Czytaj książkę: «The Killing Files»
NIKKI OWEN is an award-winning writer and columnist. As part of her degree, she studied at the acclaimed University of Salamanca – the same city where her protagonist of Subject 375 and The Killing Files, Dr Maria Martinez, hails from. Born in Dublin, Nikki now lives in Gloucestershire with her family.
To Brian – this one’s for you, Mr Blue Sky.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to everyone in getting The Killing Files out into the world. Thanks to Sally, my Editor, to Cara, Alison and all the team at HQ Harper Collins. Also thanks to Adam, my agent (cheers, A!) and all the stellar PFD team. Big up to the supportive, beautiful book bloggers and Facebookers who make this such fun. And super shout out (once again) to Kelly Duke for reading this novel when, well, it wasn’t really one, and to my mum too, for giving it the thumbs up. Hugs to Marg and Brian for being the best friends and neighbours – Bri, you will always be in our hearts. And to Barry and Wendy for being the most amazing parents in law (and gardeners …) But, as ever, my biggest thanks has to go to my beautiful little family – Dave, Abi and Hattie, whom, without, I could never, ever write. DJ – you and me against the world, babe.
And, finally, to you now, holding this book – yep, you – thank you for reading The Killing Files! Without you, this book lark simply can’t exist. I am mighty, mighty grateful.
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Copyright
Chapter 1
Undisclosed confinement location—present day
The room is dark, damp. I cannot see properly. I have been caught, that much I know, but I am unsure by whom. The Project? MI5? Someone else? I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know how I am going to escape.
I lift my head but it feels heavy, a loaded sack filled with potatoes. I inch it back. My breathing is hot, the air a woollen blanket on my face, thick and scratchy, and, as my sight begins to adjust to the dark, slowly, like a curtain being lifted on a stage, I start to see small slivers of solid items. Where am I?
A room. I think that is what this is, but I am unsure. Then what? A cell? Prison confinement again? But I was found innocent. I am free, I tell myself. I am not guilty, have not killed anyone, yet even when I say the words to myself, for some reason, they don’t seem right, instead feel out of place, a code reassembled in the middle.
One breath, two. My eyes begin to adjust to the gloom and my sight registers small globules of shapes. The corner of a wall, the shard of a window—snapshots only of a whole picture. There is a seat of some sort, a table perhaps, but beyond that, nothing. The air is too black for me to take an inventory, the atmosphere sticky tar turning all the soft daylight into hot, putrid night as adrenaline starts to spurt out into my blood creating short, sharp alerts. I am not safe here.
It is then I hear it: the rustle of movement.
‘Who is there?’ My voice clicks with a cotton bud dryness, and I wonder how long it is since I last drank water as my brain rapidly attempts to calculate timings and bearings and any scrap of geolocation memory it can cling on to.
‘Who is there?’ I repeat, yet there is no answer, only darkness. A worry rises inside me, but I press it back, not wanting to panic, not wanting to melt down here and now.
Focus. Breathing. I can hear someone breathing, there, on the whisper of the air. I inch my eyes left, sensing what exists but almost not wanting to acknowledge it. Have I put them there, whoever it is? Is that what this is—a hit? Did I try to kill them? I didn’t murder the priest, but I doubted myself then, in court, at the trial. And then a horrific thought strikes. What if I have been on an operation for the Project and this is the result? A body on the floor beside me, injured by me and waiting to die. A killing I may later have no memory of.
My torso remains as rigid as possible, not daring to move. How did I get here? I think hard, connect my cognitive thoughts, but no matter how much I try, nothing shakes, as if my memory has been erased.
As if who I am doesn’t really exist.
The person’s breathing is shallow now, gravelled and raspy. I know what bleeding out sounds like—the sharp, slicing quality of oxygen intake—but this is not it. And yet, there is an urgency to the breath, a desperation that I cannot place, but it makes no sense why. I am a doctor so should know the signs, but still I cannot place them. What is wrong with me?
I blink three times and try hard to concentrate, to return my brain to function mode, focusing again on the room for clues. The edges. They are shrouded in black, but the window above affords a slip of light that plops in a puddle to my left.
It is then I see it—an arm—and a gasp slips from my mouth.
I track the limb, milky-white skin on a long, limp wrist, different to my own arms, my muscled, tanned ones, with bitten nails and dirt in the creases. Even in this murky room, I can tell that this arm is clean, scrubbed.
