Stitch-Up (31 page)

I smiled at the dark-haired girl. “Hiya.” My voice came out perky and insincere, like a PR girl warming up for her pitch.

Decca held my gaze; she neither smiled nor said hello. She had a mass of tangled dark hair, sculpted cheekbones and blue eyes that reminded me of the ocean. The lights turned green. Decca crunched the gear stick into first and released the handbrake. Only then did she liberate me from her gaze.

“Decca,” Latif snapped. “Cut the ice queen routine. She's cool, all right? Don't vex me. I've got enough rubbish going down without you chirping.” He fiddled with the radio dial, trying to get reception. A disembodied voice shouted something about a dangerous terrorist before dissolving into static. “Next you'll be believing that blab.” He shaped a gun with his fingers and put it to Decca's head, shouting in psycho-pidgin English. “Drive, you bitch of a son. Drive!” They were laughing now. He wiggled his fingers against her temple. “So tell me, Dex – you fother mucker – did you at any point believe the lies?”

She reached over and squeezed his leg, but avoided
eye contact. “As if… as if I'd believe that nonsense.
Latif – the terrorist
. Give me a break.”

“Dex, you're looking guilty,” he teased. “Come on, let's see your face. I want the truth.” He wiggled his finger-gun at her temple again. “The truth, Dex. The truth.”

Decca laughed. “Once or twice. You would've. Jeez, Lats! They've stitched you up like a kipper. I mean, have you seen the stuff they're broadcasting? It's so totally realistic. I didn't know what to think.”

Latif pulled his gun-fingers away from her head. “Yeah, I know.” His voice had lost its bounce. He put his fingers to his own temple. “Boom!”

Decca pulled his arm down. “Save it for TV.” He laughed. I envied the way that they were so easy with each other. She knew how to make him laugh. Damn it!

Decca made eye contact with me in the rear-view mirror again, only this time she smiled, and said, “Hello, I'm Decca. I feel like I know you already. Your life story at least.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don't believe the hype.”

“I'm Latif's oldest friend. That's why I so couldn't believe this rub on the news. But then he gets crazy sometimes, so I thought maybe he'd flipped big time. What else was I meant to think?”

“Did you speak to Ren?” Latif asked.

“Yeah, thank God. The day your story hit the headers, he creeped me in his cab outside college. Put me in the picture.”

“Yeah, I told him to get in touch. No phones?”

“Strictly no phones. He was scared his mobile was
slammed so we sorted out a system. It was so totally spy-cool. He'd wait in the taxi rank outside Tate Britain at four p.m. each day. If he wanted to speak to me, he'd be wearing his red Hawaiian shirt. If I needed to speak to him, I'd head over to the Tate from college and wait till he was head of the rank, flag him and we'd go for a spin. He always kept stuff real vague whenever we met. Cheeky nerd doesn't trust me.” Decca held up a mobile. “He gave me this pay-as-you-go. Instructions were to text Yukiko when you made contact.” She passed him the phone. “The message is:
2 xtra tckts 4 rad gig
.”

“What does that mean?” I asked

“Two extra passengers on board.”

“Tune the radio, Dex. It's doing my head in,” Latif said, as he texted Yukiko.

The car swerved back and forth as she turned the dial.

“'Sakes, Lats, are you sure you want to hear it?” She slid into a plummy TV anchor accent. “Latif Hajjaj is a threat to national security. I repeat, a threat to national security. The police are appealing for information from the public. Meanwhile lock up your children. I repeat, lock up your children.” We burst out laughing. It was all too absurd.

Decca looked over at Latif. “Seriously. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine. Never been better. Come on, Dec. I've got a freakin' price on my head. My parents are in prison. If the feds catch me they'll probably cut off my balls. And that's if I'm lucky,” he said, kicking the radio. It crackled into life. A man with a sock in his mouth was shouting up from
the bottom of a well. I heard my name, muffled, distant.

“You didn't tell anyone where you were going, did you?” Latif's voice was stretched tight like an elastic band.

“Yeah, as if.”

