The Passengers

by John Marrs

  Libby wanted to scream and cry for help, but she held firm, the knife cutting through the air again and again, from left to right, back and forth as Alex ducked and weaved like a boxer in the ring.

  “We can do this all night if you like,” he said. “But only one of us is getting out of here.”

  “The police are probably outside already,” said Libby in desperation. “You might as well give up, Alex, it’s over.”

  “Whatever happens to me, I promise you one thing, Libby. Should you survive this, you will never be free. There are a lot of us out there, and we are always going to be watching you, ready to bring you—and everyone you love—down if we need to. Think about the headlines we will make over killing you.”

  Suddenly, the knife made contact with Alex’s hand, slicing the back of it. He winced and took a step backwards, trying to establish in the lamplight the severity of the wound. “You’ve just made the worst decision of your life,” he said, and clenched his fists. Libby took a deep breath and, mustering up all her strength, thrust the knife in front of her one more time. She missed. Alex managed to grab her wrist and dig his fingers deeply into her ligaments so the knife fell into his hand.

  They stood facing each other as he gave her one last tight-lipped smile. “I’m sorry it’s come to this, I really am,” he muttered.

  But as he launched himself towards her, she saw a tiny red dot appear on his neck. And with his arm pulled back and the knife ready to push into her, a bullet shattered the glass in the door and hit him squarely in the throat.

  PART FOUR

  TWO YEARS LATER

  CHAPTER 68

  UKToday.co.uk

  LIVE / GOVERNMENT BACKS REINTRODUCTION OF DRIVERLESS CARS

  Controversial autonomous vehicles will be permitted to return to British roads within the next three years.

  Prime Minister Nicholas McDermott will assure the public in a statement later today that driverless vehicles are now “safe” and precautions have been taken to ensure “no further hacks are possible.”

  The ten-year deadline for all cars on UK roads to be autonomous has also been scrapped.

  “We need to win back the public’s trust,” a government source said ahead of the announcement. “And that will be a gradual process.”

  Full story to follow . . .

  Libby made her way slowly down the staircase, careful not to trip over the hem of her dress.

  She studied her reflection in the full-length porch mirror one last time. With the aid of an arrangement of pins and a can of extra-strength spray, her hair had remained in place since leaving the stylist earlier that morning. And after performing make-up duties and helping Libby into the dress, Nia left the house and would greet her later at the location.

  “Are you coming?” Libby shouted, directing her voice back up the stairs.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” a faint male voice replied. “Just trying to find my other cufflink.”

  “It’s me who’s supposed to be late on our wedding day, not you.”

  “You said you didn’t go in for all that traditional stuff, otherwise we wouldn’t have been together this morning?”

  “It’s a bride’s prerogative to change her mind.”

  “Found it.” As Matthew Nelson appeared at the top of the stairs, Libby returned to the lounge, where the couple took in each other’s appearance for the first time since they’d dressed in their wedding outfits. Smiles spread across both of their faces.

  “You scrub up well, Miss Dixon,” Matthew said, beaming. Once he reached the lounge, he took her hand in his.

  “You don’t look so bad yourself, Dr. Nelson.”

  “Have you got everything?”

  He patted the pocket of his baby-blue suit jacket. “I have the rings, the licence, and the proof of ID.” Matthew placed his hands on her cheeks and kissed her lips.

  “Don’t smudge my lipstick,” Libby teased. “We’ll have the rest of our lives for that once you’ve made an honest woman of me.”

  “Can you believe we are actually doing this?”

  Libby shook her head. “Not considering the circumstances in which we met.”

  “I fancied you from the moment you walked into the inquest room.”

  “I know that now. But at the time, you disguised it very, very well.”

  “Well, I could hardly ask you out for coffee while on jury duty, could I? I was going to wait until the end of the week before approaching you.”

  “I would’ve said no,” she teased. “I thought you were a pompous prick.”

  “Of which you remind me frequently. And now?”

  “And now I think you’re a loveable pompous prick.”

  Matthew’s smart watch buzzed and he glanced at the moving images on the face. “The car is outside. So, shall we go and do this? They were definitely just twinges you felt and not contractions?”

  “Definitely,” she replied, and rubbed her swollen stomach.

  Matthew leaned forward to kiss her belly and speak to their unborn baby. “As much as we’re looking forward to meeting you, you need to stay in there a few more weeks. We don’t want to see you until then and especially not today.”

  “Yes, Dad,” Libby replied on their child’s behalf.

  When Libby had purchased her strapless ivory column dress following her acceptance of Matthew’s proposal, she wasn’t aware she was pregnant. Now, with five weeks left until the due date, she had frequently returned to the bridal gown shop for it to be let out.

  Matthew entwined his arm with his wife-to-be’s. “Ready?” he asked, and Libby nodded.

  “Let’s go then.”

