Even in the semi-darkness, he could have sworn then that he saw another trace of a smile play across her lips.
‘Plus,’ she said, ‘I also tell them your theory about our friend who owns this place being involved in the assassination so that they can go looking for him too. And guess what, Danny?’ she said. ‘With their resources, I’m betting they’ll find him first. And maybe kill him and whoever he’s with, wrecking any chance you have of getting them to spill and put on record that you weren’t involved with them.’
Danny
. . . She’d used his name in a way so over-familiar that it had made his skin crawl. But she was right, wasn’t she? Because she did know him – well enough to be confident he wouldn’t harm her, and well enough to have guessed, rightly, that what he feared most was someone else, someone better resourced, going after the Kid and Glinka.
Why? For the reason she’d just said: because they might kill them before Danny could get them to confess. But also because they might not find them, just scare them into vanishing even deeper underground, so that they’d never resurface. And then, of course, there was the other main reason that Danny hadn’t tipped off the intelligence agencies about the Kid’s involvement: because he knew any agency that got to Glinka and the Kid first would also find out about the smallpox. And once they did, their only priority would be to secure it for themselves. They certainly wouldn’t give a damn about using it to prove Danny’s innocence. In fact, he doubted they’d want any witnesses to its theft at all.
But even if this woman knew nothing about that, she still knew one thing: that she had Danny Shanklin by the balls.
Which meant that, like it or not, he needed to keep her on side. He watched now as she rubbed her neck where he had throttled her.
‘So, have we got a deal?’ she said.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to: she already knew she’d won.
‘Start through there in the bedroom,’ he said. ‘I’ll carry on checking in here.’
Just take back control, he told himself. Remember why you’re here. He’d deal with this later. With her. A flash image of one of Spartak’s twins watching over her filled his mind. Somewhere nice and remote. Yeah, he’d have her contained, all right, until this was over.
‘Here.’ He took a pen torch from his pocket and gave it to her. Their fingers brushed, and he felt a jolt somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach. Nerves. He felt like a car with a puncture, a computer with a fractured screen, a machine no longer working at its fullest capacity.
He watched her leave the living room and walk round to the left, towards the bedroom. He moved to the far side of the room, still watching the doorway, a part of him expecting her to reappear and come at him hard again. Every ounce of his experience told him not to trust her, yet a part of him did. A part of him made him turn eventually from the doorway and continue searching the room.
Nothing in the vases on the mantelpiece or taped up inside the chimney. He swept the flashlight beam across the walls. Nothing expensive. Posters not prints, none framed. Pink Floyd, Nirvana and, of course, the Kid’s favourite, Aphex Twin.
Then –
BAM
– a wall of sound made him step back as if he’d just been punched.
Then came light. Bright white light. A massive rectangle of it. Right there in the corner of the room.
Then came laughter, as the Kid’s face appeared on the screen. He was sixteen stone and thirty-five years old, but baby-faced, practically wrinkle- and stubble-free, which was how he’d got his nickname. He was sitting on a swivel chair, lighting a smoke. He scratched at the part of his belly that was showing between his stained grey T-shirt and jeans, every inch the fat cat who’d just guzzled all the cream.
‘Damn, Danny, it’s good to see you,’ he said, smoke cascading from his mouth, but not nearly enough to hide the grin on his face.
Movement to Danny’s right. He swung round, expecting an attack, but all his flashlight beam picked out was Ruth in the doorway, rushing back into the room. Only it wasn’t Danny she was coming for, he saw right away. It was the sound that had brought her. The thunder of bass.
‘And all kudos to you, mate,’ the Kid continued, his south London accent as pronounced as ever. ‘Because I’ve got to say, you’ve got more lives than a cat. I mean, just look at you, still at large. Shit, you’re good. You even escaped the welcoming committee we set up for you at the docks. And after all the effort we put into convincing MI5 to turn up and shoot you dead. That’s right. It was us who arranged for all those agents and that chopper to be waiting for you. You didn’t give us much choice after we found out you’d been to visit the good Commandant Sabirzhan on his deathbed. Just as well we’d left a false trail for you then, though, wasn’t it? A shame it didn’t finish you off.
