The Minders

by John Marrs

  Flick had replaced one monster with another.

  ** CONFIDENTIAL **

  TOP SECRET: UK EYES ONLY, CLASSIFIED “A”

  THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT

  MINUTES OF JOINT CYBER-ESPIONAGE/INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE ASSESSMENT MEETING 11.6

  “EMERGENCY MEETING RE: THE ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO STORAGE OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS”

  ** Please note this is an account of the minutes taken from the above meeting. Portions of text and certain participants have been redacted to prevent threats to security. **

  LOCATION:

  █​█​█​█​█​█, █​█​█​█

  MEMBERS PRESENT:

  Dr. Sadie Mann, Director of Psychiatric Evaluations

  Dr. Sandra White, Deputy Head of Neuroscience

  █​█​█​█​█​█​█​█​█​█, Ministry of Defence (MoD), Porton Down

  █​█ █​█​█, MI5

  William Harris, HM Government’s Minister for Central Intelligence

  NONMEMBERS PRESENT:

  Prime Minister Diane Cline

  QC Barry Hunt, personal lawyer for Prime Minister Diane Cline

  BARRY HUNT, QC: As your lawyer and friend, Diane, I would like to take this opportunity to suggest it may not be to your advantage to be privy to any details that might follow. Perhaps you’ll reconsider my advice and leave?

  PRIME MINISTER: It’s been eight weeks since Karczewski’s body washed up on the shores of Lake Geneva, and now a second person we believe to have been enrolled in this programme has also turned up dead. What happens if whoever is doing this gets to the others before we can reach them?

  █​█​█​█​█​█​█​█​█​█, MoD: Protocols are in place . . .

  PRIME MINISTER: I don’t mean to be rude, █​█​█, but to hell with your protocols. This is my country we are talking about and my fitness to lead it. If it becomes public knowledge that I’ve sanctioned taking our secrets offline and putting them in the brains of four human guinea pigs, there will be pitchforks and flaming torches trying to burn me out of Downing Street.

  BARRY HUNT, QC: If you leave this meeting now, the worst-case scenario is that we can use the defence of plausible deniability and claim you were only involved after the fact.

  PRIME MINISTER: Barry, the barn door is wide open and the horses have well and truly bolted. █​█​█​█​█​█​█​█​█​█, I need to know, what happens to this sensitive data if these remaining Minders aren’t located and brought back to safety?

  █​█​█​█​█​█​█​█​█​█, MoD: There is a chance some aspect of this information will be lost forever.

  PRIME MINISTER: How much is “some aspect of it”?

  █​█​█​█​█​█​█​█​█​█, MoD: Worst-case scenario—eighty percent. Best case—around forty percent.

  PRIME MINISTER: Let me get this clear in my head—there are no backups, no hard copies saved anywhere else, and no more DNA sitting in a bloody petri dish waiting to be implanted into somebody else?

  DR. SANDRA WHITE: Not in our laboratories, no.

  WILLIAM HARRIS: A part of me can’t help wondering if this might be a blessing in disguise. It’s a brand-new world we are living in and these are difficult times. Would it really do us that much damage if the worst parts of our history were erased?

  █​█​█​█​█​█​█​█​█​█, MoD: I think it would, yes.

  PRIME MINISTER: Which is why when I first learned this plan was being developed behind my back, I said it was a ridiculous, dangerous idea. I cannot convey to you all how furious I am for allowing myself to be talked into it. So how are we going to get the remaining Minders back?

  WILLIAM HARRIS: The message board formerly used to communicate recalls is compromised, so it’s unsafe to return to it. And Karczewski took his files detailing the participants with him to the grave. However, on the retrieval of his body and repatriation home, his killers weren’t aware that he too was a carrier of data.

  PRIME MINISTER: I’ve read the autopsy report and there was no mention of this.

  WILLIAM HARRIS: Parts of it were redacted. Whoever murdered him had no reason to believe he stored information inside him, so the wound to his head was designed to send a message to us and the Minders. He actually stored the names and photographic images of all the Minders in a chip embedded in his calf muscle.

  PRIME MINISTER: This is good news, surely?

  WILLIAM HARRIS: There is an approach we would like to suggest, but it is a radical one and an adapted version of what we were to do if any of the Minders went rogue. But it will require misdirecting the whole of the British public.

  CHAPTER 74

  FLICK, ALDEBURGH, SUFFOLK

  Flick lay on her bed in a room cloaked in silence.

  The window usually remained slightly ajar on the nights she spent at the B&B, enough for her to fall asleep against the distant backdrop of waves lapping against the shore. Tonight, it was firmly shut tight. Her make-believe life was over.

  Not only was someone trying to kill her but she was pregnant by a man with a questionable moral compass. How could she have gotten him so horribly wrong?

  Flick’s reaction to Elijah’s exploitation of Christopher’s murder victims mirrored the aftermath of her discovery of him as her DNA Match—she retreated behind closed doors. This time, she locked herself inside the B&B to buy herself some thinking time.

  “I have a stomach bug,” she’d warned Grace. “If it’s contagious, I’d best keep away from you and the other guests.”

