Altered States (34 page)

All I had to recognise was that Tanya being here did not change anything. I headed through the house feeling my way stealthily toward the lounge. Then there was a voice.

‘Who is it honey?’ it called. And I followed.

It was a big lounge. You could have had a decent sized game of lacrosse in the expanses between the furniture. It was decked out in white. A tasteful hide of something dead lay in front of a fireplace of grey-striated marble. And there in the centre was Bayliss, loafing on a white leather sofa the size of a family saloon with a scotch-on-the-rocks in one hand and a folded broadsheet in the other. The pleasure at meeting me in person for the first time was immediately evident in his greeting.

‘What the fuck!’ He sat up and pushed himself back into his chair as I strode across the room with a gun targeted at his ample forehead.

‘Language!’ I reproached as I stopped a few feet in front of him, revelling amid the fear in his eyes. ‘Now, this ends here. And it ends in one of two ways. Either it ends with a high-velocity projectile and a long day scrubbing brain out of shag pile for your maid. Or it ends in a nice friendly chat. The choice is yours.’

And then he said something I really wasn’t expecting. I mean, it totally knocked me for six.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘
What
?’

‘Who the fuck are you?’ He slowed it down this time to make sure I got it.

The really annoying thing was he wasn’t lying. He really had no clue as to who I was, which was rather worrying because someone who had put so much effort into playing me over the last year or so, really should remember me.

I thought quickly – threw this new nugget of truth into the mix. I couldn’t possibly have this all wrong, surely? All the pieces fitted together. It had to be right. There was no one else who knew about me from the start; knew about the Hide system. No one that had the power to fake deaths, kidnap children, frame murderers. There was no one else who could have played me like this, other than the very someone who was sitting right here in front of me.

Or someone sitting very close to him.

Then it came to me. And it should have come to me sooner, since uncovering the chief assassin in this game. In fact, my whole eye-opening experience with Maria should have taught me not to be so chauvinistically short-sighted in general.

‘Stay there,’ I said as I backed out of the room.

I poked my head into the corridor, looked at the woman tied helpless to a chair, and the pair of eyes that looked back told me everything.

The thing about PAs is that they have an awful lot of power, by proxy that is. They filter all communications, they pp signatures, they send out emails and letters on behalf of their superior. They can, if they are devious enough, take on the persona of whomever they are assisting, to their own ends. To make deals and issue commands. The extent to which this can be pulled off is probably severely limited in normal business, but ironically in the business of national security it is a different story. The nature of the commands issued by a man like Bayliss, do not get openly talked about at cocktail parties. So if Ms Scarlett wanted someone arrested, no questions asked; then no questions would be asked. Having said that, it was an extremely dangerous game, requiring nothing short of a mastermind.

A moment later we had a cosy little threesome in the living room. So to speak.

Now I was pointing the gun at Scarlett, and she was pointing her seething eyes back at me, and they had a depth of intelligence that was suddenly all too apparent.

‘Want to tell the boss what you’ve been up to?’ I suggested. She didn’t like the suggestion; just kept those eyes trained on me.

‘What the hell is going on here?’ Bayliss piped up impatiently.

This new dynamic was all news to me and I hadn’t had time to process it. I did some quick mental processing. Bayliss would definitely have known about the Hide system at the time; and whatever dodgy intentions were earmarked for it. He would also certainly know about BlueJay – that it was controlled by his agency. He may even know about the close underhand ties forged with Igneous. But it appeared he knew nothing about the recent meddlings in my life.

‘Why?’ chipped in Bayliss as he leaned for his scotch with a not quite successful stab at nonchalance. My stab at kicking his wrist was wholly more successful. He winced and retracted his arm.

‘Because she killed a friend of mine for a start. And she comatised my girlfriend.’

The accused thought about this for a moment, obviously coming to the same conclusion as me in that she wasn’t touchable for so much as parking in the mother-and-child space at the grocery store.

‘Your
ex
-girlfriend,’ she quipped. ‘You left her, remember?’

I slapped my forehead with my free hand. ‘You’re right.
Ex
-girlfriend. Well that’s okay then. I’ll get my coat.’ Then I thrust the gun six-inches closer to her face and returned the menace to my tone. ‘No fucking difference. They are both ex-people now and that’s your doing.’ I held my firm pose for a long moment then I eased off. I loosened my gun-touting wrist a little and nodded my head slowly. ‘But you are right. Killing you wouldn’t get me too far. I have other plans.’ I didn’t actually, but I was sure I would soon. ‘First, though, as we’re on such good terms, I want some answers.’ I perched myself on the edge of the armchair opposite them both and leaned forward. ‘How did you know I was alive?’ I knew the answer to this of course, so it was a good control question.

Bayliss remained quiet. Odd considering what he was discovering about his mistress’s handiwork. She didn’t seem overly keen on responding either.

