, she grabbed a long-handled spoon from the drawer, then reached up and used it to flick the jar of sauce off the top shelf so that she could catch it with her left hand. Lucas could see, however, that she had forgotten about her arm being in a sling, and was not surprised when the jar smashed on the floor.
"Blast!"
"Why didn't you ask somebody taller to reach it for you?" Lucas asked, and when Olivia gave him a scathing look meant to communicate that she was used to dealing with things on her own, he added impishly, "Livvy."
"I told you not to call me that," she snarled, then yanked open the drawer again, pulled out a table knife, and began trying to slip the blade into the space between her hand and the cast. "And this thing itches!"
"Don't do that," Lucas told her, taking the knife away in case she should hit the tracking device with it. "Just think of something else and the itch will go away. I'll clean up this mess and then we'll get some Indian food, all right?"
"I don't want Indian food!" Olivia screeched. She sounded close to tears. "And what do you know about broken arms anyway?"
"I broke both my arms in December," Lucas said.
"Oh, right," Olivia replied sarcastically.
"I had casts on from here to here," Lucas said, demonstrating. "I had to get my – my girlfriend to wash my hair every other day, and cut my food so I could eat it without a knife, and do all sorts of little things for me that I'd always taken for granted before. But the worst part was the itch!"
Olivia scowled. "Scott, why is it that whatever I do, you have to do it bigger and better? Or worse, as the case may be?"
"That's what big brothers are for," Lucas said, smiling. "Now go sit down in the living room and I'll worry about supper."
She went. Lucas cleaned up the spaghetti sauce, then called for pizza. When he went into the living room, Olivia was sitting in the easy chair, holding the mobile phone and staring at it as though trying to communicate with Owen by transmitting thoughts over the network. The pizza came, and in between bites, Olivia continued to stare at the phone. Lucas found that he was waiting, too; he'd taken the phone to Malcolm the night before and had it bugged so that MI-5 could listen in and hopefully locate the origin of the call. With luck, they could send in the SAS, free Owen, and catch all the terrorists at once.
With a great deal of luck.
Part 11
Lucas awoke with a start, his heart racing. He'd been dreaming about Lina, he remembered. He'd been inside a prison camp, or some other place with a barbed wire fence that separated him from her, and the only way to reach her was to crawl through a narrow tunnel. He'd started to worm his way through, and could even see her silhouette in the light at the other end, but then the tunnel had collapsed in front of him, pinning his forearms in the rubble.
He dreamed a lot about his arms. Ever since gangsters from the Russian Mafia had broken both of them in December, Lucas often had nightmares in which his arms were injured, caught in something that immobilized them, or even amputated. This had been one of the more benign versions of the theme, but it had still left him both shaking and shaken. And as for the part about Lina, well, he didn't need Freud or Jung or anybody else to tell him what that meant.
Pushing the dream away, Lucas got out of bed. He'd forgotten to close the curtains the night before, and the room was light enough that he didn't need to switch on the lamp. Halfway to the door, however, his bare heel came down on something sharp, and he cried out in pain and surprise. He lifted his foot to see what it was, and spotted a small blue piece of plastic, just visible against the blue carpet. Grimacing, Lucas kicked the Lego away under the bed and limped on. He was halfway across the hall when Olivia opened the door to her bedroom and glanced out.
"Did you scream?" she asked.
"I stepped on a Lego," Lucas stated, and Olivia winced in sympathy. "I swear those things get out and wander around at night. I'm always tripping over them, too. Are you permanently crippled?"
"Not permanently," Lucas said. "Maybe next time, though."
"Mm." Olivia had lifted her gaze from his foot, and now she was squinting at his chest, staring quizzically at it until Lucas glanced down as well. He hadn't thought about putting on a shirt, and the burn scars left behind after his torture were clearly visible. Lina had been horrified when she'd first seen them, because she had understood the cause. Olivia simply looked puzzled, as though she were unable to decide what kind of medical procedure had left such odd tracks behind, but Lucas still felt embarrassed.