I keep all my attention on the body part and attempt again asking who they are, instinctively counting the time as I wait. The numbers sooth me as seconds rack up in twos, the action slowing, at least for the moment, the anxiety that is building inside, but when I ask again who is there and no one answers, a moan slips from my lips. The urine-coloured light has all but disappeared, yet somehow I start to see something slithering into view. A long, T-shirted torso. An elegant, white neck. A skull.
A face.
A scream pierces the air and I am shocked to realise it is mine. I catch my breath, frantically slap my hands up and down, straining to thrash my body forward from the seat, but still my pulse flies. Because there is a face, a face staring back at me, a face I know. Shaven hair, sharp cheekbones, gapped teeth and pool-blue eyes, eyes that even in this tar-black air, shine. My hearts races, my chest tightens. How can she be here? How have I let this happen? We are all in danger now, all of us.
‘Doc.’ The voice comes from the head on the floor.
I slam my eyes shut, not wanting to believe what is here, reciting an algorithm in a vain attempt to calm myself.
‘Doc, it’s okay.’ The voice is a cotton sheet flapping in the breeze, a rustle of green grass. ‘Doc, I’m okay.’
My eyes open. One millimetre then two, gradually allowing my sight to do the work my brain does not want to understand. My friend is here. My only friend in the world is lying crumpled on the floor beside me.
‘Patricia?’ I say, testing out the word. ‘You are out of Goldmouth prison.’
‘Yes, I got out on parole, remember? Two months after you.’
Confusion, worry. They spin round my head fast. ‘You are here. Why are you here?’
‘Because they have us,’ she says, the Irish lilt to her voice still there as I remember, but scratched now, torn. ‘The Project have caught up with us. You can’t hide from them any more.’
The Project have found me—that’s why I have woken up here in this room. They have entrapped us and there is only one way it will end: someone will die.
‘We have to get out. Tell me your status—are you injured?’
I listen for her reply, but there is only silence.
‘Patricia?’ Yet there is no answer, no words back to me as I continue to repeat her name over and over again in the gloom. When I finally stop calling for her, I flop back, flooded with fear, fear of myself, of who I am. Because it’s me—I have done this. I have caused this to happen. I slam my head back and back again, crying out, yelling into the thick, black air. Why can’t I recall how I got here? Why don’t I recognise where I am? Why?
Why?
One solitary, fat tear slides down my cheek. ‘Do not die.’ The words slip out, silent, unbidden. ‘Please, do not die.’
My eyes search for Patricia’s body, for an arm or a head, anything that can reassure me she is okay, that my friend is okay.
‘I am sorry,’ I say. ‘I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.’
I stop, haul in oxygen, listen for signs of life, but in the ten long seconds that next pass, the only sound audible in the thick, foul air is the rasp of my own breath.
Salamancan Mountains, Spain.
34 hours and 59 minutes to confinement
The sun is blinding me. I kick off my running shoes, prop my hand on my forehead and, squinting towards the distance, listen to the morning as the mountains wake up. Clicking cicadas, dry summer grass rustling in the breeze, pregnant lemon and orange trees groaning under the weight of fat fruit spritzing citrus into the air, the distant bleat of a mountain goat—all the sounds that are now familiar to me, part of my daily routine. The security camera lights surrounding my hidden villa glow green, six lenses in total covering every angle of the property. The Salamancan earth is slowly rising.
I pick up my coffee cup, drain it then pad inside, counting my steps where the terracotta tiles are cold on my soles. One, two, three, my feet move forward until twenty-four arrives and I halt at the sink, my eyes watching everything. I set down my cup, pick up a white cloth and dry last night’s dishes: one plate, one knife and fork and one small wine glass. Opening a metal cupboard, I slot the crockery away, all of it easily fitting in, the only occupants in the large, spotless space.
I scan the rest of the kitchen, returning everything to its place. One pan, one white jug with a scratch seven millimetres long on the inside of the handle, one metal pot, small, for milk to warm at night when the sun rests and the night blanket covers the sky where the stars switch on and glow until morning. I count them all and document them in my head and, satisfied all is correct and present, I close all the cupboards and, stretching up my arms high into the air, recite the words I have spoken now every day since I came here to hide from the Project and MI5.
‘I am Dr Maria Martinez. I am thirty-three years old.’ My fingers ripple in the warm air, a gentle wisp of a breeze drifting in through the small open window, its wooden frame cracked yet solid. ‘I am innocent of murder. I am free.’
