The Lynx Assassin (The Society Book 2)

by Karen Guyler

  Eva thanked Tricia without knowing what she was saying. She took the stairs two at a time, out of the airlock as fast as she could. The front door closed behind her with the finality that reinforced what she was about to do couldn’t be undone. Goodbye career at S, MI6, the whole security services.

  “You’ve got Lily.” Lily’s voicemail played in her ear the entire journey.

  When Eva got off at Wembley Park tube station, she didn’t need to check Google maps, she just followed the crowd.

  How was she going to find Lily in amongst everyone?

  She reached for the reassurance at her hip, but that was safely locked away back at S. Her temporary access pass would have to do.

  She brandished it at the hi-vis vested security guard searching bags, stationed in front of the line of staff checking tickets with mobile scanners, let him read it before telling him in a low voice. “Security Services. I’m checking out a credible threat.” The words were dynamite, blowing up her career, but she said them as though they didn’t matter, as though her fear for her daughter wasn’t threatening to choke her. “It’s just me at the moment, we’re keeping it low key, we don’t want to cause panic.” She looked at the streams of people behind her, in front of her. The guard followed her gaze.

  “No one’s alerted us to anything.” His voice rumbled like a wannabe James Earl Jones.

  “The information’s only just been confirmed. Can I go in?”

  He hesitated. Was he waiting for a codeword, something to prove Eva was who she said she was? He beckoned one of the ticket scanners over.

  “Security Services, checking out a threat. You let her in.”

  A dart of fright flitted over the girl’s face. She looked as though she should be at home doing her homework, but she nodded.

  “Do you need us to do anything?” the guard asked.

  “Are you on the door all night?” He nodded. “I’ll come and find you if we do.”

  Eva charged inside, stopped dead. Where did she start? The high-ceilinged oval auditorium was nearly full, excited anticipation thrummed through the air. Her gaze searched the tiered seating from the stage at the top. Where are you, Lily? That wouldn’t find her, better if Eva could determine there was no threat. That she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion Gordon thought she had, and she was just embarrassing herself.

  She headed for the cordoned-off area on the flat behind the seating, a mixer lineup that wouldn’t have been out of place at a concert, manned by five crew members, dressed in black jeans, T-shirts and sweatshirts.

  “You on time? Can I give the nod?” She gestured at the stage.

  The guy didn’t look up from his screen. “We’re still rejigging the change. Could have done with more warning.”

  “There’s been another change?” Eva asked.

  Now she had his attention.

  “Not that I know about, we’re working the first one, the new keynote.”

  “We’ve had several backstage. Which one are you guys on?”

  “The one that makes a difference to things. You know, Carl Rubin speaking.”

  39

  He was there. Carl Rubin was there.

  Eva was right.

  “That change, yes, of course, that one.” She gabbled at the sound mixing guy. “You’re on it, good. Time check?”

  “Ready in five.”

  She walked away. Looking up into the stands at twelve and a half thousand people surrounding her. Think like an agent, not a mum. The ceiling, far above her head, was high enough to get a drone up there, not an easy flight in between beams and light arrays, but probably too doable for a good pilot. Their salvation, the bullets couldn’t come in through that, the roof would effectively cut off the signal from the RFID tags if he’d managed to deploy them.

  How have you done it, Rubin? How have you deployed the tags this time?

  A shower of the powder from the ceiling was too hit and miss. Everyone could end up tagged. He was looking for a thousand targets. How had he chosen them?

  A couple passed her with huge drinks in paper cups. And then the stadium lights dimmed, and the crowd cheered, clapped and stomped to a slow drumbeat. A teenager dashed past Eva, barging into her, throwing a sorry over her shoulder.

  The drumbeat was winding up, whipping the crowd up with it.

  Eva thumbed through her list of phone contacts, finger hovering over Gordon, Luke, Iago. She hit Luke’s name, cut off his answer.

