Zero kill, p.22
Zero Kill, page 22
But Joel reached out. ‘No, stand down!’
He grabbed the knife from Dani and threw it across the floor.
‘She’s with us now,’ he said, and then told Dani and Valentine to wait outside. ‘We’ll be out in a moment.’
‘Tell me,’ Elsa demanded.
Joel walked into the living room, with its magnificent views of the city, and picked up the photo of Noah Pettifore and the small, avuncular man.
‘Do you know who this is?’ She shook her head. ‘His name is Arkady Krupin, he’s a Russian businessman, and the main financier of Pettifore’s biological research. We believe Krupin and Pettifore are responsible for what happened to you in Buenos Aires nine years ago, and the reason you’re currently as popular as a fox in a henhouse.’
‘You’re CIA,’ she said.
‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘And as usual we’re trying to get you bumbling Brits out of a hole.’
‘I don’t understand what’s happening,’ she said angrily. ‘Or why you insinuated yourself into my life, and the lives of my kids.’
‘Harley and India, are they safe?’
‘No,’ she hissed. ‘They’re not safe. I need to go and get them.’
Joel held up his hands. ‘The first thing we’ll do is get them to safety. This crazy situation has just got a whole lot bigger, Elsa. It’s not about you now, it’s about the whole goddamn world.’
‘Just tell me what it is!’
‘You’ll be debriefed as soon as we get you all to a CIA safe house.’ He sighed. ‘I’m so sorry, Elsa. I had hoped, a part of me even believed… I would never be activated.’
‘You tried to kill me.’
‘The Agency panicked, like all the other agencies panicked, and I was given no choice. But now…’ He smiled hopefully. ‘Maybe when all this is over, Elsa, there’s still a chance we could—’
‘Not a chance,’ she told him. ‘Not in this universe.’
‘In another lifetime, then.’ Joel nodded sadly. ‘We have to go. If we guessed you’d come here, other parties will too.’
When he walked out of the room, Elsa tried to make sense of it. The new information, about Pettifore and Joel and the Russian, Pilot Fish, the constantly shifting sands of trust and betrayal. All of it spun in her throbbing head.
She walked onto the balcony to check on Saint downstairs; they’d pick him up on the way out. But he was gone, when he’d promised her he’d stay put.
‘Joel…’ she called, getting a bad feeling about everything.
But when she caught up with him at the apartment door, he was backing up. Because Camille was coming in, pointing a gun at them. Stepping over the bodies of Valentine and Dani, she was flanked by two men, who took Joel and Elsa’s weapons and then searched them.
‘Make sure the rest of the apartment is secure,’ Camille told the men and gestured for Joel and Elsa to return to the living room.
‘Camille Archard, right?’ Joel grinned. ‘We haven’t met, I’m Joel.’
She ignored him. A ringing sound came from a soundbar below a wall-mounted TV; a telephone icon flashed on the screen. Elsa saw there was a small camera above it.
While her two associates kept their guns aimed, Camille went to the MacBook on the desk and activated the call.
‘Krupin,’ Joel said, but she already recognized the man who appeared on the screen as the jocular Russian in the photo he had shown her.
‘Elsa!’ Arkady gave her a happy wave, as if he was Zooming an old friend. ‘You gave us a scare with all your frantic running and hiding. Noah sends his regrets that he isn’t able to say hello. He’s currently doing vital work for me, which he has only been able to complete thanks to you.’
Camille lifted her Glock at Elsa, intending to shoot her.
‘It’s my sincere hope that we will both be able to thank you in person,’ Arkady continued urgently. ‘Which is why I want to invite you to my home, as my guest.’
‘That was never our agreement.’ Camille turned sharply to the TV. ‘You said I could kill her, as soon as you got what you needed.’
‘Circumstances change, Camille,’ Arkady said cheerfully, his face looming close on the screen. ‘And there’s been an alteration to the plan.’
‘No.’ Camille shook her head. ‘That’s unacceptable.’
‘You will still, I am sure, get your wish to kill her at the appropriate time.’ He waved his hands in apology. ‘I’m sorry, Elsa, this is probably not something you wish to hear.’
‘What is this all about?’ Elsa asked. ‘What do you want?’
