“Did you get it?” asked Brayden, knowing the answer just by the look on the young woman’s serious face and by the sound of the burglar alarm blaring desperately in the near distance.
Sophie lifted her hand and unclasped her fingers.
The yellow, multi-faceted diamond sparkled under the slightest glimmer of light. It was steadily darkening outside and the clock on the dashboard confirmed the time at just after four-thirty.
Christina Mullins gasped upon seeing it.
Brayden whistled in admiration. “See. What did I say? I had total faith in you.”
Disregarding the compliment, Sophie pulled the diamond back and concealed it in one of her coat pockets.
“I thought you’d be pleased,” venerated Brayden.
Sophie looked down wistfully, then turned and peered out through a side window. “Getting it wasn’t easy,” she said. “I had to hurt three people...”
“Unavoidable, I’d stress.”
Sophie didn’t agree. “Let’s just go, shall we,” she suggested instead.
The driver turned the key in the ignition and set the Mondeo back into motion. The black vehicle moved out of the car park, closely followed by the three other cars carrying the unrequired field agents.
“Liam called a minute ago,” said Brayden conversationally. “The spy drone followed the van all the way to a house here in Edinburgh. We know where Dominic’s keeping your sister.”
“Is she okay?”
“Liam didn’t say,” Brayden lied. The truth was Liam had told the CIA agent that Meredith was tied up, bruised and looking terrified. “I’ve prepared the team. They are just waiting my orders.”
Sophie located her mobile phone and dialled the number she remembered from the back of the photograph that had been delivered to her via Ryan. “Do nothing until I say so,” she instructed. “Whilst I have the diamond, I have the advantage.”
The ringing tone sounded for what was a long time, and carried around the car’s interior, played through loudspeaker. Whilst it rang, Sophie glumly watched the world outside as the driver took them past The Queen’s Gallery, where police cars were parked haphazardly in front and behind two ambulances, blue emergency bubbles flashing atop their roofs.
Just when she thought the man was not going to answer his phone, the ringing tone was replaced by his familiar voice. Hearing it made all her rage bubble to the surface once again.
“Congratulations...” Dominic said gleefully. “We have a winner!”
Chapter Forty-Five
Emily
Two hours after closing her eyes, the Westland Puma descended from its cruising altitude and made ready for landing. Royal Marines Base Chivenor, formally RAF Chivenor, was home to the Royal Marines, Commando Logistics Regiment and the 24 Commando Regiment Royal Engineers, and was situated on the northern shore of the Taw estuary on the north coast of Devon. It was the closest base to Emily’s contact, who she had arranged to meet in a town not so far away. The pilot communicated into the cabin over the internal radio that they were cleared to land.
Emily, half-dozing, sat herself upright and watched out through the window to her left as RMB Chivenor came into sight and the helicopter suddenly lurched to one side as the pilot guided it towards an area of airfield indicated by the base air controller.
Landing smoothly, Barnaby the pilot powered the Puma down and the co-pilot reappeared in the doorway of the cockpit. “We’re here,” he said, pulling free his aviation helmet. Emily appraised his facial features for a moment, concealed behind a carefully trimmed beard and moustache, both ginger. They made him look older than he was. “What’s the plan?” he asked. “Do you need us to wait for you, or are you taking some time out down here?”
Emily smirked. “I don’t have the luxury of having some ‘time out’,” she complained. “No, wait for me here... I won’t be long. Be prepared to fly to London on my immediate return.”
“Very well.” The co-pilot crossed to the door and turned the release handle. Once fully engaged he pressed against it and the door hydraulically opened out and glided sideways, revealing the military base beyond. “Go. We’ll be ready for when you return.”
Barnstaple was a ten minute drive from the Royal Marine’s Base, and just fifty-four minutes from the cottage in Bude that Ryan had directed Sophie to drive to last July − the day her mother had died and her father had disappeared to America. Bude had been a place of refuge for Sophie and her siblings in the days following those traumatic events. It was now home to someone else, someone Emily had come to meet with.
Emily had never travelled to Devon before, but had spoken often to the man she was now meeting with in Rock Park overlooking the River Taw. Taking a taxi into the town, Emily quietly observed the meandering roads and the usual mix of town dwellings and business buildings that they passed as they travelled through Barnstaple, claimed by many to be the oldest borough in the United Kingdom.
Turning off Taw Vale onto New Road, a park came into view on the right. The taxi driver drove a bit further, taking the next turning onto Park Terrace, a quiet road that ran parallel with the recreational area and which merged with another road a bit further up called Ladies Mile. He pulled up steadily and stopped the car.
Emily paid the driver with a twenty pound note and told him to keep the change as she climbed out. The driver cheerfully accepted the tip.
Crossing the road, she entered the park through an opening big enough to allow vehicles, though made inaccessible for anything wider than a baby’s stroller with the use of removable stainless steel bollards; a flagpole, naked without its pennant, reached up to the sky a little ahead on Emily’s right as she followed a footpath that branched in several directions, though the one she decided upon led directly ahead towards what she could see was the river. She passed a large children’s play area to her left where some youngsters were still playing, climbing large unwieldy apparatus or swinging back and forth on chairs suspended from chains. Despite the steadily darkening sky as evening encroached, and the colder-than-average January day, there were a good number of other visitors to the park wandering past or walking ahead of her; some walked dogs, others were out jogging.
