by Alex Scarrow
‘Yeah, but… but they’re running an entirely different freakin’ mission! You step out, they’ll shoot you just as soon as look at — ’
Foster grasped her arm. ‘Maddy… I’m dead anyway.’
He didn’t need to explain that. They both knew he was dying. She knew he was dying the day he walked out of that Starbucks and left her in charge of the team. But somehow the reality of that had seemed removed. With time looping for her in New York, he was never going to die. Every time she’d gone to visit him in Central Park, he was the same old Foster. No sicker. But then, of course, he wouldn’t be. It was always the same moment for him. The same morning over and over and over.
Since she’d grabbed him from Central Park, time, for him, had advanced. Two days, that was all it had been, but enough time that she could clearly see he was getting worse. A dying man. He should be in a hospital bed, a hospice, kept comfortable on a drip perhaps, not running for his life through a shopping mall.
‘They know me,’ he said. ‘It’s enough… it’ll confuse them. They may let me talk.’
‘ Know you? ’
‘There’s no time to explain!’ He pushed her. ‘Go! Just go!’
Maddy glanced at the girl beside them. She was in shock, pale. Alive, but maybe for not much longer unless she got some help.
The gunfire was beginning to wane. Whomever the support units had been exchanging shots with outside on the concourse, police, mall security, it was nearly a done deal now.
‘Foster, I…’
He shushed her with a finger over her lips. ‘This is goodbye, Maddy. Don’t ruin it by blurting something stupid.’
She pulled his hand away. ‘Foster…’ She wanted to call him by his real name. ‘Liam…’
Foster smiled. ‘It’s a long while since I’ve been called that.’
‘Please…’ She had no idea what she wanted to say. Something meaningful. ‘ Please ’ wasn’t it. ‘ Please ’ was just so pathetically lame.
‘For the love of God, Maddy… will you just bleedin’ well go!’
‘Liam…’ she said again. ‘I, I…’
He waved her silent. ‘I loved you, Maddy. Each time. I always did. Even when I knew…’ He stopped himself. So much he wanted to say, and so little that he could in this all too short heartbeat of time. ‘Just go!’
She heard footsteps inside the store. Heavy, purposeful footsteps drawing closer.
Then, cursing herself for being a coward, for leaving him behind, she scooted on hands and feet, through aisles of chunky plastic playsets, beneath rows of fur-hooded children’s anoraks and racks of cheerily coloured wellies, perfect for little feet to stamp in autumn rain puddles. She scuttled on all fours until she finally stumbled upon the moving metal grated steps of an escalator.
Foster waited until she was out of sight, stood up, his hands raised above him. Both support units levelled their weapons at him. The male support unit was bleeding from three gunshot wounds, one to the forehead. A dark trickle of blood rolled sluggishly down between thick brows, down the side of his nose from a circle of puckered flesh above his eyes. A perfect take-down shot from some policeman or mall guard. Whoever had taken that head shot must have died wondering how a man could be shot between the eyes and shrug it off like a mere gnat bite.
‘You know me,’ said Foster.
The female support unit frowned, a hesitant, confused expression on her face. The old man standing before her looked very similar to one of the faces in her database. It wasn’t an exact match, but a very close one. Close enough that she wanted to take a couple of steps closer, see him more clearly and confirm his identity one way or the other.
‘Where are the others?’ asked Abel.
Foster shrugged. ‘Long gone.’
‘You are a part of their team?’ Halfway between a statement and a question.
‘You know me, don’t you?’ said Foster again, trying a lopsided smile. ‘It’s me. I’m your Authorized User. Now then… why don’t you lower your weapons?’
Abel narrowed his eyes. He had to admit the man standing in front of him with his hands raised did look very much like the man who had issued them their instructions: Authorized User.
He cast an uncertain glance at Faith. A glance that asked the question: Is he?
She was still working on that particular one herself.
