by Adam Carter
“We have to get back to the bunker,” Foster said, only mildly less hysterical than a moment earlier. “We have to tell Sanders what’s happened.”
“My phone has no signal here,” Lin told her with her eyes closed. “In the morning we’ll head back out and let Sanders know what’s happened.” Thompson of course could be dead by then, but Sanders cared more about secrecy than his officer’s lives, and Lin knew she was doing the right thing by waiting. Likely Foster had not even considered Thompson’s life in all her panicking, but Lin didn’t really care what Foster thought. They would wait because that was what Lin had decided they would do.
“Maybe I should head back now,” Foster said, “leave the two of you ...”
“You are not going to take our car,” Lin said, her eyes snapping open so fiercely it actually shut Foster up. “You go anywhere near that car and I swear to God I’ll shove your face into the third rail.”
Lin was not ordinarily an angry woman, although recent events were getting on top of her, and Foster was enough to try anyone’s patience. She would not apologise, however, and as a compromise closed her eyes and went back to resting. If Thompson awoke soon, Lin would reconsider their position. If she could be moved, they would drive out, contact Sanders, provide him with a full picture, and receive commands. Everything depended upon Thompson waking up soon. Come on, Jen, Lin urged silently. Wake up.
The next two hours were excruciating. There was no food stored in the car, and Lin was resolved to talking with the DCI to have that rectified upon their return; the DCI wanted them to have smoke grenades but never thought to provide them with a can of beans. Lin expected Foster to complain bitterly about being hungry, although she seemed to have gone into a sulk, which was good since it meant she wasn’t talking quite so much. During this time Thompson stirred several times. Her body had broken into a sweat and Lin figured she likely had a fever. She moaned in her sleep, tossing fitfully, but all Lin could do was apply cold water to her forehead by use of a handkerchief. She had removed her own jacket, insisting on taking Foster’s as well, and kept Thompson as warm as possible. The gunshot wound itself seemed to be clean; it was a small wound with a massive amount of blood and there was no sign of the actual bullet.
Eventually Lin caught Foster staring at her from where she was huddled on her own chair as close to the waning fire as she could get. “One of us should go,” she said calmly. Gone was the hysterical babbling woman Lin had fallen into this with, and the way she had delivered the statement so deadpan Lin almost wished for her return.
“We’re staying ‘til morning,” Lin said, looking around for something else to toss into the fire.
“Jen’s not going to last until morning. One of us has to go for help now.”
“Jen’s doing fine.”
Foster said nothing. She did not have to, although Lin did not want to meet her gaze.
Lin knelt beside Thompson and felt her temperature again. The fever had still to break, so she checked the bullet wound. Lin’s bandaging had been amateur at best, although it was holding the wound together and at last it had actually stopped bleeding. The bandage was stuck to the wound, however, and Lin didn’t want to yank it free for fear of reopening the wound.
“Sue,” Foster said softly, “I can be back in a quarter hour. I just need to drive out of this depot, phone Sanders and get instructions. I could be back in five minutes if I hurry.”
Lin knew she was right, had known that for a long while. She could herself have gone on foot hours ago and been back in no time. All they needed to do was get out of the dead zone. But Lin did not know what had happened back at the house, and did not like lacking all the facts. She really needed Thompson to wake up to tell them everything, but if Thompson woke up it would negate the urgency of the situation anyway. Lin was not in control of this situation, and that was never an acceptable circumstance.
“We can’t risk it,” Lin said at last, knowing she was condemning Thompson to death but having no choice.
“Sue, you’re being paranoid. There aren’t going to be cops out there waiting for us to show our faces.”
“You don’t know that,” Lin rounded upon her angrily. “Without knowing why the police were there, why they were armed and how they managed to arrive at the exact time Thompson was inside, we can’t assume anything. This could be it, Shaz. WetFish could be falling. If someone’s made an anonymous tip to the police that we’d be there last night, they could be trying to get us brought in. If three of his officers were arrested Sanders would have no choice but to shut down the department and go into hiding. I don’t like the thought of Jen dying, God I don’t, but if we go out there right now we could be killing WetFish.” She glanced back to Thompson, and it broke her heart to say the next words but they needed to be said regardless. “We have to trust Sanders is looking for us. We have to trust the DCI, Sharon.”
“And do you?”
Lin met her eyes once more. “No.”
Foster held her gaze for several moments before saying quietly, “So I’m going.” And she let without another word.
Lin had never thought much of Sharon Foster, had never had much of an opinion of her at all actually, but in that single moment she realised why DCI Sanders had recruited her.
It was near-silent without Foster, the only sound that of Thompson’s laboured breathing. There was nothing more Lin could do for her, so she sat back with her eyes closed and went over all the details of the night. They had been sent in to plant incriminating evidence upon Arcady, and someone had betrayed them. Lin wasn’t about to suspect the DCI of wanting to bring down his own organisation, but perhaps someone else there did. Either that or Arcady had spotted the two women entering his house and had called the police himself. Lin didn’t even know whether Arcady or any of the police had got a good look at Thompson; for all Lin knew her face was being distributed around every station even as they waited in the train.
