Kill a Spy: The House of Killers

by Samantha Lee Howe

  ‘The child you had for Beech. She now has her own baby. A girl,’ Annalise says.

  Kritta’s face hardens.

  ‘I’d like to show you something,’ Annalise continues.

  The door to Kritta’s prison opens and one of her guards enters carrying a laptop. Another guard pulls Kritta to her feet. They push her down onto a wooden chair before a small table. The other guard places the laptop in front of her. He opens the lid and then sets a PowerPoint slideshow in motion.

  Pictures of Mia flash onto the screen. Kritta tries to look away, but the guard that put her on the chair forces her face around. She watches. There are photographs of Mia walking down a suburban street pushing a pram. Pictures also of her hanging out washing in a pristine back garden while the little baby lies on a mat on the grass with a baby gym perched over her.

  ‘A pretty child. And the mother is very attractive too. Clearly, she doesn’t get her looks from you,’ Annalise laughs. ‘But the child interests me so much. She’ll be such a clean slate and so useful as one of my trainees. And with her pedigree… I’ll adopt her of course. She’ll call me “Mother” like all the rest.’

  Annalise bends over the laptop. She closes the PowerPoint and then pulls up a video from another file on the machine.

  ‘We know exactly where they are. But, the mother – Mia she’s called – is no use to me as she is. She knows nothing. The conditioning has made her forget who and what she is. I think I’ll just order her killed.’

  The video shows Mia walking towards a local shop. She pauses outside, and then Kritta sees the red glow of a sniper laser resting on the back of Mia’s head.

  Kritta gasps.

  Annalise closes the lid of the laptop.

  ‘You were willing, weren’t you?’ Annalise says. ‘Perhaps you were even a little in love with Beech. I know how it is to raise a child for a few years, only to have them taken away from you. But you have watched her progress haven’t you, Kritta? He let you see her at times, didn’t he?’

  ‘No. I don’t care about her,’ Kritta says. ‘I was just an incubator.’

  ‘Really?’ Annalise reaches into her pocket and removes a stack of old photographs. ‘What about these?’

  Kritta sees the pictures as Annalise scatters them on top of the laptop and table. Mia at various stages in her life. Playing in the park with the Kensingtons watching over her. At school during sports day. Later dressed for prom, a spotty boyfriend on her arm.

  ‘She looks particularly pretty there,’ Annalise says picking up a photograph of Mia and Ben on their wedding day. ‘We found these in your apartment. I think you care, Kritta. I really do.’

  ‘You bitch!’ says Kritta. ‘Fight me fair and square and we’ll see who is the best. I’ll mess up your pretty face and no amount of reconstruction will fix it.’

  Annalise smiles. ‘It’s nothing personal, Kritta. You see, you have something I need. I want Mia’s activation words.’

  ‘I told you. I don’t know. Beech never shared them with me,’ Kritta says.

  ‘And yet he shared Michael’s with Subra? Come now, you don’t expect me to believe that. Beech was intelligent enough to know you always had his back.’

  Kritta shakes her head.

  ‘Your refusal to cooperate just makes me surer that Mia has no value to me. And so, I shall probably tell my man to fire next time and then to bring me the child.’

  Annalise turns and walks towards the door. The guard picks up the laptop but they leave the photographs of Mia and Freya behind. Kritta stares at the pictures.

  ‘Wait!’ says Kritta.

  Annalise stops. She doesn’t look at Kritta. But when she hears the tremor in the woman’s voice, she knows she’s won.

  ‘What will you do if you activate her?’ Kritta asks.

  ‘Kill her brother Michael. He’s lost to us.’

  ‘And then?’ asks Kritta.

  ‘She’ll be brought into my organisation and her skills will be used for me. I will even let her bring up the child. For the first five years anyway…’

  ‘It’s a detailed sequence, to avoid accidental activation…’ Kritta says.

  ‘Leave us,’ Annalise says to the two guards.

  The guards go, closing the door behind them. Annalise pulls a chair up to the table.