Arkady wagged a finger. ‘There’s a lot of questions to unpack there. When we meet, I’ll happily give you the answers you crave. Thank you,’ he told someone off-screen when a coffee was placed in front of him. ‘That’s very kind.’
‘Okay,’ Joel told him. ‘We’ll come to you, Arkady, if that’s what it takes.’
Peering closely at Joel, Arkady frowned. ‘I don’t know who you are.’
‘My name is Joel Harris, Mr Krupin.’ Elsa’s former fiancé walked towards the camera. ‘I’m CIA.’
‘I’m afraid, Mr Harris, that you’re an irrelevance here.’
When Arkady gestured to Camille, Joel reminded Elsa quietly, ‘Another lifetime, then.’
Camille stepped up and shot Joel in the back of the head. Blood sprayed everywhere as he collapsed to the ground. She stood over him and put another couple of bullets in the body.
When Elsa sprang forward, Camille swung the gun eagerly in her face.
‘Easy, Camille,’ said Krupin, with a hint of annoyance.
‘You promised!’ she snarled. ‘You said I could kill her!’
‘And you’ll get your opportunity, but you must be patient. Bring her here.’
He stabbed at a button on his keyboard and the connection dropped.
Handing her gun to one of the men, Camille took out a syringe. She pulled the plastic cap off the hypodermic needle with her teeth and spat it out.
‘Fuck him, maybe I’ll just kill you anyway.’
‘You heard what he wants,’ Elsa said tensely as the two men held her still.
‘You know what, Elsa?’ snarled Camille. ‘I’m sick of saving your worthless life.’
Elsa struggled fiercely, but the men held her tight as Camille plunged the needle into her neck.
35
Nine years earlier
As soon as the door blew in, Elsa emptied her magazine into the corridor. One, two, three men fell, but more came inside, moving slowly, inexorably along the corridor. The angry chatter of machine guns filled the room as the intruders returned fire.
Elsa braced herself against the wall on one side of the living-room door, Carragher on the other. They were trapped in the apartment, there was no getting downstairs, no climbing to the roof. The only possibility of escape was along the balcony, but as soon as they went outside, they’d likely be cut to pieces.
‘Camille!’ Carragher shouted at Elsa. ‘She’s downstairs!’
If the gunmen had made their way up, it meant Camille was heading to the roof with Antovic or already dead, he must know that.
Moving in and out of the doorway to fire bursts at the figures who moved relentlessly forward, the carbine heating in her hands, she gestured at the hard drive in the vault.
‘Blow that thing!’
When the men fired back, Elsa ducked back into the room. Fragments of flying plaster stung her face; the wooden door frame disintegrated by her shoulder. Trying to return fire now would be suicide.
‘Do it!’ Tipping over the heavy table, making the computer and other apparatus crash to the floor, she and Carragher threw themselves behind it.
He pressed the wireless detonator and the vault exploded in a deafening blast, causing the walls to crack, the door to fly off and cement and plaster to rain from the ceiling. Disintegrating chandeliers flew across the room. Fire poured from the opening, and a dense wall of smoke swept towards them. When Elsa’s ears stopped ringing, she realized Carragher was standing in the doorway, obscured by whirls of smoke, angrily firing into the corridor. Screaming, shouting, his face a grimace of fury.
‘Get out!’ he shouted at her. Elsa ran towards the balcony doors. She didn’t understand why he didn’t retreat. When the smoke cleared, he’d be a sitting duck.
‘Move!’ she screamed.
When the magazine on his weapon was empty, Carragher threw it down and turned to follow. But there was a burst of gunfire, and his arms flew up over his head. He fell.
‘Steve!’ He was sprawled across the floor, not moving. Elsa’s instinct was to go to him, but armed men poured from the doorway.
One of them fired a couple of rounds into Carragher’s back, just below his Kevlar vest. The body jerked and lay still.
Elsa emptied her rifle at the men, kept her finger on the trigger. Carragher’s assailant went down, and another man behind him, and then she ran. She lifted a shoulder, smashing through the shattered balcony doors, stumbled outside.