  By choosing not to confront Elijah about his paintings earlier that day, she had denied him the opportunity to explain. But whatever his justification was for them, it would make no difference because she had already made up her mind. Someone who benefited financially from murder victims was not someone she wanted to raise a child with. Elijah wasn’t the man she had built him up to be, and perhaps she must shoulder some of the blame for that. Her expectations had been too high. Very soon, she would be out of his life and searching for a new location to do it alone.

  Her fabricated illness coincided with Elijah’s last-minute additions to his exhibition. He’d been working long hours at his home and at the nearby disused church he leased. It gave her time and space to make plans.

  Unable to sleep, Flick made her way into the darkness of Grace’s garden and placed all her belongings, aside from one outfit hanging in her wardrobe, into the incinerator. With the press of a button, everything was engulfed by flames. She looked up and into the distance and spotted the neon crucifix attached to the church steeple. It was illuminated, which meant Elijah was still there, working through the night.

  Back in her room, she spied the pencil portrait he’d drawn of her on the evening they’d first met at the pub. She screwed it up and dropped it on the chest of drawers.

  She checked the time—it was 2:30 a.m. Around eighteen hours remained before she was to leave everything behind and her next adventure could begin.

  CHAPTER 75

  CHARLIE, MANCHESTER

  Charlie glanced around the bar of the Chinatown pub as he anxiously awaited the arrival of his DNA Match.

  The time was approaching 2 p.m., and from his table at the rear of the room, he counted a dozen or so customers using it as a remote office, working on laptops and sipping from reusable coffee cups. Although he foresaw no obvious threats to his safety, it didn’t help him to relax.

  Rosemary would be arriving soon and he welcomed the return of the butterflies to his stomach, something he hadn’t felt in months. And the anticipation of coming face to face with her was making him a little light-headed. He fought back the urge to break into laughter.

  Charlie took another sip from his glass of c
ola, partly to lubricate his dry throat and partly for something to do with his fidgeting fingers. He caught his reflection in a mirrored wall tile. He was smartly dressed, but not too smart: he hadn’t wanted to appear as if he’d made too much effort when it was precisely what he had done. It was hard to get the balance right when you were about to meet the woman who would change your life forever.

  He tried to imagine how it might feel the moment they saw one another, and whether they’d feel a rush of euphoria simultaneously or apart. Would it hit him immediately, or would it take a few hours? It was different for every couple, he’d heard. Charlie hoped he’d feel it straight away; he’d waited long enough.

  He checked the flight times on the mobile phone he shouldn’t possess; Rosemary’s plane should have landed an hour ago at Alan Turing International Airport. Then he checked the app he’d used to book her a robo-taxi to the pub and saw that it was on its way. She should be arriving within the next few minutes. As Charlie drained his glass, the sound of a bell pinging came from every phone and laptop in the room. His was a burner with no traceable number, so it couldn’t receive news alerts. He wondered what had happened.

  He raised his hand to catch the waitress’s attention and order another drink. But she was hunched over her phone and engrossed in a conversation with a waiter. Suddenly he felt their attention move towards him at exactly the same time, their faces wearing identical expressions—suspicion. They moved towards the barman, who mirrored the same response. Something felt very, very wrong.

  CHAPTER 76

  FLICK, BIRMINGHAM

  The journey to the launch of Elijah’s exhibition had been a quiet one for Flick. In the rear of the helicopter, Elijah had spent much of it discussing the night ahead with his agent, Jenna, or wearing a virtual-reality headset to “walk” around the gallery and communicate to the curator and art technicians which works needed moving last minute and to where.

  Flick spoke very little for the hour-long flight, staring from the window at the decline of green spaces below and the encroachment of concrete jungles.

  Elijah’s hand pressed softly upon hers. “I think I owe you an apology,” he began.

  “For what?”

  “For being a useless boyfriend, especially as you’ve been poorly. I’ve just got to get through tonight, then everything will return to normal. Thank you for your patience; I can’t wait to see what you think.”

  He leaned towards her, cupped her chin, and kissed her. Flick couldn’t deny she would miss his touch. But having discovered how he had profited from Christopher’s murders with his anonymous artwork, she could no longer trust him. And to leave him meant leaving Aldeburgh. She had considered departing yesterday with the aid of survival equipment left hidden around the town. But she was in no danger so it made more sense to remain where she was, then hitch a helicopter ride to the country’s third-biggest city the next day. It was so central, she could travel just about anywhere from there.

  Later, as the car that had picked them up from the heliport pulled up outside the city centre’s Mary Russell Gallery, Flick was feeling uneasy about the night to come. She was the last to exit the vehicle as a photographer approached. “You go,” she told Elijah, shying away from the lens. “I’ll follow you inside in a few minutes.”

  Elijah’s smile wilted. “I was hoping you might change your mind and walk in with me. Can’t you make an exception to your ‘no pictures’ rule?”

  “I’ll be in soon enough.”