I stretch my hands further into the void, my muscles elongating into the empty space around me as I go through my routine to remind myself who I am, because if I did not tell myself, I fear I would be lost entirely. My hands fan out and my muscles are taut and strong, and, when I twist towards the glass door of the oven, my reflection stares back, green contact lenses patched over brown eyes, black hair dyed platinum and sawn in clumps to my small skull, the flesh on my face and limbs deep and sun-brown, lines thick and grooved and ingrained into my worn skin and elbows and ankles and knees.
‘I am Dr Maria Martinez. I am thirty-three years old,’ I repeat, inhaling, my back arching downwards and my arms reaching forwards so my palms flatten on the floor, the tiles cold on my skin, tiny sharp jolts reminding me I’m alive. ‘I am innocent of murder. I am free.’
The yellow morning rays shine warm on my face. I close my eyes and I breathe it all in, moving, exhaling, saluting the sun, feeling my body work as one with my mind as I repeat my chant over and over, losing my thoughts to the repetitive medicine of it, allowing my brain to soften itself of the millions of cognitive connections automatically made every second of the day and night. I bend my knees now, toughened skin touching down on the terracotta as I crease my spine upwards towards the ceiling, eyes still closed as I battle in my head with the pictures that sway before it, pictures of the loud, excrement-filled prison I was kept in, of the court trial and the beatings and the discovery of the Project entire, the shredded sordid secrecy. I breathe, try to let the thoughts pass by me as my spinal cord folds inwards now, rippling the muscles of my torso up and down, feeling them creak and stretch after the running outside, shorts riding up and itching my skin, vest top stuck to me with sweat, and even though the irritation of it is sharp, I continue focusing, letting my brain be even a little bit at ease with who I am, all the while chanting, reminding, never ever forgetting, because without conscious thought, what would we be?
Ten minutes pass in the early morning sun of my movements across the tiles and in the empty air, and, when I am ready and complete, I stand, exhale and open my eyes. The sun shines into them and I blink as my sight adjusts to the hazy film of the day that yawns out ahead of me, my mind registering with a glow of satisfaction that there are no people to attempt to converse with, no social games for me to decipher how to play. I turn to the sink. I extract one small glass from the cupboard to my left and, filling it with water, drain the contents, and mouth refreshed, rinse out the glass, and return it to its home.
When I am certain all is in its place, I wipe dry my palms on the back of my running shorts and pad towards the lounge, grateful for my daily routine, for each phase of it I have created. Every day since I left prison and came here to hide from the Project and MI5, after my morning run and yoga, I spend three hours tracking and documenting the latest news stories on the US National Security Agency prism scandal and any terrorist crimes or cyber security threats that I think the Project may be involved in.
I am just entering the lounge past the wooden crates on the floor when, today, it happens. I don’t know if it’s the thought of analysing the latest news on the NSA that has triggered it off or if it is because I slept badly last night, nightmares of prison waking me up in sweat-filled fits, but the memory arrives, fast and bright, not the hazy part of clouds that normally occurs when such recollections float to the surface, but this time quick, a taser prod, switching my mind from what is in front of me to what is inside, to a distant drug-hazed memory.
‘No!’ The sound of my solitary voice rings loud in the silence, sending the birds in the orange trees outside scattering in random directions.
I grip the kitchen sink. This process, this feeling, it is now familiar, so many times over the years has it passed, but still there is a fear as my brain is thrown into recalling something locked deep within my subconscious.
Something from my past.
Chapter 2
Salamancan Mountains, Spain.
34 hours and 56 minutes to confinement
Suddenly I am not standing in my Salamanca kitchen, but instead am in a white clinical room, a room that now, from my dreams, from my nightmares, I know well.
I am fifteen years old, limbs long and thin, jutting out at awkward Bambi angles. I am sitting robot-straight in a metal bed and my long matted rope of thick black hair is uncut and wild and resting on a white hospital gown where freckles puncture plump sun-kissed skin, cashmere soft, no lines yet of a longer life lived. ECG probes sit glued to my small rib cage and concave abdomen, and in the background the pit-put of a heart rate monitor hums.
I turn my head and see him. The man. I intake a sharp breath, but there is no surprise in it, no immediate concern, as if I have been expecting him, as if this, here, is a routine that offers me some strange, warped comfort.
