Hit List Page 14

  But who? Why?

  The text messages had felt formal – no typos, no abbreviations, correct grammar. This led Peachey to believe that he’d been communicating with someone old, someone who hadn’t grown up with the text-talk that saturated modern culture. Probably a woman, like most of his clients – women were less likely to kill than men, but in his experience, they were more likely to outsource the job.

  So, he thought. I’m looking for an old woman who owns something in California. Or I’m being manipulated, in which case it could be a young boy who has nothing but a mobile phone and an unusual amount of influence in the prison system.

  Peachey decided to rent a car, rationalizing that the paperwork would only lead to the false identity that had been created for him. He didn’t want the staff to see the wad of cash, so he took it out, removed six fifty-dollar notes, and returned it to his pocket. He put the notes in his wallet as he approached the hire-car stand.

  “Hi there,” said a man behind the counter. He peered at Peachey through thick glasses that made his eyes cartoonishly large.

  “Hello,” Peachey said. “I’d like a car for tonight and tomorrow.”

  The man took out a catalogue and Peachey selected the most generic-looking sedan he could find.

  “Excellent choice,” the man said.

  He took Peachey’s fake name, address and phone number and typed them all into his computer, and then said, “That’ll be two hundred and sixty-three dollars, please.”

  Peachey took out his wallet and handed over the six fifties, pleased that his estimate had been so close. The man passed him his change and the keys.

  Peachey asked, “Could I have a map as well?”

  “There’s a GPS navigator in the car,” the man said proudly.

  Which would record destinations. “I don’t like those fancy new gadgets,” Peachey said. “A paper map would be great.”

  The man put a disposable map on the desk and held a pen over it. “Where you headed?” he asked.

  Peachey said, “Los Gatos.” That was in the opposite direction to Mountain View, but about the same distance from the airport. Should anyone check how much petrol was in the tank when he returned the car, it would match up.

  The man drew two circles on the map, one for the airport and one for Los Gatos, and handed it over. “See you later!” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  Peachey walked out to the pick-up area, clicked the keys, and heard a car chirp nearby. He found the car, got in, started the engine, and pulled out of the car park.

  He was supposed to await further instructions once he got here. There was little point breaking into the Googleplex when he didn’t know what he was supposed to be protecting. But there was no harm in driving out there and waiting nearby. When the phone rang, he would be ready to go.

  The highway was almost empty at this time of night. A handful of cabs whizzed past him, headed back towards the airport. He drove carefully, slow enough that he didn’t need to overtake anybody, fast enough that nobody overtook him. You never knew what people would remember when they got home. He was a forgettable man driving a forgettable-looking car, but there was no sense being reckless.

  Peachey flicked on the radio, which was tuned to some classical station, like every other rental car he’d ever been in. He kept pushing seek until he found a modern hard-rock tune. That felt more appropriate for a midnight journey towards murder. The soundtrack of his life was important to him.

  He passed a sign that said Welcome to Mountain View, and smiled.

  “But,” Ash said, “but...you’re a kid.”

  Liam, or whoever he was, remained silent. He’d said nothing since that first quiet order. Tell me about Alice.

  “How can you be the Ghost?” she demanded. “You’re barely older than us!”

  He said nothing.

  Ash knew she’d done things some people would call impossible for a girl her age. She shouldn’t have thought she was the only one.

  But she’d seen the looks on the faces of the soldiers in the mine – could that much fear really have been caused by a teenager?

  “What were you doing at my school dance? Who sent you?”

  His face was unreadable in the dark. After a pause, he flexed the fingers of his right hand, slowly, strangely – and suddenly a knife appeared in his grasp.

  Ash stared. How had he done that?

  “Tell me,” the Ghost said, “which is Benjamin’s dominant eye?”

  He pressed the tip of the blade against Benjamin’s face. A drop of blood welled up at his tear duct and fell down his cheek.

  “No!” Ash cried.

  The Ghost paused. “Then tell me about Alice.”

