Killing Eva

by Alex Blackmore

  She was in awe of the way this had been set up, it was not only incredibly clever but almost unassailable, too. The UK had nailed its flag to the post of commerce.

  And now commerce would prove to be its Achilles heel. She had only a slight interest in the eventual outcome – the potential for anarchy excited her. But otherwise she was happy to take the money and run.

  After everything was complete, she would remove the laptop so it was physically outside the government network. She didn’t expect to ever return to this building but neither did she want to find her name added to Interpol’s wanted lists. It had to be quiet and anonymous; like everything this organisation did.

  Once the laptop was safely out of the building, she would deliver it and disappear. The first set of instructions she’d received had required her to personally ensure the laptop reached its destination but now that was someone else’s responsibility. She was simply a link in a chain. A man had appeared almost at the last minute and changed the arrangements. Perhaps she should have questioned him but what could she do at this stage?

  As her mind wandered, her eyes were drawn back to the lit screen. The numbers were beginning to slow. The last bricks were almost in the wall.

  In a matter of minutes kolychak would be complete. Every essential service, every privatised infrastructure, every aspect of the country that could be bought or sold – from its government bonds, to shares in its biggest and best established utilities businesses – would now be majority owned by kolychak and its myriad of front companies, all hidden by clever structuring, bribes and corruption. The UK was now a puppet – controlled by those who could shut off access to essential services, infrastructure and reserves if decisions were not made in line with certain interests. Of course, these threats would never be carried out – and the fact that kolychak had even happened would never be revealed. It was genius really; the ultimate, silent, hostile takeover.

  Leon shut his eyes as the plane began its descent. It was quiet inside the cabin. They had quickly dealt with the bullet which had almost depressurised the cabin. Jackson had examined Leon’s shoulder wound, pronounced it superficial and retrieved the bullet from the seat where it had embedded after passing straight through the flesh. It ached. But it was a clean ache. It would heal. Irene was still, silent and bound. Joseph Smith lay on his back in the position in which he had fallen. He was dead. Leon was glad.

  Jackson was flying the plane. This did not trouble Leon – it was not the first time he had seen Jackson at the controls of an aircraft and he entirely trusted the man he had known for so long. Plus, there was always the autopilot.

  Eva could not be seen.

  She was hidden in the container in which Jackson had placed her body.

  Leon understood little of the science of what was happening to Eva but he knew it was Jackson who had placed her in the position of being this ‘key’. What he had not been able to work out yet was whether this was intentional or was a decision forced upon him.

  Because Leon still struggled to work out how he felt about Jackson. He had been so overwhelmed by guilt after believing himself to have been responsible for not preventing Jackson’s death that he had found himself unable to refuse the other man’s requests. Even though they directly compromised Eva. Guilt was more powerful than love.

  Of course, he had been shocked when Jackson reappeared, first in Leon’s mind in the desert fight and then after that in the flesh.

  How had he survived and why had he not contacted Leon before now? With Jackson in front of him, the guilt he felt about not being there for him had been an overwhelming force and he had accepted Jackson’s explanation of the intervening years without question. Leon was aware that there was a strong desire to believe Jackson, which may have caused him to dismiss suspicions he wouldn’t have otherwise. And he knew Jackson may have been using the guilt to manipulate him.

  Leon had been commissioned by Irene to protect Eva, but he had dropped that assignment with Jackson’s arrival – and now it seemed that even Irene had her own private agenda. He had followed Jackson because he owed him. And because he could not let go of Eva.

  Eva. Who knew nothing of any of it. Who never had. And yet who was always caught up in the centre of it all.

  He pitied her. And he feared her.

  He wondered whether Jackson knew what kind of woman Eva had become. Perhaps they were evenly matched.

  He glanced once again at the inflated coffin shaped structure that contained her still body. Apparently, she was not dead, she was simply ‘preserved’. They needed her alive. Her blood literally held the key.

  She was the key.

  But to what?

  He wondered how much Irene had known. She had mentioned nothing of her ACORN connections when commissioning Leon to Eva in London, and discovering that had surprised him.

  But Irene hated Eva. The fact that she had finally sold out showed just how much she had lost perspective as a result of her hatred for Eva – and all of Irene’s failures she represented. Leon suspected Irene’s motivation was also to betray the organisation she had worked with for so long. The organisation she, perhaps subconsciously, blamed for stealing the best years of her life. Only once had she hinted at this motivation but it had been enough – she had said ‘all I want is, just once, to get home in time to pick up my kids from school – just once’ and the desperation and guilt in her voice had loomed large in the room.

  However, he had realised in Berlin, after Jackson reappeared, that Irene was capable of incredible deception and more than able to look after her own interests. So he had to tread carefully. Because he knew Eva would instinctively trust Irene more than she trusted him.

