by Nikki Owen
For a moment, in the blackness, it feels as if everything has stopped, as if, here, now, all I have is collapsing on me, folding inwards never to push out again. It feels hopeless. I sit there, silent, scared, until, on the murky moisture of the air there is a rush of something.
‘Doc? Doc, you’re groaning. What’s the matter?’
I squint as hard as I can, frantically forcing my eyes to see something, anything in the dank, suffocating space as to my direct side, the rush sounds again, distinct now, a click licking the air as what must be a liquid begins its gentle whoosh. It is only when I hear again that my groggy brain engages in the intricacies of the noises around me and I realise with a stabbing clarity what is actually happening and what it means to me—what it means to us both.
‘What if they are drugging me, so they can transport me to another facility somewhere? If they do that, what will happen to you?’
‘I’ll be okay, Doc.’
‘What if they are intending to kill you? That is what the Project does—it kills those I love.’ My breathing begins to speed up in short, rapid intakes of oxygen as the worry inside me escalates.
‘Doc, Doc I can’t get to you, so look, it’s going to happen either way, so try to breathe through it. There, that’s it …’
I try so hard to focus on her voice, slam my arms against the rope on my wrists, desperate to escape, to run, hide, because what is charging forward now like a pack of hungry wolves makes my heart stop, makes every sweat gland on my skin scream out in fear. A hallucination.
‘Breathe, Doc. Keep breathing. Keep listening to me …’
A body with multiple heads, each one of them spinning 360 degrees, hurtles towards me. I scream. My nails scratch into the wood of the chair, legs kick out, but it does no good, and I know it must be the drug, be the liquid shooting inside my veins, but there is nothing I can do. I am trapped.
The monster is on me now, here in this room. I yell out my friend’s name, hear the distant scream of her voice, but I can’t reach her. The heads in the image sway, thorns in the breeze, and I hear a voice screech and realise it’s mine, because the heads, the faces on them—they are Mama and Ramon. My mother and brother.
‘Patricia, where are you?’ I yell.
‘I’m here, Doc. It’ll be over soon. Keep calm, okay? Keep breathing …’
I try to scramble back, tell myself that none of this is real, but still they come, the heads grotesque, twisted out of shape, all images in a fairground mirror, their mouths and eyes huge, each of them laughing over and over like two sick clowns. ‘Freak! She doesn’t understand,’ they sing. ‘She doesn’t understand, the freak.’ The children run beside them, children I recall from my school days, and they skip and they chant, Weirdo, weirdo, stinky nerdy weirdo. And I ask them what they mean, scream at them to tell me what is happening, but the heads, all of them, family, children, they simply look at me, at each other, and then, just as I think they’re going to disappear, they let out one roar of a laugh and, merging together, morph into a gun as tall as a car and shoot me, point blank, in the head.
My eyes fly open. I choke, claw for air, chest ripping, struggling as I look down at myself, at the black room, shaky, scared at what just happened.
‘Patricia, the drugs …’
‘Sssh. Sssh.’
I stutter, voice cracked and it takes a full minute for my body to settle, for the nightmare of the image of my mama and brother to slowly subside.
‘Doc, I’m here. It’s okay. It’s over. It’s over.’
I hear my friend, cling onto her voice as if I was sinking and she were my life raft in the sea. My brain recalibrates itself, but it is taking time and each movement of my eyes and hands and limbs makes the room sway and soar and whip up a pile of nausea in my stomach.
After a moment, after the heat has subsided, Patricia checks on me then asks me a question.
‘Doc, you know these hallucinations, right?’
‘Y-yes.’
‘Well, why’s it only happened now?’
My head throbs, throat runs red raw. Everything in the room still fades into black. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, if this needle, yeah, this drug is permanently in your vein, why’s it not causing you to trip all the time?’
I begin to think. What she is saying, what she talks about—my brain finally starts to shrug off the drug effects and engage, calculate.
‘Doc, I guess what I mean is,’ she says now, ‘what’s making the drug only come out in doses?’
And in the dark, in the foul mouldy odour, I sit and I think and I try to understand what is happening.