  “Okay,” Ash said. Her fists clenched at her sides. “Okay. Just put him down. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  He dropped Benjamin to the floor with a thud. Ash winced.

  “I don’t know her age, her last name, or how long she’s been held captive,” Ash said. “But because you’re here, I know she’s very important to someone, and I know she’s being held in the Googleplex, at coordinates, um...” Concentrate, she told herself. “Thirty-seven point four two one five, and negative one twenty-two point zero eight five five. She has access to a fax machine, or did, within the past few weeks. I don’t think Google® knows she’s there.”

  There was a long silence.

  It’s not enough, she thought wildly. He’s changing his mind!

  “Alice,” the Ghost said thoughtfully, like he wasn’t sure he was pronouncing it right. Then he started to laugh, a quiet chuckling that reverberated around the vault until Ash felt like she was surrounded by giggling demons.

  He stopped abruptly. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s rescue Alice.” He pointed at Benjamin. “He can get us in?”

  “He can get us through the electronic locks in the building. But as for the guards and cameras—”

  She broke off. What would the Ghost do to the guards?

  “We’ll just try and avoid those,” she said.

  He replied, “You’re not coming.”

  “What?”

  Silence.

  “You think you can just leave me here?”

  “I don’t need you,” he said. “You’ve told me what I need to know.”

  It was true. Ash wasn’t sure what to say.

  “You’d be dead right now,” the Ghost said, “except that you’re my leverage over him.”

  He kicked Benjamin’s chest.

  Ash recoiled as though it were she who’d been hit. “You’re a sociopath,” she whispered.

  He was flexing his hand again, twisting loops into the air. Suddenly there was a gun in it. More sleight of hand.

  “I’m sorry,” Ash said, alarmed. “I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

  “You didn’t,” the Ghost said, and then he shot her.

  She fell to the floor, startled – tried to throw her arms back, protect her spine, but her limbs were already stiffening up. It was like there was ice in her arteries, spreading out from the dart jammed into her flesh, freezing her in place.

  She screamed, but it came out as a choked groan. She couldn’t move, couldn’t even blink – and suddenly she couldn’t breathe.

  He injects them with a tiny amount of tetrodotoxin, which

  paralyses them

  stops the breathing

  lowers the body temperature

  slows the pulse down until it’s undetectable

  Tetrodotoxin, Ash thought. He’s going to bury me alive, and turn me into a zombie!

  She couldn’t shift her gaze, but she could see the Ghost moving in her peripheral vision. He was bending over Benjamin, holding something – A blade? A syringe? – and then he brought it down, a quick stab to the sternum.

  Ash tried to shout, No! You stay away from him! But her lips wouldn’t budge. She still couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe!

  Benjamin choked and spluttered and gasped.

  “Get up,” the Ghost sai
d.

  “Just a minute,” Benjamin wheezed. “Give me a minute.”

  “You’re fine. Get up.”

  Ash saw Benjamin stagger to his feet. He’s okay, she thought.

  “You understand the deal?” the Ghost said.

  He was awake, Ash realized. He was awake the whole time, listening, but frozen, like I am now.

  “Your deal sucks,” Benjamin said. “We’re changing it.”

  The Ghost lashed out so fast that Ash barely saw it happen. There was a sharp crack, and suddenly Benjamin was on his knees, spitting a gob of blood to the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” the Ghost said. “I didn’t catch that.”

  Benjamin, do what he says, Ash thought. Please.

  “Ash comes with us,” Benjamin said. “Or I won’t get you in.”

  Smack! Ash saw it this time – a brutal fist, slashing down through the air towards Benjamin’s skull. He tumbled backwards, teeth bared.

  “Pardon me?” the Ghost said. “I still can’t hear you.”

  “Then open your goddamn ears!” Benjamin howled. “I won’t help you without Ash!”

  He was out of Ash’s line of sight now, but she saw the Ghost kick him. The sound was like a sledgehammer hitting a dead pig. She heard the air rush out of Benjamin’s lungs.

