Killing Eva

by Alex Blackmore

  She laid her out flat, checked her tongue wasn’t falling down her throat, and moved her into the recovery position.

  She ran back to the other side of the van and pulled a small medical box from underneath the driver’s seat. She yanked it open and began tossing items onto the floor, until she found the vial she was looking for. Her breath was rasping, her heart pounding in her throat.

  She glanced across the van, through the open passenger door, and saw Eva had rolled onto her back and started to vomit. She was choking, spewing liquid with an oddly bluish tinge up into the air and back into her mouth again. Her eyes were open but she was not conscious.

  ‘Shit,’ muttered Irene and scrabbled in the box until she found a syringe. She ran back around the front of the van, pushed Eva back onto one side and began scooping the vomit out of her mouth with her hands.

  When her mouth was clear, Eva continued to jerk on the floor, shivering and jumping with glazed eyes. She vomited again but, this time, it spilled onto the ground as Irene held her on her side.

  Irene pulled the wrapping off the syringe, prepped it and plunged it into the top of the vial she had selected. She steadily pushed the plunger down and then slowly pulled up just a few centimetres of liquid. She withdrew the syringe from the vial, quickly tapped the side and positioned it over Eva’s arm.

  She hesitated for a second and then stuck the metal point into Eva’s skin and pushed the plunger all the way down, slowly and steadily.

  She could see the instant effect as the liquid entered Eva’s blood stream. She froze mid shudder. Her eyes widened even further and she seemed to rise slightly off the ground. Irene took a step back, wondering if she had used the wrong vial, or the wrong dosage.

  Then there was a long, low moan from the spot on the floor where Eva lay and the girl collapsed onto her back, her face staring up at the sky.

  She lay there for several seconds, her eyes without expression, and then she blinked.

  ‘How long exactly do we have before the implants could fail?’

  ‘It’s difficult to say but I would estimate another 24 hours.’

  ‘And after that, the technology won’t work?’

  ‘After that, we would need to ensure she receives a high enough dosage to reach the same saturation point as before, perhaps replace the implants, which would be difficult without further confinement.’

  There was a dissatisfied silence from the three faces on the screen.

  This irritated Paul immeasurably. He didn’t even care about this any more; once Eva was on the plane he would be gone – why did he have to put up with this scathing interrogation? He was fed up with judgement from their bloated faces, with their laughable ski tans. They didn’t realise how lucky they were he had come along when he did. He had forgotten, once again, that his was not the genius behind the technology – and that he hadn’t ‘come along’ but been planted there. But he did manage to remember that, unless he played his part to perfection, he could end up with nothing.

  ‘Are the drugs damaging her?’

  One of the talking heads began again. ‘I mean, is there a danger of losing her at any point?’

  Paul bit his tongue. Should he really explain the imminent danger of the implants? They had only been tested once before and the test subject had escaped, so no controlled conclusion could be drawn. He reminded himself this really wasn’t his responsibility.

  ‘No, we won’t lose her before the launch date.’

  ‘You’re certain about that?’

  ‘She may become ill, for sure, but she won’t die. To be honest, the more incapacitated she is the better.’

  ‘Doesn’t she have to consent to give the blood sample before the technology will work?’

  Paul felt like grabbing these people and shaking them. Consent indeed…

  ‘No, she doesn’t have to consent as in sign anything.’

  ‘But you said…’

  ‘It’s the state of her blood which is important. She must be consenting enough not to be afraid, stressed or angry.’

  ‘And, if she feels any of those emotions at the time the sample is given, it won’t work.’ This was another of ‘the heads’ now – he seemed a little more switched on, despite being by far the greyest-haired and most lined of them all. Perhaps he was the one.

  ‘Yes,’ Paul said, ‘and she’s less likely to feel them if she’s… fuzzy headed,’ he concluded, unable to find a more scientific term.

  There was a pause on the other end of the line before the same man spoke again. ‘You know best, Paul.’ This was the first time any of them had used his name – he hadn’t even been aware they knew it.

  ‘The timing,’ continued the man, ‘is crucial here.’

  ‘I’m aware of that.’

  ‘There’s just a slight concern over the reliability of the mapping – even with the implants will it be enough to convince her she is really seeing who she thinks she is seeing?’

  Paul decided not to mention the fact Eva had already been exposed to a reveal and they had no idea why it had failed. He wondered whether the men in front of him were aware this had happened. Surely, they must be, he concluded. They seemed to know every other development, no matter how small.

  ‘She has been convinced, so far,’ he responded, aware he sounded less than sure himself.

  ‘Does it matter she has already seen one “Jackson” who turned out not to be the real thing?’

  So, they did know.

  Paul hesitated.

  The men on the other end of the webcam seemed to sense it straight away. The two turned to each other and began whispering in such an unguarded way that, for the first time, Paul wondered about the fallibility of the project. He could just about make out what they were saying and it sounded like panic. They were blaming each other for trusting technology which was turning out to be so unreliable. It was clear the desire for security – to stop anyone else accessing their carefully laid plans – had now become a wall keeping even them out, too.

