by R T Green
I killed the call, leaned my head desolately back against the seat, as a dark cloud suddenly blotted out the sun.
The memories were made, the fantasy over.
The dreaded feeling was back in my gut, this time to stay.
Harsh reality had finally smashed through the door and was staring me in the face, screaming out with an evil grin, 'Remember me?'
Chapter 46
The drive home was a quiet one, neither of us feeling much like talking. Now and again I glanced over to Zana, she would smile back but her face showed no real emotion.
I knew that behind her deliberately blank expression there was plenty of that.
In one way I was glad of the sparse conversation; all the big stuff had been said so it would only have been small-talk, and right then I didn't need that.
I had to think, and think quickly.
Ryland Cooper's call had jolted me back to reality, but also rekindled the panic. I'd anticipated there would be time to collate my thoughts, a few hours back in the apartment to put together a plan, work out how much of what Zana had said to reveal to Scott.
Now I didn't have that luxury.
She'd told me plenty of truths, but from DIAL's point of view hardly anything. I smiled grimly, imagining the boss's face as I said, 'something unbelievably massive and horrific is about to happen, but the woman I love has a plan so we've just got to sit back and let her get on with it!'
Now that was fantasy.
I was still fighting with the dilemma as we hit the outskirts of London, no nearer to knowing how much I could get away with not saying to Duncan Scott. But something had to be said; I'd let slip to Coop I had words worth speaking.
Still I hadn't a clue what those words might be.
Three hours after we left the tranquillity of Norfolk, we turned into Zana's driveway. For the last half-hour she'd had her hand pressed tightly into mine, knowing the time was close when we would have to part. As I brought the car to a stop she drew in a big lungful of air. She turned to look at me, her face pale and strained, but an incredible warmth in her eyes.
‘Thank you, Madeline,’ she whispered.
She climbed out of the car. I pulled the case from the rear seat. ‘Do you want me to come up with you?’
She shook her head. ‘I'm sure you've got to go report or something.’
I smiled humourlessly. ‘Don't remind me.’
She leaned into me, rested a trembling head on my shoulder. ‘There's one truth I was surprised you didn't ask me,’ she said quietly.
‘What was that?’
‘Whether I had fallen in love with you too.’
I lifted her head, kissed her delicately. ‘Wouldn't that have been a waste of a trade?’
She smiled beautifully. ‘It would.’
She picked up her case and began to walk away, but stopped and turned back to me. ‘Madeline, I've asked a lot of you this weekend but… but I need to ask one more thing.’
‘You know I'll do anything.’
‘I don't know exactly when, it will be very soon now. But when the time comes, I have to do something that is going to take all of my will. I don't think I can do it alone. Please will you be there, by my side?’
‘Of course I will.’
I watched as she walked slowly away from me. She took small hesitant steps, like she was fighting the desire to turn and run back.
I knew how she felt; it was all I could do to stop myself doing the same. I fought away the tears as the lift doors close around her, and she disappeared from view.
I had no idea what the circumstances would be when I saw her next.
I sat back in the car but didn't drive away for a few minutes. A million thoughts were firing at me like a tennis ball machine on steroids; I tried to bat them away and think rationally. It didn’t take long to work out the ability to think clearly had left me for good.
Finally I started the car and headed across the drive. I still had no idea what to reveal to Scott, but now one more scenario had joined the growing list of possibles. Zana may have come here originally with evil intentions. But I was getting the totally irrational feeling the goalpost had not only been moved, but planted firmly at the other end of the pitch.
I thumped the steering wheel, groaned loudly. Duncan Scott was never going to accept that emotion-filled bullshit.
He couldn't possibly understand.
He hadn't fallen in love with his mark.
Chapter 47
I walked through the security screen into DIAL's HQ with a worse-than-ever sickening feeling in my gut, and my head spinning so fast I was having trouble keeping my balance. 'Something big', Coop had said.
Something big enough to uproot the goalpost yet again?
That was making me nauseous enough; it wasn't helping that I still didn't know what to say to Scott.
The man was standing looking through the big glass windows as I reached the office. Ryland Cooper and Miles Courtney were there too, a welcoming committee with expressions on their faces that told me straightaway they weren't going to smile warmly and say, 'good to see you, Madeline'.
But I got the feeling this time I wasn't the source of their displeasure.
Duncan Scott spoke, for once the voice sounded meek. ‘If you can tell us anything at all deWinter, for Christ's sake put us out of our misery.’
‘Sir, I know something big is about to happen. In the next two or three days, most likely.’
‘And what is that?’
‘I don't know exactly sir, not yet. But I have strong reasons to believe Red Mist is no longer the perpetrator.’
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Miles shake his head. Ryland Cooper was watching me closely. Suddenly a vision of lying at the bottom of a deep grave with earth being flung on top of me flashed in front of my eyes. But then Duncan Scott surprised me.
He turned from the window and leaned back against the desk, spoke quite pleasantly. ‘Why do you say no longer, Madeline?’
‘She confessed she was here to do, in her words, a very bad thing, but then told me that recently she'd changed her mission, without informing her superiors.’
