Killing It

by Asia Mackay

  ‘What have you learnt?’

  I didn’t want to say the only information relevant to work I had learnt in my bonus coffee after Dasha had left was Tamara’s special stain-removal formula, which would work a treat on stubborn bloodstains.

  ‘Nothing specifically operationally useful but it’s all background. Although the Dasha I’m getting to know is nothing like the Dasha in the intelligence reports. She strikes me as someone who couldn’t give two shits about politics or Russia.’ It may have started as an excuse but I did believe what I was saying. I’d seen no indication Dasha was anything other than a West London yummy mummy who only cared about life in her privileged bubble.

  ‘Right, Lex, so a few coffees later you think you know better than five months’ background research. Dasha is a fucking pro. That posh mummy mask is just a front. She’s happy to be written off as a rich bitch obsessing about her manicures but behind all that you have a calculating activist who hates The President and what he’s doing to her beloved country. Feel free to go through any of the many gigabytes of data’ – he motioned towards his laptop – ‘we have confirming this,’ his voice was rising, ‘including numerous magazine interviews she gave back when she lived in Moscow. Just think about that – she was willing to risk her personal safety by going on the record to criticise that man.’ Spittle flew out of his mouth. ‘While you’re out there on the front line flicking your hair and planning a party, some of us are doing the hard graft back here.’

  ‘I know what I’m bloody doing, Sandy. You need to trust me and not little upstarts like Bennie who are after my job.’

  He stared me down.

  ‘It’s not just Bennie who’s questioning your commitment. You’re the one with something to prove. So fucking act like it.’

  *

  I headed back into the meeting room, letting the door slam behind me. Jake was going through the blueprints of Ray Ray’s garage.

  ‘Will you please get that little shit Bennie off my back?’

  Jake looked up at me, ‘The Lex I know would never get someone else to fight her battles.’ He picked up the sheaf of papers from the table. ‘Maybe all that mummying has made you soft.’ He headed out of the room. ‘Don’t lose your balls, Lex. They’re what got you here in the first place.’

  I slumped down into the chair. He was right. A year ago I would never have asked him for help. I was just tired. Tired and angry and fed up. I shouldn’t be having to prove myself to Sandy or anyone else.

  My angry solitude was interrupted by Joe Copeman, one of the Platform’s more senior Rats, walking in brandishing a complex-looking device.

  ‘Just been in your office and I see we have some new interrogation kit. I’ve never seen one of these before – how does it work?’

  ‘Joe, that’s mine.’

  ‘Well talk me through it then. Let me guess. These clamp on to a guy’s bollocks.’ He turned it on. A loud vibration noise started up. ‘Or do we have to cut them open first and use it to electrocute their kidneys. Or—’

  ‘Joe, it’s my breast pump.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘I clamp it to my breasts, it stimulates my nipples and then with a gentle suction motion it expresses milk out my breasts and into these bottles. It basically milks me. Like a cow.’

  The breast pump went clattering to the floor. Joe looked pained.

  ‘Lex, come on, don’t leave shit like this lying around. It’s making me feel all queasy.’

  I looked at him. This was a man who had answered the phone to his mother as he rummaged around the insides of a gutted drug mule. A man who had carried on eating his egg mayonnaise sandwich as he hosed blood and brain matter off the inside of a storage container. Yet a breast pump was too much for him to handle.

  ‘I need to get some air.’ He left the room only to poke his head round the door a minute later. ‘You’ – he pointed at me with a sharp stabbing motion – ‘have fucking ruined breasts for me.’ He disappeared again.

  I was really bonding with my colleagues today.

  *

  By early evening the plan to steal Ray Ray’s car had been finalised and I released the team from the Platform. I just wanted to get home, gulp down a large amount of alcohol and vent to my husband. I had learnt how to ‘Willify’ events so I could still discuss work without risking national security. One time Sandy pissed me off by neglecting to mention the supposedly docile informant I was meeting was schizophrenic – and I ended up pinned against a wall with an eight-inch hunting knife in my face – I had told Will how Sandy really let me down by sending me into a meeting with an important supplier unprepared. Although the level of drama and risk of me being quite literally scarred for life were different, the advice he was able to offer (‘tell him you’re disappointed he didn’t have the respect to give you the information you needed to do your job properly’) was the same.

