Hit List (11 page)

Benjamin grinned. “That’s us. Could you open the boot?”

The driver did. Benjamin took off his backpack and held out a hand for Ash’s. “Let me take that for you, sweetie,” he said.

Ash smiled warmly as she handed it over, and whispered through gritted teeth, “I’ll get you for this.”

“Worth it,” Benjamin replied.

Every seat in the departure lounge was occupied by a prospective traveller. They grumbled sleepily, chewing spearmint gum, turning crinkled pages of magazines. The skin around
their eyes was bruised with exhaustion.

Ash wondered why they all looked so tired, given that they were departing, not arriving. None of them could be jet-lagged – most of them wouldn’t even have set foot on a plane yet
today. Something about airports, she thought, just sucks the life force out of you.

Benjamin didn’t seem to be affected. He was munching happily on an enormous cupcake with bluish-white icing he’d bought from the airport bar, which was called “The
Termin-Ale”. Ash thought the name suggested poison, and had said as much. Benjamin didn’t seem to be put off.

“You kids lost your parents?”

Ash turned to see a chubby pilot, eyebrow raised.

“No,” she said. “We’re meeting them at the other end.”

“Yeah,” Benjamin said. “We’re cool.”

“What’s your flight number?”

“AF5579, departing at ten forty-five,” Benjamin lied smoothly. Ash guessed he was reading from the departure board over the pilot’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t be the
one flying our plane, would you?”

The pilot frowned. “I would, actually. Why are you here so early?”

Uh-oh, Ash thought.

“Mum insisted,” Benjamin said. “We told her that an airport was a pretty boring place to hang around for two hours – no offence, sir – but she wouldn’t have
it any other way.”

“I see. Maybe I should get one of the flight attendants to find something for you to do.”

Ash squinted. “Mr. Buckland? Is that you?”

Buckland winked. “Took you long enough.”

“Wow,” Benjamin said. Ash had to agree. Buckland was wearing something under his pilot’s uniform so he looked fatter, and there was prosthetic make-up on his face, making his
cheekbones seem lower and his chin broader. His skin was paler than Ash had ever seen it, and as she wondered if it was his natural shade, she realized that his proclivity for disguise had made her
uncertain about what he really looked like.

“Nice costume,” she said.

“Nice cover story,” he replied. “If I didn’t know you personally, I’d have believed every word.”

“Can’t say the same for you. Airport staff are never that helpful.”

They followed Buckland out of the lounge, past the line of newsagents and bag shops and coffee kiosks until they came to a door marked
Staff Only
. They went through, and suddenly the
polish of the airport was gone, replaced by concrete floors and greying brickwork. Exposed girders and power cables ran along the walls.

Buckland led them through a network of tunnels and into a hangar bay. It was so big that the back was cloaked in shadows, even though the gigantic doors at the front were wide open. There were a
dozen planes inside, but the space shrunk them to the size of toys. It seemed to take a long time for them to cross to the far side, where Buckland’s plane was.

It was a Bombardier Learjet 85, about twenty metres long, six high, and eighteen metres from wing tip to wing tip. Seven windows the size of tombstones sparkled along each side.

Ash had dreamed of someday owning her own plane – her mother’s influence, perhaps, telling her that the greatest thing a human being could aspire to was affluence. But looking at
Buckland’s jet, she felt no craving, and little curiosity. I must be growing up, she thought. She supposed she should be happy about that, but it was hard to find satisfaction in a lack of
desire. It was just that, a
lack
, the absence of something that had defined her for a very long time.

“After you,” Benjamin said, and Ash realized that Buckland had already ascended the stairs. She followed.

The inside of the jet had only eight seats, two of which were occupied by boxes – Ash guessed that Buckland probably didn’t have many passengers these days, since he was pretending
to be dead. She walked to a seat facing the cockpit, and flopped down onto it. Benjamin took the seat next to her, across the aisle, and started fiddling with the controls on the side, presumably
trying to extend the footrest.

“Still travelling in style, Mr. Buckland,” he said.

Buckland shrugged.

Benjamin’s chair suddenly swivelled to face the tail end of the plane, and then the seat tilted back until he was lying flat. “Whoops,” he said.

