The Minders

by John Marrs

  They would kill to know what I know, Charlie thought. And for a moment, his fingers hovered above the keyboard as he was tempted to give them the truth about everything from protected government paedophiles and patented viruses to UFO sightings and the Deep State civil servants who were really in control of the country.

  The sound of Alix returning from work broke his concentration. He folded up the tablet she didn’t know he owned and slipped it under the sofa cushion.

  “Let’s go away for the weekend,” she began, taking a seat next to him. “Mum won a competition to spend a weekend in a country hotel that she can’t make now. I think we need a change of scenery after everything that’s happened.”

  Charlie was immediately reluctant. New locations needed scrupulous research first to ensure their safety. “I’m not sure if I’m great company at the moment,” he replied. “Wouldn’t you prefer to go with one of your friends?”

  “No, I want to go with you. And it’ll do you some good to get away for a couple of days. I know Milo’s death hit you hard. I can see it whenever anyone talks about him—you look so guilty.”

  “Guilty?” he repeated.

  “Yes, but you have nothing to feel bad about. It wasn’t your fault or anyone else’s that he took his own life. So let’s just get away and enjoy some me-and-you time.”

  Charlie nodded, vowing to work on his “guilty” appearance. “Okay then, if it’s what you want.”

  Alix folded her arms. “Well, don’t sound so enthusiastic about it,” she huffed.

  “I am, really.”

  “You know, sometimes I can’t fathom you out. You say and do all the right things, but it’s as if inside, you’ve read a guidebook on how to be a boyfriend and are going through the motions.”

  It’s exactly what I’m doing, he thought.

  “I get that you’ve had a tough time of it of late,” she continued. “But sometimes I’m not sure if you want us to be together.”

  “I do, honestly. Just because I’m not great at expressing my emotions doesn’t mean I’m not fond of you.”

  “Fond?” she repeated. “Fond? You are fond of a friend, you are fond of a dog, you’re not fond of your girlfriend. You might as well have described me as nice.”

  “You know what I mean. I am more than just fond of you. But it’s going to take a little bit more time for me to get to where you are now.” Charlie wrapped his arms around her shoulders and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Be patient with me,” he added. “I promise I’m worth it.”

  But quietly, he knew that he wasn’t. And he had no interest either way whether she believed him.

  CHAPTER 62

  BRUNO, EXETER

  The Echoes were conspicuous by their absence, after being ever-present for months; Bruno had grown accustomed to them. Today, they had all but vanished without warning. Their silence should have helped Bruno to concentrate, but instead, it added to his unease.

  He had spent much of the last fortnight inside a budget hotel room in Exeter, located opposite Louie’s care home. He was constantly glued to the facility’s live feed on burner phones to see if the attack he thought he’d witnessed by a member of staff had actually happened. It had yet to be repeated, and hand on heart, Bruno couldn’t be sure that he hadn’t imagined it like he imagined the Echoes. For now, he decided to allow his son to remain in the facility but under his watchful eye. There had yet to be any sign of Louie’s attacker on duty again, making Bruno further question his own perception of reality.

  He was prepared to remove his son at a moment’s notice. But assuming he was now wanted by the police for assaulting Nora, he couldn’t just march into the reception and demand his son be brought to him. On a previous reconnaissance mission, Bruno identified an emergency exit with a glass window in close proximity to Louie’s bedroom. If he was attacked again, with a few carefully placed whacks Bruno should be able to smash the glass with his trusty hammer, open the door, and lead Louie back to the car in less than a minute. By the time the police were alerted, father and son would be on the road. Bruno still hadn’t figured out where to, but at least they’d be together.

  “I can’t let you take him with you,” an Echo began, cutting through the silence inside the car. It startled Bruno because it belonged to someone he knew. Bruno turned to find Karczewski in the rear, dressed in a dark suit, a pair of horn-rimmed glasses in his hand and his legs crossed at the knee.

