The Exphoria Code

by Antony Johnston

  A horrible image flashed into Bridge’s mind, of Stéphanie finding the SIG Sauer SP2022 in her car back at the farm. But the car was locked, and the gun was hidden in the glove compartment. Nobody would stumble across it. There was no need to worry.

  Worrying about Novak, though, was a different matter. Bridge declined to talk about guns, and Izzy appeared satisfied with the rest of Bridge’s explanation, so that was that. They went around the town, stopping off at patisseries to deliver a box here, a bag there. But Bridge, though she smiled and gave pleasantries, was preoccupied the whole time. She peered round every corner, looked down every narrow street, watched every passing car, alert for signs of danger. Izzy either didn’t notice, or was polite enough not to comment out loud, and Bridge was grateful for that. She didn’t relish the prospect of telling her sister about the big Russian spy who tried to kill her yesterday, and would certainly finish the job given the chance.

  But anonymity was her best advantage. True, she’d given the gendarme her sister’s married name, but ‘Baudin’ was hardly rare. She’d also lied and told him she lived north of Agenbeux. Finally, the gendarme hadn’t recognised her, or questioned her as if she was a suspect. The chances were slim that he’d remember her, let alone mention her to Novak. And yet… Much as she tried to convince herself nobody would find her here, the possibility nagged at her, floating at the back of her mind, refusing to sink below the surface.

  They reached the final patisserie a little before eight. As usual, Bridge hung behind Izzy, casually glancing around, checking they weren’t being watched or followed. She smiled and said ‘bonjour’ to the owner, who asked where petite Stéphanie was. Izzy said she was under the weather, but had still helped make the cakes that morning, and pointed out one particular batch with iced topping that Steph baked all by herself. The owner hoped the girl would feel better soon, cooed appreciatively at the cakes, and asked for a stash of Izzy’s printed paper bags. She only had a couple in hand, so she turned back to Bridge and said, “Can you get me a half dozen more bags from the car? They’re on the back seat.”

  “Sure,” said Bridge, taking the keys and stepping out onto the street. She quickly scanned the area, a habit she’d internalised over the course of the morning, but saw nothing. The bags were where Izzy had said, in the car. Bridge removed a stack, locked the car, and returned to the shop. She’d brought too many, so Izzy counted off six, then handed the rest back to Bridge while the owner paid her.

  As they drove away, Bridge said, “It can’t earn you much, doing this. After what you must spend on ingredients and fuel, are you even turning a profit?”

  Izzy shrugged. “A bit, but that’s not the point. Steph loves doing it, and I think it’s good for her to understand how the world works. That’s why she normally comes with me to the shops, to see the money changing hands; a bit of haggling, you know.”

  “Izz, she’s four years old.”

  “Exactly. What were we doing at four? Climbing trees, poking worms with sticks and getting bloody knees.”

  Bridge frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Look, I know you think I spoil her, and I’m not stupid. She can be a right little madame at times. But I just want better for her. I want her to be smarter than us, to learn her way around the world a bit faster.” Bridge didn’t reply. Izzy glanced over, to see Bridge staring at the spare paper bags in her lap. “Bridge, are you listening?”

  Bridge exhaled through her nose in frustration, then whispered, “For fuck’s sake.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not you. Me, my life, my fuck-ups.” Bridge spoke slowly, carefully. “Izz, I think it would be a good idea for the four of you to go on a family road trip. Maybe drive down to see Mum.” Bridge spoke slowly, carefully, not taking her eyes from the paper bags in her lap.

  “What are you talking about? Bridge, what’s wrong?”

  Bridge realised that what she’d been feeling all morning wasn’t just anxiety that Novak might track her down and try to kill her. It was that he’d come, and she wouldn’t be ready. That she would freeze up, instinctively try to escape, try to run away and hide all over again. It had never been much of a workable option, but now it was impossible. Now she’d put her sister’s family in danger, just by coming here. Délices de la Ferme Baudin, Côte-d’Or, the printed label on every bag. Just like the one she’d brought back from her first visit. The one she’d left in the guest house.

