Zero kill, p.18
Zero Kill, page 18
‘What’s happening?’ Elsa asked.
‘I can’t come with you to the jet, there’s too much going on here.’
In the side mirror, Elsa saw a Discovery come up the street behind them, roll past and stop fifty yards ahead. Elsa turned to look at Saint, still asleep in the back.
‘What about him?’
‘Take him with you, or leave him here. Your choice.’
‘He’s no good to me,’ Elsa told her. ‘Not where I’m going, wherever that is.’
‘I’ll get the guys to dump him somewhere on the way,’ Camille said. ‘He’ll be fine, he’s not a target.’
Elsa didn’t like running away, it felt like failure, but she couldn’t for the life of her work out what else she could do next.
‘Where am I going?’
Camille reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘Honestly, I don’t know, and it’s for the best that I don’t. It’ll be somewhere safe and secure. As soon as the people upstairs find out what’s happening, and work out how to solve this situation, we’ll bring you back. Everyone at RedQueen is working as hard as they can to open up channels.’
Elsa reached over and hugged her former friend, who reciprocated warmly, despite everything she knew about Elsa and Carragher’s relationship. ‘I’m sorry again for—’
Camille gently pushed her away so that she could look into her eyes.
‘Water under the bridge. The main thing is to make sure you’re safe.’
‘Thanks for saving my life – that’s twice now.’
‘There won’t be a third time,’ Camille said with a smile. ‘Goodbye, Elsa.’
Elsa reached over and slapped Saint on the knee.
His eyes snapped open and he sat up sharply. ‘Whassup!’
‘Come on.’ Elsa opened the passenger door. ‘We’ve got a new ride.’
29
Sitting in the back of the Discovery, Elsa couldn’t believe that it had ended like this. She was fleeing, and whatever happened next, wherever in the world they hid her away, she would always have to look over her shoulder.
Her supposed crime, whatever it was she was alleged to have seen or done, may be corrected at some point in the future, or it may not. All of that would be out of her hands.
RedQueen had numerous secure facilities around the world, and Camille may have hinted at an endless vacation on a faraway beach of pristine white sand, or a mountain log cabin overlooking a lush forest where she could meditate and learn to whittle wood figures, but Elsa knew better.
She and her kids were more likely to go into hiding in a breeze-block compound in Sierra Leone, surrounded by mercenaries, or bake to death in an underground bunker. She’d be there for weeks, months, most probably years – if she ever came home at all. It may be impossible for RedQueen to even exonerate her; for all Elsa knew, she was in actual fact guilty of whatever she was accused of.
Even if she did return, her former employer would expect to be reimbursed for the effort and resources it had pumped into clearing her name by putting her to work all over again; to carry out deep cover missions, incursions, extractions; to once again cause merry hell across the world. Maybe Saint was right, she’d been foolish to believe she could ever escape the life. Nine years was as good as it got.
But Elsa couldn’t let her children be robbed of their childhood, she would never forgive herself for that. Whatever happened to her, she had to ensure they lived as normal a life as possible, even if that meant she’d never be able to see them again. She felt a sharp ache in her solar plexus at the thought of it.
Saint was slumped beside her, seemingly asleep again. In the close confines of the car the stink of him was overpowering, and she saw the guy in the passenger seat crank up the air conditioning. Neither he nor the driver had bothered to turn when Elsa and Saint climbed in, and their faces were mostly hidden in shadow as they drove.
‘You’re going to dump me somewhere, yeah?’ grunted Saint.
She thought he’d been asleep during her conversation with Camille in the other car.
‘You’ll be all right, Saint, they’re not trying to kill you. I’ll arrange money for you, get you back on your feet. We’ll get you into rehab. Maybe there’ll be enough for you to find that beach home.’
He grunted. ‘I’m no good to you.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that. I’ve a lot to think about.’
‘You’re running away,’ he said.
‘What am I supposed to do?’ She turned to him in anger. ‘How am I supposed to take on the entire world if I don’t even know what I’m fighting for? They didn’t find anything on that computer in the dead vault.’