“I’m afraid you’ll need to fix that before take-off,” Buckland told him. “And put your tray table up, et cetera.”

“Ha ha.”

Buckland opened the cockpit door. But before he could go through, Ash asked, “Where are we going?”

“California,” Buckland said. He sat down in the pilot’s seat, and flicked a switch above his head.

Ash and Benjamin looked at one another.

“California’s a big place,” Ash said. “Can you be more specific?”

“If Alice’s coordinates were correct,” Buckland said, “she’s being held at the headquarters of the largest intelligence agency in the world.”

“The CIA’s headquarters aren’t in California,” Benjamin said. “They’re in Virginia.”

“Who’s talking about the CIA?” Buckland touched a button, and Ash heard the engines come alive. “Strap yourselves in. We’re going to the head office of
Google®.”

“I’m sorry,” Henrietta said. “The seniors’ library is closed today.”

“Oh, okay,” the bald man with the visitor’s badge said. He smiled hopefully, his head still poking through the doorway. “Might I have a quick word with the librarian
anyway?”

Henrietta sighed as she took the last few books out of the returns box. I’ll lock the door next time, she thought. “Better make it
very
quick,” she said.
“I’ll be out of here in a second.”

“My name’s Haley Price,” the man said. “I’m from the National Arts Council. Some Year Nine and Ten students from this school exhibited their work at a function last
week, and one of them left a piece behind. I was hoping to return it to her, and encourage her to submit something for the Craig-Martin Prize. She’s really very good – and if she won,
it could mean a grant for the school.”

Thinking how tragic it was that an NAC representative apparently couldn’t tell a library from an art class, Henrietta asked, “What’s her name?”

Price put a large black folder on the desk and opened it, revealing dozens of paintings and sketches.

“Unfortunately, she didn’t sign her full name on the piece. But it’s a self-portrait, so I thought you might recognize her. She’s clearly an intelligent girl, and in my
experience, the school librarian tends to know the smart students. Ah, here we are.”

He lifted out a sheet of faintly yellowed paper with a graphite sketch on it. In the bottom right-hand corner, there were some scribbled words –
Self-portrait, Ashley
– and a
date. Despite Henrietta’s annoyance at this interruption, she couldn’t help but be impressed. The picture
was
good. The lines were hard and neat, the shading smooth and subtle.
She was struck by the girl’s expression – in most student self-portraits, the subject would be smiling, making eye contact with the viewer. Artists, she guessed, like everyone else,
mostly saw themselves in mirrors and photos. But this girl was looking upwards, like she was searching for something. Her eyes held what looked like determination, and perhaps anxiety.

That girl really can do everything, Henrietta thought. No wonder Price is interested.

“That’s Ashley Arthur,” she said. “Definitely.”

The man beamed. “You
do
know her! Terrific.” He took a business card and a pen out of his pocket. “If I wrote down some contact details, would you be able to pass them
on? Which year is she in?”

“Year Ten, I think. But you’re better off going to the front office with messages.”

The man nodded. “Of course. I...” He looked embarrassed for a moment. “Would you mind if I had a quick look at a yearbook? It’s not that I don’t trust you –
but I’d get in a lot of trouble if I delivered the piece to the wrong person.”

Henrietta nodded. “Sure.”

She walked over to the yearbook shelves and ran a finger along the spines. Year Ten, she thought. Let’s see – that would be...graduating class of...

BLAM!

Peachey lowered the gun as the librarian slumped to the floor, blood pouring from her ear. He stepped forwards quickly, bending down and pressing a handkerchief over the wound before the mess
could reach the carpet.

Thinking of Buckland’s resurrection, Peachey felt for a pulse. There was none.

He looked at his watch: 11.04. He’d been visiting schools near the old HBS head office for almost three hours now. Thank God he’d finally caught a break.

The blood flow slowed to a trickle as it coagulated. Peachey put his hands under the librarian’s armpits and dragged her backwards, away from the glass door. One of her shoes came off.
I’ll get it later, he thought.

There was a supply cupboard adjacent to the library staff room. Locked. Peachey searched the librarian’s pockets, but couldn’t find a key.

