'How do I know that?'
'Because he's already in America trying to save you. Do you have his phone number? We could call him right now.'
Vicente reached into his chest pocket. 'I have it.' He handed over a crumpled piece of paper.
'Good. Then let's call him.' The man punched the numbers into his phone, and put it to his ear. A few seconds passed. Katie wanted to wake up. More than anything, she wanted this to be just a nightmare. Just a bad dream. The man's voice seemed distant, like it was carried to her on a melancholy wind.
'Nathaniel Virgo? My name is – well, let's just say Rafael. I have your daughter here. Would you like to speak to her?' He held out the phone.
Katie used all the strength she had to keep standing, and took the phone with a quivering hand.
'Dad?'
'Katie?' Just the sound of his voice was enough to break her. She couldn't speak.
'Katie? Love? Are you OK? What have they done to you?'
'They . . . they killed Mum.' She mustn't cry. 'They shot Mum. Right in front of me.'
She was losing the fight, whimpering softly into the mouthpiece. She was a teenager again. 'What's going on, Dad? Why are they doing this? Are you OK? They told me you're in danger.'
She yelped as Rafael tore the phone from her grip.
'Mr Virgo, your daughter will be put on a plane in a few minutes.'
Katie tried to retain some control of herself. She had to listen to anything he said, for something she could use.
'Let's just say she will end up somewhere on the east coast.' Rafael looked at her and unleashed a grim smile. 'If you do all you are asked, she may just be fine. If you don't, you will certainly never see her again. I would suggest that you comply with all that my colleagues are requesting of you.'
He snapped the phone shut and stepped forward so that his face was just a few inches from hers. He smelled of tobacco and coffee.
'Now. Here's the situation. You know he's relying on you, and you are relying on him. I would suggest you don't cause any more trouble.'
CHAPTER 52
NATHANIEL VIRGO STARED BACK at the poppies hanging, lifeless, on the wall. He couldn't bring Katie's face to mind. His own daughter's smile, the flash of her eyes – it all eluded him. He wanted to remember that she was real, that the voice he heard was really hers. But all that came was a head, a face, framed by splayed hair and dirty asphalt. It should have been Katie's face, but it was Rachel's.
His mind was playing tricks. He knew the scene; he had just finished calling the ambulance, and he was talking to Rachel, telling her that there had been an accident. That Katie had been hurt. Rachel kept saying she didn't believe it. Just hung there on the other end of the phone not knowing whether it was true. While he gazed down at his daughter's blank expression and screamed at everyone else to get back.
He felt the adrenaline of the moment again, the outrage that made him want to chase the car, made him think he could catch it, that this would be one of those times where people report superhuman strength, miraculous speed.
But then the moment was gone, and all he had felt was weakness. He'd stared into Katie's face and felt hollow; the rage had sublimated, become fear and pain and sorrow. Here she was, the beauty that he had helped bring into the world, lying in gravel and blood. It was the blood that had first led his eyes to the twisted, inhuman leg. His vision followed the trickling stream as it traversed the tiny rapids of the asphalt's grit and ran down to pool in the gutter. It created a shallow puddle around the smashed-up bone and ripped muscle, the torn skin and the twisted sneaker. Katie's foot was stuck out at an impossible angle from her perfect ankle.
Her hair slide lay in the gutter, next to the foot: plain, brown, plastic and broken. He had picked it out of the congealing blood simply because it was something he could do. He knew instinctively he couldn't pick up his daughter, despite the deepest cravings within him. He had to wait for the ambulance. He could see how her limbs would hang, droop and twist away from her torso, and he feared a crunch, a grind of gristle, as sinew ripped further from bone under her near-dead weight.
But now the hair matted against the road belonged to Rachel. He saw her in the same place, another victim of his work, his drive, his faults.
It was true. Of course it was true. He had destroyed his wife, just like he had nearly destroyed his daughter. He did not deserve any pity here in his desolation. He deserved only to be held here, imprisoned in this hell, his heart stopped.
Like his heart had stopped when he saw Katie wave and smile and step across at the crossing's insistent, beeping call. She had glanced up, seen the green, walking figure illuminated, followed all the rules her daddy had carefully taught her before she had even started school. Katie Virgo knew how to cross a road. For all the good it did her.
What good were rules when some junkie's shredded mind forgot every rule he'd ever been taught?
They caught him from the witnesses' accounts. He was nineteen. A middle-class boy, back from university for the weekend, rushing out to meet his friends. His terror and remorse were only appropriate, Virgo felt, as he watched him – despised him – from the gallery. The boy's teeth chattered in the courtroom when he spoke, like he was some cartoon coward. He admitted he was high at the time. Flying, he said.
And somehow Katie forgave him.
She just got over it, rolled with it, while he wanted to die.
He had lived with the blue lights flashing through his dreams for a while. His nights were full of blue and white, and the red and yellow of the McDonald's restaurant across the road, the place they were supposed to meet. Sometimes, he still saw the scene when he passed one.
