AI "You still serve the cheap stuff in the good glasses."
Silas looked up, bottle poised over the tumbler, and the voice snapped through him like a rubber band grown brittle in a drawer. He did not drop the bottle. His hand stopped a fraction short of pouring. His signet ring clicked against the glass.
The man on the other side of the bar smiled without showing teeth.
"Mick."
"Thought you were dead," the man said .
"You thought wrong."
Mick Hart slid onto the stool as if his legs might give out if he stood too long. The last time Silas had seen him, Mick had broken into a run across a Prague rooftop and disappeared in a shower of brick dust. Back then he had carried himself like a man who trusted his knees. Now his shoulders folded in, coat hanging loose from a frame that looked both thinner and somehow swollen at the same time, all sharp cheekbones above a pale, padded jaw.
Silas poured the whisky. The good bottle, not the cheap one. He kept his hand steady, watched the amber line climb the glass.
"Still ungrateful," he said.
Mick glanced at the label, lifted an eyebrow .
"Maybe I judged you harshly."
Silas slid the drink across.
"You always did."
The Raven's Nest hummed behind them, the low murmur of voices, the clink of ice, the scrape of a chair leg on scuffed wooden floor. Old maps yellowed on the walls in uneven frames, corners curled, seas mislabeled from dead empires. Black and white photographs watched from their hooks, frozen strangers clinking glasses in some other decade. The neon sign outside cast its sickly green over the entrance whenever the door opened and shut, a pulse in the corner of Silas's eye.
Mick took a swallow without flinching.
"So," he said. "You own the place."
"For my sins."
"We both know you have plenty of those."
"You look worse," Silas said. "Let us start with that."
Mick laughed once, a dry cough wrapped in humour.
"Do I? I thought I had aged like a fine wine."
"You drank like a student," Silas said. "You aged like milk."
Mick tapped the glass with a fingernail. It made a thin, urgent sound.
"You got old, Si."
"You got something else."
Mick's eyes met his. Same murky green, same little sunburst of lines at the corners, only deeper now, etched in like permanent stains. Once those eyes had sparkled with mischief over cheap pints in Notting Hill, when both of them had believed a forged passport and a steady hand could fix the world. Now they looked carved out, like someone had scooped out whatever had lived behind them and left the shell.
"How long has it been?" Mick said.
"You are the one who runs from rooftops."
"You limped away."
"Eight years," Silas said. "give or take."
"Feels like someone else's life."
Silas wiped an already clean patch of bar with the cloth. Old habit, something to do with his hands when the air went tight.
"You walked in here by accident," he said.
"Would you prefer design?"
Silas looked past him, at the room. The Friday crowd had not peaked yet. Office workers surrendered their ties, tourists clutched guidebooks under tables, a pair of girls near the corner booth took photos of their cocktails as if they might vanish if not captured. No one looked at Mick. No one looked at Silas longer than it took to wave down a drink.
"It is Soho," Mick said. "You cannot throw a stone without hitting regret."
"You never liked Soho."
"I liked you," Mick said. "Well. Once."
Silas's hand paused on the cloth.
"You always did talk too much after the second drink."
Mick drained the first and nudged the glass forward.
"Then you had better keep up."
Silas poured again. The bottle felt heavier.
"You are not hiding it well," he said.
"What?"
"Whatever dragged you in here."
Mick's fingers curled around the glass. Silas watched the knuckles. No ring now. No watch. The old leather jacket gone too. Mick wore a dark wool coat a size too big, frayed at one cuff, out of place over a creased white shirt with one broken button near the throat. The shirt still screamed government issue even while everything else tried to apologise for it.
"You are limping more," Mick said.
"Weather," Silas said.
"You hate talking about the weather."
"I hate questions."
"You used to love puzzles."
"Then I grew up."
Mick looked around. His gaze lingered on the bookshelf at the back wall, the one that hid the door to the room behind. The room where Silas kept his other life. The edges of that door fit snug, but Mick's eyes still found the seam.
"Some things never change," Mick said.
Silas said nothing.
"So." Mick turned back. "You are a publican now."
"Retired," Silas said.
"You say that like retirement is a cover identity."
"It is."
Mick's smile tightened.
"They still talk about Prague, you know."
