Huntress

by Amanda Radley

  “This one’s important. So important that I think it’s time we bent the rules just a little,” Andrew said.

  He felt the atmosphere in the room change. Agents shifted in their seats. Officers looked intrigued to know more.

  “I have authority to bring in additional help. Some call her the best hunter in the business. She’s willing to work with us, she’s just waiting for us to give her a name.”

  “McAllister?” Miranda sounded almost impressed.

  “Of course,” Andrew replied smugly.

  “She’s out of the agency. How did you convince her to come back?” Miranda asked.

  Claudia McAllister was famous within the secret service. It was common knowledge that she had left the previous year, citing red tape was preventing her from doing her job. She’d taken her senior analyst with her and set up her own private detective agency in central London.

  McAllister was legendary in her ability to find and bring in anyone in record quick time. She was also known to be a rule breaker. The agency higher-ups went through a continuous circle of giving her a dressing down followed by giving her more work.

  Her departure was felt keenly throughout the service. Of course, MI5 had tried to tempt her back several times to no avail. But Andrew had a tenuous personal connection to Claudia and he intended to leverage that fully.

  “She’s not coming back,” Andrew said, “not permanently.”

  After the debriefing the previous evening, Andrew had realised that this case had the potential to spiral out of control. He was two years from retirement, and he wasn’t about to have his service record blighted by a major attack just before he left.

  He knew that the hunters within the service were some of the best in the country, in the world even. He also knew that most of them had been trained by Claudia. And they were all bogged down by the same red tape and procedural policies that had caused Claudia to walk out.

  “I see.” Miranda nodded her understanding. “Well, I’ll be glad to have her assistance. She was the only one around here willing to do what needed to be done.”

  “I thought you’d see it that way.” Andrew smiled, hoping it didn’t look as smug as it felt.

  “So, now we wait for the data to be accessed, I presume? Then we can pinpoint a location, pick up an asset, and go from there. As always, my department is willing to help. I’ll get our best people on this immediately.”

  “Fantastic. I know working together isn’t always the agency’s strong suit, but in this case, we must band together and share information and sources.” Andrew turned back towards the display screen. He clicked the remote control and moved on to the next slide.

  6

  A Plan

  “We have to work on our getaway,” Amy complained.

  “You said go go go, so I went went went,” Kerry argued.

  Amy pointed to the rearview mirror. “Do you know what this is? What it does? Do you use it? Well, obviously not, because if you had used it, then you would have seen that I was laying in the boot of the car with my flipping legs and arms hanging out the back.”

  “I apologised.”

  “Speed bumps, Kez. Speed bumps.”

  Kerry sighed. “We were evading armed men; I didn’t think slowing down for speed bumps was going to help us get out of there.”

  “My back will never be the same again,” Amy grumbled. “And I was nearly sick! Do you know how many Pez I ate this morning?”

  Kerry threw the paper map into the back seat. “Look, I apologised, okay? I’m sorry. I stopped when you fell out.”

  “I heard you laughing,” Amy muttered.

  “Well, I’m sorry, but it was fucking funny,” Kerry admitted. Amy pouted and Kerry blew out another sigh. “Now, come on. Snap out of it. We need to think of a plan of action. Who are we going to call? What are we going to say? Sitting here complaining about stuff that we can’t change isn’t helping anyone.”

  The car was parked out of the way on a dirt track, in between two high hedges separating fields. Kerry wasn’t sure how they managed to get away, but somehow, they had. Admittedly it must have looked like something out of a black-and-white slapstick comedy.

  But once Amy was firmly in the car and Kerry could hit the gas, they were away. Kerry had driven more aggressively than she’d ever done before. She’d quickly hit the village lanes once they were off the motorway. When it was clear that they weren’t being followed, she’d driven down a couple of narrow roads that led to hardly used dirt tracks.

  “We should probably call the police,” Amy suggested. “Tell them what happened from the start and then give ourselves up.”

