by Nikki Owen
‘How many locations are they planning for?’
‘Two hundred and ten in the first tranche.’
‘And how many gunmen?’
I swallow, throat dry. ‘Twenty.’
‘That means they will kill 2,100 people. Thankfully, not a high number.’
Panic rises inside me. ‘The number will be higher. The intelligence on them suggests that each gunman will carry out shootings in a further 200 towns in the second tranche with 20 people killed per place. Which equals 4,000 people killed, which, combined with the first tranche figure, equates to a total of 6,100 deaths.’
‘Okay, well, we’ll leave it there for the moment. Thank you, Maria.’ He turns to leave.
I don’t move, confused at his lack of action. ‘What do we now do to prevent this terrorist act from occurring?’
Black Eyes halts as, slowly, his head spins round until it almost appears as if it’s facing the opposite way to his torso. I blink a few times. My sight returns to normal.
‘They are planning more tranches,’ I say. ‘They are targeting purely villages and towns. These are places not normally selected by terrorist cells. These places have no protection or defences. My conclusion is that to carry out this plan on such quiet, unusual geolocations would create maximum chaotic impact.’
‘And using lone gunmen to increase the fear factor,’ Black Eyes says, ‘means no one will know where they are shooting from or who is next.’
I swallow. ‘Yes.’
Black Eyes rests a hand on the edge of the console. His knuckles are white and his blood vessels line his skin in long bumps.
‘I am very impressed, Maria, with your ability to focus on the task. I know it is hard for you here – forgetting your friends, leaving what you know behind – I know how you feel. But let me tell you now that what you are doing is good work, important work, work that saves lives. I have seen enough of death in my time to know how saving a life feels. But this plot you think you have uncovered – I want you to forget it. It is but merely a simulation exercise by another country’s intelligence services, one we are fully aware of.’
This does not make sense. I am unsure how to respond. ‘From the way the data was presented, it did not display itself as a simulation.’
He inhales. ‘No more.’
‘But—’
‘I said no more. Come.’
And with that, he draws open the door and I am led out into the white glare of the corridor beyond. He checks his watch.
‘Maria, it is lunch time. You will eat and will go to your next stage of training, at which there will be a new subject number instructing you. She is here now.’
An officer strides over, grey fatigues, white t-shirt with ‘subject 209’ sewn on to the fabric. Her hair hangs in a bob of mahogany and chocolate, skin clear and smooth. I look at her and freeze.
‘Subject 209, this is Maria.’
She nods to me. ‘I have heard you like knowing the detail of names, so mine is Abigail.’
She waits for me to reply, but I do not move, do not want to show any sign of how I feel right now: unsure, panicked. Because I recognise her instantly.
‘Subject 209,’ Black Eyes says, ‘will you please take 375 to the cafeteria – I hear they are doing the most wonderful chicken today.’
‘Yes, Sir.’ She turns to me, but as she does, as she brushes slightly past me, I feel something odd happen, a small bump between us, barely detectable. ‘I will meet you at the end of lunch period at 13:30 hours ready for instruction.’ She moves back and everything returns to as before.
Black Eyes checks his clipboard. He informs me of our next meeting time together, then with subject 209 by his side, he turns to leave, and as he does, I track every single inch of the subject number’s one hundred and sixty-two centimetre frame as strange images in my brain begin to trickle in.
I stand still, in shock, as memories start to slap me in the face, and I don’t know whether it’s being hit by the lights of the corridor after the dark situation room, or seeing the face of subject 209 just now, but recollections fly past me one after the other. They appear in my mind so quick, I have to steady myself to a stand against the white wall. I recall a train station, snow, a dough-faced Project woman who killed an innocent family, a warning encoded in 1984 for us to flee, a CIA location in the Voronoi cover pattern, Chris, Patricia, gunfire at the hospital where… where Isabella may have been. It all floods back to me in one big bang.
