by Chris Ryan
Matt glanced backwards: Eleanor was still at the computer, but she had her duster out, pretending to wipe the screen. The woman was walking towards the desk. Matt swung the mop up into the air, holding it above his head, then started to move swiftly across the floor. The woman turned, just in time for her to see the handle of the mop slipping over her neck. Matt held it tight between his forearms, bunching his muscles up. The wood cut into her, pressuring the windpipe, making it impossible for her to breath. 'I'm doing you a favour,' whispered Matt in her ear. 'The shortage of oxygen to your brain will make you unconscious, but it's not going to leave any bruising. I wouldn't want to mess up your face.'
Whether the woman appreciated the gesture, Matt would never know. She slipped to her knees, her skirt riding up around her thighs as she fell. Her head flopped to the side, as her body rolled away. Matt snapped the mop away, checking her pulse. Still breathing. From his pocket, he pulled out a white cloth and a roll of tape. He pushed the cloth into her mouth, then taped it over. Next, he slipped her hands behind her back, and taped them together. She'll be OK until the morning, Matt reflected.
Our luck is holding. But not for much longer,
'Out,' he hissed towards Eleanor. 'Out.'
Eleanor put a coffee and a ham sandwich down at his side. The bread was two days old – part of the supplies Ivan had left for them at the safe house in Hammersmith – but it still tasted good. When you're hungry enough, and frightened enough, any food tastes OK.
'Let's see what we've got,' said Eleanor.
'Yes, let's see . . .' said Ivan.
He walked out of the shadows. Matt looked up from the laptop Ivan had supplied for them.
'Just keeping an eye on you,' said Ivan with a grin.
He sat down on the floor, pouring himself some coffee. Eleanor had already downloaded all the files they had taken from Lacrierre's office. Her face was framed in concentration as she started to scroll through them, her eyes darting from left to right as she tracked the mass of information on the screen.
'It's here,' she said eventually, her voice soft yet determined. 'It's all here.'
Matt walked around her, resting his arms on her shoulders and peering down at the screen.
'Tocah was paid by the Ministry of Defence, all through the 1990s, to produce and develop a bravery drug for NATO. Called XP22.' She stopped, her fingers darting across the keyboard. 'One hundred million pounds, paid out of the defence budget every year, over a period of ten years. That makes one billion pounds.'
'The bastards,' said Matt grimly. 'The government was behind it all along.'
'British secret service,' said Ivan. 'You can't trust them.'
Eleanor pointed at the screen. 'The money wasn't paid directly into Tocah's account. Obviously, they had to keep it secret. It was paid out to a series of dummy companies, based in different locations around Europe. All of them secretly owned by Tocah, and the money was flowing back into the company so that it looked like legitimate income from selling their pharmaceuticals.'
Matt shrugged. 'Makes sense. If you had a bravery drug, you wouldn't want anyone to know about it. Least of all the poor bloody soldiers you were planning to give it to.'
Eleanor scrolled further down the list. 'Here, these are the men they gave it to. A list, their names.' Her fingers ran down the glass surface of the screen. 'Fifty men, just as we were told.' She paused, taking a deep breath. 'Five of them died during the course of the treatment. But look, here are the others. Barry Legg. Simon Turnbull. Sam Mentorn. David Helton. All the names I started out investigating. All the ex-servicemen who started going crazy with no previous history of mental illness. All their names are on this list. And they've all got a capital M next to them.'
'For mort,' chipped in Ivan. 'The French for dead.'
'Ken Blackman, in Derby,' said Eleanor. 'His name has been crossed off the list as well. Dealt with.'
'The bastards,' said Matt.
Ivan took a sip on his coffee. 'If the side effects are only coming through now, a few years later, you don't want too many homicidal maniacs springing up around the country. Sooner or later someone is going to start putting the bacon and chicken and lettuce together until they've got themselves a whole club sandwich. Just the way Eleanor started to. No, if they want to keep what they've done a secret, and they have to, then the only thing to do is to eliminate the evidence.' He knelt down, his eyes squinting and his finger pointing at the screen. 'Who are these payments to, then?'
Eleanor followed the line of his finger. 'One million each year, from the money generated by the bravery drug,' she said. 'Paid out to two accounts in Luxembourg.'
'Who are they?' said Matt, finishing his sandwich.
'We don't know, just numbers, no names,' said Ivan. 'But I'd say they were the key.'
Matt stood up, walking towards the window. His muscles felt tired, and strained. He was longing for a beach, and the feel of wet sand beneath his feet. He wanted to smell the salt of the ocean, and fill his lungs with the sea air. He was tired of the city, he was tired of hiding.
