Killing Eva

by Alex Blackmore

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ she said, attempting to verbally block the connection she could feel.

  ‘No’ was all he said in reply.

  Eva sat and stared at him.

  Her head was a mess.

  She looked away. She shut her eyes. Several minutes passed.

  With a rushing sensation, Eva began to feel her emotions changing once again. She opened her eyes; she felt nothing now. It could be anyone sitting opposite her.

  A boldness overtook her.

  ‘Why do you do this?’ she asked him. ‘I mean, what kind of life do you have and what really makes all this,’ she gestured expansively with her hands, ‘more worthwhile than people and friendships and real genuine relationships?’

  She leaned forward towards him. She couldn’t help noticing how his eyes travelled down her neck.

  When he met her gaze again, she could see his pupils were engorged.

  He looked away.

  ‘These ties hurt,’ she said, softly.

  He continued to ignore her.

  ‘Take them off?’

  He sat silent.

  ‘Please undo the ties, Leon,’ she asked, beguilingly, and, finally, he looked at her. She smiled, ‘There isn’t exactly anywhere I can go, is there?’

  A muscle twitched above his eye.

  ‘Besides,’ Eva continued, quite obviously eyeing the muscles in his arms, ‘you’re so much stronger than me, anyway.’

  Jesus, she thought to herself, as she heard the words come out of her mouth, will he really fall for this?

  But he did. And several minutes later, she was sitting opposite him, unsecured. She realised the fake Jackson might have been wrong and it was not Leon who had held the power over her but, perhaps, it was the other way around. She glanced at her body, thin now – really thin – and dressed in jeans and a sweater customised with someone else’s blood. She was hardly in seductress mode.

  Nevertheless…

  She stood up, locking her eyes with his. She heard Irene inhale sharply in the seat behind.

  ‘Sit down,’ Leon said flatly.

  ‘Oh come on, I’m not going to hurt you.’

  ‘I said sit down.’

  She hesitated. The two stared at each other. Eva felt her skin start to tingle.

  ‘Make me.’

  There was silence in the plane; all Eva could hear was the sound of her heartbeat in her ears. She watched Leon, waiting to see what he would do, assuming he would stay put, but he took her by surprise. Suddenly, he was in front of her, right up against her, his two huge hands wrapped around her shoulders. He shook her slightly. She looked up at him. Their faces were close.

  Leon’s eyes seemed to glaze over for several seconds as he stared at her – just as they had done in the park in Berlin – and then they cleared. He pushed her down into the seat and silently began to fasten her back in.

  THIRTY THREE

  He had observed the interaction from the front of the plane. It was fascinating the way she had manipulated him – and it had almost worked.

  Was there something more he didn’t know about?

  When he stepped out into the main body of the plane, he could see the shock on Eva’s face. But there was something else there too, something suspicious, perhaps even knowing. As if she had been there before.

  He stood in front of her, at 10,000 feet, unsure of what to say after all this time and slightly puzzled by her reaction.

  He had expected her to perhaps explode with anger, or maybe even with excitement in the best-case scenario, but the silent staring and the stillness were unexpected and unnerving.

  He didn’t know why he had chosen this moment specifically to reveal himself, it had just felt as if it might be the right time. Although, from the way Leon was looking at him, perhaps he should have waited for the signal, as they had discussed.

  He took a step towards Eva. She visibly backed away.

  Eva was struggling to make sense of the face in front of her. Jackson – again.

  She blinked several times and checked her heart rate to make sure she wasn’t having another fit, but her pulse was strong and healthy, albeit slightly raised. Despite that, she felt she couldn’t trust her eyes. They had let her down once, already.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said, finally.

  He frowned. ‘You know who I am.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘It’s me,’ he said again, taking another step across the plane towards her, ‘it’s Jackson. Your brother.’

  ‘How do I know that?’

  He laughed, irritation insuppressible. ‘Well, can’t you see it?’

  She didn’t reply but he noticed another tiny shake of her head.

  She saw him frown again. He did actually look genuinely perturbed by her reaction. But that meant nothing.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘All this time, where have you been?’

  ‘It’s a long story, I don’t think I can tell you all of it.’

  The answer was too similar to that of the first Jackson. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

  ‘Well, what do you want?’

  ‘Eva, I don’t understand. I thought you might be pleased to see me.’

  She fought to control her emotions, which were picking up unnatural speed once again, swirling in an ever-increasing storm of violence.

  ‘Pleased to see you,’ she murmured, ‘Pleased. To. See. You.’

  It was immediately obvious that he regretted the flippant choice of words. History – even history that dated back to Paris – had proven to Eva that he was a liar. Of course she would not welcome his appearance.

  With a start, Eva realised she had just thought of this man as if he really was her brother. She stared at him.

  ‘Can we at least untie her?’ the man asked Leon, after several minutes of silence. That’s what she had wanted minutes before. Perhaps he could establish trust by giving it to her.