  All the best laid plans, he thought to himself, smugly.

  Outside the door, Joseph Smith listened with interest.

  He was thoughtful.

  There could be considerable advantage for him here, in fact perhaps this was the opportunity he had been waiting for.

  Although he was not privy to exactly what the prize was – what ‘financial system’ Eva’s blood unlocked – he knew it was big. In a way, he didn’t need to know what it was to understand that these men valued it greatly. Which meant others would, too.

  The men on whom he was eavesdropping had worked for decades to create a situation to provide them with incredible power, beyond anything ever achieved before if what Paul had said was correct. And then, apparently, they had foolishly tied it all to technology they did not understand. That they could not predict.

  Why did people trust technology so implicitly, he wondered, as he heard the whispered panic continue.

  It was surely the first rule of life that you only trusted what you understood. What many people would have described as a leap of faith, Joseph saw as recklessness. He did not take leaps of faith, he did not throw caution to the wind. He slowly listened, watched and waited until he was absolutely sure a situation would work to his advantage, that a person was exactly what he thought they were – only then did he take any action.

  The only time in recent memory that he had stepped outside this pattern of behaviour was with the woman in Berlin, who had managed to cut his face as he attacked her. He had not thought that through, because he had allowed his ideas to supersede his reality. An emotion-driven response that, inevitably, had resulted in failure.

  And that had been enough of a warning shot to send reckless impulses right back where they belonged – buried.

  He looked at the tiny key in his hand and turned it over a couple of times. He pressed his fi
nger into the cold metal and waited for the word VERITAS to appear when the heat activated it. For some reason, this fascinated him. He loved the idea that the word was revealed only to the person who knew it was there. Or who knew where to look.

  Paul had not seen him quietly take the key and pocket it.

  Paul was clever – academically so – but a pompous and narcissistic man who paid very little attention to detail. Something had happened to him, he had lost people or some situation had befallen him, and now he believed the world owed him. Joseph Smith enjoyed working with him because he was easy to manipulate. Men full of bitterness were often weak like him.

  These men believed in their own superiority and assumed others would too, which was what made them such an easy target for Smith.

  So often power or wealth bred complacency and lack of awareness. There was nothing to keep you sharp like poverty, want and desperate need.

  Smith walked away from the doorway. He had heard enough.

  He made his way through the corridors of the opulent villa and into the darker rooms of the basement below. Here, there was far more activity than the sunny grounds above belied.

  He entered a large room, where three men were standing against a wall, each one having their photo taken.

  They were all tall, of almost identical height. Each one was broad shouldered, had unruly, brown, curly hair and dark brown eyes.

  No one looked twice Joseph Smith as he made his way around the laboratory. No one even noticed him.

  THIRTY TWO

  It was nearing midday when Irene slowed the van and turned onto a straight road that seemed to lead right into the peaks of the Maures Mountains. The area was thick with lush green trees and fields, and more greenery carpeted the slopes of the surrounding peaks, which reflected the bright blue of the sky around them.

  Eva had been still for the last hour of the journey. She felt uncomfortable in her own skin, almost unbearably so.

  Irene had told her about the fit. Eva had heard her speaking but just stared at her, numbly. She remembered nothing. That terrified her. She seemed to have become a danger to herself – her body was no longer her own.

  Irene apparently had no opinion on this but had calmly relayed the facts. Eva had taken this unflusteredness as a sign that Irene knew more than she was letting on, even that she had expected it.

  Eva felt desperate. How could she help herself.

  ‘Where are we?’ Eva’s voice was dead. She was exhausted and she had realised, over the past hour, she was starting to feel emotion again – this time a fear which was in danger of ballooning into terror. She urgently needed answers, someone to explain the events of recent days – and what was happening to her now. Not knowing felt as if it might tip her over the edge of sanity.

  Irene continued to drive, without replying, but the answer had become clear. A private airfield.

  ‘La Môle airport,’ Irene said finally, almost unnecessarily.

  ‘Am I going home?’

  ‘Yes, we need to return you to London to run proper tests to establish exactly what’s happened to you,’ lied Irene.

  Eva turned suddenly. There were tears in her eyes. ‘Please, Irene,’ she begged, ‘please just tell me what’s going on. I can’t not know anymore.’

  Irene looked taken aback. Eva’s emotionless reactions of the past 24 hours were in complete contrast to the way she was behaving now. The idea had been to destabilise her mind, with drugs, faces, attacks and events – to make her ready to trust as directed. But Irene wondered whether the girl was actually going to keep it together. Perhaps they had damaged her beyond repair.

  ‘I don’t know anything, Eva.’

  Eva’s eyes narrowed, she tensed in her seat.

  ‘You’re lying.’

  Another switch in emotion. This time Eva looked as if she was about to lose control. Irene drew back. Her fingers flexed as she thought of the weapon she might have to reach for in the glove compartment. She stared at Eva, who was breathing heavily, sweating. It was as if that fit had been the trigger for something inside her, like some kind of explosive primed to self-destruct.

