by Nikki Owen
‘No!’ Patricia yells, and pushes the guard away, but he grabs her, shoves her to the ground. ‘That money was from my nanna! She left it to pay for college! Doc, don’t believe this shit!’
The Home Secretary ignores her and stares straight at me. ‘Maria, Balthus mentioned a letter you received from your step mother, Ines, when you were in Goldmouth.’
I try to think, scramble my normally fast functioning brain. ‘Yes. I…’
‘Who read it?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Who read the letter?’
I look to Patricia with her face to the floor, the air around me feeling cold, the world I know collapsing in on itself. ‘You did.’
Patricia raises her face to mine. I feel so sad. I feel so lost, so back to the beginning when I was totally on my own.
‘You read the letter from Ines,’ I say, numb. ‘But it was—’
‘It was in Spanish,’ Harriet Alexander says. She turns to Patricia. ‘Balthus always wondered about you, about that letter.’
‘No. Doc, this is wrong.’
‘You read it, but Ines wrote in Spanish. How did you understand it?’
‘I picked it up! I learnt stuff from the old woman I used to look after in the homes before I was banged up. And…. and me mam loved Spanish. I must have…’ She searches the ground. ‘I must have picked some up from her. Doc, please!’
‘So from that,’ the Home Secretary says, ‘you can read a full letter?’
‘Yes.’ A shake of the head. ‘Sort of. Just the gist.’ She looks to me. ‘Doc, you have to believe me!’
‘But they found the tracker, didn’t they?’ Harriet Alexander continues. ‘A Project tracker. Maria herself confirmed it. And Maria, how do you think they found you in Montserrat? Think.’ She steps nearer in. ‘How do you think the Project officer you killed on the Geneva-bound train managed to intercept your email with the incriminating files?’
‘How do you know I was in Montserrat?’ I say. ‘How do you know about the train? You cannot…’ I stop as the answer forms: the investigation.
Harriet exhales. ‘We are already unearthing all the details of your activities in the run up to now. Our security services have worked fast to lock down all the data we can find.’
I rub my head, tap my foot. It’s too much. It’s all too much.
‘Maria? Maria, you do understand that the Project found you through Ms O’Hanlon, don’t you? And how was that possible? Because she was working with the Project right from when you were at Goldmouth prison.’ She holds up the letters. ‘And all along, Balthus suspected her. It was all set up.’ She pauses. ‘She was never really your friend.’
‘The tracker,’ I say to myself.
‘Pardon?’
‘The tracker allocated to Patricia only.’ I raise my eyes to my friend, to the woman I thought I could trust. ‘I had the code in my notebook… my notebook.’ I look round for my rucksack. ‘Where is my bag. I want my bag.’ I feel odd, woozy. An officer hands the bag to me and I clutch it to my chest, rip open the zip, pull out my pad. ‘I… You… It says… Here. In here, it says what the code you have on your phone means. I remembered it, that’s what I do… They drugged me, but, but I remembered it.’ My breathing becomes rapid.
‘Doc?’ Patricia says as her shoulders are hauled up by a guard. ‘Doc, it’s okay, Doc. You’re just panicking. Breathe more steady. That’s it.’
I find myself listening to her, to my friend then realise with a flash of rage that she isn’t that at all. ‘Why?’ I hear myself say. ‘Why? I… You speak Spanish…’
‘No, I don’t. I just… I can just understand a few words, like I said – to get the gist.’
‘No. No, no, no.’ I beat my head a little with the heel of my palm. Exhaustion, fear, chaos, confusion. They all fire heavy rounds of shelling in my mind, mortar fire slamming thick and hard. Bang, bang, bang. I grip my skull, the confusion and despair and sadness too much to take. Bang, bang, bang.
‘Doc?’
‘Maria?’
I drop my hands, jerk up my head at the sound of Harriet Alexander’s voice.
‘Maria, I’ve just had this information patched through to me. It’s from our security services team.’
