“Don’t worry. I know you didn’t mean that.”
“No. I was only saying, you know, same bone structure.”
“Thanks.” Acid stood and went over to her, lowering her voice. “How’s she been?”
Mel sighed, serious now. “She has her good days. But they’re getting fewer and far between, I’m afraid.” She stared at Louisa as she spoke, and Acid could see real concern in her eyes. Compassion, you might call it. “We’ve had to calm her down a few times. She gets scared, angry. I caught her slapping someone in the TV room a few weeks back. An old fella in his nineties. Poor old sod, he hadn’t a clue what was going on.” Acid laughed despite herself, and after a few seconds Mel did too. “She’s a feisty one, I’ll give her that.” She looked Acid up and down. “I’d say you take after her in that regard as well.”
Acid stared at the woman, trying to gauge where she was going with this.
“Well anyway, I’d better get on. It was nice meeting you. And don’t worry, your mother is in good hands.”
“Thanks.”
Mel left and Acid turned to face the old woman. She’d gone offline once more. There were bursts of consciousness now and then, but mostly when Acid visited she was like this. Staring at nothing, unresponsive.
“I’ve not been doing too great, Mum,” Acid whispered, sitting down. “It feels like my past is catching up to me, and I’ve run out of places to hide.”
Acid would never have said this to anyone else. Not even her own mother if she’d been compos mentis. But it helped. She brushed a strand of hair from Louisa’s face and tucked it behind her ear.
“Anyway, I have to go now, Mum,” she said. “It’ll be a while until I see you again. Take care of yourself. They’re good people here. They’ll look after you.” She stood and kissed Louisa on the head. She smelt like soap. “Don’t be going around hitting anyone, all right? Unless they deserve it. In that case, give them hell.”
She moved to the door. She had to get out of there. The walls were closing in. Leather wings battered at her psyche. She had one foot in the corridor when Louisa called out.
“Alice? Is that you?”
She spun around. The woman was looking right at her.
“Yes… Yes, Mum. It’s me.” She hurried over and knelt in front of her, held onto her bony hand. “It’s Alice.”
Louisa’s face opened up. “You’re such a good girl. I never meant for any of this.”
Acid put her hand on her cheek. “Any of what?”
“If they ever touch you, you’ll tell me, won’t you? I never wanted this for you, my darling.”
“It’s not your fault, Mum. I know it isn’t.” Acid held onto Louisa’s hand with all she was worth. A bond that stretched out beyond illness and pain. Beyond the darkness of their shared past.
Louisa coughed. “Well, I should get going. My daughter will be home from school soon and I need to get some groceries. Will you see yourself out?”
Acid laughed joylessly to herself. “Sure, Louisa. I’ll see you later. I’ve got somewhere to be myself.” She walked to the exit and paused a moment in the doorway. It was time to be that cold-hearted killer Acid Vanilla again, time to get focused. It might have been her current state of mind, but something told her this new job wasn’t going to be as straightforward as she first thought. She took a deep breath, cracked her knuckles, and left her mum’s room.
She didn’t look back.
Fifteen
In the end it took Acid two planes and three large G and T’s before she felt like herself again. Whatever the hell that meant. But now on the final leg of her journey – in business class on her way to Paris – she was at least ready for her mission. She pulled out her tablet and shifted in her seat, putting the plane window behind her as she logged into Annihilation Pest Control’s dark web portal. Once again it was running as slow as an arthritic sloth.
“Bloody hell, Raaz, pull your finger out.” The skin on Acid’s neck bristled as she tapped at the login button, as if doing this ever speeded it along. It was usual for the Annihilation portal to take longer than regular servers (something to do with the secure hosting and firewalls), but this was ridiculous. She refreshed the browser window, using the web link in her bookmarks to access the site. The URL was a series of numbers, letters and symbols, meaning no one would ever simply happen upon the site. Unless, perhaps, they sat on their keyboard the wrong way. But even then all they’d find was a forum for crypto-trading, with a membership area that they’d be unable to access no matter how hard they tried.