In the end, the dreams had faded. It was Katie who'd healed him. He watched her come back to life, struggle through her physical therapy, grin and grimace as she tried each new prosthetic. She was born again on every one. His little girl was still a track star. She had even gone back into the school's climbing gym and learned how to rise again, how to resume the battle against gravity with her three good limbs. She was stronger, more tenacious than she had ever been. Katie would never be beaten by anything. Sometimes, he could hardly see her for the tears in his eyes.
Rachel had told him it wasn't his fault so many times that he had even started to believe it. Journalists chased leads every day, she said; every day someone rang up their daughter and said they were going to be twenty minutes late. Who was to know that the split second at the end of that twenty minutes – that particular twenty minutes in all of the universe's eternity – would change a life? Who was to know when the car that jumps the lights would arrive? We were all a split second away from it, every day of our fragile lives.
Virgo looked away from the poppies and turned to the window. Out there, somehow, he would find his deliverance. He would be Katie's salvation, and he would have his revenge for the outrage of her mother's death. The baseness of that instinct simultaneously impressed and astonished him. This fight was real. And he would win it.
CHAPTER 53
'FOLLOW ME.' RAFAEL LED Katie and Vicente to the edge of the luggage hall and through a small door. They emerged into the light, with the flat expanse of the airport's tarmac and runways stretching out in front of them. He was heading towards a large jet whining in the space between two parking bays. Engineers on a wheeled gantry were working on something halfway down the fuselage. As they got close, Rafael shouted something to the engineers, and they packed away their tools.
A flight of steps led up to the plane's front door; Rafael halted at the bottom step and told them to wait. He moved quickly up into the plane.
Katie turned to look at Vicente. He was staring at her.
'Ramón?' he said. 'What happened to Ramón?'
She looked down. There were flecks of blood on her blouse. She didn't want to say it out loud. She said nothing, just looked defiantly back at the man who murdered her mother. He accepted her silence and looked away.
Rafael appeared at the doorway, and beck
oned them up the steps. Vicente pushed her in the back with the barrel of his gun. She turned and stung him with her eyes. Sometime in the last few moments, Vicente had started to look out of control, frightened. She remembered what Ramón had said: Vicente doesn't like planes. She despised him now, wanted to spit at him, but she wouldn't do that. She wouldn't come down to that level, where she was no better than them. She felt the nudge of metal in her back again. What was she going to do? What could she do? Vicente was going to be able to bring a gun onboard and there was nothing she could do about it.
A Cuban stewardess sat them in two seats in first class. She was insistent that Katie be next to the window, with Vicente at the aisle. Rafael watched them sit, then raised a palm at Vicente, who waved back. He tried to smile, but the muscles in his face were too tight to relax into a grin.
'The quieter the better,' Rafael said, smiling. 'Enjoy the flight.'
And then he was gone.
The engines began to whine louder, then higher. The plane started to move.
The captain's voice resounded in the cabin's loudspeakers.
'Ladies and gentlemen, we do apologise for the delay to your flight to Montreal this afternoon. We are assured there will be no further delays, and have just received clearance for departure.'
Montreal? Canada? It would do.
The captain repeated the message in Spanish. Katie tensed as they reached the runway. She could feel the brakes holding the plane back as the engines roared ever louder. Vicente was praying, his face ashen, and she felt a strange pity for him.
The din heightened as the captain released the brakes. Vicente prayed faster and louder.
Twenty seconds later, they were in the air.
CHAPTER 54
VIRGO PULLED THE PHONE from his pocket and switched it off. It was his connection to Katie, but it was better not to be traceable just yet. And she wouldn't be able to call him from the plane anyway, that much was clear. He stared at the blank screen. When she had landed and was free, she would call. It would be her first thought, for sure. What was the flight time from Cuba into the US? He would take the risk and switch the phone back on in a few hours. Once Katie called him, and had got herself safely into police hands, he'd head to Logan. He'd be able to call Imogen then too; maybe her National Security Agency contact, this David character, would be able to smooth their passage out of the United States. Virgo was in no doubt that he'd be picked up by the FBI minutes after he bought a ticket, but that would be OK if Katie was safe and if someone high up in the US agencies could vouch for him. It would work out, he told himself. They would fly him back to London under guard, and he was confident that he'd be able to supply them with enough information to get Alexandra Genovsky taken out of the picture. Maybe Wheelan too. If he could point them to the people who killed Radcliffe and Gierek, then he would surely be cleared of everything. They might even have time to stop the hijacks. Even if the conspiracy did go to the top, there was no reason to hold back.
Once Katie was safe.
Should he eat something? He was hungry, but he wanted to try to get some sleep, prepare for whatever was to come. He would eat when he woke, if there was time. Sleep? He was in denial. But he might as well go along with it. He set the alarm on his watch to wake him up at six o'clock, and lay down on the bed. He put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. All he could see was Rachel. He couldn't even see Katie any more, couldn't bring her face to the front of his mind.
With a start, he jerked upright. Had he dreamed it?
Tap tap tap.
It was no dream. Someone was at the door.
He sat motionless on the bed.
OK, think.