She hands me a computer tablet. ‘This… this says…’
‘It confirms that Patricia O’Hanlon controlled the tracker.’ She glances to Patricia then to me. ‘It says she’s the source. There is a file link.’
I gulp and, with shaking fingers, press on the link. ‘I… How can they be certain? What proof do I have?’
She steps forward, points. ‘There.’
I read. Confirmation that the code I had has been traced back to the Project. It all flashes in front of me. Details of all their facilities, of Scotland, of Hamburg, how the code links to the access data that patches the phone GPS directly to Project control via one thing, one person: Patricia. I stumble a little as I then flick through surveillance image after surveillance image of Patricia with her cell, using it. I look at the times, the dates, cross reference them in my head with where we were exactly during that period, what we were doing.
My eyes sting. ‘You… we… No phones,’ I manage to say. ‘We said we would not use our phones. They were for…’ I slip away, caught by an image of Chris and I in the booth as Patricia stands at the bar in the Swiss tavern. ‘You had them follow us.’
Patricia cries. ‘No. No…’
‘You allowed surveillance on us.’
‘No, that’s them… I mean her, I mean MI5. I said no!’
Harriet Alexander frowns. ‘You said no to what? And how would we do that, MI5? We had no access to you nor any need to gain access.’
‘Because… because you wanted Maria killed. Doc, tell them.’
‘We are the government of the United Kingdom,’ the Home Secretary says. ‘I have not sanctioned any killing nor know of one, and as Dr Martinez knows from these surveillance images before her, we have intercepted them from the Project she has helped revolve to us!’
I stare at the photographs on the screen, at the tens of images before me of places and situations we have only recently been in, swiping to a file that confirms again through linked codes that the only way a tracker could have been activated was through direct and deliberate actions from Patricia.
‘You… you have been with the Project all along.’
‘Please, Doc…’
‘You said you wanted to help me.’
‘I do. Being here is’— she shakes her head—‘was the right thing to do.’
‘The pictures,’ I say, pacing. ‘The images and the surveillance. The need to get me to the UK, the tracker and the activation of it, the ability to read Spanish, the way you appeared in my cell… Were you… were you my handler?’
‘Doc, stop. You don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘I’ve had handlers all my life, and I did not know they were with the Project. You are another one of those.’ It all makes sense now, connects, computes. ‘It… it was all a plan. Balthus even suspected it.’
‘Then why didn’t he tell you?’
‘Balthus would have kept it to himself,’ the Home Secretary says. ‘He was like that. With Maria as—’ she falters, swallows a little. ‘I’m sorry. With Maria as his daughter, he would have done all he could to solve the problem himself. Before he died, he told me he was trying to… trying to solve something.’ She pauses. ‘He would have found a way. And with the letters’— a brief flicker of eyelids closing—‘he did.’
‘That’s a load of bullshit!’ Patricia shouts. She spins her gaze to me, drops her voice. ‘Doc, I never meant to hurt you.’
‘What?’
‘No. I mean—’
‘You said you never meant to hurt me.’
‘I mean… I mean I always wanted you to be safe. None of this… None of this was ever supposed to happen.’
‘That sounds very much like a confession,’ Harriet Alexander says.
‘Why?’ I sa
y to Patricia.
‘Doc, I didn’t want to—’
‘A confession. That means admitting to something.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘All the facts add up.’
‘I’ve never ever wanted you to get hurt, Doc, through any of this. You have to believe me.’
‘The files,’ I say. ‘The photographs, the evidence trail. They are all facts and data.’
‘Data can lie.’
‘Humans can lie!’ I yell. I stand, catching my breath, chest heaving. An empty crisp packet blows in the breeze.
‘Maria?’ the Home Secretary says. ‘You deal in facts. You deal in information and figures. Well, I’m afraid the information we have is undeniable, no grey areas, just black and white. Right and wrong. Patricia O’Hanlon is – has been all along – working for the Project.’
