Zero kill, p.11
Zero Kill, page 11
Plowright had given Zoe strict instructions to carry on with her weekend as usual, and to try to forget that she was about to be contacted by a lethal black ops specialist.
She slumped into a chair. ‘Where’s Charlie?’
‘Playing football in the park.’
‘I’m starving.’ Despite the mess, there didn’t seem to have been much recent activity near the oven. ‘What’s for dinner?’
‘I didn’t know what time you were going to be home.’ Her husband folded the paper. ‘So I thought we’d get a takeaway. How about a cup of tea?’
She gave him the thumbs-up. A takeaway would be perfect after the day she’d had. She watched Jim search a drawer for a flyer from a local pizza house and study it intently, as if he wasn’t going to order a deep-pan ham and pineapple, like he always did.
Through the open door to the living room, she eyed the television playing silently on a news channel. A reporter was speaking outside an expensive restaurant on the King’s Road where, the rolling yellow ticker at the bottom of the screen suggested, West London gang members had fought a bloody turf battle the night before. Measures had been taken to ensure an alternative version to the truth was presented to the public.
When he had made the tea, Jim reached into the cupboard under the sink, took out a small can of oil and headed for the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To fix that squeaky hinge in the spare room,’ he said, just as the front door slammed and their teenage son came in.
‘What’s for tea?’ Charlie asked.
‘We’re thinking pizza,’ said Jim.
Charlie shrugged. ‘Sounds good.’
‘Welcome home, Mum,’ Zoe said sarcastically. ‘I really missed you.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Her son threw his rucksack on a chair and took a bottle of milk from the fridge. ‘Welcome home.’
‘How was football?’
‘Good.’
‘I may have to go back to work later.’ Zoe made a sad face. ‘I hope you’ll manage to cope without me.’
Glugging the last of the milk, he slammed the empty bottle down and wiped away his milk moustache with a sleeve. ‘I think I’ll manage.’
‘Put it in the sink,’ Zoe told him, just as a phone started ringing in his rucksack.
Charlie frowned and took his own phone from his pocket. They both looked at his bag. He reached for it.
‘Don’t touch it!’ Zoe screamed.
He stared at her in shock, his hand hesitating at the zip. Charlie didn’t know what she did exactly; he knew she worked for British intelligence, but as far as he was concerned his mother did the most boring job imaginable, which wasn’t far from the truth.
‘Just…’ Zoe tried to dial down her panic. It may be Elsa Zero making contact, but it could also be a deadly trap. Nobody knew for sure what the fugitive’s intentions were. ‘Did anyone go in your bag when you were at the park?’
‘No,’ he told her, confused. ‘Nobody did, but… I bumped into a woman as I was coming down the street. I dropped my bag and she picked it up.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘Tall, fit.’ He blushed. ‘Kinda cool.’
‘Charlie,’ Zoe said, as the ringing continued in the bag. ‘Go outside.’
He hesitated. ‘Shouldn’t you come, too?’
She motioned at him. ‘Just go.’
Her son didn’t need asking twice and stood outside the door.
‘Not in the hallway,’ she called. ‘Out the front door. And take your father too; I don’t want him coming in.’
Zoe unzipped the bag as carefully as she could, not really knowing what she was doing; it wasn’t like she was a bomb disposal expert. When it was open, she gingerly looked inside.
Resting on top of the hoodie he’d stuffed in there was a small plastic phone. The screen flashed, but it didn’t seem to be attached to anything else. There were no wires Zoe could see, no brick of plastic explosive, or timer with big red numbers counting down. Zoe took it out carefully. It was just a phone, a cheap throwaway thing, and an old model at that. She took a long breath – almost certain she wasn’t going to be blown to bits in her own kitchen – and hit the green button.
‘Yes,’ she said, trying to compose herself.
‘Finally,’ said a woman’s voice angrily.
‘Elsa Zero.’ Zoe tried to sound as if she was hearing from an old friend out of the blue. ‘It’s good to hear from you.’