  “You?” Bruno asked in genuine surprise. Karczewski nodded. “How long have you been here?”

  “On and off since you left Oundle.”

  “But you weren’t implanted in my brain like the others. Am I imagining you?” Karczewski nodded again. “Are you the voice my conscience is using?”

  “Yes. Consider me your moment of clarity,” Karczewski continued. “Unless you leave, you are putting everything at risk. The programme, your knowledge, the country’s security, and not just your own life but your son’s too. You saw what they did to Sinéad. Could you watch Louie being tortured to get what they want from you?”

  “No parent could.”

  “What information would you give up to make that stop? What would you trade for Louie’s life?” When Bruno couldn’t answer, Karczewski closed his eyes. “And that’s what concerns me. I went out on a limb for you, Bruno. I guaranteed your doubters that you were capable of starting afresh and leaving the past, and your son, behind. But it was hardly any time at all before you began your killing spree and now you’re spying on your son.”

  “I shouldn’t have been in the programme. It was Louie who solved the puzzle, not me.”

  “Nevertheless, the data is inside you. Your level of synaesthesia was borderline, which in all likelihood is the reason for the prominence of your Echoes. However, you displayed aptitude in your determination, loyalty, and self-preservation, amongst many other things. And you can salvage this situation by leaving your hotel room, climbing into your car, and pressing the ignition button.”

  “And leave my son behind to be hurt again?”

  “You cannot trust yourself to know what really happened. You still have time to do what is best for him and for your country, and leave.”

  Bruno was and had become many things. But above all else, he was a parent. “No,” he said quietly. “Not until I know Louie is safe.”

  Karczewski slipped on his glasses and shrugged. “I hope you change your mind—for everyone’s sake,” he added, and then disappeared.

  As more hours passed, the Echoes began to reappear, one by one. Some were more vocal, begging him to flee, while others hurled insults at him. The one thing they all had in common was that they wanted to survive. And without Bruno, they couldn’t.

  By midafternoon, Bruno’s stomach began rumbling. Still focusing on his phone’s screen, he opened the door to his hotel room to walk two streets to the nearest supermarket. When he glanced at the outside through a corridor window, he spotted Louie’s attacker disembarking from a bus. As the man paused to rummage through his bag, Bruno sprang into action. He sprinted through the hotel and the reception doors, across a car park, and then into a road until he was metres away from his mark.

  The assailant was much taller and broader in the flesh than he’d appeared on CCTV, but Bruno wasn’t intimidated. The first blow from his hammer hit the man on the back of the neck. He used such force that his victim dropped to his knees.

  Next, Bruno used the weapon with short sharp thwacks against his ribs and the man rolled to his side. Then Bruno pushed him onto his back and mounted him, grabbing either side of his head and slamming it against a concrete kerb.

  “Stop, please stop,” the man begged breathlessly. He tried shielding his face with his arm as Bruno raised the hammer over his head.

  “I saw what you did to my son,” Bruno hissed, flecks of spit landing on the man’s face.

  “I didn’t do anything!”
<
br />   “Then why do I recognise you?”

  “I’m a temp, I’ve never worked here before. I promise.”

  “You’re a liar! I saw you hitting my son. I watched you through the cameras. He’s just a little boy.”

  “I don’t even know who Louie is.”

  “Then how do you know his name?”

  The man realised his error and covered his face again as Bruno hit him twice more. Bruno heard a shuffling of feet behind him as his imaginary audience approached. Any last-ditch attempt to beg for mercy would go unheeded.

  “No, wait,” the man cried.

  “Wait for what? What could you possibly say to stop me from killing you?”

  “I was paid to do it!”

  Bruno hesitated. “Paid by who?”

  The man’s eyes flicked to Bruno’s right, as if looking in the direction of the Echoes. But as Bruno turned his head, there was just one person behind him, and that wasn’t a hallucination.

  “By her,” the man said.

