by David Caris
Kovac used a browser window to search the address and saw it was for a budget hotel. He tested the GPS. Sure enough, he was in Switzerland, the dot moving at speed. He was roughly halfway between Linz and Salzburg.
He stood and searched the room for a weapon. There wasn’t anything obvious, so he flipped the mattress to search for something – anything – he could convert to a shank. He found wood slats underneath, which were better than nothing but not much better. He snapped a few, until one snapped in the shape of a blade with a reasonable point on it. He practiced with it, puzzling out how he would hold it, defend with it, stab with it. Then, satisfied he had a way of defending himself if desperate, he tucked it back under the mattress.
No one knocked on his door.
No one came anywhere near his cabin, in fact.
After five more minutes sitting, waiting on nothing, Kovac stood and exited the sleeper cabin. He checked the train carriage methodically. He walked the length of it, noting the design, the decor, the exits. In the section dividing his carriage from the next, there was an area to store luggage. The engine and track noise were far louder here, but the compartment was deserted. Nobody. He hadn’t seen another passenger since exiting his sleeper, though maybe that was to be expected. He knew from his phone that it was the early a.m..
He went back down to his sleeper, too weak and in too much pain to venture any further. The train eventually stopped at a station – Innsbruck. It was tiled and lit up a golden yellow by banks of rectangular lighting. There were a few people boarding but Kovac didn’t see anyone disembark, not from where he was anyway.
He debated rushing back up to the carriage exit and slipping out onto those tiles, heading straight for the safety of the escalators.
But were they safe?
And even if they were, then what…?
He tried to think straight. If Malone wanted him dead, he could’ve killed him at any point in time. Instead he had put him onto this train with a phone. That would’ve taken planning and a certain degree of determination. Kovac’s best guess was, Malone had brought him onboard back in Vienna, before the drug really took hold. Kovac would’ve looked like a guy who had had one too many drinks. Malone propping him up, Kovac’s arm around his neck, draped over one shoulder. Dragging him down into this sleeper practically, then swapping his shoes out for the slippers…
At this thought, Kovac looked down and saw his escape would’ve looked pretty foolish. He was still in the slippers. He swapped back into his shoes as the train got going again.
His brain still wasn’t right. His head was throbbing and he lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. He listened to the tracks and fought the urge to sleep.
It was a fight he soon lost.
Chapter 43
Kovac didn’t know how long he was out. It didn’t feel like long. It felt like he had danced on the edge of sleep, on the edge of dreams, more flirting with oblivion than surrendering to it. But when he woke, he had the sense a lot of time had passed. He was furious with himself. How stupid could he be? The GPS on the phone confirmed it. The train was now much closer to Zurich than it was Innsbruck: just past Sargans, in fact, with less than an hour to go until Zurich.
Kovac considered setting off the fire alarm to stop the train and escape into what was now forest outside. But he doubted the plan would work. He was relatively certain he wasn’t free. It felt like there was something here holding him hostage. How else to explain the open door?
But what?
Kovac passed the remaining time to Zurich on the phone, texting Malone and searching for details on the crash in Vienna. Malone didn’t reply. But Kovac had unrestricted Internet access, and he learned one man had fled the scene of the crash in Vienna on foot and one woman had been rescued from a sinking van by two heroic onlookers. Due to the high-speed chase which had preceded the crash, this woman was under arrest.
Bibi or Griffin, he figured. No way to know which because the article didn’t give a name, age or description. All it said was: “The female occupant was taken to hospital in a serious but stable condition, where she was under observation and expected to make a full recovery”.
Was that why Malone dumped him here with a phone and a hotel address? Malone’s boss was under arrest, so he was setting Kovac free…?
It felt too easy.
