by Tony Batton
He stopped at a cafe and ordered most of what they had on the menu. Then he pulled out the two vials of blood he had liberated from his captors and stared at them. So much effort for something so small. He placed them on the table and shook his head.
It was something he hadn't asked for, but now it was part of him. Was there any way for him to be rid of it? If he could even be rid of it, would these people believe him? They might keep pursuing him anyway, and he would have no abilities to defend himself. Thinking about it just made his head hurt. Perhaps after he ate he would think more clearly. Perhaps something would come to him, to show him the way.
He was tucking into his second plate of paella when a slim figure walked up to his table, dressed in jeans, a sleeveless t-shirt, dark glasses and a broad-rimmed sun-hat. She smiled and placed her hands on the back of the chair opposite. "Of all the cafes in all the world, I happen to find you stuffing your face in this one."
He studied her face and felt the same fizz from earlier. It was the woman who had tried to kill him, on more than one occasion. It was the person he held responsible for the death of his best friend. It was the daughter of Bern's despicable henchman, Peter Marron.
It was Alex.
Thirty-Five
IT WAS THE MIDDLE OF the night and Eli Quinn sat in his quarters in Bern's mansion, cursing his employer. He nursed a large measure of Bern's fifty-year-old single malt – specifically not to be drunk by anyone but Bern, least of all any staff. It was a small act of defiance. But it did help his mood.
Months of Quinn's life had gone into positioning himself within Bern's organisation. While his friends had said he was crazy to jump onto a sinking ship, he had seen an opportunity. In demonstrating that he could be trusted when others had deserted, he had been given a position close to the great man. The billionaire, he knew without doubt, was a phoenix. He would rise again and Quinn would be there to ride on his coat-tails. At least that was his plan. Yesterday, everything had seemed perfectly on track. Bern had arrived home, having taken the first step on the road to freedom. He was a man reasserting control.
And then he had vanished.
Quinn had no idea what had actually happened, but clearly it had involved significant preparation. And none of it had been shared with him. Bern might indeed be a phoenix, but he would rise somewhere else. So much for being one of his trusted inner circle. Now, Quinn knew, he might face arrest on a conspiracy charge. It would have been better if Bern had simply fired him: things couldn't get any worse.
There was a knock at his half-open door. He looked up to see a policeman staring at him with cold eyes. "What?" he snapped. He was exhausted and long past politeness.
"Mr Quinn?" asked the man, who looked very short for a police officer. "I have a couple of questions."
"I've already been interviewed three times. Speak to your colleagues downstairs." He turned back to contemplating the single malt.
The man didn't seem to hear him and stepped into the room, swinging the door closed.
"I don't know who you think you are..." He stopped as the man pressed a button on his belt. His features seemed to melt and warp, along with his uniform. And then a different man stood there, clad in black. "What just happened? Who the hell are you?" Quinn leapt to his feet, trying to think where he'd put his phone.
The man strode towards him, drawing a silenced pistol and pointing it directly at his head. "Sit, Mr Quinn. And please keep your voice down."
The tone was calm and polite, the eyes like washed granite. Quinn sat quietly. "What is going on? How did you change your appearance?"
"My name is Sharp and I work for Andrei Leskov. I presume you know who that is."
Quinn's eyes widened. "Bern's not here. If I knew where he was I'd tell you. You don't need to threaten me."
The man looked at the gun, as if puzzled. "I'm not here to threaten you. And I'm not here for Mr Bern either. His future has not been placed in my hands. Unlike yours."
"But I don't know anything."
"That doesn't change what I have to do."
"What?"
"Wipe the decks clean."
Quinn's hand tightened on the glass. "I didn't even work for Bern a year ago. I had nothing to do with what happened to Mr Leskov's father."
"I'm sure that's true, but you are a part of Bern's infrastructure, and my orders are to eliminate it. A message must be sent." He raised the gun. "Any last words?"
Before Quinn could reply, the weapon fired twice.
Thirty-Six
TOM COULD FEEL THE CHARGE in the air. He held the bridge of his nose, trying to breathe slowly. Feeling both sick and overwhelmed with curiosity as to why she was here. As to how she was even alive.
"You're not here to kill me," he said.
"If that was the case, don't you think you'd be dead already?" She pointed at the chair. "Mind if I join you?"
"It's not like I could stop you." Tom glanced around, then shrugged. "Everyone said you were dead."
She flashed gleaming white teeth as she sat down. "You never really believed that though, did you?"
"You always struck me as a survivor." He paused. "So it was you helping me? With the phone? With the bug? With the sniper rifle?"
She tapped her temple in a mock salute. "Couldn't have you being carted off again. It's very important that we speak."
"Why? What..." Tom stumbled over his words as he felt a subtle fizzing in his bloodstream. His eyes flickered.
She watched him and smiled. "You feel it too."
He took a deep breath, his pupils dilating. "What am I feeling?"
She reached over and grabbed one of the two bottles of beer in front of him, pushing the lime down the neck. "Me."