I slap my hands to my ears, not wanting to process her words. The reality is there, I know it is, but I can’t face it. My world, my world of data and logic. It’s what protects me – and it’s what tears me apart. I try to resist it, attempt to fit the information into a different hole, but no matter how hard I try, I realise Harriet Alexander is right: the facts, the data and the irrefutable information exist. My brain knows that it all adds up to only one conclusion and when it does, when I grab hold of myself and shove my face forwards to blink at the hard, cold reality, everything inside me detonates.
‘Why?’ I shout.
Before I know it, before I can ask myself what I am doing or why, I sprint so fast, no one has time to stop me as I thrust my hands around Patricia’s neck, squeeze her lily skin tight between my fingers, tears rolling down my face, as her hands cuffed, are unable to pull away.
‘Doc! P—please…’
People shout, but still I grip the neck of my former friend. ‘You were with them! You were with the Project all along! I have seen the evidence! The tracker links to the code, which can only be set by you! You!’ I wobble. ‘I thought you were my friend!’ Tears run down my cheeks. ‘I thought you were my friend.’
I squeeze again and her body falls limp and an officer finally drags me away, my torso bent double as I slump to the concrete. I cry out so loud that I stop myself with the sheer decibel of the sound, the wave of my rage going out to sea, replaced now by a long shore of emptiness, so vast and wide I fear there will never be an end as I curl up into a ball and hide and moan.
The officer is crouching over Patricia’s unmoving, limp frame on the hard concrete.
I unfold my body slowly and blink away the tears. ‘P— Patricia?’
‘Dr Martinez,’ I hear the Home Secretary say. ‘We must go.’
It’s then Patricia coughs, spluttering into the air, and despite my anger, I find myself relieved, exhausted. The officer helps Patricia up and the urge for me to be a doctor, to fix and mend is so strong, I have to wrap my hands around my chest, rocking, my brain spiralling out of control from Patricia. The scent of her talcum powder skin still lingers on my palms from where my hands were locked around her neck.
Patricia is taken away. She shouts for me the whole time and it is only when I drag myself up and look at her that I see her five fingers held up out high above the grip of the handcuffs, breaking through the officer’s clutch and damp air with their soft, padded tips.
‘Maria?’
I tear my gaze away, turn to the Home Secretary.
‘There is a security situation,’ she says. ‘We need to go right now.’
I stagger to a stand, and sway across the concrete in a haze as I am lead away. The muffled cries of Patricia’s voice yelling out her nickname for me over and over echo in the grey damp air.
Chapter 28
Deep cover Project facility.
Present day
The door slams shut and the hand slips away.
I stumble to a halt, gasping in air, ready to slash into the neck of whoever had hold of me. There’s a light, soft and yellow, blinking on the ceiling. I squint, ready to attack, to defend myself.
‘What is happening?’ I say. ‘Who is there?’ My sight adjusts and before me emerges the sight of five computers, all linked to a standalone server that appears. I investigate a little more and realise that the devices are not connected to any outside system. This is highly unusual. Cautiously, I observe some more. The room is small, six metres by six metres. Two soft leather chairs are angled to the side, and by the computers stand rows upon rows of bound books, leather spines with gold embossed writing, and, on the consoles that rest near wooden shelves, lights of blue, green, yellow and pink glow, gentle and soft where a filing cabinet made of metal and plastic rests. I feel the beat of my own breath in the air, acutely aware that someone else is here, but my eyes are locked on the unusual sight of the filing cabinet and the bookshelf. Everything in the Project is computerised, no books normally kept, and only people like Black Eyes and the situation room supervisors have access to any traditional paper data sources. It is how we live our lives today, online, exposed for all to see, privacy just an indulgently naïve word.
‘This is room 17,’ a voice suddenly says.
I jump and look to the source. In front of me stands subject 209. Abigail. Daniel’s girlfriend. I press myself into the wall, hands ready to fight. ‘Why did you drag me in here against my will?’
She remains where she is and holds her hands up in the air. ‘I’m on your side.’
‘We are all with the Project,’ I say. ‘We are all on the same side. Yet it was you who gave Patricia the book at the station warning us. Why?’
