Sam Bourne 4-Book Thriller Collection. Sam Bourne

see if they could discover the gene that makes a real freedom-loving American and work to eradicate it.’

      ‘It does seem a little far-fetched.’

      ‘I grant you that. But we’re talking about a military-industrial complex that has spent millions of dollars on mind-control techniques. You know, they had a secret Pentagon project to see if men could kill goats, simply by staring at ’em? I am not making this up. So it may be far-fetched. But I have come to learn that far-fetched and untrue are two very different things.’

      Eventually, Will steered Hill towards saner shores, seeking the biographical details of Baxter’s life that he knew he would need. He got some, including a back story about the dead man’s father: turned out Baxter Sr was a Second World War veteran who had lost both his hands. Unable to work, he had grown desperate; he could barely feed his family on his GI pension. Hill reckoned Baxter was a son who grew up resenting a government that could send a young man to kill and die for his country and then abandon him when he came home. When history repeated itself with Baxter’s own generation in Vietnam, the bitterness was complete.

      That would do nicely, serving as the easy-to-digest, psychological key needed for all good stories, in newspapers no less than at the movies. The piece was beginning to take shape.

      He asked Hill to take him to Baxter’s cabin. They used Will’s car, its engine revving as it climbed further up the rutted path. Soon, Will could see colour – the yellow tape of a police cordon. ‘This is as far as we can go. It’s a crime scene.’ Will reached into his pocket. As if reading his mind, Hill added, ‘Even your fancy New York press card won’t get you in here. It’s sealed.’

      Will got out anyway, just to get a feel. It looked to him like a shed: a bare log cabin, the kind a well-off family might use to store firewood. The dimensions made it hard to believe a man had made this his home.

      Will asked Hill to describe the interior as best he could. ‘That’s easy,’ his guide said. ‘Almost nothing in there.’ A narrow, metal-frame bed; a chair; a stove; a shortwave radio.

      ‘Sounds like a cell.’

      ‘Think military accommodation; that’ll get you closer to it. Pat Baxter lived like a soldier.’

      ‘Spartan, you mean?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      Will asked who else he should talk to; any friends, any family. ‘The Militia of Montana was his only family,’ Hill shot back, a little too fast Will thought. ‘And even we hardly knew him. First time I ever saw that cabin was when the police had me round there. Wanted me to identify which clothes were his and which might have been left behind by the killers.’

      ‘Killers, plural?’

      ‘You don’t think someone starts performing major surgery like that on their own, do you? They would have needed a team. Every surgeon needs a nurse.’

      Will gave Bob Hill a ride back to his own cabin. He suspected that, though Hill’s office might have been basic, his house was elsewhere – and not nearly so spare as Baxter’s. The dead man was clearly an extreme kind of extremist.

      They said their goodbyes, exchanged email addresses, and Will began the long drive on. Bob Hill was obviously a nut – DNA for dissidence indeed – but this business with the kidney was definitely strange. And why would Baxter’s killers have given him an injection?

      He pulled off Route 200 to fill up the car and his stomach. He found a diner and ordered a soda and a sandwich. A TV was on, tuned to Fox News.

       ‘. . . Dateline London now and more on the scandal threatening to topple the British government.’

      There were pictures of a harried-looking Gavin Curtis emerging from a car to an explosion of flash bulbs and television lights.

       ‘According to one British newspaper today, Treasury records show clear discrepancies which can only have been authorized at the very top. While opposition politicians demand a full disclosure of accounts, Mr Curtis’s spokesman says only that “there has been no wrongdoing”. . .’

      Without thinking, Will was taking notes, not that he would ever need them: Curtis’s chances of heading up the IMF were surely slim to non-existent now. Watching the pictures of Curtis being shepherded past the baying press mob – a classic ‘goatfuck’ as the TV guys called them – Will’s mind wandered onto trivial terrain. How come his car is so ordinary? This Gavin Curtis was meant to be the second most powerful man in Britain, yet he was driven around in what looked like a suburban sales rep’s car. Did all British ministers live so modestly – or was this just a Gavin Curtis thing?

      Will called the sheriff’s office for Sanders County and was told that, for all the federal investigations and Unabomber inquiries, Baxter had no criminal record whatsoever. He had been under heavy surveillance, but it had yielded nothing: a couple of unexplained trips to Seattle, but no evidence of illegality. He had never been convicted of anything. Will flicked back through his notebook. He had scribbled down all he could of the autopsy report, including the name at the foot of the document. Dr Allan Russell, Medical Examiner, Forensic Science Division, State Crime Lab. Maybe this Dr Russell would be able to tell him what Mr Baxter’s militia comrades had not. How had Pat Baxter died – and why?

NINE

       Wednesday, 6.51pm, Missoula, Montana

      He had got there too late; the crime lab was shut for the day. No amount of cajoling could alter that fact; the staff had gone home. He would have to come back tomorrow. Which meant he would have to spend the night in Missoula.

      He was briefly tempted by the C’mon Inn, if only because the joke was too good to resist. But, Will realized, he could still tell people about it in New York: he did not actually have to stay there. So he played safe and checked into the Holiday Inn for a third night of room service, the remote control and a phone call with Beth.

      ‘You’re making this too complicated,’ she said, audibly getting out of the bath.

      ‘But it is complicated. The guy has a kidney missing.’

      ‘You need to see a medical history. Maybe—what’s his name again?’

      ‘Baxter.’

      ‘Maybe Baxter had a history of renal problems. Any reference to that or to dialysis or kidney trouble of any kind, and that will give you an explanation.’

      Will was silent.

      ‘I’m ruining it, aren’t I?’

      ‘Well, if we’re talking news value, the choice between the death of an old man with a past history of renal failure and an attempted kidney-snatching is very close. But, yeah, you might be right: the kidney-snatching probably just edges it.’ Will was relieved they were back into banter mode. Several days now stood between them and the row; the wound seemed to be closing.

       Thursday, 10.02am, Missoula, Montana

      The next morning, Will was ushered into Dr Russell’s office. He saw it straight away, a certificate on the wall carrying an emblem Will recognized: an open book, inscribed with Latin words, topped off by two crowns.

      ‘Ah, you were at Oxford. Like me. When were you there?’

      ‘Several centuries before you, I suspect.’

      ‘That can’t be true, Dr Russell.’

      ‘Call me Allan.’

      At last, a lucky break. ‘You know, Allan, I’m not even sure I’ll write about it for the paper, but this Pat Baxter business does intrigue me, I must confess,’ he began, as if settling down for an agreeable chat at high table. Will noticed his own English accent had become more pronounced.

      ‘Let me have a look here,’ Russell was saying, as he turned to his computer. ‘Ah yes, “Severe internal