“Oh, for fuck’s—”
I cut off as the security guard made a noise between a cough and a grunt. He stood a few feet behind me. A smart distance, out of punching range unless I really lunged, and far enough to give him time to react to any move I made.
“I think it’s time you left, sir,” he said, in a tone which almost made it an apology.
I sighed, giving myself time to size him up. A big guy, but a careful one. He knew enough not to just rely on his bulk, which is more than the idiot in the casino had. Shaved head, though the stubble showing said he wasn’t bald. Probably a professional choice. Any man who faces the threat of a fight every working day will either cut his hair so it’s too short to grab, or shave it off. He was calm too, taking his time, probably doing the same thing I was.
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving without speaking to Jim. I don’t want any trouble, but I don’t think it’s asking too much for you to call him.” I threw the last over my shoulder at the receptionist who wore an affronted expression as if I’d walked in here naked.
“You need to go, sir,” the guard grated through clenched teeth. “I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
What was it with me and security guards lately?
I smiled and shook my head again. “Make me,” I told him, glancing up at the CCTV camera.
The grab was clever. A low, jujitsu-style lunge, rather than a tentative one-handed reach. It was easy enough to avoid, and I shifted to one side, bringing an elbow down into his back as he passed me. It was a light blow; a warning shot rather than a real strike.
The receptionist had moved back out of range of anything that might be coming her way, as her hand stabbed frantically at something under the desk. A panic button most likely. I didn’t have time to watch her as the bald guard recovered and squared up to me.
“This is only going to end in the police being called, sir.”
“Not if she learns how to use a bloody phone, and gets McCourt out here!” I shot back.
He bulled in while I was still talking. Another grapple attempt. I slapped the grasping hands away, jabbed at his face and shifted to the side, slamming another fist in under his ribs. He hadn’t tensed, and my fist sunk into his flesh, sending him gasping to the floor.
I turned back to the receptionist in time to hear the door open.
“Jesus, Carver. You didn’t have to beat the shit out of him.” McCourt hadn’t changed much since the army, despite the offices, the expensive suit and the years since I’d seen him last. It was the same cheesy grin working to distract you from the same calculating eyes.
“Well, I couldn’t get an appointment,” I shrugged, working to catch my breath.
Jim looked past me to the hired heavy pulling himself upright on the reception desk. “You all right, Tom?”
Tom nodded, still bent over, avoiding looking at us.
Jim looked back and forth between us and shook his head before waving me through the door. “Come on, then.”
I followed him through a succession of hallways until we reached his office.
“Have a seat,” he said, as he settled himself down behind the desk. It was a smoked-glass and chrome monstrosity, and far too big for the single laptop and phone that sat upon it.
I made a show of looking around the place. “Christ, Jim. Looks like you’ve landed on your feet.”
He shrugged but couldn’t help the small smile showing. He’d always been a vain bastard and a bit of flattery doesn’t hurt when you come cap in hand.
“We’ve done well the last couple of years,” he said. “It was touch and go for a while though. Do you want a drink? Coffee or anything?”
I shook my head and he scratched at his cheek as he looked at me in silence.
“Bloody hell, John,” he said finally. “You look like shit. What happened to your face?”
Fuck, I’d forgotten about the bruises. I was suddenly aware of just how bad I must look. I hadn’t shaved, I had a face full of bruises, a swollen lip, and I was still in last night’s clothes.
“I got jumped outside a pub last night,” I lied. “No big deal.”
Jim grunted, obviously not believing a word of it. “So, what can I do for you, mate? It’s good to see you, but you’ve caught me on a crap day. You should have phoned.”
“I don’t own a phone.”
“Still?” He snorted a laugh. “Any plans to join the twenty-first century at all?”
I managed a half-smile as I shook my head. “I wanted to know if your offer still stands?”
He blinked, sitting back in his chair. “Of course. I didn’t think you’d ever take me up on it. I’ll have a chat with Simon and Tom, and see what we can get together for you. Can you give me a couple of weeks?”
