by Karen Guyler
“Having fun yet?” He shouted, his voice muffled now. She shot a look at him advancing on her, the other side of the first row of lab benches. The respirator he wore signalled his intentions. “Let’s see how good a chemist I am.” He lobbed a glass flask towards her that fell short but hissed and fizzed on the white floor. He pitched another, the liquid inside puddled amongst the broken glass. “That’s boring.”
He emptied the cabinet closest to him of flasks, pitching them onto the floor, at the walls in Eva’s general direction.
The driver was banging on the fire exit door but his partner was all caught up in his boasting how long it would take him to hit upon chlorine gas, see how he’d have some real fun when he knocked her out. Beneath the bench beside Eva stood a padlocked cabinet. She changed the combination to the same code as the door and pulled.
Not right.
Eva tugged the padlock. Another crash. The air was tainted with the sharp unpleasant tang of chemicals making her cough.
He’d better be thinking like a normal man there, Charles, or she was in trouble. No mathematical sequences for the combination, please. His birthdate? No. Lily’s? The padlock snapped open. Eva scrabbled out a flask in each hand.
“I can play this too.” She stood up as the man spun round towards the sound of her voice and threw them both at him.
Speed of light fast, the chemicals ignited when the glass broke, one on the floor, the other on his chest. Faster than she could comprehend, the man was a fireball.
His blood-curdling screams, unmuffled now, chilled her even over the sudden blare of the alarm. It was a terrible way to die. The automatic response from the fire brigade would take too long. She dithered in front of the fire extinguisher array. What was it Charles always said about the hazardous stuff? Flammable on contact with air and/or water, she grabbed up the CO2 extinguisher and fired it at the man writhing on the floor.
Eva squeezed the trigger until the extinguisher was empty, long past when his screams stopped. Gasping for air, she realised her mistake. She almost collapsed against the fire exit where the driver leant against the outside of the door, shaking his head at her.
She dragged herself away. The other door then, but it was so far. Her lungs screamed as she scraped in a breath that had nothing in it, the oxygen gobbled by the CO2 she’d sprayed everywhere. A lurching stagger past the burned man and she could pull in a scrap of a breath. Dizziness made her crash into the bench, drop to the floor. Come on, get up.
She pulled herself onto her feet, gripping the bench like a crutch. The lab wavered, mirage-like. Eva pulled herself along it, half a breath. Another step, thank Charles again for the size of the lab. But it was his space, and all that that meant was disastrous.
A warning siren split the fire-alarm into a whisper. A sun-bright light strobed Eva’s vision.
Another step.
“Warning.” The computer generated voice sounded like every sci-fi disaster movie she’d ever watched. “Air purge in ten seconds.”
23
Luke selected the feed option from the last of the five cameras he’d placed that day. Not as choppy as lapel cameras tended to be. Had to love the twenty-first century, the tech got better every time he used it.
The wearer of the jacket to which the tiny device was attached lowered himself into a seat, sighing out his inconvenience, but there were worse places to wait. The light was too muted, but what Luke hoped to see wouldn’t play out there in the dark wood-panelled corridor but, with everything going to plan, in the office beyond the self-important door opposite.
He scrolled through his other feeds while he waited. Still no one at Eva’s house. He’d apparently dropped the ball on that one.
The office door opened and the camera feed picked up a back-lit woman Luke knew was Anna Bailey, wrapped up in a dark coat. Maybe it was the plush carpet’s thickness, the reason she wobbled on her high heels, rather than the surprise of seeing an ambush.
“Gordon, you’re waiting to see me?” She looked around as though someone else might have materialised who could be used as an excuse to put him off.
Gordon Stamford heaved himself to his feet and fetched up a dilapidated briefcase. “I am, Anna, a word?”
“I didn’t miss an appointment.”
“I didn’t have one.”
“My assistant didn’t tell me you were waiting otherwise I’d have seen you earlier.”
Otherwise she wouldn’t have seen him at all, but her bluff was believable.
“It won’t take long, one whisky.”
“A whisky discussion?” her voice rose. “You’d better come in.”
The light was more Luke’s ally in there, he could see her and her surroundings clearly. Richer and grander than the workaday spaces, leaded-light windows behind her desk reached up towards the high ceiling in stone arches that had seen the comings and goings of men plotting and scheming through the centuries. The secrets those walls could share. What must they have thought when a woman took the office?
Bailey slipped her coat off and poured a generous measure into two crystal tumblers, sauntering to where Gordon had settled himself into one of two easy chairs facing each other. More in control of her heels in there. A flatter carpet or she believed she was driving this.
Luke waited for her to discover his tech, but she held out Gordon’s drink and sat opposite. No handheld scanner, Director General? You trust too much in the gatekeepers at the entrance of Thames House, outdated already as it had let the lapel camera through. He wanted to know if would have picked it up had she used a scanner.
“Your good health.”
“And yours.”
“Why not an official visit?” she asked.