‘I heard what she said. Seems to me I heard more than you.’
His red, puffy eyes glinted at her.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘Come on, Elsie. You’re losing your touch, love.’
She pointed at her bad ear. ‘I could barely hear a thing she said.’
His eyes shifted to the men in the front and he hooked a finger for her to come closer. ‘When you told her about the assassins at the house, she said they were Russians.’ He made a sad face, as if embarrassed to be the bearer of bad news. ‘How did she know?’
Elsa leaned forward between the seats and eyed the GPS, which was blank.
‘Which airstrip are we going to?’ she asked the men in front.
‘I’m sorry, miss.’ The guy in the passenger seat didn’t turn. ‘We’re not authorized to tell you that.’
‘What’s the big secret if you’re taking us there anyway?’
He turned finally and gave her a big smile, like an amiable tour guide. ‘We’ll be there soon enough, I promise.’
‘Hey.’ Saint prodded the touchscreen on the back of the passenger seat. ‘We can play Minecraft.’
Elsa couldn’t work out where they were, but if she had to guess they were in or around Putney, heading south. Heathrow was not too far away, but they were hardly going to march her through the crowds there to put her on a plane.
‘We’ll get out here,’ she told the men, and elbowed Saint to get ready. ‘Pull over.’
‘Our instructions are to make sure you get on a flight.’
‘Where?’ she asked him again. ‘Where are we heading?’
The grey-haired man in the passenger seat looked apologetic. ‘Please, Miss Zero, we’re just here to take you to the air—’
‘Don’t engage with her,’ the driver told him.
‘Charming.’ Saint leaned forward, but the grey-haired man’s hand lifted over the edge of the seat, to reveal a handgun with a suppressor attached.
‘Woah!’ Saint lifted his hands. ‘Over-reaction!’
The car accelerated. They were definitely in Putney, because Elsa could see the bridge ahead. God knows where they were being taken. Somewhere quiet and out of town.
‘They’re going to kill us,’ she told Saint.
‘For fuck’s sake.’ He scowled. ‘What a shitty day.’
The man in the passenger seat readjusted his position to keep the gun on them both, resting his wrist beside the headrest to steady his aim.
‘Do you trust me?’ Saint asked her, staring with aggressive intent at the guy.
‘No, I definitely don’t,’ Elsa said. ‘Let me handle this.’
She’d almost had her head blown off earlier, her ear still throbbed badly, and this gun, a SIG P320, was nearly as close to her face as the previous one had been. The guy in the front couldn’t miss.
‘I don’t feel…’ Saint spoke with such feeling that the man jerked the gun in his direction. ‘…that you’re treating me with the respect I deserve. It wasn’t just Camille who saved your life in Buenos Aires, Elsie, I did too, and I say we can take him!’
‘Not now.’ Elsa watched the man tensely.
‘We can kill him in a heartbeat,’ Saint said. ‘Take him by surprise.’
‘He can hear every word you’re saying, Saint. I think the element of surprise has long gone.’
‘I’m going to grab him and rip his head off.’ Saint asked the man, ‘You didn’t hear me say that, did you?’
The man with the gun watched them both carefully. ‘Shut up!’
‘No.’ Saint narrowed his eyes. ‘I don’t think he heard.’
Elsa watched the man. ‘Let me do it.’
Saint leaned towards the window, putting the back of the passenger seat between him and the man. ‘Better be quick then.’
The man’s gun jerked back in Saint’s direction, just as the car sped onto Putney Bridge. And when Elsa edged further from Saint, opening up the space between them, the gun whipped back to her.
‘Do. Not. Move!’ commanded the grey-haired man.
‘Rude!’ Saint reached suddenly between the two rods of the passenger headrest and grabbed the guy’s wrist, pulling hard so that the gun was forced against the rest just as he pulled the trigger. When the gun went off, the driver’s head slammed against the side window in an explosion of blood and bone. His foot jerked, heel first, as the car picked up speed.
