Lethal Profit

by Alex Blackmore

  ‘I’ve done OK so far.’

  ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘No, you haven’t.’ And then, before she could protest, ‘Go and open your bathroom window.’

  ‘It has bars.’

  ‘Open it.’

  Eva looked at him for several seconds and then stood up, put the bottle down on the bedside table and walked unsteadily into the bathroom. She pushed open the window and stuck her head out. ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘There.’ She jumped as Leon – now right behind her – spoke.

  As she looked down, she gradually began to make out the outline of a human being propped up against some bins. She turned and looked at him.

  ‘He would have killed you whilst you showered.’

  Eva looked back down at the bins. Her heart was beating wildly, her head swimming with questions. She didn’t know what to think.

  ‘You don’t understand what you’re caught up in here, Eva.’

  ‘And you do?’

  Just before they reached the outskirts of Paris, Eva and Leon pulled in at a garage. Eva had agreed to go with him because she simply didn’t know what else to do. The body by the bins had scared her enough to make her feel like she didn’t want to be on her own and, in the short time she’d had to reason it through, Leon seemed like a better option than facing the increasing numbers of assailants by herself. He’d also had several opportunities to harm her if he’d wanted to and he hadn’t. If he was playing a game, it was a much more complex and manipulative one than the other men threatening her and, for now at least, it seemed he wanted her alive.

  As they sped through the dark city streets, the tension in the car was almost unbearable. However, once they passed the city limits, Leon seemed to relax.

  Eva, on the other hand, was still unsteady after the most recent attack. She didn’t know who to trust. As she tried to work through her situation, her normally clear and rational mind had become a confusion of assorted anxieties and arguments, magnified by being stuck in a confined space with Leon. When the lonely petrol station appeared on the horizon, she had insisted they stop. She desperately needed to create the chance to have five minutes alone. As soon as the car had come to a halt Eva stepped out and crunched over the gravel of the deserted forecourt to a sign that indicated a women’s toilet. She glanced back warily at Leon before she pushed open the toilet door. She still had no idea whether he was really on her side.

  As soon as she had disappeared into the building, Leon pulled out his phone.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m still in Paris.’

  ‘I told you to get out.’

  ‘Leon, I have nowhere to go.’

  ‘It’s not safe.’

  ‘I don’t care. Do you have Eva Scott?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bring her to me.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what you think, just bring her to me. If you don’t, I will find a way to get to her myself.’

  Leon hung up and angrily shoved the phone into his pocket. He locked the car and walked over to the other side of the petrol station building, glancing briefly over towards a solitary row of trees to the right of the forecourt as he did so.

  When Eva emerged five minutes later, she noticed the empty car immediately. Assuming Leon had gone to use the facilities, Eva walked over to the Citroen and tried to open the passenger door but it was locked. The window was slightly open but not enough to fit her arm through and reach down to unlock the door. She looked around. They were on the outskirts of Paris, so far from the city that they were surrounded on all sides by fields. Other than a small line of trees silhouetted on the far side of the garage car park everything else was open farmland. The petrol station was just one building, economically designed, glass-fronted and eerily empty. Light was just beginning to filter through the clouds behind it as the pre-dawn began and all around her she could hear the first birds finding their voices. Other than that, Eva couldn’t hear anything at all. She stood awkwardly by the car.

  An owl called out in the darkness and she jumped violently. Quickly, she tried all the doors to the car but despite its decrepit shell the Citroen seemed to have central locking and she couldn’t get in. Where the hell was Leon? Eva decided to find the men’s toilets and get the keys from him. She crossed the forecourt to a door marked with the outline of a stick man and pushed the door. It opened with a creak.

  ‘Leon?’

  She waited. Nothing.

  Eva’s senses roared into action. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she felt her face burning as she stood listening for sounds of occupation. Breathe, Eva.

  She stepped inside the stinking space and checked both stalls in the small, grubby bathroom but they were empty. Cautiously, she walked back over to the exit, pushed the door open and poked her head out. Leon was right there.

  ‘Be quiet,’ he said in a low voice, ‘there are people here.’

  Rob Gorben got up with the dawn that morning. In the night, news had come through that the first shipment of algae plants was on its way from Africa to populate his newly built ponds. He had received specific instructions, relayed to all the crew of the plane and the handlers, that the plants must not be exposed to oxygen in transit. If a single box didn’t survive the journey, the entire contents would have to be burned and there would be heavy discounts in the fees of the handlers, and also in Rob’s bonus. Rob was nervous. It was not a condition he had ever agreed to before – whilst he hadn’t seen the transport boxes themselves, he knew each of the algae boxes had a filter that ensured the right mix of nutrients was pumped into it to keep the artificial algae alive. Unfortunately, he knew from experience that these boxes often became damaged in transit – even the smallest crack could expose the algae inside to the oxygen in the air. However, the deciding factor had been the fee he had been offered – so big that even when he had factored in a discount for a few dead plants, he was still looking at enough for a down payment on that little town-house in Amsterdam that his wife had always wanted. Gorben rubbed his gloved hands together to ward off the cold and then jammed them into his pockets as he waited outside the tented side of the site for the vans to appear. Professionally, he was interested to see the containers used to transport the plants, as they had been developed specifically for the project and were of a kind never used before.