  A wave of emotion passed over Bridge, exhaustion mixed with the terror of knowing her family was in danger. And not only was it her fault, but only she could put it right. She was sick and tired of running away.

  She turned to Izzy. “When we get back, I need you to get everyone together and pack the car while I scout your land.”

  “Scout? What does that mean? Scouting for what?”

  “Vantage points.”

  61

  The good thing about these backward rural areas was how few questions people asked. Everyone wanted to talk, to pass the time of morning, but nobody was rude enough to ask what you were up to. Marko Novak looked like a man who had slept in his car at the side of the road, and not without reason. But when he asked how to find the Baudin Farm, people would either say they didn’t know, or give him vague directions, and then proceed to talk about the weather, how the mayor was making a mess of things, the state of the roads, anything but ask why he was looking for the farm.

  It wasn’t hard to find, in the end. He arrived a little before eight, to find a tall, thin man chopping wood in the courtyard. Novak drove into the yard, parked, and exited the car. “Good morning,” he called out in perfect English. “Do I have the right place? I’m looking for my colleague, Bridget.”

  The man had paused chopping as Novak drove up, and now he shrugged. “Colleague? Where from?” His English was heavily accented. Presumably this man was the Baudin in the farm’s name.

  Whatever Novak said now, it would be a gamble; a combination of guesswork and years of experience at letting other people do the work. Tell people just enough to sound convincing, act as if you naturally expect them to understand what you’re talking about, and they will fill in the blanks for you without realising it. Whether or not this man believed Novak to be a threat would determine the course of the next twenty seconds, and both their lives. It would decide whether Novak needed to draw the Grach tucked under his shoulder. “Up at Agenbeux,” he said, and winked. “Rather hush-hush, you know?”

  The man looked sceptical. “I’m sorry, but there’s no person here called Bridget,” he said, returning to his wood. “I can’t help you.”

  Novak weighed his options. The man was obviously lying, but now he faced a tricky decision. If Bridget Short was in the house he would need to get inside quietly, or risk her making a pre-emptive strike. But if she was somewhere outside, on the farmland, he had to conduct a search without alerting her. The man’s wood axe was no threat against Novak’s gun, but would he remain quiet? It was a chance Novak would have to take. He reached inside his jacket, fingers closing around the butt of the pistol.

  The farmhouse door burst open. A young girl ran out, shouting, “Auntie Bridge, Auntie Br — oh. Who are you?”

  Marko Novak smiled. “Au contraire,” he said to the man, and drew his gun. “I think you can help me a great deal.”

  62

  The first thing Bridge noticed was an absence; the lack of noise, of Stéphanie running out to greet them and shouting their names. The first thing Izzy noticed was an object out of place; the wood axe, lying carelessly on the ground. Fréderic was strict about leaving it safely embedded in the chopping block when not in use, but there it was, seemingly discarded. Around it were scattered loose logs, some chopped, some still whole.

  “Izzy, stay in the car and wait for me.”

  “What’s going on, Bridge? What the hell is going on?”

  “Hopefully nothing. But stay
in the car.” Izzy killed the engine, and Bridge stepped out into the yard. No Stéphanie, no Fréderic, no sound except the distant call of blackbirds from the trees at the edge of the estate.

  She opened the front door slowly, making as little noise as possible. Her natural urge was to call out, to shout “Hello,” and see if anyone responded. But her professional paranoia was at the forefront of her mind, and she said nothing. In the kitchen, she quietly picked up the keys to her Fiat and slipped them in her pocket. She glanced down at Fred’s HP laptop and saw it had finally completed the data recovery. But now wasn’t the time to go browsing photos. She gently closed the lid, slid a kitchen knife out of the block, and moved toward the lounge.

  Fred and Steph were facing her, their back to the fireplace, sitting on wooden chairs from the dining area. Their arms were pulled behind them, tied to the chair backs. They were gagged, with scarves stretched across their mouths and tied behind their heads, and both were wide-eyed with fear and frustration.