And how to make it all stop.
Salamancan Mountains, Spain.
34 hours and 11 minutes to confinement
A searing heat instantly explodes in my thigh.
The room begins to sway, the white sun from the window blinding me, mixing with the pain to create a lethal cocktail, slow at first then faster, and when I look at Dr Andersson her smile appears distorted, as if someone has taken an axe to her head and sliced it clean down the middle. Nausea balloons as blood begins to spew from the wound.
I force myself to keep my hands were they are, fixed in the position behind my back, despite the instinctive compulsion to throw my arms forward and tend to the wound.
As the pain rips into me, I focus on the cell phone, still hidden behind me, knowing that Balthus has listened to everything that has happened. Sweat drains down my face. Ahead Dr Andersson proceeds to tear apart my laptop, pocketing my USB sticks, disabling every part of my surveillance system, all that I have been unable to hide now being destroyed, and it hurts me, every smash, every rip and pilfer—what she is doing feels as if it is physically hurting me, the way in which she is creating pure chaos out of my routine and order.
If she is destroying evidence, it will soon come to the point where she will find my notebook.
I have to stall for time. ‘I need to stem the blood flow from my leg,’ I say. ‘I need to press my hands into it. Untie me.’
She throws me a glance, hesitating for a moment, her eyes on my wound, and I think she may come to assist me, but then she checks her watch, shakes her head and returns to pulling apart my data.
My body is getting weaker. The blood from the wound is slowing a little, but still oozing and if I don’t get pressure on it soon, I may bleed out entirely and lose consciousness. My eyes spot the iron bar—it is still on the floor where it fell.
Dr Andersson comes over and crouches by me. ‘Maria? Can you hear me? I need you to tell me something—is the Project still functioning?’
‘You are MI5,’ I say, winching at a stab of pain, ‘you should have the intelligence for that answer.’
She sighs. ‘I’m looking for a file.’
My ears prick up. ‘What file?’
She glances around at the mess. My teeth clench at the chaotic sight. ‘There is a file hidden by a woman, a woman you knew, an asset in the field some time ago when the Project was more … useful. Do you know where the file is?’
Sweat trickles past my eyes. Raven, the dream. Does she know? ‘What is the woman’s name?’
‘Ah, now wouldn’t that be easy, if I had a name?’ She wipes her cheek dry of sweat. ‘I’m afraid that’s what I was rather hoping you could provide.’ I shift, careful not to dislodge the cell phone. ‘Do you know where the file is, Maria?’
‘No.’
She stands. ‘Then I’m sorry, but …’ She administers one swift kick to my injured leg. I cry out in agony.
‘B … B …’ My speech slurs. I must be losing more blood than I thought.
‘Where’s the file, Maria? Please, just tell me.’ She sticks on a quick smile. ‘Let’s just get this done as fast as we can, okay? I really don’t want to hurt you any more than I have to before, well … Just help me out here.’
My eyes narrow as I muster every inch of energy that is left in me, every shard of anger and fear and pain and loss, straight at her. ‘B
itch.’
Her smile and shoulders drop. She reaches into her pocket and withdraws a knife, black handle, solid. My brain fires into red alert mode, desperate to move as she slides off a leather sheath to reveal one small, sharp blade, seven centimetres long, the sleek silver of it shining in the summer sun, a gentle light dancing warm and carefree on the glide of the metal.
‘I’m sorry I have to do this, but you were supposed to die months ago.’ She kicks a piece of computer casing away. ‘You evaded our officers then, even dodged my bullet for you outside the court, but not now. I’m afraid we can’t risk the service being exposed. You understand—it’s this NSA scandal. MI5 don’t want the Project blowing up like NSA’s prism programme did. The Project was good while it lasted, but it has to end. The file I need—we’ll find it. I hear there’s been a run of break-ins and knife crime in this remote area.’ She glances to the upturned room. ‘I’m afraid this will have to look like a burglary that’s ended in a murder.’
I look at my leg, panting in air now. The limb is damaged, but the blood loss is finally halting. I can move my toes, but I don’t know if I can mobilise my body at all, but my hands are still behind my back and, for now, I need to keep them there …
I start to count.