  ‘You’re deep in thought.’

  Jackson, leaning against the doorway to the cockpit, was watching him.

  Leon looked up, guarded; it was almost as if Jackson had been able to read his thoughts.

  ‘I’m still not sure I understand what we’re doing.’

  Jackson’s face flickered with annoyance. He had never been a patient man and Leon had always felt the stupid sidekick around him.

  ‘We have to deliver Eva.’

  ‘Why did they choose to make Eva the key?’

  ‘They didn’t, I did.’

  So it had been intentional.

  ‘Understand this though, Leon, I did it when the project was my own. I wanted to present this as a gift to Eva. It was to prove my identity, to show how serious I was, that I wanted to be a part of her life again – my life’s achievement, hers to do with as she wanted. I would have been at her mercy.’

  ‘But now she is at their mercy. And yours.’

  Leon felt a flicker of mistrust. Was it really a plausible explanation?

  Jackson looked at him, brown eyes hard.

  ‘You know I would have changed that if I could.’

  ‘Could we not just take her to a hospital now? Remove the implants – and whatever else is inside her? If you really want life for her surely that’s the only way?’

  Jackson didn’t reply. He continued to look at Leon. Slowly his head tipped sideways, a questioning movement. There was something about it which set Leon’s teeth on edge.

  ‘I feel as if there is something you’re not telling me about your relationship with Eva, Leon.’

  Jackson’s eyes seemed to burn from brown to black. He was still, staring across the small space, his head still cocked on one side.

  Leon felt himself shiver.

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. Really.’

  An iPhone on the table buzzed to life. Jackson’s gaze didn’t waver from Leon. After several seconds, he finally looked down at the phone. Leon glanced away, to remove himself from the offensive stare. He looked again. He could have sworn the dead corpse of Joseph Smith was looking right at him.

  THIRTY SIX

  It was a dream. Or perhaps a memory.
There had been so many occasions recently when she hadn’t been able to distinguish between the two.

  Eva was lying still.

  She was encased in something holding her fast, completely frozen. Her first instinct was to panic and yet she couldn’t seem to react. She tried to move one body part at a time but nothing responded.

  Fingers, hands, feet, legs, arms, even her head refused to acknowledge the desire for flight which loomed large in her mind.

  Only her eyes moved.

  She lay where she was, looking up at a dark night sky.

  She tried to move again but the only response came from her eyes. If anyone had cared to look, they would have seen her straining to communicate. Anything.

  To anyone.

  After several seconds, Eva realised she had felt like this before.

  Sleep paralysis.

  The sensation of waking, of being unable to move, of being locked into her body. Trapped in stillness. More than once, she had experienced this when waking suddenly in the middle of the night. Each time, she had been convinced someone was in the room with her.

  Once, she had been right.

  But she was not awake now so it couldn’t be happening to her. This was a dream.

  Surely this was a dream.

  Once they were safely on the ground, he felt as though he could relax – just for a moment. There had been hiccups, but overall everything was going mostly as planned.

  He looked across the private airfield in which they had landed. It was moonlit and silent, the only movement coming from small teams of people working quietly to move everything on to the next stage.

  He sat in the back of a large lorry, waiting. The interior had been converted so it resembled a moving medical facility. The doors were open and a cool breeze was almost making him shiver.

  Eva was strapped to a secured gurney. He could see the outline of her face through the semi-sheer inflated material which enclosed her. She was entirely still, her bodily functions paused until required again.

  He briefly wondered what that must feel like, whether she was aware of anything that was happening to her.

  But he didn’t really care.

  He understood how keenly she must have felt the loss of her own autonomy, not just the physical loss of control but the fact her life had not been her own for some time. But it had no effect on the way he felt about her – or the way that he would use her.

  How frustrating to think you’re making decisions for yourself only to find out someone else has been pulling the strings all along. He smiled to himself.

  He understood her well enough to know it would have been agony for her. Which, in a way, was why it had been necessary. Taking away someone’s autonomy was the fastest way to remove them as a threat.

  And she was a threat to him, even though she may not have realised it yet.

  Slowly, it began to dawn on Eva that the sky she could see was real. The cool air caressing the small area of exposed skin on her face had too much detail for a dream.

  But she could not move, not to speak, not to sit up, not to find a way out of whatever she was encased in.

  It felt like a coffin.

  With her eyes – the only responsive part of her body – she began searching for clues as to where she was but, because she couldn’t even sit, she could do no more than look up. If someone’s gaze had met hers, they would have known she was awake, that she needed help, but no face came into view. She was completely helpless.

  Gradually, pieces of memory began to filter into her consciousness and she knew she had been intentionally incapacitated.

  Joseph Smith.

  It had been something to do with him, she knew that much. But no more.