Just after half-four, Emily was walking along the edge of the River Taw. Ahead, a man on a park bench that overlooked the river peered over his shoulder and acknowledged her with a wave of a newspaper. Emily’s heart quickened with her final steps and she greeted the man with a simple smile. “Hello Thomas,” she said. “Finally, we get to meet. Ryan’s told me a lot about you.”
“All true, no doubt, Emily,” Thomas Mundahl replied, his Norwegian accent thick and easily discerned. He articulated each word succinctly.
“Well, you look how he described,” said Emily casually, casting her eyes over the man. He had blond hair and designer spectacles and a striking, unmistakeable Scandinavian look about him.
“Likewise,” Thomas replied. “I heard about Ryan’s injury. Terrible. I was stunned. What happened?”
Emily explained the New Year’s Eve attack, sketching out the kidnapping of Sophie’s brothers and sister, and bringing the Norwegian up to the reason for calling him earlier that afternoon.
“I always believed George was a crazy man... but very smart, yes. What he managed to do... well... he was a genius. In genetics, I don’t think there was anything he wasn’t capable of achieving, you name it. Sophie... his American super soldiers... they were just the beginning. And now he is dead,” Thomas sighed with regret. “The silly thing is, it wouldn’t surprise me to one day learn that he somehow managed to escape death,” he said optimistically. “If anyone could, he could, no doubt.”
“No one escapes death,” said Emily unnecessarily.
Thomas considered his response for a moment. “Perhaps,” he said simply. “But he still managed to contact us from beyond the grave,” he
referred to the video message George had left for Sophie, and with it the formula which had been passed onto him. “Here.” He grabbed the black chunky holdall bag that was placed to the other side of him. He unzipped it a little and reached in. “I followed the formula exactly to George’s specifications... Because of the number of hosts that need to be... modified... I troubled over the best way to administer the antidote. This is what I decided.” Thomas handed Emily a dart-like object three inches in length.
“A tranquiliser dart?” Emily queried, turning the small, slender missile over in her hand. Inside it was a translucent fluid.
“Be careful,” Thomas cautioned. “The needle is sharp!”
Emily tested the dart’s point with the pad of one finger. A dot of blood appeared on the tip of her index finger, verifying the man’s warning.
Thomas tutted and took the dart back to prevent the woman from pricking herself further. “It’s a ballistic syringe loaded with George’s counteracting agent. The needle is collared and has a barb-like circumferential ring that ensures, among a couple of things, the full dose is administered. All you need to do is load it into a dart gun, aim and shoot. The antidote is fast acting, so any host receiving the shot will feel the immediate effects.”
“Nice work.”
He slipped the dart back into the bag and re-zipped it up. “There’s a couple of hundred rounds in the bag, though only one is sufficient per target. They’ll fit within a standard tranquiliser gun. Don’t worry if you stick a host with more though... you can’t overdose on the stuff. And it’s harmless to normal people... it will only work on those afflicted with the DNA enhancements prescribed by George... so keep it away from our girl, Sophie.” The Norwegian stood up slowly, picking up the black bag and holding it out towards the woman still sitting on the bench. “Here you go: all yours.”
Emily accepted the black holdall as she stood, and threw it over her shoulder. “Thank you Thomas,” she said.
Chapter Forty-Six
Liam
“Right, I’m on it,” Liam said, accepting Brayden’s charge without complaint.
“See anything interesting, let me know.” Moments later and Brayden led Christina and Sophie out of the room.
You betcha, Liam thought acerbically, taking up the seat in front of the wall of VDUs still broadcasting live surveillance footage from within and from outside Waverley Mall Shopping Centre, a closed-circuit camera still zoomed in and focused on a man in his forties who he easily recognised as Dominic Schilling. He was sitting at the same table where he’d met Sophie, talking animatedly into a mobile phone in one hand whilst holding a large Pepsi cup in the other.
Liam picked up a phone and dialled up Mac back in London.
After a couple of rings the analyst picked up. “Big Mac,” the man replied at the other end.
“It’s Liam... Brayden says you have a live video stream from an overhead drone... can you send me the link?”
“Way ahead of ya, bro. Access the SIS database remotely. I’ve set up a feed within Ryan Barber’s folder. I’ve called it ‘DRONE’.”
“That’s original.”
Mac ignored the comment. “To access it you’ll need to enter the pass code five-five-three-six-one, followed by the password, ‘my mumma’s a whore’, all lower case.”
“Seriously?”
“Well, she’s not... but she skipped out on us when I was five years’ old, so–”
“I mean, you picked that for a password?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
Liam didn’t bother offering a reply. “That’ll be all Mac, thanks.” Without waiting for a goodbye, he hung up and turned his attention to the computer keyboard in front of him. Quickly summoning a web browser, he typed in the address for the SIS database and hit enter. A few seconds passed and the screen directly in front flashed up an official-looking warning box advising access was for ‘authorised users only’, along with a ‘Log In’ pop-up that prompted Liam to sign in.