  She steadied the car on the road and took her eyes off Eva, wondering what she would see when she turned back towards the passenger seat. Ahead of them was the tarmac of the airport and the terminal building. It was quiet, just as she had expected it to be. Their plane would be standing waiting, ready fuelled in the section of the airport reserved for the most V of VIPs and where no one would see them move between the van and plane.

  The van would be disposed of.

  Irene continued past the terminal building. A quick glance at Eva indicated she had fallen asleep, again. It was terribly odd behaviour and made Irene feel incredibly uncomfortable.

  Ahead, she saw the tiny Challenger 600 which would fly them the short trip. She drove right up to the plane – no point taking any chances – and killed the engine.

  She waited for the crew of two to emerge but nothing happened.

  She gently shoved Eva awake. When she opened her eyes, the girl seemed almost normal again.

  Irene sat still in her seat in the van for several seconds and looked around the silent airfield. She reached forward, opened the glove compartment and took out a small handgun.

  She heard Eva inhale as if about to speak, and raised a hand to silence her.

  It was a warm spring day on the tarmac of La Môle. The south of France was beginning to come to life, the summer season just around the corner. It was sunny, picturesque and quiet. Too quiet.

  Irene slowly opened the van door.

  Eva watched Irene move out of the van with a sense of great trepidation. Inside her mind, emotions were rushing, jumping and leapfrogging over each other. She had gone from being entirely emotionless to lacking any control over the feelings that seemed to come from nowhere. Several minutes ago, she had wanted to kill Irene, really kill her. Now, she felt utterly terrified at the thought of losing her. A small amount of fear in this situation might be normal – Irene was obviously wary – but Eva felt she was about to be overwhelmed.

  What was happening to her?

  Irene indicated for her to step out from the other side of the van and she did so slowly, leaving the door open behind her so as to make no noise. Eva was surprised no one emerged from the aircraft to greet them.

  Irene waited as Eva walked, on wobbly legs, around the front of the van, leaning on the bonnet for support. Looking at Irene, Eva momentarily thought the older woman might hold out her hand. Realising she must look pathetic, she forced herself to straighten up; she came to a halt alongside Irene, who gave her a long and slightly searching look.

  Eva met her gaze evenly, unsure of why she was being so appraised.

  They began to walk towards the plane together, in step with each other.

  When they were only a metre or so away, Eva saw a shadow fall across the open door of the small aircraft. She stopped. Irene did not.

  Irene raised the gun. A sound exploded like a whip crack and Irene was on the ground. Eva stood for several seconds and then went to Irene. She had been shot in the shoulder and was clearly struggling to contain the pain.

  ‘Move, Eva,’ she hissed.

  Eva turned and went to stand but stumbled as she realised someone was standing right behind her.

  It was Leon.

  As the small plane flew up and over mainland France, Eva studied Leon. He had secured her into the seat opposite him and now sat looking at her.

  He was almost too big for the seat because of the broadness of his shoulders and the muscle definition of his arms.

  Irene was behind them. He had not treated her gunshot wound and Irene had not complained but now sat, silently, in the seat behind. Eva could hear her laboured breathing.

  That had been a surprise. Irene had not really reacted to being shot by Leon, almost as if s
he expected it. But there was a definite hostility. Eva could remember little bad blood between Leon and Irene. Although Leon’s affiliations were subject to change at the opening of a chequebook, she knew.

  She had felt paralysed on that hot runway and watched in shock as he roughly hustled Irene towards the plane. There was a short exchange between them but Eva could not hear what was said.

  Why she didn’t run away at that point she didn’t know.

  Then Leon had come back for her.

  Still she hadn’t moved.

  Even after everything that had happened between them in Berlin, how he had tried to steal her phone, the physical threats… She had just allowed him to lead her towards the plane and fasten her – incapacitate her – in the seat.

  There was some sort of implicit trust in him. As if he might be on her side. She desperately needed someone to be on her side.

  Eva finished her train of thought and looked up.

  He was staring at her.

  It was unnerving.

  ‘She needs a doctor, Leon.’

  He continued to stare at her with steely eyes but said nothing.

  ‘Leon?’

  He didn’t reply. She began to feel angry.

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  He slowly nodded his head.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘I said she needs a doctor. You’ve shot her. You obviously don’t want to kill her or you would have just left her on the tarmac.’

  ‘It was best she wasn’t found.’

  As usual, Leon wasted few words.

  Eva watched his chest rise and fall, almost as if he was sighing. She wondered how he really felt about all this, what his role actually was – and for whom. Her mind played around with who he might have been if he had not been drawn into this world of violence and deception.

  She stopped herself. She was romanticising him. She was imbuing him with qualities she had no idea whether or not he possessed – such as a desire to be a good man. Perhaps this would always have been his road.

  Nevertheless, Eva felt excitement as his eyes once again came to meet hers.