  Once outside the home they had bought together earlier that year, they saw the awaiting vintage black polished Mercedes-Benz on the driveway. Libby appreciated it was the model she had booked, an old-fashioned Level One car, and that the hire car company had attached ivory ribbons from the wing mirrors stretching to the grille. A chauffeur in a smart grey suit appeared and opened the rear door for her. She climbed inside, careful not to crease her dress. Then once Matthew joined her, she settled into her seat as the car began its journey from their home in Hove towards Brighton’s register office.

  Many of Libby’s friends admitted to being bags of nerves before they married, but she hadn’t shared their fears. She knew instinctively that they belonged together, even following Alex Harris’s claims they were DNA matched. When Commander Riley had debriefed her after Alex’s death, he’d revealed that during a digital forensic search of his phone, an email confirmed Alex had received the test results, and he asked if she wanted to know the outcome.

  Libby shook her head. As much as she believed in the truth, this time, it would serve no positive purpose in her life. Now, on her wedding day, she was never more convinced she had made the correct decision. Sometimes ignorance could be bliss. Test or no test, Matthew was Mr. Right.

  Recognising that had come out of the blue. When the story of her confrontation with Alex reached the news wires, the death of the man behind the hacking collective had made international headlines. Days later, Matthew was the only member of the jury to have checked up on her welfare.

  Email exchanges became text messages, text messages became video calls, and it wasn’t long before she realised he was nothing like the man she had served with on that infamous jury. Then later, when he was attending a medical conference in Birmingham, she accepted his invitation to dinner, and Libby realised there was more to it than a friendship. It was only as they sat opposite each other sharing tapas that she recalled how on the day of the hijacking, Matthew had shown her more attention than she realised at the time. He had stood up to Jack Larsson on her behalf and comforted her when Bilquis’s car was detonated.

  Two more dates followed before Matthew kissed her. Within five months, she had thrown caution to the wind, put her ho
me in Birmingham up for rental, and moved three hours to the south coast, where they bought their first home together.

  It was far enough from London to afford them privacy but comfortably commutable for her media commitments. Libby’s work had begun to quieten following Alex’s death and the release of the results of the police investigation into the manipulated software. With Jack Larsson in the midst of a very public trial and Level Five software now available for scrutiny by licenced officials and independent bodies, Libby was finally beginning to realise the normality she craved. Once the baby was born, she would resign as spokesperson and her new job as a mother could begin. Eventually, she hoped to return to nursing.

  Despite the love and safety her new life afforded her, there were occasions when Libby dwelled on the past. Alex’s face appeared to her at the most random of times. She once saw him in the face of a stranger in a dental surgery waiting room, other times as she closed her eyes and sank into a deep bath. On occasion he appeared in her dreams, specifically the last moments of their violent confrontation. She relived spotting that tiny red light shining on his Adam’s apple, the whoosh of the police sniper’s bullet that shattered the glass and tore through his throat, and the sound of his panicked hand slapping against the gaping wound as if it might stem the blood flow. She would dream how, after police smashed the shop door behind her and she was pulled to safety, from the opposite side of the road she couldn’t stop from staring wide-eyed at paramedics as they attempted to resuscitate him. She could only breathe again when they signalled that he was unable to do the same.

  The circumstances behind the death of the real Noah Harris would likely never be known, but investigators confirmed his decomposed body had been discovered in woodland close to a barn in the west of Ireland. A coroner ruled he was likely suffocated at around the same time period as the hacking, not months earlier as Alex had suggested. Inside the barn was the vehicle used to film the interior shots of “Jude” throughout the hijack.

  Elsewhere, slowly and surely, arrests and charges were being made around the world as the international investigation began to penetrate the hacking collective. Sometimes Alex’s words returned to haunt her, specifically the threat that she would never be a free woman and that the hacking collective would always be watching her, biding their time, ready to strike when she least expected it. But she knew that she could not live under the shadow of “coulds” and “mights,” or that would be no life at all.

  Today, however, was not a day to dwell on the past or to be asking questions she would never hear answers to. Libby snapped herself back into the present and spread her fingers, holding them up to the sunlight coming in through the passenger window. She took in her diamond engagement ring, twisting it around and around, barely able to wait until Matthew slipped a wedding ring onto the same finger.

  Outside, her attention was drawn beyond the expanse of beach and towards the rhythmic pulse of the sea. In the sun’s winter gaze, it had transformed from its usual dark blue to white with flecks of silver. Having spent much of her life living in the landlocked Midlands, she would never take for granted their proximity to the coast.

  She closed her eyes and imagined how it might look to see her brother Nicky waiting at the register office with their parents to watch his little sister get married. Now, when she thought of him, she didn’t feel his pain or shed a tear. Instead, she smiled, grateful for the time they had together instead of sad for the years they had apart.

  Libby opened her eyes when she felt Matthew entwining his fingers within hers.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “I lost you there for a moment.”

  “I’m good,” she replied, and squeezed his hand in return. She knew that, with him, she would never be lost again.

  The sound of a bell ringing from Matthew’s watch caught their attention.