The FBI? If it was the FBI, they were being surprisingly polite – the tapping was almost apologetic. It didn't want to be heard. But it was also insistent: three taps just about every ten seconds. He had listened to it four times so far and still couldn't think who might be trying to get his attention. Genovsky? His heart raced faster. No. Quiet and subtle wasn't her style. As the next taps started, he moved silently over to the door. It might just be next door wanting to know if cable was working.
'Who is it?'
There was a pause, then a whisper.
'Nathaniel, let me in. It's Daniel Born.'
CHAPTER 55
VIRGO STOOD WITH HIS back to the closed door, and stared. A flurry of questions raced through his mind. Eventually, he decided on the most pressing one.
'What the hell are you doing here?'
Born was wearing a sapphire-blue shirt with a buttondown collar. Parallel creases ran down on either side of the chest, relics of the folds that fitted it into a sales box. He wore it with its tails flapping loose, pushed out at the front by his belly. He'd shaved. He'd even washed his hair recently: as he stroked some strands out of his face, Virgo could see it was soft, not straggling.
Born looked around the room, then pointed to the desk chair. 'Can I sit down?'
Virgo nodded, and Born eased himself into the plastic swivel chair. Virgo went to sit on the edge of the bed. Even before he reached it, he realised there was a more important question.
'How did you find me?'
'I followed you from Alexandra Genovsky's place,' Born said. He was grinning, but nervously, like a child climbing onto a rollercoaster.
'What were you doing there? And what happened at your cottage? Why did you let Genovsky get away?'
Born held up his hands to parry the questions. 'I ran, Nathaniel. I'm sorry. After you left I just ran from the house. I couldn't think in there, and she was coming round, and . . . I couldn't hit her, and . . . I knew she wouldn't let me get away if she could stop me. So I just ran.' His face lightened. 'I'm so glad to see you. Alive, I mean.'
Virgo struggled to read Born's face. It was almost blank, like the face of a harmless simpleton.
'But she was tied up,' he said.
'I suppose she got herself free after I left. She could have reached a kitchen knife, or something.'
Virgo stared at him for a moment. This all seemed unlikely. Worse than unlikely.
'So why are you here? And how did you know where to find Genovsky?'
Born seemed not to notice the edge in his tone, and offered another uneasy smile.
'I told you, she offered me a job once. She told me how to find her.' He paused, then his words came out with more measure, more sobriety. 'I knew she would come after me. I'm here to save my skin. To get rid of her before she gets rid of me. She's covering up a leak and she's going to wipe away all trace.'
'And how are you going to get rid of her, exactly?'
'I haven't figured that out yet.' Born leaned back in the chair. 'So, is it over for you now? Have you got yourself – and your wife – out of this tangled web?'
Virgo stared into Born's eyes. What was he doing here now? Why had he come all the way to the US?
'What do you know about Genovsky?'
Born paused. 'Look, I don't blame you for being suspicious.' He seemed to relax into his chair at the invitation to talk. He ran a hand through his hair. 'She's got some huge project going on in a warehouse north of the city.' He sat forward, his expression and tone suggesting conspiracy. 'If it's to do with the quantum computer, I hate to think what. There are armed guards, and some huge, blacked-out trucks moving in and out of the place. I was out there watching earlier. I think it must be some kind of trial for the system.' Born raised an eyebrow. 'Did she say anything to you about it?'
Virgo shook his head. He couldn't stop staring at Born. What had happened to the lazy recluse he met in Oxford? He had turned into someone who was strangely proactive.
'Did you find out whether the disks were entangled together?' Born asked.
There was an unmistakable enthusiasm in Born's voice. Had Born crossed the Atlantic because he wanted to trace a quantum breakthrough? Was he that obsessed? Was it still all about the work? Virgo felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him. He didn't care about what was going on now. Genovsky could be brea
king the laws of physics or masterminding the ultimate evil; he just wanted the world to leave him alone. With Katie.
'I didn't ask her anything,' he said.
Born looked disappointed, and stared into the wall. 'I'd love to know how Laszlo did it,' he said.
Virgo forced himself to think. The facts: Born was here, he didn't know why, and he had to take control of the situation. He had to engage in this again, if only to make sure Born didn't mess things up. But how? Could he deceive Born too? Born would require a slightly different kind of lie.
'I found something in Gierek's lab,' Virgo said. 'Something interesting.'
Born's eyes widened. 'Really? What?'
Virgo went to the closet, and pulled out the box.
'This was hidden in a cupboard.'
Born shot him an admiring look. 'What does it do?'
Keeping one hand firmly on the casing, Virgo reached for his jacket and pulled out one of the blank disks he had found in Gierek's lab. 'I used it to entangle this with another disk,' he lied. 'It's the most incredible thing. This disk and its partner can sense each other when they're in completely separate drives. You keep one disk in here, the other in any other drive. It's extraordinary.'
Born looked around. 'So where's its partner?'
'It's headed for the Boston FBI.'
Born looked surprised. 'Why? What's on it?'
'Genovsky's name, address, and present occupation.'
'And when were you planning to activate the disk?'
'Once Katie is safely under police guard.'
Born said nothing.
'They're flying her out of Cuba. As soon as she gets to a police guard, I'm going to put Alexandra Genovsky behind bars.'
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