by Rob Aspinall
My cheeks caught fire beneath the layer of dried manure.
“Long story,” I said, pointing at his clothes. “Thought you hated suits.”
“Oh this?” he said, tugging at his tie. “Charity lunch. Gotta dress up for the rich donors.”
Alex had stepped into his dead dad’s shoes. Not to continue the criminal empire, but to disassemble it and rebuild it as a humanitarian organisation.
Impressed? I know I was.
“So how’s the activist biz going?” I asked.
“Slow,” Alex said. “But I think we’re making progress,” He waved me up the steps. “Come on, there’s a shower on the plane.”
I boarded the G4 and followed him into the main cabin. It was totes amazeballs. A leather and walnut explosion. A movie screen that dropped down from the ceiling and a bar at the far end.
The plane seemed to be empty other than Alex and the crew up front.
“What, no entourage?” I said.
“You don’t know me very well, do you?”
“Of course I don't, we’ve texted, like, six times.”
Alex stopped. “I was meaning to call.”
“Really?” I said, getting giddy. “I mean, yeah, me too.”
“So what have you been up to since my dad’s party?”
“This and that,” I said. “Sorry about your dad.”
Alex shrugged, “You make that many enemies . . .”
Alex led me past the bar to a bathroom.
The bathroom had a standing shower in it. Everything compact, but plush as hell.
“There are fresh towels, shower gels, shampoos, all that stuff,” he said. “Take your time.”
He left me to it. I peeled the flight suit off me, giving myself a Hollywood wax in the process. I dropped the suit on the floor, along with my underwear. I stepped into the shower and scrubbed like a maniac. My mind channel-hopped between what Alex must have thought of me and what Philippe was doing on the train.
And I hadn’t even gotten around to processing the death of Klaus.
I’d only known him a couple of days, but a death was a death—as much as it wasn’t my first rodeo.
Two shampoos and conditions later, I stepped out of the shower. The air thick and hot with steam.
I rubbed a clear patch across the mirror. Sniffed my hair and skin. Did I still smell or had the manure stench set up a permanent camp in my nostrils?
I hoped neither was true, taking a disposable white comb out of a plastic wrap and forcing the tangles out of my hair. I squeezed off the ends and ran the hair dryer over it, turning my attention to the clothing situation.
All I had to wear was a bra and knickers. And not just any bra and knickers. Oh no, I had to choose today of all days to wear the penis-shrivellers.
The flight suit had kept them clean. But that wasn’t the point.
I bundled my flight suit and trainers together and shoved them to one side. I pulled on my underwear and wrapped a large, dry towel around my body. I opened the bathroom door and prepared to step out. Then I caught a flash of myself in the mirror.
Crap, the scar!
Couldn’t let him see the scar.
“Like it matters,” the devil in me said. “Any chance you had just took a swan-dive into the shit-swamp with you . . . You blew it Lorna.”
I grabbed a smaller towel off the rail and wrapped it around my neck. I tucked the ends in the top of the larger towel, concealing the scar.
I made my entrance.
Alex was sat with his back to me, playing a WWII alien shoot-em up on a TV.
“You not blowing up pigs or slicing fruit?”
“Nah,” he said, “Exploding Pigs is boring and where’s the fun in slicing fruit?”
“I know, right?”
God, we were so well suited.
Alex turned in his seat. He looked me up and down. “Nice towel arrangement.” He pointed to a pile of folded clothes on the seat across the aisle from him. “You can wear something of mine for now.”
“Wow, thanks,” I said, rooting through the pile. I picked out a pair of skinny jeans and pulled them on. They were baggy on me.
Alex kept his eyes on the screen, giving me some privacy. “What was that thing you were wearing?” he asked.
“Oh, just a wing-suit,” I said, dropping the towels from around my body. “Mission stuff. I got separated from my team.”
“Mission stuff?” he asked.
“I’m not allowed to say.”
The truth is, I was allowed to say. But I didn’t want to go into it. And besides, the less he knew, the safer he’d be.
Alex paused the game. “You wanna call your team—”
“Don’t turn around!” I shouted.
“Shit, sorry,” he said, jerking his head back to the screen.
I pulled the t-shirt on over my head and zipped up a baggy grey hoodie over the top. I pulled on a pair of socks—way too big but they would do.
I picked up a white trainer. “Got anything smaller than a nine?”
“Sorry,” Alex said, “but come to Italy with me. They’ve got lots of designer stores over there.”
I sighed. “That would be amazing . . . But I’ve got work and—”
“Sure,” Alex said. “No big deal.”
“I would if I could—”
“It’s cool, Lorna. Mission stuff, like you said.”
“Maybe I should call my team,” I said. “See if they can pick me up.” I headed into the bathroom and pulled my phone from a zip pocket in my flight suit.
I called Inge. This time she answered.
18
Wheels Up
It turned out Inge and the others weren’t too far away. They appeared an hour after the call in the same black SUV we’d left at the airfield before the mission.
I said goodbye to Alex. He said he’d get rid of the wing-suit.
“Another flying visit,” he said. “You’re a mysterious girl, Lorna.”
“You think I’m mysterious?”
