Killing Eva (24 page)

Paul applied pressure to two points on the tiny metal key and it began to open itself. He withdrew a small needle-like implement.

‘The key is in the blood.'

Now, Smith really did look confused. ‘Whose blood?'

‘Whoever is nominated to be the key. Via the blood you can access their DNA. In your DNA, Joseph, you have a code which is completely unique – there is no one in the world who has the same genetic code as you.'

Smith nodded. He picked up the key Paul had placed on the table between them. ‘But how does this use your DNA?'

Paul took the needle from him. ‘This can be used to take a blood sample from whoever is “the key”. It will analyse that blood sample and produce a version of the genetic code in a format that can be communicated to a receptor embedded in a very specifically designed laptop.' He patted the laptop on the side of the table next to him, now closed.

‘It is impossible to replicate the key because of the unique nature of DNA. And it's impossible to fake it because it only works with the blood of a single person.'

‘Surely, you can just take a blood sample by force?'

Paul shook his head. ‘No. When you are placed in a stressful situation, 99.9 per cent of the time your body will respond by releasing a stress hormone into the blood stream, such as cortisol or epinephrine. Where there is a trace of these hormones in the blood sample drawn using this key, the genetic code becomes corrupted and the sequence transmitted is fake. The same is true if there are sleep hormones present, sedation – anything unusual and it won't work.'

‘So, you can't use this key unless blood is willingly given?'

‘Exactly. The sample should be provided at a time of optimal relaxation, for example just before going to sleep.'

‘So, how will you obtain the sample from Eva Scott?'

Paul stopped short. How did Smith know a sample would be required from Eva Scott?

The two men stared at one another. Joseph Smith had drawn this conclusion himself but, until he saw the fear in Paul's eyes, he had not been 100 per cent convinced he was right. He now felt angry with himself – if he had worked out earlier how essential the woman was going to be, he could have used her as a bargaining tool.

He watched as Paul considered his options in terms of a response. In the end, he seemed to decide he had few.

‘She was never intended to be the key. It was supposed to be someone else. However, the technology was developed with her brother – he wanted to give it to her as a gift. That is why she is the prototype.'

‘Does she know?'

‘Unlikely. She was accidentally sent a confirmation code via her phone when the key was activated but I doubt she would have been able to make sense of it.'

‘So, how do you propose to make her unlock your key?'

Paul hesitated. Was telling this man really wise? It wasn't but Paul was entirely isolated from those further up the chain now. He craved an ally. Every inch of his brain told him Joseph Smith could be no one's ally. But nevertheless…

‘There is another type of technology we have developed.'

‘Also stolen?'

Was that judgement? That was laughable from a murderer. ‘Also stolen,' agreed Paul, after some hesitation.

‘What does it do, block the stress hormones?'

‘No, it engenders trust. Trust makes human beings feel calm.'

‘How?'

‘It can be used to recreate a person.'

‘I don't understand.'

Paul leaned forward. He loved this technology, he couldn't help but be enthusiastic about it, despite the fact that it had repeatedly failed.

‘It is a combination of drugs and conditioning that change the brain's response to certain situations to make it more accepting of some things and less so of others. After weeks of drug prep, there are implants. It's a long process, so not an ideal piece of technology for an unwilling subject, as they must be detained physically and monitored. But it can be done – if you really need it to be. However, the implants only last for a specific period of time.'

‘And then what happens?'

‘We don't know. There's a possibility the implants can leak.'

‘Leading to death?'

‘Possibly.'

‘How does it work?'

‘The technology can make someone believe they are speaking to a person they know. The person who is to be the “actor” wears “mapping points” attached to certain facial contours. The combination of the chemical alteration to the brain, the mapping points, and the cranial implants create a convincing recreation of the face you want them to see. It means you can control a specific element of a person's perception of reality. With control, you don't need violence.'

‘Is it believable?'

‘The visual effect is usually enough to convince the person seeing the face that it is speaking with the same voice, even that it has the same skin colour. However, you have to pick someone of similar height and build or it is not as effective, and the recipient may also notice where behaviours are not the same, or if certain responses are different.'

‘Does it work?'