"Ladies first?" Lucas asked, prepared to let her go ahead to the bathroom while he got properly dressed. She shook her head, and he shrugged and went in. When he came out, she had pulled on an ugly brown bathrobe, old enough to be a hand-me-down from her father. "Are you coming to Tarla with me to-day, Scott?"
"No," he replied. The plan was for him to stay in the house, at least in the afternoon, so he'd be there when the call about her broken arm came through. "I thought I'd lay about for the weekend and wait until Monday before even thinking about work again."
"Then I can have the first shower," Olivia stated, and Lucas stepped aside to make room for her, relieved that she hadn't seen his back as well.
To help pass the time after Olivia went to work, Lucas opened the garden shed and found the lawn mower, then cut both the front lawn and the back. It was difficult, because the grass was wet after the night's rain, but it was better than sitting in front of the telly watching inane programs. Once finished, Lucas went out for Indian takeaway and ate it while leafing through the photo album he'd found on the coffee table that morning. Owen was a cheerful boy, grinning happily in every picture, and Lucas thought back to the baby that Lina had miscarried almost nine years ago. If the child had lived, he or she would be just about a year younger than Owen now, Lucas realized. Lina had thought it was a girl, but Lucas thought longingly of a son, even though he was sure that treading on Lego hurt more than tripping over a Barbie doll.
The awaited telephone call finally came at shortly past three, and Lucas hurried from the living room into the hall to pick up the receiver. "Olivia Stephens' residence."
"Scott," Olivia said. "I need your help. I've broken my arm and I need you to pick me up."
She'd been right when she said she wasn't an actress; she sounded as though she were reading aloud from a book. Knowing that Tim had been scheduled to escort her from Tarla and drive her to the hospital, Lucas wondered if he had coached her in what to say, or had even written it down for her.
"You broke your arm?" Lucas asked. "How'd you do that?"
"Uh, the stairs were wet and I slipped down them?" Uncertainty quavered so audibly in her voice that Lucas winced.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"Central Middlesex Hospital. I'll wait for you at the northwest entrance."
Lucas repeated the details for the listening devices, then added, "Don't worry, sis, big brother will take care of you."
"Do you have to call me sis all the time?" she asked, sounding completely normal, and Lucas laughed silently. "I'm on my way. And, Olivia?"
"Yes?" she asked warily.
"I'm glad you're talking to me again."
Olivia hesitated, obviously not knowing what to say, and Lucas made it easier on her by hanging up. He then dialled a certain number to order a taxi, and when it came, he was pleased to see a familiar face behind the wheel.
"Hello, Malcolm," he said, sliding into the back seat.
"Hello, Lucas," the older man replied, looking searchingly at him in the rear view mirror. "Did you get your ear pierced like I told you to?"
Lucas reached one hand up to his earlobe and fingered the gold stud that he'd got yesterday afternoon before appearing at Olivia's doorstep. "Yes."
"Good, because I've got a miniature two-way in a very masculine earring, just for you."
"Oh, thank you," Lucas said in a slightly exaggerated way, and Malcolm smiled. "We already had one, but it was in a diamond, and that would have been just a little too flashy. And by the way, there's been some news."
"What?"
"The River Police pulled the body of Emily Owusu out of the Thames earlier to-day," Malcolm said. "Apparently she's been dead since approximately Monday night or Tuesday morning."
"Jeremy's mother?" Lucas asked.
"It would have been her seventieth birthday next week," Malcolm added.
"It couldn't have been an accident, could it?" Lucas wondered. "Because all this time we've been assuming that Jeremy Owusu was working with the terrorists for money, not because they'd taken a member of his family hostage."
"Connie's looking into the money trail," Malcolm said. "You're supposed to keep on with your operation until further notice."