  Behind them stood Marko Novak, in plain clothes, pointing a Grach at the back of Steph’s head.

  “The game’s up, Marko,” Bridge lied. “Exphoria is safe, and SIS is onto you. My colleagues are picking up your contact in London right now, and the DGSE is going to hunt you down like a dog.” She was surprised at how calm she sounded. Was it because the danger was now to her own family? Or had she simply had enough of running away, tired of always playing defence?

  To her surprise, Novak laughed. “The DGSE couldn’t find their arse with four arms,” he said in perfect English. “And you, Ms Short — am I to suppose you lured me here deliberately? Using your own family as bait would be a most unorthodox tactic.”

  She noticed he’d used her name, just as she’d used his. This was now a battle of wits, to see who could persuade the other that they had the upper hand, that resistance was futile. But Novak had called her ‘Short’, which boosted Bridge’s confidence. “That was a mistake,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to actually follow me. I thought you’d be licking your wounds in Zurich, after the pasting I gave you at the guest house. How’s the leg?”

  Novak grunted in acknowledgement, then smiled. “I realise now that I was wrong about you. I thought you were a specialist, but it seems you’re just another MI6 durak. And so —”

  Whatever Novak wanted to say next would be forever lost, as he was interrupted by a sudden loud gasp from a window behind him. He turned, startled, and Bridge just had enough time to make out Izzy through the glass before Novak raised his pistol and fired.

  Bridge and Stéphanie screamed in unison, though for different reasons. Reacting instinctively, Bridge threw the kitchen knife at Novak. It wasn’t designed to be a weapon, much less thrown, and missed him by more than a metre, clattering off the brick chimney breast behind him. That didn’t matter, because at the same time as throwing the knife, Bridge broke into a run and charged at Novak. He was caught off guard, first by Izzy’s gasp and then the knife, and Bridge was able to close the gap, throwing her entire body weight at him before he could fire again.

  They fell back against the fireplace. Novak’s head hit the chimney and he spasmed, dropping the gun. Bridge followed up with two quick punches to his head, then picked up the knife and cut through the zip tie securing Fred’s wrists to the chair. He reached for his gag, but shouted a muffled cry before he could remove it, his eyes wide. Bridge ducked, and Novak’s boot glanced off the side of her head. It hurt, but not enough to stop her. She turned, and wrapped her arm around his leg before he could raise it again. Even with two arms she couldn’t have pulled Novak to the ground, but she wasn’t trying to. Instead Bridge used his leg as leverage to pull herself up, headbutting him in the crotch and throwing him off balance. He fell, and Bridge turned to see Fred cutting through Steph’s bonds.

  “Go, go,” she shouted, knowing they didn’t need her encouragement, but feeling bound to give it anyway. She heard Izzy call from the direction of the hallway, and the knowledge that Novak had missed — that her sister hadn’t been shot by a man Bridge should have finished off herself the day before — filled her with relief. Here, now and at last, she could make sure the threat was neutralised.

  Novak had other ideas. Bridge glimpsed a dark line, tracing an arc through the air, a split second before the fireplace poker struck her on the back of the head. The world spun, then drained of colour as the floor rushed to greet her. Her reflexes saved her, throwing an arm in front of her face as she fell so her elbow smashed against the floor instead of her mouth.

  “Bliyad,” she heard Novak mutter, and it gave her some small sense of satisfaction to know she was getting under his skin. The Fiat car keys dug into her stomach from the hoodie pocket, and she wished she’d grabbed the gun from the car instead of bringing a knife. The rational part of her brain knew she hadn’t because she didn’t want to waste time reaching Novak; that if he’d heard her enter the house and then leave again, he might have killed Fred and Steph before she could get to them. She’d done the right thing, and handled it correctly — so how come he was winning? How come Novak was about to kill her stone dead, if she’d done the right thing? Why hadn’t she been able to even the odds?