  “It’s nothing important, just a news alert,” he said. “It can wait.” However, it was rapidly followed by the sound of a text alert, then many, many more.

  “What’s going on?” Libby asked as Matthew read the screen. His face fell and he shook his head. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said.

  “Believe what?” she replied as he moved his wrist towards her, her eyes widening in disbelief as she scanned the messages. When she had finished, she stared at Matthew.

  “How the hell has he got away with it?”

  CHAPTER 69

  DailyCitizenOnline.co.uk

  NOT GUILTY—JACK LARSSON ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES

  Senior government official’s five-month trial comes to an end at the Old Bailey.

  Jury clears ex-MP of four charges, including misuse of government material, tampering with official secrets, misuse of public office and conduct prejudicial.

  If found guilty, Mr. Larsson would have faced 18 years behind bars.

  Jack Larsson’s stance was defiant at the top of a set of stone steps. His arms were folded across his chest, his eyes filled with steely resolve. The corners of his mouth lifted but stopped short of a smile.

  He was flanked by half a dozen burly bodyguards in dark suits, three male and three female. Each wore smart glasses and earpieces. Their eyes constantly scanned the faces before them to identify potential threats to the most talked-about former government minister in the country.

  Behind them, stone arches surrounded the doors they had used to exit London’s Old Bailey, the 130-year-old central criminal court of England and Wales. For five long months, Jack had spent each weekday inside that building, listening intently as the prosecution attempted to destroy his reputation while his defence team debunked their allegations. Sometimes, with little else to do, he caught himself from the dock where he sat, staring at the twelve-strong jury of his peers—seven men and five women. He held them in little regard. They were no closer to being his peers than he was to being the first man on Mars. He was better than all of them.

  To his left and right and beyond the black iron railings separating the steps from the pavement, protesters were held back by police officers. More were across the road and penned in behind temporary metal barricades. They were hurling abuse at him, but he couldn’t make out the specifics of their chants. He noted they weren’t holding aloft the placards they’d brought with them most mornings. Slogans such as “MP—Murderer of Parliament” or images of his face upon Adolf Hitler’s body were commonplace, and their creativity quietly amused him. But today, they hadn’t been prepared for a “not guilty” verdict. The only person who had was Jack.

  Photographers snapped frantically as dozens of journalists thrust recording devices towards him and fired questions over one another. But Jack’s lips were sealed as he surveyed the vermin who had tried to crucify him in a trial by media. In the eyes of the law, he was an innocent man, and from this day forward, they had best remind themselves of the fact, or he wouldn’t hesitate to take legal action.

  Jack’s barrister, Barnaby Skuse, stepped in front of him before giving him a nod. Jack reciprocated, indicating he was ready. Barnaby was dressed in a tailored suit and not the black gown and white horsehair wig Jack had grown accustomed to seeing him in inside the courtroom. He swept his grey fringe across his forehead and held a piece of A4 paper in his hands. Above typed words was Jack’s family crest of arms: a shield containing a dragon, a sword, and a clenched fist. Only Jack knew that no such crest had existed before he created it.

  Barnaby cleared his throat before he began to speak in a rich, stentorian tone. “I have a statement to make on behalf of my client Mr. Jack Larsson,” he said. “Today, justice has been served. A jury has concluded there is no proof alleged ‘social cleansing’ ever took place or that Mr. Larsson was involved in any illegal activity. Any evidence put forward to the contrary by the prosecution was based on tampered or fabricated software developed by the organisation known as the Hacking Collective. While Mr. Larsson has accepted that
discussions did take place on prioritising certain occupations in the event of potentially fatal accidents, he does not believe any such software was activated or that any member of the government past or present sanctioned it. What viewers heard him deliberating about on-camera was nothing more than speculative and hypothetical. Mr. Larsson would like to thank the jurors for having the common sense to support him. He will now be taking some time to consider his options but looks forward to making his return to central government as an innocent man. He will not be making any further comments. Thank you.”

  As Mr. Skuse folded up the paper and slipped it inside his jacket pocket, Jack took a moment to savour his victory and the attention of the cameras. They were soon drowned out by journalists competing to try to get just one sound bite from the MP himself. But Jack had no intention of adding to his brief’s statement and allowed the smile he had suppressed for so long to spread across his face. He knew his triumph was being broadcast live on every news channel and news website. And tomorrow, his victory would be the headline of all the daily newspapers.

  He waited for his team of bodyguards to clear a path through the journalists as three Land Rovers with blacked-out windows pulled up against the kerb with military precision. Jack climbed into the rear of the central vehicle along with one other bodyguard, who sat by the driver. His other security operatives entered the cars in front and behind before all three sped away along the road, leaving the chaos in the distance.

  Inside the car, Jack remained in silence, waiting for the adrenaline rush to dissolve. He glanced out from the window as he travelled along Embankment and passed the Palace of Westminster, where so much of his working life had been spent. His mind drifted back to his first day there as an MP, fraught with nerves and full of the best of intentions. His only motivation was to represent the constituents who had voted him as their representative.