'But we've got enough, haven't we?' said Matt. 'We know about XP22. We know that Lacrierre imported it to this country, and sold it to the MOD. We know it was tested on British servicemen. We know some of them have gone crazy, a direct result of the medicine they were given. We know they are killing the men it was tested on to cover up what happened. What more do we need? Everything has fallen into place. We've cracked it.'
Ivan walked across the room, standing next to him. He held out a coffee, thrusting it into Mart's face. 'Take a good sniff,' he said. 'It's time you woke up and smelt some of this.'
'Meaning?' snapped Matt, suddenly filled with anger.
'Meaning you don't seem to have figured out what you are going to do with this information. The deeper you get into this, the more trouble you are in. So what's the plan now? Go to the police? They'll arrest you. Go to the Firm? They got you into this mess.'
'A newspaper, as I said before,' interrupted Eleanor. 'They could blow this scandal wide open.'
Ivan chuckled to himself, turning away. 'In a John Grisham book, maybe. Not in the real world. One sniff of this story, a newspaper would get itself shut down. Any journalist who knew even part of the story would be quietly disposed of. They're deadly serious about this, Matt. That's why the Increment is already on to you. This stuff is toxic. Anyone who touches it is dead.'
'A foreign newspaper,' persisted Eleanor.
'No,' said Ivan, with a shake of the head. 'You'll look like a nutty conspiracy theorist. They'll think you're raving mad. You've got to tie it all down.' He paused, looking directly at Matt and Eleanor. 'You have to find out who these accounts belong to. Right now they don't mean anything. Until you get that information, you don't have any way to convince anyone of your story.'
Matt was standing by the window, looking out on to the dingy block of council flats opposite. 'It's us against the world, Matt,' said Ivan, resting his hand on Matt's shoulder. 'If they were offering odds on this one down at William Hill, my money would have to be on the world.'
Matram looked down at the corpse. She had stopped breathing some minutes ago, the last breath silent and quiet as the anaesthetic sent her into a deep sleep, and as her heart slowed to a rate at which life could no longer be supported.
He cracked the back of his fist hard against the side of her cheek, his knuckles bruising the skin. 'You stupid bitch,' he muttered, his tone harsh and rasping. 'You should have told me where he was.' He turned round, looking at Trench and Snaddon. 'I want this body moved.'
Trench looked back at him coldly. 'We could leave it here,' he said. 'The apartment is empty. It could be days, even weeks, before anyone finds it.'
'Don't you understand anything, you damned fool?' he said, his voice rising. 'I want the bloody corpse discovered. Get it out of this building, and put it down in the middle of the nearest car park. Anywhere it's going to be found immediately.'
He looked down again at Gill, closing
her eyes with his fingers. 'It's like a worm,' he said. 'The angler digs the poor little animal out of the dirt, kills it, sticks it on his line and casts it out into the river. All so he can use it to catch the fish.'
TWENTY
Eleanor had come into his room. She was wearing a white T-shirt, but beneath it he could see the outline of her breasts, soft and warm. 'I'm frightened,' she said. 'I've been trying to sleep, but I can't.'
Matt looked up towards the window. They were back in the first safe house now: moving every other day made them harder to track. Even now Ivan was off somewhere preparing another house for them. The first light of dawn was breaking through the frosted glass.
'Like we were saying, it's OK to be afraid,' he said. 'Fear is natural.'
He ran his fingers through her hair. Even though she was sweaty, she smelt good. Her skin was stretched and sleepy. Matt held her in his arms, feeling her breath on his chest. They hadn't made love yet, he felt guilty about Gill; but, he reasoned, she left me. Something was happening between them, they were drawing closer. Maybe it was just the chase, the sense of common danger. Maybe it was being thrown together in extreme circumstances. Matt couldn't be sure. But he was certain of one thing. Right now, there was no one he would rather be with.
We got into this together, and we'll get out of it together as well.
He slipped away from the bed, washing himself in the bathroom. There was no shower, just a piece of plastic hosing jammed into the tap from which a trickle of rusty water emerged. Only one razor had been left lying in the cupboard, and it had last been used several years ago: the blade was rusty and clogged with dirt, biting into Matt's skin as he dragged it across his face. He washed away the two smears of blood it left on his chin, and looked at the face staring at him from the mirror. He looked older. There were lines around his eyes, his skin was rough, his complexion blotchy, and his hair looked uncut and unkempt. This is taking its toll, he reflected. If I don't finish this soon, it's going to finish me.
His jeans were hanging from the back of the chair, his polo shirt next to them. Matt started to slip them on. The mobile in his pocket was ringing. He looked at the machine curiously. It wasn't his normal Nokia: he'd chucked that away since it could be used to track him down. It was a cheap Motorola. Ivan was supplying him with a new one every day to reduce the chances of detection, stolen and fitted with a new SIM card, with a pay-as-you-go account issued in a false name. The phone was safe to carry around, and only Ivan had the number.