The last of the journey was as tense as it was interminable. Eventually the train slid into Zurich, and as soon as it did another message came through from Malone. It informed Kovac that his identity would be revealed to the world unless he complied with instructions. Two images then followed in quick succession. The first was the one that had been sent to Megan early in the hack. It showed Kovac, Megan and Daniel at the farm, standing by the dam. The second photograph was more of a concern. It showed a girl from early in Kovac’s career – a girl closely associated with a number of his earliest kills in Tanzania. Odette Karekezi.
He knew what it was. Proof. This exact photo of Odette was in Kovac’s file.
Bibi had his file?
Kovac wasn’t exactly surprised. He knew the gangster Anton Sanz was coming after him, at the behest of God-only-knew-who. Sanz had used Christopher Diaz, the kid from the park who had been executed right in front of Kovac. And Kovac had killed a few of Sanz’s men in the brief shootout near Wilson Software Solutions. That all had to be connected to his file. His enemies could now bid on information that would lead them straight to him, and he was just lucky that the first one to do so had hired Sanz instead of someone more capable.
It got worse. If his enemies could get their hands on his true identity, it would only be a matter of time before journalists did too.
‘Damn it.’
Disembarking, Kovac decided to play along with Malone’s demands. After all, if Malone wanted him dead, he would be dead already.
Kovac still didn’t know how he had missed Malone tracking him through medieval streets, or how he had missed the syringe. His best guess – he wasn’t functioning as well as he had believed after the crash.
Even so, he felt exposed and stupid.
He made his way through the station and out into the city. He bought painkillers and ate two of them dry, then checked his new phone again for GPS assistance. There was another message from Malone, with the same Zurich address again. The hotel.
Kovac was operating at a disadvantage, but at least he was out of his slippers now and thinking at speed. He was no longer depending exclusively on Malone making a mistake.
He navigated through the city to the hotel. He asked if he could check in without ID, and the desk clerk told him no, but went for something. He handed him an envelope. ‘This for you? You fit the description.’
Kovac looked at the envelope. It had his name on it –“John Kovac” in bold print. He opened it and found cash and a passport. He opened the passport, not surprised to find “John Kovac” again. Australian citizen. Photo and all. ‘Jesus,’ he mumbled.
But what choice did he have?
He gave the passport to the clerk and paid in cash for one night. He was handed a key card in return.
Kovac chose the stairs, climbing to the third level in the hope it would get blood moving through his brain. Detox.
This level of the hotel had a red hallway and his door flashed as a green square when he tapped his key card. There was no beep, just a click. Kovac let himself in, wondering if there was anything about the room that might reveal why it had been chosen. But it was a generic hotel room. It had hardwood floors, a black desk and a single curtain on the left-hand side of a large square window. Kovac checked the bathroom, reminding himself that if Malone wanted him dead, he’d be dead. This wasn’t a trap, even if it felt like one.
There was a shower with a curved screen and a toilet mounted to the tiled wall.
No one pointed a silenced pistol at him, which was always nice. He peed in peace, then returned to the main room and opened the envelope again. He counted the money. A few hundred Euros and – in between the not
es – another train ticket. This one for the TGV-LYRIA to Paris.
He hadn’t noticed it until now.
It was a second class ticket for very early the following morning. Pre-dawn. Kovac could only assume there would be further instructions waiting for him when he arrived in Paris.
He locked the hotel room door and pulled one of the two stacked pillows off the bed, tossing it onto the wood floor. It was morning, but he didn’t care. He needed sleep. And when he woke, he would need food.
Primal priorities.
He pulled the curtain, switched off the light, lay down and waited for the pain in his head to ease. Gradually, it did.
Fifteen minutes later, he was unconscious again.
Chapter 44
Bibi Dauguet lay in a hospital bed on fresh, pale blue sheets. Her legs were flat, her upper body elevated. She was groggy but conscious. Her eyes tracked nurses who came and went just beyond her feet. There were two dividers on either side of her bed, so this was all she could see: just the narrow square out beyond her toes.
