Christopher Brookmyre (55 page)

'Hostile is down,' Nuno reported. 'Repeat, hostile on the fly-deck is down. Clear to board, I am covering the stern platform.'

Jane's head had barely emerged before she instinctively ducked it under again in response to Alexis opening fire. Alexis discharged short controlled bursts, a few rounds at a time, aiming down the corridor to the right. Keeping the gun trained with one hand, she gestured behind her back to Jane with the other.

'Come on,' she ordered, her voice an insistent hiss.

Jane resumed her climb but ducked briefly again when she fully cleared the stairhead and saw two white shapes somewhere ahead of her, one far larger than the other. Alexis was firing at the smaller, keeping him crouched somewhere around the curvature of the corridor where he was restricted to loosing off the odd blind shot; with no target to aim at, it was just noise. Each time the blob on the right moved forward, Alexis unleashed another couple of rounds. The blob on the left, thus being ignored, was, Jane realised, behind a wall, and according to her rangefinder, twelve metres away to the smaller's six.

'Need a clip,' Alexis warned.

Jane handed Alexis her full pistol in exchange for the empty, then ejected the spent magazine and quickly slid home a replacement. Alexis gave her an okay gesture with her free hand, then stabbed a finger three times in the direction of the left-hand corridor.

Jane got the message: she had this guy pinned down - go go go. She proceeded slowly. As she followed the curved corridor around, she realised that from the apex at the stairhead she hadn't been viewing the larger blob through one wall, but three: it was in a cabin abutting the ship's outer hull. And as she progressed, reducing three walls to one, the target gradually clarified, expanded and changed shape until she could distinguish that it was in fact three people.

She walked as lightly as she could, now only a few metres away from the cabin. Through the wall, the figures were blurred: recognisably humanshaped but indistinguishable from each other. A very simple process of elimination told her who these three people were, but the life-or-death question remained: which was which?

Behind her, Alexis's suppressing fire continued to ring out. So far she'd fired four rounds from the fresh pistol. That left six more before she'd need to reload, which would require her to fall back and let her opponent make a move. Jane edged forward until she was right outside the cabin, the three figures only feet in front of her through a thin partition wall. Two were standing, one seated, but there was nothing to identify the guard. She raised her gun in both hands and breathed in deeply. Guillaume stood by the wall nearest the door, his Glock clutched to his chest, Dad at the opposite end of the room, sitting on the bed. They were all utterly silent, utterly still. Guillaume had appeared briefly after the explosion, ordering them to remain in the cabin, then returned for keeps shortly after sounds of gunfire broke out: repeat rounds from the stern, full-auto volleys from above. They'd heard a helicopter too, preceding further, higher-calibre ordnance amid panicked radio signals and an increasingly sweaty look of anxiety on Guillaume's face. Ross hadn't yet dared believe it was a rescue. Who could know what enemies these people had, what other nefarious shit they were up to their eyes in?

Plus there was always the possibility that some motivated buyer had found out where the goods were stashed and decided to cut out the middle man. Whatever it was, his jailers were getting their arses kicked. They were armed, they were disciplined, they were trained, but they'd been blindsided, and now they were being outgunned. Airborne assault tended to skew the odds that way, and from the ongoing sound of chopper blades, the gunship didn't have any imminent intention of leaving.

They'd heard Guillaume make his frantic call-outs, requesting check-in responses, getting fewer each time. Then the shooting had started just along the corridor, at which point he'd flipped the safety and put a finger to his lips. Guillaume said nothing, could say nothing, but the message was made clear by him briefly pointing the gun at Dad: either of you do anything to let them know we're in here, and I'll have nothing to lose by shooting him. Outside in the corridor, the firing continued at irregular intervals; mostly nearby, with occasional replies from elsewhere on the same deck. He heard a slider being pulled, a round being chambered after reload, the sounds following almost immediately after the most recent brace of shots from the nearer gun. Ross could see in Guillaume's face that the guard's trained ears had made the same deduction as he had: the reload was too soon after the last shot to be the work of the same pair of hands, and they both knew it couldn't be Guillaume's colleague who had back-up. There was someone else out there, close by, free of the stand-off, moving, searching: if not for the prisoners then for any remaining guards.

