Free Down: Pinhole by Glenn Cooper Page B

and what we’re dealing with.”
    Trevor opened his laptop and clicked on the video feed of Duck’s bedroom. The duvet was pulled up to his neck and he was sleeping soundly with a look of pure pleasure on his young, clean face.
    “The clock’s ticking,” Trevor said. “We’ve got six and a half days until we fire up the collider again. We’re going to do everything in our power to find Woodbourne in that time and I’ll bet anything that John is in that godforsaken place doing everything in his power to find Emily.”
     
     
    Des and Adele Fraser, a couple in their sixties, returned to their Hillside Road home and began piling bulging suitcases on the walkway. Mr. Fraser paid the driver. They had taken a taxi from Gatwick to Crayford, just west of Dartford, because their son was away on business in Manchester. It was midday, the bright sun casting no shadows.
    “Did you draw all the curtains when we left?” Des asked his wife.
    She looked toward the windows of their modest semi-detached home and said, “I don’t think so but I really can’t recall. We left two weeks ago, didn’t we? Seems like forever.”
    “You go on. I’ll shift the bags.”
    Adele used her house keys and left the door open for her husband who carried the lighter bags through the threshold then struggled with the biggest one. In the hall he put the unwieldy bag down, grumbled about his back, and said they’d have to unpack it downstairs rather than lug the monster up to the bedroom. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that his wife hadn’t moved from a spot in the sitting room and hadn’t removed her coat.
    “You all right, luv?”
    A large man stepped into the hall, pointing a pistol at Des’s middle.
    “Close the door,” he said. “And keep your trap shut.”
    “Who are you?” Des asked indignantly.
    “You haven’t done what I told you. Do you want me to kill her?” Woodbourne said.
    Des closed the door and was herded into the front room. It was in a state. There were food tins, plates, and utensils strewn about, the contents of the cupboards scattered and broken on the floor.
    “Sit there. Both of you. You, what’s your name? Cook me something. I’m sick of eating from tins.”
    “My name is Adele.” Her voice was thready with fear.
    “Right, Adele. Make us something tasty then. If you open the back door I’ll kill him straight off. I cut the telephone lines so don’t you bother with that neither.”
    “I have to see what I’ve got,” she said. “We’ve been away a fortnight.”
    She removed her coat, exchanged a desperate glance with her husband and went to the kitchen.
    “That’s a tele, right?” Woodbourne asked, pointing the gun at the flatscreen.
    “Of course it is,” Des said.
    “Can’t see where the tubes go. Couldn’t figure how to switch it on neither. Do it for me.”
    “You need to use both boxes.”
    Woodbourne looked around. “I didn’t see no boxes.”
    “These,” Des said, picking the remotes off the carpet. “One’s for the set, the other’s for the cable.”
    “Just do it, all right?”
    Des turned it on. “What channel?”
    “Don’t be daft. The BBC.”
    “One, two, three, or four?”
    “Don’t be smart with me. There’s only the one BBC. I want the news to see if they’re saying anything about me.”
    Des put it on the BBC news channel. Woodbourne looked startled and marveled about it being in color.
    “What did you do to be on the news?” Des asked.
    “The usual, I suppose. I came, I saw, I conquered. Who said that? Can’t never remember.”
    “Julius Caesar.”
    “Yeah, him. I looked all over for a wireless. You got one?”
    Des was in his late sixties. He looked Woodbourne over curiously. He didn’t seem to be older than forty or so. He was heavy-set and muscular, Des’s own shirt and trousers, tight on his large frame. His black hair was slicked back. He smelled of a combination of rot and his wife’s soap.
    “I haven’t heard a radio called a wireless