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The two commandos didn’t seem to know she was there. She walked calmly over to the table, lifted the newspaper, and picked up the Beretta. Odd. It had a silencer. She’d never noticed that before. As they threw the hood over his head, she stood sideways to them, feet splayed, raised the gun with a straight right arm, competition style, and fired two head-shots, one for each commando. The trio slumped to the floor. Her father lay still. She walked over, nudged his leg with her foot. No movement. Then she heard her father behind her. He sounded disappointed.
‘You must always look your enemy in the eye. You must make sure. You must let them know, let yourself know that you mean it.’
So who was the corpse? She crouched and lifted the hood. Katya. Two shots. One in each eye. Nadia tried to scream, but she had no voice.
She jerked bolt upright, gasping for breath, her heart hammering in her chest, and opened her eyes in darkness. The same fucking nightmare. Sometimes Katya, sometimes her father, once her mother. Whoever she shot, her family got killed. She lay back down. Rain pelted the wooden roof, and the previous evening’s events slammed into her mind. She closed her eyes. Out of one nightmare…
Sammy stirred next to her. They were both fully clothed, lying on stale towels inside a beach hut he’d broken into no more than four hours ago, her backpack serving as a pillow. She could smell his scent. Six ops with Sammy, and he’d never made a move on her. Not even a flirtatious remark. She’d been happy with that. But right now she wouldn’t mind some comfort.
‘You awake, Nad?’ he asked.
‘Afraid so.’
He touched her brow. It was slick with cold sweat. ‘Nightmaring again?’
She didn’t answer. She’d never told him what they were about. Not a good idea.
Sammy sat up and switched on an interior light, a single harsh yellow bulb hanging from a twisted cord. She covered her eyes, rubbed them, then forced them open again.
‘Almost six,’ he said. ‘Time we found out exactly how much shit Janssen has dumped us in.’
He turned on a portable radio. The early morning shipping forecast was just ending. They listened to the first five BBC news items, then he switched off the radio. The rain eased.
‘What the fuck?’ he said, facing her.
She didn’t get it either. No mention of the downing of a helicopter in front of hundreds of tourists. No mention of gunshots in the centre of London either. None of it had made the news.
She propped herself up on an elbow, and nodded to the black leather bag concealing the package.
‘Tell me about the Rose, Sammy.’
He shook his head. ‘It’ll only distract you. You’re so close, Nad. Just get the job done. Then you and Katya are home free.’
He was about to get up. She touched his arm, stopped him.
‘What does the Rose do?’
He leaned close, his breath raw.
‘If you can detect and localise a nuclear submarine, the Rose – Rosetta is its full name – will let you send it an encoded message the sub’s crew will trust.’
She stared at the bag. ‘What kind of message?’
‘You know, war has broken out, fire a nuclear missile, a target, that kind of stuff.’
It took a moment to sink in. ‘Jesus Christ!’
‘Exactly.’ He turned back to her. ‘But we didn’t make it. Those English bastards did. And now they’re shitting in their pants. Even blocked it from the news.’
‘But who’s Kadinsky going to sell it to? If Al Qaeda or IS –’
‘Not terrorists, Nad. Kadinsky’s greedy, not insane. Another government. The highest bidder. Look, these things never get used, they’re just leverage in global power games.’
He got up, peered through a crack in the door, then unlocked it and let in some fresh sea air. He glanced from the bag to Nadia, and walked outside.
Nadia had learned to trust Sammy, but knew this time his judgment was clouded by his hatred of the English. The Rose was Armageddon a la carte. If it got into the wrong hands… She didn’t want an exploding nuke on her conscience.
She stood up and walked outside, and stopped short when she saw Sammy taking a piss. She couldn’t help noticing he had quite a handful. His head swung towards her, and he continued urinating, as if she was just another guy. Suddenly she got it. She shook her head then smiled.
‘At least now I know it’s not personal,’ she said.
‘You’ve been a bit slow on the uptake, Nad.’ He grinned, shook himself, put it away and zipped up. ‘You don’t have what I want.’ He winked, then stood close to her, and put a hand on her shoulder. His grin vanished. ‘Besides, you’re not even in the game, are you?’