Elsa fumbled with her seat belt, trying to get more space to take out the man in the passenger seat, but the vehicle was already veering across the bridge, pulling her into the middle of the back seat. It whipped suddenly to the right when the driver’s body slumped across the wheel, into the path of an approaching car at high speed, and onto the pavement. It hit the wall, crashing through it.
Elsa and Saint were thrown forward as the Discovery plummeted towards the Thames.
Elsa’s head snapped back – and everything began to slow. The vehicle hit the water, throwing the three survivors in the car against their seat belts. The airbags in the car went off. The windscreen blistered as water crashed against the bonnet and over the roof. Elsa felt the vehicle plunge beneath the river and lift back to the surface in a violent ride, then begin to spin, as it was carried along in the fast-flowing tide in the centre of the river.
Turning her head was painful, but she saw the man in front was unconscious against his airbag. Beside her, Saint’s head lolled on his chest. For the second time that night her feet were numb with cold, from the freezing river water that eagerly found a way into the car through fissures and bubbled up from the floor, gushing around her ankles.
The brown murk of the Thames heaved with furious intent against the windows, the heavy mass of it slapping and punching against the fractured windscreen, which was going to give way any second. As soon as it did, the water would pour in and the Land Rover, swept along in the powerful undertow of the river, would sink like a stone.
‘Saint!’ Elsa released her seat belt and fumbled with his. There was a gash on his temple and his head rolled on his shoulders. He was groaning, at least. ‘We have to get out!’
Water was coming into the compartment on all sides. The windscreen shifted ominously under the pounding pressure of the river.
‘We have to get—’
And then she heard a faint pop; the windscreen slid from sight and freezing water filled the interior. It poured around her legs and lap, the shock of cold sending her body into crisis, numbing her skin and nerves. The water was so icy Elsa couldn’t breathe, and she struggled to stay calm. If she panicked and began to hyperventilate, her body’s system would soon shut down.
The front of the car tipped as it dropped. Water frothing at her chest and shoulders, Elsa put her foot to the fractured window in the door beside Saint and kicked. The punishing cold made her ear shriek.
Saint spluttered into life, and Elsa lifted his jaw out of the water swirling around his face, gesturing for him to take a breath in the dwindling pocket of air just below the roof of the car. Dragged down by the fierce current, the vehicle was spiralling into the depths of the river, the still functioning headlight beams cutting through the black water.
Saint thrashed about beside her. The layers of clothing he wore would make it harder for him to swim. Elsa was about to help him climb out of the window when she fell back against the seat. Her face was so numb it took her a moment to realize she had been struck. The man in the passenger seat was climbing between the seats to get to her. He hit her again, she saw his fist in the surge of gushing water, and she was forced underwater, choking on freezing cold. She thought she was going to drown and in a panic arched her back to kiss the roof, gasping for breath in the final, vanishing pocket of air. It would be the last chance she got.
When she submerged again, the man grabbed her, pulling her down beneath him. His hands went around her throat; he would force the last of her breath out of her and she would drown.
But the man’s movements were as sluggish and jerky as hers. Thrashing about, he lifted his own head to the roof. Something hit Elsa’s thigh as it flew around in the water. A headrest had been forced off one of the front seats.
Elsa’s chest felt like it was going to explode; she couldn’t hold her breath for much longer. Her thoughts began to cloud. She didn’t know if that pocket of air was still above her, and couldn’t reach it anyway.
Sticking out a hand, she instinctively grabbed the headrest when it swirled in front of her again and tried to use it to club the man’s head. It glanced off, but she knew he was struggling, even if his hands were still around her neck.
Summoning her last remaining strength, she drove the struts on either side of his head into the back of the driver’s seat, using it as a collar to pin him there by the neck. He clawed at the headrest, thrashing in panic, but Elsa lifted herself in the water to kick it against his throat. The man’s mouth was jerked opened. In the seconds before he drowned, his eyes rolled up in his head.
