RED MIST FALLING

by Richard T Green

  I didn't ask to go up with her, it was past midnight and I knew it wasn't the right time to invade her personal space, not least because she looked almost as shaken by the events of the evening as I was.

  So I’d watched as the lift doors closed and she disappeared from sight, and then walked the short distance to my place. And now, lying on my back in bed again, replaying the events of the evening over and over, I began to wonder if it was all some kind of weird dream.

  The sensuality, the emotions, the intensity… they weren't mine. Stuff like that belonged to other people. My mind tried in the only way it knew to analyse the facts and work out what was happening logically. It failed dismally.

  There was no logical explanation for any of it.

  Zana had made all the running, didn’t seem to have a problem getting close to another woman. For me, that experience had never even crossed my mind.

  So why the hell did it feel perfectly natural?

  I knew I'd had the perfect opportunity to extract information from her, and knew I hadn't taken it. My mark had dropped her guard, the wine and the ambience helping do the job.

  But from the moment the antipasto arrived at the table, doing the job was the last thing on my mind.

  I caught myself smiling, tried to stop it. Daft silly grins were not something the emotion-free Madeline deWinter did. But for all the confusion spinning round my head like a particle accelerator, I knew two things for sure.

  Tonight, for the first time in my adult life, I'd truly shared something with someone.

  And I'd never be able to look at a button mushroom in quite the same way ever again.

  Chapter 10

  ‘I have to go away for a few days.’

  Zana spoke quietly, no emotion in her voice. Sitting on the next barstool slowly sipping her martini, she seemed lost in her own thoughts. She was different tonight, on another planet.

  ‘Visiting family?’

  ‘I have no family. Not anymore.’

  ‘Oh, I'm sorry.’ I put my hand over hers, she didn't respond to the touch.

  ‘It's work.’

  She was difficult tonight, and I was struggling to break through the wall of ice she'd erected between us. After the passion of the previous night she'd stunned me yet again, but this time because the closeness we felt at Luigi's now seemed a million miles away.

  I decided to try something. Told her the truth.

  ‘I shall miss you.’

  Her head lower slightly; nervous fingers toyed with the stem of the martini glass. When she spoke it was a whisper. ‘I'll miss you too.’

  She meant it, that much was clear enough. I reached out, turned her head gently so our eyes had to meet. ‘Is it so hard for you to admit to that, Zana?’

  She pulled away from my touch. ‘Yes. Yes it is.’

  She wasn't reachable, but I was getting to know her well enough to realise it was pointless trying. I wanted to fire off a ton of questions, but knew there would be no answers, so I asked just the one.

  ‘When do you go?’

  ‘Soon. An hour or so.’

  ‘Yeah, that's what you call soon.’

  ‘It was a last-minute decision.’ She was off the stool now, hitching her bag. ‘I'm sorry, I have things to pack.’

  A sudden panic welled over me. This was too soon, I wasn't ready. ‘Can… can I call you? I don't have your number.’

  ‘No you don't.’ She took a couple of steps away, allowing her fingertips to softly brush across my thigh as she moved out of reach. She glanced back, a hint of unhappiness in the look. ‘There is a lot I have to do. Talking with you will be… will be a distraction. Perhaps I will see you here on Wednesday?’

  She turned towards the door. I couldn’t let her go like this, needed to do something. She was walking away, somehow that wasn't right.

  ‘Wait!’

  She stopped walking; I pressed a small card into her hand. ‘Bit formal I know, giving you a business card, but it has my number on it. In case you need to talk.’

  She nodded silently, slipped the card into the pocket of her red coat, and disappeared through the door. I stood rooted to the spot for a few seconds, and then found the use of my legs and followed her outside. I watched as the woman in red walked quickly away along the sidewalk. She didn't look back.

  ‘What the hell was that about?’

  I jumped as the voice at my side seemed to explode into my confused mind. Ryland Cooper looked at me with a deep frown on his brow, and then gestured questioningly to the tiny figure now almost out of view.

  ‘She's going away, Coop,’ I said slowly.