  The Ghost stared down at his captive. After a long moment, he said, “Once you accept you have no control, this will be much easier. You must realize I can do worse things to you.”

  “And they won’t make any difference,” Benjamin said, breathing heavily. “Because nothing could be worse than being separated from Ash. So you’ve either got to kill me, or accept that she’s coming with us. And I’m no good to you dead.”

  The Ghost said nothing.

  “Wake her up,” Benjamin said.

  Ash’s lungs were on fire. How long have I got, she wondered, before the lack of oxygen gives me brain damage?

  She told herself that Benjamin had been paralysed for longer than this, and he seemed okay. It didn’t help.

  The Ghost approached her, a needle in his hand. “Fine,” he said. “She comes with us.”

  He paused, the needle hovering above Ash’s chest.

  Hurry up! she thought. I can’t breathe!

  “But ask yourself this,” the Ghost said. “How far can you push me before I decide you’d be less trouble with your tongue cut out?”

  He stabbed Ash in the heart.

  It felt like a billion volts straight to her core. She screamed, her arms shuddering by her sides, the back of her skull thudding against the floor.

  Benjamin was at her side in an instant, pushing the Ghost out of the way. “Ash,” he said, grabbing her hand. “It’s okay.”

  She’d inhaled a lot of saliva in her first gasp of air, and now she was choking on it. She coughed, the moisture crackling in her lungs.

  Her breathing steadied, and Benjamin hugged her tightly.

  She whispered in his ear, “How are we going to get out of this?”

  “I have no idea,” he replied.

  The Dead of Night

  Detective Wright opened his eyes.

  As a child he’d bought a mask of Frankenstein’s monster for Halloween, and had discovered it was too big – even with the elastic, it kept slipping down his face until he couldn’t see through the eyeholes. To solve the problem, he baked the mask in his parents’ oven to soften the plastic and then he put it on, taping the edges to his skin and squeezing the nose onto his own with clothes pegs, hoping the mask would harden in the shape of his face.

  In the burn unit at the hospital, a doctor had told his parents that the clothes pegs probably saved his life, preventing him from inhaling the fumes from the hot polyester.

  Now he wondered why he was wearing the hot mask and the pegs again. Surely his mother had thrown it out? Then he touched his face and realized that he wasn’t wearing it – it just seemed like he was. His broken nose felt hot and pinched.

  He tried to sit up, and suddenly the rest of his body felt the same way. His ribs seemed to be crushing his torso, and his shoulder ached for some reason.

  I was shot, he thought. By that airport cop. I remember now.

  “You’re awake.”

  A guy who didn’t look like a doctor or a nurse was sitting by the bed. He was in a dark uniform – a cop? A security guard? Scanning the area, Wright saw that he was in some kind of sick bay. Not a hospital. Too small, too limited.

  “What time is it?” he croaked.

  The uniformed guy pointed at the clock on the wall. Wright groaned. He’d been unconscious for hours. Peachey could be anywhere by now.

  “You’re in a lot of trouble,” the guy said. “Detective or not, you can’t just go waving your gun around at an airport.”

  “It was an emergency. It still is. Where am I?”

  “Oh, about...” The guy thought about it. “Twenty, maybe thirty metres from where you got shot. Some of your colleagues are here to pick you up, but the doc said she’s got to talk to you first. Check your head. I reckon she might find it tough, since you were clearly already crazy.”

  “Go get her,” Wright said. “And the cops. Get them all in here.”

  The guy left, too slowly for Wright’s liking. He watched the second hand crawl around the clock a few times, and then two cops walked in. One of them was a man he didn’t recognize. The other was his partner, Belle Evans.

  “Damn,” Belle said. “You look lousy, Detective.”

  “I’m fine. It looks worse than it is.” Actually, he felt like he’d been hit by a truck, but he didn’t want to be taken off duty. Not with Peachey on the loose.

  “He was here,” he said. “I spotted him, but the air-cop shot me before I could grab him.”