He thought about what she was saying. There was only one thing that made sense. "You used my blood. My nanites."
Alex pointed at the two vials Tom had placed on the table. "Is that more?" Her hand shot out and she picked them up, holding them up to the sunlight. "You should be careful with this. It's not a gift for just anyone. Who knows what the wrong hands might make of it."
"You need more?"
"No, I'm good." She tucked the vials into a compartment on her belt. "I'll make sure these are destroyed securely."
"So explain. What happened to you? How are you here?"
She reached across and took a large spoonful from his plate. "I swam for nearly twenty-four hours. Throughout that crazy, impossible time the only thing that kept me going was the fact that I held in my pocket something that could transform me. If I gave up, I knew I would miss out on a true quantum-leap moment. To come so close and come up short was something I could not accept."
"You swam for twenty-four hours?"
"That water was dark and cold. Impossibly cold. Really I just managed to stay afloat. In the end the current washed me up somewhere in France: I was more dead than alive, although I have few memories of that. I was in and out for three days. It was pure luck they didn't throw away the vial of blood in that time, but they just bagged up my stuff and didn't examine it. After I recovered... it took me a while to persuade a doctor to perform the procedure."
"What procedure?"
"An injection into the base of my skull. Same as the other Tantalus subjects." She paused. "Same as you."
"It could have killed you."
"You do care," she said with a smile. "And, yes, it very nearly did kill me. It was pain like I've never experienced." She shook her head. "I thought I'd been tested before, in my training, but nothing had prepared me for it." She took a deep breath. "I came through."
"Well you chose to take it. I had rather less choice in the matter." Tom cleared his throat and looked at her pointedly. "Something you had a lot to do with."
She took a sip of her beer. "At some point you're going to have to let go of the past." She banged the empty bottle down on the table. "Things have changed. We have changed." She smiled. "It is so good to see you again. I have been longing to compare notes."
Tom shook h
is head and stuck a fork unenthusiastically into another plate of paella.
"You must want to talk about it. To share what you've gone through. I am the only other person in the world who can understand."
"Why would I want you to understand?"
Alex sat back in her chair, casting an eye cursorily around the restaurant. "I remember everything I do. Every nuance of every motion. Everything about every movement." She paused. "And then I'm able to repeat them."
"And I imagine that you've been learning origami or flower arranging."
"I have been honing my preferred craft, making a grand world tour of acknowledged experts."
"And you've found a string of tutors, ready to share their knowledge?"
"Some more willing than others. I've learned from all of them."
"And after you learned everything?"
"I killed them."
"You... what?"
"I couldn't let them live."
Tom shook his head, unable to find words.
"I only killed them when it was necessary. Of course, it usually was necessary."
Tom glared at her. "Why can't you just leave people alone? That's what I want. But I don't have the luxury of people thinking that I'm dead."
"You have this amazing gift and you're just hiding? Why?"
"I can't protect myself – as today has shown."
"But you can! You can interface with computers and technology – the original purpose behind Tantalus. You can fight on your own terms."
"It's not without its complications." He loaded his fork with rice. "Wait, are you saying you can't?"
She stared at him. "That's why I'm here."
"I don't follow."
"I want you to teach me."
Tom snorted. "You want me to teach you, a highly-trained psychopath, to visit your talents more broadly upon the world?"
She reached into her backpack and pulled out a slim laptop, setting it before him. "Let's start with something basic. Show me how you talk to it."
He raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think you'll be able to do what I do?"
"I have your nanites."
"They've evolved to work for you. Perhaps that means a different outcome."
She shook her head. "From what I know of the science, anything is possible if the nanites make the right connections. We just need to show them how."
"So you want to steer your own evolution? Why would I help you do that?"
"Apart from the fact that I saved your life today?"
"Tomorrow you may take the opposite view."
"Tom, you need an ally."
"Maybe the cost is too high." He sighed. "If I show you, will you let me go?"
"Why not. Although I think it's a mistake, I give you my word."
He looked at her. "We'll shake on it." He spat on his palm then extended his hand.
She took his hand dubiously. "Was that really necessary?"
Tom nodded. "Most definitely." He felt the nanites in the saliva. His nanites.
And he told them what to do.
Thirty-Seven
TOM SHOOK ALEX'S HAND. AND closed his eyes.
For a moment he was distracted by the feel of her skin: soft, delicate, sparking with life. He shook his head and concentrated. And he felt the nanites in his saliva transfer through to her bloodstream. As he had done with his father, he would take over. All he needed was to paralyse her for a few moments: just long enough to get away.
He felt her hiss, then gasp. Her grip flinched then lessened. He smiled inwardly and began to stand up. Then something went wrong.
The cold rush in his veins, that he had felt when the man called Temple had injected him, came back, intensified. The moment of control slipped from his grasp. Her hand tightened on his like a clamp and she dragged him back down, bringing his face close to hers. He could smell her, feel the energy vibrating from her. And, in a burst of electricity that was almost like anguish, the nanites he had transferred simply died.