  But Will, although home, was locked away in our spare bedroom on a conference call to America. I sat in our kitchen drinking a large glass of wine. Even a Willifyed version of the jibes about motherhood affecting my work ethic would spark talk of civil lawsuits with him not understanding that I’d signed away such rights the minute I’d signed up.

  I had to deal with this myself.

  *

  He smiled the first time he felt something tickling up his leg under the duvet.

  Perhaps dreaming it was a lover’s gentle fingernail. The second time he twitched a little. The pressure was getting a little harder and it seemed to linger a little longer just at the top of his thigh. The third time his hand came down and he tried to brush away the cause of his discomfort. I’m not sure if it was feeling the cold metal of my revolver or hearing the click of the safety coming off which finally woke him. But with a start he sat up and was grasping at the side of the bed for his gun. Which wasn’t there.

  ‘I wouldn’t move, Bennie.’ My gun was now no longer lingering, no longer teasing, it was firmly ensconced right up against his crotch. ‘You move and I fire and you get a new nickname. One-ball Bennie. Or maybe No-balls Bennie. Who knows how much of a mess a 30 calibre bullet will make down there.’

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here? How did you get in?’ Bennie’s hair was ruffled, his eyes bleary as he tried to adjust to the dark.

  ‘This is my job. Getting into places I shouldn’t.’ I tutted. ‘Maybe you thought up here in your tenth-floor fancy gated apartment building with a twenty-four-hour security guard and two secure Banham locks, you’d be safe. But lookie here, in I waltz without so much as breaking a sweat. You know, I only came tonight as there was nothing on the telly. There was no reconnaissance, no planning, no nothing. Jesus, it was just so easy.’ I laughed. ‘It just goes to show you really should never underestimate a woman. It’s sad how everyone does. The couple who let me drive into your secure garage behind them as I had been such a ditz and lost my car-park card. The security guard who kindly gave me your spare key so I could totally like surprise my boyfriend with like the most amazing birthday treat ever. And you. Let’s not forget you, Bennie.’ I jammed the gun against him a little harder. ‘Did you not ever stop to think that to make it in a man’s world a woman needs to be not just as good as a man but better?’

  ‘You’re not better than me,’ he hissed.

  ‘Really? Look at yourself. In bed, unarmed, with a gun against your balls. You need to leave me alone. Or you’ll lose more than a ball or two.’

  I slammed the door on my way out.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘WHERE THE HELL HAVE you been?’ I got home to find Will pacing around the kitchen, Gigi crying in his arms. ‘I heard you come home but when I finished my conference call you’d gone.’

  I took Gigi from him and she quietened.

  ‘I was an idiot. Realised I’d forgotten to lock my filing cabinet so had to race back in. Breaking security protocols is a fireable offence.’

  He looked at Gigi in my arms, a podgy hand holding on to a strand of my hair.

 
‘I’ve tried a bottle, singing to her, nothing worked. She clearly just wanted you.’

  ‘Go to bed, I’ll put her down.’

  Will yawned as he walked up the stairs. ‘God, look at the time. See, this is why we need a holiday.’

  I had tried telling him that rather than embracing lie-ins babies tended to sleep worse when away. Will had restarted his campaign for me to book some time off. But I knew there was no time for a holiday any time soon, not with an upcoming Pop and the inevitable fallout from it. All of the Security Services were going to be on high alert, braced for retaliation in case our adversary suspected it wasn’t an accident. And Eight needed to make sure that The President wouldn’t try to interfere in Sergei and the Nyan taking over Rok-Tech. Until we owned our own copy of the VirtuWorld software it was still a looming threat.

  As we got to her room, Gigi looked up at me, her hair even more skew-whiff than usual, her little chest still heaving from the effort of tears that were still glistening on her cheeks. Did she really only want me? I was the chosen one. Picked not because of any special skills, no particular talent, simply selected just for being me. Purely wanted for who I was and not what I could do. I was her mother and she knew it. And that gave me a warmth I didn’t think possible.