“You’re the only girl I know who’d be wandering around Siberia covered in cow shit.”
See, this is what I was afraid of. No more diamond-stealing, supercar-driving, mega-glam cat thief. No. Now I was Cow Dung Girl. The crap had washed off but the image would stick forever.
I walked across the airfield as Alex’s plane took off. I slipped through the gap in the gates, to where the Volvo SUV waited.
It was a big thing. A seven seater with a grey leather interior.
I climbed inside the rear passenger door. Bilal was at the wheel. Inge riding up front. Ling on the middle seats, Roni on the back, her laptop on her knees.
“You look nice,” she said, sneering at my borrowed clothes and frizzy hair.
Inge turned in her seat as Bilal set off. “What happened back there?”
“I was gonna ask you the same question,” I said.
“Did you kill him?” Bilal asked.
“Kill him? I barely escaped with my life. What the hell was he doing there? I mean, he was totally different.”
Inge stared into space. “Sounds like reconditioning.”
“So that’s what they did with him after Mexico?”
“My best guess,” Inge said, turning to face the front. “Bilal!”
The pigs from the farmer’s truck ran out across the road.
Bilal had to brake and swerve as they headed into the field on the opposite side of the road. ”Shit, what’s a herd of pigs doing out here?” he said.
“I dunno,” I said. “Maybe they’re road hogs,” I chuckled, waiting for an explosion of laughter. A smattering of light applause. Nothing.
Not even a slow handclap.
“Pardon me for being hilarious,” I said, “You JPAC people. You’ve no sense of humour.”
“What’s that smell?” I heard Roni say from behind me. I turned to see her nose twitching.
“Must be the fields,” I said, sniffing my hair again. “So are we gonna go after Philippe, or what?”
“Why?” Bilal said.
“To find him,” I said. “Rescue him.”
Bilal laughed. “And why don’t we liberate some crocodiles from a swamp?”
“It’s not his fault he got mind-melted,” I said.
“Whatever’s going on with Philippe, we’ve got bigger problems,” Inge said.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Something in the data?”
“They encrypted a lot of it,” Roni said. “It’ll take time to break through, but . . .”
“But what?” I said.
Roni looked over my shoulder towards Inge.
“X21,” Inge said.
“Come again?” I said.
“It’s the codename for the virus you released in Alaska.”
“Oh fab,” I said.
“In one of the data fragments, Roni found plans to launch it,” Inge said. “Seems they’re happy with the test runs. They’re scheduling a Black Flag Protocol.”
“When?” I asked.
“Soon,” Roni said, “I’m still putting the pieces together.”
“We’ll work with what we've got until then,” Inge said.
“And what about Philippe?” I said.
Inge turned and fixed me with one of her ice queen stares. “You don’t have to worry about going after Philippe. He’ll be coming after us.”
The thought sent a chill down my spine. “That's comforting . . . Where are we headed?”
“London,” Bilal said. “We’re on our way to the nearest airport.”
“In the meantime, any chance of getting me some help?” Roni said. “I can speed up the decryption with a couple more hands.”
“I know a couple of guys,” I said. “They might have to work remote.”
“Make it happen,” Inge said. “Wheels up in three hours.”
19
Juvenile
“You think this is funny?”
Me and Inge try and stifle our laughs. I guess that means we do.
But the woman in the baggy khaki pants and white shirt doesn’t think so. She paces left and right. A lanyard with an ID around her neck. She looks tired. Make-up free. Dark, springy hair a little wild like she just got up.
I lean my head back against the wall. The notice board on the other side of the corridor blurring a little. My body feels unsteady on the hard plastic chair drilled into the floor. Inge leans against me, her head on my shoulder.
The ID on the woman’s neck says Esmeralda Sousa. The more I look at her hair—no one in the nineties had any fashion sense. I mean, literally, no one.
Esmerelda shakes her head. She has a mobile phone on her the size of a planet. She pulls out the aerial and dials a number. Looks at us all the time. “Yeah it’s Sousa . . . Sousa. Rio Section Chief? Yeah, I know what time it is, but we’ve got a problem. Two of your academy grads got drunk. Got in a fight. And that’s not all.” Esmerelda turns away from us. “I think there's something going on between them . . . Do I have to spell it out?” There’s a long pause before she continues. “The job didn’t go to plan, but they got it done . . . I’m at the police station with them now. No charges, but they’re drawing attention. I’ve squared things off with the duty officer but I can’t be having this kind of shit.” Esmerelda paces away down the corridor. “I know they need field experience, but you put a boy and a girl together, give them money and fake IDs and send them to a place like this? What do you think’s going to happen?”
I yawn and stretch, feeling sleepy. The laughter’s dried up now and I’m starting to sense we’re in real trouble.
“What do you want me to do with them?” Esmerelda says, walking back up the corridor. “Fine, I'll handle it. She comes off the call. She pushes the aerial back in the phone and beckons us to our feet. “Come on, follow me.”
“Where are we going?” Inge asks as we drag our tired bodies up off the chairs.
“To the hotel to get your things,” Esmerelda says, leading the way. “I’m putting you on the first flight home.”