‘You know what’s happening?’
‘Yes.’
‘People are trying to kill me.’ It seemed to Zoe that Elsa sounded indignant about the fact.
‘I believe they are, yes.’
‘I don’t know why.’
That could be true, or a lie. Someone like Elsa, who had spent a lifetime in black ops, could be playing some kind of elaborate psychological game with her, there was no way of telling.
‘The important thing is to bring this whole situation to an end. Let’s try and work out together what’s going on.’
‘Is SIS trying to kill me?’
‘I’ll be honest with you…’ Zoe didn’t know how else to put it. ‘Right about now, everyone’s trying to kill you.’
‘Then I’ll run.’
‘And go where? Even if you do find somewhere safe, Elsa, you’ll always be looking over your shoulder. You’ll always have to keep moving, and it will never end. And your poor children…’ The implication hung in the air between them. ‘Let’s bring you in. You have my word you will be safe.’
‘Why?’ Elsa Zero sounded angry. If she was lying, she was a hell of an actor. ‘What have I done?’
‘You’ll get all the answers you need. And we’ll find a solution together.’
Zoe held her breath. They both knew Elsa had few options going forward, but she was a mercurial woman used to surviving on her wits, and who had already been almost killed once before in a mission that went very wrong. She could end the call at any moment, and if she did, Zoe knew they would never speak again.
Elsa would run and run – until the inevitable happened. She may manage to disappear off the face of the earth for weeks, months, even years, but with every intelligence agency on the planet looking for her, sooner or later she would run out of road.
If Elsa was going to hang up, it would be… now.
But instead, Elsa Zero said, ‘Somewhere outside, somewhere public. Just you and me.’
‘Yes.’ There was a tense silence. Elsa was far too experienced to believe Zoe would arrive alone. ‘Where?’
‘Cavendish Square. One hour.’
Elsa killed the call, and with a shaking hand Zoe placed the phone on the table and took a brief moment to steady her nerves.
No time to drink tea, no time for pizza, or to clean the kitchen. She had to call Plowright right away.
17
When someone exited an apartment block on the north side of Cavendish Square, Elsa grabbed the door before it closed. Slipping inside, she made her way to the roof where she could see the entirety of the circular park, nestling behind the shopping mecca of Oxford Circus.
She used Dougie’s expensive Celestron binoculars to watch a van as it drove along the south side. The decal on its side stated it was owned by A1 Electricians, a fake name if ever there was one; if Elsa called the accompanying phone number, it wouldn’t be in use. The van passed the rear of the John Lewis department store and disappeared onto Henrietta Place.
The roads and pavements jerked sharply in and out of focus as she magnified other potential participants in the imminent events. A car pulled to the kerb directly below her; a helmeted rider on a delivery scooter, its buzz ruining the early evening calm, drove towards Harley Street. A man and a woman walked leisurely past the sculptures in the middle of the square.
Elsa’s attention snapped to a car pulling up outside John Lewis. Two men in overalls jumped out and carried cases into an adjacent building: marksmen getting into position on one of the upper floors. She guessed multiple surveillance teams were placed in other buildings too.
Elsa scanned as many windows around the square as she could, half of them reflecting the copper-red sun hanging above the tall buildings of central London, but none revealed any further secrets.
When she heard the low thrum of a helicopter approaching from the north, she went back downstairs and checked her watch. She was due to meet Zoe in less than ten minutes.
Elsa wondered if she should walk away now. Try to find some other way to escape the mess she was in. She was under no illusions that if SIS intended to kill her tonight – the decision would already have been made – they would do it, despite any promises Zoe Castle made to her.
All she could do was hope that Zoe’s superiors were as good as their word, and that she would be taken into custody. At least she’d be out of immediate danger; more importantly, her children would be safe.
At 6:59 p.m., Elsa saw Zoe walk the diagonal path to the centre of the square, where she stopped by a bench.
