The Girl in the Mirror

by Philip J. Gould

  Dawn was threatening to break as Sophie walked to the back of the Peugeot and reached into the boot for her medicine. Using two vials of serum, she jet injected the antidote into her arm and waited for it to take immediate effect. A moment later she was fully visible. She closed the boot of the car and made the mistake of walking to the passenger side door. Realising her error, she walked round the front of the car, passing her mother lying to the side of the road next to the driver’s side, tried to ignore her bloodied body, and climbed into the vehicle, feeling strange seated behind the steering wheel.

  Starting the car’s engine, Sophie nervously put the vehicle into gear and turned the car around, using heavy feet on the pedals which caused the car to jut, jerk and kangaroo forward, the motion disturbing the sleeping children in the back.

  It wasn’t long before Meredith stretched and yawned. Noticing Sophie in the driving seat, she asked: “Where’s mum?”

  With a dry mouth, Sophie shook her head. “She wasn’t there,” she lied, unable to admit the truth that their mother was now dead and lying discarded by the side of the road behind them.

  The drive was taking its toll on the children sitting in the back and on Sophie in the driving seat. The unlicensed driver was battling fatigue having had no sleep in over twenty-four hours. With just a couple of essential food, toilet and exercise stops breaking the tedium – the longest sojourn being for an hour for breakfast at a beaten down roadside rest stop along the M4 − a shabby looking burger van that promised everything under a minute, including gastroenteritis – they’d been travelling for just over four hours. The July weather continued to be glorious with temperatures exceeding 26˚C being forecast. Some patches of cloud offered the occasional respite from the sun, but too infrequent to make the journey comfortable.

  Sophie, with less than three years of actual living experience, thought it could have been the hottest summer on record, but the Met Office could only generously indicate a slight variance on previous years, not yet willing to give global warming much credence.

  Stuck inside a car devoid of air conditioning, all four of the travellers were road weary, uncomfortably hot and growing more irritable by the mile. Bickering between Stanley and Meredith had been filling the air making the travelling even less pleasurable.

  Ryan’s text had given a postcode starting EX22, indicating an address somewhere in Devon, 310 miles far south from the American airbase, to the west of where Sophie had failed to rescue her father. His GPS tracking signal had grown weaker then flickered off once the aircraft in which he had been stowed had passed out of range. The tablet which Sophie had been watching constantly since George had been captured – now close to being out of battery – was now being used for satellite navigation purposes. It was on the seat next to her, only slightly distracting. She checked it every so often, nervously driving towards Ryan’s destination.

  After six hours and thirty-eight minutes, the signpost of Holsworthy welcomed them, and the Sat Nav’s female voice announced immediately after, in a clipped, clear, annunciation:

  “You have reached your destination.”

  Sophie continued to drive until a parking spot presented itself. She pulled in and turned off the ignition, turning to look over her shoulder at the three kids cramped in the back.

  “I’m going to make a call. Please be quiet,” she said tiredly.

  “Where are we?” asked Stanley ignoring the driver.

  “I want to go home,” whined Charlie.

  Sophie picked up George’s pay-as-you-go phone (which she’d stored in the door’s recess) and called Ryan. A couple of rings later and the familiar sound of the older man’s voice spoke into her ear.

  “Sophie… I guess you’ve made it okay. Were you followed?”

  Automatically Sophie peered over her shoulder and looked past her two brothers and sister, gazing through the rear windscreen.

  She couldn’t be sure but she answered confidently. “No, no one followed. I’m certain of it.”

  “Good. Then I won’t delay you any longer.” Before ending the call, Ryan gave Sophie the rest of the postcode which she keyed into the tablet. After a moment waiting for the gadget to calculate the revised route, its female voice filled the car again with new instructions that would take less than eight minutes to navigate to.

  Sophie restarted the engine and the car set forward with a slight jerk. Directed onto the A388, they followed each left and each right until coming to a smaller place called Wimble. The Sat Nav guided them onto a road that was surrounded by fields on either side with just the occasional house or landmark, eventually indicating a left turn that winded up a dusty, seldom used track. A small house, hidden beyond a row of trees marked the end of the journey, the Sat-Nav announcing that the destination had been reached just seconds earlier.

  The Peugeot drew into the grounds and came to a stop behind a black VW Golf, tyres crunching gravel and crushing stones.

  “Are we here?” Stanley asked crisply. On reflection, for the most part the kids had been quiet, it was just from time to time that they had argued, and like most children with ages of four, six and nine (respectively), bickering at the best (and worst) of times, was expected.

  “It appears so,” said Sophie slowly.

  “Finally,” grumbled Meredith under her breath.

  “Is dad here?” Stanley unfastened his seatbelt. Sophie ignored the boy and climbed out of the car, relieved at the opportunity to stretch her legs. She propelled the door closed behind her.

  The small cottage-like house had an old white door made from solid oak, the paint flaking and blistered in places, a look that matched the wooden window frames. The building had ivy growing up its brickwork and looked like it sorely needed a bit of TLC and a whole heap of maintenance. As Sophie walked round the front of her father’s car the front door creaked open and a tall man who appeared in his late-forties stepped out.

