Tag - A Technothriller (44 page)

She’d adopted her ‘hard face’ for the benefit of whoever might be watching, and tried not to think about Jonah and how he would be feeling with her gone. She knew he would blame himself for not being able to protect her. She knew that and smiled. Him protect her – it was a funny thought that distracted her from her surroundings for a sec. She felt guilty for not being there to protect him. For exposing him to the dangers of her captivity. Don’t. Pointless exercise. Guilt is negative. Use the time you have.

She closed her eyes to the light in the room and continued to write the poem she had been working on. It was in her head. She carefully thought of each new word before adding it to the ones already there. By her count she’d spent about three hours on the last word and she smiled again. It had been worth it. Torpor. Euphoria in Torpor. A whole new line to think about. The luxury of having an entire day to think of a single word to describe something. Captivity. Bring it on.

***

Maloo had left Melbourne traveling in the same Levtube but leaving fifteen mins before Jonah’s. He shifted his bulk on the seat and stared at the little white dot progressing its way down a line of connected white dots. He formed an image in his mind. A future bark painting or maybe rock. Yeah, rock.

Maloo was going to Bangkok to set up the Wigley kill. Jonah would be the one to do it but Maloo would prepare the ground. He shifted the backpack containing his clothes to a more comfortable position on his lap and leant his elbows on top, his chin cupped in his hands. His massive shoulders and the look on his face gave him the appearance of a bull about to charge. Yet he hated violence in all of its aspects. It was the only thing he did hate.

A while later, he took a hand off the backpack and felt in the pocket of his bottom outers. The diamonds were still there. All two million creds’ worth. Easily enough to get what he needed in Bangkok and pay so well that no one would say a thing for fear of losing the rich life ahead of them. He glanced around the Lev. None of the other five passengers had noticed his surreptitious feel of the stones.

The painting continued to develop in his mind. Connected white dots, large to small diameter. Two lines next to each other. A white rectangle. A sorry business, he thought in Waalpiri, using the term they use for a funeral. To represent six billion, the stars in the sky as people. He wondered how this painting would unfold.

***

Cochran landed her new Bell 400 VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) Turbo-charged Heliocopter on the lawn in front of the SingCom residence. The copter’s blades retracted with a whir and clunk into the space behind the pilot’s seat where she sat. She exhaled steadily and softly. Red-lining it all the way in, in a straight line, she’d covered the distance from UNPOL in 1:59 min. Her mind flicked back to Jonah getting into the Lev in Melbourne. An intuitive sense of unease rose in her gut. Something was wrong with him being out of sight for three days with Annika Bardsdale.

She climbed out of the angular nose of the Bell’s cockpit and stood beside the machine. The warm New Singapore night quiet on the dark lawn. Tomorrow, no today, she thought with a glance at her Devstick - it’s 2:18am - I’ll get the little fat Arab girl, Fatima, to run a scenario on Bardsdale and Jonah. Thinking of Fatima made her think of Marty. She looked at the mansion in front of her, biting her lip. Bitch. She felt bested by Marty and hadn’t forgotten any of the slights or her arrogance. But I got you, she thought. I got you good.

No you didn’t. She escaped. You don’t have her. You didn’t think she’d get away. You thought you would pick her up the next day. You failed. Again.

She didn’t like this voice. And it was speaking up more often. The more she succeeded, the more the voice had to say about her failings. She wanted to stop it but she didn’t know how. It seemed it was never satisfied.

You lost. You lost Martine Shorne and you lost Gabriel Zumar. You had them both –

Wait. Shut up. That’s it. That’s where I’ve seen him before. Walking with Bo Vinh. The images that Shorne presented. Jonah James Oliver is Philip Zumar’s son. Gabriel, the runner, is his brother. And Sir Thomas made him his nephew. But why? She chewed her lower lip and folded her arms across her chest. Then, twisting her upper lip between a thumb and a forefinger, she contemplated her revelation.

Cochran strolled slowly across the lawn to the door of the mansion, thinking it would be hard to sleep now, wondering if Sunita would be awake.