One.
Dr Andersson takes a step forward.
Two.
She grips the knife tight in her fist, her eyes downturned.
Three.
I glance to the iron bar near on the floor.
Four.
Dr Andersson lunges forward. ‘I’m so sorry …’
Five.
I unleash my hands, tethers gone, Balthus having talked me through how to untie them, and, despite the blood loss, despite the odds stacked against me, and the chaos and the fear and the sheer sensory onslaught of the entire situation, I charge forward at Dr Andersson with every single drop of effort I’ve got.
Chapter 9
Salamancan Mountains, Spain.
34 hours and 7 minutes to confinement
I ram my body hard straight into Dr Andersson.
She yells out, her torso toppling to the left, the knife slipping from her grip, clattering to the tiles. ‘Maria, stop! Please, don’t …’
She steadies and I think she is going to recover, her hand reaching to a gun behind her jacket, and so fast, without thinking, I haul my whole body up and head butt her in the face.
She reels back, a sharp crack indicating her nose breaking, blood spurting, the fall dislodging her gun and causing it to slide under a table.
I move quick, drag my body up, the bullet wound in my leg throbbing.
‘Maria,’ Balthus calls from the cell. ‘What’s happening?’
I survey the damage fast, the slump of Dr Andersson’s slight body, her twisted limbs.
‘She is alive,’ I say. ‘Injured.’
‘I don’t give a damn about her—just get the hell out of there. Get your notebook and bag and run!’
But my eyes catch sight of my ordered articles and photographs and sketches ripped on the floor pressed under Dr Andersson’s mashed up body, blood seeping from her ear. For a moment there is a quiet, macabre eeriness to it all as the summer sun glows through the windows, warm and serene over the utter devastation in my villa. I slap a hand to the wall, steady myself, everything spinning a little as I will my brain not to melt down at the chaos. One, two, three. One, two, three. I play out a waltz of numbers in my head, draw in a long breath then, looking up, acknowledge where my notebook is and, glancing at Dr Andersson’s splayed limbs, stagger towards the fallen gun.
Balthus crackles on the line. ‘Are you on the move?’
‘Yes.’
I step over a broken laptop, and stop. There is a torn photograph of my papa lying discarded amidst the mess. It is the one of him with his arm around me, except the picture now only shows me with Papa’s arm on my shoulder, and does not show his face or the rest of him, his body ripped off and in two. The sight of the photograph instantly bothers me.
‘Papa.’ I scan the floor, frantic. ‘Where is the other half?’
‘What?’
‘The photograph of Papa,’ I say to Balthus, twisting left and right, crouching down despite the searing pain in my leg, and clawing through the tattered paper that litters the floor. ‘She tore it in two. Papa is missing.’
‘Maria, you’ve no time for this.’
But I keep looking, ignoring Balthus, ignoring the sting in my leg, led on instead by the urge to stay connected to my father in any way I can. I lift up a heap of shredded newspaper then drop it, confetti pieces floating in the sun. ‘He taught me not to flinch,’ I say to myself. ‘Papa.’
‘Maria? Maria, I know this is hard for you, but you don’t have time for this. If MI5 don’t hear from Dr Andersson, they’ll come to the villa. And if they know where you live, chances are the Project do too.’
Yet it’s as if his words have no meaning. All I can obsess on is Papa’s picture.
‘Maria!’
I lift up files. I throw torn shreds of NSA articles and images around until the air becomes thick with paper and no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I tell myself to leave, I can’t, not without Papa, not without seeing his arm around me, safe, secure, knowing I’m not on my own, because I don’t want to be on my own, not really, not like this for the rest of my life. And then, as I turn, there, among the broken pieces of laptop plastic, I see him, Papa, his eyes shining bright as if he were still alive, warm, breathing next to me.
‘Maria, have you got it?’
‘Yes!’
I grab the picture, thrust it to my chest and standing, happy, so happy I have him close to me, even if it’s only like this.
‘Good. Okay, Maria. Now you need to run. Run now, yes?’
‘Yes. Yes.’
