All he had to do was get there.
He glanced behind him. Some of the techies were still watching him. Not yet … not yet. Steady. If he ran too early, they’d be onto him at once.
He leaned out the doorway to take a look at what the fuss was. There was a car with a girl sitting in it who looked familiar. She was yelling, “He’s not taken his meds! He’s not taken his meds!” at the top of her voice.
He knew her. Where had he seen her before?
Then he remembered. Lizzie, wasn’t it? Adam’s girlfriend. What on earth was she doing here? And if she was here, could Adam be far behind? But Anna had said he was in a hotel room. Jess groaned. No! Not here, not here of all places. Adam! You idiot!
There was a crowd gathering around the car. Christian Ballantine was there, bawling like an animal, batting at Lizzie with his hands through the window while the big guys tried to pull him off. He looked crazy, as if his brain was melting. The girl cringed back in the car, shielding her face with her hands. She’d already taken a few batterings by the looks of it. Florence Ballantine himself was out there, too, striding over with a face like a fist, wanting to know what all the noise was about.
The techies had stepped out past him to have a look — it wasn’t the sort of thing you saw every day round here. No one was paying him any attention. Holding his breath, Jess silently slipped around behind the lab. As soon as he was out of sight, he began to run, weaving in and out of the other containers. After a few hundred yards he paused to listen. There was shouting. He’d been missed — but they had no idea which way he’d gone.
He began to run again. He was away. He was almost free. And … he was going to live! To Jess, it was a wonderful thing to give your life for something you believed in. He had been living with the idea of his death for so long, it felt almost wrong, as if he’d been cheated, to have it taken away. But today was the day — the one-week anniversary of Jimmy Earle’s death, the big announcement in Albert Square. Perhaps, too, it was the day the government would resign. It had to happen. If he could be there when it did, he would not have lived in vain.
But what about Adam? Jess loved him — but he loved the cause even more. It was a shame. He’d have helped if he could, but today was booked. Today was the revolution. This was what he had sacrificed everything for — his friends, his family, his own life if need be. He couldn’t let anything get in the way — not even his own brother.
He ran fast toward the perimeter fence.
* * *
For a few seconds, Lizzie thought they were really going to let Christian tear her to pieces. But the big guys pulled him off and then a shorter, older man, obviously in charge, turned up and started roaring at everyone. But it was Christian he was most angry with. He grabbed him by the lapels and bawled at him, “Is that right, you little shit? You’ve not been taking your meds, is that right? Is that right?”
“Lizzie!” cried Christian in a tormented voice. “How could you? How could you?” And bursting into tears, he began to cry like a child.
Ballantine let him go. That kind of answered his question. For a moment, everyone stood around watching in embarrassment; but Ballantine had reckoned without his son’s cunning. Christian suddenly lashed out, pushing the older man back, and ran off at full speed.
“Catch him, you dicks!” yelled Ballantine. Some of the men shot after him in pursuit. His eye fell on Lizzie, cringing in the car, waiting to see what was going to happen next.
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
Lizzie bent her head onto the steering wheel. Out of the frying pan, she thought. But she wasn’t dead yet. She looked up and smiled at him as calmly as she could.
“If one of your men will untie me,” she said, “I’ll explain.”
Ballantine gestured to one of them to cut her loose. He stood watching, arms crossed, scowling. “So where’s Vince?”
“Last time I saw him he had a knife in the back of his neck,” said Lizzie.
Ballantine paused and looked closely at her. “Are you having a laugh? Don’t try and be funny with me,” he told her. But he didn’t look so angry anymore. “Bring her to my box,” he told his men.
“Yes, sir,” one of them said, still fumbling at her bonds. A couple of the other guys dithered a moment, getting up the courage to tell their boss that the chemist had done a runner. Sorry, sir, but …
You could hear the shouts of anger all the way to the railway line, half a mile away.
* * *
Ballantine’s container, to Lizzie’s amazement, was fitted out inside like a posh office suite. There was a staircase leading up to the container above, and for all she knew, another one going up even higher. It was like a house.
The older man sat down behind the desk and told one of his minions to fetch tea and biscuits. It made her start to giggle, and once she started, she couldn’t stop. They all stood around and watched her being hysterical for about five minutes, until she finally got control of herself again. Then the older man asked her again what the fuck was going on.
Ballantine listened very carefully to her, nodding, urging her to take more biscuits and more tea — very polite, very calm. When she paused in the middle and needed a pee, he got one of his men to show her upstairs to the toilet, and she took the chance to wash her face and sort her hair out. They were treating her nicely. She wanted to look good. Mr. Ballantine looked like the sort of person who didn’t respond well to weakness.
He shook his head when she was done. “What can I say?” he said. “I apologize for my son’s behavior. I’m sorry that he’s treated you so badly, and I’m devastated that he made you take Death. I wish I could make all of these things go away, but …” He spread his hands, in a gesture of helplessness. “What can I say?” he repeated. He looked around at his men. “Box her up,” he said.
“Box her up?” repeated one of the men. “Are you sure, Mr. Ballantine?”