Chapter 34

Time To Kill

Outskirts of Bangkok, Outside the Residence of Jonathan Wigley

Friday 14 February 2110, 10:25pm +7 UTC

The cicadas sang loud enough to cover the sounds of me climbing over the wall. I felt an urgent need to urinate. A mosquito buzzed around my ear. I felt it land and a moment later took a hand off the ladder that went up the wall in front of me to rub the bite.

I needed to urinate badly. I knew it was nerves but I still needed to pee. I couldn’t. It would leave too much trace. I thought about getting off the ladder and retracing my steps along the bottom of the wall to the Titan parked half a kilom away but dismissed the thought. I brought my bladder under control and took out one of the small sealable bags that Maloo had given me. I took out my cock and put it in the bag. Closing the seal around my cock, not too tightly, I relaxed.

My pee sounded loud to me as I scrunched over, crouching and hanging off the bottom rung of the ladder that went up Wigley’s wall. I changed angle so the splash would hit the side of the bag. It was quieter. I squeezed out the last drop and shook off, taking the bag off my cock, sealing it and placing it in a zipped pocket. On my way to kill someone with a bag of my own pee in my pocket.

Focus. I softly breathed out. I was hidden from view by the trunk and branches of a tree. I started to climb, one hand over the other. As I climbed, the sound of my heart thumping in my chest beat out the cicadas. I stopped, listened. The cicadas came back. In the far distance, a dog barking, music playing, jazz.

Reaching the top, I extended the ladder. I had to control my breathing. There was a light in a downstairs window. I looked around. Nothing. Nobody moving. No one in sight. I started out to cover the gap. It was about three meters. Moving forward in a crawl, hands and feet on the pipes of the ladder, I crossed the gap between the wall and his balcony. I crouched below the railing, hidden from the street by the pillars of the Greco-Roman style mansion. If Gabriel was right, this was Wigley’s room.

I reached into the black coveralls and felt for the handle of the dagger. I had to move. Move. The panic came on slow but strong. A light in the room went on, illuminating the back of the curtain. I realized that the light was turned on by Wigley, turned on by the man I was here to kill. I kept my breathing as shallow as possible but it seemed to speed up each time I tried to keep it quiet. No, I can’t do this. I can’t kill. I swallowed and licked my lips. My tongue was so dry that it stuck to them. I crawled back over the bridge to the wall, looking around me again. No one saw me. I went back over the wall and down the ladder to crouch behind the tree.

I slowed my breathing. My brain cleared. I heard the cicadas again.

My thighs ached from crouching. I cleared my thinking. Far off I heard a fight erupt among a pack of dogs. It’s not a choice. You have to do it. There is no other way of getting past Sir Thomas. None. If you don’t do this, you die, Mariko dies and maybe six point three billion people die. Or he dies. It’s either all of them or just Wigley.

I took my Devstick part way out of my inside pocket, shielding its light with my coveralls. 10:29pm. All of that happened in four minutes. It has to be done.

I swallowed. My throat was too dry. I opened the coveralls again and took a sip of water from the bottle that Maloo had provided. Don’t get dehydrated. I went up the ladder swiftly. I slowly raised my head over the wall and took another look around. Still nothing. I noticed that the cicadas had stopped. The night was still. The faint scuffling of rubber shoes on the rungs of the ladder was all that I could hear as I made my way to Wigley’s balcony. I went into a crouch against the railing and waited.

The light went off inside. I put on the gas mask and waited.

My thighs burned with the energy of being in a crouch and when I could stand it no more I went over the railing and laid flat on the floor of the balcony. The sound around me stayed the same. Nothing. In the distance I could hear the hum of a Travway. But nothing where I was. I swiveled until my face was mins from the clearfilm sliding doors.

I needed to cut a hole in the door so that I could pump in the gas that would knock Wigley out while I broke in. Maloo had given me a small circular disc, one side covered in tape to stick on to the door, the other a handle to pull out the plug. Far down on the right of the door I placed the disc and pressed hard to stick it to the door. I gave it a tug to make sure it was firmly attached to the clearfilm and then pulled the small cord that would cause the disc to burn through it. The edges of the disc started smoking. Tendrils of the smoke, the fried remains of the clearfilm door, floated up to be caught by the breeze over the balcony. The plug came free in my hand. I put it, and the circle of clearfilm attached to it, into my pocket.