When they arrived at the hospital, Malcolm pulled into a parking space, then turned to Lucas. "Don't get out, just open the door. It'll be easier for me to inject you, and if you faint, I won't have to pick you up off the ground afterwards."
"I don't faint at the sight of needles," Lucas said, but Malcolm was already getting out of the car and didn't answer. He got a case out of the boot, set it on the ground by the tyre, and flipped the lid open. Lucas craned his head for a look, and watched Malcolm pull on rubber gloves, then take a syringe out of a padded slot, and remove the casing from the needle.
"The microprocessor is floating in a bit of saline solution," Malcolm explained. "Put your arms on the back of the seat in front of you, and lay your head down on them. I'm going to inject this right behind your ear."
Lucas rested his forehead on his hands. Malcolm pulled a lock of his hair back, then slid the needle into the skin over his skull and gently pressed the plunger.
"There," Malcolm said. "Just like a bone-anchored cochlear implant. Now, as long as your new earring is this close to the microprocessor, you'll be able to hear us and we'll be able to hear you. I'll put it in for you, if you like."
"Please." Lucas winced as Malcolm undid the gold stud, and the older man said, "Where did you get this done? It's infected already."
"A little shop close to Heathrow," Lucas replied, gritting his teeth at the insertion of the small hoop. "It was apparently less hygienic than it looked."
"You'll have to get it checked as soon as possible. I'm afraid I didn't bring any first aid gear with me." Malcolm leaned a bit nearer to Lucas' ear and said, "Testing, testing. TerraNova to Endurance, over."
Connie's voice sounded as though Lucas were hearing her through one-sided headphones. "Endurance to South Pole. Tell Malcolm all clear."
"South Pole?" Lucas asked, grinning at the code name, then looked up. "Connie says all clear."
"That's Endurance speaking, not Connie." Malcolm corrected him with a frown. "Right, here's a tracking device for the drone and you're all set, South Pole. Go rescue our damsel in distress."
"Thanks, Malcolm." Lucas got out of the taxi, stuffed the device into the pocket of his jeans, and went off to the entrance of the hospital. Olivia was pacing back and forth just outside the range of the motion sensors that opened the doors, and hurried over as soon as she spotted him. Her left arm was not only in a cast from mid-hand to above her elbow, it was also supported by a sling, and Lucas wondered if Tim had perhaps not overdone things a bit. Still, the message was clear; she couldn't drive or work a laptop with both hands, and that was what they needed to convey.
"Have you got a new earring?" Olivia asked, staring at it, and Lucas smiled. "Yeah."
"Is it a tracking device?" She lifted her arm slightly. "Your friend Chris put one in here."
"No," Lucas said, but didn't explain what it really was, or that he also had a tracker in his watch. "Shall we take the taxi to your car?"
"We can walk, it's not very far." Olivia turned to go inside, and Lucas followed as she strolled confidently from one entrance of the hospital to the other. From there, it was almost a ten minute walk to the Tarla car park.
"I was scared to go to work to-day," Olivia said awkwardly as they strolled. "I thought they'd find the wreckage of the helicopter and trace it back to me, and I'd get sacked."
"I took care of that," Lucas told her.
"I thought so. I know, it must be part of your job, and all that. But I just wanted to say, thanks." She glanced sideways at him, and Lucas smiled.
"It's all right," he told her, and she smiled hesitantly back. After a moment of silence, she suddenly asked, "Scott, how did you get the memory stick back?"
"I could tell you," Lucas said, "but then I'd have to kill you."
Olivia glanced sharply at him, then looked chagrined when she realized he was teasing. "Sorry, I shouldn't have asked. I should have known it was top secret and all that."
