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hangars and air towers that extended from the Helleskern cliffs to nearly four miles inland, encompassing on its western side the little town of Breagh, whose main purpose now was to serve the base. There were a few bleak rows of pebble-dashed houses on the town’s outskirts which Thomas knew belonged to the military, and it was here that he thought Flynn might live. When he stopped to make enquiries at the post office, however, he was told that because Lieutenant Summers was a single man and relatively new arrival, he still lived on the base itself, within its barbed-wire perimeter.
    The roads around Hawke were, of course, among the few really well-maintained rural highways in Cornwall, and Thomas drove back the way he had come, blinking in the brilliant April sun. He wasn’t so sure of what he was doing now. He felt odd this morning, better than he had in some time, but sleepy and a bit spaced out. The road’s slow curve around the base was hypnotic, free of the potholes that kept him awake and alert everywhere else, the Rover’s tyres whispering on its smooth surface. He knew military bases painfully well, and even as he pulled up outside the main entrance, with its barriers and flanking guard posts, was aware that he wasn’t going to get very far. The sensible thing to do would have been to go back home, stow the sculpture carefully under the stairs and wait until he ran into Flynn by chance somewhere.
    He couldn’t have it back in the house, even boxed and invisible. Thomas knew, his sleepy contentment burning off from him, that it had become a focal point. He hated himself for the reaction, feared, though, that next time his control slipped he would end up pitching the beautiful thing off the cliff. Sighing, he took the box from the back seat and approached the barriers, trying to look as unconcerned and as little like a terrorist as he could. Everyone everywhere was on permanent high alert, it seemed, even here.
    No, he could not have access to Lieutenant Summers. No, the guard would not phone the barracks—the lieutenant was on duty and could not be disturbed. Thomas, standing stiff-spined in the sunshine, felt the beginnings of rage—it was just this routine, knee-jerk hostility that had begun to disgust him with military life. It forced him to be on his dignity to meet it. Here, face-to-face with this stuffed-shirt sergeant, he was no longer the respected village doctor but an interloper, a supplicant.
    A couple of Navy ratings were leaning on the bonnet of a jeep, watching the encounter with amusement. One of them gave Thomas a grinning once-over. He turned to his companion and said, broad Belfast accent pitched to carry, “Looks like flyin’ Flynn’s been playin’ away. Doc had better watch out for Rob Tremaine, eh?”
    One useful side effect of Thomas’s condition was sudden and complete emotional cutoff under pressure. At another time, he might have cared or wondered who Rob Tremaine was. As things were, he shrugged. He took a couple of steps back from the guard and, moving slowly so as to make his intentions quite clear and avert any hair-trigger reactions, laid the box on the ground. “This is for Flynn Summers,” he said flatly. “It came to me by mistake. Check it for wires and detonate it if you have to. Otherwise, make sure he gets it.” He turned away. He wished he had Belle with him—she covered his rear, and gave good withering backward glances—but did not think he made a bad job of his exit.

Chapter Three: Crosscurrents
    It was like pins and needles, like waking up with your arm folded under you. The numbness was bad, but things were briefly worse when it wore off.
    By the time he got back home, Thomas was mortified by his own lack of grace. His courtesy was deeper ingrained in him even than the scars of his combat experience, and returning Flynn’s gift like that was far from what he had intended. He flinched to think