They lay on their beds with their ankles crossed, the TV in front of them, too tired to talk, too tired to eat and too tired to feel.
No doubt, they were wanted. Perhaps by the police, maybe by someone else, they didn’t know.
What they needed was rest.
As soon as they woke up they’d rent a new car using Leo’s credit card.
And then they’d continue south, and with a little luck they’d find William and Janine, and with a little luck they could help them prevent the big disaster that nobody knew was coming.
Leo was finishing that very thought when Albert sat up, extended his arm, palm raised.
Hush, said the palm. As if Leo had said anything.
And he looked at Albert, saw his face and followed his gaze to the TV. And realised that Albert hadn’t been hushing him.
Wait. That’s what the hand had meant to say. Stop.
And it hadn’t been directed at Leo, it was directed at the entire world, at time and reality and everything else: Wait, this can’t be happening, it can’t be true.
But the world didn’t wait.
And true it was.
Albert too sat straight up in his bed, stared at the TV screen and at the news streaming in front of them.
This was what everyone had been so afraid of.
This was the disaster.
And now they realised it had already begun.
48
Behind every purple dot on Connors’ map there would be a person.
A person who was sitting at their desk.
Who was shopping at a local market, coaxing an infant into its Babygro, drinking coffee with milk and two sugars. Who was busy in a meeting or having sex in a hotel or gulping down an extra glass of wine at an airport to overcome their fear of flying.
Who was going about their normal, everyday life when the itch began.
They were scattered all over the globe, some had been travelling and were now coming home, others were going away with freshly packed bags, and the itching grew and became unbearable and it kept travelling across borders. And people who were a purple dot appeared in country after country.
The authorities saw it happen.
And everywhere their orders were clear.
And that was how it had to be.
And it couldn’t be anything but chaos.
Not just here or there, in single places. But all over the world.
Feet marched across railway platforms, bags rolled behind their owners through departure halls, frightened people waved their tickets in the air and demanded to know what was happening. Everywhere the air was thick with questions, groups of people crowded around gate personnel and railway conductors and policemen and soldiers, and everybody wanted answers but nobody had any to give.
In airports and train stations and bus terminals and ports, displays were showing destinations and cities and venues. But on each and every one the departure times had been replaced by a single word: Cancelled.
And everyone had someone waiting, everyone was in a hurry and had to be allowed on board. And nobody wanted to give in.
As the news started to spread, so did the panic.
In country after country there were new suspected cases of a terrifying illness the like of which nobody had ever seen. With every report the desperation and terror got worse, and nobody wanted to be left behind, wherever behind was.
People fled. Nobody knew where they were running to. Just what they were running from.
The highways were solid with cars, people desperately trying to get away, only to find themselves stranded with thousands of people they didn’t want to be near. And everything was someone else’s fault and can’t you see I’ve got kids and for fuck’s sake let me through.
Fights broke out. Helicopters hovered over the traffic jams. Cities echoed with sirens, and hospitals released their patients to get ready for the storm.
Everything happened in no time. It happened all over the world, quickly and relentlessly and everywhere at once. And for every new case that was verified, more and more people panicked and their actions became less and less rational.
The rumours spread faster than the virus.
People burned their neighbours’ homes because what if they’re sick.
Shops were looted because what if we run out of food.
On TV the newsreaders appealed for calm; the same men and women who’d been shouting at the tops of their voices about the horrible things that were happening now adopted sober tones and pleaded with people to stay calm and stay at home. And of course it was too late.
Far, far too late.
Franquin turned away from the screen.
He didn’t want to see anything else.
He knew that this was only the beginning. That things would get worse and that over the coming days, weeks, months there’d be more of the same, only worse, more desperate, sadder.
He screwed his eyes shut.
The others would soon be here.
And there was still much that needed to be done.
He opened the heavy steel door and stepped through it, out across the high threshold, a clang as his foot landed on the metal floor.
The thrum of the engines, the smell of oil and metal.
He hated boats.
And no, this wasn’t technically a boat, it was a ship, and no, it was much too large to get seasick on it, and shut up, he thought, he knew perfectly well what he felt, he hated boats and he hated them with a vengeance. All the more frustratingly ironic, then, that he must rely on a boat to save his life.
He picked up his phone as he hurried along the narrow gangways of grey metal, passing rounded cabin doors on either side, climbing the clattering metal stairs to the deck above.
Connors’ number was at the top of the call history.
Down the list it appeared again and again.
Franquin had called and called and Connors hadn’t answered and something wasn’t right.
He should’ve been done by now.
He should already be on board.
Franquin pressed the button to call him again.
And felt his anxiety grow.
49
William Sandberg woke up to the sound of helicopter engines.