  “I’m at the SSE Arena, Rubin’s here. It’s going down here, Luke, right now, his thousand targets.” She swallowed, clamped hard on her emotions. Lily had a one in a twelve chance of surviving. It didn’t feel like very long odds.

  Eva pushed steel into her spine, stood straighter. “I don’t know how he’s marked them, how he’s going to release the bullets. A good drone pilot could probably control it inside the auditorium. The panic if he shoots them in here though,” she forced herself to finish her sentence, “will probably kill twice as many as the shots.”

  She walked around the back of the sound mixing area, searching the floor. Between the seats on the tiered sections was too tight for a drone to be sitting there waiting to be instructed. On the stage? She’d have no warning before it took off, the drone would lift up and the—she wasn’t thinking.

  Her panic was drowning her logic. The drone didn’t shoot the victims; the rifle did. She needed to be looking for a rifle that had line of sight with the drone. So many more places he could have hidden that, anywhere up on the lighting arrays. She swallowed. If she had to go up there to save Lily, she would.

  She could barely hear Luke above the now pulsing music. “Hold on.”

  She ran out of an exit, into the relative silence of the corridor. “Go ahead.”

  “I’m taking it to Gordon, getting you reinforcements.” Luke said.

  “He forbid me from doing this,” Eva said. “I shouldn’t involve you. I know we have no remit here, and you can’t help because of your shoulder, but we need to stop Rubin. Can you call the emergency services and all that?”

  “Keep your phone on. I’ll call you back.”

  Eva went into the auditorium, walking along the flat area, scanning the tiered seating above her for Lily and Anya. Please see me, sweetheart.

  An explosion of music drowned the drumbeat, and a voice filled the air. “Hello, SSE Arena, put your hands together for your keynote speaker, the man heading the charge to stop the climate emergency.” The announcer wound up to fever pitch as though he was announcing a world heavyweight championship fight. “Founder and Chairman of Futura Energy, green warrior, Carl Rubin.”

  All the ego massaging Rubin could ever want was present in the frenzied applause, whistling and cheering as he walked across the stage.

  “Hello, London. It’s good to be here.” It was strange to see his grinning face on the big screens looking like a normal person when Eva knew what he really was, what his real agenda was. That he didn’t value one of the twelve and a half thousand people applauding him. “Are you ready to disrupt some things?”

  Apparently they were, if the level of noise was anything to go by.

  “I thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, each and every one of you, for responding to the climate emergency call. For being willing to do what’s necessary to reclaim our planet from the harmful effects of the human race. I salute you.”

  He let the cheering run for a minute, two, until he held his hand up for quiet. Quieter at least.

  “Now I know you all understand about Earth Overshoot Day, you’re kindred warriors.” He paced from one side of the stage to the other. “Earth Overshoot Day, the day when we consume so many of our planet’s resources that she can’t replenish them for the remainder of time left in the year. This year, it falls in August.” He stopped pacing, accused the audience. “August. Mother Earth cannot replace everything you consume in September, October, November and December. Four months,” he punctuated his message with silence and stony glares, and Eva could see the real C
arl Rubin on the screens, “one hundred and twenty-two days in which you are the enemy, when you are killing the planet. Every bite of food, every sip of water that you take during those one hundred and twenty-two days every car, bus, train or plane journey, every time you charge your phone, put heating on in your homes, every time makes you a murderer.”

  The thunderous applause, cheering and whistling had dropped to virtually no noise at all. Eva would at least be able to tell where the drone was taking off from. She flicked her phone to silent, vibrate only.

  “But I own an energy company, I hear you pointing the finger. Let me tell you I would rather be out of business if it would make Earth Overshoot Day a thing of the past. Year on year, it falls earlier. Next year, it’ll be in July, if we’re lucky. What happens when it’s in June, May, April? What happens when the global population has doubled to fifteen billion, when Earth Overshoot Day falls in January?” He gestured at the banner over the stage where the double-edged message shouted in huge green letters ‘Too Many Heartbeats’. “Alone, I can’t stop that happening.” his voice rose until he yelled. “I. Need. Your. Help.”

