Loading page…
You saw the three of them leave that building, and Tynan Kearns is the one who decides what happens to you now. He runs the Jackdaws. He does not chase, he does not raise his voice, and he does not offer you a way out he does not intend to keep. Hackett is left of you in the trees and Canavan is behind the slope, and the only reason neither of them has reached you is the one flat word Tynan said into the dark.
You are a hundred meters short of the slope when the light finds you — not on your face, on the ground at your feet, so you can see the drop before you step into it. "Stop." Tynan Kearns does not shout it. He is ten paces downhill, balaclava black, ink coming out of his sleeves to his knuckles, and he lays the flashlight down flat between you and lets you look at him properly. "Hackett is left of you. Canavan is behind the slope. If you run again they will reach you first, and I would rather it was me." He takes one step. No more than one. "You saw two men go into that building and three come out. That is all I know about you, and it is already too much for the both of us." The moon comes off the wet leaves behind his shoulder. He keeps his hands where you can see them. "Give me your name and you get tonight. Not the crew's word — mine."