Handbag, he thought. There’ll be a handbag somewhere.

It was on the desk, near where he’d first seen her. Peachey rummaged through it, found the keys, opened the supply cupboard, and dragged the body inside. He went back for the shoe, and
dropped it beside her.

There were half a dozen tubes of glue on a shelf next to the sheets of transparent plastic used to protect covers of library books. Peachey grabbed a tube on his way out. He also took the
librarian’s keys, and her cash, but not the wallet.

He closed the cupboard door, locked it, and squirted the whole tube of glue into the lock. Now no one was getting inside. Not without a locksmith, or maybe a battering ram. The corpse would stay
hidden for days.

He went back to the yearbook section of the library, performed the same calculation the librarian had been halfway through to work out which book Ashley would be in, and then pulled it off the
shelf. He flicked through to the mugshots, which were arranged alphabetically – hers was on the second page.

The librarian had been right. It was unmistakably the same girl he’d seen at HBS, right before he was arrested. Each picture had a caption with the usual nonsense below it. Hers read:

I see you, Peachey thought.

There was no more useful information, so he put the book back on the shelf and went back to the librarian’s desk. He grabbed a pen and an A4 sheet of paper, and scribbled out a message:
The library is CLOSED TODAY. Sorry!
Looking for some tape to stick it to the door, he realized he’d probably sealed up every roll of it in the closet with the body. No matter. He
pulled an anti-drug poster off the wall, peeled off the blobs of Blu-tack, and used them instead. Then he picked up his art folder and walked out, locking the door behind him.

Only one corridor separated the library from the front office. He walked slowly, pretending to examine the paintings on the walls as he went, although as far as he could tell, there was no one
around to see him. Everybody was in class, students and teachers alike.

Some of the pictures were quite good, as good as what he’d done in prison. He felt a pang of regret. If he’d gone to a fancy school like this, he might be a famous artist by now.

When he got to the reception desk, the man who’d given him the visitor’s badge said, “Find who you were looking for?”

“The sketch belongs to Ashley Arthur,” Peachey said. “Would you be able to call her out of class so I could give it to her? Or should I wait until lunchtime?”

“Ashley isn’t actually here today,” the receptionist said. “If you give me the sketch, I can pass it on when she gets back.”

Peachey shook his head. “Thanks, but I have to give it to her personally, or mail it via...come to think of it, do you have a postal address for Ashley?”

The receptionist sighed. “Not one I’m allowed to share. Perhaps you could come back on Monday?”

Peachey smiled. “I’ll do that. Thanks for your help.”

He handed over the badge and walked out. When he got to the car park, he held up the librarian’s keys and pushed the unlock button. A blue hatchback chirped nearby, and he jogged over to
it.

It felt good to have a new car. Whoever had gotten him out of the Hallett State Remand Centre had probably put a tracking device in the old one, and he didn’t like them knowing his
whereabouts while he didn’t know theirs.

He climbed in, put on his seat belt and turned the key. It’s a shame, he thought, that the receptionist was too well trained to give me Ashley’s address.

But he wasn’t worried. Now that he knew her full name, her age, and what school she went to, Peachey could find out everything else he needed.

“Google®? You’re kidding.”

Until Benjamin said it out loud, Ash had thought she’d misheard. Had Hammond Buckland lost his mind?

“Control Tower, this is Octopus 3,” Buckland said, “requesting permission to take off.” He twisted the headset mike away from his lips and turned to Ash and Benjamin.
“Would I get dressed up like this and make you meet me at the airport just for a practical joke?”

Benjamin said, “But you do know that Google®’s not an intelligence agency, right?”

“Intelligence agencies are just organizations that collect information. And Google® has indexed more than two hundred and sixty terabytes of it. The CIA can’t compete with that.
Nor can any other agency.”

“That’s different. Government agencies collect
valuable
information. Secrets.”

“Just because something’s secret doesn’t mean it’s valuable,” Buckland said. “And vice versa. Did you know that Google® can predict and assess outbreaks
of disease quicker than any health organization, because of all the people typing in their symptoms?”