by Nikki Owen
‘Oh, Maria – I know everything.’
‘Was… was she ever at Weisshorn Hospital in Lake Geneva?’
‘Yes. For a time.’
‘Where is she now?’
He does not answer.
‘Where is she now?’
He holds me with one stare. ‘You know I cannot reveal operational details unless you have clearance.’
I try to breathe steadily, think fast now as, before me on the screen, Black Eyes pulls Patricia hard and brings her to him. She lets out a small shriek, but then it fades as quick as it came, a child’s balloon of a cry floating out of view in the sky.
My brain panicking, Abigail gets my attention. ‘We’ve found something on this lone gunman thing,’ she whispers.
Trying to connect what the link could be, I turn back to the screen to see that Black Eyes has beckoned two officers into the room and is instructing them to hold Patricia under the arms.
I instantly fly, fear filling every part of me. ‘Let her go!’
‘Maria, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that, not if you’re going to stay where you are.’
I turn to Abigail. ‘Do they still not know our location?’
She shakes her head. ‘Chris managed to patch through a few minutes ago after he caught the worm I sent out. It’s blocking our geolocation just for the moment, but it won’t hold much longer.’
I turn back to the screen ready to fight with facts, but before I can speak, Black Eyes is stepping aside as, in front of him, Patricia is hauled up, her legs buckling underneath her weight, feet splaying at awkward, unnatural angles, and when her head finally rises, her eyes, her beautiful blue eyes are rimmed with red lines and bloodshot veins that crackle across her eyeballs.
My hands slap to the screen as Black Eyes raises his revolver and looks straight into the camera lens.
‘Do not hurt her,’ I say, fear and guilt imploding inside me. ‘She is my friend.’
‘I do not want to do this, Maria. I do not want to upset you – you are like a daughter to me. I have known you for a long time – you feel part of me, mine, as if I have raised you. But…’ He pauses, exhales. ‘But you need to come out now from wherever you are. Do you think I didn’t know Abigail would try and speak to you? Why do you think I introduced the two of you?’
Abigail jerks her head up, eyes wide.
‘I have weeded out the dissidents,’ Black Eyes continues, ‘and you know all the truth, all of it, so now when you come to me, you can, with your eyes and exceptional mind fully open and informed, be ready to work towards the greater good.’
I keep my sight locked on the screen. ‘I will not come to you.’
‘Think about it. You are changing, aren’t you?’
My hands open and close, faster and faster, stimming out the worry as his words hit me.
‘The headaches, the nosebleeds,’ he says, ‘the skills you already possess getting faster, even more intelligent. How long has this been going on for now? Two years? It was happening when you were in prison, wasn’t it? We have it on file, we have the evidence.’
My mouth doesn’t move. Panic fills my entire body as the reality of what he is saying enters.
‘You see, Maria, I can help you, the Project can help you. We are your family. Order and routine are your friend. And right now, you are coming up to your thirty-fourth birthday and we don’t know what will happen to you, which way it will go. Life balances on a knife edge and whether we get cut depends on how we hold the handle.’
I step back a little as, by my side, Abigail looks to me, whispering, ‘Don’t listen to him,’ then, frowning she goes to where the empty books lay strewn on the floor and, crouching down, one by one, starts peeling off the inside covers.
‘I cannot be part of the Project,’ I say to Black Eyes, my fingers opening and closing. ‘Too many people have died.’
Black Eyes emits a sigh and, with one nod of his head to the officers beyond, raises his gun. ‘Then, Maria, if you do not come to me, I’m afraid we have no use for your friend here anymore.’
‘No!’ I yell as in front of me, it happens. The revolver, raising a centimetre at a time on the end of Black Eye’s arm, swings into the air, aiming to shoot, the officers hoisting Patricia up, ready, just another target shot in the field. ‘Do not kill her!’