They were nearby, that much he could tell, but the sounds were muffled. Softer than if he’d been outside, but louder than if he’d heard them through solid walls, and his first instinct was to sit up but he couldn’t.
It was dark. Pitch-dark and impossible to see.
A couple of centimetres above his head there was a roof, and in his effort to sit up he’d hit his head against it. It hurt, but not as much as it hurt a moment later as he fell back on to the surface under him.
His arms were tied behind his back. The angle was tight and uncomfortable, and whatever it was that held them together, it was thin and rigid and hurt.
‘William?’ It was Janine.
And she was close.
‘William, what’s happening?’
He heard her breaths. They were short, irregular breaths, as if she’d been crying or was in pain or both. He felt her body against his as she breathed, and he realised they were lying next to each other in a confined space, her legs bent in front of his own, her back against his chest. And every time their bodies touched he felt her shake.
It wasn’t pain. It was restrained panic.
‘I can’t move,’ she said. ‘I can’t breathe.’
Her voice was composed, but she was talking fast, every word reeking with fear.
‘You’re breathing all the time,’ he said. Calm and steady. ‘Can you see anything?’
She didn’t reply. She didn’t know. Didn’t want to.
‘Janine? Janine, where are your hands? Can you feel anything around you?’
She listened to him, wanting to be calmed down but at the same time unable to let go of her panic, as if the panic was her friend, the one thing that might be able to get her out of there, and if she let go of it she’d be stuck fo
r ever.
She could take a lot. She had no fear of heights, she could endure physical pain, but this… small spaces, the feeling of not being able to breathe even though she was, as if someone was holding a pillow over her mouth and pressing and pressing, creating that pre-emptive panic of running out of air long before it actually happened.
‘My hands are tied behind my back,’ she said. ‘I think I’m bleeding.’
‘Okay,’ he told her. ‘We’ll get through this.’
‘How?’ she said. The same, panicked voice.
He didn’t answer.
And neither did she.
He’d hit his head against a roof of metal. It smelled of oil and synthetic carpeting. There wasn’t much doubt where they were.
And above them, a helicopter hovered in circles.
Janine’s voice again.
‘What are we doing here? William? What are they going to do to us?’
William didn’t answer.
Didn’t answer, because he was afraid he knew.
The young crew-cut pilot gritted his teeth to keep his mind clear, steered the helicopter in another large circle around the mangled landscape below. The metal skeletons littering the ground. The withered bushes and yellowing grass, trying in vain to cover all the craters and old tracks.
Nothing was right. Nothing.
He’d known it the moment he got out of bed: it was going to be a terrible day. It had shaped his entire awakening, a strange air of discontent that covered everything like an impenetrable layer, and here he was and the discomfort was only growing and no matter how he tried he couldn’t shake it off.
There it was. Right below him.
One of their own black Audis.
One squeeze of the trigger, one single squeeze and then the car would disappear in a blanket of fire and he knew he shouldn’t care, by then he’d only be a tiny dot on the horizon, far away before he’d get to see what was left of it.
No. Not it. Them.
And even if he couldn’t see, he’d still know.
So what difference would it make whether he saw it or not?
She, who’d been with them for months, who couldn’t be much older than himself and who he’d never got the chance to talk to even if he’d wanted, and he, the older one, who’d shown up a few days ago and who turned out to be too old to be kept in line the way they’d planned.
There they were. He couldn’t see them, but there they were all the same. Locked inside the boot, tied up and with no hope of getting out, and it made him so uneasy that it was almost physical, an anxiety so heavy that he shifted in his seat, a decision he had to make even though it wasn’t his, and he felt himself sweating but what else was there to do?
His orders were perfectly clear.
And he was alone now, alone with his orders, and that was wrong too. Connors should have been by his side, but he hadn’t showed up and eventually Franquin had told him over the radio to take off and carry out the damn order anyway. And of course it shouldn’t make any difference, Connors would have nodded at him and he would have squeezed the trigger exactly as he was about to, but at least he wouldn’t have been alone with it.
There they were, inside the car.
No hope of escape.
And here he sat with his thumb hovering over the trigger and an anguish so intense it hurt.
The only thing he wanted was to get out of there.
He kept hovering in circles over the Audi, knowing what he had to do, but unable to do it.
The communication centre was located several decks up, and Evelyn Keyes was sitting in front of the bank of screens. She glanced briefly at Franquin as he came in.
‘The helicopter on its way yet?’ he asked.
Keyes turned to a young man further inside the room. He was dressed in a uniform Franquin hadn’t seen before, possibly Greek or Italian, he didn’t know where they’d requisitioned the ship from and it didn’t really matter.
All he saw was the man shaking his head. And Keyes relaying the gesture, as if he hadn’t seen it already.