  His appearance made her feel even more afraid because it meant this was no accident. It was a part of someone’s next move. And, for the first time since she had attempted to rescue the man at Waterloo Station, she found herself entirely without resources.

  This time she really couldn’t do anything to help herself, as control of her body had been taken from her. Suddenly, urgently, she wished she had just shot herself when she had the chance. It would surely be less painful than whatever was coming next.

  With no physical way to dispel the anxiety, Eva found it hard to stop her worst fears from becoming overwhelming. Was it permanent? Was she to be imprisoned like this forever?

  Who had done this and why?

  Everything – the word ‘kolychak’, the odd interconnections between people in her life, the reappearance of Jackson, or at least someone who had the ability to appear to be him – she knew there had to be some link between it all, some party pulling the strings.

  But, even when she was mobile, she had never been able to discern who it was. Now all she knew was that someone wanted her in this condition, had intentionally put her in this condition.

  The worst thing was that, even if she managed to make the connections, to use her still functioning brain to work out exactly what was happening all around her, she would be the only person who would ever know it.

  Because she couldn’t speak. Or write. Or even gesture.

  She was locked in.

  In the back of the lorry, Jackson began to work through the diagrams on the tablet computer, locked so only he could operate it. The grid was an ingenious creation of confusion, designed to be so believable even the smartest financial brains around the world might stop and pause if they were presented with such a convincing network of deception.

  Lines represented connections between companies in different jurisdictions, there were careful notes of share purchases, of dates of acquisition of business interests so very dull until one looked at what they represented as a whole. Altogether, this picture defined the inherent weakness in contemporary society, as far as Jackson saw it. Everything was available for sale and so, over the past decade, everything that could be bought had been – or at least so the picture here indicated.

  Of course, it was all lies.

  But he had anonymously pitched the idea to ACORN via a third party in order to set them up for the ultimate fall. Years ago they had disposed of him as if he were nothing – after everything he had sacrificed to join them, his family, his job – and they had left him damaged. So terribly damaged. But what had started out as revenge had turned into merely a stepping-stone.

  Jackson had been keen to choose something to capture the imaginations of the powerful of the world when it was revealed. Something to make people stop and think ‘what if this could be done, what would happen if our country was to be compromised like this?’ Perhaps it was actually possible, the fiction he had created, but he personally didn’t have the breadth of knowledge or expertise to make it happen.

  He had consulted the very best financial experts – in particular, a woman in California who was known for her unique expertise – and even she had been convinced by what he had sent her. But, at some point, it would become obvious this was a fake. That certain key shares had not been purchased and trades marked on this map could not possibly have taken place.

  He thought briefly of the one person who could have noticed the flaws – Paul. But Paul was most likely unaware of the full extent of this brilliance and, anyway, seemed blinded by the desire for revenge. Which is why he had proven so useful. All Jackson had needed was to offer Leon up as bait.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Leon. Jackson looked up.

  ‘I was just checking the schedule,’ he said, as he quickly depressed the off button on the tablet. There was a small chance Leon might believe him.

  The two men stared at each other, Jackson from his seat inside the converted lorry, Leon from his position by the head end of Eva’s coffin.

  Jackson waited to see if Leon would look down at Eva.

  He knew that resisting gazing down at his sister would be hard for Leon, eve
n if it was likely that the light had gone out behind her eyes.

  Still Leon stared ahead.

  Was he waiting for a command, wondered Jackson, or was there something more worrying happening here? Leon had never turned against Jackson, even when he had been fed the most questionable lies, he had resolutely stood by him. That was what happened to a man like Leon when he believed he owed you.

  Jackson continued to stare at Leon. The tension became almost unbearable. And then Leon’s expression changed, a very slight flicker of something that Jackson couldn’t discern.

  Quickly, Leon looked down at Eva. He looked up, eyes wide and glanced quickly back at Jackson. At the same time, he inhaled a sharp, shocked breath.

  But Jackson could not tell whether it was a reaction to what he saw on the gurney or whether it was to the man who had emerged, stumbling, bleeding, from the shadows.

  Joseph Smith.

  When the sound of metal slicing flesh, exhalation of punctured lung, crunch of bone upon bone had subsided, the area around the lorry was still. The airfield was sufficiently large that no one had noticed the fight for life taking place only seconds earlier.

  No mercy had been shown.

  Blood oozed from lifeless flesh, spreading in slow, unhurried rivulets across the tarmac of the airfield and the metal floor of the lorry.

  Two bodies lay, one unresponsive, one almost so.

  They were slumped against each other, almost companionably.

  To their left, the gurney with its precious cargo. Inside, Eva, her body chilled and lifeless, her mind filled with the reflection of death she had seen moments before in Leon’s eyes. She was screaming at the top of her lungs, desperately crying out, terrified and trapped. But not a sound escaped her lips.