Liam signed in his credentials and waited. An hourglass cursor started rotating in the centre of the screen, going round and round for longer than his patience tolerated. Sighing, the field agent leaned back in his chair and stretched out his arms. Glancing about the room, his gaze fell upon a couple of handheld communications receivers set aside on a table which Brayden or Emily had either used earlier, or brought along for spares. He stood up and reached over to one, feeling how solid and heavy it felt within his hand, a bit like an old mobile phone from the late 1980s.
Pressing the red standby button, the radio device crackled into operation and voices immediately rattled forth from the built-in speaker. Nothing interesting as yet, just Brayden making conversation with Mullins as they drove towards their destination. Liam half-listened, returning his attention back to the computer.
The screen had changed to display a menu page with a number of links and folders indexed.
Liam typed in a command within the search function and waited for Ryan Barber’s folder to appear, which it did, surprisingly quickly.
A new list of files appeared, the bottom one of which was highlighted as: ‘DRONE’.
Liam double-clicked on the file which instantly presented a security window with the access requirements:
PASSCODE:_________________
PASSWORD:_________________
Liam typed in ‘five-five-three-six-one’ next to PASSCODE, followed by ‘my mumma’s a whore’ in lower case alongside PASSWORD.
Instantly the security window was replaced with a webpage on which Liam quickly found the link to the drone’s live video connection. He guided the cursor over to it and double pressed.
Aerial footage, a few hundred feet above a dual carriageway, appeared in front of him, along with the moving image of a grey van − difficult to identify − and the unmistakeable sight of a marked police car trailing eight or nine car lengths behind it, a lorry and two cars separating them.
Using a map and satellite tracking function that looked like a glorified version of Google maps, Liam was able to follow the van within a separate pop-up window on the LCD screen, noting the vehicle was travelling between seventy and eighty mph and heading on a course that led unmistakeably towards Edinburgh.
Behind him, electronic conversations continued to play out on the communications receiver, just background noise.
Mac had informed Brayden that the Tourneo had been sighted on the A84. The drone tracked the vehicle as it turned at a roundabout onto the M9, and Liam followed it for the next thirty miles before − unsurprisingly – it took a junction signposted as A8 (Glasgow Road).
“What’s taking you so long?” Brayden’s voice blurted from the communications receiver. Liam assumed the CIA agent was talking to Sophie. He followed up by asking thin air: “Are you there?”
A long moment of silence ensued which Liam hardly noticed, his attention on the drone’s live feed in front of him. “I’m here,” said Sophie quietly. “It’s no use, I can’t do it.”
Liam turned away from the computer screen, transferring his attention for a moment to the radio.
“Is this the same girl I’m hearing who took on my best agents in California? Who thwarted my attempt at apprehending her in Washington with a decoy and who disarmed an FBI agent and fired her gun next to me head, all with the merest of thoughts?” Liam heard goading in Brayden’s voice and knew the tactic. Brayden was trying to tap into the young woman’s well of confidence.
“That was different,” replied Sophie. “The security is too tight, there –”
Before Liam heard anything more the telephone on the desk began to ring. He snatched up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Liam,” it was Mac. “Police Scotland wants to know how to proceed with regards to the Ford Tourneo. If they’re to intercept, they want to act now before entering the ci
ty. Shall I give them the nod?”
Liam sighed. Brayden had said to just follow the van, see where the driver was leading to. He was hoping that by doing this, Dominic’s base of operations might become revealed. “That’s a negative Mac. Tell them to fall back; we’ve got this.”
The live video continued to play the van’s progress as it moved ever closer to Edinburgh’s city, and the conversation between Brayden and Sophie continued to its conclusion behind him:
Brayden: “I think you are over-thinking this. What do you normally do when faced with adversity? When I had you surrounded, there was no escape... but you still got away. How? How did you do that?”
Sophie: “I don’t know... I didn’t think. I just did it.”
Brayden: “Well, there’s your answer. Just do what you do best... I have faith.”
Sophie: “Okay... but I hope you have my back if this all goes to hell.”
Five minutes later two things happened simultaneously that forced Liam to his feet.
The drone continued to broadcast overhead images of the van as it turned off the A8 onto Magdalene Crescent, then Douglas Crescent and Rothesay Place before leaving the main route into the city by way of turning onto Lyndoch Place and carrying on further through a number of side streets that were either lined with large tenement buildings or grey three-storey brick houses on each side; further on, the vehicle led to an area not far from a stretch of water that Liam identified as the Water of Leith.
The Tourneo came to a halt at the end of a narrow cobbled road bordered by trees along one side opposite a row of old houses, their doors a dusty-grey and windows framed in peeling white gloss paint. It was then that Liam got his first glimpse of the driver as he exited the van, slamming the door behind him and hurrying to the vehicle’s rear.
The Whisper of Persia (The Girl in the Mirror Book 3) Page 34