  CHAPTER 63

  EMILIA

  Bruno and Emilia sat opposite one another, each staring the other in the eye, neither wanting to be the first to show weakness and look away.

  His arms and legs were restrained by metal cuffs as he sat in the back of the vehicle Bianca had assigned Emilia. He had put them on himself while Emilia pointed a loaded gun at him that she had swiped from a car at the safe house following Sinéad’s murder.

  Emilia knew time was of the essence and that she had only minutes to interrogate him before Bianca and Adrian arrived. After that, Bruno’s fate beyond her car was likely sealed.

  “Do you know me?” she began as the doors closed. Her tone was more assured than when she had first confronted Sinéad. Bruno eyed her up and down.

  “I know a lot of people,” he replied.

  “I think I’m familiar to you. I need your help. I need you to tell me who I am.”

  He ignored her question. “I’m not going to survive this, am I?” he asked. “You’re not going to let me see my boy again.”

  “I have no choice, Bruno.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’ve been using that as an excuse for my behaviour for a while . . . blaming other people for doing things I thought they’d pushed me to do. But the truth is, you and I are here because of what we’ve done, not them. If you’re going to kill me, you should own it. Because what you’re about to do to me is all on you.”

  An increasingly embittered Emilia ran her hands through her hair and rubbed at her eyes. “I don’t have time for your self-help sermon. I really need you to tell me what you know about me.”

  “Or what? I’m a dead man?” He let out a sharp laugh. “I think that ship has already sailed, hasn’t it?”

  The clock was ticking. Bianca and Adrian had given her ten minutes to get the truth from him before they took matters into their own hands for a purpose that had yet to be explained to her. Her only bargaining tool was Bruno’s son, Louie. Once Bruno had been identified, background research discovered his Achilles’ heel—a boy with autism who resided in a care facility in Exeter. Emilia had immediately made plans to use Louie to flush Bruno out.

  “Out of interest, how did you find me?” he asked.

  “By identifying faces caught on CCTV entering a building in London—where you were trained, I assume—and who then went off-grid. When we found your son, I put myself in your shoes and thought it was unlikely you’d be able to leave him alone completely. The least intrusive way was to use internal cameras, which is when we found that the network’s data flow had been compromised, by you, I presume. Getting you back here was easy.”

  “And how do you feel about hurting a child with special needs to do that?”

  Now it was Emilia’s turn not to answer the question. “I have no memory whatsoever of who I am,” she replied instead. “All I know is that I have a husband and two daughters who I’m trying to get back to, in the same way you’ve come back for Louie. You hold the key to helping me find myself.”

  “I will if you let me see my son first.”

  Emilia sighed. “I don’t have the time or the power to make that happen.”

  “Then I’m going to do your children a huge favour by telling you nothing and keeping them safe from you.”

  Emilia’s voice cracked. “You can’t do that. It’s not fair.”

  “Was it fair when you killed the other Minder?”

  “I haven’t killed anyone—that was Bianca and her people in the Hacking Collective.”

  Bruno shook his head and laughed. “I’ll hand it to you, you’re a great actress!”

  “What do you mean?”

  But Bruno was too preoccupied by laughing to respond.

  “Stop it,” she said, tears of frustration forming.

  The sight of her wiping them away appeared to amuse him further and his laughter grew louder.

  “I said stop it!” she repeated, this time banging her fists against the car seat to emphasise her demand. “Stop laughing at me!” But by now Bruno’s laughter was escalating, louder and louder until the noise grew deafening. It wasn’t the only sound to reverberate: it was gradually accompanied by whispers enveloping the exterior of the vehicle. But Emilia couldn’t identify a single sputtered word.

  Through the windscreen she spotted a small group of people huddled in a garden further along the road. She counted four of them and her body tensed. “Leave me alone!” she screamed at them. “Leave me the hell alone!”