‘Get the pilot on the radio,’ he said. ‘Where can I stand?’
Keyes pointed to a headset hanging between lights and buttons and more of that ubiquitous grey metal, and Franquin pushed the cushioned headphones down over his ears and heard the world outside go silent.
Just the static from the radio. And the answer that should have come but didn’t.
He called out again. Then, more static.
‘When did we last hear from him?’ Franquin asked, and when the man in the unknown uniform responded from the other end of the room, the answer came in a screeching treble straight into his brain. It took a moment for him to remember they were still talking over the headphones.
‘Not since you gave him his orders,’ the voice said.
Franquin shut his eyes. That wasn’t good. There was no reason for him to be taking so long.
‘Call again,’ he said.
And he listened, heard the static, and still no answer.
Not again, he thought. It had almost happened in Amsterdam, the jet pilot who’d got cold feet and almost failed in his mission to destroy the hospital, and now his own pilot was hovering above the shooting range where Stefan Kraus had been blown up in an ambulance. Could it be that this pilot, too, was starting to feel remorse?
Then there was the issue with Connors. Who should have been in the helicopter, too. Who should have been there to supervise, but who hadn’t shown up.
Everything was taking too long.
It had to be done, and it had to be done now.
Not that he bore any personal grudge against them, it was simply that the clock was ticking and they couldn’t afford emotions at this stage. This was just one in a long series of rational decisions they had made and must stick to.
William Sandberg and Janine Charlotta Haynes had jeopardised the entire mission. They had no value now. They were ballast.
And as little as he knew about ships, he knew that ballast was the first thing that got thrown overboard.
He ordered the nameless man at the radio to open his microphone too. And then he started to talk.
It was Janine’s terrified breathing that made him decide to do something long before he decided what. His first objective was to distract her, try to release her from the grip of her fear. His second was to escape, if that was even possible.
‘Try to roll over,’ he said. ‘Keep your back up.’
It wasn’t easy. But they braced themselves against each other, and eventually she confirmed that she was lying as he wanted, telling him through her clenched jaws that this wasn’t making her any less frightened so whatever you’re going to do, make it quick.
‘Can you reach up?’ he asked.
‘Are you kidding?’
‘Try. Try to reach the roof, feel your way to the edge.’
And she did.
She stretched out, her wrists exploding in pain where the thin, rigid strips bound her hands together, and when her shoulders wouldn’t bend any further she kept pushing through the pain anyway, and she felt how it drowned out the panic and to be honest this was much better.
Her fingers touched the roof. Metal. Sharp edges, like thin beams crossing each other right above her. She could barely scrape it with her fingertips, but it was enough to confirm what she suspected.
‘We’re in the boot of a car,’ she said.
‘I know,’ William answered. ‘Try to find the edge.’
She understood what he wanted. He wanted her to reach the lock. And then they would both say a silent prayer that she’d be able to release it from inside, and it would probably hurt like hell but she wouldn’t give up.
She let her fingers walk along the bonnet, her arms following at a more and more unnatural angle, and it pressed her down into the floor and diagonally into William, every ligament in her body screaming in pain but she wouldn’t listen.
And finally, she found the lock.
It couldn’t be anything e
lse.
A thin slit between two pieces of plastic, and inside she could feel metal, perhaps it was the bolt or the clasp that secured it, or maybe it was simply her brain trying to remember what the lock of a trunk looked like and recreating an image that fit what her fingers felt.
Whichever it was, it wasn’t helping.
She could barely touch it with the tip of her finger. The opening was too small.
‘I can’t!’ she said.
‘Try!’ he said again.
And she shook her head, her pain and panic replaced by strength and adrenalin, and she screamed back at him, not in anger but because there wasn’t any point debating:
‘It’s a tiny crack. I can’t reach inside. We need a plan B.’
He said nothing. There was no plan B.
‘I’m not a fucking contortionist,’ she yelled.
He couldn’t see her, but understood perfectly.
He’d heard her groan from the pain as she bent backward and could only imagine how much it had to hurt.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You can relax.’
‘Then what?’
She stayed in her unnatural position. Didn’t want to let go of it, knew that it would be impossible to put her body through the same thing again, didn’t want to relax until she was certain he wouldn’t ask her to repeat the exercise.
‘I don’t know,’ said William.
Silence.
Just the helicopter hovering above.
Waiting for what? Why couldn’t it put them out of their misery, do what it was supposed to do, instead of leaving them lying there with no way out?
So he thought. But didn’t say it.
Instead, again:
‘I don’t know, Janine.’
Eventually, she let her fingers fall away from the bonnet.
And without that support, her body collapsed on to the floor mat, her arms behind her back, and she screamed with pain as her limbs tried to stretch out into their normal position.
Chain of Events Page 37