by J. F. Kirwan
As if they were going anywhere.
The nearest helicopter hovered close to their position. Lines fell; armed, helmeted commandos rappelled fast. She thought of her father, knew what was coming, and disengaged from Katya. She touched her bleeding shoulder, and mouthed two words to her sister.
Still alive.
Then she picked up the Rose, staggered to the ship’s edge, and held it above open water. The commandos approached, weapons levelled.
She shouted above the din as loud as she could. ‘You shoot, it drops.’
They stopped. One of them touched an earpiece. They waited. The second helicopter landed near the containers, while the other moved away, but remained aloft, patrolling the length of the ship, its large-bore machine gun jutting out from the side hatch.
A woman who looked like she didn’t belong in combat fatigues arrived. The woman from the photo. Harsher in the flesh. Two commandos trailed her. Jake was behind them, white as a ghost, his arm in a sling, not too steady on his feet.
‘Hi,’ Nadia said, ignoring everyone else.
‘Christ Almighty,’ he replied, seeing the state of her. They let him through.
She shrugged, which wasn’t a good idea, but she was too tired to wince from the pain. ‘Been busy.’ Then she added, giving him a crooked smile. ‘Have you looked in the mirror lately? Shouldn’t you be in a decompression chamber?’
‘Surviving so far. Pure oxygen for the last two hours helped, along with some fresh blood, or whatever it was they stuck in my veins.’
Smart. ‘That’s cheating,’ she said. ‘A new one for the diver rescue manual.’
The woman stepped forward, raised a hand, and spoke. Crisp, light, as if she was shopping. ‘Hand me the Rose, Nadia.’
‘My sister goes free,’ Nadia said.
‘How about you hand it over and we don’t shoot you where you stand?’
Nadia shook her head. ‘I’ve lost a lot of blood. It’s heavier than it looks. The ocean is deep here, a kilometre, maybe more, lots of currents between the surface and the bottom, which is most likely soft sludge a metre deep. I drop it, it’s history.’ She glanced at it. ‘Oh, and its battery is dead.’
The woman flared, her true colours flashing to the surface, her eyes flattening, pupils suddenly hard as stones, her lips taut. ‘You drop that, my girl, and I swear –’
‘Lorne – Sara,’ Jake said. ‘Let Katya go. She’s innocent anyway, aside from being Kadinsky’s mistress, which I doubt was by choice.’
Lorne turned to him. ‘Is that your call?’
‘Yes.’ Then he frowned. ‘Hang on… what do you mean?’
Nadia smiled. ‘She wants you back, Jake. To work for her again.’
The woman said nothing. What had Jake said about this one? Always gets what she wants.
‘If that’s what it takes,’ Jake said.
He didn’t look too unhappy about it. Good for you. You’re good at it.
Lorne turned to her men. ‘Stand down. You two sweep the area. Collect the bodies, make sure no one else is hiding.’
Nadia handed Lorne the Rose.
‘How did you find us?’ Nadia asked.
Jake spoke, while Lorne checked the device. ‘We were already in the air looking, as there are plenty of boots on the ground now, all over St. Mary’s. Someone activated the Rose. It sent a satellite-detectable message. It was Prof Laney’s failsafe. Almost nobody knew about it, wasn’t even written down anywhere, but…’ he nodded to Lorne. ‘So we came as fast as possible.’
So, Cheng Yi had unwittingly activated a signal. And Laney – and MI6 – not so dumb after all. The Rose had a thorn. And whoever the client was, he – if it was a ‘he’ – wasn’t infallible. That made her feel a little better.
Lorne handed the Rose to a commando, who took it gingerly and jogged back to the helicopter. She snapped her fingers and two commandos approached Nadia. One pulled out hand-cuffs, the other some black material.
Nadia’s adrenaline spiked. ‘He’s not dead yet,’ she half-shouted, addressing Lorne.
Lorne held up a hand again, and the men stopped. She closed on Nadia’s face. ‘Who? And don’t fuck with me, girl.’
Nadia held her gaze. ‘Cheng Yi. The buyer. At least he might still be alive. Not for long though.’ Nadia pointed upwards, almost lost her balance. ‘Jake, it’s your outlier scenario, I’m afraid.’
‘Which is?’ Lorne asked.
‘Rogue element. Intended using it. I was… interviewing him. Let me finish, and I’ll tell you everything.’
‘Believe me, Nadia,’ said Lorne, ‘you will tell me everything.’
‘But if I don’t hear the rest, I can’t put it together, and nor can you.’
Lorne’s eyes bore into Nadia’s.
Nadia didn’t blink. ‘Like I said, he’s dying, he’s not got long.’
Lorne spoke to the two men. ‘Bring her.’ She looked Nadia up and down. ‘And a med kit.’
