Hit List Read online

  “Hey! Hold it!”

  Peachey stopped. He couldn’t outrun anybody with these shackles biting into his ankles. He turned to see the guards had returned.

  They were dragging two dead bodies.

  Peachey stared. “What is this?”

  The corpses belonged to other prison guards. One of them Peachey had met, though he didn’t know her name. The other was unidentifiable – he’d been shot in the face, and he was missing his shirt, trousers and shoes. Both bodies bore numerous bullet wounds to the chest, dark circles ringed by singed fabric.

  The two live guards arranged the bodies so they were sprawled just inside the door. The balding one pulled on some gloves, drew a pistol from a holster under the dead woman’s arm, and advanced on Peachey.

  Peachey staggered backwards, preparing for a fight. His heart was pounding. Headbutt, then jump, he thought. If I squat, I should be able to grab the gun – but can I hit the other guy with my hands trapped so low?

  The guard turned away from Peachey, and fired two rounds into the wall beside the door. The shots reverberated around the room like the strikes of a timpani. The gun’s slide locked back, revealing the hollow chamber.

  The guard scattered a handful of shell casings across the floor, and then tossed the empty gun to Peachey. Peachey caught it.

  “You’re going to kill me,” he said. “Pretend I was trying to escape.”

  “Wrong,” the guard replied. He pulled a phone out of his pocket, and threw it over. “Keep this on you,” he said. “But don’t make any calls. Just wait for instructions.”

  “What kind of instructions?”

  The guard turned back to the bodies. “The kind you’re good at following.”

  Peachey’s mind was racing. Who are these people? he wondered. Government? Military? Private? Why are they letting me go?

  The guard pointed at the semi-naked body. “You’ll find his clothes out that door.” He nodded towards the visitors’ exit. “Wear them on your way out, for the cameras. There’s a white Volvo parked two blocks east of here, registration YEF58K. It has a gun in the glove box, some clothes in the boot, and a fake driver’s licence and passport with some cash and a credit card in the passenger-side seat pocket. The keys are in the front wheel-well on the driver’s side.”

  “Who’s the mark?” Peachey asked.

  “I don’t have that information.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “I don’t have that information either.” The guard took the keys from the dead woman’s belt. “They won’t know you’re gone until rounds at six a.m. Between now and then, get as far away from here as you can.”

  He threw Peachey the keys. As Peachey was unlocking his cuffs, the two guards walked out the remandees’ door and shut it behind them.

  Within seconds, Peachey’s wrists were free. He bent down to unlock his ankles.

  Get as far away from here as you can. Sure, he thought. I’ve just got a few things to take care of first.

  Three things, to be exact.

  Ash woke up moments before her alarm. She grabbed the purring phone, hit cancel, and sat up. Her brain automatically rewound through the previous night’s events. The library. The detective. The distress call.

  Buckland wants to do this rescue tomorrow. We’ll have to be away overnight. Buckland said we’d be flying there, and that it’d take a while.

  Where are we going? Ash wondered, uneasy. What does Buckland know that we don’t?

  But part of her was excited. Sometimes it felt like no matter how many things she returned to their owners, the guilt of her earlier crimes never seemed to sit any lighter. But this was something different. A rescue. She was going to save a human life. If that didn’t ease her conscience, nothing would.

  She went downstairs. Her father was already up, munching on some toast.

  “You’re up early,” he said.

  “I’m walking to school today,” Ash replied. She took a bowl and some cereal out of the cupboard and put them next to the milk on the table.

  “Alone?” her father asked.

  “Only halfway,” Ash said. “I’m meeting up with Alice at the supermarket.”

  The lie came easily.

  “Have I met Alice?”

  “I don’t think so,” Ash said. “But she’s cool – I’ll bring her over sometime.”

  She paused to spoon some cereal into her mouth.

  “Actually,” she said, crunching, “she invited me to her place after school today – she’s having a sleepover party. But I told her I couldn’t go.”

  Her father buttered some more toast. “Why’s that?”

  “Benjamin and I are going to see a movie.”

  Her father frowned, but said nothing. Ash picked up her bowl and spoon and took them over to the sink.

  Finally, her father said, “I’m sure you and Benjamin could go to the movies some other time.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I mean, the movie will still be there tomorrow,” he continued. “Whereas the sleepover’s only on tonight. And you and Benjamin are close – he won’t take offence if you cancel, whereas Alice might think you’re just not interested.”

  Ash pretended to think about it. “Well, maybe I will go to Alice’s,” she said. “Is that okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Ash went back upstairs to get dressed, feeling cruel. It was one thing when we were poor, she thought. I needed to lie and steal back then. Now that we’re back on our feet, can I justify this? Am I a bad person?

  She thought of the museum curator, and the programmer’s family, and all the other people she’d helped. She thought of Alice B’s message. Help me.