"What did you just try?" she hissed.
His head span. All through him, he could feel tiny flashes of dark, specks of confusion, diffusing his thoughts. "I'm not feeling very well. Must be the sedatives they had me on." Tom grimaced as she twisted his arm. She was strong. Almost impossibly strong. Her face turned dark and she pushed him back, knocking him from his chair.
"You think this is a game?"
Around them several patrons edged away. A large, heavyset man, probably the owner, appeared from the back. Alex scowled at Tom then stepped towards the man, her hands clenching and unclenching. Flowing like a cat, she shifted her balance, ready to attack.
Tom spoke low and clear. "Stop. I'll show you what you want."
She held the owner's gaze. "This is not your business," she said in Spanish.
Around her a couple of solid-looking customers stood up and took a step towards her. Alex twitched and, in a blur, a large automatic pistol appeared in her hand. She breathed and pointed it at the owner's forehead. The man swallowed, his eyes flickering to the customers, who stared back in blank terror.
"You don't need to hurt him," Tom said. "All he wants is to get on with his day. Let him do that."
Alex held the gun motionless. After several long moments, she took a step back, raising an eyebrow. Tom slid the laptop back into her backpack, shouldered it, then held up his palms in what he hoped would be understood as a gesture to stay calm. Then they backed away. Alex grabbed his arm and steered him away from the plaza, down a narrow side street.
Thirty-Eight
THE F33 NIGHTHAWK STEALTH HELICOPTER touched down on the dusty soil at Las Palmas military base just outside of Lima, its dampened rotors eerily quiet for such a craft. Connor Truman, wearing a plain unmarked flight suit and dark glasses, climbed into a waiting military transport. The vehicle accelerated away towards a collection of low buildings separate from the main infrastructure. It slowed and turned into a drab warehouse, and Truman saw the US team waiting to brief him. From their body language, they did not have good news to share.
"Could we not have landed somewhere more discrete?" Truman asked as he climbed down from the transport vehicle. "Half the country probably knows I'm here."
"The locals frown on us landing off-grid, Sir," said Colonel Duane Jeffers: the man assigned to be his liaison while in Lima. A square jawed, grim-looking man, Jeffers had seen service in more active regions than this.
"What's the latest?" Truman asked.
Jeffers turned and led him over to a cluster of portable screens and charts arrayed around a large table. "We've been monitoring the city for four full days now: ever since sources suggested Faraday was here. We have a rotation of drones performing sweeps, three satellites permanently tasked on the city, and a team of fifty plainclothes operatives in the field. But it's a large, densely-populated urban area. It'll be pure luck if we spot him."
"We're sure he's here?"
"He was here. We picked up chatter from an interested group, naming him. We monitored them negotiating terms for a handover to another party."
"They were selling him?"
"As far as we can tell. We were triangulating their location from their comms, although we were hampered by some high-grade encryption: they were tracking him, we were tracking them... but then he vanished."
Truman raised his eyebrows. "How did these people find him in the first place when our systems haven't?"
"They probably just got lucky. But things didn't work out as they expected. The locals found two sets of dead bodies: one was clearly a bunch of amateurs, but the second included some men we have to suppose are ex-special forces."
"How do they know of Faraday's significance? Do we have a leak?"
"As far as we can tell they just knew he had a price on his head."
Truman sighed. "Is he alone?"
"Our best guess is 'no'. Three of the dead operatives were shot from a distance."
Truman shook his head. "Why would he be here? What's in Peru that he could need?"
Jeffers glanced at the other men standing around the table. "It's hard to guess when we don't even know what he is supposed to have stolen from us. Given the scale of mobilisation I've got to wonder if he took a nuke."
Truman shook his head. "If only."
Jeffers eyes widened. "Do my men need to be wearing protective gear?"
"The risk is low, but protective gear will either be not necessary or... irrelevant."
There was a shout from the other side of the table. A man working at a laptop waved them over. "We have a hit. Network traffic with similar signatures to yesterday."
"Network traffic?" Truman asked. "He has tactical backup?"
Jeffers shrugged. "We don't know. But whatever he was doing, he's doing it again." He looked at the analyst. "Do we have a drone nearby?"
"Yes. And I'm seeing two figures entering a second floor apartment in a supposedly unoccupied building."
"Send a team in," Truman said. "This is our chance to tidy up this mess. Let's make sure we do."
Thirty-Nine
TOM AND ALEX WALKED FOR five minutes, then she led him up two flights of stairs and opened a plain wooden door. Tom found himself in a small apartment furnished only with a metal bed, a table and two chairs.
"Make yourself at home." She took the backpack from him.
"Been here long?" he asked.
"A few days. Same as you. I find it best to stay off-grid. You'll identify with that, I'm sure."
"How did you know I was here?"
"I told you: I can feel you, Tom. I can sense exactly where you are. I just didn't need you until now." She pulled out the laptop and set it on the table. "Now show me."