Paul thought back. It had worked temporarily almost every time it had been used – the drugs had been administered gradually to Eva way back in London, by a man posing as her boyfriend, by a couple in Berlin and then in high volumes during her stay at the château, when the implants had been installed. However, the flaw, they now knew, seemed to be longevity.

‘It will work long enough for our purposes.'

‘To convince Eva Scott she is interacting with her brother?'

‘Yes – the person she trusts the most. She will provide him with the blood sample for analysis.'

‘But he is dead. I saw him die.'

‘No one really knows if he died, you know that, Joseph.'

Joseph scowled. He felt responsible for the lack of closure on that job – even now he couldn't quite bring himself to admit he might have failed.

‘He cannot be alive. There was virtually nothing left of him.'

‘He is – was – a resourceful man.'

‘But he cannot be alive,' Smith repeated, robotically.

Paul just looked at him and smiled. ‘It doesn't matter. He is not here.'

THIRTY ONE

Eva awoke minutes
later. She stared at the road ahead of her. She was struggling to feel… anything. That wasn't like her at all. She had often had to work hard to gain control over her feelings, to make sure they didn't disable her in certain situations – or overwhelm her when she was alone. During all the events in Paris, with Leon and the relentless spectre of Jackson, that emotional wave had returned. She never allowed it to overwhelm her but she had been aware of its presence.

But now? Rather than grappling with emotional frequencies there seemed to be nothing there at all. When she thought about what might have happened to her over the past week, there should be extreme fear, intense apprehension about the future, but there was just a vague sense of confused unease. It wasn't pleasant because it wasn't normal. There was no triumph in being free from emotional baggage, instead she felt something had been stolen from her, as if she wasn't judging situations correctly because she felt nothing. Like she'd been broken somehow.

‘You're deep in thought.'

The sun was beginning to rise over the broad, open countryside as they drove along the road, flanked by the dark shapes of the Pyrenees on either side. The light was pastel pink, orange and shades of purple. It was aesthetically beautiful but Eva did not feel its warmth.

‘I don't know what to think, Irene. Again, I'm in a situation completely out of my control, apparently – again – because of Jackson.'

No reply.

‘But this time,' continued Eva, ‘It appears impossible for me to get perspective on what's happened. And I've lost a week. Maybe more.'

Irene inhaled and exhaled steadily. ‘If I may say so, Eva, there's very little we can do about this right now and over thinking it – as you're doing – is going to drive you mad. Why don't you just go back to sleep?'

Eva looked across the cab of the van. Go to sleep? Irene met her gaze.

‘You look exhausted. If you can't sleep, just watch the sunrise. You couldn't see these colours if you were colour blind.'

It was an odd comment. Eva didn't reply but turned around in her seat, folded her arms and stared out of the window in front of her, watching as the colours of the sunrise changed before her eyes. I couldn't see this if I was colour blind, she repeated to herself. What I would be seeing would be entirely different.

She knew very little about sight, about what made the brain comprehend what the eyes were seeing. But she had often wondered how people could see the same thing so differently. She felt as if biology was only predictable up to a point – until you reached the mind. She knew about ‘retinal cones' though, which transmitted a perception of light and colour to the optic nerve – she had researched it once for an article, and the physical idea of ‘retinal cones' had stuck in her mind. Like ice-cream cones. Colour blindness, she mused, must either be caused by a problem with the retinal cones or with the brain itself.

What, she thought to herself, if someone had tampered with her retinal cones to make her see Jackson?

Or – worse – with her brain. Was it possible for a hallucinogenic substance to have been administered to make her believe she was in the company of her long dead brother? It was such a specific perception, surely achieving it would be impossible? But Irene herself had talked of the way science could be used to alter what nature had given. Perhaps that could be done via perception, as well as reality.

Eva tried to make sense of the moment at which ‘Jackson' had rescued her. It had all happened so quickly she had very little memory of it. As she thought about it she realised that, other than the four people pushing her gurney, the ‘rescue' had met with little resistance. The adrenaline fuelled situation had ensured she didn't question anything at the time and the pain inflicted by the knife blade plunged into her arms had made her black out, blocking out at least an hour afterwards and causing her to become hazy on the minutes before he had appeared too. Maybe that was intentional.