  ‘I’m listening,’ she says.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Neva

  I can confirm that the woman called Kritta is missing, Elbakitten says in a message.

  Neva opens the hardback book and crosses Kritta off her list for possible committee members. In her world, ‘missing’ usually means ‘dead’. She looks over the remaining names. Banwick (Cardiff); Petters (Oslo); Conor (Edinburgh); Drake (Venice); Cruik (Madrid).

  There are so few of them remaining, Neva wonders which of them is now running the Network. Taking a chance of scaring her source away, she returns an enquiry to Elbakitten.

  This will be a dangerous question to ask. Be careful. Who is the chairman of the Network?

  Neva watches the messenger idle and then sees three dots that signify Elbakitten is replying. Then the dots disappear. Neva waits for half an hour but Elbakitten doesn’t reply. She realizes that the hacker has been frightened off. She’s about to give up when Elbakitten begins to reply again.

  Sorry for delay. Confirming intel. Heard this one last week. Codename: Annalise was appointed Acting Chair.

  Neva responds with another question. ‘Acting Chair’, what does that mean?

  Elbakitten replies. My source wouldn’t tell me.

  Neva stares at the message and then she shuts down her computer. Annalise is in charge. This must have been her plan all along. And, if Fracks told her the truth, Neva knows where to look for her.

  Neva prowls around her small apartment. She feels caged and useless. This hide-out is a prison. She wants to return to London more than anything but such a move would be dangerous as she is sure she is on a watch list. With little else to do, Neva returns to her laptop. She opens it again and logs back on to the dark web. She is about to send Elbakitten another message when she sees further comments from her.

  Rumour is Annalise took Kritta.

  Neva sends a reply giving Elbakitten the other names on the committee. Find them all for me. But don’t take any personal risks. Wiring funds now.

  Elbakitten does not acknowledge receipt until fifteen minutes later. By then, Neva is deep in thought. What did Annalise want from Kritta?

  She goes back to the web and hiding behind several IP addresses, she searches for ‘Kritta’.

  An image comes up of a screenshot of a woman. Neva examines the source of the picture and realizes it’s attached to a few clone IP addresses from some months ago. Someone was searching ‘Kritta’ using this photograph. All of the links that it led to, or from, have been erased, but the picture has been missed from the apparent clean-up.

  Neva saves it, and then she studies the face again. Is she familiar? Yes. She has a flash of memory. A burst of gunfire, and then Neva had thrown herself down at her enemy: Kritta was the woman she’d incapacitated in the stairwell. Kritta was the Network spy who’d come after Michael. But the police had captured Kritta and her colleague after Neva had left them both injured and unconscious, hadn’t they?

  Neva shakes her head – no, it’s not just that. Something else makes Kritta familiar. The serious set of her jaw?

  The image of Michael comes into Neva’s mind, but she dismisses the thought that he’s somehow linked to this woman in any other way than that failed attack. He’s nothing like her.

  Neva’s brain becomes washed with detail as she pulls up her perfect-recall memory of Michael’s sister, Mia, holding her child in the farmhouse when she learned the truth of her heritage. Impossible!

  Neva looks back again at the picture she’s found. Is this a coincidence? Could this really be Kritta? And is she Mia’s biological mother?

  Neva walks away from the laptop, frustrated with herself and her search. She
’s sure she’s imagining the connection. Kritta is a plain woman, nothing like Mia who was very pretty. It can’t be right.

  Neva returns to the laptop once more. She copies Kritta’s photo and puts it into Photoshop. There she manipulates the picture, turning the sour, downturned lips upwards. Even as she does this, the eyes show nothing. Kritta is a dark and humourless soul.

  ‘It can’t be,’ Neva says aloud. ‘I’m seeing connections where there aren’t any.’

  She closes the laptop a final time and then, because she can’t stand her own company any longer, she leaves the flat and goes out for a long walk. But the feeling that she’s right won’t leave her. Instead it grows stronger and clearer in her mind along with the thought that Kritta isn’t dead. Annalise has her, and there’s only one reason why: she wants to activate Mia.