  “Agreed. Hiding out here is just going to make matters worse. We tell them what happened. Give them the USB stick and then we go to the pub,” Kerry said with a smirk.

  “Ooh, pub.” Amy smiled.

  That was more like how Kerry had seen her afternoon off work going. Running away was probably a stupid idea, but they would call the police, explain what had happened, and flutter their eyelashes a little bit. They’d apologise and then have a quick glass of wine in the pub before heading to her dad’s.

  “Right, call them. Then we can go to the pub and get this camping out of the way. Did you bring Pocket Scrabble, by the way?”

  “Of course I did,” Amy told her. “I need to prove myself after the last match.”

  Amy reached into the back seat and got her mobile phone out of her bag.

  “It was pretty exciting, though, wasn’t it?” Kerry said. “I mean, we just did a proper getaway from the police. Like, I think I nearly wheel spun. I didn’t know I could do that. A bit less screaming and a bit more knowing where the car was and that would have been epic.”

  “Kerry...”

  “Yeah, yeah, maybe making sure we were both in the car before setting off, I know.” Kerry rolled her eyes.

  “No, Kerry, look...” Amy held up her phone for her to see.

  * * *

  BREAKING NEWS ALERT:

  POLICE CONDUCTING URGENT MANHUNT FOR AMY HEWITT AND KERRY WYATT, CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS.

  * * *

  Kerry felt her heart sink. There was her name. Her actual name, on the news. Alongside words like “police” and “armed”. A cold shiver ran through her body as the reality of what was happening started to kick in. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

  “What the hell? Armed with what?” she demanded of the screen.

  Amy took the phone back and started to read the news story aloud. “‘Stoneshire Police have issued arrest warrants for Amy Hewitt and Kerry Wyatt, who are suspected to have sold confidential information to terrorists. Members of the public are urged to report any sightings...’ Oh fuck...”

  Kerry’s heartbeat quickened at the horrified expression on Amy’s face. “What?”

  Amy quickly turned the phone screen towards her. Kerry squinted as she looked at the two grainy CCTV pictures of them.

  “What the—?” Kerry snatched the phone. “That is the worst possible picture they could have found of me. Well, I’m safe. No one looking for that Elephant Woman is ever going to find me.” She paused and looked at her friend who had yet to issue a denial. “Are they? I knew I should have washed my hair this morning. I thought dry shampoo would be enough, but clearly—”

  “Kerry, focus,” Amy told her calmly. “The police are after us. They think we’re working with terrorists.”

  Kerry swallowed nervously and handed the phone back into Amy’s waiting palm. Leaving the services to regroup wasn’t supposed to end like this. She just saw the men with the guns and panicked. While she’d suggested they run away, she hadn’t meant to go on the run. It was quickly sinking in that was exactly what they had done. For the police to issue a news alert and get their pictures from the CCTV cameras so quickly showed a level of urgency that Kerry didn’t want to be tied up in.

  “We can’t hand ourselves in,” Amy announced coolly.

  “Why not?” Kerry asked.

  �
��What if they don’t believe us? Prison isn’t like TV.”

  “Prison?” Kerry asked, the weight of the situation settling heavily on her shoulders.

  “Well, they’re not going to send two suspected terrorists to Disney, are they?”

  Kerry slowly turned her head away and looked at the narrow road in front of her. She started to wonder how this had even happened. When she had applied for an afternoon off from work, she hadn’t assumed that would be the day she would be labelled a suspected terrorist. All she had done was visit her best friend, and suddenly she was—

  Amy’s phone rang and she let out a yelp. She threw the phone into the foot well, gathering her feet up onto the passenger seat to get away from the noisy device.

  “Who is it?” Kerry demanded, finding her strength at the moment Amy lost hers.

  “I don’t know. It says no number!”

  “It’s them,” Kerry surmised.

  “Them who?” Amy looked at her, fear obvious in her eyes.

