More than ever, Neva is aware that she has no one she can trust. She should have killed the hacker. He was lowlife scum who sent out mean viruses to destroy websites or to hold simple people to ransom. But Neva is not a vigilante. Although she did play her part in bringing down the Kill House, she never achieved what she’d really wanted to by that exercise. She concedes that she is happy – is that the right word? – that the children were found and saved. Returned as they were to those who loved them. Even so, she failed to discover her own origins. She failed to get any real revenge, and she thirsts for that. She wonders what retribution will taste like when she at last has it.
Not chocolate.
For the first time Neva feels loneliness and understands what it is. I have no one.
Michael. He is someone to her. Though now she’s angered him with her insistence on quid pro quo for information about the flight. Even so, her request was logical. She needs to know what Archive have on her or at least how to find Olive Redding, the only person who might have the answer.
Redding. She’d been searching for her ever since they both fled the house. But Redding was good, and Neva gained nothing from her enquiries. Redding had gone to ground, and she wasn’t rearing her head. For the last month Neva had stopped looking for her. It was pointless when there were other targets she could get to and learn from.
Neva crosses the road, then walks back towards the Seaview, casually observing the arrival of police and an ambulance to take away the assassin’s body. This won’t please Vasquez. One of their cardinal rules was to leave no evidence behind. The door key to the room is in her pocket. The door, however, was smashed in. She doubts that Seaview Guesthouse will be needing this back.
Neva walks onto the pier and follows its long length down towards the sea. She observes a ‘World Famous’ fish and chip restaurant that she’s never heard of, full to the brim with diners. An old gypsy booth, promising the ‘honest’ telling of fortunes, has some gaudy fairy lights draped outside. There is a burger stand and a sweet stall selling rock and sugar candy in a variety of shapes. The normality of a seaside town.
When she reaches the end of the pier, the sea breeze sweeps away the last sliver of tension. A casual glance ensures that she isn’t being observed, before Neva throws the guesthouse key into the ocean. She watches the water move and swallow it up. She meditates on the rhythm of the waves, moderating her breathing to match its ebb and flow.
With Midsummer’s Day near, the evenings are still long and light, but the night is drawing in and Neva can sense from a tang in the air a summer storm lurking off the coast.
She turns back the way she came. She sees the fortune teller locking up, a cigarette burning between old, cracked lips. Neva turns her face away from the woman: they are notoriously observant even if their communion with the dead isn’t real. She does not wish to be remembered by any casual eye.
The shops begin to close in a wave as she reaches the pier entrance. The normalcy of the evening ending is in stark contrast to the drama only an hour earlier.
At the Seaview Guesthouse, the police cars remain as the ambulance departs. Neva notices that the car she stole in London is still parked on the side street, a parking ticket now attached to the windscreen. So its owner must still be trussed up and has yet to report her theft.
She passes the car. She could take it again, but you never revisit your crimes, and certainly don’t use the same stolen car more than once. She turns towards the train station, pausing to open her phone and bring up the rail ticket app. She glances at her watch. It is 10.15 p.m. and the next train leaves in twenty minutes. She could just make it.
If she was searching for her right now, she’d post someone at the station. But how many did they send after her in the first place? She had killed one and seen two more, and then there was the driver of the black people carrier. So, perhaps four in all. But there could be more.
Neva turns away from the station. Too risky.
At this late hour, getting another hotel room will be problematic as well. She decides against it.
She walks down several streets before she notices one house in total darkness. It’s a typical Victorian seaside terrace. A ‘For Sale’ sign is posted at the front in the small yard. Across the road she sees the flicker of light from a television in the front room of another house. The occupants sit together on a sofa – a man and a woman – watching a late-night comedy show. They don’t glance outwards at her or the house.
Neva looks up and down the street. When she’s certain there’s no one around to observe her, she slips into the shallow garden of the house and curves around the building to the back. She looks through a window into the property. There is no furniture; the place is unoccupied.
Around the back is an even smaller garden than the front, but French windows stretch along the rear of the house. Neva looks through the dirty glass, then she retrieves her lock picks from her rucksack and begins to work on the door. The lock gives and Neva goes inside the house.
She wanders through the kitchen. It’s a narrow room but the ceiling is high and so there is a feeling of space. She makes her way into the living room. At the front windows she looks out unobserved at the property opposite. Such a normal scene. She superimposes herself and Michael on them. Could they live in such domesticity? Probably not.
My brain is turning to mush.
After a few moments, she turns away and heads upstairs. There she finds three empty bedrooms and a bathroom.
She settles down in the front bedroom, curling up on the dusty carpet with the rucksack under her head. She’s slept in worse places than this and it doesn’t take her long to settle down.
Though she lets sleep take her, she knows that she will be awake and alert at the slightest sound. Some elements of the training never leave you.