The camera studied the face of the woman opposite it. Blonde hair, carefully dyed and styled, dark eyes made darker by her make-up, bright red lips, a brave choice for an ex-smoker, but no sunshine rays of colour gave her away. Her face moved freely, no fillers interfering with her reactions, masking her years of intelligence training.
Luke watched Gordon place his glass on the table beside them and withdraw a folder from his briefcase.
“Bit early for that. Still laying the foundations. I wanted to run something past you.”
“Our remits don’t coincide, Gordon. You should go through your—”
“Our remits are perfectly aligned, we all have the security of the country at the heart of what we do.” He laid two photos on the table, turning them around so she could see the faces. “These people mean anything to you?”
“Ambassador Hunter Malone, of course. But killed on foreign soil, that’s nothing to do with MI5 and, being an American national, nothing to do with Six.”
Gordon leant forward to retrieve his whisky and the camera’s line of sight showed the other photo, Tony Banks.
“He’s deceased too, here in the UK.”
“People die here all the time, it’s not a matter for the security services.”
Gordon’s index finger tapped the man’s photo, “induced heart attack. Then there’s this man,” another photo joined those of Banks and Malone, “a Duncan Leadbetter, who hasn’t been seen since last month. There are links between them and her,” he laid down another photo, “him, him, all of them.” He filled the table between them with seven photos.
The Director General of MI5’s gaze slid over them, dismissive. “And this concerns me or the service how?”
“The links are strong enough to suggest these aren’t accidents.”
“You want to share your intel.” It wasn’t a question.
“Is there a hit for hire organisation operating on British soil?”
Luke leant closer to the screen in front of him.
Gordon filled the silence while Bailey sipped her drink. “We don’t need to insult each other’s intelligence by pretending they don’t exist, that we don’t know about them.”
Bailey raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been watching too many spy movies.”
“You must have eyes
on the most troublesome.” Again Bailey thought she’d out-stubborned her guest. He addressed his whisky. “Me seeing you like this, off the record, gives you plausible deniability,” He raised his glass to her, took a sip, “I’m covering your arse for you. If I went through official channels, well, we know how messy that would get with all the oversight.”
“If such a thing were happening, anything on British soil would be MI5’s remit, not yours.” She enunciated her words a little too roundly. “Is there any proof these aren’t just random deaths?”
“That’s why I’m asking.” Gordon leant forward, “We need your help to investigate this. While we believe its roots are abroad, it’s playing out here on our home stage.”
Luke peered at the camera feed. There it was. Her eyes tightened, just slightly. Very accomplished, Ms Bailey. Had her guest seen it?
“Do you have assets that could monitor these others?” Gordon was saying. “They’re all British, on home territory.”
She looked at the photos again, back at Gordon. “I’d need some credible intel that their lives are in danger before I could consider deploying anything, we’re all stretched.”
Gordon finished his whisky, took his time putting his glass down, collecting up his photos. “Let’s hope none of the others are taken out. Malone could be explained away, maybe Leadbetter needed a break away somewhere and he’ll pop up some time.” He tapped Banks’ photo as he put it on his pile, “This one, this is the one I’m interested in.”
“Why? Anyone with an interest in crime drama knows how to induce a heart attack.”
“Knowing and doing are two different things.”
When Gordon’s lapel camera had filmed him leaving Bailey’s office, Luke terminated the recording and leant back in his chair.
His phone bLeeped, Josiah’s investigations complete. ‘Banks’ not our work, so far as I can tell, loose word is it’s some group calling themselves The Society.’
Except Luke knew it wasn’t.
In the shifting sands of this mission, he didn’t need new orders to tell him his priorities had changed. Most urgent now was to figure out who thought they could get away with impersonating The Society.
Then show them they couldn’t.
24
In the phone box, Charles replaced the handset. Tony, dead. Charles should have gone into hiding yesterday, at the least he needed to accelerate his plans.
He pushed open the door where Lily ambushed him from where she’d been playing imaginary hopscotch to keep warm.
“How much longer?”
It felt like only two minutes since she’d last asked.
“Not far now.” At least this time it was true. “It’s just down here.”
Charles led her down the turning to the industrial estate that housed his lab and office, put his hand on her shoulder. “Wait.” He could hear an alarm. “You wait here.”
“By myself? You’re going to leave me, a girl, on my own in this deserted place without my phone? Seriously? Do you ever watch the news?”
What was he thinking? She was right, that wasn’t a solution. “Stay close.”
Lily huffed. “I’m trying to.”
She walked beside him over the grassy corners to the entrance and while he led her to the back quarter of the site. The alarm got louder with every step. They must have triggered the burglar alarm getting in. No automatic response—he didn’t want anyone looking at what he was doing—but the thought there might be may have chased them away.
Charles knew his lab was under surveillance, as if he’d installed the cameras himself. The man who watched was only too aware of the hold it had over him. Partly why he gave him unlimited funds to pursue whatever piqued his intellectual curiosity, whatever could turn a good profit for both of them. Every scientist’s lottery win Charles thought he’d already paid the price for.
