Blood Hunt by Ian Rankin Page A

his car. He drove sedately back to his hotel, and only got lost once. He was assuming now that he was compromised; they’d be following him wherever he went. And if he lost them too often, they’d know they’d been compromised. And they’d either get sneakier—homing devices on his car, for example—or they’d have to gamble on direct assault. Maybe even an accident.
    He didn’t think it would be a simple DUI.
    In his room he wrote the postcard home and stuck the stamp on, then went down to the front desk to mail it. One man was seated in the reception area. He hadn’t brought any reading material with him, and had been reduced to picking out some of the brochures advertising Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, and the Old Town Trolley Tours. It was a chore to look interested in them. So Reeve did the man a favor: he went into the bar and ordered himself a beer. He was thirsty, and his thirst had won out over thoughts of a cool shower. He savored the chill as he swallowed. The man had followed him in and ordered a beer of his own, looking delighted at the prospect. The man was around the other side of the bar from Reeve. The other drinkers had the laughing ease of conventioneers. Reeve just drank his drink, signed for it, and then went upstairs to his room.
    Except it didn’t feel like a room now; it felt like a cell.

SEVEN
    NEXT DAY, GORDON REEVE saw the ghost.
    Maybe it wasn’t so surprising under the circumstances. It was a strange day in a lot of ways. He packed his things away when he woke up, then went downstairs for breakfast. He was the only guest in the restaurant. The breakfast was buffet-style again. He could smell bacon and sausage. He sat in his booth and drank orange juice and a single cup of coffee. He was wearing his dark suit, black shoes and socks, white shirt, black tie. None of the hotel staff seemed to realize he was on his way to a funeral—they smiled at him the same as ever. Then he realized that they weren’t smiling at him, they were smiling through him.
    After breakfast, he brought his bag downstairs and checked out, using his credit card.
    “Hope you enjoyed your stay with us, Mr. Reeve,” the smiling robot said. Reeve took his bag outside. There was no one watching him in the hotel lobby, so there’d be someone out here, maybe in the parking lot. Sure enough, as he approached his car, the door opened on a car three bays away.
    “Hey, Gordon.”
    It was McCluskey. He was wearing a dark suit, too.
    “What’s up?” Reeve asked.
    “Nothing. Just thought you might have trouble finding the… thought you could follow me there. What do you say?”
    What could he say—I think you’re a liar? I think you’re up to something? And I think you know I think that?
    “Okay, thanks,” Reeve said, unlocking the Blazer.
    He smiled as he drove. They were tailing him from in front, tailing him with his own permission. He didn’t mind, why should he mind? His business here was almost done, for the moment. He needed some distance. A good soldier might have called it safe distance. It was a perfect maneuver: look like you’re retreating when really you’re on the attack. He knew he wasn’t going to learn much more in San Diego without wholly compromising himself. It was time to move camp. He’d been taught well in Special Forces, taught lessons for a lifetime; and as old Nietzsche said, if you remained a pupil, you served your teacher badly.
    Someone somewhere had once termed the SAS “Nietzsche’s gentlemen.” That wasn’t accurate: in Special Forces you depended on others as thoroughly as you depended on yourself. You worked as a small team, and you had to have trust in the abilities of others. You shared the workload. Which actually made you more of an anarchist. In Special Forces there was less bull about rank than in other regiments—you called officers by their first names. There was a spirit of community, as well as a sense of individual worth. Reeve was still weighing up his