The Increment by Chris Ryan

charts.'
'If we're stopped?' said Kilander.
'Then use whatever force is necessary.'
Matram glanced back at Kilander. She was an attractive woman, with light freckles scattered over pale Celtic skin and black hair that she let grow to just below her shoulders. Her voice was soft and welcoming, keeping the ice within totally concealed. That was the way he liked women in the Increment to be: attractive enough to fit in, but not so pretty that men started staring at them, and with a manner that was easy and reassuring.
'He's on life support,' said Matram. 'Unconscious. And there's no guard. Disconnect the life-support machine, using your knives to cut the tubes. Then use a pillow to suffocate him just to make sure.'
'And leave the body behind?' asked Wetherell.
'It's a hospital,' said Matram tersely. 'They know what to do with a corpse. We'll meet back here in fifteen minutes, precisely.'
Matram stepped back, climbing back into his Lexus. He watched as his two operatives disappeared into the darkness. There were only eight lamps in the car park, and two of those were broken, leaving a murky, half-light spreading out over the tarmac. A few shadows were flickering out from the hospital building, but Kilander and Wetherell soon disappeared from view. Matram leant back in his car seat, and allowed himself a few moments of relaxation.

FOUR
Matt tossed the prison diary aside, stood up and took his bag from the rack at the top of his train carriage. Abbott could keep his book, and he could keep his job as well.
He hopped down on to the platform, walked quickly towards the taxi rank: might as well beat everyone else on the train to the queue. On the billboard outside the station, there was a headline about a road-rage incident on the Ml.
Looks as if the heat is getting to everyone.
It was a ten-minute ride from the station to the hospital. As he stepped out of the car, Matt took a deep breath, preparing himself for the few minutes ahead.
He could remember one of the sergeants when he first joined the army warning him that one of the things a soldier had to get used to was the sight of their friends getting blown to pieces. They had to learn how to look at men laid up in hospital with horrible injuries and know how to shrug it aside.
But it doesn't matter how many times it happens. Every time you see one of your mates with a bullet through his head, it gets to you.
'I'm looking for Ken Blackman,' he told the receptionist, a black woman in her late thirties. 'Intensive care.'
He noticed the woman eyeing him suspiciously. The shooting had been a big story locally. No doubt all the staff knew the psycho was in the building, and were tiptoeing around him as if he was some kind of monster. The receptionist was clearly asking herself: What kind of friends would he have?
'Official or just visiting?'
'Just visiting.'
'You'll have to check with security when you reach the ward,' said the receptionist. 'They're not just letting anyone in to see that patient.'
He's not just some nutter, thought Matt as he walked away from the desk. He was a good man, and he was my friend.
There was nobody guarding the intensive care ward. Matt glanced down the corridor. There were twelve rooms, six on either side, each with a number stencilled on to it in faded grey lettering, and a small ten-square-inch glass window. There was no sign who might be inside. Matt glanced through the first window. An old man, with tubes hooked into his body. The second window, a young women, almost completely covered in bandages.
I need to see him. Doesn't matter whether he can speak to me or not. I just need to look into his eyes, and see if I can find any kind of clue there. Something drove him crazy, something weird and inexplicable.
'Who are you looking for?'
The nurse delivered the sentence sharply, as if there was no answer that would fall within her rule book. She was about thirty, with brown hair. Julie Smollett, it said on the label badge.
'Blackman,' said Matt. 'Ken