Nicholas mused for the millionth time since that night about the fleeting nature of existence, then discovered he hadn’t eaten a doughnut he’d bought as a special pick-me-up. As he crammed it into his breakfast-hungry mouth he mused instead on how something so simple could give so much pleasure.

*

Texas enjoyed the perfect climate for about forty-five minutes after sun-up and it was in this warm, fresh brilliance that Nicholas Nicholas said goodbye to Rollo and to the day guys, Vern and David, and walked across the parking lot.

Two men watched him from a nondescript rental parked in the long shadows of a line of conifers that WAE had established to shield the plant from aesthetically offended commuters.

Nicholas unlocked the rusty door to his Civic.

In the moment between the lock clicking open and him withdrawing the key, he heard a tiny scuff on the asphalt behind him and felt his neck prickle in ancient warning.

He swung round, heart racing.

But the low sun in his eyes meant he never saw their faces.

*

Ronaldo Suarez was watching Tom Patrick throw up barely digested airline food in the airport parking lot when he got a call from Toby Uncle, the youngest, cheapest and – it was turning out – dumbest cop he’d been able to find for the surveillance detail.

‘Uh-huh,’ he said.

Tom straightened and leaned against Suarez’s police-issue Chevrolet. He felt something press against his arm and took the towel Suarez was offering; it was thin and old and smelt of dogs. He spat on the ground a few times then wiped his mouth, only vaguely aware of Suarez’s half of the conversation.

‘How long ago? … Okay … Where are you now? … How could you fucking lose them? … Okay. Okay … Go back there. I’ll be fifteen minutes.

‘We gotta go,’ he told Tom, pressing his own gut down so he could squeeze behind the wheel.

‘You want this?’ Tom said, holding up the towel as he slumped into the passenger seat.

‘You keep it.’

Tom dropped it out of the window as they pulled away. ‘Goddamn planes.’

*

The men who took Nicholas Nicholas from the lot only made him suffer ten minutes of abject terror before dumping him back at his car and driving away, but as he sat beside his little beige compact he thought he’d never feel safe again. Even the death of Annette Lim had not shaken him like this. Annette Lim was not supposed to be able to protect herself. She was not a man. She was not him. But, in less than a quarter of an hour, Nicholas had had his idea of personal security turned upside down.

He tried to stand and found his legs were jellied with fear, so instead he leaned against the door of the Civic, feeling the warming metal comfort his back and one cheek.

He heard a car and half opened his eyes. In this new world of his, where nothing would ever seem unexpected again, he was not in the least bit surprised to see Detective Suarez and the skinny guy who’d been with him before striding purposefully across the blacktop towards him.

*

‘So,’ said Suarez, with the air of Detective Columbo summing things up, ‘they took you, they put a gun in your mouth, they told you they could shoot you, or you could steal the paperwork for them and make plenty of money – your choice.’

‘Yes,’ said Nicholas Nicholas, shakily.

‘What did you choose?’

Suarez, Tom and Nicholas all turned slowly to look at Toby Uncle, who blushed to the very roots of his wispy blond hair and mumbled, ‘Sorry.’

‘And then they dumped you back here.’

‘Yes. Just before you showed up.’

‘Goddamn planes!’ Tom muttered furiously. If he hadn’t thrown up in the airport lot, they’d have reached WAE in time to see Nicholas dumped – in time to catch the men who’d dumped him. He knew it and he knew Suarez knew it, although he’d been good enough not to say it.

Nicholas dabbed at the lump on his forehead. It wasn’t bleeding but he kept touching it, then looking at his fingers.

‘Do you know where they took you?’

‘I was face-down on the back seat the whole time. With a guy on my legs.’

‘The guy who put the gun in your mouth?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did they have local accents?’ said Suarez.

‘No. Just American.’

‘Can you describe them?’

‘I didn’t see the driver hardly at all. So I don’t know.’ Nicholas frowned in concentration. ‘The other guy. He was white. Umm. Black hair, I think. Taller than me. Strong build. I didn’t see much of him either, didn’t get a good look at his face.’

‘Even when he put the gun in your mouth?’

‘I had my eyes shut.’ Nicholas said it like they should have guessed that – like, if they’d been in his place, they would’ve guessed that.

Tom had never had a gun put in his mouth but he figured Nicholas was probably right.

Suarez sighed, and Nicholas seemed to feel bad that he hadn’t been more helpful.

‘He was kinda fidgety,’ he offered.

‘Fidgety?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Great,’ snorted Suarez. ‘Uncle, get an APB out on a fidgety white guy.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Uncle, keen to make up for his earlier stupidity. He actually turned back towards his car to put out the call, before he apparently realized he’d just compounded his sin. ‘Fuck,’ he berated himself quietly.

Nicholas remembered. ‘He wore stupid red boots.’

Tom felt like he’d been knocked off a pier with a plank. He had a sense of free-falling through a vacuum and his breath left him with an audible rush that made the others turn towards him. When he finally found his voice, it was strangled. ‘Stupid red cowboy boots?’

‘Yeah,’ said Nicholas Nicholas, in surprise. ‘Stupid red cowboy boots.’