Matt picked up the phone, punching the green answer button. 'Matt,' said Ivan. Then there was a pause on the line. 'I just heard from Damien. It's about Gill.'
'What is it?' said Matt quickly.
Another pause. That fateful hesitation Matt had learnt about in the regiment. The delay the Ruperts employ before they tell a mother or a wife or a sister of the death of a man.
'She's dead.'
Matt buried his face in his hand. It had been weeks now since he'd heard from Gill. After that argument back in Marbella, she walked out of his life in a way he'd never imagined possible. One minute they had been about to get married. The next minute she was gone. And all that had come between them was Guy Abbott and his fucking job.
Matt slammed his fist against the wall, shaking loose a tiny cloud of dust. If I'm in any way responsible for her death, I'll never forgive myself.
'Where?' said Matt. 'How?'
'Matt, you have to stay calm,' said Ivan.
'I need to see her.'
'No,' said Ivan, raising his tone. 'It's too dangerous. You mustn't go anywhere where they might find you.'
'Just tell me where she is,' snapped Matt, his voice rising.
The phone line was dead. Matt hurled it across the room, pulling on the rest of his clothes. His head was burning with a hundred different emotions. Sorrow, regret, confusion and despair were all mixing together in a lethal cocktail. But one emotion was trumping all of them. Anger.
A line has been crossed. This is a different country we've moved into. Bringing them to justice is not enough. Now I take my revenge in the reddest blood. Or I die trying.
Matram leant back against the table of the Travelodge. He was chewing on what the front desk described as a 'breakfast selection buffet'. That struck him as a rather grand description for a plastic tray with a rubbery croissant, a carton of processed orange juice and a tub of sweet strawberry yogurt. Still, it was food that would get them through another day.
'This is our moment,' he said, looking out at the Increment. 'The prey is about to fall into our hands.'
Eight faces, silent and passive, looked back at him and nodded. First thing this morning, he had called the other six back from around the country. Today, he sensed, he needed all his people right here. A good general, he judged, ruled by instinct as much as reason: and right now his instincts were telling him that the enemy was closer at hand than he could have imagined. The bait was about to be taken.
A quote from General Patton, the American commander in Europe during the Second World War, and Matram's most revered military hero, was rattling through his mind. A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week.
'Last night, the offices of Eduardo Lacrierre, the chief executive of the pharmaceutical company Tocah, were broken into,' started Matram, looking down at the unit. 'A secretary was found unconscious there this morning, after she interrupted an intruder last night.' He paused. 'I believe that must have been our targets, Browning and Blackman.' Matram ground his fists together. 'I want them found, and I want them found now.'
The unit remained silent, as Matram walked slowly across the room and stood looking out of the window. In the regiment, the rule was that all the men, whether they were squaddies or Ruperts, were equal. When you were out on a job, everyone's voice carried the same weight. That didn't apply in the Increment. It was Matram's unit, and when he told you to do something, you obeyed.
'The woman we took yesterday,' Matram continued. 'That was Browning's fiancee. I'm going to make the assumption that he's heard of her death. And he's going to want to see her, that's the kind of man he is.'
Matt walked silently by himself through Plumstead Common. It was still early in the morning, but the sun was already shining, and the light breeze blowing in from the west was doing nothing to take the heat out of the air. Another scorching day.
In the distance, he could see two mothers playing with their children. The kids were stripped down to their shorts, screaming and splashing water over each other. Matt watched them for a few minutes. One day I always imagined Gill and I would settle down and have a kid or two. I never thought about it much, but that was what I expected for the future. So long as I didn't get killed in some miserable foreign war, we would eventually be together.
And now she's dead. And that future has turned into ashes and dust.
He could see Damien a hundred yards distant, sitting by himself on a park bench. His shoulders were hunched, and his head bowed, looking intently at the ground. Matt could feel his pace slowing, reluctant to travel the last few yards. Damien was Gill's brother, and Matt's oldest friend: like many siblings, although they looked different, he and Gill had the same voices and mannerisms. Matt and Damien had spent their childhoods together, running in and out of each other's houses. This had been the park where they would come and play, close enough to their houses for them to be allowed out by themselves. There had been countless different wars played out on this turf, and there was a hundred different tunnels, rat runs and mazes they had used as boys when they were escaping from irate policemen, park wardens, bus conductors and ice-cream van drivers.
And although Damien had become a villain while Matt went off to join the army, that had never stood between them: they were both men who fought for a living, and understood that their trade had its own rules. Matt had no closer friend, nor anyone he could rely on more completely. When he and Gill had become engaged, they were about to become brothers-in-law, yet they had been brother
s in spirit all their lives. And now this.