She was three storeys up. There was no fire escape, no safe place to climb down. If she jumped, she’d break every bone in her body. Chips of stone flew everywhere, gunmen were firing up at her from the street below as she ran along the balcony. But then one of the men flew into the air, and the others dived out of the way. A van came careening along the road, smashing and scraping against cars parked at the kerb; swerving as the scattering gunmen took aim at the windscreen. Axles crunching, it mounted the pavement.
‘Jump!’ Saint shouted in her earpiece. At the wheel of the van, he slammed on the brakes.
‘Now!’ Camille’s voice screamed, and Elsa realized she could hear them both again. ‘Jump now!’
There was no time to calculate angles or second-guess her desperately narrowing options, all she had left was the instinct that had kept her alive.
Elsa leaped onto the balustrade, but there was another burst of gunfire behind her as men rushed onto the balcony. Elsa felt a shrieking pain in the top of her thigh. Her leg gave way beneath her, and she half jumped, half toppled off the parapet.
Twisting in mid-air, she fell, time slowing as the street hurtled up towards her—
And slammed hard into the roof of the van.
The fall briefly knocked her cold, and when she returned to consciousness seconds later, she barely knew where she was. The vehicle speeding beneath her was swerving wildly, as if trying to shake her off. She rolled across the roof, the onrushing air cooling her damp face, and grabbed at each side, digging the tips of her fingers into the lip above the doors as best she could. She heard gunfire behind her, the screech of tyres.
Her fingers lost their grip on the driver’s side, and she instinctively grabbed hold again as the van sped through the streets. The wind rushing in her face as she lay spreadeagled, trying to distribute her mass as evenly as possible, she felt the van swerve. Pressing the side of her face against the warm metal, she heard the gears grind, and Saint’s voice shouting below.
‘…want it there now… pick us up… emergency…’
Elsa felt a crunching judder as the van clipped the side of a parked car. A sharp corner almost made her lose her grip. Her thoughts became sluggish as the van hurtled through the busy streets, swinging from lane to lane. Unable to feel her left leg, numbness creeping up her side, snaking trails of her own blood shivering and jumping on the roof, she clung on as best she could. Until she couldn’t hold on any more, couldn’t stay conscious any longer, and she blacked out.
When her eyes opened again, searing bright light burned into her vision. Saint’s face loomed close to hers.
‘Stay with me,’ he screamed, tears running down his cheeks. ‘You ain’t going anywhere, you got me? You fucking stay with me, Elsie!’
But she couldn’t stay with him, didn’t have the strength. She wanted to close her eyes and rest, just for a short while, or a long time, or forever.
Just close her eyes. Let her entire life force drain from her, still her indestructible heart. She’d welcome oblivion, leave behind the world and its endless violence. Let it all go.
But somewhere inside of her, she also knew it wasn’t just her any more.
Her baby was in her – deep down she maybe sensed it was more than one child. She had to fight, not just for herself, but for the new life forming inside of her. Stay alive for the children.
Camille’s face appeared in her blurred vision. ‘Steve,’ she asked Elsa. ‘Steve…’
‘Gone,’ Elsa said, aloud or in her own head, she didn’t know.
Her eyelids fluttered, she was freezing and burning at the same time, everything slowing. Saint was with her, and Camille, too, and the big heavy rotors of the helicopter she was in spun slowly above her; each blade distinct in her tunnel vision, turning with the slow, sluggish swipe of a windmill. She had no idea how this impossible machine could fly.
Life was ebbing from her, but Elsa didn’t want to let go because she had her child… her children. And if she lived, if she got another chance, she would take more care of them than she ever did herself.
Her fingers slid in the sticky mess of her own blood on the rough metal floor of the bird. It was everywhere, it seemed to have no end. Blood was draining from her body as fast as it could; soaking the floor, racing for the open cargo door, spilling into the vivid blue sky.
‘You fucking stay with me!’ Saint shouted, but most of his words were obliterated by the noisy roar of the engine.
Wind brushed against her fevered face. Barely conscious, Elsa watched the sky twist and turn. The sprawling city seemed to recede above her head. She felt a faint pressure on her freezing hand, and when her head lolled to the side, Camille told her softly, ‘We’ve got you.’
But Elsa just couldn’t hang on, for herself or the life taking root inside of her, and she fell unconscious.
Her last thought: I’m going to die.