Her hip didn’t hurt, but she didn’t feel stoned, either. So she was clearly on some kind of painkiller. She rolled her eyes up without moving her head. She saw that the room could well have enjoyed natural light. The windows high above her bed had Venetian blinds, made from some kind of flimsy metal. But these blinds were twisted shut, blocking sunlight and enhancing the artificial glare. Splotches of light caused by the stark ceiling lights remained whenever she blinked.
She didn’t like it here. She especially didn’t like that she was handcuffed – or more accurately, ankle-cuffed – to the bed.
She studied the medical equipment between her head and the Venetian blinds. Screens, tubes, knobs. She was hurt, though she didn’t feel much pain beyond a dull throbbing in her shoulder and arm.
Malone appeared at the foot of her bed, then sat down in a small chair off to the right of her. He sat directly underneath a row of wall sockets and switched one off, one that wasn’t in use. A nurse noticed this. She stopped and checked something above Bibi’s head, giving Malone a look of… what was it exactly? Superiority?
Yes. Almost territorial: the sort of look Bibi had so often given her baby sister growing up back in Mauritius. “Don’t touch my things.”
Bibi had one arm in a cast and sling. That perhaps explained why the cuffs were on her left ankle. She tested them now, hearing the clink of metal on metal. They were attached to the bed, which wasn’t surprising given the car chase prior to her accident. She was just relieved she’d had the forethought to immediately let Malone out of the van when she realized the domain controller was a fake, because after she dumped the Curzon IT woman into traffic everything had spiraled out of control. She glanced at him, and Malone seemed to read her mind: ‘I have Kovac,’ he said, choosing to disguise their talk by using French.
She nodded, pleased.
The nurse who had given Malone the stern look was now on the other side of the divider. Bibi listened to a conversation in German with the patient there: a man with a gravelly voice who sounded as if he might be in his fifties or sixties. No one was listening to Malone. ‘He cooperating?’ Bibi asked.
‘Headed for Paris.’
The nurse finally left the room, still talking loudly.
‘Can I walk?’ Bibi asked.
Malone nodded. ‘With your cane, yes. I have THC gummies for when we get out. Delta 8 and 9. CBD, too.’
‘Am I concussed, is there any serious damage?’
‘You had a seatbelt on. Collar bone and arm. They’ve put the arm in plaster already, and the collar bone is just a waiting game. They can’t set it. The rest is superficial. A few deep lacerations and some bruising.’
‘In that case,’ Bibi said, nodding towards the door. ‘It’s time we were on our way.’
Malone stood and walked to the ward’s only door. He spoke with the Austrian police officer stationed there, using English. Bibi could just make out the words. He told the officer he was Bibi’s nephew. He told him Bibi was uncomfortable on account of the cuffs, which were preventing her finding a position that didn’t aggravate her injured arm. He asked if the officer couldn’t perhaps take a look, and see if there was a position which could alleviate some of the pain but ensure Bibi stayed put. Her good arm perhaps?
The officer relented and came into the ward. He hitched his pants up and sucked in his gut a little, like he wanted to fix whatever was wrong and get back to doing nothing at the doorway. Bibi explained what she wanted, and told him to check on the other side of the bed.
‘She’s happy to have the cuffs on her good arm,’ Malone explained. ‘And look, there’s a kind of rail here, see. Couldn’t it work just as well?’ He followed the officer around the bed, pointing out the rail he was talking about.
The officer checked it, then circled the bed again and uncuffed Bibi’s ankle. He brought the cuffs around to her preferred side of the bed, saying: ‘You were lucky, you know. A man dived in for you, then another. They both found you, dragged you out. But one of the bodies they found, she had these on her wrists.’ He waggled the cuffs, then bent forward to attach them to the bed.
Malone jabbed him in the ear with a dropper, subtle but precise.
Malone’s free hand was already in position, taking some of the officer’s weight as he fell forward and his feet lost traction and slipped. Malone guided him down, then gave Bibi the officer’s phone. He doubled back and pulled a curtain on a rail at the end of the bed. This sealed Bibi’s section off, ensuring privacy while the officer slipped into semi-consciousness.