Katya started to join them but Nadia caught her eye and shook her head. ‘Lazarus died well,’ she said. Katya’s face crumbled, and she turned away and faced the sea, her shoulders trembling as if shivering from the cold breeze.
Back inside the aquarium, two of the commandos managed to heave Lazarus’ whale-like corpse off Cheng Yi. He didn’t look good. His chest was caved in, and his face was the same colour as the ash from his cigarette. His throne had been flattened. Fabric, foam, wood and springs jutted and spilled out here and there, like some kind of bizarre interior furnishing roadkill. Some of the springs and wood had penetrated Cheng Yi’s back and legs. There was no moving him. In any case his breath came in short, wheezing rasps, probably because his lungs were slowly filling with blood. His eyes were open wide, flicking here and there, as if reading something on the plain white ceiling. His lips moved silently.
‘He’s almost gone,’ Nadia said. ‘But he’s hardcore.’ She swept aside glass beads on the floor and used Lazarus’ body as a back support. One of the commandos applied a field dressing to her shoulder.
‘Got any truth serum?’ she said to Lorne.
Lorne snapped her fingers and the other commando produced a small zipped bag, from which he extracted a syringe. Lorne wasted no time, and stabbed it into Cheng Yi’s neck, and thumbed down the plunger. She stared at her watch for two minutes, then nodded to Nadia.
Nadia crawled forwards, spoke into Cheng Yi’s ear. ‘Who’s the client?’ she asked.
The question seemed to bring Cheng Yi back to them. His eyes focused again, and he managed what Nadia assumed was his trademark wan smile, coughing up blood and spittle in the process. He spoke even slower, if that was possible.
‘He is blind, but can see. Water and air are the same to him. He will find you in the darkness. You will not hear him when he comes for you.’
Nadia glanced at Lorne. ‘You sure that was truth serum? He’s hallucinating.’
Lorne shook her head. ‘No, he’s telling the truth, but he’s very good, trained for this. He’s being poetic.’ Lorne snapped her fingers again.
The commando found a second syringe, but frowned. ‘Ma’am, two doses in quick succession –’
Lorne raised a finger, the second one, and the commando said no more, just handed her the syringe. She injected him again. Cheng Yi began to shake. Lorne leaned close this time. She spoke in Chinese. Nadia glanced to Jake.
‘Same question,’ he said. ‘In Mandarin.’
Cheng Yi started to say something. It sounded like a hiss, but then he opened his mouth wide, stuck out his tongue and clamped his front teeth down hard, severing it. His mouth filled with blood.
‘Jesus fucking Christ!’ Lorne shouted. She tried to force his jaw open, even though he coughed blood all over her face. Cheng Yi shook violently, arched his neck upwards, made one last, grim smile, and died.
Nadia looked up at Jake. ‘Money doesn’t buy that kind of loyalty. Whoever the client is…’ She spoke to Lorne. ‘You’ve bought yourself some time, that’s all. The client w
ill try again, find another way.’
Lorne ripped some of the chair fabric apart and wiped the blood off her face, and then spoke to Jake. ‘Then you and I will have to find him first.’
They all trooped down the stairs, Nadia carried by one of the commandos. While Lorne barked orders here and there, at the foot of the staircase, Nadia rested in Katya’s arms. The field dressings had stemmed the blood flow from her abdomen and shoulder. And they’d given her some morphine at last, enough to take the edge off the pain.
Katya whispered in Nadia’s ear. ‘I’ll find a way to get you released. You have your skills, I have mine. It may take some time. But I promise I’ll get you out.’
Nadia didn’t reply. She just hoped her prison cell had no hook this time. She glanced up at Jake. ‘Ben, did he…?’
Jake hung his head and shook it. He met her eyes, and spoke softly. ‘When you get out, Nadia,’ he began.
‘Sure. Any time. Count on it.’
She felt good somehow. Maybe the morphine. Of course the morphine. But Katya was alive and free. The Rose was safe. And a bunch of no-gooders were down below, where her father would make eternity hell for them. One day she’d join them.
But not yet.
Lorne returned with two commandos. They separated Nadia from the others. This time she was ready. As they cuffed her, she spotted Slick’s Glock under some pipework. Jake followed her gaze, then shot her a glance.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ she said. And then she laughed, because she finally realised that picking up the Beretta, all those years ago, would have been the last thing her father would have wanted her to do.
She gave Jake one last crooked smile. Then they threw a black hood over her head and led her away.
Copyright
Carina UK
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
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London SE1 9GF
www.carinauk.com
First published in Great Britain by Carina UK in 2016
Copyright © J.F. Kirwan 2016
J.F. Kirwan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental
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Ebook Edition © August 2016. ISBN: 978-0-00-820774-8