Guillaume repeated the finger-to-lips gesture in the lull after the next exchange of fire. Dad looked over, an expression of determination setting across his face. Ross read it: he was ready to defy, ready to take a bullet if it might save his son. Ross shook his head, eyes bulging in silent pleading:
Don't do this.
Guillaume read it too. He fixed Dad with a look of direst threat, then extended his arm full length to level the Glock at him. Ross swallowed, shaking his head faster:
Please, Dad, don't do this.
Guillaume cocked the hammer, sweat trickling down his forehead. Dad's nostrils flared, an unmistakable
Fuck You
, then his lips formed.
Please no
, Ross wordlessly implored.

'WE'RE HERE!' Dad shouted, the words barely out before the first gunshot sounded.

Ross couldn't close his eyes before the hammer fell. He witnessed Guillaume's arm rear up as five bullets ripped through the walls and into his chest. Their jailer was knocked back like a reeling boxer, matter exploding from his body with each blow, then he fell backwards to the floor. Dad was down too, howling 'Ah, Jesus,' as he clutched his right forearm, where Guillaume's single erratic bullet had lodged.

The door flew open from a kick and a black-clad figure filled the frame: some futuristic cyber-soldier; black goggles around the eyes, stick-mike and earpiece wired to the mothership, wet black hair swept behind the nightscope, black Kevlar armour hugging the trunk, black rubber covering the skin from neck to toes. The figure stepped forward into the cabin, both hands extending a nine-mill, advancing to stand over Guillaume. The gun fired twice more, two to the head, end of.

Four more shots reported from the corridor, then ceased. The figure turned to survey the prisoners, staring for what seemed an age.

'Who . . . ' Ross began to ask, but was stopped by the figure - he now thought, surprisingly, that it might even be a woman - holding up a hand and hissing, 'Shh'. He thought he heard a crackle of transmission in the earpiece, confirmed when she said: 'All the way around. Roger. On it.'

She knelt rapidly and picked Guillaume's gun from his dead fingers, then positioned herself in a crouch, looking towards the far end of the room as though there was someone standing there.

'Get down,' she told him. 'Now.'

Ross didn't argue. He dropped to the floor and watched her cross both weapons at her wrists, her gaze and her guns tracking along the wall like she could see through it. Then she opened fire again and he realised that this was because she
was
seeing through it. She directed ten or twelve rounds upwards through the partition in a mercilessly rapid syncopation: fingers gripping, hammers alternating, kickback compensated by the crouch and the cross-over. Somewhere amid the final shots of this salvo he heard a thump from beyond the wall. She paused, held her pose, guns still pointed but now silenced. Ross was in awe. The men who'd held him had been the real deal, not some bunch of minimum-wage security guards with a Mussolini complex; but
these
guys, whoever they were, were something else entirely; and this woman, this cyber-assassin, was just the baddest of the bad.

'Hostiles four and five eliminated,' she reported. 'Prisoners secure but Tom has been hit. Somboon, we need that boat here soon as.'

Her accent was Scottish, her voice just about the most reassuring sound he'd ever heard; reassuring, in fact, to the point of familiar, unnervingly so when she said Dad's name. No. Slow down. Knowing names meant nothing. They'd have been briefed. His emotions were running away with him. He didn't even know yet whether he could trust these people. But there was something about

. . . no. Get it together, man.

She stood up again and turned to face the two of them.

'It's okay now, Ross, it's over,' she said. 'Tom, are you all right? Is it just your arm?'

'I'll be fine as soon as I get off this . . . ' Dad's reply petered out in confusion, perhaps down to his pain and disorientation, as
surely
he couldn't be entertaining the same bizarre delusion that he knew that voice.

'Who are you?' Ross asked, his register falling to a bewildered whisper.

'Why are you here?'

She seemed to start at this, as though surprised by what he considered the most natural questions he could possibly have asked at that moment. Then she muttered 'Oh, the mask,' and took off her goggles, at which point very little in Ross's world continued to make much sense. For a horrible moment he thought this meant he was about to wake up in the same cabin and find himself still a prisoner, but the smell of cordite and the thumping in his chest were unmistakably real.

'You were out playing past your bedtime, son,' his mum said, tears in her eyes. 'I had to come and get you.'