  Sophie could hear the children in the rear of the car squabbling as they too disembarked from the vehicle.

  The tall man, his face swollen and bruised, took a few steps forward, and then stopped, taking in the sight of Sophie and the three children.

  “I guess you are Sophie,” Ryan started, his look at first concerned but quickly taking on a surprised, almost amazed expression, one which Sophie mistook for shock at how she appeared. It was the face she often saw staring back at her in the mirror, seeing the sudden changes to her features as her body genetically, unethically, altered at a superimposed speed. “You look a lot like her…” Ryan continued, Sophie stopping just in front of him. “…your mother, I mean.”

  “If you knew my mother, you knew her better than me,” Sophie said sternly, her eyes boring into him. They were granite hard, determined.

  Ryan could tell by her look that she wasn’t someone to toy with, despite her teenage appearance. It was a look he remembered seeing before, reminiscent to her mothers. “It’s uncanny, the likeness,” he said solemnly, ignoring her statement.

  Sophie sighed. “Shall we go inside?”

  “Yes… yes, of course.” Ryan became animated, his demeanour and body language sanguine. “This way… come… make yourselves comfortable.” He motioned them forward, inviting them in. “You must all be exhausted after such a long journey.”

  Sophie stayed back and watched the three children walk past her, Meredith walking ahead of the group, with Charlie close and Stanley lagging a short way behind.

  “You have no idea.” Sophie was the last to enter the old house, just behind Ryan. The door closed of its own accord behind him.

  The four guests walked through a narrow hallway and entered a room a short distance into the left.

  “Please, take seats. I’ll grab us some drinks from the kitchen. Would lemonade be okay?”

  Ignoring the question Sophie knew time was of the essence.
She didn’t want to delay things with simple courtesies or wasteful small talk.

  “Ryan, what’s going on? Where have they taken my father? Let’s not forget… we don’t even know who you are,” sounding petulant. “Who are you?”

  Ryan smiled warmly, hoping to defuse the situation. “Please Sophie… you’ve had a long journey. It’s been an ordeal by all accounts, I get that.”

  “You don’t know the half of it…”

  “At least let me get you some drinks, the children look parched. Soon enough we can talk.”

  “All right, Ryan. Have it your way.”

  “Ice?”

  “Just make the damn drinks…” She settled herself into a comfy armchair, ignoring Ryan’s admonishing look.

  Chapter Fifty

  Emily

  The command centre was abuzz with the triple whammy of Bravo Team’s spectacular failure and capture by the CIA, the news that George Jennings had been taken and was now officially missing, and the tragedy of Tom Kaplan’s death. Despite this, no one mourned his passing.

  Samuel Jackson had been informed of the former and the latter items of news shortly after 6:00 a.m. He was already aware of George’s abduction having witnessed it for himself via the spy in the sky – satellite surveillance images had beamed the whole turn of events live onto the large screen taking up the entire wall beneath the mezzanine floor. Once the Americans had him on their base, overhead visuals were lost. His guess was they were going to extract him and take him elsewhere for interrogation… possibly somewhere in the UK, but most likely stateside. Alas, George’s trail would now grow cold and he would become a dead-end for the time being.

  Just before 8:00 a.m., Emily Porter arrived. Although rested, her sleep had been uneasy and frequently disturbed. Thoughts of Ryan dominated, and the knowledge that he was still alive, though a relief, weighed heavily on her mind. News of the night’s events had reached her via her PDA – she wondered how Ryan was feeling having learnt about George. She was unaware of the fate that had befallen Harriet Jennings.

  “Mornin’ Emily.” Samuel was strangely buoyant despite the trilogy of setbacks.

  “Director,” she acknowledged. “You seem rather chirpy.”

  “With every cloud there is a silver lining,” he replied cryptically, before taking a meandering walk back to his office.

  An hour later and the reason for his good humour became apparent. Flanked by two security personnel, Jennifer Ratcliff entered the control room and made her way up to Samuel’s office. The two security personnel stood guard at the bottom of the metal stairs.

  “What’s going on?” Emily asked an analyst on passing. It was Jason, the timid man in his forties who’d been dressed down by the Director just the day earlier. He was walking back from the drinks machine carrying a cup of what looked like turbid water. He’d dispensed fifty pence for what should have been a decaffeinated black coffee but instead reminded her of the time when her toilet had backed-up.

  “Word is with Kaplan now dead the silent partner has appointed his daughter to take over the CEO position,” he replied. He took a sip from the steaming cup in his hand and winced at the awful taste.

  “Samuel’s happy.”

  “Of course; he probably feels like the cat that’s just got the cream. They’re dating…” Jason winked suggestively.

  “That’s interesting,” said Emily, uninterested.

  “Don’tcha think?” Jason walked away, back towards his desk. Before he was out of earshot, Emily spoke a further question.

  “What’s happening now with George Jennings?”

  Jason shrugged. “He’s history. The Americans have him. Likely or not we’ll never see or hear of him again. Or his body will wash up on some beach somewhere.”