She flinched under his hand.
‘Look, most of us know what Slick and Pox did to you. I’m betting you’ve done almost nothing with a guy since.’
She reached for his hand, removed it from her shoulder.
‘Pox is dead, by the way,’ Sammy said.
‘I know.’ An op gone bad in Hong Kong. No one would talk about it, but someone had let slip to Katya.
One down…
She thought about the Rose again. Images of nuclear detonations – billowing mushroom clouds, thousands of lives snuffed out in an instant – crept unwanted into her mind. Knowing it was probably a bad idea, she had to ask. There wasn’t much time. ‘Sammy, the Rose, it’s too dangerous. Maybe we should –’
Sammy’s hand slapped over her mouth as he half-shoved, half-lifted her until her back smacked into the wooden beach hut. He leant into her, so there was no way she could even knee him in the balls. She smelled urine on his fingers. Her hands gripped his wrist, but he was too strong. He could snap her neck if he wanted to.
His black eyes blazed. ‘You trying to get me killed, Nad? Janssen and Kadinsky would hunt us down.’ He backed off a fraction. ‘Would you take your Beretta and shoot your pretty Katya in the face?’
She recoiled and tried to break free, but he gripped her mouth harder. She glared at him.
‘Because that would be a kindness compared to what will happen if you do something stupid, or even mention it, which is why my hand is over your mouth, stopping any more shit coming out of it.’
She broke their gaze.
‘The Rose goes to Kadinsky, Nad. What happens after that is above our pay grade. Are we clear?’
She nodded as far as she was able. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I like you Nadia. Just don’t go soft in the head on me.’ He released her.
She wiped her mouth, spat onto the wet concrete.
He re-entered the beach hut.
Nadia stared towards the dark sea. The tide was leaving, waves dragging stones noisily down the pebble beach. She hoped Sammy was still on her side. She had no allies in Kadinsky’s world. Everyone was too shit-scared of him, or else dead. She wanted to believe Kadinsky would let her and Katya go, keep his side of the bargain, but why would he? What was in it for him?
Sammy emerged with his crash helmet and the leather bag holding the Rose.
‘Are we good, Nad?’
Despite wanting to deck him, she had to stick to the only plan she had. Get it back to Kadinsky. Maybe Sammy was right. The Rose would never actually get used, especially by a sane government. Otherwise it would trigger instant retaliation, maybe global war. Even IS didn’t have much use for a radioactive planet. She knew she was trying to convince herself, but Kadinsky was going to get it with or without her. Focus on what you can control.
Save Katya.
She nodded. But Sammy looked at her sideways through hooded eyes.
‘Seriously, Nad, I need to know.’ he said. ‘Because right now Janssen is more lethal to us than this package.’
She stared at him. ‘Why?’
‘He’s one of those pricks who believes the world owes him everything. Ego big as a house. Hands soft as a girl’s because he always gets others to do his dirty work. Kadinsky only let him run this op because Janssen got the intel from a friend. But the guy’s ambitious, and he’s got two of his cronies with him. I know you can shoot, but I’ve never actually seen you put someone down. At first I thought they got lucky, those two guards in Sebastopol last year, the ones who would have killed me except you stopped them. But it was precision shooting, Nad, minimal damage, the soft fleshy zones between the major organs. Hard to hit, easy to miss. You study biology to do that?’
She gazed towards the sea. ‘Anatomy, actually. Kadinsky’s camp. With the guy we called the Butcher. Had us practise all the pressure points on captives, and made us shoot, knife and garrote cadavers.’
‘You ever killed, Nadia?’
No. Never. Can’t.
‘Never had to.’ She looked him straight in the eye, as she always did when the only way out was a lie. ‘But I will when I have to, Sammy.’
‘Good. Because I need to know you’ve got my back, Nad.’
She cleared her throat. ‘We’re good, Sammy.’
‘Okay. And keep an eye on Kilroy. I’ve seen the way that creep looks at you. Don’t know where the fuck Janssen recruits his men, or why Kadinsky lets him use his own team.’ His voice, and the way he looked at her, became normal again. ‘I’ll see you at the warehouse. I’m going early to set up the meet. Be there at seven.’