  “Them! You know, them! The people who have been sent to find us.” Kerry nodded. That was their dynamic now, us and them. Everyone else was a them.

  “What do I do?”

  “I don’t know,” Kerry admitted. The events of the day all seemed to be happening too quickly. She wanted things to slow down so she could take stock and make sensible decisions. So far, they’d made the wrong decisions and that had got them into a situation where they were labelled terrorists.

  Amy reached into the foot well and picked up her phone.

  “Amy, no!” Kerry surged forward to stop her from answering the call.

  Amy pushed Kerry back. She held up her hand before answering the phone and putting the call on speaker. “What?”

  “That was very stupid.” The familiar male voice echoed through the car.

  “What do you want, Spiky?” Amy demanded, fear giving way to anger once she recognised the voice.

  “The USB. Give it to me and all of this will go away.”

  “No way,” Kerry shouted. “Like we’d trust you!”

  “Fine.” He sounded unbearably smug. “Then let me tell you what’s about to happen. If you go to the police, they will arrest you for suspected terrorism offences. Terrorism is a very unique charge in the United Kingdom, it prevents you from having many of your normal rights. They can hold you for longer, prevent you from speaking to others. And when they find you guilty, and I’ll make sure they do, your lives will be over. Trust me when I say that I’ll make sure the police find evidence linking you to certain plans.”

  “Do your worst!” Amy taunted.

  Kerry stared at her in shock. For a genius, Amy could be an idiot sometimes. “Amy,” Kerry whispered, shaking her head.

  “What?” Amy mouthed.

  Kerry returned her attention to the phone and Spiky. “We’re not giving you the USB stick.”

  “Then you better be really good at running and hiding. Because they are coming for you. And I don’t mean the local cops. I mean the specialists. The hunters. They will freeze your bank accounts, they will speak to everyone you know, take your personal belongings, track your car number plate, and if you ditch your car, then they will follow you on CCTV. Don’t think you can call anyone for help, they’ll pinpoint your mobile telephone. Trust me, you won’t last a day.”

  “We’ll go off the grid,” Amy announced.

  Kerry smacked her in the shoulder to shut her up. The last thing they needed was Amy giving away their plans to the enemy.

  “Off the grid?” Spiky laughed. “There is no ‘off the grid’ in the modern world. You can’t hide. Everything we do is being monitored. It is just a matter of time before they find you. Being on the run isn’t a nice life. You can’t trust anyone. You’ll miss your home comforts very quickly. Just meet me and hand over the USB, and I’ll make it all go away.”

  Amy hung up the call. “Okay, we have to get rid of our phones.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” Kerry put her hand to her forehead and massaged at the headache that was starting to take hold.

  Amy waved her phone around in Kerry’s face. “Weren’t you listening? He just said they can track our phones. We have to ditch them.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Serious about not wanting to be arrested on terrorism charges? Um, yes!”

  Kerry reached into her coat pocket and looked at the screen of her own phone.

  * * *

  Six Missed Calls

  * * *

  With a sigh, she showed the screen to Amy.

  “See? It’s started. Quick, turn it off!” Amy ordered as she turned her own phone off.

  Kerry powered down her phone. She watched the operating system logo flash up before disappearing. The screen faded to black.

  She looked at Amy. “What now?”

  “We have to ditch the car,” Amy said. She reached into the back seat and picked up the paper map that Kerry kept in case of emergencies.

  “Ditch the car? I’m not ditching my car!” Kerry told her. She held onto the handbrake lever. “I love my car.”

  Amy didn’t look up as she turned the map in multiple directions and followed roads with her finger. “They can track the number plate, they are probably on the way here now, we need to get out of here. On foot.”

  “Amy, you need to slow down and think about this. You’re talking about going on the run,” Kerry told her. “This isn’t a joke anymore.”