‘Got it!’ Abigail says, rushing forward thrusting out a fist full of paper-thin, transparent A5 sheets at me. ‘Microfiche,’ she whispers, catching her breath. ‘The whole thing they’re planning was hidden in the boxes all along on millimetre-thin slices of microfiche! They weren’t just empty books—they contained top secret data.’
‘What?’ I read the microfiches, look to Abigail. ‘This was all in the books?’
She nods frantically. ‘Yes.’
I fling myself towards the screen. ‘Wait!’
Black Eyes turns, gun suspended in the air, Patricia’s head flopping to her chest.
‘I know you are planning a lone gunman terrorist plot,’ I say, fast, urgent.’ I know that the plan involves multiple governments, and that the plan is being carried out in order to help governments secure electoral results.’
I stop, pulse racing round my body as, on the screen, Black Eyes stares into the lens. Time passes, one second, two, and my throat runs dry, Chris appearing now on the cell phone screen on the table, watching, his sight following me. The officers holding Patricia wait until, finally, Black Eyes nods to them and they let her go, her body tumbling to the floor, splaying in a jumble of limbs and blood.
My whole body floods with relief at the sight, at the last second reprieve, but I don’t get too elated because now Black Eyes is facing the screen and, weapon slightly down, he speaks straight to me.
‘Tell me what you know.’
Chapter 32
Black site Project facility, Scotland.
Present day
I talk fast, not wanting to lose my chance, my sight locked onto Patricia and her broken body next to the statues of the two Project officers.
‘We know what you are planning.’
‘And what is that?’
‘You and the British, American and Spanish governments are simultaneously planning to launch a terrorist attack on a series of smaller towns and villages across Europe.’
Black Eyes laughs, a creep, a vine of ivy that curls over the air, suffocating it. ‘Oh, Maria, I knew you’d find it.’
Why do I feel fearful when I have uncovered what the Project is planning?
I flip through the microfiche, read it and as I do, it dawns on me. The reason why he may be laughing, the reason why he is not concerned.
Because if I know all about his plan, he knows I’ve found the microfiche. I turn to Abigail. ‘He knows where we are.’
Her head drops. ‘The microfiche. Oh fuck. Of course – the only place it and the details of the plan exist is here.’
‘In room 17,’ I say to myself.
‘Is that Abigail? Subject number 209?’ Black Eyes says now. ‘Can I hear your voice?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Room 17,’ he says. ‘It’s a great place, isn’t it? A place where we can keep our most delicate of information.’
‘Information you don’t want online,’ Abigail says, ‘so no one will find it. And yet here you are, working with the secret services and the governments and the NSA, snooping into everyone’s online data; yet when it comes to your own secrets, you’d like to keep them private, thanks very much. Welcome to modern democracy, people.’
‘Oh the irony, yes?’ Black Eyes says. ‘How are you feeling these days, Abigail? I hear you are not very well. By the way, we don’t work with the NSA.’
She jabs two fingers up at the screen in a V-shape and turns away, grabbing the cell phone to connect with Chris.
Fear ballooning inside me now, I look to Black Eyes, grasping the facts. ‘I identified this plan in the situation room, but you said it was just a simulation. I knew a group was organising it, but they were not using elect
ronic data.’ I look to the microfiche, to the torn-up book boxes. ‘Now I know why.’
‘Maria, this is not easy, but leaders make difficult decisions the public don’t want to make or even know about. To achieve our plan we couldn’t risk it being found, risk it being hacked.
‘You have trained me to hack.’
‘Yes, and it’s all for the greater good, Maria. Remember your conditioning.’
A cold shiver slices into me as I recall the details of the data I saw in the situation room. ‘Twenty lone gunmen across Europe, plus some in the USA, means, combined, you will kill 2,100 people. That is what you are planning to carry out. And there are more attacks scheduled on the data, too.’
Black Eyes glances to Patricia then back to the lens. The gun hangs in his frozen fingers.