20
Dr Dahl
Heathrow. Arrivals. I browsed a fashion magazine in a small, open-fronted newsagent.
Inge was across the concourse, leaning against a pillar.
“You know what he looks like?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said, pretending to talk on her phone.
“Where’s he flying in from?”
“Copenhagen. The flight’s in baggage claim. He should be out any moment.”
I flipped through the magazine. Beautiful film stars and models draped across posh furniture in millionaire mansions. To think, we stole all that money from JPAC. And not one penny had gone towards a nice dress or pair of shoes. That was the real crime.
“Are you gonna buy that?”
A deep southern accent: the hot breath of a middle-aged security guard on my neck.
“No, I was gonna steal it,” I said.
“Wouldn’t put it past you,” he said.
“Easy, Paranoid Android.”
“Put the magazine back,” he said.
“Why? I’m only browsing. ”
“It’s a shop. Not a library,” he said. “Put it back or I’ll put you out on your arse.”
I burst out laughing. “I could kill you with my little toe. Did you know that?”
The guy huffed. “Is that right?”
I turned the next page. “Lucky for you I’ve got my shoes on.”
“Drop it, Goldilocks,” Inge said. “He’s here.”
I dumped the magazine in the security guard’s hands and came out of the newsagent.
Inge was turning away from the pillar, on the move. “Glasses. Black rucksack.”
“I don’t see him,” I said.
“Dark jeans and brown blazer. Early forties. Balding.”
I scanned the passengers walking away from arrivals. “Got him,” I said, getting a fix on the guy. He was six-two and lean, with a long stride. I shuttled fast across the concourse. Inge stayed on his tail. I flanked from the far left.
We tracked him down a bank of escalators.
“You sure this is the guy?” I asked.
“Dr. Kasper Dahl,” Roni said. “JPAC Biowarfare Division.”
“Why send a scientist to do a field agent’s job?” I asked.
“Well think about it genius,” Roni said. “They’re carrying the world’s most dangerous virus through customs. Might be a good idea to have a lab rat on the case.”
“Besides, he might just be the delivery man,” Inge said. “They could be transferring it to a device later on . . . Keep your eyes out for a second man, like in Berlin.”
Dr. Dahl stopped and consulted a tube map on the wall. Ran his finger over a line, turned and marched on.
“He’s taking the underground,” I said. “Not sure which line.”
“Split and track,” Inge said.
We walked along opposite sides of an underground tunnel. One of many white-tiled, low-hanging passages branching out under the airport. Like mice in a maze, we headed left and then right, tracking Dahl.
Then a rush of passengers flooded out of a platform. Families, commuters, business travellers—a stampede of legs and bodies and wheeled luggage.
We soon got caught in the swamp. Dahl slipped away and out of sight.
“You see him?” Inge said.
“No, you?”
Inge shook her head across the passageway.
The surge thinned out. The tunnel quietened down. Only the rumble of underground trains through the walls.
There were two choices of line. The Piccadilly Line and the Heathrow Express.
“Mother Goose, you got eyes on him?” Inge asked.
“Give me a sec,” Roni said. “There must be a hundred cameras down there.”
“You take Piccadilly,” Inge said, glancing over at me. “I’ll take the Express.”
I nodded and moved, hanging a left down a passageway and hurrying out onto a packed platform.
A digital display overhead
said one minute. I scanned the faces along the platform.
“Any luck?” I said.
“No,” Inge said. “The platform’s empty. He’s not here. I’m doubling back your way.”
“Target acquired,” Bilal said in my ear.
“I thought you were watching pick up and drop off,” I said.
“I was. But it sounded like more fun down here. To your left, Nine o'clock.”
I turned and saw Bilal at the start of the platform, pretending to read a folded-over newspaper. He threw a subtle nod towards Dahl, stood close to the platform edge.
“Target confirmed,” I said.
“On my way,” Inge said.
“Better hurry,” I said.
The train exploded out of the tunnel. It slowed down fast. The doors opened and a bunch of passengers fought their way off as everyone else wrestled their way on. Dahl waited for the scrum to clear and strode on-board.
Bilal tucked his newspaper under an arm and followed him on. I stepped onto the train a few carriages up.
As the doors closed, I saw Inge sprinting along the passageway. She was never gonna make it.
“Shit,” she said, skidding to a stop.
“Cinderella missed her ride,” I said.
“I got you Cinderella,” Roni said. “I’ll get you to the ball.”
“Thanks Mother Goose,” Inge said. “I’ll stay on your heels, Goldilocks. Stand down until I’m back in play.”
“How about Snow White?” Bilal asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “No point leaving her in the taxi rank.”
“I'll hook you up,” Roni said. “Sending her your signal.”
The train took off. I saw Inge stroll onto the platform for the next one along the line.
I moved down the carriage, holding onto the railing overhead. The train stopped a couple of minutes into the journey and more people piled on.
Dahl stood staring at his own reflection in the window. A firm grip on the strap of his rucksack. Bilal read his paper. The train moved onto the next stop. I felt tense as the carriage rocked left to right, a warm wind blowing in through narrow windows.
The rush and clatter through the tunnels, the artificial light, the sweat under the armpits: it all added to the tension.