Chapter Twenty-One
Michael
Despite the run, I am restless and when I try to sleep, strange looping stress dreams hound me. I’ve never consciously worried about my job and yet my dream state finds me struggling to locate my office and when I do find the room, I can no longer recall how to do my work. I press buttons on the keyboard, yet everything I type comes out gibberish.
Because of my psychology degree, I understand how my subconscious is struggling to deal with my insecurities. When I wake, I try to shake the confusion and anxiety away. I explore the implicit meaning of the dreams, forcing them into my consciousness in order to deal with them. Yes, I’m anxious. I’m on the brink of rebuilding my life, but my past still poisons any idea of my future. In fact, it’s a total mind fuck. Not helped by the complication of my feelings for Neva. All problems that just can’t be solved overnight, if at all.
At 5 a.m. I’m looking up at the ceiling, thinking of her. I should try and persuade her to share her knowledge with me about the flight, for the good of everyone, but I know she’s stubborn. In my sleep my mind has worried at the possible outcomes of feeding her information that will help her reach her parents and learn how she was chosen for the house. In the best-case scenario, she is reunited with people who loved and missed her; in the worst, she may learn of their betrayal. I know what Neva will do in the latter situation and there will be carnage for which I’ll have to take responsibility.
In the world I once thought I understood, before I learned of my own origins, recruits were picked from the gifted among soldiers and those with talents such as myself. We were enlisted through persuasive explanations of how we could protect our country and help others. We were convinced we had the same motivations as our employers and our actions were for the greater good. This too was a form of conditioning, but one that we chose to see as acceptable. In Neva’s world there was no such option. She was taught to kill or die in the name of the Network and it wasn’t through choice; it was through brainwashing from an early age. Although I know she broke free of her training, Neva is still not a person I can have faith in.
But then, Beech did the same thing to me. So how am I any
different from Neva?
I curl up in the foetal position in my bed. The sheets still smell of her, and for a minute I’m lost in the memory of our bodies entwined under the covers.
She’s like a drug and I’m addicted. I try to reason why that is. If she was just a normal woman, I would be looking at my feelings for her in a different way. I’d be considering my sexual attraction as well as my emotional attachment in order to decide if we were compatible. Though this would not be done in such a rational, cold way. It would be gradual, starting with dates and maybe holidays and ultimately being together most of the time. My feelings for her would build from the physical to a need to have her as a permanent companion because I’d be sure we worked together.
But I can’t do any of this with Neva. How could we ever go on a normal date? Or book a holiday together? It just wasn’t possible.
But still the strength of this attraction is there. And though I’ve toyed with the idea that the house is somehow responsible for this attachment I feel, I don’t really want to accept it.
I sigh and try to push these thoughts away, but they won’t leave me.
Unable to go back to sleep, I reach for the phone she sent me. Last night I hadn’t stowed it in the drawer but left it on the bedside cabinet. For a time I’d worried that Beth might have found it, but the fact that men in black suits hadn’t descended on me yet suggested that Beth had respected my privacy, despite letting herself into my flat. Now I switch the phone on and wait as it wakes up and connects to the service provider.
A text arrives.
The phoenix is rising from the ashes.
It might be a trick to reel me in again. I read the message a few times, looking for some guile, but I can’t take it in any way other than face value. There is only one possible meaning: the Network are reforming and will come back stronger and harder than before if we allow it to happen.
How do you know? I reply.
Info from my attempted cleaner.
I take this information in. She’s been attacked again. She must have tortured whoever it was and learnt something. This person will no doubt be dead. It’s standard Network policy and she always defaults to her training.
What did you learn? I ask.
There is a long pause before she replies, Will you help me?
I hesitate. Anger and frustration flare up and then the Network operative in me rears its head. Of course, she has to push me into this. It’s her only course of action. I’d have done the same in her shoes. And maybe by giving her something I can help the greater cause. Would that be so bad after all?
I might be able to help you, I type, being careful with my words. Nothing incriminating or that specifies it’s me typing.
Neva replies with a thumbs-up emoji.
I’ll be in touch, I tell her.
Be careful, she says.
I switch the phone off, plug it into the charger to get maximum charge into it before the day begins. As the Network will be stripping my apartment of surveillance, I have to take the phone with me when I leave. As an afterthought I delete all of the text messages. If it’s found on me, nothing will be there to show what Neva and I have said to each other.
That is, assuming I’m talking to Neva… I’m well aware that anyone might have taken her phone and be pretending to be her in order to lure me in… But I’m trained to be careful.
I close my eyes and try to get more sleep, but I can’t drift off as my mind is now too awake.
The idea of taking the phone with me to work is worrying. I have to show all electronic devices at the security portal and walk through a scanner as well.
No. I can’t take the mobile with me. That could create too many awkward questions.
I could stow it in the secure box beneath my bed, but MI5 installed that initially and it would be foolish to think they wouldn’t take one final peek in there to reassure themselves that I am trustworthy.
There’s only one thing for it.
