A Delicate Truth Read Online Free PDF

tread. Slow and easy. And if you see a falling stone, be sure and
     duck, now.’
    Was that a joke? He grinned anyway. The
     Toyota was driving down the hill, job done and goodnight. He put on the goggles and the
     world turned green. Raindrops, driven on the wind, smashed themselves like insects in
     front of his eyes. Jeb was wading ahead of him up the hillside, the miner’s torch
     on his forehead lighting the way. There was no track exceptwhere he
     trod. I’m on the grouse moor with my father, scrambling through gorse ten feet
     high, except that this hillside had no gorse, just stubborn tufts of sand grass that
     kept dragging at his ankles. Some men you lead, and some men you follow, his father, a
     retired general, used to say. Well, with Jeb, you follow.
    The ground evened out. The wind eased and
     rose again, the ground with it. He heard the putter of a helicopter overhead.
Mr
     Crispin will be providing the full American-style coverage
, Elliot had
     proclaimed, on a note of corporate pride.
Fuller than you will ever be required to
     know, Paul. Highly sophisticated equipment will be standard for all, plus a Predator
     drone for observation purposes is by no means beyond his operational
     budget
.
    The climb steeper now, the earth part fallen
     rock, part windblown sand. Now his foot struck a bolt, a bit of steel rod, a
     sheet-anchor. Once – but Jeb’s hand was waiting to point it out to him – a stretch
     of metal catch-net that he had to clamber over.
    ‘You’re going a treat, Paul. And
     the lizards don’t bite you, not in Gib. They call them skinks here, don’t
     ask me why. You’re a family man, right?’ – and getting a spontaneous
     ‘yes’ – ‘Who’ve you got then, Paul? No disrespect.’
    ‘One wife, one daughter,’ he
     replied breathlessly. ‘Girl’s a medical doctor’ – thinking, oh Christ,
     forgot I was Paul and single, but what the hell? – ‘How about you, Jeb?’
    ‘One great wife, one boy, five years
     old next week. Cracker-jack, same as yours, I expect.’
    A car emerged from the tunnel behind them.
     He made to drop into a crouch, but Jeb was holding him upright with a grip so tight he
     gasped.
    ‘Nobody can spot us unless we move,
     see,’ he explained in his same comfortable Welsh undertone. ‘It’s a
     hundred metres up and pretty steep now, but not a bother for you, I’m sure. A bit
     ofa traverse, then we’re home. It’s only the three boys
     and me’ – as if there were nothing to be shy of.
    And steep it was, with thickets and slipping
     sand, and another catch-net to negotiate, and Jeb’s gloved hand waiting if he
     stumbled, but he didn’t. Suddenly they had arrived. Three men in combat gear and
     headsets, one of them taller than the rest, were lounging on a tarpaulin, drinking from
     tin mugs and watching computer screens as if they were watching Saturday-afternoon
     football.
    The hide was built into the steel frame of a
     catch-net. Its walls were of matted foliage and shrub. Even from a few feet away, and
     without Jeb to guide him, he might have walked clean past it. The computer screens were
     fixed at the end of pipe casings. You had to squint into the pipes to see them. A few
     misty stars glowed in the matted roof. A few strands of moonlight glinted on weaponry of
     a kind he’d never seen. Four packs of gear were lined up along one wall.
    ‘So this is Paul, lads. Our man from
     the ministry,’ said Jeb beneath the rattle of the wind.
    One by one, each man turned, drew off a
     leather glove, shook his hand too hard and introduced himself.
    ‘Don. Welcome to the Ritz,
     Paul.’
    ‘Andy.’
    ‘Shorty. Hullo, Paul. Make the climb
     all right, then?’
    Shorty
because he’s a foot
     taller than the rest of them: why else? Jeb handing him a mug of tea. Sweet with
     condensed milk. A lateral arrow-slit was fringed by foliage. The computer pipes were
     fixed below it, allowing a clear view down the hillside to the coastline and out to