‘Your vital signs are good,’ the man says. His voice has a Scottish lilt, each word a slice of a knife, a slow turn of a screw. ‘Can you tell me who I am?’
‘Dr Carr.’ My voice is a feather, a butterfly wing. I shiver.
He smiles and when he does, his lips slice thin and it makes me think of a cut on my arm. ‘And you have a special name for me, don’t you, Maria—what is it?’
‘Black Eyes.’
I can feel my nerves rise and so I scan the room as a distraction. The walls are white and by them stand three stainless steel seats and two cream Formica tables. There are no pictures or soft materials, just brown plastic blinds and two officers guarding the doors with handguns hanging by their sides. I don’t like it and so start to jig my leg.
‘Maria, look at me. Can you look at me?’
‘No.’ Jig, jig. ‘I want to go home.’
His smile slips and, without warning, his arm whips out and slaps my leg still. ‘Stop stimming and look at me.’
A sting like one hundred needle points pricks my skin. My leg drops still. I want to scream at him, jolted by the feel of his touch, but am too scared because I know he could shout and the noise would bother me too much, and so instead I attempt to do as he says so he won’t touch me again.
He rolls his fingers into his palm and withdraws his hand to his lap. ‘I’m sorry for that,’ he says. ‘We are on a tight deadline today.’
I strain my eyelids, force my sight to stare straight at him, but it is hard, hurts, almost in an uncomfortable way, as if opening my eyes to his, to anyone’s, would allow them to see into me, see into my thoughts. In the end, I only manage to make contact for two seconds then have to look away, exhausted.
He inhales. ‘For the next few hours, I want you to practise making eye contact for half a conversation. This will help you slip more seamlessly into a regular situation if you ever go operational. Make you appear more … normal. Yes?’ He smiles and I think I see tiny eye creases crinkle out on the corners of his face, but I am unsure. ‘Yes, Maria?’
‘Yes,’ I respond on autopilot.
‘Good. Look at me.’ I do. ‘One second longer, that’s it. Two, three, four … Good. You can lower your eyes now.’
I drop my gaze, shattered, as he takes notes in green ink on a yellow page. Behind him, a woman walks over, petite, a tattoo of a cross on her brown neck, hair so closely cropped to her scalp, it appears to shine. The woman stops and whispers in Black Eyes’ ear. I cannot hear them so I bend forward a little, yet, when I look down at my thin, gowned body, the probes sticking out, it is merely crumpled, having barely moved at all. Beside me the heart rate monitor beeps faster.
My body shifts on the bed. Black Eyes is nodding now to the woman who has appeared in the room and at first, the words they whisper fade into the squashed air, but after two then three seconds, their sentences filter through as, slowly, my ears switch fully on.
‘The programme is showing her skills are improving, Dr Carr,’ the woman whispers. ‘Her handler at the church is communicating very positive results.’
‘Such as?’
‘He gave her a complex code to crack and she did it within thirteen seconds.’
‘Good. Good. What else?’
She consults her notes. ‘The subject’s IQ is exceptionally high, photographic memory sharp—she is obsessed with classical composers, tracks all their family details, their names, all their pieces—’
‘Has she learnt to play the piano yet?’
‘Yes. Self-taught, Trinity College London, Grade Eight standard within three weeks. Further information: the way in which she can sense acute sounds and scents is exceptional—I know you were concerned about that.’
‘Hmmm.’
‘And her dexterous skills, her technical assimilation—it’s getting faster. She can take apart and reassemble a radio clock, for example, within three minutes now, last time it was five. Her handler at the school recorded that.’
There is a nod from Black Eyes as he turns and provides me with a narrow stare. ‘We have been operating for twenty years now and this is our breakthrough. She’s the only one the conditioning appears to be working on.’
‘Yes.’
He looks to her. ‘MI5 will want to hear about this.’
The woman hands him a slip of white paper. ‘Done. Here are the results we sent over to our contact there.’
Black Eyes scans the data, his fingers pinching the page, each a spindled vine of pale flesh. ‘All these people we have conditioned and tested, and none of them are quite like this test child, this Maria Martinez. What is her confirmed subject number?’
‘375.’
‘Subject 375. Yes.’ He taps the paper. ‘We have some scenarios I would like to use her for, see what she can do. MI5 are pressing us to assist them with unusual security threats—cyber elements, computers etcetera. Let’s see how she can help us.’