  Leon was looking at Eva again, his eyes dark and liquid. The heaviness of his brow almost completely overshadowed the expression on his face and Eva realised she couldn’t read him at all.

  She noticed he had sneaked a glance at Jackson, too, as if he also couldn’t quite believe his eyes. That confused her.

  Finally, Leon nodded but didn’t move.

  Jackson walked over to Eva and loosened her bonds. The space was tiny; they were forced to be close. Eva felt the uncertain terrain of the situation. So many unknowns.

  She tried to swallow and realised her mouth was completely dry. Nervously, she flicked her hair from her face. It was almost impossible to establish whether the people around her were friend or foe, both from the way they had behaved and from the circumstances in which they had appeared. It was all so conflicting. And now, here was another Jackson, one Leon seemed to accept. Leon and Jackson had been friends and he would know the real one. Or would he? She hadn’t. Perhaps Leon was being duped, too. Or maybe he was, once again, duping her.

  She closed her eyes and took some deep breaths. It was too much. It was all too much.

  Behind closed eyelids, she heard the clink of a glass of water being placed on the small table by the window to her right. She looked up into Leon’s eyes but they were still expressionless and cold. He hesitated in front of her, momentarily. Their eyes locked.

  Then he walked away from her and began taking medical equipment from a large box positioned on a table on the opposite side of the plane. Everyone was watching him but he didn’t seem to notice. Because of the size of the space, he was forced to stoop everywhere he moved.

  When he apparently had what he needed, he took it and walked past her without meeting her eye. She heard him instructing Irene in the seat behind to take off her shirt.

  Jackson spoke, distracting her.
r />   ‘Eva, I just want to say that I’m sorry.’

  She looked at him. It was a pointless thing to say given what she had been through.

  Nevertheless, she nodded, still wondering how to establish whether this face was real or liable to change at any second. Not being able to trust her judgement was making the situation difficult and she felt out of control, as if the ground was rushing up to meet her.

  Which was unnerving in a plane.

  ‘I know this must be difficult for you, that everything in Paris must have been so hard. I’m so, so sorry.’

  She stared at him, the emotions inside continuing to duck and whirl.

  ‘If I could have done anything differently, I would,’ he continued.

  She had the feeling that he would just carry on talking if she didn’t reply to him. The verbal diarrhoea of a guilty conscience?

  ‘Jackson,’ she said slowly, ‘if you really are Jackson, that is.’

  He frowned again.

  ‘We could talk about this but I really wouldn’t know where to start.’

  A silent nod.

  Eva just didn’t have the stomach for the conversation.

  She heard a gasp from behind and turned in her seat to see Irene flat out over the chairs behind, with Leon suturing her shoulder.

  There was blood; it made the bile rise in her gut.

  She turned unsteadily.

  Jackson was watching her.

  He looked as if he was about to make more apologies. What she needed was to know who he really was – the rest, she really didn’t care about, right now. But establishing anything was going to be difficult given how off-key her perception was.

  ‘How do I know you’re my brother?’

  ‘I don’t understand, why would I not be?’ he replied, indicating his face.

  She considered not talking about what had happened before. If he was another fake, of course he already knew about it and she would feel foolish. But if he wasn’t… ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve come across you this week.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s not the first time I’ve seen your face – if I didn’t seem shocked, it’s because I have already had the “reunion moment” with you. But with someone else.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  She watched his face to see whether that was true.

  He sat back in his seat and broke eye contact for several seconds before he spoke.

  ‘Did you see anyone else you thought you knew? Or anything strange which seemed to be the boundaries of reality blurring?’

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘What exactly did you see?’

  ‘I saw Valerie.’

  The name produced an almost physical reaction in him. Of what type, Eva couldn’t be sure.

  Did it make her feel more convinced of his identity? Perhaps.

  ‘Where did you see her?’ His voice was aggressive, gravelly.

  ‘At the château where they held me.’

  ‘Not possible.’

  ‘I thought I saw her too.’ This, from Irene, behind them. No one stopped her speaking. ‘It wasn’t her, Eva,’ concluded Irene, a lightly patronising note in her voice. ‘Just a very good lookalike.’

  Had she intentionally emphasised that word? Eva realised she could no longer read between the conversational lines.

  ‘Eva,’ Jackson turned and focused intensely on her, ‘I don’t know how much you know about what has happened but these people,’ Eva could have sworn he nodded in Irene’s direction, ‘have access to the best science money can buy.’

  ‘Irene has told me this.’

  He frowned and stopped. He appeared to reassess and then continue.

  ‘They have a piece of technology allowing them to manipulate the brain by injecting it with a combination of drugs and inserting tiny cranial implants. This can be designed specifically to communicate with a template marked on the face.’

  ‘Marked with what?’

  ‘Mapping points. They can use this to make you think you’re seeing someone you’re not.’