  Belle’s eyes widened. “Don’t suppose you saw which plane he got on?”

  “No. But if you can get me the security feed, I can point him out.”

  “Then we can track him to the gate, and match it to a destination.”

  “Right. And there’s something else,” Wright said. “How good are those cameras in the X-ray machines?”

  “State of the art, I’d imagine,” Belle said. “Why?”

  “Do you think they could pick a serial number off a SIM card?”

  Belle turned to the other cop. “Ask someone,” she told him. “And get the security footage – ten minutes on either side of the incident. Got that?”

  He nodded, and disappeared.

  Belle said, “You’re very clever, Damien.”

  “Not clever enough,” Wright replied. “If I was, I’d have him by now.”

  “We’ll get him. Don’t worry.”

  “Call a judge, get a warrant to track the SIM card. Otherwise I won’t be able to find him once I get there.”

  “Get where?” Belle asked suspiciously.

  Wright shrugged, and winced as a flare of pain went off in his shoulder. “Whichever city Peachey landed in.”

  “What? No way are you going in person. Do you want me to list all the reasons that’s insane?”

  “I can catch him, Belle,” Wright said. “I know how he thinks.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. One, you’re in no condition to get out of bed, let alone go chasing a hit man. Two, wherever he is, it’s probably way outside our jurisdiction, meaning you couldn’t do anything even if you caught him. Three...”

  She paused.

  “Can’t think of a three?” Wright asked.

  Belle pursed her lips. “No, but those are two very good reasons.”

  A woman in green scrubs walked in with a clipboard. “Hello, Detective, I’m Doctor Keidis,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

  Wright ignored her. “I can catch him,” he told Belle. “My legs are fine. And if I don’t have jurisdiction wherever he is, I’ll drag him to somewhere I do.”

  Belle looked doubtful. “Damien, I think you should rest.”

  “I agree,” the doctor said, stretching Wright’s eyelids open and shining a penlight
in them.

  “We’re wasting time,” he growled. “Get me that warrant.”

  “You have five minutes,” the Ghost said. “Get what you need.”

  “We need longer than that,” Benjamin said.

  The Ghost looked at his watch. “Four minutes, fifty-two seconds.”

  Ash touched Benjamin’s shoulder. “Don’t push it,” she whispered.

  They were in Buckland’s jet. They’d told the Ghost that they couldn’t break into the Googleplex without their equipment, which was true. But it wasn’t the main reason Ash had wanted to go. She’d hoped Hammond Buckland would be here, that he would know some secret weakness of the Ghost’s, that he would be able to rescue them.

  He was nowhere to be seen.

  Ash looked at the laptop bag with the Benji inside it, thinking of the built-in tranquillizer gun. But she didn’t expect to have a chance to use it – too much assembly required, and they were being watched too closely.

  They had left the bank vault at gunpoint, the alarms curiously silent, the cameras somehow disabled. The Ghost stayed several steps behind them at all times, his footfalls almost silent. Half the time, Ash wasn’t even sure he was there.

  He directed them to a car under a dead street light, where he sprayed Benjamin with something out of an aerosol can. Then he unlocked the boot remotely and told them to climb in. They obeyed. He told them to shut the lid, and they did that too. Ash wondered if he’d forgotten about the release button that was installed inside nearly all modern car boots on the inside. The sound of duct tape being peeled off a roll and slapped on the seam, strip after strip, told her he hadn’t.

  The ride was long and bumpy. Her phone said no signal, the reception muffled by the metal. She couldn’t tell where they were going, and she couldn’t call Buckland for help. The air inside the boot was cold and stank of carpet cleaner, telling Ash that the car was either new or a rental, since it made sense for the Ghost to clean it after abducting them rather than before.

  She pictured him vacuuming, scrubbing, removing every trace they had ever existed – and she wondered where they would be by then.

  He had been so careful. Now, in the plane, Ash doubted she’d have the opportunity to shoot him with the Benji. But she wasn’t going to waste it if it came.