‘So you remember me?’
I clock the door – I can be there within two seconds. My hands are able to break this woman’s neck.
‘You brought coffee when I was in the room with Kurt,’ I say now, bargaining for time. ‘His real name was Daniel. He was working for the Project, but before that—’
‘Before that he was with MI5.’
She appears as if she is about to say something else when her head drops. I don’t know what to do. Is she sad? Is she going to hurt me? Knowing the answer to neither, I aim for facts.
‘Why did you send me the note?’
She looks up, wipes her cheeks dry. ‘I used to be with Daniel in MI5 and then, when the NSA prism scandal blew up and they threatened to pull the plug on the Project, I went entirely over to the Project, thinking they were going to protect people.’
‘You are – were – Daniel’s girlfriend,’ I say.
‘Yes.’
‘Daniel tried to kill Balthus…’ I stop as I say his name, a scratch on my voice, a pain. ‘Your boyfriend wanted to take me against my will to the Project.’
‘And yet here you are anyway. They got to you. They always get to us, eventually.’
It throws me. Because she is right. I am here. All that time I fought it, battled against being part of the Project machine, and yet I am in their group now, part of their secret system. A memory floats into my head, something about Patricia and the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom, Balthus’s wife. I shake my skull. The whisper of thought blows away.
‘Why are you here?’ I say.
‘To help you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because what they have created here’— her shoulders drop— ‘it’s not what we signed up for, me and Daniel. He wouldn’t have wanted it to turn into this. They are doing things, things that…’ She stops, inhales. ‘When I heard Daniel had been killed, I was mad as hell. I went straight to the Project, to Dr Carr and said I’d get you, track you for them. And I did. At the monastery, the abbey in Montserrat. But then…’ She trails off, her eyes drifting to a huge black screen plastered to the wall.
‘Daniel had a brother, killed in Afghanistan,’ she says now. ‘He told you about that, didn’t he?’
The memories are all there of the therapy after prison. Piercing, painful. Deceitful. ‘Yes.’
‘That would make sense. He wanted to get you onside then. God, he’d laugh if he saw you now, knee deep in the Project
’s shit. And it is shit, because they made him into nothing.’
I inch just a little to the left. ‘I do not understand what you mean.’
‘They wiped him from the database. According to their files, Daniel never existed. He was just a number they could delete. In the end, who he was didn’t matter, I mean they just didn’t care. I don’t matter to them, you don’t, none of us do. All that matters to Callidus is getting what they want.’
‘We are all numbers that can be deleted. That is the modern computer age.’
‘Yeah, and that’s okay, is it? To allow that to happen?’ She coughs and when her hand draws away, I notice tiny specs of blood on the padded flesh of her palms.
‘We’re not robots,’ she says now, wiping her hands then striding to a keyboard on the right side of a console that sits near the filing cabinet.
Feeling unsure, unsteady, I try to hold on to facts. ‘What is this room used for?’
‘This?’ She glances round. ‘This is where they keep information they don’t want anyone to see. This,’ she says, floating out her arms, ‘is room 17 – information ground zero.’
I follow her sight. The old books, the cabinet, the lack of main server. Something is not right. ‘How do you have access to this place?’
She inhales. ‘Because I have the highest clearance level.’
Nerves shoots through me. It is a test after all? She must be part of the Project organisation seeing if I can handle this type of situation and I am failing.
‘I have to go.’ I start to stride to the door, but a buzzer sounds, loud and piercing. My hands slap to my ears as I endure the noise. When it ends after seven seconds, my limbs feel drained, my mind heavy.
‘Why did you do that?’ I say, gasping for oxygen.
‘Because you can’t go. I need your help. This Project has to end. What’s the phrase they use?’
I say nothing. It is clear what I now have to do: this woman is against the Project. ‘I have to report you.’
She laughs, but there are no creases on her skin; instead her eyes are down turned, her shoulders weighted. ‘Go on then, report me. I’ve got nothing left to lose anyway.’