Hit List Read online

  She picked up the bag and put it by the door.

  “Three minutes, forty-six seconds,” the Ghost said.

  Ash picked up a small cylinder with a button on the end.

  “What’s that?”

  “The trigger,” she said.

  “Give it to me.”

  She handed it over. He slipped it into his pocket.

  The thought of doing a job with someone other than Benjamin as her tech support was, for Ash, the scariest part of this whole disaster. She took some clothes out of the overhead locker and moved towards the bathroom.

  The Ghost said, “Stay in sight.”

  “I’m going to change,” Ash said.

  “Do it here.”

  “No.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. Ash doubted he had any compunction about causing her embarrassment. But he probably didn’t want to make her or Benjamin mad. Fearful, yes. Angry, no. Fear would make them obedient. Anger would make them unpredictable.

  He pointed the gun at Benjamin’s face. “Throw me the clothes,” he told Ash.

  She did. He caught them one-handed, squeezed them, crushed them into strange shapes, and threw them back.

  “Okay,” he said. “You have three minutes and ten seconds.”

  Ash went into the bathroom and shut the door. She whipped out her phone.

  Please, she thought. Come on.

  Two bars of reception. Enough.

  She typed: b and i captured by ghost. headed 2 google now. being watched closely, dont call. plz help.

  She hit send. Then she stripped off her clothes as quickly as she could, pulled on the fresh ones, and opened the bathroom door—

  —to reveal the Ghost looming in the doorway.

  “Give me the phone,” he said.

  “What phone?”

  He punched her in the throat. She gagged, eyes bugging out as she staggered back into the cubicle.

  “Give it to me,” he said.

  Wheezing, Ash took it out of her pocket and held it out. He took it and it vanished in his hand.

  “What did you tell him?”

  There was no point lying. He would probably check the sent folder. “That we’ve been captured, we’re going to the Googleplex, and we need his help.”

  The Ghost smiled, showing the perfect teeth that had entranced Ash only a day ago. “Good,” he said.

  Good? Ash felt her stomach drop. She’d led Buckland into a trap!

  “He won’t come,” she lied.

  “Not for you,” he said. “But he will for Alice. He’ll want to beat me there.”

  Benjamin and Ash looked at one another. Benjamin looked as confused as Ash felt.

  “Revenge for stealing his emerald?” Benjamin asked.

  “Payback for payback? No. Simple greed. He doesn’t know how to switch it off.”

  Payback for payback, Ash thought. “What was the emerald payback for?”

  The Ghost walked over to the door. “You haven’t figured that out yet?”

  Unease scuttled through Ash’s brain. “Figured what out?”

  “You never wondered who had the hit list before you? You thought you were Buckland’s first teenage puppets?”

  No way, Ash thought.

  Benjamin’s eyes were wide. “You worked for Buckland?”

  “Until he stabbed me in the back,” the Ghost said. “I’ve been waiting a long time to give him what he deserves. Why do you think I came to your school?”

  The earth’s rotation seemed to have tripled in speed. Ash thought of her conversation with Benjamin back home. It’s not like he tells us everything. We should be careful. We can’t just assume Buckland is infallible.

  She thought of the way the Ghost had sprayed Benjamin with something, but not her.

  “You planted something on me,” she said. “That night. That’s why you came to the dance. That’s how you knew we were coming to California.”

  “Time’s up,” the Ghost said. “Let’s go.”

  The Googleplex was silent. Still. Dark. It would be aphotic, Ash thought, if it weren’t for that one halogen lamp.

  The replica T. rex skeleton loomed out of the shadows, less comical at night. Teeth as big as waffle cones protruded from its jaw, ready to tear the flesh off the nearest Leptoceratops.

  Ash lay on the grass, shivering. She couldn’t go any closer to the buildings – three more steps and she’d be within range of the cameras.

  She looked at her watch. Two minutes to go. I hope Benjamin’s okay, she thought.

  It had been physically painful to leave him with the Ghost. For all she knew, the Ghost had only pretended to be interested in Alice so he could get rid of Ash and take Benjamin to the buyer.

  But if she’d refused to go, he would have killed her. She was certain of it.

  Enough worrying. She plugged her headphones into the phone the Ghost had given her and dialled her own number.

  The Ghost answered. “Yes?”

  “I’m in position,” Ash said. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me talk to Benjamin.”

  There was a pause. Ask yourself this. How far can you push me?

  Just a little further, she hoped.

  “Ash?” It was Benjamin.

  “Can he hear us?”

  “No, just me.”

  “Good. Are you okay?”

  “I’m all right. Are you?”

  “Yeah,” Ash said. “But I wanted to ask you something. How would you feel about retiring, after tonight?”

  “You serious?”

  “Very.”

  There was a pause. “It’s been fun,” he said. “But there must be safer ways to have a good time.”

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking.”

  “You wouldn’t miss it?”

  “I think I would,” Ash said. “And I still have a lot to make up for. But it’s not worth dying over.”

  “No.”

  “And when we get home, I’m taking you out to dinner.”

  “Like...”

  “Like a date,” she finished. “If you still want to.”

  “You’re just on the rebound,” Benjamin said, “because the last guy turned out to be a jerk.”

  Ash wondered if the Ghost realized Benjamin was referring to him. “That was a shock,” she admitted. “But I just want to do something normal. Be bored. Hang out, like when we were kids.”

  “You’re saying it would be boring?”

