The Adjacent Read Online Free Page A

a coded message on his phone, and he would find the personnel carrier waiting for him in the street outside.
    He returned the phone charger to the power source and less than three hours later a message came through. When he went down to the street the Mebsher was waiting. The floodwater was receding, but even so it reached above the axle level of the huge wheels. Tarent waded across to the extensible access steps. Dripping water from his legs and shoes, he clambered inside and took a seat.
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    THE MEBSHER WAS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED FOR MILITARY USE : a means of transporting troops and matériel through hostile territory in a vehicle that could withstand most forms of violent attack, including RPGs and IEDs. As conditions around the world deteriorated, Mebshers were used increasingly by aid agencies and government departments, and civilian variants had been developed.
    Tarent was familiar with the Mebsher, because in places like drought-stricken Eastern Anatolia, with insurgent militias roaming the hills, it had become the vehicle of necessity. The interior of a Mebsher was utilitarian, every metal surface painted a drab grey, or left bare. Visibility to the outside was restricted, and the few windowed apertures were made of thick, toughened glass. There were always minor variations in the number or type of seats, the interior fittings usually on a scale from rudimentary to broken or not working.
    The seat he took was next to one of these tiny windows. He apologized to the three people already on board as he clambered in, his luggage bag and cases of camera equipment bulking through the narrow doorway, floodwater draining from his legs and pooling around him. The other passengers briefly acknowledged him. The Mebsher was under way almost as soon as he had seated himself. He fidgeted around for a while, stacking his bag in the rack at the rear, placing his cameras close to him and trying to find a spare cushion of some kind – there was nothing to be had, so he took a towel from his luggage and rolled it up to make a head-rest. He leaned his head against the metal wall, closed his eyes and tried torelax. The vehicle rocked and jarred constantly, but there were no extreme movements: the Mebsher was designed for rough terrain. Tarent did not care about the discomfort – he just wanted to be taken to wherever it was intended he should be, and not to think or do anything until he was there. Gradually, his soaked lower legs and feet began to dry out.
    It was as usual noisy inside the compartment. The huge turbine engine was in theory surrounded by sound-proofing, but the roaring whine of it could always be heard. The intercom from the driver’s compartment, which was hidden away from the passengers in the front of the vehicle, was switched on. The voices of the two drivers could be heard, communicating in Glaswegian accents. From time to time a radio voice from somewhere else burst in, screeching with static.
    Tarent let himself doze for about an hour although real sleep was an impossibility. He drifted for a while, but he was constantly aware of his surroundings. When he opened his eyes he regarded the other passengers, looking at them properly for the first time. There were two men and a woman.
    One of the men sat alone in the front row of seats, a laptop computer plugged into the cable socket, and various papers spread out on the other seats beside him. He had short grey hair and what looked like a muscular build beneath his clothes. He had a lip-mic clipped somehow to his jaw and as he read data off the computer monitor, which he held at an angle so that no one else could see it, or from some of the papers, he muttered into the mic. He was using the recognition language applied to certain kinds of software, not English nor any spoken Euro language but a kind of machine jargon, a dialect of code.
    The other man and the woman appeared to be travelling together: they sat beside each other in the row in front of him. From time to time