The Pretender- Escaping the Past

by C R Martens

  “But you have been here for a while, right?” he asked. “You didn’t just land yesterday with only a small backpack and no clothes.”

  “I’ve been here five days,” she said. “I was trying to locate a person of interest at his last known address. But after days of no movement, no one going in or out of the house, I decided to approach it. I found four dead men inside. They had been dead for some weeks and then just as I exited the house, the police came. I was spotted fleeing the scene.”

  “The police saw you?” Patrick was alert and started pacing around the room.

  “They didn’t see my face and I outran them,” she said. “But it was quite the coincidence that they should stop by that house at the moment I was there. When I got to the firm’s flat, the police were parked out front and I could see movement inside. That’s when I realised that someone was nudging the police my way. How else would they have known where to look?”

  “You could have left something behind at the house or the flat,” he replied. “Something to identify you – hair, fingerprints, something.”

  “No. I don’t make mistakes like that and besides I’ve been trained to be a ghost, even at my own flat back in London,” she said, looking into her empty coffee mug. “This isn’t a coincidence, I am being set up.”

  “By the firm?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Eve said again. Everything was pointing towards FIA. “But I do know that I have to lay low for a while. Which is where you come in.”

  “You can stay as long as you need. Things haven’t moved around since the last time you were here so you should know where everything is,” he said. “I have to get to a meeting so I’m going to get ready and leave.”

  “Can you get me some things on your way back? Some clothes and some products?” she asked with her most humble voice.

  “Sure, write it down on a note, will you?” Then he walked upstairs. When he came back down half an hour later he looked at ease. Eve handed him the note along with some cash, which puzzled him.

  “You can’t buy women’s clothes on your card when you don’t have a reason for it,” she said, unwillingly sending him a flirtatious smile. “Don’t tell anyone about me. No one can know I’m here.”

  When he walked out of the door, Eve had a sudden gush of worry streaming through her stomach. She had just gotten him in over his head and he didn’t even know it. One thing was clear though, whether she liked it or not, she had to call Cain again, but before that she needed to locate Daniel Hellström.

  It was two days after she had arrived at Patrick’s house that she decided to leave. Eve waited until he had left for the day. He had told her he didn’t want her to go out if it meant risking her life, but he didn’t know that she had taken that risk many times before. That risk was her escape from the past, every time she took a risk it pushed her further away from that scared, insecure child that still haunted her in the back of her mind. It was what removed her from reality.

  So, she found his spare key, just as easy as she had hacked his computer, and then left the house she had started to feel safe in. Eve had followed Harlow’s footsteps so far, but by now she had to assume that whoever was following her might have the same information as she did so she was probably not alone in her search for Hellström. The only thing she knew they didn’t have was the disc. Eve had watched the CD during the night. It was a brief conversation between Harlow and Hellström and then a large quantity of encrypted data, which she couldn’t decrypt herself. Her voice was still echoing in Eve’s head. Hellström was somewhere in the county of Lolland – trouble was it was a pretty big county and a good place to get lost. She wasn’t going to be back for days. If Hellström could hide from FIA this long, he wasn’t going to be easy to find.

  Eve locked the front door, took a breath and put the key in the mailbox with a note. In reality she didn’t know if she was coming back at all. As she stood waiting for the train she decided to call Cain. It was a village station so it was small and almost deserted, apart from an older woman sitting at the far end. No one to listen in on the conversation. She had biked to a train station further away from Patrick than she probably needed to but again, she had to be careful to not get tracked.

  “Hello.” His voice was the same as ever: harsh.

  “Did you send the police in my direction?” Eve asked him.

  “Eve?” Cain’s voice broke, Eve could hear his frustration. “Where are you?”

  “Why don’t you just trace the call? It would be much more accurate than the lie I’m going to tell,” she replied. “I’ve had a tail on me ever since you handed me Harlow’s case files. Why is that?”

  “You need to come in for a debriefing, now,” he said. “Then this mix up can be cleared up. Let’s say 1932.”

  “Fine,” she replied. “I’ll see if I can make it. In the meantime, try and think of an answer to my question.”

  Then she hung up. Of course she wasn’t coming in, but he knew that. This was FIA and someone was always eavesdropping on conversations, and Cain obviously didn’t want anyone else to be a part of this conversation. Eve was to call him at 19.32 that evening on a different number. That meant she had just over ten hours to try and locate Hellström. She split the mobile apart and threw it away, the same as the last one. She only had three phones left so she had to make them count.

  The train journey took almost three hours but it felt infinitely longer. Eve sat staring out the window of the half-empty train as the landscape rushed by. Beautiful as it was, it was wasted on her. Feeling solemn she felt everything she had worked for was slowly dissolving in her hands, it was the same feeling of helplessness she felt as a child and it was creeping back into her mind. Despite having Patrick around her again, she felt isolated and alone and it was almost more palpable now than when she was a child. Back then she knew she could only rely on herself, but for the past four years, she had gotten used to being a part of something, an entity that always seemed to have her back – just as she would have theirs – or have the answer when she needed it. How naive she had been. Eve was alone then and she was alone now.