  As soon as Joseph Smith heard that sentence, he knew it was time to move. He set the autopilot to guide them into Geneva airspace and then took off the captain’s hat he had stolen from the man he had shot in the airfield in France. He felt the co-pilot glance across at him, so he smiled. The other man had not spoken a word when his colleague had been replaced and Smith had quickly realised that those who agreed to make these flights understood that the less they knew the safer they would be. Although not in this instance. Silently, he removed the small knife that he kept in his pocket. He began small talk with the man about his family whilst slipping the sheath from the knife with the hand that held it.

  The sheath dropped almost soundlessly to the floor of the cabin as he activated the flick blade but the other man seemed to hear one or the other of the two motions. A silence passed between them and Joseph Smith waited to see if the co-pilot would take any action. In the seconds that followed the colour drained from the other man’s face; he understood what was about to happen. How did people know that, thought Smith to himself; it was not the first time he had seen the recognition of impending death. He waited to see whether the man would beg. When he didn’t, Smith took hold of his chin and cut deep through his jugular. The man did not protest. It was the quickest and most humane way Smith could kill him. Had the man begged for his life, Smith might have chosen a far less swift method.

  He watched the life ebb out of the co-pilot’s eyes and knew that, in those last seconds, whoever he really was, and whatever he had done in his life, his thoughts would have turned to his family. Or perhaps to everything he had done. Even all the things he had not done. Death was the greatest of levellers. Joseph Smith had never been close enough to death to appreciate what happened in the last minutes before the body ceased to support the brain. He had seen it oh so many times and occasionally he had been tempted to stop, to question his victim and ask what it was like. But he never did. It was not a process you could easily halt, even temporarily.

  When the man was dead, Joseph turned his seat so he was facing the opposite window. He opened a small locker in the cabin and changed out of the pilot’s clothes before equipping himself with the weapons he had brought with him – the small knife, a larger knife and two guns. Then he placed the mapping points at the correct parts of his face and activated the sensors.

  Finally, he stood and walked out of the cockpit, silently closing the door behind him. He stood for several seconds in the area between the cockpit and the curtained off cabin. Then he pulled back the cabin curtain, standing in the doorway, waiting for the passengers to notice him.

  Eva looked up at the doorway. The sentence she had been speaking to her brother was not finished. Her voice simply trailed away. For there, standing in the doorway, was a man with the same face as the person sitting opposite her.

  Behind her, she heard Leon swear and then there was stillness. Eva wanted to turn but she couldn’t tear her gaze from the identical faces in front of her. Two Jacksons, exactly the same in every respect.

  She looked from the face of the man in front of her to the face of the man who stood at the door. There was no way to tell them apart. Neither looked more menacing, neither held a weapon. They were even wearing almost the same clothes.

  She watched as they regarded each other. As the man sitting opposite turned to face the man in the doorway, both jumped slightly, an almost identical reaction.

  Slowly, she stood up.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Her voice was unsteady, wavering. Her knees were shaking. She leaned, so that the backs of her calves were pushing against the solid material of the seat.

  The plane juddered, as if there was no one at the controls, and Eva immediately lost her balance and sat back down.

  ‘Eva.’ The man at the door spoke. Jacks
on’s voice. No, it couldn’t b… Her head hurt. Eva was nauseous. This could not be happening.

  She looked across at the man with whom she had been talking several seconds ago. He was still staring at the man in the doorway. She could only see the side of his face, which gave away nothing.

  Finally, he turned to her. ‘What’s wrong, Eva?’ he asked, glancing behind her as he spoke. He seemed far more unsure of himself than he had several seconds ago. She did not answer him.

  It was not possible there could be two of him. Her mind might be struggling, but that at least she did know. For a brief moment, she almost felt like laughing. The situation was so ridiculous it was almost comic. But there was a sense of foreboding behind these two faces. One or both of them was pretending to look like her brother and there could be no good reason for that.

  She turned and looked at the seated Jackson. Minutes ago, he had been telling her about drugs and implants able to manipulate the brain to make someone believe they were seeing a face which wasn’t there. That was exactly what was happening here. That’s all, she told herself – it’s just science. You are not going mad.

  But she felt her heart flutter as she looked at the two identical faces and she wondered whether she could still trust her instincts, her brain.

  Then the man by the door moved towards her. Immediately, Eva was on her feet again. She looked around for a weapon but there was only the glass of water on the table in front of her.

  ‘Eva,’ the man said, as he took another step towards her. ‘Eva, I am your brother.’

  ‘Don’t come any closer to me.’

  He stopped moving.

  Now the seated man spoke too. ‘What do you see, Eva?’ He was not angry, was he even surprised?

  Eva tried to work out whether it was a typical Jackson reaction. But they had been apart for too long.

  The standing man took another step towards Eva and she stared at him hard. ‘Stop.’

  ‘Eva, this man is black,’ said the seated Jackson.

  She looked at him. ‘What?’

  ‘He has black skin. His voice is nothing like mine. I don’t understand how…’ his voice tailed away and then returned. ‘The face mapping,’ he said slowly. ‘Eva, this is the face mapping we were talking about.’