Chapter 3
The morning dawned clear and opalescent and chilly: the crisp pale jewel of upscale London sprawled out under clouds in grey and brick, twinkles of color in traffic lights and shopping-bags, scarves and sweaters. Ben always had liked cool weather; he liked the bite of a deep breath, the bracing clarity of being present and real and alive.
These days, of course, he was getting older. Older than Simon; hell, older than Stephen, by a not insignificant number of years. Not old yet; but his left knee ached some mornings, and the muscles were stiffer than they’d once been, and a few of those scar-memories twinged. He didn’t have too many of those—he’d always worked more on the intelligence-gathering side, the communications side, rather than blunt-force operations—but he hadn’t been