Eventually the login screen appeared and Acid typed in her details, hit submit. Once inside she was met with a direct message from Raaz Terabyte, as expected. Acid clicked on the zip file attached and opened up a folder of photos and some intel on the mark. The usual stuff. The body of the message read:
New assignment. As discussed with Caesar. Client is high-ticket so don’t mess this up. The Albanian will meet you tomorrow in Paris, usual place.
No hello. No how you doing? Acid enlarged the first photo in the file. A headshot, most likely ripped from the passport database. The woman was in her mid-twenties, mixed race, though it was hard to tell from the photo. That was the problem with the passport database, you never got a great likeness. Acid opened the next file. A better photo, but older. From a US college yearbook, by the looks of it. In this one the mark was smiling. Underneath the scan was a name: Spook Horowitz.
“Oh, come on. That’s got to be bullshit.” She said it out loud and a man two rows in front turned and glared at her. “Sorry,” Acid mouthed at him, tapping her earphones. “Podcast.”
Acid returned to the tablet and clicked open the main document to see the mark’s real name was indeed Spook Rosella Horowitz. It also said she was twenty-seven. The only child of Michael and Fariza Horowtiz, both deceased. Born in Columbus, Georgia. She’d attended the Michigan Institute of Technology from 2012 to 2015 and majored in Computer Science. Then a stint in Silicon Valley. Then a relocation to London, to work at Cerberix Inc. UK. It was an impressive CV.
“Why are you on my hit list, little Spook?”
Acid carried on reading. The report said the girl had seen something she shouldn’t have and was blackmailing her bosses. Raaz had included CCTV images taken a day earlier in Paris. Acid flicked through the photos. The so-called tech-wizard had been picked up on four cameras in the Boulevard Saint-Germain area. One of these was on the corner of Rue des Sèvres, the same street that contained a grocery store where the mark’s credit card had pinged twice in the last twelve hours. So that was where Acid was heading first.
She clicked open a new browser window and searched properties in the area. Her eyes widened as she saw who owned one of the apartments on the same street.
“Bloody hell, Spook.”
Sinclair Whitman, Chief Finance Officer and co-founder of Cerberix Inc. A quick Google search told her he was back in the States but, regardless, if Acid’s hunch was correct – and her hunches often were – this was a bold move on the mark’s part. A good plan, truth be told. If someone wants you dead, hide in the last place they’re likely to look. The only problem for Spook Horowitz was she hadn’t factored in the depth of knowledge available to Annihilation Pest Control.
But Acid still had work to do. Had to ensure her theory was correct before she struck. Plus there was the recording to retrieve – an imperative part of her mission, the report said. The word, IMPERATIVE, written in capital letters. Acid sat back in her seat. Whatever’s on that recording must be damaging as hell if they’re going to these lengths.
Also in the pack was Acid’s reservation information under her current alias: Melissa Font. She was to stay at a small boutique hotel in Montparnasse, a short distance from where she suspected the mark to be hiding out. Acid clicked open the invoice. She was booked in for three nights. Not long for a job like this. She bit her lip, sensing Caesar’s heavy presence breathing down her neck. He wanted it done in three days. It’d take her two. She’d be ly
ing on a beach by the weekend.
Acid closed the laptop down and pressed the call button above her head. They were scheduled to land in thirty minutes. Time enough for one more drink.
Sixteen
Hiding out in Sinclair Whitman’s Parisian apartment was a huge gamble. Spook knew that. But so far, so good. She’d even found a spare key once she’d gotten in through the fire escape, so could come and go as she pleased. Not that she was in the right headspace to visit the sights. She’d been lucky with the masked man. But the threats weren’t going to stop. Not while she still had the recording. She was sure of that.
She had, however, risked a few trips to the café on the corner. For supplies. To stop herself going stir crazy. Which was where she was heading now. With her collar up and a beanie hat pulled down low over her eyes.
“Bonjour. Ça va?” the owner sang, as Spook approached the counter.
“Yeah, um, bonjour. Can I have deux croissants?” Spook tried. “S’il vous plaît.”