She heard a noise then and was alert in an instant, her fingers snaking around a broken piece of piping she had picked up from outside. She saw movement through the window and the rattle of someone trying the door caused Lin to tighten her nervous grip upon the pipe. But it was only Foster returning, and Lin relaxed slightly. The look in Foster’s eyes, however, told Lin there was no reason to relax too much.
Foster cast a brief glance towards Thompson before dropping into a seat, rubbing her hands together ferociously. It was still cold outside and with the coming of the morning’s light Lin could even detect the promise of snow.
“Here,” Foster said, producing a loaf of bread and a four-pint bottle of milk. “Didn’t want to be too suspicious at the garage, didn’t want to buy anything he might have remembered me buying, either.”
In that instant Lin saw Foster as a godsend and hungrily tore open the loaf of bread while Foster took a swig from the plastic bottle of milk. Throughout the night they had survived on a single bottle of water, although Lin had insisted this was used for Thompson. The unconscious woman drank little, although her brow needed to be kept cool with water.
“Got a paper, too,” Foster said, handing it over. “We managed not to get ourselves mentioned, so Sanders will be happy.”
Lin took the paper and skimmed the story. It spoke of a triple murder at the Arcady house. Stacey Arcady and her two small children William and Rebecca had been brutally murdered. The story did not go into details, but there were a few brief words from Arnold Arcady about how distraught he was, or whatever the newspapers had decided he had said. Arcady was still alive, then, which meant their target was the only one who had made it out of the house alive. Lin assumed he had not been there at the time, although the newspaper didn’t have much information at all.
“Someone hit the house,” Lin surmised. “That’s what the police were doing there. Someone went for Arcady and couldn’t find him, so killed his family.”
Foster shrugged.
“At least it means there’s likely no traitor in WetFish,” Lin said w
ith more relief than she had thought she would feel. It was not unusual for a victim’s family to want to seek revenge after the return of a not-guilty verdict, but in Lin’s experience families were more likely to cry a lot in front of the cameras and appeal for justice. It seemed the family of Liz Farris had gone one step further and hired someone to get back at Arcady. It was an assumption of course, but it would have been too much of a coincidence for a random burglar to have murdered Arcady’s entire family the night he wasn’t there.
“Did you get through to Sanders?” Lin asked as she chewed on some bread.
“Yeah. He wants us to sit tight while he looks into things.”
“Didn’t you tell him about Thompson?”
“Of course I told him about Thompson,” Foster said crossly. “He just didn’t care.”
Lin knew that wasn’t strictly true. Sanders cared about his officers, he cared about them a lot so far as Lin always saw; but he cared about his organisation more. And he cared about safeguarding the country more than anything.
“He’s sending us a doctor,” Foster said flatly. “Since we can’t take Thompson to a hospital, he says.”
“You all right, Shaz?”
Foster shrugged. “Sure.”
“Sounds it.”
“I just ... We’re supposed to be a team, you know? I get that we could be shot, that we could die. But Jen’s dying because Sanders won’t let us bring her in. That could be me or you there and Sanders wouldn’t care. We’re just statistics to him, like everything else.”
Moving Thompson might well have done her more harm than good, and there was no way they could take her to a hospital, but Lin refrained from mentioning such. She could tell Foster was extremely angry and knew it was probably just the post-adrenalin rush of the night before. Neither of them had got much sleep during the night and they were likely both cranky. What made Foster think WetFish would back up its own was beyond Lin, for Sanders had a bigger goal than anyone understood. Lin didn’t even want to know what Sanders actually wanted out of life, she just trusted him that it was for the best. She may not have trusted much about the man, but she had to trust that little at least.
“Get some sleep,” Lin said. “I’ll keep an eye on things.”
Foster nodded distantly and wandered off to find a reasonably comfortable seat, leaving Lin to wonder just how wrong an assignment could go. One moment they were in control of another man’s future, and the next they were themselves on the run. They were so intent on dealing out their own brand of divine justice, perhaps it was about time someone dealt them a little. It did not make Lin believe in the divine any more than she ever had, but it was at least something to get her thinking.
Taking the handkerchief from Thompson’s head, she washed it through with fresh water and replaced it on the unconscious woman’s head, brushing the sweaty hair from her eyes. Whatever was behind it, they would have to do their best to see it through. As officers of the law, it was their duty. Even if the law didn’t always appreciate their efforts.
CHAPTER THREE
Pain shot through her entire body, but then pain was good. It wasn’t as though she was so screwed up that she actually enjoyed pain, but Thompson had always known it was the body’s danger signal. It was her brain screaming at her that something was wrong, that she had to take action. It also meant she was still alive.