  She and her father were doing fine, but other people weren’t. She didn’t want to retire while more people needed her. But there would always be someone. So could she deceive her dad for the rest of his life?

  She put these thoughts out of her mind; she had work to do. She hefted her school bag and went back downstairs. Pushing open the front door, she called out, “See you after school tomorrow, Dad!”

  From elsewhere in the house, her father said, “Bye, Ashley.” And then she was out, headed for Benjamin’s place.

  The jog took almost half an hour. She would have liked to take her bike, but there was an outside chance her father would notice it was missing. Still, she liked jogging. The rhythms were hypnotic – the even breaths and footfalls, the thumping of her heart. Sometimes, when she was jogging for fun, she liked to try and synchronize them – two heartbeats for every step, a ker and a thump. Four steps per inhale, three per exhale.

  Benjamin was waiting outside, punctual as ever. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” Ash replied.

  There was a pause. Ash was feeling uncertain about the previous night’s argument. Was he still angry about Liam? Or was he just depressed? Or was he over it, and she was worrying about nothing?

  “Last night’s kind of a blur,” she said. “How are we getting to the airport again?”

  “I’ve called a taxi to an address two blocks that way,” he said, pointing. “Buckland’s going to meet us at the terminal.”

  “Got it,” Ash said. They started to walk.

  After a while, she asked, “Did he tell you where we’re going?”

  “No.”

  “Or what we’re doing once we get there?”

  “No.”

  They’d already covered this. But for the first time since they’d met, Ash felt like she needed to fill the silence, to reach out across this horrible new distance to her best friend. She wanted to clasp his hand, but she was frightened he’d shake it off.

  Benjamin asked, “Did the fax machine print out the message while you were there, or was it already in the tray?”

  “In the tray,” Ash said. “So it could have been there a long time, depending on when the vault was last opened.”

  “So we could be on our way to rescue a dead woman.”

  Ash nodded. “Unless Buckland has some way of kn
owing she’s still alive.”

  “I don’t see how he could. But it’s not like he tells us everything.”

  “Sorry?”

  Benjamin glanced back over his shoulder. “You know what I mean,” he said. “Buckland’s never explained where he got the hit list, or why he’s still pretending to be dead, or where the X box is, as well as a lot of other things.”

  The X box was the last item on the hit list – the only one without a stated location or rightful owner. When they were first given the list, Benjamin asked Buckland what the X box was. Buckland said, very seriously, “You’re not ready for the X box.”

  Then he had demanded to know why they were laughing.

  “If he came out of hiding,” Ash said, “the government would probably try to kill him again. Plus, Michael Peachey would be released from prison. And as for the hit list, it’s not like either of us has ever asked where it came from.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because it doesn’t matter.”

  “Because we’re afraid of what he might say,” Benjamin said. “What if he stole it?”

  Ash chuckled. “Oh no! How horrid.”

  “I’m serious, Ash. What if he stole it from someone who might come after it? Or worse – what if he killed someone for it?”

  She frowned. “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “No? At least two people died at HBS when you were there. He doesn’t seem too upset by that.”

  “They were murdered by government assassins, not Buckland.”

  “He arranged for the assassins to be there.”

  “One of the dead was a hit woman,” Ash said, “who was about to shoot me.”

  “And who, if you recall, turned out to be working for Buckland.”

  “To protect him. It’s not his fault she mistook me for someone else. And in fairness to her, I was trying to steal all his money at the time. If you recall.”

  Benjamin sighed. “Are you determined to be obtuse about this?”

  “Obtuse? I—” Ash broke off, realizing that she was just bickering to stave off the silence. “I’m sorry,” she said. “What are you trying to say?”

  “Just that we should be careful. We can’t just assume Buckland is infallible. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Ash smiled wryly. “You worry too much, but okay.”

  “I have to worry extra,” he said. “You don’t worry enough. We’re here.”

  They stopped walking. Benjamin had chosen well – a big, new house with a well-tended lawn and an expensive car in the driveway. A cab driver might find two kids headed for the airport on a school day curious, but coming from an expensive place like this, his or her curiosity probably wouldn’t flare into suspicion.

  “So,” Ash said. “About last night.”

  “Last night,” Benjamin agreed.

  “When I agreed to go out with that guy, I didn’t think about your feelings. That’s not because they don’t matter – it’s just that I thought you were kidding, all those times you...anyway, I was insensitive. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Benjamin said.

  Ash sighed. “But I can’t be your girlfriend,” she said. “You understand that, right? We’ve been friends too long. I know all your flaws, and you know mine, and it just wouldn’t work.”

  “It’s okay,” Benjamin said again. “I get it.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Ash sighed, relieved. “Friends?” she asked.

  “Always.”

  The taxi pulled up a minute later. The driver rolled down the window. Reading off a screen, she said, “Mr. Maitland and girlfriend, to the airport?”

  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®.”

  The Hunt

  “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.”