I winced, suddenly aware I was picking away at the seam of my jeans with one hand and forcing myself to stop. “Not really. Any chance of something quick?”
He looked at me for a long moment before he spoke again. “How bad is it?”
“Bad enough,” I admitted.
“How much are you in for?”
I grimaced, looking away and out of the floor-to-ceiling window. The office was high enough to see the spires of Westminster Abbey above the rooftops. “Does it matter?”
“It matters if it’s something that’s going to follow you here.”
Cresswell bothered me more than I wanted to let on, but he knew the rules London functioned by. The police would leave him alone so long as he stayed within certain limits. He wasn’t about to show up at Paragon no matter what I did. I’ve dealt with bigger problems than loan-sharks in my time. He was just persistent.
“It isn’t,” I said flatly.
He chewed on his lip for a minute.
“I might have something,” he said slowly, gauging the impact of his words. “It would mean going back though, to Kabul. Most of our work is out there at the moment. A bit in Iraq still, but mostly Afghanistan.”
I stared at him as the smell hit.
Dust, always the dust.
McCourt was saying something, but I couldn’t make it out over the sound of the rotor blades and shouted orders.
I closed my eyes, biting at the inside of my cheek.
Not now. Please not now.
“John?” McCourt frowned at me as I stared at the wall below the window. “You all right?”
I nodded, swallowing hard as a thin line of blood began to run from the bullet-hole in Pearson’s head. He sat beside the end of the desk. Curled up as always, with his terrified eyes locked on me.
“Of course,” I managed. “Yeah, Kabul. That’s fine. When?”
“Soon as you can, really,” McCourt said, as he stood and made his way to the window. “It’s a babysitting job,” he told me over one shoulder. “Security training for one of the Afghan government compounds. Shouldn’t last more than six months or so.”
I nodded. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle, if I could keep my shit together. “How much are you paying these days.”
Jim grinned. “Going rate is about seven hundred, sometimes more. It depends on the job, and on the man.” He paused, considering. “I could go as high as eight fifty for you. How does that sound?”
Eight hundred and fifty a day, plus being out of the country for six months. It would solve all of my problems in one go, provided I was still alive at the end of it. I wasn’t scared of Kabul, or anyone I might find there. I was more worried about the baggage I was bringing with me, in every sense. I gave him a smile and hoped the battle between relief and terror wasn’t showing on my face. “That sounds good, McCourt. Thank you.”
Jim nodded and looked out the window for a moment. “Is there… anything I need to know about? Drugs?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m clean. Never touched them, you know that.”
He glanced at me and went back to his desk, tapping at the laptop, embarrassed. “I have to ask. You know how it is.”
I had no idea how it was. Drugs had never appealed to me. Ex
cept for alcohol and caffeine, of course, and they don’t count. It’s okay to drink your drug. They should be the least of his worries anyway. You can overcome a drug addiction. What’s the cure for seeing dead people? Apart from joining them?
“You’ll need to use a different name,” McCourt said, as if it were an afterthought. “Use your own passport, but once you’re there, better to be someone else.”
“Still?” That surprised me. It had been years. Surely people had forgotten, or dismissed all the stories as bullshit by now.
McCourt nodded. “It’s not a story that’s going to go away anytime soon. John Carver, the Miracle of Kabul.”
“It’s bollocks, is what it is.”
“I saw it, John,” McCourt said. He spoke in a low voice, looking down at his desk as he toyed with a pen. “I saw the bullet. I don’t think Yates could, not as well as I did anyway.”
“You’re wrong, Jim,” I muttered. I didn’t want to go through this again. Right now, I just wanted to leave.
