Hit List (20 page)

“No,” another said. “There’ll be a tech team on their way to check out the fault. That EMP probably wasn’t accidental, and when they figure that out, Google®
will tighten security. We might not have another chance to acquire the package.”

Her voice was familiar, rough, clipped, but Ash couldn’t place it. Whoever she was, she was getting closer, but at an angle. Perhaps she would walk right past Ash. Or maybe she would trip
over her.

“If it wasn’t an accident,” the first guy said, “there’s a good chance someone’s in here with us, Sarge.”

He was walking alongside the woman, further away than Ash. She thought she recognized his voice too. It was hard to be sure with the lights out, but it sounded like the eyebrowless man from the
mine.

“All the more reason to get to the package as quick as possible,” the sergeant said. “Otherwise he might escape with it.”

“ ‘He’?”

The sergeant said nothing.

The package, Ash thought. That’s how they think of Alice. She wondered if she could risk a low, gradual, soft step away from the two ex-soldiers. They might hear it. But if she
didn’t move, they might see her when they got too close.

“You think it’s the Ghost,” the man said.

“It could be anyone,” she said.

“But you think it’s him.”

The sergeant turned to face him. “If I thought it was him,” she hissed, “would I be standing here? After what he did to our team?”

The browless man said, “Yes.”

“I’m not that brave. Now shut up. Whoever’s here, they could be listening.”

Ash held her breath as they got closer, closer – and then they were walking past, and rounding a corner out of sight.

She rose to her feet, slowly. Listened to their footsteps retreating. And then she kept moving towards the bathrooms.

That guy they’re scared of, she thought. I’m about to let him in.

Did she feel bad about that? The Ghost was a monster – he’d killed dozens, maybe hundreds of people. But the sergeant and her comrade were equally horrible. There were fifty or sixty
dead miners to attest to that.

If she let the Ghost in, he might murder them. Did she have the right to decide if they deserved to die?

This speculation was futile. If she
didn’t
let him in, not only would Alice be at the mercy of the soldiers, but the Ghost would kill Benjamin for sure.

There was a door marked
Staff Only
near the bathrooms. Ash tried the handle. Unlocked. The door swung open to reveal another flight of stairs, down to the basement.

She switched her torch on again and started creeping down.

She’d come to the right place. Rows of pipes, squat and grimy, glistened in the torchlight. The concrete crunched under Ash’s shoes as she searched for the manhole.

It was in the corner – a thick iron lid, locked closed by a wheel on the top. The wheel had one heavy spoke which protruded from the side and disappeared into a slot in the wall, ensuring
that the manhole couldn’t be opened from the other side.

Ash turned the wheel, pointing the spoke away from the wall, and lifted. The lid came up with surprising ease on recently oiled hinges.

She bent over the black pit beneath.

“Benjamin?” she whispered.

Nothing. Just the soft gurgling of distant waters.

“Benjamin?”

There was some kind of movement below. A clank, like a foot on a ladder.

Someone was coming up.

Ash backed away, raising the Benji. More soldiers? she thought. Or someone else? How many people are after Alice?

A face appeared above the lip of the hole. It was Benjamin.

“Damn it,” Ash hissed. “You scared the hell out of me.”

Benjamin didn’t reply. His head hovered, skin drained of colour, staring at Ash. She had the sudden fear that it was mounted on a stick, that the Ghost had killed him and was taunting
her—

Then the illusion broke as Benjamin climbed out, shaky, but alive. He moved quickly away from the hole to stand beside Ash.

“You okay?” Ash said.

Benjamin shook his head as the Ghost emerged, eyes narrow, a finger over his lips.

No talking? Ash thought. Fine. I’m sick of listening to you.

The Ghost drew some kind of weapon that had been strapped to his back. At first, Ash thought it was a grappling-hook launcher like her own, but then she saw the barbed tip, daubed black to
absorb light. It was a harpoon gun.

One of his nastier habits is shooting people with a flash-bang, impaling them with a harpoon, and dragging them out of sight.

Will Benjamin or I be on the end of that before the night’s over? Ash wondered.

The Ghost pointed to the stairs. He wanted them to go up first.