The escalator carried Maddy slowly towards the shop’s upper floor; Baby-Toddler Wear. It was so still, so very quiet. All she could hear was the gentle hum of the escalator’s motor and the soft chime of mall music outside. Still down on her hands and knees, she decided to chance one last look. She lifted her head to see over the smoked glass side of the escalator, over the black rubber rim of the hand rail and she caught sight of Foster, standing just yards in front of the two units. His arms raised in surrender… but slowly lowering them as if the gesture of surrender was no longer necessary.
He was saying something, she could just about hear his voice, low, unclear. But it was definitely him doing the talking.
My God, he’s actually doing it! He’s actually talking them round!
For a moment there, just for a moment, she let herself believe something might go their way for once.
Then one of the units fired.
Her last image of Foster was him dropping to his knees in front of the killer meatbots. She thought she heard him swear at them, something Irish, something defiant… something so very Liam. Then, as the escalator carried her past a sales display and she finally lost sight of him, she heard four or five shots one after the other. Then one last executioner’s shot.
Chapter 22
7.32 a.m., 12 September 2001, North Haven Plaza, outside Branford
Liam led the way out of the toystore’s upper-floor exit, on to the top concourse. The few mid-morning shoppers were frozen where they were; no one was going anywhere, merely exchanging expressions of panic.
‘Was that a gun I just heard?’ a woman asked Liam as he and the two support units rushed past.
‘Aye,’ said Liam, dragging a dawdling Becks by the hand.
‘We must stop and fight them,’ she said.
‘There’s two of ’em. And they got guns.’ He looked at her. ‘Are you that desperate to get yourself into a scrap?’
She cocked her head. ‘Scrap?’ Not used to Liam’s speech patterns just yet.
‘Inadvisable,’ said Bob. ‘The best course of action right now is evasion.’
Liam nodded. ‘Listen to your big brother.’
They were just passing a Barnes amp; Noble when half a dozen more shots erupted from the floor below and rang out across the mall.
‘Jay-zus!’
‘Oh my God!’ someone across the way screamed. ‘It’s terrorists!’
The ‘T’ word spread like a ripple across a still pond. People’s mouths dropping open into ‘O’s. The mall music suddenly stopped and a voice announced over the tannoy that an emergency situation was in progress and that all customers and staff were to proceed immediately to the nearest fire exits.
Inevitably someone screamed the ‘B’ word and the frozen tableau of confusion turned into a flood of shop staff emerging from the entrances of their respective stores, spilling on to the upper concourse. Suddenly it seemed like a very busy mall.
Liam and the other two joined the press of bodies heading towards the escalators at the end that would take them down to the front entrance and out into the car park.
Sal and Rashim had found a different way out of the toystore on the lower floor, a door marked STAFF ONLY that led to a stockroom piled high with cardboard boxes and bubble wrap. From there they found a door at the back that gave access to a service corridor of dull grey breeze-block walls.
‘Which way now?’ asked Rashim.
‘I don’t know.’ Her guess was left. Left would take them towards the entrance they came in, she figured. She led the way. Muted by two closed doors, they heard the faintest crackle of gunfire behind them.
‘This is
insane,’ gasped Rashim. ‘Who in God’s name wants you lot dead so badly?’
‘Jahulla!’ she whispered. ‘Wish I knew.’ It felt to her like they’d been running non-stop for weeks. In added-up time for her, it was almost that. Just after sending Liam and Bob back to Rome, that’s when they’d been jumped in Times Square. Ambushed and pursued all the way back to the archway, and there, attacked yet again — one of the units even managing to dive through the portal right behind them and join them back in Ancient Rome.
Pandora. It was asking about Pandora that had set this off. Sal was almost certain of that. That and perhaps, somehow, it was linked to that poor, poor man who’d jumped back to 1831 to warn her about something.
But what was that warning? ‘ The bear ’. ‘ You’re not who you think you are.’ What the pinchudda was that supposed to mean?
I think I’m Sal. I’m Saleena Vikram. I’m a schoolgirl from Ajmeera Independent Academy in Mumbai. I used to play Pikodu pretty well. And listen to bhangra-metal. I’m the daughter of Sanjay and Abeer Vikram. And I used to live in a small apartment in Mumbai. Papaji used to buy and sell computer chips. Mamaji used to be an accountant. What part of all of that isn’t right?