McCourt shook his head. “I’m not, John. I saw him pull the trigger. I saw the muzzle flash. And then I saw the bullet. I saw it just hanging there in the air, halfway to you. I’ll never forget it, or the look on your face. Pearson died scared, but you, you had this look… I don’t even know how to describe it. It was like you were taking a test or something. Like you were concentrating, but furious at the same time. So angry, I’ve never seen anyone so angry. And your hand, held out, like you were warding the gunshot off…”
I pulled at my collar and ran a hand over the stubble on my face. The place was like a damned furnace, I didn’t know how he put up with it. A wave of nausea uncoiled from my stomach and lurched up towards my throat. I had to get out of there. Leaving before I threw up or collapsed on the floor would probably be best. “When will you have the travel details for me?”
McCourt shook his head and sighed before meeting my eyes. “I’ll have a pack put together for you—should be ready by this afternoon. Do you need any time to sort things out here?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I just need to pack a few things. I’m ready whenever.”
“Fine,” McCourt nodded, heading to a cabinet set against the wall behind his desk and reaching into a drawer. “Take this, I’ll text you the travel details and email you the job packet.”
I looked down at the phone in his hand.
He snorted out a laugh. “It’s not going to fucking bite you, John. Just take the damned thing.”
I couldn’t explain my distaste for mobile phones. It’s something about always being reachable, always being on the grid, like being on the end of a leash. I grimaced, mostly for comic effect as McCourt laughed again, and tucked it into an inside pocket.
“Go and pack,” McCourt told me. “Sort your shit out. I’ll see if we can get you on a flight tomorrow or the next day.”
CHAPTER FOUR
She was thirsty.
That was the first thought that made it through the fog. That she was thirsty, and that her wrists hurt.
It was dark, too. She blinked, reassuring herself that her eyes were actually open. It wasn’t the darkness of a bedroom in the night, but a total, utter darkness—the kind of blackness you might find in a cave or a cellar. She licked her lips, tasting something sour as she tried to sit up, and failed. Something held her arms. The noise was slight but the silence around her made it all the more pronounced; metal on metal, as the links on the fabric cuffs around her wrists caught at the chains.
She turned her head in confusion, trying to peer at her wrist, but the darkness was absolute. Her thoughts were slow, fumbling things, fighting their way through the groggy mess inside her head. Her skin rubbed over whatever it was she lay on and, with a start, she realised she was naked. That discovery almost overrode the shock she felt at being tied up. But not just tied—actually bound—wrist and ankle.
Panic found her as realisation caught hold and she pulled at the cuff; first tugging, and then throwing herself against the restraints until she was thrashing like a caged animal.
“Help!” Her cry was a small thing, like a young child in the night, wanting her mother but too afraid to leave her bed and face the darkness. She tried again, until her screams were loud and hard enough to tear at her throat. Until they faded into a muted sob. She cried for a time, her tears going unanswered in the blackness as they ran down the sides of her face.
She was alone.
There would be no help or comfort. She was lost. She took a deep, ragged breath that sounded too loud, even to herself, but it worked to calm her. She needed to think rationally. She’d always been a problem solver; this was just a bigger problem.
“No shit,” she muttered, snorting a laugh that drifted all too close to hysteria. She took another deep breath.
“Okay, think Mackenzie. What do we know?”
The noises she made sounded odd in the darkness. The room wasn’t large, at least not large enough for the sound of her screams to distort or echo. She was bound to what felt like a padded wooden frame with some kind of fabric cuffs at her wrists and ankles, but reclined enough to take the weight off her feet.
She sank back against the frame. She felt sick, like she’d had too much to drink. The room felt like it was spinning in that awful, unpredictable way that she found when she’d first experimented with alcohol, dipping as it spun, until her stomach lurched. She gagged, turning her head as her stomach heaved. Vomit spattered over a floor she couldn’t see, and she spat, the acid burning at her throat. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she reached to wipe them away, only to be stopped by the cuffs.
God, she couldn’t even wipe the sick from her lips.
Where was she? Was she even in Kabul? The darkness somehow made everything worse. She could have been here for days for all she knew.
Okay, she told herself. You’re smart, Mackenzie. You can get out of this.