  “Where does that leave us?”

  Jason shrugged again. “I guess it’s Jennifer Ratcliff’s call. She’s all about profit margins and not interested in all this...” he waved a hand theatrically around him at the control room. “But Samuel will probably push to locate the rest of the Jennings with the intention of capturing Sophie. She is our property after all...”

  “Easier said than done,” Emily heard herself say without conviction. She knew that Kaplan Ratcliff had little chance of success whilst she was second in command at the corporation. She would continue where Ryan had left off.

  Jason turned away with his hot beverage − if you could call it that − and returned to his desk.

  Upstairs, in the office on the mezzanine floor, laughter mingled as Samuel and the new CEO shared a joke.

  Emily reached into her bag for her old mobile phone, a pay-as-you-go handset she’d bought from Tesco as a spare and which now replaced her regular phone. She left the control room and dialled her Samsung Galaxy phone, now in Ryan’s possession. She walked the short distance to an empty office, one free from surveillance equipment, closing the door behind her. Two rings on the phone and the line became connected. She closed the blinds on the door, blocking intruding eyes.

  “Hello?” The voice at the other end sounded tired. Emily guessed that he’d had little sleep also. She was right.

  “Ryan, it’s Emily. We might have a problem.”

  “Add it to the list. I take it you’ve heard George is gone.”

  “And Tom is dead, yes,” Emily replied matter-of-factly.

  “Emily, Harriet is dead also. Caught a bullet during the rescue mission. Sophie is now heading to somewhere safe with the kids.”

  “That’s terrible! God...! Those poor kids...”

  “I know.”

  “Makes my news insignificant.”

  “Go on...”

  “The new CEO is Jennifer Ratcliff,” Emily blurted.

  Ryan paused at the end of the line. Had Emily been able to see him she would have seen that he’d closed his eyes and was deep in thought. He was trying to think of something positive to come from the situation. The former Assistant Intelligence Officer couldn’t think of anything.

  Thinking the call had been ended, Emily spoke again: “Ryan?”

  “I’m here. Are you sure Jennifer is the new CEO?”

  “She’s with Samuel now.”

  Ryan’s curse was muffled, as though he’d removed the handset from his face. He then spoke with clarity. “Then we may have a bigger problem.”

  “Why’s that?” she quizzed.

  “Jennifer has been dating Samuel Jackson on and off for years. Hell, he’s been her ‘inside’ man since the nineties, and many of his ideas were indirectly hers.”

  “Where’s the problem?”

  “Well, on the face of it, there is no problem – except she has a tyrannical determination with all that she does and she’s good at reading people.” Ryan sighed. “She confronted me once, suggesting she knew that I was ‘up to no good’... this was long before I’d committed myself to betraying the corporation. I don’t know how, but she sensed it in me. Thankfully she never let slip to Samuel... or if she did, he never believed her. Not at the time.”

  “What could this mean for us... for George and Sophie?” Emily knew the answer but wanted to know that she wasn’t alone in her thoughts.

  “Business as usual with no expense spared. Jennifer won’t do anything half-arsed. She won’t stop until she gets what she wants. AND she always gets what she wants...”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Emily, our Jennifer Ratcliff is more than just the owner’s daughter; she’s a greedy, manipulative soulless demon – motivated more by success than hard cash and personal wealth. Embittered by a turbulent childhood and a string of failed relationships. Long term investments aren’t a hot topic ever discussed – and though sophisticated intelligence operatives and covert undertakings were never things that excited her, she’ll happily entertain them if it will get her w
hat she wants.” Ryan paused at the other end to take a mouthful of flavoured water. Peach.

  “A word of warning, don’t trust anything that woman says. She’ll tell you one thing one moment and the next do the complete opposite. As for our friend George – don’t expect much advocacy there. They had history a long time ago, in their youth – before Harriet and the kids came along,” he chuckled slightly, “so it’s rumoured.” He didn’t always heed to gossip but on this occasion the source had been reliable.

  “What happened?” she pressed, her phone hand was beginning to get numb from over elevation. She swapped hands.

  “She stabbed him in the back, literally – so it’s been said. Yes, their parting ways was less than mutual. I guess a knife between the shoulder blades would have that result.”

  “Jesus…”

  “I guess he never pressed charges as nothing ‘official’ has been recorded, but I trust the information.” Ryan paused and sighed again. “Now the CIA has George and who knows what they are going to do to him and what will happen.”

  “You think Jennifer will abandon him, that all will be lost?”

  “No,” Ryan said without thought. “She won’t stop until she has him. Or he’s dead. There seems to be unfinished business between them. But all’s not lost. George still has you and me… so don’t give up hope just yet.”

  Emily peered through the glass wall of the office. The corridor was empty. No one had noticed her absence.

  “Listen, Emily. We need to meet up. There’s someone I need you to meet; someone who may be able to help.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll call you later. But for now find out what you can about Jennifer’s plans and keep your nose clean.” Bypassing any pleasantries or words of parting, Ryan severed the connection, ending the call.