Zero kill, p.27
Zero Kill, page 27
Her eyes flicked over his shoulder. ‘How’s Camille going to feel about you taking my kids along for the ride?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s irrelevant what she thinks.’
‘Don’t you love her any more? Because she’s still crazy about you, Steve. She’s been slavishly doing all your dirty work even all these years later.’
‘Fuck Camille,’ Carragher said with venom. ‘She’s served her purpose.’
Elsa winced. ‘There’s something you need to be aware of, Steve.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘She’s behind you.’
The smile froze on Carragher’s face, but he didn’t turn. Elsa had watched Camille approach as she and Carragher argued.
Elsa gave her a little wave. ‘Hi, Camille.’
Ignoring Elsa, Camille told her husband, ‘Kieron is ready to go.’
Carragher turned to acknowledge his wife’s presence for the first time, and then strode off towards reception. ‘Bring her.’
‘Ouch!’ Elsa grimaced. ‘That was super awkward. But you’ve always known it, right, Camille? I mean, there was you doing your master’s bidding, putting your cover with RedQueen at risk every single day, while Steve was living a life of luxury, drinking piña coladas as he dished out your orders. And all the time, he didn’t care about you; all he could think about was the moment he’d be reunited with his kids… and with me. That’s cold, Camille. It must hurt, hearing him say out loud what you’ve always suspected deep down in that cruel little heart of yours… he doesn’t love you. Maybe he never did. Personally, I’d kill him for that.’
‘That’s not my style, Elsa, you know that. I’ll kill his kids instead.’ A dead weight of fear dropped into Elsa’s gut as Camille pointed her handgun. ‘Shall we go?’
42
Greta Zero sat impassively in an interrogation pod, gnarled hands folded in her lap. The pod was a solid steel, soundproof 1412-foot steel container, which sat in the centre of an empty concrete room in a secure area of the SIS building in Vauxhall Cross. The acoustic foam walls on each of the pod’s seven sides were of a distinctive egg-carton waved design. Once the door was closed and sealed it was impossible to hear anything spoken inside, and the space was completely secure from electronic surveillance.
Plowright’s original idea had been to let Greta sit alone in the deafening silence for an hour. But you could tell when she was left in the pod – her face was a placid mask – that her will was indefatigable. She would probably enjoy the isolation and use the opportunity to meditate or think about her bloody chickens. As a young woman, Greta had spent many days lying motionless among twisted rubble and broken glass in the ruins of bombed-out buildings, waiting to make a successful shot. Forcing her to wait wasn’t going to provide him with any psychological advantage. Besides, it wasn’t as if he had the luxury of time himself.
‘Open it,’ he told one of the guards.
The man turned a handle on the heavy door, which swung open to allow Plowright and Justine Vydelingum inside. Greta barely looked up when he dropped slim green files on the table and fell into a chair opposite. Justine stood at the door.
‘Greta, my name is Nigel Plowright.’
‘Yes.’ She glanced at him. ‘You look like one.’
He blinked, unsure of whether he was being insulted. Her polystyrene cup was empty.
‘Would you like more water, Greta?’
Her brown eyes, nestled in the criss-cross of lines scratched deeply into the rumpled skin on her face, considered him blankly.
‘Very well,’ he said, when she didn’t answer. ‘We saw what happened at your farm this morning, Greta.’
He opened the top cardboard file with the tip of his Bic pen and spread photos of the farm siege, as recorded by satellite, across the table.
‘We saw the helicopter come down and… all hell break loose. It was quite remarkable, really. Seven men with automatic weapons climbed out of the bird, but only five climbed back in.’ Plowright smiled. ‘Someone is rather a good shot.’
‘Howard is a skilled marksman,’ Greta said tersely. ‘He was in the Royal Marines.’
‘I have no doubt Howard was a crack shot, Greta, up there with the best the British Army has produced. But as good a marksman as he once was, I don’t think Howard has ever been anywhere near as good as Klaudia Romanova Lobkovskaya.’
The old woman watched impassively as he continued.