His head dips and, without warning, his skeletal fingers creep forward so that they skim my calf. I instantly flinch, but he doesn’t appear to notice, instead seems in some kind of trance. ‘It’s okay,’ he says to me. ‘It’s okay.’ Then he turns to the woman. ‘She is strong, but not yet old enough to fight, but soon …’ He lifts his hand, knuckles and flesh hovering in the air, and the thought occurs to me that he may hit me. ‘While she is here, we will ask her what she knows.’
The woman frowns. ‘But won’t that stay in her memory, the covert details are just that—covert. What if she recites them when she is back in her normal environment?’
He shakes his head. ‘We will give her Versed as we always have, administered before she is dispatched home to Spain. It has worked well so far.’ He looks to me. ‘It will wipe her immediate mind so no secrets are divulged—she will simply believe she has visited the specialist clinic with her mother because of her Asperger’s.’ He hands the woman the paper. ‘The Versed drug means she will be unable to recall fully what she has or has not done, but enough remains in the subconscious for her to be useful until she reaches an age where she can be fully operational. It is important that you learn this.’ He folds his arms. ‘The subject may recall things, facts, but they will be hazy—like dreams. But we need that. We need this data, this training we give her, to remain stored in her brain somewhere so we can use it when the time is right.’
‘Maria?’ He is talking straight to me now. A rush of heat prickles my entire body and I don’t know what to do. My eyes search for a way out but there are no exits, here, anywhere. ‘Maria,’ he says, voice unusually soft, low, ‘where are we?’
But nerves rack me, and instead of speaking, I press my back into the bed, the cold cotton of the gown skimming my knees, goosebumps popping out.
‘I want to go home.’
‘You will. But first—that’s it, look at me, good—answer me: where are we?’
I look between the woman and Black Eyes. When I open my mouth, my voice trembles. ‘I am in a Project facility.’
‘And who are the Project?’
‘It is a covert group linked to MI5.’
‘And what do we do?’
Despite myself, despite my resistance, the words trip from my mouth, as if they are preset, robotic. ‘The Project is a covert programme formed in response to a global threat of terrorism and, specifically, cyber terrorism. It trains people with Asperger’s to use their unique, high IQ skills to combat security alerts. Only MI5 knows the organisation exists.’
‘And the UK government?’ he asks. ‘What of them—do they know who we are?’
‘Negative. They have no knowledge of the Project’s existence.’
‘Good.’ His chest puffs then deflates as his head bobs up and down, a smile snaking in to his face. ‘Good.’
The woman nods once to Black Eyes then leaves via a door that has no handles or hinges. Black Eyes waits for her to exit then turns to me, perching himself on the end of the bed. I grip the sheets tight. At first he does not speak, but then, after two seconds, he opens his mouth and a precise, metallic voice strides out.
‘You will not remember being here, Maria. You won’t recall this conversation, you won’t recollect the details of the tests we carry out on you. But know that we are always watching you, are always … here for you. We are everywhere.’ He leans to the side and, from a metal trolley, picks up a loaded syringe. My heart rate rockets.
‘You are at school now, yes?’
I swallow, confused. ‘No. I am not at school now. Now I am here.’
He pauses, one second, two, three, his teeth appearing to clench. ‘Your teacher next year,’ he says finally, exhaling, ‘he will be working for us, helping us to watch you. These people you see nearly every day—they are your handlers. Even your family priest. But of course, you won’t—’ a strange mewed laugh emits from his mouth—‘you won’t remember.’ He sighs. ‘I cannot believe I am telling you this now—you’ll only forget. But Father Reznick, your friendly Catholic priest—he’s one of us.’ My eyes go wide. The priest? But I saw him kissing Mama. ‘Oh, the big brown eyes! Maria, I am growing to know you well now. You do remind me of my own daughter …’ He drifts off, momentarily looking downwards, the needle resting in his fingers, and I glance to the door and wish I could run. ‘Anyway,’ he says after a moment, ‘do not worry. When you go on to university and work, we will have our people there, too, Project people like me and you, people who will watch over what you do, even though you won’t, at the time, know they are with us.’ He flicks the needle with a finger. Sweat beads pop out all over my face. ‘Oh, there’s no need to fret,’ he says now, leaning in, studying the sheen on my forehead. ‘We are friends, aren’t we?’