Miles let out a sarcastic laugh, Scott opened his mouth to speak but didn't get any further. A tuneful buzzer on the desk stopped the words coming out. Quickly he spun round and pressed a button. ‘Yes?’
A female voice came through the speaker, her tone urgent. ‘Sir, I think you'd better come down. She's taken a turn for the worst.’
His face went white; Miles and Coop jumped up from their chairs like they were on fire. ‘You'd better come and see this, deWinter,’ said the DIAL boss as he ran down the stairs.
We walked quickly across the floor to an elevator I hadn't noticed before. It dropped quickly one floor, and as the doors slid aside I was shepherded in a part of the building I'd never seen. We were in a large hallway that reminded me of a hospital foyer. Half-glazed partitions ran around three sides of the space, divided again into smaller rooms. All were empty except for one. I could just make out a figure lying on a medical couch, three or four technicians milling around it in a frantic kind of way.
‘Coop, bring Madeline up to speed before she comes in.’ Duncan Scott spoke curtly as he and Miles disappeared through the door into the room with all the activity.
‘What the hell's going on, Coop?’ I asked nervously.
He looked at me with heavy eyes. ‘You a Star Trek fan, Maddie?’
I raised my eyes at the question. ‘Yeah… seen plenty of episodes.’
‘Then you'll be familiar with the Borg?’
‘Um… they assimilate people and turn them into mindless drones. Bits of technology added to their faces and bodies.’
‘You better prepare yourself then girl, because that's pretty much what she looks like. What's left of her anyway.’
Chapter 48
My mind went numb. I watched through the glass as the medics hastily wheeled a machine over to the bed and began connecting wires and tubes to the patient.
It was all starting to look desperate.
‘I don't understand, Coop.’
‘Scott drafted in more eyes this weekend so we could watch all six of them twenty-four seven; something we've not been able to do before. One of the tails followed Arik to a disused commercial unit under the railway arches. There he met with one of the others. They went in, and a half-hour later they left. The tails broke protocol and decided to force entry to see what was inside. Good job they did.’
‘They found her.’
He nodded. ‘Laid out on a disgustingly-filthy mattress, connected to some kind of machine, close to death.’
‘Shit.’
‘It seems the evil fuckers have been conducting some kind of experiment, but not doing it properly.’
The activity in the medical room slowed. Duncan Scott turned away, headed back to the door. He pushed it open angrily, but spoke quietly.
‘She's dead.’
I knew before he’d spoken, but the two words hit me like a jackhammer, and the nausea in my stomach seemed to blast through my whole body. And then Miles Courtney made it a whole lot worse.
His face deathly white, he fixed an angry stare at me, pointed a shaking finger back to the body on the bed. ‘You see, Maddie… see what your sweet innocent Zana is capable of? Go and look at her… go on!’
‘Alright Miles, that isn't helping.’ Scott put an arm on his shoulder and steered him away from any further confrontation. He looked at us. ‘This has gone way beyond DIAL's remit now, people. I've got to take it to the top. The PM's on some kind of jolly in Brussels, but that's just tough. He'll have to come back, right now.’
He headed to the elevator. ‘Miles, you're with me. You’ve won the star prize of a trip to Number Ten to shake hands with our illustrious leader. Coop, sit Madeline down and get every scrap of information out of her.’
The doors closed behind the two men. I turned to Coop, who hadn't spoken for a while. His eyes were misted over. ‘Can I see her?’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah, I'm sure.’
I stood looking down at the young girl stretched out on the bed, feeling nothing. Anything resembling emotion had left me, the sight of her shutting down my mind.
She couldn't have been much older than her early twenties; maybe even in the last of her teenage years. Her head had been shaved a while back but some growth was appearing again, wisps of a light auburn hair flecking her skull.
The one eye visible was dark brown, at least it once was. The white of her eye was a dirty yellow colour, prominent veins of deep red traversing it like a road map. Where her other eye should have been, a round metal device had been inserted. It looked a little like a camera lens. Both her ears had gone, replaced with circular discs of black metal. Tiny blue lights surrounded their perimeters; every second or two one would flash momentarily.
Her skin was grey, her lips black and contorted into a horrific shape that painted an all-too-clear picture of the hell she'd been through. Suddenly the emotions were back, screaming into my soul, making me turn away from the horrific sight.
‘Who could do this?’ I cried out, shaking hands involuntarily covering my face.
‘You don't need me to tell you that, Maddie.’
I couldn't bear to be in the room any longer, crashed through the door back into the foyer and slumped onto one of the metal chairs sitting against the wall. I tried to shake the vision from my head, tried to force my frozen brain to think logically.
‘Do we know who she is… was?’
‘Daisy Farrow. Twenty years old. She still had her old student card in an inside pocket of her coat. The Met had her on record, fortunately. She disappeared just over twelve months ago, and her parents reported her missing. But then on Christmas Eve she called them, said she was ok and living here in London.’
