by Brynn Kelly
“I have a master’s degree in management of secure information systems. I should be able to figure it out.”
He pulled open the door and stopped short. “I don’t think even that’s going to help here.”
No phone. Just shelves of dog-eared books.
“It’s a...library?”
“How about the offy?” Jamie pointed at a shop window papered with posters. A handwritten sign read Internet Café.
“What did you call it?”
“The offy—off-license. A corner store—you know, next to the chippy and across from the greasy spoon and the bookies’.”
“O-kay.”
The “café” consisted of a desktop computer in a dingy corner of the store, squeezed between a pay phone and a milk fridge. Worth the risk. Even if they triggered an XKeyscore selector, they’d be well away before anyone caught up.
She pushed her sunglasses onto her head and lifted the phone. “Now, how does this thing work?”
“Well,” he said. “That’s the handset. And those buttons, they’re the numbers. You dial the number you want, and—”
“I meant, what kind of calling card do we need?”
He dug into his pocket. “This kind,” he said, pulling out some change.
“Seriously?”
“They’re called coins. Like arcade tokens but you can use them to buy all sorts of stuff.”
Samira rolled her eyes as she plucked the money from his palm.
“I know, right?” he said. “Whatever will they think of next?”
Charlotte’s office line went to voice mail, killing the illogical hope that’d crept into Samira’s chest. While Jamie wandered about the shop picking up supplies, Samira set up a new email address for “Janis” and emailed a cryptically banal message to Charlotte’s work and personal addresses. No out-of-office message bounced back.
“I wonder if I can risk logging in to Facebook,” Samira said, as Jamie perched on the desk beside her, chewing on a stick of salami.
“What are you worried about?”
“Our location being tracked.”
“How precisely can they track it? And how quickly? Safe to say Hyland and his goons know you’re in the general vicinity.”
“Good point. I’ll be quick, anyway.”
She felt a pang of loneliness as she logged in. Sorry, Facebook, I need a trial separation, she’d written in her last post, nearly two years ago, so her friends wouldn’t call the authorities when she stopped obsessively posting and commenting. It’s not you—it’s me. I still love you. I just need some time away to reassess our relationship, and find myself.
Charlotte’s page had been updated three days earlier—a selfie of her holding the artwork now stuck to her fridge, her blond hair tied back. “Look what my friend’s little boy drew for me! Sooo cute!” The same message was copied to her other social-media sites. Before that, she’d posted several times a day without fail, mostly about gaming. Never anything to do with her work, of course.
Samira rapped her fingernails on the desk. “No suicide note. No tributes from friends. But if she’s disappeared from the internet, she’s disappeared from the world. This is her world. I could risk a call to her father, pretend to be an old friend from university just arrived in London, trying to track her down. Which is pretty much what I am. As far as I know, he still lives in the town Charles Dickens came from. What’s it called?”
“Ask me any question at all about mucus and vomit. Literature, not so much.”
She did a web search. A jumbo jet roared overhead—the fourth since she’d sat down—they had to be near Heathrow. “Rochester, that’s right.” Another search revealed his phone number. “I don’t get why people put their details in the phone book. Anyone can find you.”
“That’s kind of the point. This might surprise you but to regular people the world’s a benign place where people don’t hide in the shadows ready to ambush you.”
“How quaint. That’s my ambition in life—to be an ordinary person living an ordinary life again.”
“Nothing about you is ordinary, Samira.”
“I used to be incredibly ordinary, before this.”
A pause. “I very much doubt that.” He spoke in that dead serious tone that never failed to make her breath catch.
“Oh, believe it,” she said, moving to the phone, cursing her warming cheeks. “I’m still that ordinary person. It’s the circumstances that got weird.”
Charlotte’s father hadn’t heard from her in a week but didn’t sound worried. Charlotte wouldn’t be impressed to discover how readily he gave her cell phone number to a stranger. When Samira tried it, it rang out.
“So what now?” she said, plunking into the passenger seat of the car. “This was supposed to be all over once I made it to Charlotte’s.” She’d imagined herself and Tess leaving Putney in separate directions, Tess to save the day and Samira to hide until it was all over. She was only supposed to be the middleman—middle woman. “I guess we should ditch the car.”
“I doubt it’ll be discovered missing until the therapists arrive at work tomorrow. And then they’ll have to check security footage, talk to the guards...”
“Oh my God, the cops will begin to put it together—the shutdown at the hospital, the train station... They’ll put out an alert on the car, Hyland’s people will see it, they’ll trace us—”
“Samira!”
She flinched and stared at him. He was as pale as the moon.
“You’re in pain,” she said. “Your arm...”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout.” He swore under his breath. “It’ll take them a while to stitch things together—if they ever do. In the meantime, we should at least get out of London, out of CCTV Central.”
“We have to figure out what happened to Charlotte.”
“And find a Boots.”
“You want to buy shoes?”
“A chemist. Pharmacy. Drugstore.”
“Oh.” Her gaze fell onto his arm, not that anything beneath the stolen coat was visible. “Shouldn’t we go to a doctor? A hospital?”