The man didn’t seem to mind her terrible attempt at speaking French. He lifted a see-through cover on the counter and picked out two large croissants, placed them in a paper bag.
“There you go, mon ami. Six euro.”
Spook handed over the money and stuffed the croissants in her rucksack, checked her laptop was still there. It was. : Just as it had been in the elevator five minutes earlier.
“Au revoir.” Spook pulled her beanie down and stepped out onto the street. It was a nice day out. Peaceful. A small park lay opposite Whitman’s building and Spook scurried over there. It was stupid, but she needed fresh air. She’d only stay a few minutes.
She found a bench over to one side with tree cover all around. No chance of anyone sneaking up on her. She took out one of the croissants and gnawed on it greedily. It tasted good. The pastry was flaky and buttery with a hint of salt. It was true what they said, they did taste better in France. Though now Spook wished she’d bought herself a coffee to go with it.
She was considering going back to the store, when a man entered the park on the opposite side. He was mixed race, with short afro hair that faded to skin at the back and sides. He wore a dark grey pea coat, with a green scarf wrapped around the bottom half of his face. This wasn’t unusual for the time of year, but along with his notable height it gave him a sinister edge that Spook didn’t like. The man didn’t look at her directly but meandered around the half circle of grass and sat on the bench positioned to the right of her, next to an old lamppost in dire need of a paint job. Spook watched him out the corner of one eye, croissant frozen in her grasp as her mind flicked through a list of possibilities and likely outcomes.
If he was here to kill her then he’d have done it by now. There was no reason he’d toy with her like this. The place was deserted, and the tree cover meant no one from the surrounding apartment blocks could see much of what was going on. But if he had been sent to kill her and hadn’t done so yet, what did that mean? Most likely he’d have instructions to retrieve the recording. He’d need her to lead him to it. Spook put her arm around her rucksack and pulled it close.
“Stay cool, dude,” she whispered to herself. “He’s a regular guy. Probably lives around here.”
The man pulled his scarf from his face and stared over at her. A stare that would make anyone shift uneasily in their seat. Even if people weren’t trying to kill them. Spook took in the deep scar running down one side of the man’s face.
Shit.
Was this it? Had he come for her? She didn’t take her eyes off him as her breath froze behind her ribs and her knuckles whitened around the straps of her rucksack.
The man reached for something inside his coat and Spook let out a small yelping sound. This was it. She screwed up her eyes and tried to make peace with the fact that, in a second, the man would pull out a gun and splatter her brains all over the cherry blossom tree behind her.
An image flashed across her memory. Her parents at her graduation ceremony. They were both so proud. So full of love for her. She’d let them down and now she was going to die here. Alone. On a cold bench in a deserted Parisian park, so far away from home.
She tensed every muscle and waited. Nothing happened. She opened one eye. The bench opposite was empty. The man nowhere in sight. With a shaking hand, Spook shoved the last of the croissant into her mouth and stood to leave. She felt sick. What was it her nenek used to say to her when she was being bullied? Hendak berani berlawan ramai. It was an old Malaysian saying, meaning: If you want to be brave, you must face your enemies head on.
Spook couldn’t go on like this. The paranoia. It was making her ill. If someone was coming for her, she had to know who it was. Otherwise she’d be looking over her shoulder forever and that was no way to live. She swung the rucksack on her back and hurried back to the apartment as fast as she could.
Once inside, she locked and bolted the door. Then she drew the curtains and took her laptop into the bathroom, the only room with no windows, and locked that door as well. She nestled down on a pile of towels in one corner. This would take some time.
She opened her laptop and logged onto her Watcher portal. She had a passing worry that Cerberix would have deleted her profile. But no, she could still access all the information she needed. Including Kent Clarkson’s email address. She bashed out a short piece of C-Sharp code on a text editor: a simple Brute Force attack that would sift through hundreds of thousands of password combinations to gain access. Or so she hoped.