  I need to warn Michael. But would he even listen to her?

  Neva pauses at the water’s edge and looks out at the Amstel. This river flows from Nieuwveen to Amsterdam and she always enjoys watching the movement of the water. But unlike other times when she’s stood here, the flow of the river doesn’t soothe her. The current pushes and pulls at the foliage and pebbles in the water, reminding Neva of life and how futile it is to struggle against it.

  Neva is torn as she tries to decide what to do. She could go in search of Annalise. Finding a winery in Toulouse surely can’t be that difficult? But what would she do once she came face to face with her possible birth-mother? What does she really want from Annalise?

  Revenge.

  No. Even though Neva had used it as an excuse when enlisting Michael’s help, revenge was for other people. It wasn’t what she wanted. She analyses her emotions. As time has passed, her original anger at being given to the house has faded. She’s curious more than annoyed. She wants to know what sort of woman Annalise is. Who gives away their child to someone like Beech?

  But her search for answers will have to wait. Neva has to warn Michael. No matter how he reacts to her and the news, she is compelled to try to help him anyway: even though it puts her at risk. After all, there is no more use denying to herself what she feels for him, even if Michael doesn’t reciprocate.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Michael

  It is a very sad thing to distrust your colleagues, but after my conversation with Beth I feel hyper-sensitive to the fact that we might be being watched. I trust her instincts more than my own right now, and I think she’s right. Even though I’m not doing anything wrong, the feeling of being studied by Ray, of him not trusting us, irritates and annoys me. For this reason, I remain behind at work, long after Elsa, Beth and Ray have gone for the day. If Ray is monitoring us, then I’d like to know for sure.

  I comb my office for surveillance. The cameras and taps would have to be miniscule in order to go unnoticed in an MI5 office.

  I open the top drawer in my desk and take out the magnifier that I occasionally use when studying redacted documents. Sometimes when the text is enhanced, I can make out the hidden words and learn something that my other colleagues have missed. I use the magnifier now as I search every surface of my desk, computer, keyboard and the door frame. I study the walls of my office, looking for anything that doesn’t belong there. Even the clock above my desk.

  I pick up the receiver on my phone and take it apart. I discover that the wiring is all as it should be: the phone hasn’t been tapped. I’m about to give up and call myself paranoid when I discover a tiny black dot camouflaged on the outside of the receiver. It is easy to miss – black on black – and I only find it because my fingers feel the slightly raised edge of the area.

  I scrape the dot away with my thumb nail. Then I turn it over. There is a microscopic circuit board on the other side.

  My office has definitely been bugged and this gadget, small as it is, could also listen in to any conversations I have on the phone as well.

  I widen the search after that, and discover more of these dots in Beth and Elsa’s office because they are easier to find once I know what I’m looking for.

  I gather all of the bugs into one plastic evidence bag. Then I go to Ray’s office. I try his door and find it locked as usual. This isn’t a problem because I have a lock-picking kit in my pocket. I always carry one. I use it now and soon I’m inside Ray’s room. I don’t turn on the lights.

  The bugs I’d found in the central office had been hidden on the phones, like mine. I go to Ray’s desk and switch on his desk lamp. Then I examine Ray’s phone.

  There’s nothing there and it seems to confirm that he is the one monitoring us.

  I place the plastic evidence wallet on Ray’s desk so that he’ll know I found the bugs and I’m aware he’s spying on us. It’s pointless searching his office under the circumstances and so I go to turn the lamp off. That is when my fingers feel the slight ridge of something that shouldn’t be there on the base of the lamp.

  I turn the main light on, fully lighting up the room, before examining the lamp. Yes – there is one of the same tiny bugs that I’d found in the other offices.