One last bullet

Jane gave Ross a tight, lingering hug of the kind she'd reliably embarrassed him with down the years, and then finally let him go to board the chopper. Nicholas Willis was already on board, having completed his business with Bett. He looked tired and rather ruffled, like he hadn't had the quietest time of it of late either, but he seemed, for all of that, very calm. There was something of the eccentric but absent-minded schoolmaster about him, and Jane found it hard to imagine him playing hardnose with the types she had encountered at the Reine d'Azur. Willis had flown to Nice in person to escort Ross back to Marledoq, a touch she had admired, but perhaps further evidence that he was, sadly, a bit of a walking anachronism.

Alexis was on board too, up front with Rebekah. She'd seemed a little jumpy since they got Ross back to 'Maison Blah', as she called it, more so when Willis arrived this morning.

'This job began at Marledoq, and I won't feel it's done until it ends there too,' she'd explained when Rebekah asked why she wanted to tag along.

'It began at Chassignan,' Rebekah corrected. 'That's where the apartment was.'

'Whatever.'

Ross climbed aboard, then Alexis hopped out and slid the cabin door closed. Alexis stepped back into the cockpit and a few minutes later they took off. Jane watched the bird shrink towards the horizon, wishing she could have had a little longer with her son, but aware that there would be time - there would be plenty of time.

She made her way back inside the house and eventually tracked Bett down to the kitchen, where he was making coffee with his grand contraption.

'Any chance of a cappuccino?' she asked.

'Certainly, Mrs Fleming,' he answered, opening the fridge and pouring milk into a stainless-steel jug.

'You can knock that off now. Ross is away and Tom's going to be in the hospital another couple of days.'

'And then what?' he asked, his voice becoming quiet to the point of timid. Jane looked away, didn't answer, didn't want to.

319

'How did your meeting with Mr Willis go?' she asked, self-consciously changing the subject. 'I take it everyone's satisfied they've plugged the leak, otherwise Ross wouldn't have gone back.'

'Following up your lead, Willis uncovered a slew of emails between this man Segnier and OSE.'

'Ross had never heard of him.'

'He works for Phobos, the parent company, based at their premises in Lyon. That was why he didn't have direct access to the data. I should say, "worked"

for Phobos. He's been fired and a criminal investigation is pending.'

'Still, the information is out there. What steps are they taking to ensure someone doesn't just kidnap Ross all over again?'

Bett placed a wide mug of espresso in front of Jane and poured frothy milk into it until it reached the brim. He left the jug on the table, handy for a top-up.

'That game is all but over. With Ross no longer up for grabs by underhand means, it's been back to business for the companies interested in the Gravity Well.'

'And they all just act like nothing happened?'

'Officially, nothing did. The auction never took place, and all of the evidence we garnered about who was bidding was illegally obtained. But the bottom line is, Willis has secured a more than adequate compensation for what they were attempting. He's concluded a highly lucrative arrangement with British Defence Engineering and their Italian partners CMK.'

'Phobos is selling off Deimos, then?'

'No. It's an investment deal. The Brits and Italians will put, or should I say torrentially
pour
, vast sums into Deimos's research and development, in exchange for a share in all resulting technologies, though obviously there's only one resulting technology they're really interested in. Deimos is in the money, and not a moment too soon, considering the size of invoice I'm about to hit Willis with.'

'You're worth every penny,' she said, placing a hand on his.

'We've got a temporary apartment organised for you,' Willis told him. 'I wasn't sure you'd want to go back to the old one, and it's your choice, but given everything that's happened, it might be best if we kept you somewhere under wraps until this deal is finalised. I'm so sorry about what happened, I really am.'

Ross looked across the cabin at the old man. It had taken him a while to recover from the mind-buggering jolt of his mother having turned into CarrieAnn Moss, but once he had resumed accepting what was before his eyes as fact, certain of those facts had started to form a pattern. The first clue was that it was this guy Bett and his people who were behind the rescue, the same outfit as Willis contracted for the Tiger Team exercise and security overhaul. The second, as he'd suspected all along, was written all over the face of that girl Alexis, who'd been insinuating herself into every room, every conversation and who was even now on board this flight. She was the one who stole the files, but Bett didn't know, and she was shitting herself in case Ross made mention of it; hanging around him so that if he did tumble her, she'd at least know when the cat was out of the bag. And then the big one, the thing that pulled everything into focus: Willis nailing BDE and CMK for a combined investment of nearly two hundred million euros.