  He nodded and kissed her forehead. Then Flick waited until Elijah was inside before she made her way up the concrete steps and flashed the doorman her invitation. Once she was inside the packed room, the scale of Elijah’s work took her breath away. Against a backdrop of double-aspect white walls and ceiling-mounted access lights, his portraits had a much greater impact than they’d had hanging from the walls of Aldeburgh’s more compact gallery. Some of his work she recognised from there or from his home studio, while other pieces were unfamiliar.

  An unexpected pride at his achievement simmered within her. And when she saw the completed marble head she had helped him to carve, she recognised her own eyes amongst its facial components. She couldn’t be sure if it was the emotional impact of his work or the pregnancy hormones that was causing her eyes to brim.

  She dabbed at them with a napkin taken from a waiter’s tray as a hush fell over the gallery. Guests were ushered into the main exhibition hall, where to a round of applause, Jenna introduced Elijah and handed him a microphone. A closed curtain covered something behind them. Flick eased further and further back into the shadows as guests began recording him on mobile phones and smart glasses.

  Elijah cleared his throat. “The people closest to me will know that I prefer to let my work do the talking, so I’ll keep this brief.” He scanned the audience as if searching for Flick. “What you are about to see is the culmination of much hard work and the assistance of many, many people. But first and foremost, I’d like to thank a certain someone—she knows who she is—for inspiring my first journey into art and multimedia. She has put up with my long absences without complaint and my secrecy over this project, and despite her dislike of city life, she’s here tonight to witness something inspired by her. This body of work is dedicated to you.”

  Before she had time to react, Elijah moved to one side and the curtain fell, revealing a metre-tall, three-dimensional holographic image of a person. Flick held her hands to her mouth when she recognised that she was looking at herself.

  Quickly, the moving graphic grew in height, and at the same time, another version of herself appeared behind it. And soon after, a third. By now, the first Flick was at least two metres tall and began walking through the audience to rapturous applause as the second followed it. Meanwhile, yet more Flicks generated behind them.

  “What have you done?” she gasped aloud.

  From her position at the rear, Flick was the last person each figure walked through before, one by one, they vanished into the wall and then regenerated elsewhere in the room. Horrified, she moved to one side as the procession manoeuvred in different directions throughout, but it was impossible to avoid herself. It was a completely immersive experience for guests as they reached out to try to touch “her” or burst her like a bubble. They took video footage, photographs, and selfies.

  It was beyond Flick’s worst nightmare; her anonymity was in tatters. Her stare met Elijah’s as he approached her, grinning proudly, expecting her approval in return.

  “Make them stop!” she yelled above the rumble of the crowd.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “All these versions of me, stop them now!”

  “But they’re the climax of my show,” he protested.

  “You had no right to involve me without my say-so! I’m begging you, Elijah, stop them right now!”

  He looked at her, a mixture of confusion and disappointment, and turned to signal to whoever was controlling the computer program to bring it to a premature halt. As soon as the last hologram had vanished, he turned to Flick but she was already hurrying towards the exit.

  CHAPTER 77

  CHARLIE, MANCHESTER

  Charlie glanced nervously at the app for the taxi he’d ordered Rosemary. She was now only five minutes away. Then he looked back towards the staff behind the bar of the pub. Their attention was still fixed on him but he had no idea why. It made him uncomfortable.

  He hesitated, torn between what he wanted to do and what he should do as a Minder. When images of Bruno’s and Sinéad’s bodies came to mind, it forced him into making a decision. Fuck, he thought, I need to get out of here.

  Charlie grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and, trying to appear as casual as possible, made his way to the door without turning around. It was only when he heard someone shouting “Hey!” followed by the sound of pounding feet that he was certain he was in trouble.

 
; Outside, he broke into a run. Weaving through traffic, he crossed Mosley Street and made his way towards Booth Street. It wasn’t a direct route, but it would take him towards Arndale, a once popular but now neglected shopping centre. It was still enough of a draw for him to find safety in numbers as he worked out what the hell was happening. Perhaps you overreacted, perhaps the staff weren’t looking at you? he asked himself. But Charlie was trained to read people and the staff had been staring at him for a reason.

  He turned to look behind him, relieved to see that he’d lost whoever had been trailing him from the bar. He slowed his pace and removed his phone from his pocket, logging back on to the taxi app. Rosemary’s cab was about to pull up outside the pub. His heart wrenched as he thought about her waiting alone for him inside. Perhaps he could return and try to catch her attention through the window from the other side of the street? Then he remembered he’d reserved their table specifically because it wasn’t in view from the outside.

  Instead, he began typing her an email on his burner phone, explaining that he’d been delayed and asking her to wait for him. It might buy him time to find an alternative location for them to meet. In his haste, he wasn’t watching where he was going and collided with someone. It knocked Charlie’s device out of his hands and to the floor, shattering the screen. He picked it up, frantically jabbing at buttons, but it was inoperable.

  He turned to the man who had broken it and who was now walking away with two others. “Fucking idiot!” said Charlie. “Look what you’ve done.”

  The man stopped and also turned. “You walked into me, sunshine,” he replied, then cocked his head and turned to his friend. “Hey, it’s him, isn’t it?” He pointed to something behind Charlie.