  And then she remembered the other thing in her pocket.

  Novak was bending to retrieve his gun. Bridge summoned a burst of energy, pushed herself to her feet, and charged. She slammed into him and they fell together through the French windows, shattering glass that rained around them as they tumbled down the low steps, onto the waiting gravel that crunched under their weight.

  Now, while he was dazed. Bridge fought through the cotton wool in her own head to pull out the emergency Ziploc bag, and find the loop of monofilament wire. Only a metre long, but that was enough to wrap around Marko Novak’s throat and pull tight.

  He gasped, clutching at the line as it closed around his neck, with Bridge’s weight pinning him down. Hard Man had warned them at the Loch that strangling a man was a slow process. It wasn’t like the movies, where people collapsed after ten seconds. Death took a minute or more to arrive, and the instinctive will to live made it an exhausting business for both participants. Bridge was ready for that; she’d use her own last breath if necessary, to make sure Novak couldn’t endanger her family any more. But she wasn’t ready for him to grab a terracotta pot from the foot of the steps and slam it into her face.

  It shattered on impact. Bridge fell sideways, losing her grip, and the monofilament slackened. Novak pushed himself up, throwing her off. As she lay on the ground, wiping blood from her eyes, he kicked her in the head, then twice in the stomach. But the kicking stopped, and Bridge looked up to see him returning inside. She was confused. Why stop? Why didn’t he keep kicking until she couldn’t take it any more? Then she remembered what was in the lounge.

  His gun.

  She scrambled to her feet and ran, half-blind in one eye as blood flowed from a gash in her forehead. She was a sitting duck out here, and relied on Izzy having enough sense to take Fred and Steph out of the house. Bridge hadn’t seen where they went, but hoped they’d run into the yard. She wanted to keep Novak as far away from them as possible.

  She ducked back inside the house through the utility room door, picking up an iron foot scraper on the way, and continued on to the hallway. While she didn’t know the layout of the farmhouse very well, she guessed Novak didn’t know it at all. She picked one end of the hallway and waited behind a corner. Footsteps came from the direction of the lounge, and Bridge steeled herself. Novak appeared in the hallway, near the stairs. She drew a foot back, ready to kick the wall and get him to come towards her. She gripped the foot scraper, ready to swing it.

  At least, that was the plan until Hugo cried out from upstairs.

  Fred must have put him down for a morning nap before Novak got here, because when she dared to look round the doorway, Novak was smiling and making his way to the stairs. He hadn’t know
n there was another potential hostage.

  Bridge had to make a decision. If she attacked Novak now, in the hallway, he’d have time to shoot before she could reach him. The first bullet might not be fatal, but he’d already demonstrated his willingness to kill her, and would doubtless finish the job before leaving. Nevertheless, Bridge was clearly his principal target, so with her dead he might leave her family alone.

  Or she could wait, follow him upstairs, and take him unawares. But every step of the bare wooden stairs creaked like a rusty old door, and even if Novak didn’t hear her climbing after him, she’d have to take him out dangerously close to Hugo. The worst of both worlds.

  Bridge decided an attack now would at least give her the element of surprise. She raised the iron boot scraper and rounded the doorway, breaking into a run —

  “Get off those stairs, you coward, and face me.”

  A man’s shout, hoarse and delirious, and Bridge was shocked to realise it was in French. Not Novak, but Fréderic. He advanced from the other end of the hallway, hefting the wood axe from the yard at the Russian.

  She shouted, “Fred, get out,” but it was too late. Novak raised his pistol and fired. Fred groaned and crumpled to the ground, falling like a dead weight.

  Novak had heard her, and turned to fire at Bridge too. She ducked back behind the doorway, crying out as splintered pieces of architrave blasted through the air like shrapnel.

  Fred was on the floor, dead or dying. If she couldn’t help him fast, the distinction wouldn’t matter. But she was literally outgunned. If she tried to reach him now, Novak would shoot her before she got within five metres.