They turned a corner.
‘Yo! Hey!’
Ahead of them, a black mall security guard. ‘Stop right there!’ He had a handgun pointed at them. ‘Hands where I can see them!’
‘We’re trying to get — ’
‘SHUT UP!’ A hand fumbled for the radio on his belt; he kept his eyes on them. ‘This is Kent. I got two of ’em right here. Service Access 5b.’
The radio squawked static and an unintelligible voice.
The mall guard replied. ‘Asian. One male, approximately mid-twenties. One female, mid-teens.’
Another squirt of static and voice.
‘Uh… yeah, he’s got a bit of a beard. They were both running from the gunfire.’
Static and voice.
‘Copy that!’ He hung the radio back on his belt. ‘You two raghead terrorist sons of…’ He bit his lip. ‘You gonna see a whole bunch of prison time.’
‘We are not terrorists!’ said Rashim.
‘You put a bomb in this mall somewhere? Huh? That it? You gonna blow up some more innocent people?’
‘Shadd-yah!’ Sal cursed. ‘We’re not terrorists!’
‘ Shallah? What’s that? Some Ay-rab raghead-talk or something?’
‘She’s Indian,’ said Rashim. ‘I’m Persian. That makes a total of zero “Ay-rabs” here.’
‘SHUT UP!’ He jerked his gun at them. ‘Put your goddamn hands on the wall, Abu-Babu!’
Sal shook her head, pointing over her shoulder. ‘The bad guys’re back there! They’ve got guns and — ’
‘You put your goddamn hands against the wall, miss, or I swear I’ll put a bullet in both of you right now!’
She could see the knuckle of his trigger finger bulging, the skin paler, drawn over tendon and bone. There were already several pounds of pressure resting on that trigger.
‘OK… OK…’ She placed her palms up against the rough breeze blocks. ‘Rashim…’ Silently, she urged him to do likewise.
‘ Rashim, is it, eh?’ The mall guard shook his head as he approached. Then as Sal and Rashim adopted the legs-apart-hands-against-the-wall pose, the guard began to pat Sal down one-handed.
‘What is it with you goddamned Moslems? Uh?’ he huffed as he frisked them. ‘What the hell is it you hate so much ’bout America? What is it, the Big Macs? The freedom? The rap music?’
‘Look, please… we’re not actually terrorists — ’
‘Or even Muslims,’ added Sal.
‘I lost a cousin in what you people did yesterday. Good man. Worked up in the top of the north tower in the restaurant. Took care of his folks, worked real hard.’
He began to frisk Rashim. ‘But that ain’t enough, is it? He’s gotta live your way, hasn’t he? Got to grow a goddamn Santa-beard and wear them stupid pyjama-suits. Gotta go an’ worship Buddha five times a day — ’
‘It’s Allah actually.’
The guard pushed Rashim’s head hard against the wall. ‘You shut your goddamn raghead mouth!’
Chapter 23
7.34 a.m., 12 September 2001, North Haven Plaza, Branford
They regarded the body of the old man lying on the floor in front of them in silence. Beside him a young female was cowering on the floor, her hands clasped to a wound.
‘P-please… d-don’t kill me…’ she whimpered.
Both support units ignored her. She was irrelevant. Back to the dead man.
‘It is an older version of the one called Liam O’Connor,’ said Faith, studying the old man’s face. ‘A valid target.’
Abel nodded. ‘Good.’ He looked up. ‘The others will be nearby.’ They’d spotted the group heading into this store and briefly picked up the idents of the two support units with them. Those signals were gone now. Switched off.
Other than sneaking past them out of the store’s main entrance, he noted only two other possible exits for them.
‘We must separate.’
Faith looked at the escalator leading to the store’s upper floor. ‘I will go that way.’
Abel nodded and immediately strode towards the staff only door at the rear of the store.
› Locate and kill. We have six remaining targets, he added wirelessly.
› Affirmative, she replied.