Ash didn’t like turning her back on him, but she didn’t have much choice. Now that the Ghost was inside, he wouldn’t kill Benjamin, at least not until he’d hacked the
electronic locks, but Ash had no such protection.

With a last nervous glance at the harpoon, she climbed up the stairs, and heard Benjamin follow her. There was no other sound. When she reached the doorway at the top, she glanced back down to
check why the Ghost wasn’t following them – and was startled to see that he was. His footsteps and breaths were completely silent, as though he wasn’t really there.

They walked in single file through the shadows of Building 42. Ash stopped at every intersection, waiting for the Ghost to signal left or right. She wasn’t sure how he knew the way, but he
always did. He jerked the harpoon gun one way or the other, and they kept moving.

Soon they came to a locked door. There was a keypad beside it.

The Ghost pointed to Benjamin, then to the door. Benjamin approached, his bottom lip between his teeth. His hand hovered over the keypad.

Ash could tell what he was thinking. If he got the door open, there was a strong chance the Ghost would kill them both. But if he didn’t, the Ghost would torture them, and then, if that
didn’t work, kill them anyway and find his own way in.

The Ghost stepped forward and prodded Benjamin’s back with the harpoon. Benjamin took a deep breath, and touched the
open
key.

Eight digits flashed up on the screen:
40707975
. That meant that every code would be four digits long and a factor of that number.

A computer would have had to work out a usable code by trial and error. It would have divided 40707975 by the lowest possible four-digit combination, 1000, to see if the answer was a whole
number. Then it would have tried 1001. Then 1002. It would have kept going until it found an answer that worked, by which time the five-second alarm in the door would have gone off.

Not Benjamin. The numbers were only on the screen for a moment, but Benjamin was already typing by the time they vanished. He hit four, then three, then eight and nine. The digits appeared on
the screen as ****. He hit
OK
.

There was a pause.

The door lock clicked. He’d done it.

The Ghost whirled around, raising the harpoon gun one-handed, taking aim at Ash as he shoved Benjamin’s back with his other arm, pushing him against the wall. He was going to kill
them.

But Ash had seen this coming. She’d already taken aim and was reaching for the trigger of the Benji.

The point of the harpoon was rising rapidly. The line of fire swept up her torso and past her neck until the gun was levelled at her face. She leaned back like a limbo dancer, trying to duck out
of the way without losing her aim.

He pulled the trigger. So did she.

She was quicker.

The Ghost yelped as an anaesthetic dart punctured his thigh. The harpoon exploded out of his gun, rocketing past Ash and shattering the glass wall of a nearby office.

He dropped the gun and stumbled forward, his legs already buckling under him. Ash tried to step out of reach, but even drugged, he was too quick. His hand shot forward and closed around her
throat. Muscles inflated under his sleeve, all along his arm and across his chest.

Ash let go of the Benji and grabbed the Ghost’s fingers, trying to prise them from her neck. She couldn’t breathe – he was crushing her windpipe, blocking her arteries. Her
eyeballs felt like they were swelling in their sockets.

Benjamin had recovered and was pulling at the Ghost’s arm. He grabbed the wrist and squeezed, squashing the tendons, trying to loosen his grip.

Ash felt the chokehold slacken a little, then a lot, maybe thanks to their combined strength, maybe thanks to the drugs. She ripped his hand away and gasped.

The Ghost fell to his knees and thumped face first to the floor.

“Whoa,” Benjamin said.

“Yeah.”

“You’re fast.”

“You’re the one factoring eight-digit numbers in microseconds.”

They stared down at the unconscious boy.

“How long will he be out?” Ash asked.

“Six hours, give or take.”

“You said the tranquillizer was practically instant. How did he stay standing that long?”

“Beats me.”

A puddle of drool was spreading out from under the Ghost’s chin.

Benjamin said, “Shoot him again.”

Ash hesitated. “What if he overdoses?”

Benjamin didn’t reply.

“We can’t
kill
him,” Ash said.

“He was going to kill us.”

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

“He’s killed lots of other people.”

“Nor does that.”

Benjamin gritted his teeth. “He’s a monster.”