‘The thing I don’t get is how you found our cosy little Cold War facility near Chernobyl at all, you sly old dog. I’m guessing you must have heard it from one of those fine people I left at that farmhouse to kill you and your daughter. Is that what happened? Did you beat it out of them, Danny? Did you make one of them cough up all that intel in blood?’
Danny said nothing. He was trying to work out if the video feed was some kind of recording that the Kid had previously set up, which had now been triggered by their presence. But in which case, how come the events it referred to were so recent? And how come it was addressed to him in person?
Unless . . . unless it was being transmitted
live
and—
‘Get back!’ he shouted to Ruth.
Too late, she was already by his side. Just as his worst fears were confirmed. And he’d got his proof that the Kid was watching them too.
‘And – ooh,’ he said, making a show of peering closer into the screen, ‘what’s this, Danny? I see you’ve got yourself a little lady in tow.’
If Ruth heard him, she gave no indication. Instead she marched right up to the TV, got down on all fours and used her pen torch to examine the nest of wires and metal boxes beneath.
But Danny knew it was pointless: even if they did cut off whatever cameras the Kid was filming them through, it was already too late.
These images of him and this address would already have been sent to the cops, MI5 and whoever the hell else the Kid had felt like tipping off concerning Danny’s presence.
He turned back to the screen. The Kid was grinning. His big fat face was almost split in two.
‘That’s right, Danny. I’m watching you watching me watching you. And I know what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘How long have I known you were in my apartment? Am I right?’
Danny didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. The Kid was right. He knew Danny too damn well.
‘And the answer is . . .
ta-dah
. . .’ the Kid threw up his hands like a magician ‘. . . I’ve been watching ever since you fucking walked in. The motion sensors in the hallway rumbled you the second you stepped through that doorway. And, yes, I’ve been recording you ever since.’
Danny should have known better. The Kid had left the lamp on in the living room to allow him to observe. Of course he hadn’t forgotten to set his alarm. He’d not set it on purpose. He’d wanted Danny to come in here. Because this was a trap.
Danny started to turn. He had to get out. The fire escape. That was his best bet. If the Kid had already passed on his whereabouts to the authorities, they’d already be on their way
en masse.
Jesus, was this what all his efforts had come to? Was he now right back where he started? Trapped inside a building in central London with the police and intelligence forces closing in?
‘But,’
the Kid shouted, ‘before you go running, I should tell you that I’ve
not
tipped anyone off about where you are.’
Not?
Danny broke his stride and turned back towards the screen.
‘I mean, why would I?’ said the Kid. ‘Why would I trust the British law-enforcement authorities again when they made such a spectacular mess of failing to kill you last time? Why would I bother, when I can do that myself?’
A number superimposed itself over the Kid’s face.
It was a ten. It turned into a nine.
‘Run,’ Ruth shouted. ‘It must be a bomb.’
She’d already seen the numbers and was pushing him back, turning him round and driving him ahead of her.
‘Seven.’
Danny could hear the Kid laughing.
‘Six.’
Ruth reached the front door at the same time as Danny.
‘Five.’
‘Open it,’ she screamed.
He tore the door open. She pushed him through.
‘Two.’
It was the last thing he heard.
There was only darkness after that.
Danny woke to the sound of what he first thought was waves breaking on the shore. He’d been dreaming of water too, of being on holiday in Florida and teaching Jonathan how to swim. Sally had been standing in the shallows less than a metre from him.
Jonathan’s swimming goggles had glinted in the sun as she’d launched him towards Danny. The little boy had ploughed through the water, carried by his momentum, not really swimming at all, but as he’d surfaced, spluttering, into Danny’s arms, from the gasp and squeal of triumph you’d have thought he’d just front-crawled solo across the Atlantic.
Now, as Danny opened his eyes, he saw there was no blue sky above him. Jonathan and Sally were gone. His arms held nothing but the gaping hole of their absence.
His head and neck ached as he turned it to look round the room he found himself in. Perfunctory furniture. A full-length wall mirror. A trouser press. Drawn beige venetian blinds. A towel covered with blood.
