Chapter Text
River woke up sitting in a chair.
In River’s line of work, this was not good. A civilian’s first coherent thought might be, Dozed off in the armchair again, hope I didn’t fuck my back. An MI5 agent thought Duct tape or zip ties?
Today, the answer was zip ties. This was also not good.
“‘Bout time you came round. I thought you might need true love’s kiss, in which case you’d be rooming with Nick Duffy. Though I suppose we’d probably just pull the plug.”
River looked up — which hurt — to see his boss a few meters away, wrists and ankles zip-tied to his own chair and looking only slightly more disheveled than usual.
Kidnapped with Jackson Lamb. Could this day get any worse?
Most likely, yeah. The concrete room they were in did not strike him as well ventilated, and with Lamb it was only a matter of time.
“Great. You’re here too,” said River. “Any idea where here is?”
“Well, while you were getting your beauty sleep — lost cause, by the way — I gathered that we’re being held by some Russian twats about an hour outside London, probably in someone’s cellar.”
It was starting to come back to River now, in bits and flashes. Sleep had eluded him since France, so he’d been working late at Slough House in the hopes of boring himself into a stupor. Lamb, who seemed to live there, tolerated it so long as River answered any thumps and otherwise kept to his floor. On this particular night, though, just as a spreadsheet of tax records was beginning to make his eyes cross, a smoke bomb sailed through the door. After that things got fuzzy — he remembered a lot of shouting, grappling with a couple of pricks in ski masks, and —
“Did I actually fall down the stairs?”
“The very same Jed Moody broke his neck on. Just my luck you’d get away with nothing but a bump on the head.”
And a few other bumps, judging by the general ache radiating throughout River’s body. He took a quick inventory. Bruised ribs, maybe fractured given how much it hurt to breathe. His left shoulder and collarbone were fucked. And there was something wrong with his hip. “I suppose you just, what? Stood there and laughed?”
“‘Pretty much, yeah. Highlight of my evening, to tell the truth.”
“Brilliant.” River closed his eyes against the throbbing in his head. “Did they say what they want at least?”
Lamb heaved a sigh. “What Russian twats always want. Information.”
“Right. How do we get out?”
“We don’t. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in a windowless room with one exit, which I guarantee is guarded. Now sit tight and shut up. I liked it better when you were unconscious.”
They sat in silence for a time before the door opened. The man who descended the stairs had a long face, mid- to late fifties, with deep-set black eyes that made River think of a shark.
“Ah, your young friend is awake.”
“‘Useless employee’ would be more accurate,” said Lamb.
The man laughed, gripping the back of Lamb’s chair. “So callous! Of course, this is what Jackson Lamb is famous for.”
“Here I thought it was my good looks and charming manners.”
“Could we skip the banter, please, and get to the point?” said River, ignoring the warning glare from Lamb.
The man tutted, attention shifting to River. “Your generation has no patience. As your boss could tell you, every minute of ‘banter’ is a minute where you get to keep all your fingers. But since you are in such a hurry to lose them, Mr. Cartwright, I will ‘get to the point.’ You are River Cartwright, yes? Grandson of David Cartwright?”
River pressed his lips together.
“I will take that as a yes. So, Mr. Cartwright, the point: in 1987, your boss killed a retired KGB agent in East Berlin. This man was my father.”
“This may come as a shock to you, but I had nothing to do with that,” said River, “seeing as I was not yet alive.”
“Naturally.”
River waited for the man to elaborate further. He did not.“Then why am I here?”
“Because he doesn’t want revenge on me, you numpty,” Lamb chimed in helpfully.
The man nodded. “One does not seek vengeance on the weapon, but on the hand that wielded it, no?”
The hand that—?
“Shit.”
“Figured it out, have you?”
“I believe he has,” said the man with a smile. “Tell me, young Cartwright — where is your grandfather?”
***
Jackson was losing his edge.
His instincts weren’t what they used to be, and by the time he’d gotten down the stairs with his gun Cartwright had already been tumbling down the next flight. The sight of him sprawled on the landing had made Jackson’s stomach drop in a way he preferred not to contemplate.
In the next five seconds, two of the intruders had bullets between their eyes and a third had a gun pointed at a still-breathing Cartwright’s head.
So Jackson surrendered, cursing the Cartwright name all the way. He enjoyed a long car ride in the boot with Cartwright’s stupidly long limbs for company. He spent an hour or two watching the blood drip off Cartwright’s hair. And then he listened as the prince of idiots asked to skip the foreplay and get straight to the torture.
Somewhere in moron heaven Harper and Longridge were applauding their rightful heir. Why were his joes all so bloody determined to die?
“Where is your grandfather?” the Russian asked. Cartwright didn’t respond, just shook his head and set his jaw.
The Russian sighed like a long-suffering parent and broke River’s nose with a force that almost made Jackson wince.
Almost.
“Fuck!” Cartwright shouted amid the resulting torrent of blood.
“Mr. Cartwright, I hope you will reconsider your reticence. As you see, your innocence will not protect you. It is your grandfather who has wronged me, but his grandson’s suffering serves my purposes just as well.” He turned to Jackson. “And Mr. Lamb… Do not think I am so foolish as to believe that you are unaware of David Cartwright’s whereabouts. Please, feel free to disclose them at any time. From what I hear there is no love lost between you two.”
Jackson huffed a laugh. “That’s an understatement.”
“Don’t,” said Cartwright, wild-eyed. “I’m begging you, Lamb, please don’t.”
He refrained from rolling his eyes. At present, the Old Bastard was the only thing standing between them and a bullet to the brain. Obviously, this had not occurred to Cartwright — few things ever did.
“Begging already!” the Russian exclaimed. “I fear young Cartwright will not last long. So, Mr. Lamb, will you spare us the trouble?”
“I’d love nothing more,” said Jackson over Cartwright’s nasally pleas. “Unfortunately, I’d be dead faster than I could say ‘Good riddance.’”
The Russian’s cool gaze didn’t falter, but Jackson knew he was right. “A shame. You, too, may reconsider in time. I can tell interrogation would be wasted on you. Mr. Cartwright, however… if I apply the right pressure, I think he will crack.” The man smiled again. It was an empty smile, without a single ounce of warmth. “Or perhaps you will.”
Jackson might have been losing his edge, but he still knew a few things.
One: They weren’t getting out of here on their own.
Two: Cartwright was loyal to a fault. He was also inexperienced and utterly unprepared.
Three: When Cartwright broke — and he would break — they were dead.
In short, they had better start praying that Dander’d had her coke this morning, because the Slow Horses were their only hope.