  ‘What? What you sayin', deWinter? Get your brain in gear, girl!’

  ‘She’s going away for a few days; leaving in an hour.’

  ‘Fuck!’ He touched a tiny device in his ear as he spoke. ‘Where's she going?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘deWinter?’

  I shrugged. ‘She wasn't exactly talkative this evening.’

  The big Jamaican shook his head, answered the voice that had just spoken in his earpiece. ‘Miles - target Red Mist is on the move. Leaving the area in one hour. Get a tail team organised, now!’

  Event through my torment I couldn't stop a grin. ‘Red Mist, Coop?’

  ‘Came up with that one myself. Always wears red, nothing to get a hold on… can you think of a better tag?’

  Chapter 11

  I sat quietly in Duncan Scott's office. The chief wasn't exactly talkative either, studying something on a tablet he held close to his piggy eyes. I began to wonder if someone had tattooed 'don't talk to me' on my forehead while I wasn't looking.

  It was seven in the morning. An hour previously, the call had come to attend DIAL's HQ. I didn't mind; it had been a restless night anyway as my brain tried to make sense of Zana's emotional U-turn… and yet again failed dismally.

  I was starting to feel out of my depth. I didn't have much experience when it came to emotions.

  I looked around the stark room as we awaited the arrival of Ryland Cooper and Miles Courtney. The nervous dread was back. For sure I’d been called in for a reason, and it must be some kind of news about Zana. And it likely wasn't good news. My mind drifted back twenty years to the time I was a small girl sitting in the dentist's waiting room about to have a tooth extracted.

  This felt exactly the same.

  The sound of feet on steps. Finally. The two field agents walked into the room, Miles not exactly looking pleased with life.

  ‘Well?’ The spooky voice reverberated menacingly around the room. At least it kind of felt that way.

  Miles looked distinctly uncomfortable. ‘It's no good, chief. They lost her. Totally.’

  ‘Fools.’ The chief's eerie voice was even scarier when he growled out a word. My nervous dread boiled up into anger. ‘What the fuck, Miles… lost her?’

  ‘Don't throw a hissy-fit at me, old girl… you were the one who couldn't find out where she was going.’

  ‘Just how difficult can it be to follow a friggin' car?’

  ‘Cool it, deWinter,’ Ryland Cooper butted in. ‘Why are you so screwed up anyway? This ain't your gig; you's just here to look pretty.’

  ‘Fuck you and your petty discrimination, Coop.’

  ‘Enough!’ Duncan Scott threw the stare from hell at the three of us. We shut up. ‘As I understand it deWinter, she loaded two large suitcases onto the rear seat of her car and drove straight to the laboratories where she works. She parked in their underground car park, accessible only to employees with barrier passes. The tail couldn't follow her in; they waited a while then managed to access the car park on foot. When they located the car, the cases were gone.’

  ‘She switched vehicles,’ added Miles, a little unnecessarily.

  ‘So she knew she was being tailed.’

  ‘Maybe, but more likely she'd made the plan in case she was tailed.’

  Duncan Scott waived his tablet in the air. ‘The odd thing is the MO is different this time. Accordin
g to this information from the stakeout teams, the other six were happily tucked up in bed last night. So whatever she's up to, she's doing it alone.’

  I shook my head, trying not to show the desperation trying its best to overpower me. ‘Which by now could be anywhere in the world.’

  ‘Doubt it, dear girl,’ said Miles. ‘Not with two large suitcases. They've based themselves in London for a reason; I can't imagine she's too far away.’

  Duncan Scott left his chair and walked to the glass windows, watching the technicians milling around below him as he spoke. ‘But the real issue, deWinter, is the two suitcases.’

  ‘Sorry sir?’

  ‘We are now in the extremely embarrassing situation of having a high-risk mark - Red Mist, as Coop very appropriately calls her - on the loose in London or the surrounding area, at an unknown location with two large suitcases in her possession. And I do not believe even a woman of her obvious style and taste would need so many clothes and shoes for three nights away. So what do the suitcases contain?’