He sat bolt upright, immediately regretting it. He saw the balaclava on the floor, with the black trousers and boots. The Kid’s flat. The woman who’d tried to kill him. The Kid . . . He remembered the Kid laughing. Had the Kid really been there too? Shit. A bomb. Was that why he couldn’t remember anything?
A wave of nausea washed over him. Retching, Danny leaned over the bedside and saw a bin had already been placed there. Tissues. More blood. A stick. No, he saw, not just a stick. A painkiller. A Fentanyl ‘lollipop’. An opiate given to combatants who fell in the field.
Danny pictured the woman again.
Ruth.
Had she given him the Fentanyl? Had they both somehow made it out of there alive? She’d been behind him, hadn’t she? As they’d tried to get out of the Kid’s apartment . . .
He retched again, but nothing came up. The nausea passed. He laid his head back on the pillow. He saw he’d been dribbling. His spit was flecked with blood.
He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. A fan slowly turned. He let its breeze lull him, cooling his sweating brow.
How long have I been here?
And where
was
here? A hospital? He needed to check, but he felt too sick to move. Instead he slumped back.
A moment of panic. Had the police captured him? Or, worse, MI5 or even Mossad? Was he about to find himself in the back of some blacked-out truck or soundproof crate on the way to who the hell knew where? Or had that already happened? Was this a cell? Was his run finally at an end?
No,
he told himself.
No. If that was the case, you’d still be drugged or trussed up.
Someone had brought him here. It had to have been Ruth, hadn’t it? She had to be here somewhere, didn’t she?
He closed his eyes, his nausea steadily morphing into a splitting headache. More pain as well. In his shoulder. That’s right. He’d been wounded there. There and his head. His
face.
He shut his eyes tight, part of him wishing he’d never woken up.
A click. Footsteps padding across carpet. A rustling sound. He turned as she was unwinding the clean towel from round her. Funny, but it was this he stared at almost as much as her smooth naked breasts and limbs. More so, probably, embarrassed at the prospect of being caught awake. He tried turning back before she saw him staring. But he was too late. The movement caught her eye and for a fleet second their gaze met. Eyes shut again, he faced the wall.
‘You’re back in the land of the living, then?’
‘Urgh.’
He’d meant to say,
Yeah,
but his jaw was too swollen and his tongue too dry for him to form the word properly. Even with his eyes closed, he could clearly picture her combed-back hair, glistening after the shower she’d just taken.
‘I hope you’ve got good dental insurance.’
He could no longer hear the static slide and rustle of her getting dressed, which he took as an invitation to turn back and talk. She was dressed, he saw. Or half dressed anyway. She had a crisp, box-fresh white shirt on and blue jeans, no belt, with the buttons not yet done up.
She took a compact mirror from her bag and handed it to him. He held it to his face and grimaced, bringing on a fresh bout of pain. He looked as if he’d been through ten rounds with a heavyweight pro. Yellow bruises. Black bruises. So many he lost count. He pulled his blood-black lower lip down, wincing at the touch. His nose was freshly broken too. He remembered he had the girl to thank for that.
‘Ug,’ he said, meaning
fuck.
She passed him a glass of water.
‘Drink. Gently,’ she warned, watching him impassively as he winced.
He didn’t listen. He drained the glass.
‘Another,’ he said, quickly adding, ‘Please.’
She shook her head. He opened his mouth to protest, but then turned quickly from her to the bin as the water he’d just drunk rushed back up and out of him in a jet.
She passed him a tissue to wipe his mouth.
‘Jesus wept.’ He groaned loudly. ‘Just give me a gun and let me shoot myself in the head.’
‘No permanent damage to your vocal cords, then,’ she commented. ‘I guess I’ll soon find out if that’s a good thing or not.’
A joke. At least, he hoped so.
‘You saved my life?’ he said.
‘Yes. Maybe cost you it too, though. Should have checked sooner to see if his apartment was rigged. Once you told me he was part of what happened, that he was a terrorist, it should have been the first thing I did.’