I felt the cool air inside the room hit the end of my fingers in their thin-tipped gloves. I inserted the nozzle of the canister and turned the valve open full. In thirty seconds, six cubic liters of gas vented into Wigley’s room. I took out the magnet and placed it near the handle, holding it lightly against the door. With my thumb I turned it on and felt the pull of the metal bolts. I pulled it downwards and the doors unlocked. Maloo had obviously invaded property before as everything he had told me was working.

I slowly slid the door open. The seal squeaked once as it came free from its partner. I stopped and listened. Nothing. I could hear Wigley breathing. I slid the door open fully and stepped into the room. I could feel carpet under my feet, and I felt down the curtains with my hands until I found the manual button on the wall. The curtains slid open quietly and light from the Moon let me see in the room. I stayed low and went over to the edge of the sleeper. Wigley was on the other side. In a crouch, I crossed his room and checked his door. There was no bolt to lock.

I crouched my way back across the carpet to where Wigley lay sleeping with his head on his arm, curled up in the fetal position. The gas was enough to knock him out for five minutes, long enough for what I had to do.

I took out the injection Maloo had prepared and lifted the cover of the sleeper to one side. I grabbed the little toe of his left foot and carefully inserted the micro needle of the injector. It looked like it was in. I swallowed hard and pressed the button. The injector made a soft hissing noise and ended with a click. I pressed the red button and the micro needle withdrew. I put the injector, disarmed, back into my pocket and took out the mobile biosensor. I placed it against his throat, leaning over him. Wigley was dead.

I steeled myself and reaching over with thumb and forefinger, his eyelids suddenly opened and his eyes stared into mine. Why? I screamed in my mind. Why didn’t the injection work? Safety. The safety-catch on the injector. Maloo had stressed it three times. You have to twist up and around to release the safety catch. I hadn’t done it.

His eyes were just cents from mine and shocked. I dropped on top of him with my upper body, my hands grasping his upper arms and my legs pinning his thighs to the sleeper. His eyes were glazed. I waited. I could hear my heart in my eardrums. His pupils narrowed and he tried to sit up. Then he realized what was happening and pushed.

“Who, why, who are you?” he strangled out as he strained against my hold. I saw in his eyes that he was going to shout out and I dropped on him, forcing my gloved hand over his mouth. He got his left arm free and flailed at my back but it didn’t hurt. His eyes were wide and staring at me behind my gloved fingers.

“Did you do it?” I said in a low hiss in his ear. “Did you?”

He shook his head violently from side to side. His eyes bright, white and wild in the dark.

I looked in his eyes and threw my weight on him again, focusing my mind using what Gabriel had taught me.

“Terror, panic, disbelief, it’s a nightmare, no it’s real.”
His feelings came first. No coherent thoughts, just raw fear. I recognized it from the beach when I had lost Mariko. I pushed that thought away and went behind his fear.

I cast the thought.
“Open your memories to me.”
I felt his mind react to my presence in it.
“Do it. Do it now there is nowhere for you to hide. I am in you. It will be all right, just open your mind. Open.”

His mind opened.
“My safe, he’s come to rob my safe.”
He was thinking of his safe behind the image on the wall behind me. An image of a small sack of diamonds and bars of gold. I pushed further, his eyes widening. Sweat pouring off me, dripping onto his upper lip. I looked down into his eyes. Going deeper.

My mind turned red and black. With an animal snarl, I released his arms and sat up, kneeling on him. My hand went into my coveralls’ inner pocket and found the dagger. The cross bar on the hilt snagged as I started to pull it out. I heard the scream form through the red and black and lifted the dagger high in the air with both hands.

“No, no, please wait, no I –”

Using both hands, thumbs locked over the hilt, I plunged the dagger into his chest using all my strength.

He shook his head from side to side, silently mouthing no. I leaned into the hilt of the dagger with my chest, putting all my weight behind it, and twisted the handle.

“No, no, no.”

The final no came out gurgled and with a last-ditch effort his chest heaved upwards and he coughed blood over my face. The breath wheezed out of him in a groaned sigh. I sat back, my chest heaving as I sucked in air, my temples throbbing. I watched his eyes realize their death. He would never see again what had caused me to want to kill him.