I turn, checking the room, glancing to Dr Andersson’s body on the floor, then, grabbing my notebook fast from where it lies half-hidden by a stack of half-toppled books, I go to hobble to my bedroom, to the hidden floor compartment containing my emergency bag. But, as I reach the door, there is an almighty scream that fills the room, piercing my ears.
Dr Andersson flies at me. ‘No!’
Her hand grabs me as she smacks me against the wall, the picture of Papa floating from my fingertips, notebook flying to the left. She slams me against the wall again, blood instantly spurting from my wound. Flipping me over, she digs her knee into my chest, pinning me down, but my right arm slips free and, crunching my fingers into a fist, I turn, punch her hard in the nose. There is a loud crack. Her head spins back, hand slaps to her face as blood spurts, a crimson slit sliced into her skin.
I shift faster now, heart racing, counting the entire time to focus, my body rolling away, quicker now, Balthus from the cell shouting at me over and over again to get to the door, to get out, but before I do, there is a scraping on my leg where the bullet wound throbs.
I look down. Dr Andersson has dug her nails into my skin, clawing at the injury and she is trying to reach my cell phone. ‘Just … Maria, don’t do this …’
Heat rockets up my leg and I scream out, stumbling forward, attempting to get to a stand, but my knees wobble and I tumble, my torso toppling forward, body a felled tree, slicing my scalp on the corner of a chair.
Blood splatters in my eyes, disabling my sight, the heat of it, the ooze cloaking my face. My hands flap in front of me as I frantically try to see, attempt to stagger to safety, but Dr Andersson gets to me before I can run. The blood clears and my sight kicks in, but now she has an arm locked around my neck, her hands grasping for my cell phone.
‘Who are you speaking to?’ she yells. ‘Who?’
I smack her hands away and then, spinning round, see it: her gun—under the table where it landed.
And now both our eyes are on it.
Quick, slick, she throws me to the side, lurching for the weapon, my shoulder slamming into the stone floor. She kicks me hard in the stomach and I reel back, the agony of it engulfin
g me, spiking into my consciousness.
‘Jesus Christ, Maria, why? Stay fucking still.’ She spits out some blood, looking round for the gun. ‘I didn’t want to fucking do it like this.’
But I can’t let her get the gun, can’t let her get to my cell and to Balthus. And then I spot my torn Papa photograph, lying lost next to ripped pictures of Mama, Ramon, Patricia and Harry, and a sudden rage courses through me, one phrase slamming into my mind—prepare, wait, engage.
I glance once more to the photographs and I fly. I fly at Dr Andersson and punch her throat, straight on the windpipe, and her whole body instantly folds, collapsing in with a strange gurgle as her hand clutches her skin. I scramble up, eyes scanning the floor. The gun. Where is the gun?
‘Stop!’ Slam. Dr Andersson’s whole body lands on me. I stagger backwards at the weight of her, smothering me almost, impossible to breath, horrified that she is on me, touching me, and I hit out, my legs kicking at her shins, but it does no good. She topples me, my cell phone almost slipping away.
‘Maria!’ Balthus yells.
My face smacks the tiles, bones crunching as she knees me in the chest. Air shoots out and it feels as if I am drowning, as if every atom of oxygen is wheezing from my thorax as now Dr Andersson’s knees pin my torso down, her legs wedged into my skin.
‘So it’s the governor you’re in touch with,’ she says, spitting to the floor. ‘I know his voice. Maria, it’s over. Don’t drag everyone into this.’
She shifts to the right, blowing air on her face where her ponytail now hangs in strings of sweat on her face, and as I try and jerk my head out of her way, I see a glint. The bar. The iron bar.
I move fast, automatic. I whip my hand forward and with one swift movement, stretch my arm, grab the bar and, using all the force I can find, smash it over Dr Andersson’s head.
Her grip immediately loosens, her fingers go slack. She slips to the side, a slow groan sliding from her mouth and I waste no time. Pushing her off me, I scramble back, crawling on all fours, my eyes darting left and right until they finally land on the gun, wedged now into the wall. I grab it, chest heaving, and, staggering to a stand, point it at her.