Spook could write this type of code with her eyes shut but the process took time. She pasted the source code into the compiler and went to get a drink. Hacking was thirsty work. So was being on the run from a killer.
In the kitchen she selected a glass from a cupboard above the sink and filled it to the brim with cold water. She wondered briefly if the water in Paris was safe to drink but dismissed the thought, it was the least of her worries. She was about to take a long drink when there was a banging on the door.
Shit.
She tiptoed over, listening carefully.
“Bonjour,” a voice said from the other side. A man’s voice. “Sinclair? Are you home? I heard footsteps.”
Spook stared at the door, hoping somehow it would give her some answers. The man knocked again, his voice friendlier now. “Come out, Sinclair. I know you are home. You are avoiding me?”
He wasn’t going to let up.
“Hello?” Spook tried, putting her face near the door. “Can I help you?”
“Who is this? Where is Sinclair?” he said, sounding less playful.
Spook put the glass of water on the small key table beside the wall and brushed herself down.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, opening the door and putting on her best smile. “My name’s Shauna. Shauna Whitman.”
The man in the doorway was short, with thinning dyed-black hair greased back in a ponytail. Going by the sagging skin on his neck and hands, Spook guessed him to be in his late sixties. His face, however, told a different story. Or tried to at least. It was stretched taut in a perpetual rictus. The result of many facelifts.
“Mon Dieu. I was expecting Monsieur Whitman.” He held up his hands in mock surprise.
“I’m Sinclair’s niece,” Spook said. “From California. I’ve got my finals coming up in a month and my dear uncle said I could stay here a few weeks, to study. Away from distractions.”
The man sniffed. “I see. I live over the corridor. Your uncle and me, we are acquaintances from a long time. Or we were. I have not seen him for at least three years.” He looked away. If his face wasn’t so rigid, it might have had a look of sadness.
“Well, thanks for stopping by. I’ll let my uncle know you said hello. Mister…? Monsieur…?”
The man was staring off into the middle distance. He blinked. “Please tell Sinclair that Clement said hello. That will do.”
“Sure will,” Spook told him, making to shut the door.
“Very well. Au revoir, Shauna Whitman.”
<
br /> Did he give her a weird smile as he said that? Like he knew something? Spook brushed it off. She was being paranoid. Same as in the park. She closed the door and locked it. Locked all the bolts. Put both chains on. Then she picked up the glass of water and downed it in one go before returning to her laptop.
The program was still running. And as Spook waited, her mind drifted again to the poor woman in the video. She hadn’t been able to watch it again since that first time, but the images, the actions, were imprinted on her memory. Uncle Sinclair. That evil bastard. He’d pay for what he did. They all would. The whole stinking lot of them. Whitman, Clarkson, whoever sent that guy to her apartment. Spook was determined now. She’d show the world what they’d done. If it was the last thing she did.
The laptop screen flashed and Spook’s stomach did a somersault. She was in. Clarkson’s personal email account. Jackpot. She settled herself in front of the screen and perused the information on offer. Nothing immediately stood out. No emails from anyone called Top Secret Assassin Network or anything similar. She read a few threads. One from an accountant. One from a Victoria Secret model Clarkson had been trying to date. One from his brother. But nothing from anyone even remotely resembling a hired killer. She looked in the recycling bin, but it was empty. She was starting to give up hope, when she clicked on his Sent Items box and there it was. Clarkson had archived the thread from his inbox but it was still there – an email exchange between the CEO of Cerberix Inc. and a man calling himself Beowulf Caesar.
Spook read through the emails and a shiver ran down her spine. They were written in coded language – talking about an infestation, a rat problem that needed taking care of – but the message was clear. They were arranging for Spook to be killed. For a pest to be eradicated. One email from Clarkson in particular spoke of him having someone mess up and how he now needed the issue rectifying. As soon as possible.
Spook read on. In the final part of the thread this Caesar guy was telling Clarkson that he’d send his top operative to handle the situation. Would have it done by the weekend. Spook swallowed. Today was Thursday. She stared at the name of the operative mentioned:
The Acid Vanilla Series Page 8