Still half-unconscious, Thompson grimaced, a sudden flash of memory coming to her as it always did when she was in such intense agony. She was fifteen years old and had accompanied some of the soldiers on a little exercise. She wasn’t supposed to be there of course, but there were a lot of things she wasn’t supposed to do and just so long as her father never found out about them she couldn’t really care less what she did. They’d decided to play capture the flag in a shopping centre, the trick being that they weren’t allowed to be found out. Even back then Thompson had been good at hiding in plain sight, and her unit had made steady progress against the other team. They had taken out an enemy soldier by Woolworth’s and another while he was pretending to browse books in WH Smith. She had lost one of her own team when he had inadvertently wandered into the lingerie section of Marks and Spencer and had become distracted by something Thompson didn’t even want to know.
There were three to each team, which meant her opposition only had the one man left. And on her team it was just herself and Dan Stewart.
They fell into step beside a cheap book shop: its open plan and lack of any proper door allowed them a good line of sight in case their opponent was hiding out and waiting.
“We have two options,” Dan was saying with a grin. “We outnumber George, so we can either go straight for the flag, or we can hunt him down.”
“Since we don’t know where he is,” Thompson had said, “he might well be hightailing it back to the exit with his flag already.”
“So we go for the flag, then.”
The rules were simple. No one was allowed to leave the shopping centre unless their team had possession of the flag. As soon as a flag was taken, it had to be delivered to the far end of the car park. That would stop anyone from lying in wait amongst the cars, since the rules prohibited it. Their own flag to grab had been taped to the underside of a bench on the upper level, and Thompson knew they were presently only a minute from it. They took the escalator slowly, keeping a careful eye out for George Danube, the final member of the enemy team, but they could see nothing of him. While Thompson went for the flag, Dan kept a lookout, although no one moved to stop them.
“Got it,” Thompson said, although her good humour was somewhat quashed by her companion’s creased brow.
“He should be here to stop us,” Dan said. “It’s not like George to take the easy way out and make a grab for our flag at the same time.”
“Maybe he knows you’ll think like that.”
Dan shrugged. “Let’s just get this to the car park. Keep hold of it.”
The two of them hastened without running, for they did not want to draw the attention of other shoppers. If her father discovered his soldiers were conducting unauthorised exercises in civilian-heavy locations he would likely explode. Add to that the fact they had drawn his only daughter into their madness and his explosion would likely take several soldiers with him.
They found the exit easily enough, and still there was no sign of George. Dan’s usual levity had all but vanished, and Thompson had never seen him look so worried. “If he’s outside already,” she reminded him, “he’s broken the rules and we win.”
Dan shook his head. “Just go. I’ve got you covered.”
Thompson obeyed, hurrying through the door, Dan on her heels. The car park was large, on a single level. Snow covered the ground, and it was slippery, especially since most of the snow had turned to ice with so many shoes crushing it underfoot. They were about halfway through the car park when the goal came into sight. Thompson breathed a sigh of relief: there was no enemy flag hanging upon it. That meant George was still inside, probably lost amongst all the shoppers, Thompson figured.
And then Dan gave a shout and she turned to see George vaulting over a snow-covered car, his hand landing upon Dan’s forearm: the sign that Dan had been killed. Thompson froze, uncertain of what was happening. If George had been hiding in the car park all along, it meant he was breaking the rules. He wasn’t allowed to leave the shopping centre unless he was in possession of the flag.
Thompson saw it then, tucked into his belt. George had secured his own flag, but had made it only partway across the car park before she and Dan had also appeared. Instead of pouring on the speed and making it a race to the finish, George had hidden so he might ambush his enemy. And it had succeeded, for he had taken Dan out of the game.
She stared at George with the sudden realisation that they were the only two left in the game. They were both about twenty metres from the goal, both with flags in their possession, which meant it was now literally a race to the finish. And because of her positioning Thompson had a tw
o-step head start.
They broke into a run in the same instant, neither of them intending to try to ‘kill’ the other, but both intent on making it to the goal first. It would be tight, Thompson knew, but she did not stop to think about failure. The goal was in a straight line to her: she would make it!
Dan was shouting something behind her, probably encouragement, and she saw George falter. Had he stumbled? No, he had skidded to a stop, fear in his eyes. Thompson had no idea what he ...
And then the car slammed into her legs and Thompson saw the world spin. At first she did not know what was happening, only that her eyes were still focused upon the goal, that she was trying to work out how she could best still reach it. She felt the ground strike her shoulder and then the pain hit her, cascading down her side, through her legs and into her chest. Her breath came hard and she tasted copper in her mouth as she coughed, the snow beside her staining crimson. Thomson struggled to rise, but her legs were not responding. Striking out a hand, she tried to drag herself through the snow, her legs screaming at her to stop. The goal was barely five metres away now, almost within reach. If she could just manage a few more metres ...
The world began to swim in her mind then. She was vaguely aware of a cacophony of sounds, mingling into a shriek of panic. Her vision was failing, the colours flowing together into a kaleidoscope of visual torment. Someone appeared before her, a dark shape amongst the bright lights and city sounds, but she heard Dan’s clear voice ring out above everything.
“Don’t touch her!”
Good old Dan, always looking out for her. Don’t touch her, because that would mean she’d been caught. But she could no longer move, no longer even think straight, so she did the only thing she could have under the circumstances: she tossed the flag as far as it could go and did not see where it landed.