‘What?’ She felt a stab of panic. He was taking the Rose, her only leverage. ‘That wasn’t the plan!’
He shrugged. ‘We turn up the same time… Too dangerous. Too easy for Janssen. This way I arrive first, check out the Rose, and Janssen knows you’re coming, so he has to wait, and I can see the lie of the land.’ He hefted the bag as if to make the point. ‘Don’t worry, you’re my insurance, Nad. Just be there at seven. And bring your Beretta.’
He turned and walked off to find his Suzuki. Cold, she re-entered the beach hut and gathered her stuff. She checked the Beretta. Fully loaded. When she came back out, a few strands of luminous blue had split the dark cloud layer just above the horizon. Dawn was arriving. She walked along the seafront, fast at first, burning off the residual adrenaline until the sun peeked above the sea.
She wandered the slippery, cobbled streets of Penzance, their ‘B site’. It was low-key there, but with an airstrip nearby. Janssen had rented a plane and could fly them across to Dublin, and then Sammy’s contacts could get them to Helsinki. Then she’d get them across the border into Russia. A nice, neat little plan. But so far this one was going south fast, just like Sebastopol…
The guards she’d shot there. She’d checked afterwards. They’d survived, though one had retired early. Good for him. The eight other ops had been bloodless, more or less, a little roughing up here and there, but she’d stayed in the shadows. This should have been the final op, after which she could stop pretending to be a killer.
She found a Starbucks. It hadn’t opened yet, but the young guy setting up let her use the loo anyway. After splashing water on her face and wiping her armpits with damp paper towels, she ordered a soya cappuccino and a skinny blueberry muffin. She only ate half, watching the sunrise. Sebastopol. If only Sammy knew the truth…
Six months prior to that botched mission, Katya had told Nadia their mother was dying. Ovarian cancer. Stage Four. Metastasised. Dead woman walking. Katya had already been to pay her last respects. Amazingly – or more likely due to Katya – Kadinsky let Nadia go back to Uspekh for the weekend. None of her relatives there wanted to talk to her; they had an idea of her line of work, and after her father’s death all sorts of stories had come out. Some of them true. So, she was already judged and shunned. Like father, like daughter. She didn’t care. She had nothing to say to them.
Her mother didn’t look too bad – mainly bloated with dark rings around the eyes – but that was because she’d refused chemo, said it would only prolong the inevitable, that she’d had enough of this world, was anxious to try the next. As usual, her mother had something to say, and didn’t indulge in pleasantries before jumping straight to the point, after first clasping Nadia’s hand so she had to listen.
‘Your father is in hell, Nadia,’ she said, her voice strong, her eyes full of fire. ‘All those people he killed, they were waiting for him.’
Nadia felt the familiar knot tightening in her stomach, remembered why she’d left all those years ago. It was as if her umbilical cord had been shoved up inside her rather than cut, and her mother could pluck at it any time she wanted. Nadia still loved her father, even though she knew what he’d become, and didn’t want to think of him trapped in hell with only his victims for company.
Her mother tightened her grip. ‘I know I will pay for my sins first, but I’m going to heaven eventually, and I hope your sister, despite her slutty whoring –’
Nadia snatched her hand away. Her mother paused. Her eyes softened.
‘I know Katya will join me one day.’ She held out her hand. Nadia hesitated a moment, then took it.
‘Nadia. If you kill, you can never come to heaven. Never. I want you there with me. So I need you to promise.’
Nadia recoiled. She’d never wanted to kill, wasn’t even sure she could. But this…
‘I’m dying Nadia. You’re still my daughter.’ Her eyes grew hard. ‘You owe me.’ She looked away, to the window, perhaps realising she’d overplayed it. ‘And Katya.’
Nadia wanted to storm off, to tell her to go to hell, that it wasn’t reserved only for killers. But this was her mother’s deathbed, this was their last conversation. In a few weeks, she’d be standing over this woman’s grave.