‘As you may know, Klaudia was a celebrated Soviet sniper who mysteriously disappeared in 1972. She won the Hero of the Soviet Union medal twice, but is believed to have been killed in a government purge when she fell in love with an enemy combatant. Rumours still swirl about Klaudia, who has become something of a legend in death. There are unsubstantiated stories of a desperate flight to freedom carrying Soviet secrets, of a new identity in the West, even wetwork for British intelligence. Not that I could ever find anything in our files about that, Greta. The cupboard full of classified secrets is very empty where information about Klaudia is concerned.’
Greta’s expression didn’t change. God, the old woman was hard work. Plowright took out a black-and-white image pinned to the page.
‘There are hardly any photos of Klaudia in existence. She was notoriously photo-shy, as many dangerous people are. But this was taken in the early 1960s, when she was a young woman.’ Greta didn’t look at the photo he pushed in front of her. ‘I must say, Klaudia was a bit of a smasher when she was young.’
Taken on a parade ground, the photo showed a young woman wearing a green cotton shirt beneath a dark green Soviet officer’s jacket. Her brown hair was worn in tidy buns on either side of her head. An officer’s cap trapped beneath one arm, Klaudia contemplated the camera with the same disdain with which Greta regarded him now.
‘There’ll have to be an investigation, of course, into the deaths of the men on your property, and I imagine some difficult truths will emerge.’
A tremor rippled across Greta’s face that may or may not have been a smile. ‘Oh, you won’t be opening that can of worms.’
Plowright shifted in his seat; because she was right, of course.
She leaned forward and her eyes were hard and cold. ‘My arrival in this country was arranged by your government, for whom I did work.’
‘You’re right, intolerable pressure will be placed on me to stop my probing too deeply into the past, and besides, there won’t be any kind of paper trail. But I’m sure someone will do a deal to quietly hand you back, Klaudia.’ Plowright winced, silly me. ‘I mean, Greta. I’m sure you will be given a warm welcome back in Mother Russia. They’ll want to talk to you about all the Soviet secrets you stole, and the deaths of certain high-ranking officials, and…’ Plowright’s voice hardened. ‘You will never see your husband again.’
Greta’s steady gaze was unpleasant, as if she was imagining him through the magnified crosshairs of a telescopic sight.
‘What do you want?’ she asked finally.
‘Who were the men who attacked you and your husband, and took the children?’
‘There was no time to ask.’
‘You killed two of them, and yet they didn’t kill you in retaliation. Why?’
‘Professional courtesy, I suppose,’ said Greta. ‘I’m not complaining about it.’
Plowright said over his shoulder to Justine, ‘Leave us alone.’
‘Sir?’
‘Go outside.’ He gathered up the files. ‘And take these.’
She signalled through the window that she wanted to come out. When the door closed, Plowright continued.
‘Elsa is being hunted by some very dangerous people, Greta, the most dangerous people. Assassins from every major intelligence agency. We have no idea where she is – if she isn’t dead already, she soon will be. Do you have any idea where she could be?’
‘She wouldn’t tell me. She’s a wilful and secretive woman.’
For the first time, Plowright sensed tension in her.
‘Whoever took Harley and India will not think twice about killing or harming them if it means getting to her.’ He watched her carefully. ‘Whatever your relationship with Elsa, they’re your grandchildren. Even a cold-blooded professional like you must feel some responsibility for letting them fall into enemy hands.’
He clasped his hands on the table and waited. In the total silence of the pod, blood gushed in his ears, his heart thumped in his chest.
‘I want to see my husband,’ Greta said finally.
Plowright shook his head. ‘Give me something I can use, and I’ll consider it.’
‘Howard and I make our decisions together.’
‘Not going to happen,’ he said, but a muscle in Greta’s jaw tightened, and he knew this was a battle of wills he was destined to lose. He motioned at the window and, when the door opened, told Justine, ‘Bring Howard Zero here.’
Unnerved by Greta’s unwavering stare, he took out his phone, but realized there was no signal, so they sat in tense silence. To avoid looking at her, he examined the curious undulations on the walls.