I recoil. ‘I do not have any friends.’
He halts, tilting his skull. ‘No. No I don’t suppose you do.’ He drifts off again for a second, then, checking the needle, he handcuffs my wrist with his fingers and pulls my arm towards him. ‘Your mother, Ines—lovely woman, isn’t she?’
I say nothing, instead watch his eyes narrow as they inspect the vial for air bubbles. Vomit wells in the base of my throat.
‘Shame she is on her own now after your father, Alarico, died. Loneliness is a terrible thing. Car crash, wasn’t it?’
Alarico, my papa. Hearing his name makes my head spin a little, my heart ache. The vomit rumbles.
‘Still,’ Black Eyes says now, his Scottish lilt dancing on the cold air, ‘she’s a strong woman, your mother, a lawyer like your father, but, well, more forthright. She’ll make a good politician when she hits the Spanish parliament after she’s got over her little … illness. Your brother, too—Ramon, isn’t it? Seems like he’s following in their legal footsteps what with his fondness for debate club. Quite the family. And family, Maria, it’s important, keeps us together …’
Black Eyes is leaning in to me so close now, I can see the faint shadow of stubble on his chin, feel the hot garlic and tobacco of his breath on my neck. I want to scream. I want to run a million miles away, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot bring myself to move, and even if I did run, where would I go? Where would I ever go?
‘You though, Maria—my … our test child,’ Black Eyes says now, ‘for you we have plans. We would like you to become … a doctor. Try and press that into your subconscious, hmmm? Even though this will make all of today fade away. A plastic surgeon, specifically. We need to test your dexterous skills, hone them so they can one day be of use to us. Study in Madrid at the University Hospital there—that’s where one of our handlers resides.’ He smiles, a flash of crooked, tombstone teeth. ‘Do you understand?’
I nod.
‘With words.’
‘I understand.’
‘Good. Because you are the one our conditioning is working on and we wouldn’t want all these trips your mother takes you on to be wasted now, would we?’
‘Mama believes she is taking me to an autism clinic,’ I say, an unexpected flash of defiance streaking through me. ‘She does not know what you really do. You are lying to her.’
He stares at me. He levels his black, bottomless eyes at me and delivers a look so chilling that, even with my emotionally challenged brain, I get a shiver of fright.
‘We have a bit of terrorism to fight out there,’ he continues now as if I had never spoken. ‘Pesky little terrorists trying to break into our computer networks, into our global infrastructures. But now—’ Black Eyes taps my arm, lowers the needle to my skin ‘—now, my dear, sweet Maria—now you will forget …’
Chapter 3
Salamancan Mountains, Spain.
34 hours and 53 minutes to confinement
I come to. I tumble into the present day, gasping in a sharp gulp of oxygen, falling against the kitchen table in my Salamancan villa, sweat pouring from my brow and arms and bare, wobbly legs. I go to haul myself up, blinking furiously, desperate for water, but almost instantly another subconscious recollection arrives, dragging me back into a deeper, stronger dream. More lucid and glaring.
This time I see myself sitting at a desk in a Project tech lab. The walls are regulation white, and around the bottom are long strips of brushed steel, all bases for junction boxes that contain red and green bulbs that flash on and off by a control panel to the left. Computers sit in pre-allocated slots, controlled acoustics used to minimise background sounds for the subjects, subjects like me who inhabit the zone. There is spatial sequencing and lights and levels that are all compartmentalised to define their use, everything routine, expected.
My fingers tap a keyboard and I notice they are older now, not fifteen this time, but tanned, longer, the fingers of my stronger twenty-year-old self. I am writing detailed notes from memory into an online file, classified Top Secret, scores of data and times and geolocations going directly from my brain to the computer. There is a photograph on the screen of a woman with caramel skin wearing a hijab draped under pink-rose cheeks. She has a prominent, aquiline nose and her eyes are so brown they look as if they are constructed of pure liquid. Her picture is superimposed on the file and as I type, I record details of her, of this woman who I have known for two years but who has now caused problems for the Project. My informant, my asset in the field, code named by me as Raven, a bird symbolising good omens, yet the keeper of deception, of tragedy.
A beep sounds and I stand, quick, lithe, the colt now a thoroughbred as, turning to the right, I march out of the door and to the main corridor warren of the covert Project facility. Scanning the area, I proceed straight to Room Six, where I enter through the thick metal door, shut it and turn.