“He was, a minute ago. But now he’s a sleeping kid. We can’t murder a sleeping kid.”

“So we just let him go?” Benjamin demanded. “When he wakes up, he’ll come after us. Even if he doesn’t, he’ll hurt someone else.”

“We’ll shoot him again on our way out,” Ash said. “Once his system has had some time to absorb the tranquillizer. Then we’ll call the cops on him. He’ll still
be unconscious when they arrive. Okay?”

“They might not come,” Benjamin said. “Or he could talk his way out of it when they do.”

“We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. He’s getting locked up for a long time. Okay?”

After a moment, Benjamin nodded. “It doesn’t feel right just leaving him here,” he said. “But I trust you.”

“Thanks” would have sounded too casual, so Ash didn’t reply.

Benjamin turned to the door. “Ready to be heroes?” he asked.

“I just hope we’re not too late,” Ash said.

Benjamin opened the door and Ash followed him into the server room.

Peachey disassembled his gun for the fourth time, checked each component, and reassembled it. It was a nice piece – eighteen-round magazine, closed bolt, and a
decent-length barrel, not one of those snub-nosed things that couldn’t hit a cow in a pen.

Only minutes ago he’d seen the lights go out at the Googleplex. The car radio had gone dead at the same time, and when he’d checked his phone, the screen had been dark. EMP, he
thought. Probably for my benefit, to get me in. But I’m supposed to wait for instructions. So I’ll wait.

He was uneasy, though. Why would they tell him to wait for orders and then cut off his only means of communication?

Because they didn’t expect me to be here yet, he realized. They told me to go to Mountain View and await instructions, but I came specifically to the Googleplex on my own initiative. Damn
it.

So, now what? Should he sit in the car with a potentially broken phone all night, then buy a new one tomorrow morning and switch the SIM cards? That would probably be his best option –
except that he wanted to go to the HBS International Bank on Castro Street. He wanted to find Ashley Arthur. And every second he spent at the Googleplex made it less likely she’d still be
there.

It had been five minutes since he last attempted to switch on his phone. He took it out and tried again. “Come on,” he muttered, pressing his thumb hard on the power switch, as
though the amount of pressure would make a difference.

Maybe it did – the phone hummed and came to life.

Peachey waited as the company logo flashed up on the screen, the menu opened, and the phone searched for a signal. It found one, but didn’t register any missed calls or messages.

Peachey frowned. Could the EMP have been coincidental? Surely not.

Beep
. The phone registered a text message. Peachey opened it.

Michael, the main entrance to Building 42 is now unlocked. Follow the signs to the server room. Kill everyone inside, then anyone else you find in the building as you leave. Don’t touch
any of the equipment. $400,000 has been moved to an account accessible with the documentation you have been given. The same amount will be transferred after you leave. This will conclude your
service.

There was a name at the bottom of the message. Female, old-fashioned, just as he’d suspected:
Alice B
. Peachey congratulated himself on his deductive reasoning, and opened the car
door.

“Time to go to work,” he said.

Ash and Benjamin stared at the rows of server towers, square and dirty, illuminated only by the glow of various monitors and status lights. Cords overflowed from the tops of
the towers like Medusa’s hair. Dozens of cooling fans hummed in the darkness.

This was it – the brain of the world’s biggest intelligence agency.

“What now?” Benjamin asked.

“We can’t just call out,” Ash said. “There could be someone guarding her.”

Benjamin looked around doubtfully. “I don’t think there’s anyone in here,” he said.

It
did
look like an ordinary server farm. But we’ve come this far, Ash thought. We have to look.

“You go that way, I’ll go this way,” she said. “I’ll phone you if I find anything. It’s on silent, right?”

“Yeah. Yours too?”

She nodded. “See you soon.”

Benjamin tiptoed away down an aisle. Ash crept in the opposite direction.

This doesn’t add up, she thought, looking at the towers of drives and processors. The security out there was tight, which would make this a perfect place to hold a prisoner – except
that there’s no security
inside
. The locks on the doors are one-way. It would be impossible to keep someone trapped in here without Google® knowing about it – they could just
walk right out.