36
Elsa opened her eyes to find herself sprawled fully clothed on crisp sheets of Egyptian cotton, her head burrowed in a cool microfibre pillow, in a large room of dazzling white.
She saw a walnut cabinet against one wall, a wardrobe, Eames chair, a woven rug of vibrant colour; a stylish Scandi light hung from the high ceiling. Across the room was a wide door of dark wood.
A tall window looked out over a sweeping lawn and woods beyond, a fragment of gravel drive. She heard car doors slam, crunching footsteps. Somewhere inside the building, someone laughed.
She swung her feet off the bed – her ruined trainers were tucked beneath it, afforded a respect they didn’t deserve – and took an audit of all the aches and pains up her legs, body, and on her arms and face. The conclusion she came to was that she hurt in a lot of places. A multitude of swirling bruises covered her torso, every colour of the rainbow, including an angry storm of blue-black clouding her left side. Her left cheek was swollen, her ear throbbed, her shoulder pulsated. But she could still bend her arms, legs, fingers and toes.
Stomping her feet into the trainers, Elsa stood at the window looking across the sea of flat lawn. The branches of the trees in the woods beyond swayed. If she stood at the extreme left of the window, she could just about see vehicles – four black SUVs and a motorbike – parked on a circular drive at the front of the building.
Elsa didn’t hold out much hope when she tried the handle of the door, but was surprised to find it opened, and she stepped out into a corridor.
She was in a large house, a mansion or stately home – Elsa didn’t know the difference – because the corridor outside was wide and tall and elegant, with ornamental cornices on the ceiling and a narrow runner carpet revealing edges of shiny floorboard. Paintings of venerable dead people wearing wigs lined the walls.
A man stood to one side of the door, the kind of shaven-headed rent-a-thug who usually flanked Terry outside Panda’s club. Elsa tensed, ready to crack his head into the plaster, but he politely said, ‘Good afternoon.’
Elsa nodded and walked along the corridor, the guy following at a discreet distance. She heard him murmur into a mic, ‘Miss Zero is walking.’
Before she got to the end of the corridor, Arkady Krupin came hurrying around the corner with a pair of champagne glasses.
‘Elsa!’ he exclaimed, rushing towards her. ‘I’m so glad you’re awake.’ He offered her a flute of bubbling fizz. ‘Please, this is for you.’
Elsa had been shot at, sliced, stabbed and nearly drowned, so she eyed it suspiciously. ‘What is it?’
‘Champagne.’ Arkady looked offended. ‘Dom Pérignon, naturally.’
She took the glass and threw it against the wall. It shattered and champagne dribbled down the paintwork.
Arkady winced. ‘Perhaps later.’
He tipped back his head and downed his own glass, then handed the empty flute to the shaven-headed man.
‘You’re not going to attack me, are you?’ He chopped the air playfully with his outstretched hand. ‘Fell me with one blow, snap my neck?’
‘That depends,’ she said.
‘I can assure you, Elsa, you’re safe. Nobody here bears you any ill will.’ He added in a whisper, ‘Except possibly your friend Camille. As you know, she does love to bear a grudge.’
He laughed and told the guard to leave them alone.
Elsa asked Arkady, ‘How are you so sure I won’t kill you?’
‘Because that would be rude, considering how I saved your life this morning, yes?’ He grinned. ‘And because you’re dying to know what this is all about.’
He started walking, and she followed him.
‘What is this place?’
‘It’s my home, one of them, at least. We purchased it nearly two years ago, my wife and I. Every inch of it needed refurbishment, and that work was overseen by Natalya.’
Elsa was no expert on interior decor. ‘She’s done a good job.’
‘She’d love to hear that, but she’s gone.’
‘She’s dead?’
‘Sadly no,’ he said. ‘But we live in hope.’
‘Like you hoped to kill me.’
‘On the contrary.’ Arkady sounded offended. ‘We tried to grab you outside the restaurant, but unfortunately you evaded us.’ The fake paramedics in the ambulance, she remembered. ‘After that, our best hope was to keep you out of the hands of the intelligence agencies who were so keen to kill you, or spirit you away, until we were able to retrieve what we needed. It was our marksman above the square who ruined your attempt to find refuge with SIS, and who forced you into Camille’s orbit.’