  Amy put the map down and turned to look at Kerry. “Do you remember when we were kids, and we used to hang out in the school playground together? We’d look at the fence and talk about climbing over it and running away? Going on big adventures and seeing what was out there?”

  “We were seven,” Kerry reminded her.

  “But we knew we could do it because we had each other,” Amy told her seriously. “I’ve always thought about those chats, the plans of what we would do. How we would get around Mrs Simms, how we’d run across the park and then get on the first bus we saw. We had it all figured out. We knew exactly what we would do, no matter what happened. We were unstoppable.”

  Kerry had to chuckle. “Yeah, we were. We had an answer for everything.”

  “Kez, I honestly think we need to run. We need to clear our names and we can’t do that if some terrorist with connections is planting evidence against us. Think about it. We don’t know who he is but he is clearly not going to win a philanthropy award any time soon. He threatened me with a knife. He is setting us up, and we can’t let him.”

  Kerry knew she had to be the voice of reason when Amy got like this. “We only have his word that he is doing that.”

  Amy shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, okay, fine, yeah, we’ll take the risk. Because Spiky might be lying and it might all be fine. Or he might be telling the truth and that butt-ugly CCTV picture of your face will be across every newspaper in Britain and you’ll be labelled a terrorist forever.”

  Kerry scowled at the mention of the CCTV image. “And how is running going to help?”

  “It will give us a chance to clear our names. We’ll get away from here, from where they are looking for us. We can regroup. But properly, not like this. And then, then we’ll find someone who can look at the USB, someone who can help us,” Amy said hurriedly as the plan came to her.

  “There’s... there’s always Jason?” Kerry suggested.

  Amy frowned. “Who?”

  “You remember Jason Lawrence, I met him at university? He started the year I finished.”

  “Oh, the one that was always following you around?”

  “Yeah, he is an IT genius. Said there was nothing he couldn’t crack, he’d won some awards and stuff as well.”

  “Do you know him well?” Amy asked.

  Kerry shrugged. “I didn’t keep in touch with him, so I don’t see how the police would think to connect us. And he transferred to Aberdeen University the year after I left, so it’s not like it’s even going back to my own university. If we could get there, he could help
us see what’s on the USB. He can probably help us document that we have nothing to do with the information that’s on the USB. Some kind of data trail. Doesn’t everything you do on a computer leave a footprint?”

  Amy nodded. “I think so.” She turned the map over. “Aberdeen. Jesus, that’s a long way.”

  “I don’t know anyone else who could help us with this.” Kerry shook her head and took a deep breath. Running from the police seemed insane. But she had no idea if Spiky was telling the truth. Maybe he had constructed evidence that would have her thrown into a black hole forever. If she was labelled a terrorist, that was the end of her life.

  She turned and looked at her rucksack. She mentally calculated what she had in her bag and how she would be able to use it. She had a tent, sleeping bag, a few spare clothes, but mainly because she was dropping stuff off at her dad’s. Amy had obviously packed enough for a month.

  Even so, neither of them had ever had a successful camping trip, never mind running away from the police.

  “He said it wouldn’t be the police looking for us,” Kerry remembered.

  “Yeah, he called them hunters.”

  “Hunters?” Kerry bristled. “That sounds awful. The people coming after us are hunters, Amy.”

  “The people coming after us have no idea where we are or where we’ll head. I meant what I said, we’ll go off the grid. They can’t track our car or use CCTV if we’re off the grid.”

  “So, we’re doing this?” Kerry asked. Whatever they found themselves wrapped up in, it was obviously bad. Bad enough for someone to threaten them with a knife. Bad enough for the armed police to show up within minutes.

  She watched as Amy grabbed her notebook and started to take notes. Amy was crazy sometimes, but she was also the smartest person Kerry knew. She would trust Amy with her life.

  With a cold shudder, she realised she might be doing just that. Going on the run was deadly serious. She just hoped that Amy knew that, too. As smart as she was, she could also be extraordinarily stupid.