“For a bullet wound? Not if we want to avoid attention—they’d have to call the police. Anyway, it’s not that bad—a ricochet or shrapnel or something.”
“If it wasn’t that bad you wouldn’t be looking like you’d rolled in chalk. Should I drive?”
“That’s okay. I can... Shit, Samira, get down.”
Before she could react, his hand was on the back of her neck, pushing her face to her knees. He ducked, too. Her pulse rocketed.
“Oh my God, what?” she said.
“The Peugeot, coming our way.”
“Are you sure? How the hell did they find us?”
“I swear they didn’t follow us here.” After a few minutes he eased back up, checking the road and the mirrors. “They’ve gone past.”
“Could they have tracked us through traffic cameras?”
“Then why didn’t they recognize the car just now, and stop?” He slapped the steering wheel. “Could it have been the phone call to Charlotte’s mobile? It rang out. The number would have come up. And if they have Charlotte’s phone, they could have—?”
“I used a prefix that disables caller ID—and they’d be searching the store by now. Has to be something else.”
He started the engine. “I’m not sticking around to find out.”
They drove west, avoiding the main arterials, until the indistinguishable suburbs became towns separated by fields. To give herself something to focus on, Samira repacked the spilled contents of the backpack. Charlotte’s postcard had been crushed in the bottom of the bag.
“This is definitely the same handwriting as the note,” she said, pulling it out. “But I can’t be sure either was written by Charlotte.”
She smoothed her hand over a dog-eared corner. Her finger
struck something sharp. She frowned, examining it. Her cheeks went cold. A wire, sticking out of the corner.
“Shit!” She yanked off her gloves and tore into the card with shaking fingers.
“What is it?”
The postcard had a false front stuck to it. She ripped it off. Underneath was an identical Parisian scene. The two postcards had been glued together. Between the layers was a microchip connected to a wafer-thin battery and an antenna running the width of the postcard.
“A tracking device. Oh my God, they’ll be tracking us right now.”
“How pinpoint could it be?”
“Only to a few blocks but this is next-level stuff.” The postcard trembled in her hand. “This is how they found me in Italy. How they knew I was traveling across France, heading for the Gare du Nord, how they knew we were at that internet café, and at Charlotte’s. Maybe the postcard was just an attempt to track me down. Have they been waiting for a chance to pounce, this whole time? Oh my God, maybe there’s no evidence at all. Maybe they forced her to write it. Or could they have intercepted it after she posted it, in which case there is evidence? Were they watching her? Shit—maybe she’s working for them. Or maybe they were watching my parents, and that’s when they intercepted it?”
“Whoa, whoa. I can’t answer any of it but I know that we need to—”
“Get rid of it.” She lowered the window, nodding, her finger so shaky it slipped off the button.
“Wait.”
“Wait?”
“Don’t toss it. I have a better idea.” He U-turned the car, backtracked a few blocks and pulled into a fifteen-minute car park outside an orange-brick train station.
“We’re taking a train?” she said.
“Give me the device. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Stay down.”
He left, with the postcard. Halfway across the parking lot he swiveled, jogged back, opened her door and threw the car key on her lap. “Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“Parking wardens.” He winked and left.
She let her head fall back. This was not her life. She’d dropped through a wormhole into someone else’s world, someone else’s skin. An alternative reality game. No consequences, no tics, no tinea, and an undo button. Jamie dissolved into the gloom inside an arched entranceway. Back in a few minutes. As in three minutes, or ten? What was he doing?
A white car caught her eye, cruising past like a shark—the Peugeot, pulling up into the station’s drop-off zone. Samira slunk in her seat, trying to shrink. If only. The blond guy got out, along with the woman, both of them adjusting something under the waist of their jackets. They headed for the station entrance, the woman swiping at a phone.
Oh God. Samira had no way to warn Jamie.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IF SAMIRA BLASTED the horn she’d draw attention to herself. What would she do in a computer game if this happened? Use a stun gun? A concealment spell?
An alarm sounded—train doors, about to close. Would they drag Jamie out? Did he have his gun? Would there be a shoot-out? Had he got away, in the train? Was she on her own now? She really didn’t want to be on her own. Crap, she sucked at reality. Too many possibilities, too many options, unknowns, consequences. She was always so kick-ass behind a screen. The train whined. Moving off.
She stared at the clock on the dash. Two minutes passed. Three. Four. Her stomach churned. Should she creep out and try to warn Jamie? Or would she mess up his plan if she showed up? What was his plan? Was it already too late to do anything? At what point should she drive away? Oh God, oh God, oh God.
Breathe.
Nearby, a car door opened, then another. A man’s voice, urgent but indecipherable. A woman replied. An engine started, and moved off. Another couple of minutes and she’d dare to look.
The driver’s door swung open, rocking the car. She gasped. Jamie landed in the seat.
“Oh thank God.”
“Key?” he said, holding out his hand, looking down at her with a half grin. “You okay down there?”
She sat up, gingerly. No sign of the Peugeot. “The blond guy and his driver...did you see them?”