  He was also intrigued as to what would happen if oxygen should reach the algae plants. Normal algae required oxygen to survive but apparently this genetically modified plant did not. How then would it grow in the open raceway ponds he had been ordered to construct? Why would the plants only be ready to be exposed to oxygen once they were in the UK? But Rob Gorben had learned to keep the questions to a minimum with this particular employer.

  Just as he was contemplating going to buy a coffee, several large refrigerated trucks appeared around the corner of the frost-covered street. He directed the lorries to a large parking lot inside the site, secured the gates and then greeted the drivers as they finished what would be their first job of the morning. Once the lorries were stationary, he opened the back doors to take a look inside and saw the special containers he had heard so much about. They were clear and completely sealed, other than having small ducts in the top that let in filtered air but contained the water within the unit. Each box was fitted with a soundless motorised pump, which, by means of an additional filtered duct, was conveying nutrients crucial to the survival of the algae on their gruelling journey from Khartoum.

  Once the driver had disconnected the air ducts and stalled the motors, they removed the first of the giant boxes of algae and used a pick-up truck to take it through to the waiting raceway pond, already filled with water and gleaming in the strange light beneath the huge tented ceiling. They unloaded four boxes and stacked them next to the pond, Gorben supervising each one, the bonus always at the front of his mind. When they pulled the fifth container away, revealing the box behind, Gorben drew a sharp br
eath. Whilst most of the algae boxes contained just three or four plants, in this box there were so many that its sides were convex. He exchanged looks with the handlers and then ordered the box be drained and taken into his office. Once the box had been emptied of water and the trucks had driven off again, he bought himself a coffee and then spent some time examining it. He noticed a small hairline crack that was leaking the tiniest amount of water. From the look of the box it would not hold much longer, even without the pressure of the water. It looked almost as if the algae inside were trying to escape.

  Eva stepped outside the toilet and noiselessly shut the door. She realised she was shaking. Leon directed her to a mid height stone wall behind which she dropped into a squat and he came and crouched next to her. ‘I saw a figure as I was coming into the bathroom,’ he whispered.

  ‘Where?’ she said incredulously, indicating the vast expanse of empty countryside.

  ‘There,’ he replied and pointed to the far side of the car park where the dark brown frozen earth of a field began in the line of trees she had noticed when she came out of the bathroom.

  ‘But I didn’t see or hear a car.’

  ‘If someone was tailing us then that’s exactly what they would want.’

  He was right.

  ‘Are they still there?’

  ‘I haven’t seen any other movement.’

  Eva frowned. ‘And you left me out there, standing by the car?’ She noticed something flicker in his eyes. ‘You were using me as bait again,’ she said stonily.

  ‘I could have dealt with them. You were in no danger.’

  There was no point arguing with him.

  ‘Who are they?’

  He broke her gaze and glanced over his shoulder before looking out from behind the wall and scanning the immediate horizon.

  ‘The same people who were at my apartment and in your hotel room.’

  ‘You sound like you know who they are.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  She looked sideways at Leon and instinctively felt like he was lying. Why was he here? Why bother to get himself caught up in this? She didn’t understand why he was playing her hero. He didn’t seem the altruistic type. Not for the first time she wondered whether this was all simply a complex ruse to get her away from the city and dispose of her. If it was, all she could do now was to wait and see what happened next and then try and react to it. It wasn’t a comfortable position to be in.

  She shifted so that she was beside him, scanning the forecourt; it was still completely empty and totally still.

  ‘Here,’ Leon dug into his jeans and handed her the car keys. ‘Go to the car, get inside and lock the doors. I’m going to flush them out of the trees.’

  He began to stalk towards the edge of the wall.

  When Eva didn’t reply, he turned, his dark eyes boring into her.

  ‘I’m not completely OK being the helpless bait, Leon.’ And I don’t trust you.

  ‘Eva, if we don’t go now, there will be more of them and we will have no hope of getting away. Just do it.’

  He stared at her. His eyes were hard, his body was tense and his fists were almost completely clenched.

  Suddenly it dawned on Eva why he looked like that – he was working hard to conceal it but Leon was afraid.

  She nodded silently at him and he turned away. If he was afraid, she reasoned, then this threat was real. And if this threat was real then maybe he wasn’t the enemy after all. For now at least.

  Eva looked again around the forecourt for signs of movement. Nothing. The garage building looked empty, the surrounding countryside looked empty and there wasn’t even a gust of wind blowing the trees in the ditch where Leon had decided their watchers were positioned. It was eerily quiet. Eva clenched her fists, summoned up every ounce of fight that she had, stood up and began to run.