I get up, pull on my dressing gown and, taking a used envelope from my bin, I put the burner phone inside and stuff it into my robe pocket before walking into my living room where the cameras are still active. I pull on a pair of trainers, pick up my door keys and leave the flat to go downstairs.
In the reception area I am greeted by the security guard. He’s worked here for years and is a pleasant man in his early fifties. I’m glad it’s this one and not the other guard who is always a bit too chatty and friendly.
He nods and says, ‘Good morning’ but makes no further attempt at dialogue. All for the better as far as I’m concerned.
I go to my mailbox, blocking the guard’s view of its interior with my body just in case he is curious. The mailboxes for the apartments are mini lockers with flaps that are big enough for letters and small packages. For the convenience of the owner, the door on the front opens fully with the relevant key.
The security guard is distracted as another of the residents comes downstairs. I recognise a woman from the top floor. We’ve crossed paths at this time of day on a few occasions in the lift. She nods to me and then chats to the guard as I open the door on my locker. After removing a letter, I stuff the envelope containing the phone into the back of the mailbox. I close the door and lock it. Then I make a show of opening the letter as I walk back to the lift.
When the elevator arrives, I step inside and turn to see the security guard holding the front door open for my neighbour. Neither of them looks at me.
Back in my apartment I throw the letter down on the coffee table. It’s junk mail and wasn’t worth going down for, but it’s proof of what I was doing if anyone is watching on the cameras.
After that I go back into the bedroom and pull out my suit and shirt for the day. I shower, taking my time to shave away the facial bristle that’s appeared overnight. Then I dress. After that I make myself coffee and toast.
I sit at the breakfast bar and drink the coffee without urgency. I’m up early, keen to the casual eye to start the new day. All the time, though, I’m praying that they won’t think to check my mailbox – I have no idea if they have done this in the past or why they would want to now, but the paranoia is difficult to shake. For what will my first day back with full security see me doing? Betraying my colleagues again.
I finish the coffee and toast and place the plate and mug into my dishwasher. It hasn’t been used for a few days and is now full. So, like any normal, rational human who has not a care in the world, I put in a tablet and set the thing going.
I’m hoping all of my actions appear ordinary. It is essential I don’t rock the boat.
When I glance at my watch, I see that it is now a reasonable time to head off to work. I pull on my formal shoes, pick up my keys again and head out.
Archive expects me – and Neva waits.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Neva
After her trip to Brighton, Neva is relieved to reach the cabin on the Thames once more. For the moment the place is secure. Though nowhere will ever feel safe to her. She removes the bright red wig she wore for her journey from Brighton. Having slept rough in the empty house, she feels grubby. She cleans her teeth, then showers, washing her hair.
She sits out on the porch later with her wet natural hair. It’s a warm day and there’s a gentle breeze coming along the riverbank. She watches the small boats and barges run along the water. They, and the sound of the water lapping against the banks, soothe her, like the movement of the sea had the night before, allowing her to think.
Michael has finally agreed to help, and this is a major leap forward. But she’s concerned for him. The Network never give up on their assets unless they retire them. Now they are regrouping he will be in danger.
Leaving the porch, Neva walks to the water’s edge and looks down. A few fish swim near the surface as though they see her and expect her to throw them breadcrumbs. Neva has no desire to do this. She looks instead beyond them, down into the murky depths of the river. She focuses her mind.
T
he many faces of assassins she’s known float in the blackness of the water as she uses it to meditate. She searches for the image of Vasquez in her memory. She’s never heard the name before and cannot visualise him. Who is he? How did he learn about the committee members?
Alexi’s face fills the void. She sees him now surrounded by flames. Yes, she will burn him, but how is the question.
She imagines Alexi running from his hovel on the west side of London, scared when he learns of her escape. But she won’t go after him yet; that’s what they’ll expect, and time is on her side. Best to wait, when he won’t see it coming. First, though, it’s time to create problems for him.
She goes back into the cabin. Retrieving her laptop, she opens it up and creates several virtual machines using VirtualBox. Then using an app to hide her IP address, she begins to search the dark web. Her laptop is encrypted and full of applications that hide her from anyone trying to look. She moves in and out of different ones on the various virtual machines. By the time she’s finished she’s set up a network of profiles that begin to feed random information out. If the sources of the information are investigated, they won’t appear to be connected.
She sends out anonymous data, behind tempting firewalls, that reveal Alexi (under the handle DarkRevenger) to be a hacker responsible for a viral attack on an Almunazama company in Australia. Neva knows they are offering a significant reward for information, but she doesn’t want to reveal herself as the source. This will open Alexi up to cyberattacks from Almunazama’s hackers and will stop him doing any of the work he does for the Network. He is probably the architect of the virus anyway.
She sits back and watches as the first wave of hackers begins to tamper with the firewall – it’s strong enough to deter the inexperienced, but complex enough to challenge others, and, importantly, not impossible to crack. Perfect. This will keep him busy for weeks.
Kill or Die Page 11