‘Maria, you have to understand something: when we began the Project it was to gain some control, prevent attacks like the one… like the one that killed my daughter.’ He stops, inhales, a wetness to his eyes. ‘Maria, believe me when I say it is essential for stability and peace that this plan goes ahead.’
Abigail comes from the phone and whispers. ‘They’ll be here soon. They know where we are.’ Then she turns back to her keyboard, hands shaking.
My eyes drift to Patricia. Her chest is shallow in breath now, and though the screen is slightly pixelated, it is clear that, without immediate medical intervention, she hasn’t much time left.
I look at Black Eyes, a steel forming inside me now, thick, strong. I have to save my friend. ‘Your plan is that each gunman will carry out shootings in a further 200 towns in the second tranche with 20 people killed per place. Which equals 4,000 people killed, which, combined with the first tranche figure, equates to a total of 6,100 deaths.’ I reel off the facts almost word for word from the discussion in the situation room. ‘You are planning to do this – you – the Project and international governments. Why?’
From the corner of my eye, I see Abigail copying every single microfiche with her cell phone then sending them on a proxy link to Chris.
‘We thought, when we began the Project, that simply by fighting terrorism we could prevent it, slow it down, but of course, that never happens. It was naïve of us, silly. And then you came along and the conditioning began to work and we knew we could make a difference. But still, in the back of our minds was control. You know all about control, I know you do, Maria, you need it, too. You need it to stop a meltdown.’
Waves of uncertainty wash over me as I watch Black Eyes speak, watch Patricia wither, the officers hovering nearby just waiting for the order to act. I need to get her out.
‘What you have found in room 17 is data, planning, times and locations, people and numbers.’
I glance to Abigail; she is furiously texting all the remaining data she can.
‘The control is the key here, you see, Maria,’ he continues, his eyes for the first time lighting up, no tears. ‘If we initiate a lone gunman attack around Europe, it creates fear – no one knows where the gunman will strike next. And, of course, with fear, we have control. And with control we have order. Think about it. Often, the public disagree when politicians and armies want to invade a country in order to protect their own, yet, as soon as an attack occurs on their own soil, public opinion changes – people then, we find, accept a government’s invasion of another country more freely, even demand it. And what does that do? That then allows us to do our job, fight the terrorism on soil and in cyber space and create peace.’ He pauses, exhales. ‘Our nickname – Cranes – represents peace, after all, and it has been in the plan all along, the lone gunman campaign, it was just a matter of timing as to when we implemented it. We needed the right governments on board at the right electoral times to boost support – and we needed you.’
The horror of what he is saying hits me. ‘You and state governments are planning to attack innocent people to create fear so they can get the vote results they require.’
‘Don’t be so horrified. It has happened for centuries. A bit of fearmongering to get the outcome you require, to gain order. We are all signed up to the mantra that to gain order, you need to create chaos.’
‘You… you got me to kill for you, for what? For political gain? For personal power?’
‘For peace, Maria. For peace.’
My mind slams thought after thought through my head as I digest the reality of what Black Eyes is saying. I look at Patricia’s beaten body, think of what she has done for me, how she has been nothing but kind, nothing but loyal and understanding. Nothing but peaceful. And how did I repay her? By immediately believing that she was against me. Is that what happens in life? One too many bad things occur and so you assume that from there on in, all else will fail? Is that really the right way to live? Separately? Fearing each other? Continually suspicious?
‘How do I fit into all of this?’ I say now.
‘You have the skills, Maria. You have the skills to help, on one hand to keep terrorist groups at bay, yet on the other hand help us track what people do so we can keep control, keep the order that a civilised society so desperately needs to thrive.’ He pauses. ‘We need you so no more sons and daughters will die for no reason.’
‘They will die if nations are prepared to kill its own citizens for the greater good.’
‘But it is, ultimately, the right course of action to take if it means that millions more people live as a result.’
‘No,’ I say, an anger building inside me. ‘When dictatorships kill their citizens, western nations bomb them and justify it under NATO rules. Who will bomb you?’