She glanced over at Irene and wondered whether she should mention the idea she'd had. But she had a sneaking suspicion the response would be once again, ‘it's possible'.

Irene kept her eyes on the road as she sensed Eva going through the motions of her thoughts. Why had she mentioned colour blindness and perception? It was almost as if she wanted Eva to work out what was going on. It was incredibly unprofessional. Irene didn't know whether she had been motivated by something in particular or whether she was simply too tired, but she was behaving recklessly.

She had no idea how much the ‘it's a possibility' lines were being believed, or whether she had unintentionally given away more than she realised. Eva was as smart as her brother – all her actions would lead them to believe so – in which case it was entirely possible she could determine what had happened to her at the château, particularly after that colour blind comment. Irene knew the science ACORN used was spectacularly advanced. She knew vaguely that, for some reason, it was necessary that Eva believe herself to be in the company of Jackson, but she did not know why. Her role was one of chaperone. She merely had to deliver Eva safely and not ask questions that would require her to be eliminated. She'd never had much interest in science and it made less sense to her than cold, hard, political logic but something like this – this could change the course of many things, it had serious context and was fascinating. She glanced at Eva and noticed she was asleep again.

Perhaps now would be a good time to make the call.

Barely moving her hands, she flicked the switch on the mobile wedged between her thighs and the seat. She heard the ring tone begin in her earpiece. A voice answered and she said a single word:

‘Go.'

Paul watched the small green dot travelling across the screen in front of him; a road map of the south east of France showed the dot travelling towards the French Riviera. Which was, coincidentally, where he now sat watching the sun come up from a vast private villa overlooking azure blue seas. He was beginning to enjoy his new position as the figurative spearhead of this fascinating plan to cripple a country with its own economy. And he loved his role as double agent.

Eva Scott's DNA was his only focus. Obtaining it and using it. That had been the job of the idiot who had managed to die in the car crash. He had even been given the face of the one person in the world they knew Eva would trust implicitly, so broken had she apparently been by the disappearance of her brother. But he had failed and so Plan B had been set in motion – another try. This had exposed Paul to discovery – and more abuse from the ‘elders' – but he had dealt with it and, in a way, it had all worked out for the best. She was on her way to where she should be, apparently by a fortuitous turn of events that required precisely zero effort from him, even if she was not directly within Paul's control. Once she reached the transport, he would be released and all he needed to do then was to collect on the revenge side of the bargain and then disappear before ACORN found out that he had in fact been working for a third party all the time.

Irene skidded the truck to a halt in an unofficial layby off the motorway. She ran around the front of the van, her shoes slipping on the loose gravel, almost sliding sideways. She wrenched open Eva's door and pulled herself up to where Eva was jerking backwards and forwards, her mouth open, her eyes agog.

Irene reached over the shuddering girl, undid her seatbelt and pulled her out, balancing her weight and lowering her fitting body to the floor.

She laid her out flat, checked her tongue wasn't falling down her throat, and moved her into the recovery position.

She ran back to the other side of the van and pulled a small medical box from underneath the driver's seat. She yanked it open and began tossing items onto the floor, until she found the vial she was looking for. Her breath was rasping, her heart pounding in her throat.

She glanced across the van, through the open passenger door, and saw Eva had rolled onto her back and started to vomit. She was choking, spewing liquid with an oddly bluish tinge up into the air and back into her mouth again. Her eyes were open but she was not conscious.

‘Shit,' muttered Irene and scrabbled in the box until she found a syringe. She ran back around the front of the van, pushed Eva back onto one side and began scooping the vomit out of her mouth with her hands.

When her mouth was clear, Eva continued to jerk on the floor, shivering and jumping with glazed eyes. She vomited again but, this time, it spilled onto the ground as Irene held her on her side.

Irene pulled the wrapping off the syringe, prepped it and plunged it into the top of the vial she had selected. She steadily pushed the plunger down and then slowly pulled up just a few centimetres of liquid. She withdrew the syringe from the vial, quickly tapped the side and positioned it over Eva's arm.