  My heart sank through the floor. The chief was right, uncomfortably so. Zana was up to something, and now I felt more helpless that I'd ever done in my life. A voice inside was screaming at me to find Zana, stop her doing whatever it was. Tell her the truth, if that's what it took.

  But I couldn't. I had no idea where she was, no means of contacting her. No way to be there for her.

  The chief however had already planned his next move. ‘Coop, Miles… we can at least take advantage of what is an unfortunate situation. Tonight I want you two in that apartment. There must be something there to give us a clue what's going on.’

  ‘No!’ I let out a slightly-too shrill cry. ‘Um… sorry sir. I want in on this, please? I do know her better than anyone else in this room.’

  Duncan Scott fixed his tiny eyes me, didn't speak for a full ten seconds. ‘Fair point. Coop, take deWinter with you instead, and for Christ's sake come back with something at least vaguely encouraging.’

  I breathed a sigh of relief, trying not to let the others see it. I didn't have a clue why it was so important for me to be the one breaking into Zana's apartment. But I knew that if someone had to search through her very personal things, it couldn't be a stranger. Or a man.

  It had to be me.

  Chapter 12

  ‘You ready for this, deWinter?’

  I nodded silently to Ryland Cooper, sitting beside me in the BMW fiddling with a small black box. I couldn’t say it out loud, but I wasn't sure I was ready. Somehow this just didn't feel right.

  It was two in the morning. A minute ago I’d parked the car in a corner of the brick-paved driveway outside Zana's apartment block, cursing myself angrily because the nauseous feeling that seemed to be my new best friend resurfaced yet again as soon as the building came into view.

  I tried to ignore it, looked over to see what Coop was doing.

  ‘A thing of beauty,’ he said as he lifted a small card from the box, and held it up to see it better.

  ‘It's a piece of card, Coop.’

  ‘Oh it's more than that, deWinter.’ The big man carefully pulled a tiny sliver of clear film off the card, grinned to me. ‘Do you recognize it, pretty girl?’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘It's your mark's… mark.’ The grin got wider as he carefully placed the film over the tip of his forefinger and smoothed it out. ‘One piece of Red Mist we did manage to capture.’

  The penny finally dropped. ‘Her fingerprint. How the hell did you get that?’

  ‘From her martini glass just after you left for Luigi's the other night.’

  ‘So you're devious as well as discriminatory then, Coop.’ I shook my head, then something occurred to me. ‘How the hell did you know we'd been to Luigi's?’

  ‘We know everything.’ He threw a piercing stare into my eyes. ‘You hearing me, deWinter?’

  I was hearing, only too well. And starting to realise I was being watched every bit as closely as Zana. I pulled the door handle. ‘Let's get this over with.’

  We walked across the driveway towards the main entrance doors, making no attempt to conceal ourselves. Looking furtive and lurking in the shadows was a sure way of someone calling the cops if we were spotted. Blue flashing lights all over the drive wouldn't exactly help our task.

  According to Coop, not even the metropolitan police knew DIAL existed.

  So we walked innocently to the entrance doors like any other residents, Ryland Cooper slid his finger into the shaft of the reader, and moments later we were in the foyer. ‘Stairs,’ he grunted quietly. ‘Lift is probably near silent, but just in case.’

  The top floor of the block consisted of just two apartments, each of them a penthouse. Both of us already knew which door was Zana's. Coop paused outside the door to the other apartment, listening for any sounds of life from inside. ‘All's quiet,’ he whispered.

  He pushed his forefinger into Zana's lock; the door clicked quietly and moved open an inch. We slipped inside.

  ‘Shit!’ I let out an involuntary cry as lights came on around us. Coop flashed me an angry stare. ‘Automatic background lighting, you moron,’ he hissed. ‘I'll ask you again, you a pussycat or a tiger?’

  I threw him back a cheesy grin, more to hide my embarrassment than to be sarcastic, and then glanced around the open-plan space. ‘Whoa! This must be nearly as cool as your place, Coop.’