From the bottom of the well, a phrase floated into the car – the words were fractured and fuzzy, making it difficult to decipher. Something about the chase going live. Some mention of ‘Tracker'. Latif must've heard something similar because he asked, “What do they mean by the chase is going live?” He hunched down closer to the radio.

The radio slid to static. White noise. My nerves jangled. Something wasn't right with that phrase. How could the chase go live, unless… unless… unless –Decca had grassed us up. I pushed the thought away. That was impossible. Decca was Latif's oldest friend…

A siren wailed behind us.

I willed Decca to put her foot down. Watching the speedometer hover at forty, my suspicions edged back, louder, more insistent this time. Maybe Decca was going to trade us in for the reward money, become an overnight star, sell her story. Sure, Decca appeared genuine enough. Something niggled. I didn't trust her. Our eyes met in the rear-view mirror again. There was a stony quality that reminded me of my father. I looked away. Nothing would surprise me.

“You haven't heard?” asked Decca. Taking our silence as a negative, she continued. “They – that's your parents, by the way, Dasha – are making a monster reality show called
Tracker
.”

“What, like a huge game show?” Latif asked.

“Exactly. GoldRush has networked London's CCTV onto the web, so when
Tracker
goes live tonight, the public can log on and surf every street in London. Your parents are dressing it up as a deluxe
Crime Watch
when in reality it's the mother of all game shows; a real-live thriller and a cop show rolled into one. There are cash prizes for sightings, and a whacking million for information that leads to Latif's arrest. It's a game of cat and mouse citywide. And your parents are hosting the whole jackass jamboree. GoldRush's coverage of your story has aced every show ever made. It's like the best real-life soap opera ever. Lost little rich girl kidnapped by dishy terrorist. Female columnists can't get enough of you, Latif. Swoon! Swoon! They've seriously got the hots for you. Crazy, eh?”

“Great!” I said bitterly. My parents had upped the game. London was the set. We were the hunted. This was
Big Brother
for real. “And the government is okay with it?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“You bet! Even the PM has endorsed the show,” Decca said.

Dad had often talked about the Metropolitan Police's CCTV network and joked about its connectivity, how he dreamed of using it for a reality crime show. That was when I remembered the trial runs in Northampton, which used the police's CCTV cameras. My parents had been working on the idea of networking CCTV for some time. They had created a top-secret development division.
Even so, networking all of London's CCTV cameras would be a difficult trick to pull off at such short notice. But knowing Dad, he'd probably had everything in place for months – awaiting his moment. Now with my kidnap and the alleged threat of a terrorist attack, he wouldn't have any problem getting the authorisations required at the highest level.

A chill crept up my back. I couldn't believe my escape had given him the excuse to implement his grand plan. How ironic was that!

I pictured Dad in private meetings with the chief of police and the prime minister – how he would argue that
Tracker
was in the public interest, how it was the best way to find his precious daughter, that it was the only way to keep London safe from an attack. They were both so thick with my dad, so stupidly scared of him, that they wouldn't have raised any objections, anyway.

The chill spread through my body. He had probably been pushing to implement his all-singing, all-dancing chase show from the moment he thought I'd been kidnapped.

“So how does it work?” Latif asked.

“The CCTV feeds – you know, the footage you see police monitoring in movies. Dasha's parents have networked up to ninety-five per cent of them so when
Tracker
is transmitting live, anyone, anywhere can tune in, tap in a postcode and monitor their 'hood or any place else in London. That's the idea, anyway. That's what I understand from the trailers.”

“Yeah. That sounds about right. Dad's been developing
this concept for ages. He's just been waiting for the right time to put it into action. It seems like I'm the excuse for his hunt 'em down show, guys. He'll have had teams of people working on this twenty-four/seven. So when was
Tracker
announced?”

“This evening. That's when they started trailing the show. You're not going to like this, but
Tracker's
going to be epic. The whole world is hooked on your story. The kidnap is all anyone's been talking about since Dash did her vanishing act. You're superstars. Hollywood's bidding for the rights. Lats, you're a legend. There are websites devoted to you.”