Silas resisted the urge to reach for his knee. Old pain, trained reflex.
"Do they," he said.
"They call it a lesson in hubris."
"Can they spell it?"
"You walked your team into a meat grinder."
"Correction," Silas said. "I led my team where they ordered me to lead it. Then they turned the handle."
"Semantics."
"Survival."
Mick inhaled, slow and noisy through the nose. He held the breath as if unsure what to do with it, then let it go.
"I read the report," he said.
"You wrote the report."
"I wrote a report," Mick said. "Not the one they filed in the archives."
Silas let the cloth rest.
"You came in here for absolution," he said. "You always did pick the wrong priest."
"You always did enjoy a martyr complex ."
"Why now."
Mick shrugged, an ugly twist of one shoulder.
"Thirsty."
"And?"
"And I turned a corner and your ridiculous neon bird stared me in the face," Mick said. "What did you expect me to do, keep walking?"
"Yes."
They looked at each other. The sounds of the bar swelled and receded around them, a tide they both ignored.
"You left me on that roof," Silas said.
Mick's hand tightened around the whisky.
"You remember it that way."
"How many ways are there to remember a door shutting in your face."
"There were bullets," Mick said. "There was smoke. Your comm went dead. Everyone scattered."
"You did not," Silas said. "You ran like the devil himself chased you, and you never looked back."
"Looking back gets you shot."
"It gets other people shot."
Mick lifted the glass, stopped halfway to his mouth.
"You think I do not hear it," he said. "You think I sleep."
"I know you do not," Silas said. "You used to snore."
Mick laughed again, that rasp.
"You are still an arse."
"Occupational hazard."
"Of what, making mojitos for tourists."
Silas leaned forward. His knee gave a little flare of complaint and settled.
"What happened to you," he said.
Mick emptied the glass in one swallow this time. No flinch. No appreciation.
"Budget cuts," he said.
"Try again."
"They did not like the way I filed my expenses."
Silas waited.
"I took the wrong contract," Mick said.
"There is no such thing as the wrong contract," Silas said. "Only the one you thought you understood."
Mick's jaw worked. His tongue ran over the inside of his cheek as if tasting an old scar .
"You remember Belgrade," he said.
Silas remembered cold stone steps and a boy with ink-stained hands who insisted he did not know anything until the third night.
"No names," Silas said.
"No one cares about their names now."
"I do."
"Of course you do," Mick said. "That is why you open at four and close at midnight and polish glasses in between like you are scrubbing blood off them."
Silas reached for another bottle. Cheaper this time. He poured it for someone down the bar without looking away from Mick.
"You still deflect with cruelty," he said.
"You still preach," Mick said. "Listen. After you left, after they pensioned you off with your bad knee and your nice little severance, some of us stayed. We climbed the ladder. We learned new words. Risk management. Asset realignment. Plausible deniability."
"Congratulations."
"When the Prague thing blew up in the papers, they needed a story," Mick said. "Brave agents. Rogue informant. Clean chain of command. You know the song."
"Out of tune," Silas said.
"They wanted someone at mid level to eat it if more came out," Mick went on. "Not high enough to hurt, not low enough to be innocent. I signed some papers."
Silas looked at his face, at the slight tremor in his left eyelid. He waited.
"They wrote your name into the blank spaces," Mick said.
Silas exhaled, slow.
"So you came here to tell me you stabbed me in the back eight years ago," he said. "How courageous."
"You already knew," Mick said. "You read between the lines faster than anyone."
"Knowing and hearing differ."
"They dangled my promotion," Mick said. "My pension. My family's medical. You know how it goes."
"You do not have a family."
"That is not the point."
"It is exactly the point," Silas said. "You traded my career for a better suit."
Mick smoothed his hand over the front of his coat as if mocking himself .
"Look at it," he said. "They took the suit back."
"You apologise now," Silas said. "So the ledger balances."
"You think this is an apology."
"What is it then."
Mick's eyes flicked to the door. The neon pulse washed green over his face for a second, a sick fish-belly gleam.
"You always did pick good exits," he said. "Little back door. Alley access. Fire escape."
"What did you bring to my door," Silas said.
Mick smiled, thin and without humour.
"You remember Kostas."