‘We are not in a dictatorship, Maria.’
To my side, Abigail slides over to me. ‘We’ve got it all. The microfiche data has been sent to Chris.’
I turn back, heart rate rising at the news, pleased that we have the proof of their plan backed up, yet, at the same time concerned. Patricia is still in trouble. I look to her, thinking. If Chris has the data, then he can use it, he will have it and can tell people. Which means my choice now of what to do, is clear.
‘I will join you,’ I say. ‘I will join the Project.’
Abigail’s head jerks up. ‘What?’ She thrusts the phone to me with a text from Chris that reads: Google! No!
‘Why?’
I pause. ‘I have nothing left.’
‘We are your only family.’
My heart races as I lie. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes.’
Black Eyes immediately smiles. It is warm, one with creases, the same one he had when he thought of his daughter. ‘Maria, I am delighted you have seen sense – it is the right decision. It is, really, the main reason we wanted to keep Patricia here like this – so we could use her to help you see sense whenever it may have been required. Friends will go, we find, a long way for one another – and I am your friend, your family. I’m so glad this has worked out. My officers shall be with you soon and—’
‘There is one condition.’
He stops. ‘What?’
‘You let Patricia go. You get her to a safe place where her injuries can be tended. And you will leave her alone.’
Black Eyes remains unmoving as the words I have spoken hang in the air. I feel scared, unsure, yet all of that, as I look now at Patricia, falls to the side as, slowly, her hand moves a little and one by one, her fingers spread out into our mutual star shape.
Tears trickle past my eyes now as I watch her, elated, yet concerned, my own fingers moving to the same shape connected by an invisible thread that can never be cut, reaching out to my friend who has always been there for me, even when I have not been there for her. The bond of friendship, once made, once forged in events of past, present and future, can never be broken.
‘Okay,’ Black Eyes says, nodding to the officers. ‘We can do that. Patricia will be released.’
A breath billows from my lungs, relief washing over me.
Abigail shakes her head. ‘Do you realise what you’ve just done?’
I look to her and nod, my body and
mind exhausted. ‘It has to be done.’ Taking the cell phone, I text Chris.
Patricia will be set free.
I heard. You’re crazy, but I get why you’ve done it. What’s the plan?
I glance to the computer screen – Patricia is being helped to stand.
You have the microfiche data?
Yes. You thinking it needs to get to a wider audience? Published on the internet, to journalists?
Yes, but not yet. I need to see Patricia safe first.
There’s a one second delay in his reply, two.
Abigail turns to me. ‘Shit, I’m picking up some activity further down the next corridor – I think they’re on their way to get you.’
I swallow, nerves building, as I look now at Patricia standing, just about, on her feet, an officer having to assist her.
Chris finally texts back.
Might be able to track your location in the black site facility there now as have the hacker worm from Abigail.
Will do what I can to help. Sit tight and be safe until we get you all out, together… I miss you, Google.
I read his message and, despite the stress and the fear, I catch myself smiling. Abigail takes the cell when I hand it to her and immediately rips out the sim, smashing it under her boot into tiny unuseable, untraceable shards.
‘What will you do now?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know.’ She pauses, the distant sound of boots growing louder by the second in the cold air. ‘I don’t want to end up in interrogation. I have a pill.’
I try to think what to say, think what Patricia would do, and so I raise my hands and hold out my five fingers. Abigail blinks at me, smiling, small tear drops slipping out on her worn cheeks.
‘Thank you,’ I say.
A knock on the door sounds loud, quick. Abigail inhales, sharp, and her eyes go wide. ‘It’s okay,’ she says to me, watching me wince, sight locked on the door as a voice shouts my name from outside. ‘I know where your notebook and rucksack is,’ she says now, fast.
‘You do?’
One bang on the door.
She swallows. ‘Hospital wing. There’s a small cupboard with a keypad lock, simple number combination. Belongs to Black Eyes. The code is 2704. That’s where it is.’