Raven lies on the floor. She is splattered in blood and on her head, her black veil lies splayed out, torn down to her neck, exposing cut, charred skin and deep, gaunt eyes. Gone is the rose of her cheeks, replaced now by two worn-out hollows, and when I look at her I know she is the enemy, yet for some reason, a lump forms in the base of my throat and I have to swallow it away.
A Project officer, younger, files over to me. He wears a grey shirt made with soft cotton fabric and beneath the front of the right hand shoulder is the letter H followed by a three-digit number.
‘I was called here,’ I say. ‘What do you require?’
He turns to me but makes no eye contact. ‘You need to guard the detainee. I have been asked to go to the control centre. I will be back in three minutes and thirty seconds.’
He turns, exits, and I do not move. My eyes stay ahead, my body now defined, muscles strong, hands skilled and slim from the medical school training.
‘M-Maria?’
The woman lifts her head from her slump on the floor. Her gaze is raised to me but I do not look at her. The lump in my throat tightens.
‘Detainees are not permitted to talk,’ I say, eyes front.
‘It is you, isn’t it? Maria? You … you cut your hair.’ She coughs. Blood speckles the white tiles, and her eyes dart left and right then settle back on me. ‘I know you think I am the enemy, but I am not. That’s just what they made you believe.’ She heaves in oxygen. ‘They set me up, Maria—you have to believe me. They’ll do it to you, too, if they have to. I’m not a terrorist …’ She coughs again, wipes her mouth. ‘They’ll be back soon, so you must listen. There … there is a file. It’s encrypted.’ She licks her cracked lips. ‘It’s on a file within a computer that’s not … that’s not attached to anything, a standalone device. No server is linked to it, but it contains a file that you created, a hidden file, away from the Project. Do you understand? Do you understand what that means?’
‘Detainees are not permitted to talk.’ I strain not to look at her. She is the enemy, and yet her words, her injured presence—they bother me.
‘It has details, the file,’ she continues, ‘ones they cannot track. It will give you what you need—confidential data, who the Project has tested on, the files and names of who they’ve killed. What they’re doing is wrong, Maria. They can’t treat people like this, they can’t act like gods of the world, and yet that’s what they do. Give man power and I give you an eternity of pain.’ She spits out some blood and I fight the urge to wipe it away because, for some reason, I feel connected to this woman but I don’t know why.
‘Maria?’
‘Detainees are not permitted to …’ I trail off, confused, unsure which side she is really on.
‘You are struggling, I know,’ she says now, low, laboured, ‘struggling with who I am … but we were in the field together. Maria, I helped you and you helped me. They’ll mess with your memory after they’ve done with me, like they always do. The file will give you what you need, tell you what you’ve done—the truth! Find out who you really are, Maria! I know you, I do. We were … we were friends.’
My eyes briefly flicker to her then, snapping back into position, I look away. ‘I have no friends.’
The door bolts open and the officer with the H on his shirt returns accompanied by two other, higher ranking officers. They stride to Raven, haul her up, but as they pull her away, she digs in her feet. ‘The file,’ she whispers. ‘Find it!’
They yank her forwards and as they do she shouts, ‘They will make you complete it, Maria! Prepare, they told us. Wait. Engage! Eliminate the threat. They will make you kill me! You know this, Maria, I know you do. Fight it,’ she says, her feet leaving trails of blood in their wake, ‘fight the Project! Help!’
But I do nothing, instead watch her go and as she does, as she is dragged screaming away past the cold, pale doors of the Project walkways, what bothers me about her so much comes to me, slapping me hard on the face.
‘I never knew your name,’ I say aloud to the now empty room, the words echoing in a void that can never be filled. ‘I never knew your name.’
The image begins to swirl away, soft at first then faster downwards as a noise vibrates in my ears and I realise it’s the radio alarm clock clicking on, blasting a newscaster’s voice into the kitchen.
I intake a sharp breath and my eyes fly open taking in a woozy, hazy view of my warm, sun-drenched kitchen. I touch my head with a shaking hand then, falling forward, grab a glass, fill it from the tap and drain the water until it is sliding down my chin, fangs of liquid on my shocked skin. I slap the glass down, slam back into the wall, smear my lips with the back of my hand and try to steady my breath. The memory, the subconscious dream still fresh in my mind—these have happened before, but not this strong, not with her so vividly in them. I throw my hand to the side, feel my way forward, the image of the hijab throwing me off centre. What she said about the files—was that true? Did she store a data file at the Project? Did that actually happen? I spin round, brain firing left and right. My notebook. I need my notebook, need to write it all down, record it so I can track it and try to make sense of what is hidden in my head.