Bibi downloaded an app on the phone, while Malone moved the floppy police officer into the back-most corner. ‘Ready?’ he asked.
The download finished and the app’s icon popped up on the screen. Bibi logged in and typed a message to Van Heythuysen. One word. “Romeo.”
Time to put all those workouts to use, she thought, sending it. She needed Megan Curzon asking questions about Spain, triggering her father’s murderous instincts.
She thought back on her two meetings with Kovac, particularly the first. Six and a half years… And all of it spent preparing for this moment. She had been the only woman at that Colorado estate. The rest of them had been meatheads, much like Kovac. All men, of course. Ex-military, jacked up on steroids and self-love. Alcoholics for the most part, too.
There had been no doubt in her mind, though. Kovac was her mark.
So she had given them a show, hacking celebrities. Or not so much hacking, as pretending to hack. She had prepared it all in advance. She had hacked slowly and carefully over a span of months, before transferring the loot to her laptop and green backpack ahead of the Colorado job. To this day, she was the only one with those celebrity images. They were a job application of sorts, and she had kept a close eye on them.
Years of work, years of subterfuge, even competing with Peng at points, all for this moment.
So what was a mere broken arm…?
She would finish this on schedule, exactly as planned.
Malone went for a hospital wheelchair. He took the phone back from her, then shifted her across to the chair. He stowed her cane, and hung her green backpack on the handle. He gave her the little plastic jar full of marijuana gummies, and she opened it and ate two before handing it back. Malone returned it to her backpack.
A minute later they were clear of the entire ward, and out into a long corridor, its walls filled with paintings for children. Again, Bibi thought of her sister, who never even made it to a hospital. The photographs flashed in her mind, down to the smallest details. Flecked white brain on the earbuds, white on white.
The corridor led to a side exit, where no one gave them a second look.
‘What about Luther Curzon?’ Bibi asked, as she felt fresh air across her face. She looked up into the sky.
‘Currently en route from Australia,’ Malone said, following her gaze.
Bibi smiled. Of course he was. ‘And Kapoor?’
‘Dead.’
‘Dead?’ This surprised her. She twisted and looked up in time to see Malone nod.
‘Suicide,’ he said.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Did Yvette find him in time?’
‘She found the body but nothing else. She panicked.’
‘Does she still have access? She’ll need Kapoor.’
‘It’s a crime scene until they rule out foul play.’
Frustrating.
Bibi hadn’t considered Kapoor’s mental health. As for the journalist, Bibi had resisted direct intervention there. She had instead been feeding Yvette Morris scraps, and the girl had proven ambitious and resourceful, albeit reckless. So reckless in fact, she had posed as a council worker to question Kovac. ‘We need that story,’ she said, mostly to herself.
‘She’s got it muddled.’
‘Muddled?’ Bibi looked up again.
‘She thinks Anton Sanz won the auction.’
‘We won the auction. Sanz was the backup plan.’
‘I’ll set her straight.’
‘No. It works better if she thinks it’s Sanz. And find a way to send her everything Kapoor was working on.’ Bibi ran her tongue over her teeth, finding sweet patches of leftover gummy. She sucked at each, swallowing, looking forward to the calm clarity that would wash over her in a few hours. ‘Then get to work on the publisher, Bain was it? We’re running out of time.’
Chapter 45
Kovac watched as crops turn into hills with pines. Powerlines curled up towards the train line, only to retreat again, back down into small towns shrouded in dawn mist. He didn’t know if he was in Switzerland or France. One or the other.
As the sun rose and took hold, they crossed deep aqua rivers at speed, passed through sprawling rail yards and skirted factories. Some of the towns had nothing more than a scattering of houses on open, grassy slopes, lone chimneys sending up smoke. Others filled entire valleys. They had roads with fast-moving cars and trucks, cranes towering over construction sites, and buildings that ran ten and even fifteen levels into the sky. One even had a waterpark.