‘So how…’
‘She called them once a month from then on, told them she'd got a job and a small apartment. That was a lie; seems she's been living rough. A few weeks ago her parents contacted the police again as she'd not been in touch for a couple of months and they were getting worried. Now we know they had good reason to be. It's likely that bastard Arik picked her up on the street and… well, you know the rest.’
I lay my head back against the wall, my heart shattered into a million pieces. ‘I don't know what to say, Coop,’ I whispered.
‘You's got plenty to say, Maddie. I've told you what we know, now it's your turn to tell me what you think you know.’
Chapter 49
We sat down in the canteen at the same table as before, two cups of coffee once again steaming away between us. Except Ryland Cooper's was a cup of steaming sugar with a little coffee thrown in for good measure.
He looked into my eyes, a sympathetic expression on his face. He knew my mind was a jumbled mess of conflicting emotions. ‘Listen Maddie, I'm gonna lay my cards on the table here. You's got to promise me to do the same.’
‘Trading Truths,’ I whispered.
The big man missed the significance but got the point. ‘Yeah if you like, trading truths. How much of what you say to me gets any further than this table, I'll decide. I just need the truth, ok?’
More than a little surprised by his words, I nodded silently.
‘You were chosen for this assignment partly because of your reputation…’
‘Am I that famous?’
‘Go ask half the good-looking guys who work for MI6.’
I groaned inwardly. Was it really that bad?
‘From what we knew of you, you didn't do anything resembling a long-term relationship. Or any kind of relationship, come to that. But there was something about you, a kind of sophisticated allure that made men... and women... want to be friends with you. So it was decided you were the perfect bait.’
‘You make me sound like a worm.’
‘To some of us you was. I know your history, Maddie. Your formulative years were spent in one of the toughest streets in London, you experienced horrific shit in Afghanistan. Those things make it more than likely any heart you may have once had gets turned to stone. But that's what made you ideal; a cold heartless worm guaranteed not to… get too involved.’
I smiled again, even though there wasn't anything funny in Coop's words. ‘Your character assessment program failed you this time then, Coop.’
‘Seems it did. But I don't think even you could have predicted this.’
‘I still can't understand myself. But now…’
‘Yeah, Daisy kinda changes more than just the obvious. I know your brain is reeling Maddie, you's being smacked this way and that without a second to catch your breath. That's why I want you to know I'm here for you… help you sort out your shit.’
I looked into the big man's eyes, shocked by his words. Was I just being played? Somehow I didn’t think so, but I had to be sure.
‘Why are you being nice to me?’
He didn't answer for a moment. ‘Maybe watching a heartless bitch like you turning into a human being who actually cares about someone is good to see. And you ain't the only one who's ever fallen in love.’
‘I didn't say I was in love.’
‘Didn't you?’
I couldn't find the words to reply. It surely couldn't be that obvious. I tried to change the subject. ‘You got a story to tell, Coop?’
‘That ain't for the here and now.’
‘Tell me, please?’
He sighed, lowered his head. ‘Back in Jamaica, in another life, I fell in love. Her name was Tandie, she was pretty. Full of life, easy to love. Then it seemed she was getting in with a bad scene; drugs and all that. I struggled to believe it, but I was a rookie cop back then and didn't have no say in anything.
‘She swore to me she wasn't involved, but her brother was a known drug dealer. They were seen together a lot. One night the police raided a recognised trading-place. They were all there, including Tandie. All hell broke loose. Back in those days the island police didn't take prisoners. There was shooting every
where. Tandie took a bullet.’
‘Oh shit, Coop. Were… were you one of the cops?’
‘She died in my arms, Maddie.’
‘I'm so sorry.’
‘At her funeral her best friend pulled me to one side. Told me she'd confided in her, said she'd never dealt or even touched a drug in her life. She was spending a lot of time with her brother because she was trying to get him away from the shit. So I ain't no stranger to things not always being what they seem.’
I swallowed hard. ‘That's the saddest story I've ever heard.’
He looked up and smiled. ‘Nah, you's been told sadder stories than that in your life, Maddie. This is just the first one you's actually heard.’
Chapter 50
He took a sip of his liquid sugar and locked his stare into me. ‘I'm gonna ask you a question. Think hard before you answer, because what you say to me is very important. Do you believe Zana is in love with you?’
‘I don't need to think, Coop. The feelings are mutual. But now…’
‘Forget Daisy… Zana might have had nothing to do with that.’
‘Come on, Coop. You said she's the ringleader; you think she doesn't know?’
‘All I'm saying is don't just assume. Remember Tandie. Take me through the weekend, step by step.’
I shuddered a little, hoping he didn’t notice. There were a few steps I sure wouldn't share with him, but I was beginning to see the guy in a different light. I knew there was no choice, I had to open up.
‘When I got to Zana's apartment to pick her up, she was arguing with someone. It was Arik; he gave me the stare from hell as he left.’
‘Arguing with Arik. That's interesting.’
‘It sounded a pretty violent argument. She said it was because he thought she should be with one of her own people.’
‘That I can understand.’
His tone made me curious, but I let it pass. ‘I think there was more to it than that though.’