  I kissed her soft flushed cheeks and sat rocking her until she fell asleep. I stared down at her eyelashes and held her foot, marvelling at how snugly it fitted in the palm of my hand. I held my breath as I transferred her from my arms into her cot, crept out of her room and back downstairs into the blessed warmth of our bed. Will was already snoring. I lay awake listening to him and struggled to sleep. My mind, rather than shutting down, kept running over everything at work. Something was niggling. I didn’t understand what. I had undoubtedly solved the Bennie problem, we had two tentative Pop plans in place, Sandy had said we were moments away from confirming the Nyan, and we even had a decent idea of how we were going to steal a violent gangster’s car. With just days to go – this was pretty good. I should’ve been feeling confident; settling into that adrenalin-pumping excitement of being in the final stages of a mission. Everything we had been working towards was about to come to fruition. We were all set.

  But clearly, lying here in the dark and quiet of the night, I didn’t think so.

  Dasha.

  She kept coming into my head. She was what was bothering me. I had spent enough time with her to know something wasn’t ringing true. I was finding it very hard to reconcile the living, breathing Technicolor Dasha with the black-and-white reports of a passionate activist wanting to sacrifice her husband, the father of her children, to take a strike against The President. Sandy seemed convinced that the intel we had was right – but I wasn’t buying it. My training had taught me to always do a full, objective analysis of a mission. To look at all the different variables and isolate points of weakness, anticipate problems before they arose. And right now all my instincts were telling me she was the weak link. That she was going to be a problem. And we couldn’t afford to fail. Not when what was at stake was life as we knew it.

  By the time morning came I knew I was going to have to act. I listened to the strains of the radio coming from downstairs. Will was singing along as he made Gigi her breakfast. ‘You gotta leave this place, you gotta get right out.’ I recognised the song despite Will murdering it in the wrong key. It was another Platform Eight classic. Our busker in the Underground tactic was often rolled out on a worldwide scale through malleable young stars and lyrics containing important code words. Or in this case, broadcasting a pretty clear message. This song, released by a twenty-year-old Bromley boy with spiky hair and tight jeans, had been a massive hit. And led to the safe evacuation of every single asset we had in a country that was otherwise notoriously impossible to get communications into. Music that saved lives and royalties that boosted department budgets. We always had it all figured out.

  But right now it didn’t feel like that. In the shower I thought over my options. I needed something solid to take to Sandy. Dasha had been at the very heart of this operation from the beginning. If I was questioning her I was questioning the whole validity of the mission.

  And in four days’ time, I needed to push the button.

  I needed to be sure. When I got out of the shower I texted Frankie. She pinged back straight away, inviting me to come join her for a kiddie swimming class and breakfast smoothie afterwards. Great. Squeezing into a swimming costume. The things I had to do for my country.

  *

  Lycra was undoubtedly a new enemy. Having shoehorned myself into my costume I got Gigi into the all-in-one swimsuit Gillian, her sun-fearing grandmother, had bought for her. Her arms and legs were fully covered and there was a non-detachable hood with cap and ear flaps that swamped her tiny head. Totally inappropriate wear for a leisurely splash around an indoor eighty-degree heated Kensington pool. But I hadn’t had a chance to get her anything else, so burka baby it was.

  As we came out the changing rooms and into the pool area, I was greeted with, ‘Morning, Lex.’ There was a well-built six-foot-five man, with a distractingly hairy chest, in a pair of ill-fitting red swimming trunks holding a baby who looked a few months older than Gigi. I stared at him.

  It couldn’t be.

  ‘Tank?’ I managed to get out.

  ‘Actually it’s just Tommy here. And this is Sophia.’ He proudly held up his gurgling daughter, who was wearing a bright pink swimsuit with ‘Daddy’s Little Princess’ on.

  Tank was a highly respected Rat with a long track record of both bravery and brutality. He was a solitary, silent figure, who was always put forward for jobs that needed his particular level of brute force. Until now I had been pretty sure he was part animal. It was strange enough seeing him in swimming shorts, but him clasping an adorable pink-cheeked baby was too surreal to even comprehend.