  ‘You know the only thing worse than a moron, deWinter?’ the big man grinned. ‘A moron who thinks she's funny!’

  The apartment was built on two levels. We were standing in a small entrance hall, a wide sweeping arch above our heads partly separating it from the living space. A cream carpet covered the entire lower level of the floor, a huge L-shaped black leather sofa sitting square to a sophisticated stone fire surround set into one wall. A big TV screen sat above it, also set into the wall.

  A coffee table made from an impossible number of blue glass sheets laminated one above the other, sat in front of the sofa. On the other wall a Bose sound-system stood on a wide low-level storage unit that seemed to be made entirely of thick smoked glass.

  In one corner, more blue-glass sheets formed into a small curved bar, an overshelf with tiny chrome-rimmed inset spotlights above it mirroring its shape. A few bottles of wine and spirits stood on a shelf at the back of the bar. I looked for the Martini. There was none, just a space where the bottle should be. It looked like Zana had taken it with her.

  On the far side of the apartment the floor was raised a half-metre, three carpeted steps leading up to a dining area with a small round table and leather seats, then the kitchen beyond. Dark red high-gloss cupboard doors with platinum handles lined the walls in a U-shape, black granite countertops completing the sophisticated look.

  Not a thing was out of place, it looked like no one lived in the apartment.

  Ryland Cooper let out a whistle. ‘How the other half live, huh deWinter?’

  I shook my head. ‘What's the plan, Coop?’

  ‘Search the place… find something to give us a clue to what she's up to. And we gotta find whatever it is she's using to communicate with whoever-the-hell she's sending messages to.’ He began to head back down the steps. ‘Start up here deWinter; I'll do the bedrooms.’

  I couldn’t have that, grabbed his arm. ‘No, I'll do the bedroom, Coop. You… you're more experienced at this than me. Give me the easy bit.’

  The big man cast a curious glance at me, but nodded his agreement. ‘She ain't making this easy, Maddie. If she was an untidy bitch, searching the place wouldn't be so hard. Whatever you move girl, put it back exactly as it was, otherwise she'll know.’

  I opened the door to Zana's bedroom, threw the light switch. The large room was no different to the rest of the apartment, not a thing out of place. A brown leather bed-frame sat in the centre of one wall, two matching tables next to it. A luxurious red satin duvet cover looked like it was struggling to contain the thickness of a feather duvet. Built-in furniture lined the oppo
site wall; maple doors fronting two large wardrobe runs with a long dressing table in the middle. A door led off the shorter wall into the en-suite bathroom, a Jacuzzi bath sitting next to a curved shower big enough for a football team.

  Quickly I looked around the bathroom, there was nowhere there to conceal anything of interest, and in less than a minute I was back in the bedroom. Carefully I slid open the drawers in the bedside tables. There was little in them, but what there was held no surprises. I knelt and looked under the bed-frame; nothing hidden under the bed.

  Over on the dressing table I saw a gold glass scent bottle, and twisted off the lid. My stomach churned again as the essence filled my nose. It was her scent, and as the biggest, most evil blade in the universe pierced through my heart, the tears tried to come. I was violating her trust, and it was the worst feeling in the world.

  A week ago I wouldn’t have given a shit, but now...

  I almost dropped the bottle back on the dressing table, but despite the pain my training kicked in, and I made sure it was exactly where it had been.

  Now Zana was there, in my head, standing right next to me watching my every move. I tried to shut her away, do the soul-destroying job I was there to do, and opened the wardrobe doors to sift through the clothes hanging there.

  Most of them were red.

  My hand felt in every pocket, as I grew increasingly desperate to find something. Something for me, not the department. The communications equipment wasn’t important any more, I just needed a clue to where she'd gone.

  Every pocket was empty.

  I looked across the top shelves of the wardrobes; some spare bedding, a few boxes. I lifted each one out, they revealed nothing. Carefully I opened each drawer in the dresser, felt underneath the clothes to see if anything was hidden there. Then I found her underwear drawer.

  Instinctively my hand reached out for a tiny red g-string, daring me to touch it.

  I stopped myself.