  I comb Ray’s office and find a few more of the devices. If Ray is behind this, why bug his own office? It doesn’t make sense, and so the only conclusion I can draw is that someone else has been watching Archive as Neva had warned us. We’d been so distracted by her betrayal that any information she’d given didn’t feel valid. Even Ray hadn’t mentioned the intel that she’d shared since. But if this was true, then we’d dropped the ball by not investigating Neva’s claims sooner. I find myself wondering who is behind this and what they may have learned. I also can’t help thinking that this proves Neva wasn’t all lies and deceit, but spies play games with truth and lies all the time. They give some provable information and hoodwink you once they have you believing them. But having found that her intel did have credence, it is enough to shed doubt on some of the things she was accused of.

  I look around Ray’s office one last time, then I leave the bugs all in the same bag on Ray’s desk and then, locking the door behind me, I return to my office where I’ve left my mobile phone on the desk. I pick it up and call Ray.

  Ray answers after a few rings. I tell him what I’ve discovered.

  ‘I’m coming in,’ Ray says. ‘Stay there.’

  When I put the phone down again, I find myself thinking about Neva, and the desperate way any confirmed truth from her can make me want to forgive her for her other transgressions. I bollock myself for being pathetic, but I can’t help it. The feelings I have for her grow more complicated with every new revelation. Do I love or despise Neva? I only know that my life isn’t the same without her in it. And the longer we are apart, the worse I feel. She is an addiction and cold turkey is torture.

  It takes Ray an hour to get back to the office and he doesn’t arrive alone. There is a whole security detail that sweeps our entire suite of rooms with specialist equipment. A few more bugs are found dotted around. They widen the search to the whole floor and they even find some in the bathrooms. After that, it’s decided that the whole of the MI5 building will have to be swept.

  ‘I don’t understand this,’ Ray says. ‘We do regular sweeps.’

  ‘Someone got in after the last one. Maybe that someone planned to return and remove these before the next?’ I say.

  ‘That would require prior knowledge of when they are going to happen. And even I don’t know that,’ Ray says.

  ‘It’s an inside job – but I just can’t imagine who’s behind it,’ I say.

  ‘How did you know?’ Ray asks.

  ‘I was working late. I was going to call for a car to take me to the safe house and felt something on my office phone. After that I thought I better check everywhere,’ I lie, not wanting him to know that I suspected him of watching us.

  ‘We’ll let this lot finish up here,’ Ray says. ‘Maybe you should go home and get some rest now.’

  It’s nine o’clock in the evening and I’m feeling a bit tired. I’m glad to leave the professionals to do their job
and make sure that nothing has been missed. It will make us all feel much safer tomorrow.

  ‘Maybe we need to change your safe house,’ Ray says. ‘Just to make sure your location hasn’t been compromised.’

  ‘You really think it might be?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mike, but I’m not taking the chance.’ Ray makes a call and a new security crew that I haven’t seen before arrives to escort me out of the building.

  As the other crew did, they lead me downstairs to the underground carpark, where three black SUVs are waiting. They put me in one. Then the first car in the convoy drives up to the barrier. I watch as it exits the car park and turns left. Heading back to the previous safe house, the car will follow the same route it’s done, usually with me inside, for the last few weeks. When the outside surveillance announces the car is clear, they allow my car to leave. The third vehicle comes out of the car park and turns away towards a new direction. Then a fourth vehicle tags on and follows mine at a safe distance to the new location.

  I don’t know if all of these precautions are necessary, but I’m glad they are in place, especially until we find out who’s been monitoring us.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Janine

  Four years ago

  They slip away from the hotel, leaving the general’s body to be found by housekeeping.

  Neva is at the wheel of an old Morris Minor that she has somehow procured. Janine has a strong sense that Neva has saved her again. If she hadn’t been there, the general would have raped and killed her. Janine isn’t just grateful, she feels something else, something deeper. She can’t put a finger on what it is exactly.

  ‘Go to ground for a while now,’ Neva says. ‘You’re going to have to straighten this out in your head.’

  ‘You always have my back, don’t you?’ Janine says.