I catch my breath, scan the area to check no one is watching me then force myself back to recall the face of subject number 209, the one that looked at me in the hangar, as I realise now with total clarity that I know her. I know subject 209.
She is the woman from the station in Switzerland who gave Patricia the Orwell book warning us to get off the train.
Conscious that I need to adhere to my schedule, I move to walk to the subject area canteen, dazed, concerned, unsure what is happening, scared at the potential consequences. I reach the door of the dining room, slip my hand into my pocket for my pass and feel something. Something that wasn’t there before until subject 209 brushed by my side.
A small piece of notepaper.
Pulse pounding in my neck and wrist, I check the corridor. Empty. No personnel, no marching subject numbers. I glance to the surveillance cameras: all are faced at different angles and none of them singularly or conjoined, are beamed on the spot I now stand.
Where is this paper from? What does it contain? Do I take it out completely against protocol and look at its possible words? I should submit it. I should go to Black Eyes now and inform him of what the subject number has done.
And yet, I do none of that. Instead, for reasons I do not fully understand, my hand falls to my side and, slowly, my fingers slip into my pocket. I can feel the smooth slip of paper, the corner of its edge, and for a second I hesitate, debate again what to do. Then, I decide. My eyes automatically double-checking the cameras, I pull out the paper and, heart slamming against my rib cage, I read it.
You are in danger. The Project are not who they seem. They are not here for the greater good. Meet at room 17 at our scheduled training time.
Chapter 22
Weisshorn Hospital, Lake Geneva, Switzerland.
Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 03 hours and 17 minutes
Patricia flaps her arms against her torso and blows into cupped hands. ‘Doc, I’m so glad you didn’t go in there.’
I keep my eyes on the tablet in my hands. ‘Chris is in the building.’
We are hidden by brambles. Snow all around us melts. It drips from the streams and branches, dew hanging in trinkets on the petals of the flowers that dance along the ground, necklaces of snowflakes linking each one from stem to stem, the bunting of Swiss spring time at the foot of the Alps.
So far Chris has not alerted any alarms, but I am nervous. The headache from before has gone, but in its place is a low throb at the base of my neck where my shoulders peek out, and when I inhale through my nose where the cartilage attaches to the ridge of my brow, a small pulsing throb appears and my nostrils feel on the verge of bleeding. I press my lips together and wait it out. For now, I will not tell Patricia.
Save for the birds in the trees and the faint trickle of a running mountain brook, all is quiet. I observe the hospital and try to picture what it would be like living there, being locked up for years; one year in prison for me was too much. My mind, for a moment, wanders to Papa, to him being in the cellar of Ines’s Madrid apartment, leaving the photograph and the geolocation details. How scared must he have been? He knew so much about the Project and knew I was in danger, and he was killed for it. I swallow. The killings, all of them – Balthus, Harry, Ines, Ramon, Papa, and countless others who I myself have probably killed – sometimes the weight of deaths past becomes so much, it smothers life entirely.
‘So what’s the score with you and Chris then?’
Patricia’s voice piercing the silence makes me jump. ‘What do you mean?
’
‘I mean, do you like him?’
I keep my eyes fixed on the tablet and consider my answer. ‘The verb to like is used to signal that we enjoy something. I enjoy Chris. Why are you asking me this?’
‘Just chatting – it’s good practice for you.’
‘Practice for what?’
She sighs. ‘D’you enjoy being with Chris?’
‘Do you mean do I enjoy standing next to him?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Yes. I… I like standing next to him.’ I feel my cheeks flush, and I shuffle on my feet, my fingers tempted to stim and tap. I focus on the technology in front of me – at least that’s something I can control.
I can feel Patricia’s big blue eyes boring into me as I watch the entire expanse of the hospital grounds on the screen. I feel uneasy, odd at the thought of Chris, of how I feel about him, unfamiliar and strange as it is, and yet, at the same time, I like thinking about him, find myself at moments caught unawares by his smell and his smile.