  She took the train to the end station. Of all the towns in the county, there were two that made the most sense for him to hide in – if Eve had to hide down here she would have chosen one of them as they both had multiple exit routes if you had to make an escape. After three hours of travelling, she arrived in the first town. It wasn’t a big town and after a few hours Eve was starting to run into the same people several times. If he were here, someone would have recognised the photo of him by now. That’s when Eve headed off to the other town.

  She had barely entered the town square before she saw him. He didn’t look like his picture, but then again, she hadn’t expected him to. He had a rough beard and he was a little rounder in his face, his clothes weren’t smart but that’s what made him fit in. He was sitting outside the local bodega, smoking and having a beer just like all the other dock men.

  “Hi. I’m Eve and I work for FIA.” Eve sat down next to him, he was off his game. “But before you run, I just want you to consider having this conversation. I’m on the run too.”

  She could see she had chosen her words correctly as he hadn’t yet leapt to his feet. Eve was just waiting to see what he would do or what he would say.

  “How did you find me?” he whispered, leaning in over the table.

  “Harlow led me to you. Your conversation with Harlow. She recorded it,” she said, looking at his worn-out expression.

  “I told her I wasn’t going to get involved,” he said. “I thought she understood that. She shouldn’t have sent you.”

  “She didn’t send me, though,” she said.

  “I thought you said Harlow sent you?” He looked puzzled.

  “No, I didn’t. Harlow is dead,” she said, swallowing a deep breath. “I think someone in the firm did it. I only followed her footsteps to find you.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, I always liked her,” he said. “But i
f you are here, that undoubtedly means the firm is on their way.”

  “No, not necessarily.” Eve leant back, trying to look relaxed. “She must have liked you too. She left your conversation out of her report, her final input was that she had lost the trail. I think that’s what got her killed, she covered for you and they knew it. She was too good at her job – it simply wasn’t a possibility that she couldn’t find you.”

  “Let’s go somewhere else.” He gestured towards the end of the street. “My place isn’t far.”

  They walked in silence, she walked a step behind him so she could get a read of his body language. He was visibly nervous and she feared that he might try to run at some point. Eve wanted to know everything. She needed to know everything. After about ten minutes, they came to a shabby-looking house at the very outskirts of town. It was overgrown with vines and you could hardly see the grass for weeds. Eve could see why he had chosen this house, it had open fields on three sides and just one neighbour. A house that looked equally abandoned. His house had a clear view of its surroundings, an obvious advantage when you are constantly on the lookout.

  “How did you find me?” he asked, walking up to the front door. “And why are you on the run?”

  “A few days before her death, Harlow came to me,” she answered. “She left me a flash drive, I assumed it was her back-up plan or testimonial.”

  “But you don’t know?” he asked, turning back to look at her. The inside of his house didn’t reflect the outside. It was neat and immaculately restored, with all the latest security measures.

  “Since her death, I have been under surveillance and I haven’t yet been able to go and get it out of hiding. But she left behind some hard documents in a secret compartment, which is how I found you.” She had a quick glimpse around what looked to be his office before he locked the door. It was like looking at the control room at FIA’s office. “I had an assignment that made me question what I was doing for the firm. I took my questions to Harlow. She shut me down, she didn’t want me to pursue my hunch. Now I know why she needed me to finish what she had started in case she died. Harlow was my friend and I didn’t believe it when they told me she had accidentally poisoned herself. So, I started to look through old case files.”

  “That’s their story – she poisoned herself?” He half laughed; he clearly knew Harlow better than he let on. “Harlow helped me to go underground. I, too, had started to question how things were run at the firm and when Harlow and I had an assignment together I hesitantly aired my concerns. And, as it turns out, she shared my views.”

  Eve turned to look at him and asked, “What were you going to do?”

  “I wasn’t going to do anything.” He looked away. “I just wanted to disappear, but Harlow couldn’t let it go. She wanted to expose them for what they really are, even if it meant exposing herself in the process. The last time I saw Harlow must have been just after your conversation with her because I remember her mentioning the fact that she had just seen you. She talked a lot about you. I told her to leave me out of it, I didn’t want to get involved.”

  “Even though you knew you’d have a target on your back forever?” she asked him. “What did she have on them?”

  “Do you want a coffee?” He started rummaging about the kitchen. “Or tea maybe?”

  “Or better still, what do you have on them?” Eve asked, going over to him.

  “If they find me, they will kill me,” he said. “About seven years ago, there was a change in leadership. With that came a new policy, but it wasn’t a policy that was going to be known by anyone else other than the top management. They opened FIA’s doors to anyone with money. If you wanted to be rid of your competition and you had deep enough pockets, FIA would be happy to help. Doing the right thing wasn’t that profitable after all.”