Until now he’d thought it of no real consequence but with Duncan’s disappearance, with Hunter’s assassination? That meant only one thing, attacks coming at him from both sides. Tony’s death gave him no clues where it would come from, only the deepening certitude that he was next. Charles looked behind him again, staring into the darkness, almost willing an apparition in black into being. At least then, in a physical form, he’d know what he was dealing with, who it was after him.
“This is where you work?”
“Ssh.”
He couldn’t see in the lamppost-lit darkness, but Lily would be rolling her eyes. Steering her to the perimeter hedge, they approached the building from the rear. Charles grabbed her shoulder, leaning towards her to hush her.
“What?” she whispered. “The man?”
“Yes.” He breathed.
The bulk of the figure in black silhouetted against the lit-up lab fire exit door was nothing good. Had Eva been followed?
“Let’s try the other entrance.” Charles led her to the office end of the building.
The fire alarm box set above the open door was flashing, the entry keypad was in pieces. No smoke, a possible ruse on Eva’s part. Hackneyed, but effective. He led Lily up onto the grass bank on the window side of the lab.
“Can you wait here, I’ll get Mum.”
“Go, I’m fine here, I know where you are.”
He left her there, Eva would be cross about that.
The clamouring alarm in his office was deafening, making it hard to understand the strident countdown.
“Three, two, one. Purge.”
Purge?
What had happened there?
He kicked the bullets and casings stacked up in front of the ante-room door out of the way and peered in between the opaque indentations in the safety glass. He’d been right to be stringent over his lab security. That would have saved Eva.
The automated system let him through the ante-room but locked him out of his lab until the reset was complete. Nothing untoward, but there, broken glass on the floor. Whatever had been in that flask could have triggered the purge, but—Eva! Charles banged on the door, twisting from side to side, but he couldn’t see more of her than a snatch of bright blonde hair and a red down coat encased arm flopped on the floor. He shoved the door, even though he knew the system would hold it closed while the safety purge sucked the contaminated air out of the lab and replaced it with clean.
Eva didn’t have that long.
He charged back in to his office, waking up his PC. Come on, come on. He logged in, hit enter harder each time until he reached the purge over-ride.
Purge activated, the welcome message told him. Yes, yes, he knew that. He clicked on release lab doors. Enter password, the machine replied. That would release the fire exit, let the man outside in. He’d be armed. But perhaps they were only there to take her hostage, use her to strong arm him into paying what he couldn’t.
To survive anything, Eva needed oxygen. He entered his password.
Incorrect, the system admonished.
The alarm shrilled against the inside of his skull. He tried again.
The programme welcomed him in with all the options. He clicked on open doors.
How long had it been?
He raced into the lab, barging through the door before it was fully open.
The smell hit him first, the sharpness of chemicals in the air caught at his throat, made his eyes run, made him gasp, but the air was so thin he couldn’t pull it into his lungs. What had been spilled to have triggered the alarm? Over everything, the thick, cloying stench of something burned.
A gasping, then oxygen, thick, welcome, cold. He pulled in the breath he was searching for.
Eva, coughing, gasping, held Lily to her.
“It’s okay, Mum,” Lily soothed, “you’re okay now, we’re here.”
“How. . .?” Charles’ gaze took in their daughter in the lab, the broken window she’d climbed through, the, “Is that a bin?”
“Sorry about your window.” Lily’s voice was muffled in Eva’s hug.
“It doesn’t matter. Eva, are you okay?”
> “Lily saved me.” She jerked her head behind her and Charles understood why she was holding Lily so closely. No child should see the burned husk of the man lying on his lab floor.
“We need to go,” Even over the fire alarm, he heard the rising sound of sirens.
“Doesn’t Mum need to be seen by the ambulance?” Lily asked.
Charles positioned himself in the way of Lily’s view of the dead body. “Lily, can you go over there and hold that door open while I help Mum up? Keep an eye out for the firemen coming in through the office door.” Lily nodded and did as he asked.
He brushed Eva’s hair off her face. “Are you okay to go? You probably want to tell the police what happened here,” he lowered his voice, “but you don’t know these people, Eva. They will have already covered their tracks, the police won’t find any answers to their questions at his end, which will make them more suspicious. We must go.”
25
A lady with two white fluffy dogs that yapped at everything was the only person Eva, Charles and Lily had passed for the last few minutes. A taxi pulled up in front of them and a man in a suit jumped out and disappeared into the adjacent house. The taxi waited at the kerb, perhaps hoping they’d get in. Eva gripped Lily’s hand tighter.
Charles stopped, Eva and Lily copying until the driver realised they weren’t interested. While they waited for him to roar off in search of an actual fare, Eva murmured at Charles, “I need to talk to you about the men at your lab.”
She couldn’t put it off anymore, she had to tell him about Eric being killed. If the men had chased her to Charles’ lab, they weren’t safe anywhere, even on this mystery tour Charles was dragging them on.
“I’ve been thinking about it too, you need to know so you can be wary.” She had to lean closer still to hear him, “I thought it was just me they were after, but it’s not. They’re called The Society, they’re a group of assassins.”
“A what? Why would they be after us? Who would want to kill you, Charles?”