  ‘Good to see you, Lex. She looks a sweet one,’ he said, pointing at what little he could see of Gigi peering out from her hood. With that, he deftly clambered into the water with Sophia tucked under his arm. I averted my eyes as he began singing ‘Ring a Ring a Roses’ while swinging Sophia. From mean machine down to cuddly, doting dad. It was heartening to know that even the strongest, most masculine of Rats could be reduced to a gibbering wreck who worshipped his child.

  ‘Morning, Lex! You ready?’ Frankie joined me by the side of the pool. I guessed if Tank could do it, so could I.

  *

  After a strained thirty minutes of wondering how dunking and near-drowning my baby was meant to be fun for either of us, I sat in the juice bar as Frankie ordered us both what she claimed was the best smoothie in London. I was debating how to bring up Dasha and Dimitri in a way that didn’t appear too much like I was digging for information when she brought our drinks to the table and opened with:

  ‘So let’s talk about Dasha’s fucking car crash of a marriage. He’s a right miserable git, isn’t he?’

  If only all informants could be this easy to get talking.

  ‘Slightly terrifying, right? Do you see them together a lot?’

  ‘We go to a lot of the same godawful social functions as them. My husband has always been slightly in awe of Dimitri as his family are a big deal back in Russia.’ She started vigorously stirring her smoothie. ‘Dimitri likes strutting around like he’s some god to be obeyed and not just a dodgy-dealing bastard who can’t keep it in his pants.’

  ‘He cheats on Dasha?’ I looked suitably horrified even though Surveillance had numerous photos of him leaving smart hotels with women that were clearly not his wife. ‘Do you think she knows?’

  ‘I’m sure she has an idea but turns a blind eye.’

  I tried not to wince as I took a sip of my smoothie. I was pretty sure it had kale in it. Jesus, it got everywhere.

  ‘So if his family are a big deal out in Russia does that mean they’re heavily involved in politics?’

  ‘Dimitri’s family business is some multibillion-dollar corporation so I’m sure he can’t avoid it.’r />
  ‘And Dasha?’

  ‘Dasha?’ Frankie laughed. ‘The only loyalty she has is to the holy trinity of Chanel, Gucci and Prada. I don’t think she gives a crap about Russia. She’s a fully indoctrinated West London yummy mummy. Pretty amazing, considering how she was a total outsider when her eldest first started at Chepstow Hall.’

  I thought of Dasha and her furs, confidence and disdainful looks.

  ‘Really? I find that hard to imagine.’

  ‘If you think Dasha is stuck-up you should meet some of the other Super Mamas at that school. They tore her apart when she first arrived.’ Frankie put on a hoity-toity high-pitched voice. ‘Too much make-up, horrible skin-tight clothes, trying to buy everyone’s friendship with extravagant gifts.’ She shook her head and laughed. ‘But credit to Dasha, the whispers, the bitchy looks; they didn’t break her. She kept pushing her way in, learnt all about what was considered socially acceptable and transformed herself. She started as the trashy Russian who’d wear a Hervé Léger bandage dress to a parents’ evening and everyone avoided, yet by the end of the year she was the one holding court at the school gates head to toe in understated Stella McCartney.’

  I was impressed. Dasha had clearly made it her mission to break into the school’s elite and she had more than succeeded.

  Frankie took a long gulp of her smoothie. ‘I know Dimitri talks about moving back. He has to when he takes over the whole family business, but he’s going to have a real fight on his hands getting Dasha out of here. Right now all she cares about is becoming head of the Parents’ Association and bragging to everyone about how the school have recommended her eldest should try for a scholarship at St Paul’s.’

  Everything Frankie was saying seemed to ring true. The sensible conclusion was that Dasha had aligned herself to Eight because we both had the same motive, which was wanting Dimitri eliminated. The more I got to know her the more I realised it was most likely less about wanting to take a stand against The President, more about getting to stay in London. An informant having their own agenda shouldn’t have worried me, but it did – if she was lying about her true motivation for cooperating with us, what else could she be lying about?