  “What about the government contracts?” She sat down, thinking back on all her jobs. “We still do them, I mean all of my jobs have some form of governmental approval.”

  “They still do those, but mainly to keep up the pretence.” He handed her a coffee. “They need them to make all the other jobs look legal. It wouldn’t be too difficult for FIA to manufacture documents.”

  “Harlow knew this?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, sitting down opposite her. “What are you thinking?”

  “I think she shared her concern with someone else,” she started. “Unless you’re the one who gave her up to FIA?”

  “I didn’t.” Hellström looked intensely at her. “I don’t want to be anywhere near them, ever again. Who do you think it might be?”

  “Landen Fowler. I saw him come out of a hotel I was staying in, where I also found this man in my room.” She pulled out a photograph she had taken of the man when she first spotted him at the office and handed it to Hellström. “You know who he is?”

  “Yes, I do,” he said, remembering something. “I don’t know Landen Fowler though, Harlow didn’t mention him to me. But this man’s name is Roman Belov, he’s a Russian freelancer, the firm pulls him in when they need to get rid of someone. He is not someone you want to go up against.”

  “If that’s the case, I think it’s probably too late to pull out,” she said. “My first instinct was that he was new in the business. He wasn’t exactly subtle in his surveillance of me. And when I found him in my room, he was surprised. He seemed unorganised, he even left behind his latex gloves.”

  “Hmm, that doesn’t exactly sound like him,” he said. “The reason the firm use him is because he is invisible. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he leaves behind a bloody mess, but be assured none of it will be traced back to him. I saw him once at headquarters when Harlow was his handler on a case not too many years ago. If he was coming for Harlow, she should have seen him coming.”

  “I think she did.”

  “The flash drive?” he said, wondering aloud. “You think she knew what was coming?”

  “Yes, and I think I was her backup plan.” For the first time in a long time, Eve felt herself get emotional. “I think Harlow had specifically kept me out of her plan so that when she was gone, she knew she had someone she could trust to finish what she had started. If she had let me in on it from the beginning I would probably be dead too.”

  “Harlow always had a well thought out exit plan, if assignments went bad,” Hellström said. “I think she had several.”

  “Following Harlow’s lead, I found four men killed in an abandoned house in the north neighbouring county of Copenhagen. Three shot and one with his throat slit,” she said, changing the subject. “The place had been ransacked but whoever had done it missed one important thing. Your wallet.”

  “Well, then I really am a dead man soon.” He looked defeated.

  “What do you mean?” she asked. “I don’t think anyone had found it or seen it before I came.” She took out her phone and showed him the pictures, starting with the man with the slit throat. “Who is he?”

  “He is the former chief of security at FIA headquarters,” he said. “He didn’t like the new changes in FIA either so he went underground. I found out he was hiding here in Denmark too and I didn’t like two former agents on the run hiding in the same small country. It was too big a risk so I came here to make arrangements for his new cover as he didn’t mind leaving the country. I prepared his back story and did his paperwork, everything. That’s when three agents turned up.”

  “These three?” she asked and showed him the next picture of the men in the basement.

  “Yes,” he replied, looking grim. “We managed to get the upper hand. I left him with them still alive in the basement. He obviously killed them.”

  “I’m not a forensic pathologist, but I would have estimated that they all died the same day. At the most, only a few days apart,” Eve said.

  “You think FIA had a hand in it?” he asked. And as if realising something, Hellström, pointing at the picture of the dead former chief of security, he said, “Maybe you’re right. I’m sure Belov had something
to do with his death. Rumour has it he is all about the throat. The more blood splatter he could make the better. Belov is the firm’s serial killer on a leash.”

  They talked for several hours. Hellström told her everything he had ever worked on and in return she told him why she had started to doubt the firm. Leaving out ‘one name’. He felt at ease and so did she. She had only told Patrick the bare minimal, he didn’t understand where she came from. Hellström did, which made it easier to talk to him because she didn’t have to explain herself and why.

  “It’s late. You can stay the night if you want to,” he said.

  “I can’t. I have a call to make,” she said, collecting her things from the floor. “I still need to know what you and Harlow discovered. I need all the evidence I can get. I’ll leave your name out of it, I’ll fake your death if I have to if it means I can take FIA down.”

  He walked out of the room and for a split-second Eve braced herself for what would happen next. But nothing did. Hellström came back from his office with a flash drive and a small piece of paper.

  “Remember it, then burn it.” He gave her the paper. It had an encryption code on it. “It’ll unlock the files on the flash drive. It’s everything you need.”

  “Didn’t you give this to Harlow?” She looked at him.

  “No. Something I regret now.” He looked grim. “But if this is the end, I am not going to let them get away with it.”

  “Thank you,” she said. They both knew it; the inevitable fate coming to them both was hanging like a dark cloud over them. Even as her final words left her lips, she knew they were a faint hope. “Be safe.”

  She walked out of his house, seeing everything a little more clearly. That’s when she started making her plan to end it all.