  She threw her hands over her ears to make the cacophony stop, but it failed to suppress them for long. The piercing whispers and Bruno’s laughter culminated in an explosion of sound that was now coming from the inside too and made her head ready to burst.

  And then it happened. A new Emilia came to life without warning, conscience, or forethought.

  CHAPTER 64

  BRUNO, EXETER

  Bruno caught sight of his reflection in the metal object swiping down upon him, and heard the crunch as it penetrated his skull.

  His attacker cocked her head and yanked it out as quickly as it had landed. Her brow furrowed as if trying to read his thoughts. It was only as she turned that he noticed another person in the car with them, a figure sitting in the front passenger seat.

  Louie.

  Bruno tried to reach out his hand to touch him, only nothing moved but the very tips of his fingers.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry your mum and I didn’t do better for you.”

  “It’s okay, Dad.” Louie smiled. “You don’t need to look after me anymore. I’ll be all right.”

  In their twelve years together, Louie had been virtually mute, not even speaking in Bruno’s dreams. Now, in his dying throes, Bruno was hallucinating that his son had found his voice. It was the only voice he had ever wanted to hear, and the comfort it offered was immeasurable.

  From the window, he caught a glimpse of Echoes gathering beyond the vehicle he was dying inside. They arrived one at a time and then in twos, before groups began appearing. Eventually, the car park was packed with the faces of people he’d conversed with and others he’d only learned about. Some showed him concern, others were tearful, and some angry. Each held the hand of another.

  Bruno sensed his assailant watching him before she placed her lips to his ear. “You see them, don’t you?” she asked.

  Bruno wanted to nod, but the wound was too deep for even basic motor functions. He was no longer capable of even a perfunctory motion. “What do they want?” she continued, but he couldn’t respond.

  Instead, Louie, the Echoes, and the rest of the world, living and imagined, faded away into darkness at exactly the same moment. Bruno was aware of what was to happen after he breathed his last. He had made his peace with all he’d done wrong. And he was sure that he wasn’t as frightened of the unknown as the woman was
who had just killed him.

  CHAPTER 65

  FLICK, ALDEBURGH, SUFFOLK

  Flick let the plastic stick fall into the sink. Then she unboxed another and followed the same action before placing it facedown next to the first three. As she waited for a further minute to pass, she sat on the lid of the closed toilet seat and ran her palms across her face.

  How is this even possible? she asked herself. How the hell am I pregnant?

  Karczewski’s programme did not expect its Minders to refrain from sexual activity during their five-year tenure, but implanted contraception for both sexes was mandatory. Anything that left a Minder vulnerable to decisions based on emotion rather than self-preservation was restricted. And top of the list was falling pregnant.

  Her five-yearly STI jabs which ensured her immunity from all known infections were up to date, and she assumed the implant making her temporarily sterile was working because she hadn’t had a period in seven months. She had assumed there was no need for her and Elijah to use contraception. She flipped the fourth test over and its results mirrored the others. She was definitely pregnant.

  Flick hurried outside and threw all the tests in the B&B’s incinerator bin, melting them within seconds. If she’d ever needed a cigarette or a friend to confide in, it was now, but she couldn’t have either. This was going to be another segment of her life that she couldn’t reveal. Grace was already bursting with enthusiasm when it came to Flick and Elijah’s relationship, keen to know if Flick saw a long-term future for them. Flick’s answers were vague, not because she didn’t want to commit, but because she couldn’t see beyond the rest of the day, let alone the rest of her life. Someone had killed Sinéad and Karczewski and that overshadowed any plans she could make. And she knew Grace would urge her to keep the baby. But Flick had already made her decision.

  Back in the kitchen, Flick slathered two slices of toast with Marmite and took a seat at the table. Elijah weighed heavy on her mind. Morally, it was right he should know she was pregnant, but she could never tell him. She loved what they had together, but while she continued to hold back so much of herself from him, theirs could never be a genuine relationship. He deserved better.