"All I can say is, we didn't smuggle it out through the window in the ladies' loo." Lucas watched, amused, as Olivia blushed and looked away. He didn't tell her that Tarla's security had called MI-5 to report the strange incident. He also didn't tell her that the MI-5 surveillance team had been watching the crash, too, and had seen Olivia's reaction. They'd set up a quick operation to retrieve the memory stick, only to discover that it had been shattered, and Ben had used Lucas' cardkey, along with a fake silicon fingerprint, to infiltrate the Tarla building and get a new one. Lucas' role had been nothing more exciting than finding an excuse to leave Olivia's house yet again, driving to the store, buying a few articles, then literally bumping into Ben in the car park and letting the younger man drop the memory stick into his shopping bag.
Once they'd arrived at the car, Olivia tried to hold her handbag open with her "injured" left hand while searching through it with her right. "I know my keys are in here somewhere."
"Shall I help?" Lucas offered, but Olivia shook her head and produced them only a moment later. She unlocked the car, then handed over the ring. "Here."
Lucas went around and opened the passenger door for her, and she gave him an astonished glance, obviously surprised at his courtesy. Except for a few directions which Lucas really didn't need, she was quiet all the way back to the house, but when she got out, she said, "Oh, Scott, you didn't have to mow my lawn!"
"I wanted to," Lucas told her, and she said, "Don't tell me, your last job was impersonating a gardener."
Lucas just grinned, and led the way into the house.
The rest of the afternoon passed slowly, and when it was suppertime, Lucas could see by the way she leaped off the couch that Olivia was as glad as he was for the chance to get up and do something.
"I can cook spaghetti if you'll help a little," she suggested, leading the way into the kitchen. Opening one of the cabinets, she took out a package of noodles, then added, "I've got a jar of sauce here somewhere."
"Let's get take-away," Lucas suggested, and even as Olivia sighed, he added, "I'll pay for it, just tell me what you want. Chinese? Indian?"
Olivia hesitated, and Lucas urged, "Come on, you've just broken your arm, you shouldn't have to worry about cooking."
"I can't afford to eat take-away every day," Olivia informed him, turning to the next cabinet. "There!"
With the ease of much practice, she grabbed a long-handled spoon from the drawer, then reached up and used it to flick the jar of sauce off the top shelf so that she could catch it with her left hand. Lucas could see, however, that she had forgotten about her arm being in a sling, and was not surprised when the jar smashed on the floor.
"Blast!"
"Why didn't you ask somebody taller to reach it for you?" Lucas asked, and when Olivia gave him a scathing look meant to communicate that she was used to dealing with things on her own, he added impishly, "Livvy."
"I told you not to call me that," she snarled, then yanked open the drawer again, pulled out a table knife, and began trying to slip the blade into the space between her hand and the cast. "And this thing itches!"
"Don't do that," Lucas told her, taking the knife away in case she should hit the tracking device with it. "Just think of something else and the itch will go away. I'll clean up this mess and then we'll get some Indian food, all right?"
"I don't want Indian food!" Olivia screeched. She sounded close to tears. "And what do you know about broken arms anyway?"
"I broke both my arms in December," Lucas said.
"Oh, right," Olivia replied sarcastically.
"I had casts on from here to here," Lucas said, demonstrating. "I had to get my – my girlfriend to wash my hair every other day, and cut my food so I could eat it without a knife, and do all sorts of little things for me that I'd always taken for granted before. But the worst part was the itch!"
Olivia scowled. "Scott, why is it that whatever I do, you have to do it bigger and better? Or worse, as the case may be?"
"That's what big brothers are for," Lucas said, smiling. "Now go sit down in the living room and I'll worry about supper."
She went. Lucas cleaned up the spaghetti sauce, then called for pizza. When he went into the living room, Olivia was sitting in the easy chair, holding the mobile phone and staring at it as though trying to communicate with Owen by transmitting thoughts over the network. The pizza came, and in between bites, Olivia continued to stare at the phone. Lucas found that he was waiting, too; he'd taken the phone to Malcolm the night before and had it bugged so that MI-5 could listen in and hopefully locate the origin of the call. With luck, they could send in the SAS, free Owen, and catch all the terrorists at once.
With a great deal of luck.
Part 11