Faith jogged up the escalator as another tannoy announcement reverberated throughout the mall. ‘Attention, attention… this is an emergency announcement. All customers and staff are asked to immediately leave the mall. This is an emergency and not a drill. Please leave the…’
The escalator jerked to a halt beneath her feet. She hurried up the rest of the way and at the top she scanned the shop floor. She spotted thirteen people, seven of them wearing the same pink shirts as the dying girl downstairs — she assumed the shirt was some sort of a uniform. None of them, or the others, bore any resemblance to the mission briefing images she’d started with, nor the library of fleeting shutter-frame images, glimpses of her quarry, that she’d managed to build up during the mission so far.
Faith emerged quickly from the store, tucking the gun away into the waistband of her jogging bottoms and hiding the gun’s protruding handle beneath her hoody. No need to attract any unwanted attention. They’d already done enough of that with the gunfight downstairs.
She joined the throng of people on the upper floor, emerging from store fronts. So many of them sluggish, uncertain: seemingly unsure whether this was a real emergency or a drill, unsure whether the exchange of gunfire minutes ago might have been stupid kids letting off some firecrackers.
She scanned the backs of heads, necks, shoulders. She had a comparison image of that particular view of one of the targets called Madelaine. From back in Times Square, when she’d crossed the street and chased them into the building. Madelaine: tall, slim. Long, light-coloured curly hair pulled into a ponytail. Jeans. Checked shirt. The other girl, Saleena: short, slim. Black hair. Dark leggings, black hooded top. Of course they could be wearing different clothes by now.
Her eyes coolly evaluated the people hurrying in front of her, one after the other in quick succession.
Maddy found herself in the middle of a milling crowd of people, a bottleneck at the top of both of the now stationary escalators leading down to the ground floor. Someone had turned them off. Probably a routine health and safety measure in the event of a mall evacuation. Stupid, though, being off. It was taking an age to get down. She was stuck at the top, waiting for an elderly couple in front of her to tramp slowly down.
Come on, come on.
She guessed she must be the last one in their group to get out. The others were probably already running back across the car park, along the pavement towards the motel and their waiting RV.
Her mind had yet to process what she’d glimpsed. It was there in her head. Foster being gunned down. But in the flee
ting minute — two minutes — since then, she’d yet to digest it, make sense of it. Feel something about it.
That was going to come, of course. Tears. Probably lots of them. Fear, grief, panic, stress. Four excuses right there to let it go and cry like some typical movie girl-in-distress: all quivering, dimpled chin and smudged mascara.
If she managed to live long enough, that is.
A woman pushed past Maddy, pushed past the old couple in front of her. Heavy heels clanked on the metal-strip steps, wide hips bumping people aside as she pushed her way forward and wheezed a mantra of barely contained panic. ‘Oh my Lord, protect me! Oh my Lord, protect me!’
Maddy wanted to push her way forward like that. But didn’t. Too rude. Still…
Come on. Come on!
She wished she had Bob here with her. Even their half-grown Becks. She might only look like twelve or thirteen years old, but she could snap a neck or take a magazine full of bullets almost as well as Bob.
Then she saw her face. Becks. Only of course it wasn’t Becks.
‘Jesus! You guys took your goddamn time!’ the mall guard called out, relieved at the sight of five cops jogging along the narrow service passage towards him.
‘These the two perps you called in?’ said one of them. A police sergeant. He and one of the others were carrying shotguns.
‘Yeah. These are them.’
‘They don’t match the description our boys called in,’ he said, pumping shells into the weapon’s breech. ‘Armed male and female. Both adults, both Caucasian.’ He looked at Rashim and Sal. ‘These clearly aren’t them.’
‘But — ’
‘Jason, take these two out!’
‘Yessir,’ said one of the cops.
‘You give your details to him,’ he said to Sal and Rashim. ‘We’ll need witness statements off you later.’
‘Right,’ said Sal. ‘Thanks.’
The sergeant stroked his chin thoughtfully, his radio crackled with traffic. More cops on their way in. An armed response unit among them.
‘We got several officers down in there, sir.’