  As Eva now discovered, a natural ability to run, and an athletic physique, do not always guarantee speed. Running on a treadmill was easy, and road-running had become her meditation, but running across a large, empty space in the morning half-light, trees, plants and buildings in her peripheral vision, expecting at any moment to feel the sharp sting of a bullet, she now discovered was very difficult indeed. She could hardly get a breath out, her chest was so tight, and she couldn’t run nearly as fast as she wanted to – fast enough to outrun bullets. As soon as she took off, she stumbled slightly on the gravel but righted herself and carried on, arms pumping. As she rounded the side of the garage building her breath was coming in big, noisy bursts and her legs felt like jelly, but she kept going, head down, heart thumping, every nerve ending jangling like a set of keys.

  Keys. The car keys.

  As she ran, she held them up and readied the one she would need to unlock the door. Aside from a key for a Chubb lock and a thin silver key, there was one battered old key with moulded plastic around the top and Eva reasoned in the short time she had to make the decision that this would be the car key.

  Suddenly the car was almost in front of her. She slowed her pace and then put her hands up, bracing herself for the impact of the car and ready to jam the key into the lock and wrench the door open.

  The impact came, but not from the front.

  As something dark, hard and heavy came out of nowhere and hit her from the right hand side, Eva was thrown left along the side of the car and away from the door. She scrabbled at the slippery surface of the bonnet trying to get some kind of grip but her nails scraped across it and suddenly she was on the floor, face down. She shouted out as her knee hit the rocky ground and immediately blood began to flow from the side of her left hand where she had landed on the gravel.

  Winded, Eva looked up, dragged a breath through her lungs and started frantically to push herself up on all fours. That force had been a person. Where were they? The answer was instant. Strong hands looped underneath her arms from behind and dragged her upright.

  ‘No! NO!’

  She struggled and kicked but the hands simply lifted her off the floor. As her pursuer turned towards the car with her in his arms, Eva suddenly had purchase, landed the soles of both feet against the side of the car and pushed off with all her strength. She heard the man holding her swear in a foreign language as they fell backwards, severely unbalanced, and then both of them hit the ground, Eva on her back on top. She lashed out with her elbows and suddenly she was released and on her feet, running back around the other side of the car.

  ‘Eva!’

  She heard Leon shout somewhere in her vicinity but when she looked up all she saw was a blur that could have been anyone. She reached the driver’s side and fumbled with the key in the lock, swearing at herself as her hands shook and shook. Finally, the key drove home and she flicked the lock, wrenched open the door and threw herself inside, slamming it behind her and central-locking it from the inside. She sat looking at her knees and took a single breath before she realised that she was not really any safer in the car than out – these people had guns. She looked up towards the passenger’s side to try and locate Leon or her attacker in the half-light of the early dawn. Why couldn’t she see them? Why hadn’t the man caught her as she was trying to get into the car? Suddenly a face slammed against the partially open window on the passenger side. Eva screamed and with a start realised she was staring at the features of the same man who had been in her hotel room earlier that night. His eyes were bulging horribly, not even looking at her, and squashed against the glass she could see a mouth opening and closing in silent expressions of pain. She sat, frozen to the spot as the eyes bulged further, became bloodshot and began opening and shutting. Suddenly, a great spurt of blood made her gasp out loud and the glass of the window was suddenly covered in red. Eva’s hand flew to her mouth and she forced herself not to retch. The person on the other side of the glass slipped slowly down the outside of the car, blood coating and then running down the window in bright red smears.

  Eva stared at the blood-covered window. There was a figure still moving outside. She heard a dr
agging noise and then there was a thud on her window, which almost sent her jumping out of her skin. She turned around and Leon stood there, breathless and blood-covered, wiping a knife on his thigh.

  ‘Get out of the driver’s seat!’

  She stared at him.

  ‘NOW, Eva! Open the door and move over!’

  Suddenly Eva’s brain reconnected and she hastily shifted herself across the gear stick into the passenger seat, then reached back over and unlocked the door. Leon threw himself into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Where are the keys?’

  She handed them to him and he took them silently before starting the engine and reversing back into the yard.

  Eva numbly held on to her bag. As she looked down she noticed that the squashy leather was spotted with droplets of thick, red blood.

  They drove for some time before Eva felt able to speak. Her hand was seeping red and her head was throbbing, but for several minutes she just sat in shock. Finally, she began trying to clean the dirt from around the side of the cut on her hand with the edge of her coat. The wound was small, but deep.

  ‘I need to know what’s going on, Leon. I don’t understand why you’re helping me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Leon stared at the road ahead and Eva noticed the muscle working in the side of his jaw. She stopped cleaning the cut on her hand. ‘This situation is confusing enough without my not being able to trust you.’

  He turned his face to look at her, then turned back to the road. He looked as if he was clenching his teeth. When he spoke he was much calmer than Eva had ever heard him. ‘I should have done more to help Jackson. We went through so much together when he was alive but, when he needed me the most, I wasn’t there for him. That’s why I feel I must be here for you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you help him?’ she said bluntly.

  ‘I was scared.’

  Eva’s glanced over at him in surprise. Fear didn’t seem to be something Leon suffered from.