  He was quite the showman, mesmerising. He looked as sane as her.

  The applause surged, the audience congratulating themselves on being the warriors he needed, just not in the way they could ever have dreamt. He paced up and down the stage. Was the fizz of his energy something Eva imagined because she knew what was coming?

  “Apparently, I need your help right now. I’m asking you not to panic— well, obviously, about the climate emergency, you should be panicking,” he waited for the laughter at his joke. “But right here, now, I’m asking for calm. The staff have just informed me that we need to evacuate and there’s an issue with the alarm sounder. So, please, follow the signs to your nearest exit. Once we’re outside, they can deal with whatever the problem is. Whoever left their backpack in a public area’s going to feel pretty silly.” He laughed, wooing his audience. “Then we can come back in and get on with the show.” He raised his arm to his acolytes. “Muster points are out in the car park. Stay safe.”

  40

  The house lights came up, normal conversation changed to worry.

  No, no, no. But even as Eva thought it, even as what Rubin had said sunk in, she realised the ushers were already opening the fire exit doors, people standing up in their seats, making for them.

  She charged up to a member of staff. “Can you get an announcement out over the tannoy, this isn’t an evacuation. No one should go outside.”

  “It’s not my decision, somebody mentioned a suspicious package, the protocol is we evacuate.”

  Eva flashed her access pass. “I’m Security Services, where’s your supervisor? Who’s in charge here?”

  The usher shrugged. Eva was being pushed by the stream of people behind her, rushing for a safety outside that she knew didn’t exist. She redialled Luke.

  “Rubin’s evacuating the Arena.”

  “I’m on it.” He rang off.

  The guy beside her, in a red and white baseball jacket, was wearing a sticker on his forehead.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “We’re VIPs,” his accent hinted he could afford to be, “shame you don’t have one.”

  The guy and his friend shuffled on to the end of the jam of people leaving the safety of the building.

  “Who gave it to you?”

  They ignored her. “Interpol.” She shouted at them. “I asked you a question, how did you get that?” She gestured at his forehead.

  “They gave them out, to the VIPs.” His mate said.

  Was that it?

  “Take it off, it’s a target.”

  The baseball-jacketed guy laughed, pulled his hands out of his pockets. “Yeah, you and whose Army?”

  “I’m warning you, if you go outside, you’re at risk.”

  “You’re just jealous, babe.” He adjusted his drooping jeans, waggling his on display boxers at her.

  “You’ll die if you go outside.”

  “Still not having my sticker.” He turned his back on her.

  Eva pushed against the current of people behind her, working her way back inside. “Security Officer, coming through.”

  She charged into the arena proper, running around the tide of people toward the sound mixing array. Only two men now doing something.

  “Can you get a message out to the crowd through this?” she asked.

  “You have to evacuate, love, along with everyone else.”

  “I’m an off-duty Interpol Officer, I need to use the tannoy. Does it log into the mic on the stage?”

  “You got ID?” The guy had a bandanna tied around his neck, white polka dots on red, looking like it had lost its pirate ship.

  “Off duty, I don’t carry it around. I have to stop this evacuation. The danger’s outside, not in here.”

  “Yeah, above my pay grade, lady. We’ve been told to evacuate, that’s what we’re doing.”

  “I can have you arrested for obstruction. And you.” She pointed at the other guy.

  “The speakers use lav mics clipped to their lapels.” The other guy said. “We don’t have mics on stage any more.”

  “Fit me up with one.”

  “Didn’t you hear the announcement? I’m out of here.”

  “This is ridiculous.” Eva pushed her way up on to the stage, looking for abandoned mics.