“Sure,” she muttered out loud. “So smart you got yourself chained up naked in this shithole.”
She shook her head, taking a deep breath.
Fine, it’s dark. So, focus on what you know.
The room was small; either that or there were other things in here that stopped any echo. She wasn’t hot or cold either. She’d shivered after she threw up but that was due to shock, not cold. That meant the room had its temperature regulated. She wasn’t outside in a cargo container or anything. If she’d been locked up in a tin box, the June sun would have roasted her alive by now.
“So, what does this all add up to?” she muttered. Her voice was loud in the darkness, but it was better than the silence. “You’re fucked, that’s what it adds up to.”
She sighed, taking another couple of deep breaths to stave off the panic that was building again. The regulated temperature meant heaters and air-conditioning. It meant she wasn’t out in the middle of nowhere. And that meant there was some chance of being heard, of being found.
She screamed again, shouting for help until her voice cracked and her throat burned. She screamed until her voice failed, until her screams became whispers, and she lapsed into first silence, and then sleep.
*
Light, blinding and harsh, blazed into life above her as three spotlights clicked on. Mackenzie gasped, swearing as she closed her eyes against the brightness, and turned her head away. The light seared at her, burning her eyes even after she’d closed them. Water blasted at her from every direction, high-pressure hoses sluicing away the vomit that encrusted her arm and the frame holding her.
The water was cold, and she gasped as it dripped off her, shaking her head to try and clear it from her eyes.
“Fuck!”
She looked around quickly, taking in what she could while the light lasted. The room was larger than she’d imagined, though not much more than seven metres lay between her and a dark glass wall. A grate set into the concrete floor beneath her drained the water and mess away.
Two thin, clear hoses were positioned to either side of her head, extendi
ng out from larger pipes that ran down from the ceiling, hanging just within reach. A clear droplet clung to the end of one of the hoses and she reached to touch it with her tongue.
Water.
She sucked on the tube and drank, drawing deep before she thought to worry about what might be in it. Fuck it. If whoever had tied her up wanted her drugged, they wouldn’t need to hide it in the water, they could just walk in and stick a needle into her. It wasn’t as if she could do anything about it.
The water helped. She could feel the fuzziness in her head begin to clear. Despite the sluicing, she’d woken groggy and nauseous, and drinking had helped with both. She examined the other tube. It was wider than the one that held the water. She took it between her teeth, drawing on it slowly, until she was rewarded with a thick paste. She screwed her face up at the taste and grainy texture. It was like humus, but without the garlic. Some kind of ground pea or grain, mixed with an oil or water.
And it was vile.
She spat the mouthful down at the grate on one side of her. It would probably keep her alive, but she’d need to be a lot more desperate before she started eating it.
How the hell had she got here? She remembered leaving the clinic, the walk-in centre they’d worked so hard to keep open after the Red Cross cut back on numbers. She wasn’t some naïve nineteen-year-old. She knew how dangerous Kabul could be.
She took the proper precautions; covered her head in public, respected local culture and tradition. You heard stories of people being arrested in Dubai and other Islamic nations; but they were idiots getting drunk, and having sex on the beach, and then wondering why they’d been thrown in jail for public indecency or blasphemy. She’d known what she was coming into. These days, Afghanistan was nothing like it had been at the height of Taliban rule, but it was still an Islamic country, and still very conservative.
Her mother would almost be pleased about this. She’d lectured her for weeks about how Mackenzie was going to be kidnapped, or raped in some back alley. Even when it became obvious that Mackenzie wouldn’t change her mind, she’d persisted. She very nearly hadn’t come to Brisbane International to see her off. Stubbornness was a trait that ran in the Cartwright family, and Mackenzie had it just as bad as the rest of them. The only difference was that she recognised it for what it was. Her mother was always right, even when she was wrong. There had only ever been one way of doing things: her way. Anything else was either wrong, or simply inadequate. Sometimes she wondered how her father put up with it for as long as he had.
The Lore of Prometheus Page 3