Hooded Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

waiting.”
    Granger, still in agony from the bolt in his palm, hung his head, nodding.
    “Excellent, then allow me to introduce myself. My name is De Falaise. My aim is to bring order to this country, oui ? Like your comrades here, England is on its knees. I intend to offer it the same choice I gave you: a killing blow or the chance to serve.”
    Granger stared at him; this guy was insane.
    “Myself and my men are heading north,” De Falaise continued, visibly enjoying his speech. “As my ancestors recognised, the seat of true power is not the capital at all. That, mon ami , is just for the tourists. It is from another place entirely that we will expand. We will reach out to every corner of this island, crushing any form of resistance. You are now a part of my army, making history, as it was once made long ago. In years to come, people will look back on this moment as the start of something truly wondrous.”
    He actually believes what he’s saying , thought Granger. He wants to become like the King of England or something ... But then, stranger things had happened. And wasn’t it only what Granger himself had done on a smaller scale? Hadn’t this been his kingdom until De Falaise came along? Now, instead, he was one of the subjects in another man’s realm – or maybe even the fool?
    De Falaise returned Granger’s stare. “So, do we understand each other?”
    Granger nodded reluctantly again.
    “Then answer me.”
    “Yes,” Granger whispered. “We understand each other.”
    “Louder.”
    Granger gritted his teeth then raised his voice. “I said we understand each other.”
    De Falaise grinned. “Good.” He reached up and yanked the bolt out of the wall, and Granger’s palm. The younger man screamed again as blood flowed freely from the wound. “You may want to bandage that before we set off.”
    Granger, breath coming in hisses, gasped: “S-set... set off?”
    “That is correct. We leave for the army base at Hendon within the next half hour,” De Falaise informed Granger, then told the rest of them: “Make yourselves ready.”
    As his men escorted The Jackals out, Tanek joined De Falaise standing in front of Granger. De Falaise handed the bloody bolt back to its owner, who wiped it with a cloth. “Do you know, I can see this being the start of a beautiful business arrangement, non ?”
    Granger sneered at him and De Falaise laughed.
    He laughed long and hard, almost until it was time to leave the council offices at Whetstone.

 

     
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
     
    A T FIRST HE thought they had come for him, finally.
    Robert was aware of voices before he saw the group of men. They were skirting the edge of the woodland, about seven or eight of them in total. He’d been checking some of his snares when the sound of their talking carried to him. Robert had frozen. He hadn’t heard another human voice in as long as he could remember – not since the men in the yellow suits...
    “You must be O-Neg... Completely immune, you lucky bastard...”
    “He’s too valuable...”
    “Get him!”
    Surely they couldn’t have tracked him down after all this time? There would be a certain irony to it if they had. If the hunter was again being hunted.
    Leaving the looping trap, and stuffing the last wild rabbit into his skin-pouch, he’d moved swiftly and silently along the edge of the wood, before climbing up a tree to gain a better view. The first time he’d tried this it had been like being a kid again, doing something forbidden, and he heard his late mother’s words in his head: “Come down from there at once, Robert, before you really hurt yourself!”
    There was a part of him that wanted to get hurt this time, wanted to get hurt severely, in fact. Fall down and crack his skull open; wouldn’t that be nice? But there was just as big a part of him that really didn’t want to break his back and not be able to move, laying there dying slowly. Not a good end.
    Better than Joanne’s. Better than Stevie’s.
    It