Elsa moved towards the black window, a pulsing calm spreading over her. She wanted to stop resisting, stop moving, let the river take her in its icy grip. She yearned to sleep, but knew she couldn’t. Slipping out of the car, she used all her last reserves of strength to keep moving away from the dark vehicle and towards a faint undulating light, and not succumb to the stupefying tiredness. She felt herself drift, barely knowing if she was using her limbs at all.
And then she broke the surface of the river. Gasping for air, choking on water. Felt herself go under again and thrashed in a panic. She let out a stricken, noisy cry, and breathed in the numbingly cold night in great, heaving gasps, again and again and again.
‘Saint!’ she called in a strangled voice when she was finally able to. ‘Saint!’
Turning in the choppy water, there was no sign of him, just the river slapping around her face in every direction beneath the moonlight. Shaking from cold and exhaustion, she swam to a slipway she saw nearby, and scrambled out of the water, heaving and spluttering, coughing up water, crawling on her hands and knees as far up the incline as she could, to fall in a shivering heap.
Elsa lay on the slipway, shaking violently, retching with nausea. Teeth chattering, bones icy with cold, body heat steaming off her.
All she did was concentrate on breathing in and out, try to work out if all her organs still functioned. After a few minutes she heard sirens. Lifting her head, she saw figures peering into the water from the top of the bridge, which looked far away. The car had been pulled a long way on the current.
‘You took your time,’ said a voice.
Saint was lying a foot or so above her on the rough concrete. Of course he was; the guy was indestructible. Elsa laughed, barely a juddering vibration between her chattering teeth.
‘I thought they were on our side.’
‘Something’s changed,’ she said. ‘RedQueen doesn’t need us any more.’
Saint’s voice was a garbled quiver. ‘What’s happened?’
Elsa climbed to her feet. She was freezing, shaking. Her skin was blue, her clothes sodden. ‘That’s what we have to find out.’
30
Nine years earlier
Camille Archard phoned the home number of the evening receptionist at the target building, claiming to be from the management company that owned it. Speaking in Spanish, she informed her that emergency repairs were due to be carried out that evening, and she shouldn’t come into work.
Then Antovic sent a message from the evening receptionist’s hacked home mail account to her daytime counterpart, apologizing that she would be ten minutes late to work because of a doctor’s appointment, and to go home as usual. It was as simple as that.
As the red sky darkened into dusk, the day receptionist left to catch her usual colectivo, the bus home. Dressed as the evening receptionist, in the dark suit jacket, red blouse and black tights she most often wore, her blonde hair hidden beneath an auburn wig, Camille arrived moments later from the opposite direction. Careful to keep her face partially hidden from the camera above, she pressed the entry code at the entrance and the door opened with a harsh buzz.
Beneath the watchful eye of a ceiling camera, she did what the evening receptionist often did before she walked behind the mahogany desk, and pulled her fingers down the long, rigid leaves of a yucca plant in a giant pot inside the door, to check none had come loose.
Then she went behind the desk, moving all the items on it into a particular pleasing pattern, the same way the evening receptionist did at the start of every shift. In the small office behind reception, she boiled the kettle to make a mug of herbal tea. Taking a coaster from a drawer, she placed it on the desk in a particular place.
Then she opened a laptop of the same make, and with the same stickers affixed to the front – the logo of a popular telenovela, Hello Kitty, a cartoon llama – the evening receptionist always brought with her to work. But unlike the usual receptionist, who used the quiet twilight hours to write a steamy romantic novel, Camille used it to hijack the encrypted feed of the security cameras.
‘Hola!’ she said cheerily to an elderly resident who came in the door, but didn’t look up from the keyboard.
Nine minutes later, with a final press of the return button, the numerous cameras inside the building – as well as the ones outside – began to show unremarkable footage recorded at the exact same time – 6:22:56 and counting – from two days ago. If anyone inside the target apartment had also hacked the building’s camera feeds for their own security purposes, they would see on their own screens the wannabe romantic novelist standing at the desk with her face bowed to the laptop, a steaming mug of tea beside her, as she wrote of a handsome billionaire’s forbidden lust for his pretty chiropodist.