Her mother looked at her then, the way she had before all their lives had turned to shit, and Nadia remembered the sweet mother who’d brushed Nadia’s hair when it had been wild and long, told her stories, taught her to bake cakes, and held her when she’d been frightened by thunderstorms. Something cracked inside Nadia. She tried to hold it back, but it was no use. A torrent of painful longing tore through her, heart-wrenching pangs for the mother she’d lost a long time before she’d lost her father. If there was a heaven, maybe this was the part of her mother they’d let in.
Her mother released Nadia’s hand. ‘Promise me, Nadia. Promise me you’ll never kill.’
Nadia knew she’d regret it, that in her line of business this was at worst a suicide pact, at best Russian roulette. Maybe her mother knew it, too, and that this way Nadia would end up in heaven faster, even if she’d rather be with her father. She wouldn’t have put it past her mother. But the bond was too strong, and images of those happier early years flashed across her mind, and child-like tears for the loss of a mother-daughter relationship that could have been so much more, tumbled down her cheeks. Her mother smiled, knowing she’d won. Right now it didn’t matter. And so the two words Nadia knew could seal her fate passed between her lips.
‘I promise.’
Nadia downed the last of the cappuccino, paid, left a ridiculous tip, and headed towards the disused docks where she was to meet with Sammy, Janssen, Toby and Kilroy. At least they were far from London, which would be locked down, airports and Eurostar heavily screened. Not that she could leave the country alone – Janssen had her passport. But they had some breathing space in this provincial tourist town, four hours by train or car from the capital. She suddenly remembered the helicopter pilot, wondered if he was okay, then ditched the thought. She’d done all she could.
She neared the older part of town and slowed. If one or more of the policemen had died last night, she was an accessory to murder. Approaching the iron door of the dilapidated warehouse, she paused, and had a final futile thought about doing a one-eighty. Then she heaved open the door. The hinges shrieked, setting her nerves on edge. She took a deep breath and stepped inside.
The warehouse reeked of mould. Fetid pools of water lay scattered across an uneven, cracked concrete floor. The large space was devoid of furniture save for a metal table and three rusted chains hanging from iron crossbars close to the roof. Sammy’s Suzuki stood near the door, the only remarkable item in the grim daylight filtering through a broken skylight. She heard faint slapping sounds as waves beat against the pillars underneath the floor.
‘Close the fucking door!’
Nadia glared at Janssen, and tugged the door shut with a definitive clunk. Sammy wandered over and flipped the latch, locking them in. His crash helmet hung from his left hand. With his back to Janssen, Sammy caught Nadia’s eye and raised an eyebrow.
Katya had also warned Nadia about Janssen. Said his ideas were a lot bigger than his delivery. She’d had to be careful with him in the bedroom. But Katya had said something else – which Nadia had not quite understood at the time – that Janssen was most dangerous when he turned his back on you.
She and Sammy joined the others at the battered table, a cylindrical device in its centre, smooth silver metal except for a couple of red LED displays that pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat. It was about the same size as a large tin of vegetables. The Rose.
A siren wailed in the distance, made all five of them glance at one another. Janssen, his bone-white hair lashed back in a ponytail, spread his arms wide.
‘Stay cool. They have no idea where we are,’ he said. His pale blue eyes were relaxed, as if he didn’t care about anything.
Nobody spoke, least of all Janssen’s men, Toby and Kilroy. They stood to his right, Toby bald and paunchy, eyes darting here and there, mainly toward the door. Kilroy was a good two heads taller, unmoving. Tattoos on his fingers, like rings, marked him as hard-core Mafia. The type you never spoke to. Neither Kilroy nor Toby looked happy, but there was resignation there. Clearly this wasn’t the first time a job with Janssen had been screwed up.
Nadia knew she should stay quiet. She’d never spoken out when her dad had been around, no matter what he’d done. Once he’d gone, though, she’d developed what her mother called a trouble-mouth.
‘The policemen back in London… Are they dead? The news isn’t saying.’
Janssen leaned forward across the table. ‘Less you know, the better.’
She folded her arms. ‘Theft of this magnitude is five years’ hard time. Accessory to murder is fifteen. Especially a copper.’
Sammy moved away from her, cradling his helmet in his arms.
