8
Incursion
Back in the cabin at night, Philippe showed me how to dismantle and clean an assault rifle – just one of a few weapons he stashed under the floorboards.
“Hey,” I said, mid-clean, “do you ever get flashbacks?”
He paused, dust cloth in hand. “No.”
God, the man didn’t give you anything without a fight.
“Cos I get these voices, images, flashing up. A young girl. Asian. I don’t know, Arabic maybe. Ring any bells?”
“No,” he said, without looking up, hands running the cloth up and down a rifle barrel.
“Well, she doesn’t belong to me. So she must be one of—”
Philippe slammed the barrel on the table so hard I bum-hopped off my chair.
“What do you want from me?” he said. “You’re always … talking.”
He turned his hand into a little mouth, putting on a silly voice. “Yak, yak, yak