She hesitated for a second and then stuck the metal point into Eva's skin and pushed the plunger all the way down, slowly and steadily.

She could see the instant effect as the liquid entered Eva's blood stream. She froze mid shudder. Her eyes widened even further and she seemed to rise slightly off the ground. Irene took a step back, wondering if she had used the wrong vial, or the wrong dosage.

Then there was a long, low moan from the spot on the floor where Eva lay and the girl collapsed onto her back, her face staring up at the sky.

She lay there for several seconds, her eyes without expression, and then she blinked.

‘How long exactly do we have before the implants could fail?'

‘It's difficult to say but I would estimate another 24 hours.'

‘And after that, the technology won't work?'

‘After that, we would need to ensure she receives a high enough dosage to reach the same saturation point as before, perhaps replace the implants, which would be difficult without further confinement.'

There was a dissatisfied silence from the three faces on the screen.

This irritated Paul immeasurably. He didn't even care about this any more; once Eva was on the plane he would be gone – why did he have to put up with this scathing interrogation? He was fed up with judgement from their bloated faces, with their laughable ski tans. They didn't realise how lucky they were he had come along when he did. He had forgotten, once again, that his was not the genius behind the technology – and that he hadn't ‘come along' but been planted there. But he did manage to remember that, unless he played his part to perfection, he could end up with nothing.

‘Are the drugs damaging her?'

One of the talking heads began again. ‘I mean, is there a danger of losing her at any point?'

Paul bit his tongue. Should he really explain the imminent danger of the implants? They had only been tested once before and the test subject had escaped, so no controlled conclusion could be drawn. He reminded himself this really wasn't his responsibility.

‘No, we won't lose her before the launch date.'

‘You're certain about that?'

‘She may become ill, for sure, but she won't die. To be honest, the more incapacitated she is the better.'

‘Doesn't she have to consent to give the blood sample before the technology will work?'

Paul felt like grabbing these people and shaking them. Consent indeed…

‘No, she doesn't have to consent as in sign anything.'

‘But you said…'

‘It's the state of her blood which is important. She must be consenting enough not to be afraid, stressed or angry.'

‘And, if she feels any of those emotions at the time the sample is given, it won't work.' This was another of ‘the heads' now – he seemed a little more switched on, despite being by far the greyest-haired and most lined of them all. Perhaps he was the one.

‘Yes,' Paul said, ‘and she's less likely to feel them if she's… fuzzy headed,' he concluded, unable to find a more scientific term.

There was a pause on the other end of the line before the same man spoke again. ‘You know best, Paul.' This was the first time any of them had used his name – he hadn't even been aware they knew it.

‘The timing,' continued the man, ‘is crucial here.'

‘I'm aware of that.'

‘There's just a slight concern over the reliability of the mapping – even with the implants will it be enough to convince her she is really seeing who she thinks she is seeing?'

Paul decided not to mention the fact Eva had already been exposed to a reveal and they had no idea why it had failed. He wondered whether the men in front of him were aware this had happened. Surely, they must be, he concluded. They seemed to know every other development, no matter how small.

‘She has been convinced, so far,' he responded, aware he sounded less than sure himself.

‘Does it matter she has already seen one “Jackson” who turned out not to be the real thing?'

So, they did know.

Paul hesitated.

The men on the other end of the webcam seemed to sense it straight away. The two turned to each other and began whispering in such an unguarded way that, for the first time, Paul wondered about the fallibility of the project. He could just about make out what they were saying and it sounded like panic. They were blaming each other for trusting technology which was turning out to be so unreliable. It was clear the desire for security – to stop anyone else accessing their carefully laid plans – had now become a wall keeping even them out, too.

All the best laid plans, he thought to himself, smugly.

Outside the door, Joseph Smith listened with interest.

He was thoughtful.

There could be considerable advantage for him here, in fact perhaps this was the opportunity he had been waiting for.

Although he was not privy to exactly what the prize was – what ‘financial system' Eva's blood unlocked – he knew it was big. In a way, he didn't need to know what it was to understand that these men valued it greatly. Which meant others would, too.