Elsa thought, here goes nothing. She was under no illusion that she could be shot dead as soon as she stepped outside. She imagined the tense exchanges between the people watching remotely in Ops at the heart of SIS headquarters and the armed units waiting in the tangle of streets surrounding the square. She may well have been standing in the wings at a packed West End theatre, so many people were waiting for her to make her entrance.
She took a deep breath, opened the door and crossed the road to the square, half expecting each step to be her last.
As Elsa approached, she saw how terrified Zoe Castle was. Where Elsa was all taut muscle and Pilates lithe, Zoe was round-faced and plump in an old blouse and denim skirt. She looked like she should be hosting a supper club with all the other wives, rather than trying to bring in a deadly operative from the dangerous cold.
‘Thank you so much for coming.’ Zoe looked gratified, as if Elsa was a frosty neighbour she’d finally persuaded to come for coffee. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before.’
Elsa scanned the roofs. ‘There are snipers.’
‘Don’t worry, they’re ours.’ Zoe clung to the bag hanging from her shoulder. ‘And they’re here to protect the both of us.’
‘Why?’ Elsa asked her coldly. ‘I don’t understand why I’ve been targeted, what have I done?’
‘Come with me,’ said Zoe in a nervous sing-song. ‘And everything will become clear.’
‘Who’s trying to kill me?’
Someone was in such a hurry to do it that they had almost dismantled a restaurant to get the job done, so it wasn’t a great leap of imagination for Elsa to assume that her head was at that moment in the crosshairs of several telescopic sights, and that professional marksmen were mumbling into throat mics, confirming they had a clear shot and were ready to pull the trigger, just give the order, just say when.
‘Before I go anywhere with you,’ Elsa said, ‘I want to know what’s going on.’
Zoe looked stricken. ‘I’ve been given a tiny window of opportunity to bring you in, Elsa, and if I don’t do it, they’ll kill you. Come with me and you have my word you will not be harmed.’ She clearly didn’t know how much she was authorized to say. ‘You have data, and we need it from you.’
‘What data, what do I know?’
Zoe swallowed; she was sweating. ‘Please, Elsa.’
Elsa scowled, but knew she wasn’t going to get answers. She nodded, finally.
Relieved, Zoe let out a breath and said to whoever was listening to their conversation, ‘She’s coming in. I repeat, Elsa Zero is coming in.’
She nodded, receiving affirmation in her ear. Elsa saw an SUV drive into the square and pull up on the east side. Zoe walked briskly to meet it, clinging on to her bag for dear life.
‘You’re doing very well,’ said Elsa, falling into step beside her.
‘Thank you.’ Zoe looked grateful for the remark. ‘You really don’t know what’s going on?’
‘Not a clue. Until midnight, my life was very boring.’
‘Everything will be explained to you. You’re not going to believe your ears. It’s very important we get you to safety.’
‘My kids are in hiding,’ Elsa said quickly. ‘We need to get them to safety.’
They reached the SUV, and the rear doors opened automatically. When Elsa walked to the door on the far side, Zoe placed her hands on the roof.
‘I’ll make sure it’s our first priori—’
Zoe never finished the sentence because in that instant half of her head was blown off, blood and bone bursting into the air directly above her shattered skull. Her body was spun around by the impact of the bullet and she crumpled to the floor.
A moment later, just as Elsa dropped behind the door, the windscreen of the car shattered. Through the back seat, she saw blood spray. The driver’s head slammed back into the seat, then fell onto the steering wheel.
More rounds coming from a building ahead of the car slammed against the door, making it judder. Elsa dived into the back of the car and fell across the seat as shots eviscerated the top of the front seats and punched out the rear windscreen. She huddled as gunfire tore into the doors and roof, and through the upholstery; above her, all around her. She dropped into the footwell, pressed as flat as possible on the floor.
Through the open door she saw Cavendish Place, which led to Regent Street. If she could get to the corner she’d be out of the line of fire, but it was twenty or thirty feet away, at least. She’d never make it, she’d be cut down before she managed five steps.