“Of course I’m sure. She knows Christian. She saw him murder Vince. She knows about this place. What do you want me to do, put her on the next plane to the Costa Brava? I apologize,” he told her again. “Like I say, I wish I could make all this go away, but I can’t.”
One of the men took her arm. She stood up shakily. “Box me up?” she asked.
Mr. Ballantine smiled reassuringly. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. Not like being buried alive or anything. Just putting you away in a container for a while. Just to keep you safe.”
Lizzie shook off the hand of the man at her elbow. “Safe?” she said. “For how long?”
“ ’Bout a week.” Ballantine shrugged. “Like I say …”
“But — what about the antidote?” she begged. “Can’t you do anything?” She ran out of words. If they wanted to make sure she never told anyone what she knew, they were hardly going to help her live longer, were they?
“If it’s any consolation, which I don’t suppose it is,” said Ballantine, getting up as if to see her out, “there’s no such thing as an antidote. Death binds itself to the brain in the first few hours. After that, you’re dead meat. Everyone agrees about that. I wish I could offer a better way of spending your last few days, but that won’t be possible, either. Unless you want a quick way out? A bullet?” he offered.
“Mr. Ballantine,” complained one of the men. “She’s so young.”
“Only fifteen,” said Lizzie. She thought maybe taking a couple of years off her age would help.
Ballantine shook his head irritably. “What is it with you guys? You’re happy to shoot your own grandmothers, but as soon as you come across a girl a few months underage, you start making puppy eyes at me. Tell you what,” he told her. “Spend a little time in the box, have a think. If anyone can work out a better way of dealing with the problem, I’ll be happy to look at it. Meanwhile — box her up,” he told the heavies. “Don’t forget — that bullet’s still on offer,” he added as she was led out. He was still trying to be nice.
It was just a short walk to the place that was go
ing to be her final home and prison. Inside, it was pitch-black. No lights, nothing. She turned around and looked at the man accusingly.
“Sorry,” he said. He shrugged, embarrassed, and pushed her gently inside. He paused a moment. “You’ve had some pretty bad luck,” he suggested.
“You reckon.”
“You want me to drop by later?” the man asked. “Mr. Ballantine is a gentleman, he won’t let anyone molest you, but he might look favorably on a date.”
“A date?” she said, amazed. “You’re asking me for a date?”
The guy shrugged. “Your last week and all that.”
Lizzie shook her head. “The answer’s no. I’ve got better things to do … like sitting in the dark crying. You know?”
The guy stiffened. “Have it your own way,” he said, and shut the door on her.
Left on her own, she did as she said — sat in the dark and wept. She had been holding it together for so long, it had to come out somehow. She had nothing and no one to help her. The phone had been left behind in Christian’s flat, Adam was probably dead, and even if he wasn’t, would those two words she’d texted really be enough to lead him to her? But — she wasn’t giving up. She had Death inside her, souping her up. She finished her tears and started to feel her way around the box. There was some rubbish scattered around — some bits of old furniture that someone had dumped for the prisoners to sit on, perhaps. A mattress, a table, an old armchair, a dusty leather sofa.
She stood very still for a moment, getting control of herself, then went back to the door and felt her way around it. It was locked tight, so she began to feel her way around the walls of the container, looking for some kind of a crack or opening, no matter how small, that she could use to her benefit. She was full of Death. She was strong. She’d survived so far. There had to be something in here that could help her escape. Somehow or other, she was going to do it. And when she had, she was going to fulfill her bucket list. There was only one item on it — killing as many of these bastards as she could. And boy, she was really looking forward to that.
ADAM WAS ON THE M56, HAMMERING IT TOWARD MANCHESTER. The Porsche was a mess — bullet holes in the back, a couple of windows smashed in. If the police got to see it, he was going to get done. His driving was improving, but it still wasn’t all that great. Other drivers were making as much space as they could between him and them as he went swaying past them at 120 miles per hour in the fast lane. The GPS kept nagging him to slow down, but it didn’t stop telling him where to go.
He drove more calmly once he hit Manchester — no point asking for trouble. But when he arrived at his destination, his heart sank. It was an industrial wasteland — miles of it! The GPS directed him to a set of gates in front of acres of parked-up shipping containers and told him to drive straight on. But the gates were locked.
He got out and climbed the fence to have a look.
To one side was what looked like an abandoned waste disposal site. He could see heavy machinery — trucks, bulldozers, tractors — rusting where it had been left. Beyond them, a huge warehouse crumbled in the damp weather. In front of him was the container storage area. It just went on for miles.
Lizzie was somewhere in there … maybe. He had no chance searching on foot; it would take him forever. He needed satellite navigation, which seemed to be working on a map reference. Only one thing for it …
Adam reversed the car to get a decent run at the gate. He hit it at sixty miles an hour, ducking as he struck — just as well, as it took the roof off as he went through. He smashed the remains of the glass from the buckled window so he could see properly, and shot off in among the boxes. He heard engines behind him and peered back. Two motorbikes had pulled out and were on his tail already. Damn it! He went faster, wobbling furiously from side to side.