‘It’s nice to have someone you care about,’ Patricia says after a few seconds. ‘My family are, well, I don’t think they care about me, and I’m… I’m worried about my sister.’
I am unsure how to respond. Here I am thinking that Patricia could be linked with the tracker when, in reality, it could be any one of us. I don’t know Chris too well and sometimes, my memory of my past actions has been so frazzled by the Versed given to me by the Project, my grip of the thread of what I have actually done is not always clear. Words, I decide, right now are the only life buoys I know will keep me afloat.
‘To care,’ I say in the end, ‘means to attach importance to something, to look after, provide, feel concern and interest in something or someone.’
Patricia closes her eyes for just a flicker of a second, then turns and pulls out a chocolate bar from her rucksack. She breaks it in two and holds out a portion to me. I take it, bite the block of cocoa, feel the sweetness melt in my mouth like syrup, and even though confusion and worry still whip round me, it makes me feel a little better.
‘Good?’
‘Yes,’ I say. She smiles.
We finish the chocolate and I take out my notebook. I monitor the current status of the hospital and scouring at speed the perimeter for any snipers, I jot down the map points of Chris’s current location and it makes me feel calm, the facts, figures, the glide of the pen on the paper, the smooth quality to it.
As Patricia watches, the tablet vibrates as a text comes in from Chris.
Hey Google. Security high in here. Can you get my location and find the trip wire alarm near me and disable it?
I immediately text his whereabouts. Patricia sits right by me. She watches everything I do.
‘Is he okay?’
I move a fraction to the left. ‘I have to disable an alarm.’ I think back through the procedure of alarm disablement that I have learnt from the Project and from Chris, all the points appearing in my head as if I were reading them on a piece of paper in front of me. I begin performing the procedure, fast and efficient, then type into the pad’s keyboard.
No guards detected. Isolating alarm now. Deactivation will be complete in forty-five seconds.
My fingers fly over the keys so fast, I can barely see them as, ahead, a lone marmot scurries over, stops then burrows away under some leaves, disappearing in the white snow and earth.
‘Is he where we need him to be?’ Patricia asks.
‘He is in zone two.’ I check the alarm capability, but something seems wrong, and as I analyse further, I begin to realise that what I am staring at on the map on the screen is not good.
‘What are they?’ Patricia asks, pointing to three moving black dots on the tablet.
‘Guards.’
I wait, expecting her to blaspheme, to react or worry, but instead: nothing.
The guards are coming in quick and so I move fast. Running through the alarm again, assuming it will be deactivated any second, I work as per plan, but something is not right. ‘It has stopped processing.’
‘What d’you mean?’
But I am already texting Chris.
Three guards approximately thirty seconds away from you. Alarm deactivation has stalled WTF??!!
I look to Patricia. ‘What do these initials mean? I do not recognise this code.’
She squints at the screen. ‘Doc, it means what the fuck.’
‘Oh.’
The guards are twenty-five seconds away now. Why is the system Chris set up not functioning as it should? This is not routine. A text pings through.
Am out of sight, but need the alarm off NOW. Follow procedure.
Procedure followed but not working. Am switching to different system.
NO TIME!!
There is time. Hide and wait.
FFS!!
I look to Patricia.
A sigh. ‘It means for fuck sake.’
I grab my notebook and move quickly. It’s odd how the procedure Chris set up is stalling – it does not make sense. All the codes are in my head, but so many drugs have I been given by the Project over the years that sometimes they distil into my system and I forget and misplace the facts I want to recall. I switch to my notebook as back-up.
I flick to the page I need and, locating the details, switch back to the tablet and start the process. Despite the cold of the air that snaps around Lake Geneva, I feel sweaty with nerves, but I fix my focus on getting Chris in and out safely.
‘Is he near the email source?’ Patricia asks.
