Read Online Skinner by Charlie Huston - Free Book Online Page A

yours might lodge in his head. You’re emptying the garbage and he picks through it for anything he can use. So an idea like this protocol. The algorithm, it started with the numbers. Just me thinking out loud. But Cross remembered that I’d done the work, had the program written up. When he took over he activated it.”
    Skinner moves a hand close to Terrence, doesn’t touch him.
    “And you sent Haven away. And you gave the op to Lentz.”
    He touches Terrence, fingers on the older man’s wrist.
    “I might have killed you, Terrence. I might have killed you all. I came very close to it.”
    Terrence closes his eyes; light is pulsing behind his lids.
    Am I going to do this? It’s done, old man. You did it already. Fix it. Five is a start. Billions. Fix it.
    He opens his eyes.
    “Cross has a job for you.”
    Skinner becomes still. Inanimate. No visible pulse or breathing.
    There is a file, Terrence owns the only copy, that contains every known photograph of Skinner’s victims. Terrence is looking at them now, a flip book in his mind, disjointed stutter of horrors.
    Skinner blinks. And the young man is there for a moment, the one from MIT, an undefinable potential, untapped but for Terrence discovering it.
    “What does he want me to do?”
    Terrence thinks about the photos in the file and what they conceal. The extremity of violence hides a truth deeper than the sadist others believe lives in Skinner’s heart, something altogether different. Something desperate and afraid. If Skinner learned, when he took up protection, that he need not be a monster in this world, then losing assets had taught him the value of still wearing a monster’s mask. If anyone saw his real face, they would know what it cost him to lose those he protected. He learned that he didn’t have to be a monster, Terrence believes, and then found out that he had been a person all along.
    What do you think, you’re going to live forever?
    “They have an asset for you.”
    Skinner’s eyes crinkle at the corners, just that much, focusing, and a vertical line creasing his forehead disappears.
    “What?”
    “Who.”
    Skinner touches the corner of his eye, rubs.
    “I’ve been up in the sky a long time.”
    Terrence reaches inside his jacket.
    “Welcome home.”
    He takes out a slightly bulging envelope the size of a business card.
    “USB drive.”
    Skinner accepts it.
    “James Bond.”
    “Consumer electronics.”
    “Everyone is James Bond now.”
    “Sadly, yes.”
    Terrence points at the envelope.
    “Details. Flight numbers. Bank accounts. Frequent flier miles. Names. Dates. Details.”
    He reaches across the counter.
    “Her name. Jae. The Disaster Robot Lady . The USB is for her. Beyond the job details, there’s more. For her .”
    He touches the back of Skinner’s hand.
    “For her , Skinner. Yes?”
    Skinner squeezes the bulge in the envelope.
    “I want to be on a plane. I need to be inside something. I need to think. Plan.”
    He rises.
    “It was sloppy, Terrence, the way Lentz killed my asset at Montmartre. A sloppy tip of the hand.”
    He doesn’t look at Terrence, his eyes tracking an Airbus as it taxis to the top of the runway.
    “Anyone paying attention would know that you let me get away.”
    Terrence’s own eyes are studying the floor, polished concrete, their dark reflections blurred beneath their feet. He shrugs.
    “They knew. And it was the last thing they needed to be able to get rid of me once and for all. So.”
    Skinner looks from the jet outside to the man next to him.
    “That’s what I thought.”
    Terrence tugs at his collar.
    “Yes.”
    Skinner starts away, stops.
    “It’s good to see you, Terrence. I’ve missed our talks.”
    And he walks away, a man with a flight to catch, anonymous death, stopping at a kiosk for a copy of the Financial Times.
    Terrence doesn’t watch. As if some kind of distant muscle memory has been engaged from the night Skinner killed the boy in the hoodie, he feels his stomach