Fifteen minutes later, the old man was brought inside. Howard had to stoop to get his tall frame through the hatch. An additional chair was placed beside his wife. Neither of them so much as glanced at the other, but Plowright sensed their palpable relief at being reunited.
They had wasted enough time. ‘Where were the children taken?’
‘How are we meant to know that?’ said Howard.
‘Give me something,’ Plowright snapped. ‘Or I swear to God this will be the last time you ever see each other.’
Howard glanced at his wife, and Greta nodded.
‘The girl has a doll,’ Greta told Plowright. ‘Or she did when she was taken from the basement. It has a medical alert device hidden inside it.’
‘The doctor gave it to me,’ said Howard, with a dismissive wave. ‘But I’ve never used it. It has inbuilt GPS with a cellular connection.’
Plowright waggled his fingers to get Justine’s attention outside. ‘There’s a passcode?’
‘The whole thing would be pointless if there wasn’t.’
When Justine came in, Plowright snatched her notebook and pen, and pushed them in front of the Zeros. ‘Write it down.’
Howard picked up the pen, but hesitated over the paper. ‘It’s escaped me for the moment. Can you remember, Greta?’
‘It’s quite a long number,’ said Greta.
‘With several lowercase letters and symbols.’
‘The lives of those children and your daughter are at stake, the lives of millions.’ Plowright had been as patient as possible, but his voice rose in anger. ‘So it would be very, very useful if you could remember.’
Howard’s chin jutted in the air. He clearly didn’t like Plowright’s tone, but recognized the urgency of the situation. ‘I believe the number is in a cabinet at the farm. Isn’t it, Greta?’
His wife shook her head. ‘The bottom drawer of the dresser.’
‘I’m sure I put it in the living-room cabinet.’
‘You moved it,’ she insisted. ‘When we had that tidy-up.’
‘I don’t think I—’
‘For God’s sake!’ Plowright jumped out of his seat and told Justine, ‘Get a helicopter here, and an armed guard. Howard’s popping home.’
43
Except for the two bodies left in the isolation chamber, the biolab was abandoned when Elsa arrived back in the massive room. Noah Pettifore’s team were dropping laptops and tablets into bags. All the lab equipment would be left behind.
Arkady Krupin was standing at a table with Kieron, who was now dressed in a hoodie, jeans and trainers, watching Noah carefully handling two sealed glass vials. The slim vials looked empty, except for the slightly fogged glass, but they contained submicroscopic virions that would infect countless people as soon as the deadly contents were released into the atmosphere. The biologist’s fingers trembled very slightly as he placed each vial into its own rubber insert in a graphite case the size of a child’s lunchbox.
‘Don’t take any unnecessary risks, Kieron,’ Arkady told him. ‘Drop one of the vials in Trafalgar Square, then make your way to Euston Station – no need to rush – and drop the other on the concourse. If at any time you feel threatened, smash both vials.’
Watching tensely as Noah closed the clasps on the case, Kieron nodded. ‘Understood.’
Arkady squeezed his shoulders. ‘You’re doing a great thing, my friend. You’re helping this complacent, indulgent world come back to its senses. I promise you, your wife will receive the best care available, from the best doctors.’
‘You’ll be dead as a doornail, though,’ Elsa said.
Arkady picked up the case carefully.
‘It’s perfectly safe,’ Noah told him. ‘Is the helicopter ready?’
‘I want to say goodbye to my staff,’ Arkady told him, and Noah gave him a sharp look. ‘Don’t worry, it will take Kieron fifteen minutes to get to the airstrip, another twenty to fly into London. We have plenty of time.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Elsa. ‘I bet you have a home in London, too.’
‘Two. One in Kensington, another in Hampstead.’
‘Then why are you doing this? Why release the virus there?’
‘Impact,’ Arkady told her. ‘It has to be a capital of one of the major Western democracies; the West must experience the cataclysm first.’ His lips curled in a vicious smile. ‘But also, my ex-wife Natalya lives there. Partying, living the good life on my money, without me. I can’t think of a better way of ruining her day.’
‘Wow,’ Elsa said in wonder. ‘That all sounds very grown-up.’