"No," Silas said.
"Liar."
Silas did remember. A Greek contractor with a gold tooth and a laugh like broken glass. Bad company. Worse debts.
"I thought he was dead," Silas said.
"He thought you were," Mick said. "People keep making that mistake."
"You owe him."
"I owed him," Mick said. "Then I stopped paying."
Silas felt a dull, familiar weight press against his ribs, the shape of an old pistol that lived in the safe upstairs now.
"So he sent you a reminder ," Silas said.
Mick moved his shoulders, as if removing an invisible coat, or trying to .
"You are on the old contact list," he said. "You are not on the payroll, but his people do not care about nuance . They saw your name on old files, cross referenced, found the bar. They think you and I still play for the same team."
"We never played for the same team," Silas said.
"Tell them that," Mick said. "Gently."
Silas slid his gaze past Mick's head. Two lads in suits laughed too loudly beside the fruit machine. A woman in a red dress stirred her drink with the stem of a cherry, eyes half closed. No one watching the door. No one obvious, which meant nothing.
"You led them here," Silas said.
"They followed me," Mick said. "There is a difference."
"Semantics," Silas said.
Mick flinched, a quick shadow across his face.
"I walked for an hour," he said. "I zigzagged. Doubled back. Took stupid little streets I have not taken since I was nineteen and drunk. They still kept up."
"How do you know."
"Because one of them coughed every time I slowed down," Mick said. "Same man, same cough, like a metronome. Tick tock. I opened your door and it stopped."
Silas reached under the bar, fingers searching along the smooth wood until they found the little notch he had carved years ago. The notch lined up with the shotgun clipped to the underside. He curled his hand around the grip. Just touched it. Let go.
"You should have walked somewhere else," he said. "Somewhere with a different bartender."
"I thought about it," Mick said. "Then I thought about that roof."
Silas watched the way his throat moved when he swallowed.
"You want to die here," he said.
"Who said anything about dying."
"You have the look."
"What look is that."
"Someone who has already chosen the last bar stool."
Mick sat a little straighter.
"I came to warn you," he said. "They think you have the Prague files."
"Do I," Silas said.
"You always kept souvenirs."
"That was you," Silas said. "Hotel soaps. Passport photos. Barkeeper's daughters."
"Charming," Mick said.
"You did not answer the question," Silas said. "Do I have reason to fear your mess."
"Everyone has reason to fear my mess," Mick said. "That is the problem."
The door opened. Neon washed the floor near the entrance. Three men stepped in, one after another, close enough that their shoulders brushed. No tourist shuffle. No hesitation. They moved as if they rehearsed it.
Silas watched them without turning his head.
The first wore a navy overcoat and carried his body like a club. The second, shorter, cast quick, sharp glances across the room, hands in his pockets. The third moved last. Grey suit, no coat, clean hair. Calm. His gaze skimmed the bar, passed over Silas as if he had never seen him before, then slid back and lodged.
Mick's fingers pressed into the wood of the bar.
"That is him," he said, barely shaping the words. "The cough. Listen."
The first man gave a small, congested hack into his fist.
Silas put the cloth down.
"You are going to want to go into the back," he said.
Mick did not move.
"I told you," he said. "I am done running."
"Then at least do it where my customers do not bleed on the floor," Silas said.
The men walked deeper into the room. The one in the grey suit nodded at the tables they passed, a polite little inclination, as if he apologised in advance for any disturbance. His eyes never left the bar.
"Silas Blackwood," he said, stopping two stools away. His accent flattened the vowels in odd places. Not Greek. Somewhere further east, iron curtain territory smoothed by years in London.
Silas met his gaze.
"You have me at a disadvantage," he said.
"You retired," the man said . "You do not like disadvantages."
"I make drinks," Silas said. "The only thing that disadvantages me is running out of ice."
The man smiled like someone who had practised the shape in the mirror.
"I am here to collect an old debt," he said.
Mick shifted beside him, the stool creaking.
"You can have him," Mick said.
Silas did not look at him.
"No," he said. "He cannot."
The man in the grey suit raised his hand. The second man, the one with the quick eyes, reached inside his coat.
Silas's fingers found the shotgun grip under the bar and this time he did not let go.