“Aye. As far as they know, we’re en route to Portsmouth. I planted the device on the train.”
She reached for the seat belt. “That’s a long trip. It has to buy us an hour or two.”
“Try nine minutes.”
“Nine?”
“That’s how long it’ll take them to get to the next station, search the train and realize we’re not there.”
“Oh God, you’re right. Here’s me thinking—”
“I was hoping to find an express train but of course it’s a Sunday, off-peak, so nothing’s in a hurry.” He put the car into Reverse, and winced, his jaw tight.
“Your arm is getting bad, isn’t it?”
“We can’t stop now. Let’s get to the next town—in the other direction—and find that Boots.”
The rain had slicked a gloss onto everything—the road, cars, fields. Blue sky spread up from the horizon like an opening portal, rays of sun lighting the grassy hills below. Samira shuddered. All that time she thought she was escaping Hyland and he’d known exactly where she was and where she was headed. They had to have come close to capturing her in Paris. Just as well she hadn’t slept soundly in her car—she’d moved it every hour or two, trying to find a place that felt safer. Sometimes insomnia and paranoia came in useful.
“So,” Jamie said, “whatever has happened to Charlotte, we can assume Hyland’s mob have at least some of her electronic equipment. Either they stole it after she left or when they took her.”
“Yes. But whatever data she has, she’ll have stored it carefully. If they’re trying to discover what dirt she has on Hyland, they won’t find it without her...cooperation.”
“Are you worried they’ll find information about you?”
“We haven’t been in touch for nearly two years, and I don’t think there’s much they don’t already know. But the problem with my friendship with Charlotte is that so much of it could be traceable to anyone with the right access—and you wouldn’t need her equipment. It’s all text messages and emails and social media and direct messaging and gaming. Our enemies could know everything up until the point I went into hiding and went offline. And if that were the case, they’d also know I don’t have a lot of other friends—real friends. So if they were going to choose someone to send that postcard to lure me out...” She twisted the ends of her scarf. “This is doing my head in.”
“Let’s cycle through the possibilities. We can assume she was alive three days ago, going by the selfie. We don’t think it’s a suicide but we do think she wrote the note, so either she ran or they captured her.”
“Or she’s working with them or they’ve killed her. And it’s possible she didn’t write the note or the postcard.”
“What does your gut tell you?” he said, checking his driver’s mirrors.
She looked behind them. Nothing but a truck they’d passed a few minutes ago. “I am a little hungry but I can wait.”
“I mean, what does your instinct tell you, about what’s happened to Charlotte?”
“Oh, you meant it metaphorically. Sorry, my brain’s not really... I don’t do the whole ‘instinct’ thing—unless you count paranoia. I’m more interested in facts and logic. Instinct leads to silly decisions.”
“I disagree. I think instinct is our sixth sense. Decisions made by instinct, adrenaline—they’re usually pretty sound.”
“Not for me, believe me. I can’t put together a coherent sentence unless I’ve had five minutes alone in a room to compose it.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. That right there was a lovely sentence.”
“Only because you’re...easy to talk to.” When you’re not promising to kiss me. “Anyway, my instinct would alwa
ys have me running and hiding, which is usually not the best way to deal with a problem.” Except now. Now would be a great time to run and hide—if it weren’t for Charlotte and Tess. “I admire people who can think on their feet, react quickly. Maybe that’s why you have an instinct for these things and I don’t.”
“Your instinct got you out of that place in Italy, didn’t it?”
“Not at all. That was planning and forethought. They tripped an alarm system I’d set up. If I’d left it to instinct, I’d be in the cell next to Tess right now—or worse.”
He checked his mirrors again, which made her compulsively check behind, her nape prickling.
“But your instinct had you install those alarms,” he said.
“No. That was logic and fear and thinking it through and too much time on my hands.”
“Maybe you silence your instinct, you over-rationalize it. Our brains know a lot more than they let on to us. They pick up on nuances our conscious thoughts miss. We fool ourselves that sophisticated thought is superior—we’re raised to believe the word of people wearing white coats over our own experience in our bodies. You know what I always found as a doctor? Occasionally a diagnosis would come out of the blue but ninety percent of people who claimed to be shocked could pinpoint when their symptoms began. They’d noticed something but they hadn’t wanted it to be true, or they didn’t want to make a fuss or appear silly, so they ignored their instinct. I’m always telling people to give themselves more credit.” He made a ticking noise. “I mean, I used to tell people...”
She stared at his profile. Was that...regret? His five o’clock shadow—or whatever o’clock it was—was flecked with blond and white, and his brown hair was blonder near the temples. If he grew it, would he get a tousled, sun-kissed look? She could see him on a Mediterranean beach, blue water reflected in blue eyes. Holding a surfboard. Wet. A wetsuit stripped to the waist, just that tiny bit too low on his hips—
“You want to go and sit in a quiet room for five minutes and think about that, don’t you?”
She snapped her gaze to the front. He was making intelligent conversation about psychology and she was imagining him half-naked on a beach. She shut her eyes tight and forced a hurried mental rewind. Instinct. He was talking about instinct.