“Just what I've always wanted.” He put his feet up on the dashboard, totally gloomed out.

“Come on, you're hotter than the hottest hottie in Hottiewood.”

“That'll be really helpful when I'm in jail.”

“Get with the programme, Lats. I'm seeing cameras in your cell and twenty-four/seven coverage. GoldRush TV is probably working up the idea right now: you in the exercise yard, you doing pull-ups in your cell, you reading Sufi poetry in the prison library. TV gold.”

“Shut it, Decca. Sounds like you've signed up already.”

“Only joking,” she said with a wink.

“Don't. I've had a humour bypass.”

“Everyone's real jumpy. I mean we've seen your bomb factory and everything. Although I did think that was a bit much.” Decca giggled. “I can't believe I thought you'd flipped for real.” She squeezed his arm. “God. Am I glad to see
you again! The last few days have been a living nightmare.”

Latif grunted, half-smiled. “Seriously, though, Decca is there a way out?”

She turned to look at him. “You want the truth, right?” The radio was hissing and spitting. “Not that I can see.”

A pause, eerie as the silence before a bomb blast.

Latif fiddled with the tuner. He swore under his breath. The radio wheezed. He turned the dial some more. A pirate radio boomed. A phone-in. A sonata. More screeching static. A syrupy ballad. A hyped-up presenter on GoldRush Radio signed off his show by saying: “Don't forget.
Tracker
goes live at midnight. Why don't you stay up and bag yourself a million?”

I checked my watch. “That's in an hour. Midnight's a weird time to air a live show, isn't it?”

“Less traffic. More chance for people to get involved,” Decca said.

Latif drummed his fingers on the dashboard. “What's the playlist? Swerve the city? Go country? Jed would take us in. He's sound.” None of these options were said with conviction. It was as if he were merely thinking out loud.

“I don't reckon we'll get out of London, if they've networked all the CCTV cameras,” Decca said.

“It's way too risky,” I agreed.

“There must be blind spots.” The drumming of his fingers on the dashboard became more insistent. “It's impossible to network all the CCTV cameras in London in under fifty hours – to make it a real slick operation. Even if
they've bribed the feds and are piggybacking on the police's network of cameras there must be blind spots. Believe it!” He sounded more cheerful. “The question is where?”

“Crunch Town?” I said with unusual enthusiasm.

“There's a ring of steel around Crunch Town,” Decca said. “The police are stopping people getting in and out.”

“Another junk space, then?” Latif said grimly.

“I think we should go back to mine. Log onto the
Tracker
site and see if we can find a safe route out of town to…” Decca tailed off.

“To where?” I whispered. My question hung in the air.

“If only Dad wasn't banged up.” Latif rapped his forehead with his knuckles. “There must be someone out there who isn't in your parents' pockets, Dash. Who's brave enough to speak out?”

I pictured the guests arriving at GoldRush Image Inc's NewYear's party and shook my head miserably. “Nope. He's got most of them sewn up.”

“In more ways than one. And the rest are too scared to speak out or stand up to him.” Latif was trawling the airwaves again. “Don't depress me. I need to think.”

“It's an outrage!” The words floated out of the aural snowstorm like bright orange lifeboats. Latif slid the dial on the radio a fraction.
A dissenting voice?
I held my breath; scared I might waft the words back into the staticky squall. I thought I heard the words ‘human rights'. Then, clear as a bell, a female voice cut through the static. “
Tracker
is a fiasco for human rights. An absolute outrage.”

“Freedom Radio!” Latif punched the air. “Dad had his own show on Freedom a few years back.” A slow smile spread across his face. “That's Chitra Azmi. She heads up Freedom. She knows Dad. She was born to kick ass.”

“Do you reckon she could help us get our story out there?” But even as I spoke, I knew my plan was a non-starter. Dad would have the station blocked as soon as it started broadcasting the truth. Freedom Radio was a media minnow. Dad would eat Chitra Azmi for breakfast.

“I wish. There are probably about three people listening.” He held up three fingers. “
Us
.”

“Great!” I growled.

“But it's good to know there are still a few sane people out there,” Decca said.