The shots stopped, the last of them echoing off the tall buildings, giving Elsa the opportunity to lift her head and look back into the square. Secret service types raced towards her, drawing weapons from holsters at their belts, but when the shooting started again, they took cover. Then she heard a screech of brakes as a car skidded to a halt on the road directly beside her.
The passenger door flew open, and Elsa stared in shock at the driver.
‘The pass!’ Camille Archard ducked as the near-side mirror of her car exploded into hundreds of flying bits of plastic and broken glass. The SUV rocked crazily as it was targeted again by relentless automatic gunfire. The rear windscreen shattered, the bonnet and doors shuddered. ‘The pass!’
Elsa stared at her in incomprehension.
‘Under the wheel!’
Elsa looked to where she was pointing: on the floor beside Zoe Castle’s body was her bag, its contents spilled everywhere.
‘We’ve got to go – now!’ Camille shouted.
Elsa threw herself into the road, crawling around the back of the vehicle on her hands and knees, praying it would shield her from the gunfire. One of the back wheels was shot out. She heard it pop and hiss. Keeping low, she saw a plastic card had fallen from Zoe’s bag, and she snatched it up.
Then she crawled back behind Camille’s car and hurled herself into the passenger seat. It accelerated before she even managed to pull the door shut. The windscreen exploding above her head, glass raining down on her shoulders, Elsa hunched low in the seat, as the car skidded out of the square in a hail of gunfire.
18
‘Keep your head down,’ Camille told her.
They accelerated through a red light on Regent Street, speeding past the wall of traffic shooting across the junction towards them, causing a roar of screeching brakes and horns, and into the tangle of streets north of Oxford Street.
Slamming the car around corners, allowing the steering wheel to spin beneath her lifted fingers, Camille pumped her foot hard on the accelerator, the brake, the accelerator, one after the other, as she swerved between cars, on the inside of the lane, then the outside. Her blonde hair flew around her face as she jerked the car left and right, speeding, then braking.
They slowed in Fitzrovia, the engine purring as they turned slowly down a narrow street and across Tottenham Court Road, slipping into the stream of traffic heading towards Russell Square, then seemingly heading back the way they had come.
Camille nodded at the dash compartment. When Elsa opened it, she saw a baseball cap and dark glasses. ‘Put them on.’
Elsa heard sirens; sometimes racing away from them, sometimes towards them.
Gunning the vehicle, Camille swerved onto the wrong side of the road, and straight towards three lanes of oncoming traffic. Elsa clung to the dash with one hand and the seat with the other. Eyes flicking from the rear mirror to the wing mirror, and squinting into the sky – checking for helicopters, for drones – Camille was apparently oblivious they were about to smash into a car that was swerving in panic in front of them.
‘Camille!’ Elsa braced herself for impact.
Camille jerked the wheel, skidding ninety degrees to perfectly negotiate the narrow entrance to a mews street, and sped up. They were in one of the most built-up city centres in the world, Elsa wanted to tell her, and one of the most heavily surveilled; it was insane to think they could evade capture.
But a garage door opened up halfway along the mews and a Vauxhall Astra pulled out of it ahead of them. Camille slammed on the brakes – Elsa was flung forward – to swing into the garage behind it. Shards of glass fell from Elsa’s hair as a brick wall rushed towards them – but the car stopped dead.
Elsa’s heart clattered. Zoe Castle’s fatal pirouette was still imprinted on her mind’s eye; echoes of the automatic gunfire still juddered her bones.
‘Get out.’ Leaving the engine running, Camille climbed from the car, but leaned back in and pointed to Zoe’s pass, which was on the floor. ‘Pick it up!’
Elsa snatched it up, and followed Camille to the other car. Two women in baseball caps and dark glasses appeared from nowhere and jumped into the car they had just abandoned in the garage. It pulled out and drove back in the opposite direction. When Camille drove the Astra onto a main road, Elsa tried to get her bearings. They were somewhere in Holborn, or Bloomsbury, maybe Euston.