‘Come on Tanya. Be nice. This shiny thing in my hand doesn’t really give you an option.’ I brought the gun in-line with her kneecap. ‘And how far am I going to get with the information you give me, after I walk out of here and you press the panic button? A mile? Less? And who am I going to tell if I get further? You run the country. I don’t even exist.’ I leaned in. ‘So, tell me, how did you know I was alive?’

She sighed. ‘Okay, one of your former associates ID-ed you in an Indian Reservation casino.’

‘Wrong.’ Well-educated suggestion though. ‘Stop testing my patience.’

She made an aggravated exhalation, but it was all for show. I got the clear impression that now her cover was busted she was actually quite ready to brag about her clever little deeds.

‘Fine,’ she began after an exaggerated pause. ‘You’d actually done a pretty good job. We didn’t know you were still alive. Not until the FBI contacted us, saying they had someone in custody with information about one of our former agents.’

‘Who did the FBI have?’ I knew this too of course but didn’t want to show my hand.

‘Colombian woman called Maria who you apparently had a fling with. Should learn to be more careful with the pillow talk when you’re sleeping around.’

At that remark I raised my gun-holding hand instinctively to bring it across someone’s face but I stopped myself.

‘God, I wish
he’d
said that,’ I seethed.

‘We knew that Gemma had visited a gene-sequencing company. Our agency is quite interested in the data these companies collect, so our boys at NSA regularly siphon it off.’ She gave a proud wink. Every movement was starting to grate. ‘So, when a snippet of your DNA showed in Gemma’s daughter, alarm bells rang. Obviously, we assumed she was your daughter. And from what her mother said on the GenieTec reports the kid had some interesting abilities. That made her very attractive to us.’

‘So you decided to incapacitate her mother, so you could snatch her and research her abilities. And ultimately you did something to Karla to make her unreadable by me, such that you could manipulate me indirectly?’

‘Hmmm.’ I thought about this for a moment, considered it a reasonable suggestion, then kicked Bayliss squarely on the side of his head. He was out cold. I felt much better.

‘You did all this because you’re in the pocket of Igneous. You wanted to know if I still had a copy of the Hide system; or you wanted me to develop a new one. To detect people wearing fake clothes. Seems so trivial.’

‘When there’s billions of dollars at stake, nothing’s trivial.’

‘So I am learning. They also paid you to destabilize the rug trade in New Meadows? Carry out a few killings; start a turf war? Scare off the cops?’

She didn’t answer. But it was a yes anyway.

‘And that’s why you chose to set-up Burch for the killings, because he was a key link man on the street.’ I was talking to myself now as much as anyone. ‘Boy, fashion sure does corrupt.’

Scarlett laughed out loud at this suggestion. ‘Aaron, my dear boy. You know there’s no out. Not from how far in you are. Like a little tick screwed into flesh, you’re not coming out alive. You’re with us or you’re dead. That’s how it is. We like our employment contracts simple – keeps HR off our backs.’ It takes something to make jokes at the wrong end of a gun barrel. You can’t know how much until you’ve been there. ‘You can keep disappearing if you like. But it will get harder every time. And when we need you, we’ll come find you again.’

‘
Well maybe you’ll think differently when you consider what I’m about to know about you.’

She flashed me a frown. ‘
About
to know about me? What are you talking about?’

I smiled and shook my head in mock disbelief.

‘Have you forgotten who I am?’ I dropped the gun to my side and looked her sternly in the eyes. She was beginning to realise what I meant. And as soon as she did it would be too late. For as soon as you’re aware there is something you don’t want to think about, there it is, right slap bang in the middle of your head.

‘Is there something you don’t want me to know about, Tanya?’

For the first time she lost her composure. She began to glisten with perspiration. Her eyes were locked onto mine, but they quivered ever so slightly. She was desperately trying not to look away; trying not to look at something. If she were straining so hard it must almost be in her line of sight. I looked over my shoulder. Then I stood up and walked over to the mantelpiece.

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve heard about this.’

An hour later, it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. Bayliss was immobilised in the corner, with tape and a few sedatives. Tanya was sitting upright in a dining chair in the centre of the room.

‘There’s a contract out on your life. Well, his actually,’ I said, nodding at the sleeping Bayliss. ‘I’ve hired a really good assassin. You might be familiar with her work.’ I smiled. ‘If she doesn’t hear from me this evening, then ... well, you get the idea.’

I left the room. Then I legged it from the Bayliss residence, my feet making satisfying gravel-grinding sounds as they slammed into the driveway. I was pleased at fleeing in such an un-stealth-like manner, like sticking up my mid-digit, only far more productive. Strangely, my mood improved still further when the first bullet whistled past me, kicking up a plume of dust as it impacted the ground.

I had not left my hosts too incapacitated because I’d not wanted them to have to be found by someone else. So I knew the heavies would be turning up sooner or later. Just hadn’t thought it would be this soon. I had been belting down a footpath between the well-manicured gardens of large houses, when the unmistakeable sound of a car screeching to an angry halt came from behind. I dealt with this new information in a rather unconventional manner.