‘It doesn’t matter where it’s released,’ Carragher told her. ‘The virus will spread far and wide. London is only the beginning.’
‘And I thought you were going to look after my kids, Steve?’
‘We have a safe place. Impenetrable and far away. The virus won’t touch us.’
Elsa glanced at Camille. ‘You’re all going to get on like a house on fire.’
Camille couldn’t hold in her anger any longer and stepped in front of him. ‘After everything I’ve done for you, for us? All these years I’ve loved you, and worked for you?’
‘Not now.’ He spoke in a cold, quiet voice. ‘We’ll talk about it later.’
‘We’ll talk about it now.’
‘What was it you said, Steve, “fuck Camille”?’ said Elsa helpfully. ‘He doesn’t love you, Cam, if he ever did.’
‘You think I’m going to bring up her brats, play mother, knowing that every time you see them you’ll think of her?’
‘If the situation is not to your satisfaction,’ Carragher told her, ‘then maybe you need to consider your own future.’
‘She said she’d kill Harley and India,’ Elsa told him. ‘You have to kill her first.’
‘Enough!’ Arkady clapped his hands angrily at Carragher and Camille. ‘I don’t care how you two solve your petty squabbles, but you will wait until we’ve finished here.’
He placed the case containing the vials in a backpack. Kieron knew he was on a suicide mission, he’d be the first person to be infected when he smashed the vial, would die a horrible death within hours, but he picked up the backpack.
‘You need to go,’ Carragher said, trying to get the conversation back on track. ‘To make the rendezvous.’
Kieron nodded, but Camille snatched the backpack.
‘I’ll see him out,’ she said, and walked quickly towards the door.
Arkady shook Kieron’s hand. ‘Goodbye, my friend.’
When Kieron left, Arkady nodded at Hazlett. ‘Get the helicopter ready, we leave in ten minutes.’ He glanced at Elsa. ‘Well, most of us. It’s a shame you’ve declined Steve’s invitation, Elsa, I think you could have contributed greatly to our cause, and you’re an entertaining person. It was lovely to meet you, nevertheless.’
He left the room as Noah continued to direct the clean-up operation.
‘I thought you were going to ask Saint to join you?’ she asked.
‘I did, but he’s of no use to anyone these days.’
‘It was sweet of you to try to get the old gang back together,’ she said drily.
‘Say goodbye to him for me.’
‘I want to see my children one last time,’ Elsa said.
Carragher shook his head. ‘You made your choice, Elsa. It’s over for you.’
She thought briefly of making her move, but was flanked by a pair of Arkady’s armed guards. She’d be dead before she raised a fist.
‘Please…’ The word left a nasty taste in her mouth, especially where Carragher was concerned. ‘Don’t let Camille hurt them.’
‘Harley and India are my future, Camille is the past.’
He intended to kill his wife, Elsa knew. Camille had devoted her life to Steve Carragher, but that didn’t matter to him in the slightest.
‘Steve…’ Elsa would plead with him if she thought there was a chance he wouldn’t take her children, but knew it was no good; there was no bargaining with a man like that.
He walked off, telling the men, ‘Don’t get too close to her.’
44
Bloodyfuckingtittybollocks, Plowright thought. I’m going to be forced to make the decision, I just know it.
The medical alert device Howard and Greta hid in the girl’s rag doll had pinged in a Surrey mansion owned by the oligarch Arkady Krupin. The man had been implicated in a number of conspiracies, his name had even come up in frantic conversations following the theft of the genomic sequence of the pathogen from the lab in Siberia.
But Krupin had powerful friends within the government of his own country, in the UK and across the world, and somehow he’d always managed to cover his tracks.
But just because Elsa Zero’s children had been tracked to his property didn’t necessarily mean the virus was being manufactured there. In the ops room at SIS, Plowright gazed at a screen that displayed a high-res image of the massive estate, as seen from the edge of space. Multiple vehicles were parked on the gravel drive; on the vast lawn beside the property was an Airbus helicopter. Since the image was put on the screen, there’d been activity outside, but nobody had left.