  “Your social plans are fascinating,” the Ghost interrupted. His voice was low, distant. “But I don’t have all night.”

  Ash frowned. “You said he couldn’t hear us.”

  “He can’t! I...how did you do that?”

  The Ghost said, “If this takes much longer, I might change my mind about letting you live.”

  Ash rose into a sprinter’s crouch. “Then hit the trigger already.”

  Thud. The halogen light clicked off. The phone died. All the active electronic devices in Mountain View went down in a fizz of malfunctioning circuitry. And every Google® search in the western United States came back with a 404 error.

  The EMP generator Ash planted in the toilet cistern had done its job. There was no time to waste. She ran.

  Her feet pounded across the grass, hard and fast. With all the lights out, she was sprinting through absolute blackness. It was hard to suppress the fear that she might be running towards a wall, even though she’d been staring at this empty courtyard for the last half-hour.

  She had twenty seconds before the power came back on. As she ran, she pulled a weighted glow stick out of her pocket, bent it to start the chemical reaction, and threw it like a tiny javelin.

  It tumbled to the ground up ahead, falling five or six metres short of the corner of Building 42, which loomed out of the darkness like the bow of an approaching ship.

  Thirteen seconds. Ash held up the Benji, pressed the stock against her shoulder, pointed the muzzle slightly above the roof of Building 42, and pull
ed the trigger.

  Wham! The recoil spun her around, nearly knocking her off her feet. The grappling hook sailed through the air, trailing the cable behind it, and clanked against the roof. Ash pulled the second trigger, and heard the splink as curved spikes popped out the sides of the hook. The motor in the Benji whirred as it reeled the cable back in.

  Eight seconds until the lights and camera were back on. Ash held on tight, but there was still slack in the cable. Come on, she thought. Come on!

  The grappling hook caught the edge of the roof, and Ash lurched forwards as the cable went taut, dragging her towards the wall. Her toes scraped along the grass as she fought to get her feet flat. Soon she was sliding on her heels like a water skier. When she was close enough, she jumped.

  The wall rushed up to meet her and she hit it feet first. The cable was still retracting, and she had to run to keep from falling over. She sprinted up the wall in swift leaps, and then suddenly she was over the top.

  She almost fell – the hook slammed back into the muzzle of the launcher, knocking her backwards, but she regained her balance on the edge of the roof. She stepped away from the drop as quickly as she could.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket as it rebooted. The halogen light clicked back on down below. The toilet water had short-circuited the EMP, right on time. She peered over the edge, and saw that the cameras had started moving again, but that her glow stick was all but invisible in the glare.

  She had made it. She was in.

  Benjamin and the Ghost would be in the sewer tunnels beneath the campus by now. She had to get down to the basement and let them inside.

  There was a doorway on the other side of the roof, hopefully leading to a stairwell just like the one in Building 41. She ran over and tried the door. Locked. She pressed her palm against it, feeling for warmth – if there was an active alarm system, the circuitry would produce heat.

  There was a warm patch, just under the handle. She shone the Benji’s inbuilt torch into the seam, and saw the sensor – a thin square of metal, connected to the door frame by a red wire.

  Ash selected laser mode, removed the tinted shield, and pulled the trigger.

  A bright blue dot appeared on the door, quivering. Ash could already smell burning paint. She took aim at the wire, and watched the plastic coating bubble in the heat. Soon the copper was exposed. It glowed red for a moment, hissing, and then it cracked.

  Ash switched off the laser and replaced the shield. The alarm should be disabled, theoretically.

  She levelled the Benji at the upper hinge, selected grappling hook mode, and pulled the trigger.

  The hook hit the door with a metallic thud, and the broken hinge jingled to the ground. Ash repeated the action on the lower hinge, then grabbed the door and pulled. She stepped aside as it fell open, revealing a black hole.

  Stairs materialized in the gloom as she clicked the torch back on. Her steps were agonizingly loud in the silence as she crept down on the balls of her feet.

  There’s nobody here, she told herself. The only security guards are in an office outside the gate.

  The stairs ended at a corridor lined with offices. The glow of the torch bounced unsettlingly off the glass walls.

  Basement, Ash thought. Got to find the basement.

  She caught sight of another flight of stairs up ahead. She slipped towards them, descended, and found herself on the ground floor.

  There was a sign pointing to the bathrooms. She followed it, figuring that the basement would have the plumbing in it, and would therefore be under the bathrooms, or pretty close.

  Crack.

  Ash’s eyes widened. What was that?

  She crouched, switching off the torch, and stayed as still as she could. She listened, but all she could hear was her heartbeat.

  The sound had probably been some metal component of the building, swollen in the sun, shrinking as it cooled. Nothing to worry—

  Footsteps.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Ash stayed frozen. Until she could work out which direction the person was coming from, it wasn’t safe to move. She could walk right into their line of sight.

  Voices. There was more than one person.

  So why are they here? Ash wondered. Are they Google® security, hunting me? Or are they other rescuers, searching for Alice?

  Whatever they’re paying you for this, Alice must be worth more. Way more.

  Anyone searching for Alice wasn’t necessarily a rescuer, she realized.

  She saw a shadow moving, back the way she had come. That gave her the opportunity to run, but would she make it around the corner in time? And would they hear her?

  Ash bit her lip. Move, or stay?

  Too late. She could see their silhouettes now. They were facing her – if she moved, they would see.

  “Do we abort?” one of them was saying.

  “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.