  She had to settle for yelling from the stage. “Off duty Police, the danger’s outside, don’t evacuate, you’re safe in here. There is no suspicious package.” But of course no one would listen, even if they could hear her. She probably wouldn’t if she were them, especially if she had Lily with her. Lily. Still no sign of her, no shocked face turning towards her, that’s my mother up there embarrassing herself.

  Think, if she couldn’t stop the evacuation, what could she do?

  Her phone rang.

  “They’re evacuating, I can’t stop them.” She answered Luke. “Are the Fire Brigade en route? Can you tell them to soak the crowd? Water will disrupt the RFID signals.”

  “I can try, sure, but I know the response will be a big no unless they’re on fire, they’ll be worried about being sued.”

  “We’re trying to save their lives.”

  “You don’t need to tell me that. Messaging them now.” Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t.

  Too long, too long.

  She dialled Tricia, talked all over her interrupting questions. “Keep trying the girls, either of them, both of them. When you get hold of them, tell them to stay inside. I’m there now, there is no suspicious package. The danger’s outside. They mustn’t go outside, even to meet you, they need to go back inside the Arena. It’ll save their lives. You understand?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “It’s vital, they mustn’t leave the site to meet you, they have to stay inside the Arena. I’m in there waiting for them.”

  Eva hung up, going with the flow of people leaving but across, not out of, the open exit doors. Where were the fire wardens?

  She chased the glimpse of a hi-vis vest weaving in and out of people, going sideways to their going forwards.

  ”Hey, you work here?” The guy turned round, nodded. “You know where the tannoy system is?”

  “Nope. Need to evacuate, same as everybody else.”

  “That’s what I need to tell people, the danger’s out there, inside they’re safe.”

  “But Carl Rubin said—”

  “Just take me to the tannoy system.”

  “I don’t know where that is.”

  “Where do they do the countdown to the event beginning? There’ll do.”

  “It’s a recording.”

  “But where’s it played from?”

  He shrugged.

  “Take off the VIP stickers, they’re dangerous.” Her best shouting was drowned by the noise around her, she was too short to pop up above the crowd collective, too female to be taken seriously, and not uniformed enough. “VIP sti
ckers, hands in the air.” Even her loudest bellow fell short.

  Being short had its advantages, Eva ducked around the crowd, passing through it as if she were avoiding rocks in a rapid. Security lights all around the exterior of the arena turned night into day. She squinted, scanning the sky, no sign of the drone. Was it round the other side?

  A scream. Another, another, a round robin of terror. The shooting must have started. And then people began pushing, shoving, flooding away from the building.

  Eva had not a hope of getting them back inside.

  She redialled Luke. “Where are the police? It’s started. I need ambulances, paramedics. Can you get a major incident declared? Can a helicopter make an announcement?”

  “Two minutes out.” Luke’s voice reassured in her ear. “Armed and regular police, Fire Brigade, ambulances, all en route to you.”

  “I think the ambulances might be too late already.”

  The two guys Eva had asked about the stickers were sprawled on the ground in front of her. She wouldn’t have recognised them but for the red baseball jacket, now splashed in its owner’s blood and probably brain matter.

  Lily.

  “Can Iago hack the tannoy system?” she asked. “I can’t get anyone here who can use it. The RFID tags are in a clear oval sticker with black concentric circles on it, like a target. It’s a bloody target.”

  She hung up and turned around and around; her gaze flitting from person to person searching the fleeing, screaming, running, in full panic mode crowd. But no sign of a young girl with long brown hair. Lily was a child. There was no way she or Anya had a sticker.

  “Get back inside,” she shouted. “The bullets can’t hit you if you’re inside. The evacuation is a hoax.”

  But no one was stopping long enough to listen to her. “Off duty police officer, this is what the terrorist wants. He wants you outside.” She grabbed the nearest couple, a grey-haired man and an Indian lady, “get inside, you’re safe in there.”

  More screaming behind them. Another person in a green coat dropped to the ground.

  “Please, I’m trying to save your life. If you see anyone with a sticker on, like a black target, get them to take it off.”