Adam’s car was fast, but the bikes were more maneuverable and he was losing ground. He had to get rid of them. He twisted ninety degrees, skidding violently, clipped a container, put his foot down flat, and powered up along the long avenues in between the boxes. “Turn left. Slow down. Turn round. Turn right,” ordered the GPS. Then — “You have reached your destination. You have passed your destination.” Adam looked desperately around. What had he passed? There was nothing there — just yet more containers sitting blandly under the clouds. He twisted the car around another ninety-degree corner and headed back up, but a bike appeared ahead of him. He cursed, swerved around yet another corner, then another, then another, braked to a halt, and jumped out. At least he could hide on foot. He just had time to get out of sight before the bikers turned up. Peering from behind a container, he watched them dismount and come to examine the Porsche.
While the men conferred, Adam tried the door to the box nearest him: locked. So was the next one, and the next. Chances were they were all locked. Behind him, out of sight, the bikes started off again. But where were they going? Adam paused, not sure which way to run. It was a nightmare place for a chase, with a million corners but nowhere to hide. He could run, he could look, he could dodge — but he could never get out of the endless avenues in between the boxes.
He began to jog away, back to where the GPS had told him his destination lay.
* * *
If Adam could have flown a mile into the sky and taken a view of the terminal from above, he would have seen that it was far from empty. There were a number of people moving about in between the boxes, each hidden from the other, like rats in a maze.
Jess was there, zigzagging his way across to the northern perimeter fence where the waste disposal site was. Like his brother, Jess paused to hide away when the bikes came close, and started on again as soon as they drove off. In the distance he could just make out the bells of the town hall chiming the quarter hour: quarter past twelve. He had forty-five minutes before the announcement.
He hurried on his way. He, Adam, and Christian at that point were all no more than twenty yards apart, but none of them had any idea where the others were. Jess heard someone scuff their feet on the tarmac, and paused. Who was that? Friend or foe? He paused again and hid, listening carefully, trying to make out which way the feet were headed and who they belonged to.
Ballantine’s men were out as well — some walking, some on motorbikes and quads hunting Jess, Christian, and Adam. Their orders for the kid who had broken down the gate in Vince’s car were shoot on sight. Jess they wanted alive; he was useful. And Christian, of course, had to be taken alive as well.
Christian himself was still there. When Lizzie had busted him, he had run to the edge of the docks to hide and weep. He’d thought they were in love, and she had betrayed him like a dog. His heart was broken. It would never heal. She was the same as all the rest.
Now, muttering to himself in a low monotone, he was creeping his way back into the heart of the container terminal toward the secure unit where his dad had no doubt locked Lizzie up. In his hand he cradled his knife — the short, stubby-bladed thing that had seen Vince away.
“See how she says no then,” he muttered to himself. “See how she does as she’s told, with this sweet baby stuck in her neck. See you soon, Lizzie.”
A motorbike roared nearby. Christian froze, but it shot past the gap in between a pair of containers ahead of him and vanished without the rider seeing him. Christian grinned. He had killed Vince; he had run away from his dad. Nothing could stop him now. “Soon, soon,” he crooned, and crept forward.
* * *
Adam rapidly began to despair of finding anything among all those containers. It was hopeless. He was sure he’d gone past the place where the car had told him his destination was — but he had no way of telling, since everything looked so much the same.
He heard it before he saw anything: a low, muttering voice. But from where? He froze, unable to work out where the speaker was. But then a figure crept out in front of him from in between the boxes, its back to him. It was a man; Adam recognized him from the strange clothes he wore.
Adam’s first instinct was — r
un. Get some distance between him and Christian, who was the scariest person he had ever met. But where Christian was, Lizzie must be nearby. He peered out again. Christian had already gone. Adam had no idea which way.
He ran lightly forward. There. To his right. A scuffing noise. Bending low, he inched forward again. At any point he was visible along half a mile of box edges. Which way had Christian gone?
He paused to listen. Whoever it was, they were close — very close. Just behind that corner there …
He peered around the edge of the box — then jerked his head back. Christian was less than ten feet away. He’d changed. It wasn’t just that his eyes had gone dark, or that his mouth was slack. His whole face seemed to have altered shape, as his madness deformed him from within. He was squatting on the ground, head bent low, talking to himself. Listening closely, Adam could just about make it out.
“Let me down. Betrayed me. No, no, no. She was scared, you idiot, that’s all. Too scared. Not scared enough. Betrayed!” he groaned in a hollow voice. “Ask her. Kill her. Ask her! Why should I, what excuse is there? She was scared, she was scared. And so am I.”
Christian panted and sobbed briefly. From his hiding place just around the corner, Adam could hear his feet on the gritty tarmac and was just about to risk a brief peep, when Christian actually appeared, crossing directly in front of him. Adam froze, but Christian, focused on his murderous intention, did not look to either side, and moved straight on. Adam held his breath, waited until Christian was a box or so ahead, and then, as quietly as he could, stole out after him.
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