‘I do not know yet. I have to try something.’ I type in the numbers I need, but it is a risk. The last time I tried this I was on an op when I was in my twenties for the Project, but because they gave me Versed, the details of the operation are sketchy, and so when I use the coding now on the device in front of me, my brain is not entirely certain it’s going to work.
STATUS? Chris texts.
I check the map.
Guard twelve metres from your location. Remain out of the way. Fifteen seconds to go.
And the alarm?
Await update.
I work quick, but it is hard. A pain near my shoulders is throbbing and each time I breathe, my nostrils feel as if they are about to burst.
Give me some good news here. I can hear the guards now!
‘Doc,’ Patricia says, ‘you’ve gone really pale.’
‘My neck hurts.’
‘Bloody hell.’
I work at speed. Ten seconds to go. My eyes fly to the screen where the guards are now and I picture Chris pressed behind a pillar, holding his breath as, in the very near distance of the tiled corridor, the guards walk, guards that, if our suspicions are correct, don’t work for the hospital at all, but instead are ingrained deep into the organisation of Project Callidus.
‘Five seconds, Doc,’ Patricia says. ‘They’re really close to him now.’
Seven, two, twenty and three. I input these, the final numbers from my notebook calculations, into the program on the tablet and, taking in a whip of oxygen, hit enter.
‘Three seconds.’
I glance to Patricia, her teeth biting hard into her bottom lip, then look back to the screen at Chris’s next message.
I have to move now or they’ll find me!
Ping. The alarm deactivation noise sounds.
‘It’s done?’ Patricia says, blinking, eyes wide.
I hold my breath. On the screen, I see Chris’ dot slide out of the way towards the email source code room as, a mere two metres from him to the right, the three guards carry on by.
Wooooohooooooo!! Haha! Suckers!!
I read Chris’s text then look to Patricia.
‘It means—’
‘It means he’s happy.’
I sit back, wipe my forehead, relieved all is okay for now as we watch the dot of Chris’s body move in what appears to be satisfyingly straight lines through the hospital on the screen for the next three minutes.
The air is now fully blue, a swimming p
ool in the sky, the sun a big yellow beach ball. The fir trees stagger to a stand in the daylight, the rustle of them a soothing sound after the worry of the alarm system, and when I watch the flowers on the ground, I see insects and flies and small worms coiling up then stretching out, daring to show themselves as the birds waltz above.
The text we are awaiting from Chris comes in after one more minute of calm breathing. I read the message in detail, unable to fully believe what it says.
Confirmation that Project are the source of home sec email blackmail. Hacked the system and sent counter email as we agreed to end the blackmail cycle. Good news! She’s already replied to say she will begin an investigation!!
I sit back, all my muscles suddenly pulsing, aching. I had not realised they had been so tense. Chris has done it. He has accessed the system.
‘It is going to end,’ I say. ‘The investigation will mean the Project will cease and disband. They will be called to account for the illegal actions they have carried out.’ I blink, think of my Papa, of Balthus, and my brother, Ramon. ‘They will answer for the deaths they have caused.’
Patricia looks at me and I notice her complexion is even paler than normal, a plastic sheen of sweat on her skin. After a second, she swallows and slides over and, unfolding her hand, places her five fingers open next to mine. My eyes feel wet, warm, and when I sniff a small trickle of blood gathers on the rim of my nostril. I wipe it away,
‘I’m right here for you, Doc. I always will be.’ And as her words come out, I feel guilt and confusion and happiness and worry all at the same time.
We sit there for ten, perhaps fifteen seconds, the nature of the Alps surrounding us, hiding us, all held in the loose warm arms of the spring sun that ripples across the sharp bite of the frost, until another message pings through on the tablet from Chris inside the hospital.
I am here.
I pull myself up, wipe my eyes, text straight back.
Where?
The cursor winks on the screen. A white butterfly flapping in the air. One second, two. A twig peeking out through a snow mound. On the third second, Chris texts back with an update of the moment I have been waiting for.