The news piece on the radio is talking about the American national security agency, how Edward Snowden has revealed more information and is in hiding now. I try to pay attention. I try to press it all to my mind so I can lose myself and record it all on my wall, but the words are too much, the noise all too loud and I can’t think straight, the dream of the woman and her screams still lingering in my mind even in the bright glare of the summer sun. A dull moan slips from my mouth and I slap my hand down on the radio, silencing it as I count the steps that I now stumble into the lounge.
My eyes automatically scan the solitary armchair, the old brown piano with its back against the wall, the towers of books that sky-scrape their way across the room, the thousands of newspaper articles plastered to the wall, covered in scrawled notes of black pen and pin tacks and sketches of blank faces of people I don’t remember. I look at it all, my sight hazy, struggling to focus until, finally, I spot my notebook on the cabinet island by the far wall.
I immediately go to it, flip past the pages of algorithms and codes and sketches of Project facility buildings, all vague memories of events and details, and scratch out what I have just seen. Done, I slam the book shut. I stare at the cracked brown leather cover that curls at the corners. My memories, my nightmares are in there, the ones I don’t know about, the details and facts I cannot even recall occurring and yet, somehow they are in my head. Somehow, despite the drugs, I recall them. But why?
I think of Raven. What if there is a file? What if I have just recalled something that happened a decade ago despite the drugs Black Eyes gave me? If the file the woman stowed away is at the Project, does that mean it is still there, now, after all these years? I hold out my hands, look at my fingers, long slim trained doctor hands, a plastic surgeon’s, helping to reconstruct faces and injuries and a mix of disgust and sadness hits me. The Project made me become a doctor. It was not my choice or conscious will, instead it was a foregone conclusion, a fait accompli. But what are we when we are not in control of our own choices and life? What does that eventually do to us? And what do we eventually do as a result?
I stare again at my fingers and skin and cut-to-the-quick nails. I am Dr Maria Martinez. Raven said they would make me kill her.
Did I?
They have made me believe I have killed before, they got me convicted of the murder of a priest because they—MI5—wanted me hidden and out of the way when the NSA prism scandal broke out, just so the Project would not be uncovered. They framed me, despite my innocence, to suit their own ends, but even then I doubted myself, because if who I am and what I do in life has been decided and directed by the Project, if they have drugged me all along, how will I know with any certainty what really happened?
And who it has happened to?
I reopen my notebook. Perhaps if I scan the pages again, if I link my thoughts here to the wall and the research and the faces and facts, I can make some connections between what I know and what I have just seen. I can lose myself in my thoughts and record everything that swims to the surface of my memory, linking it, if I can, to the NSA, to MI5 and the Project, find some comfort purely in the challenge and routine and order of it all, safe in the knowledge that I won’t take it any further, that I don’t ever want to leave here and the sanctuary it provides, and if they don’t find me, I can remain hidden in my villa forever.
I look up at my wall. I study the multiple news articles and anonymous faces and facts and arrowed figures, and just as I am about to reach forward and readjust a pinned article so that it sits neat and straight and in order next to the others, the emergency cell phone shrills into the calm morning silence.
And everything stops.
Chapter 4
Salamancan Mountains, Spain.
34 hours and 46 minutes to confinement
I pick up the cell, slamming down the button so the shrill will stop hammering into my head. ‘Who is this?’
‘Maria, it’s Balthus.’
‘You are speaking on the emergency cell,’ I say, fast. ‘Is there an urgent situation?’
‘What? No.’
‘Then why are you calling me?’
‘You haven’t contacted me for three days and I was worried.’
The ring of the cell still bangs in my head. I shake it. ‘Four days.’
‘What?’
‘I have not called you for four days.’ My eyes catch the sunshine dancing a waltz along the curves of the glass panes. I focus on it and, gradually, my head calms down. ‘You said three.’
There’s a pause. ‘Maria, we agreed when we spilt up in London—you’d stay in touch, contact me every day. I got worried when you didn’t call.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I care for you. Because I promised your father before he died I’d look out for you.’
‘Oh. Okay.’ The glass panes twinkle in the daylight. ‘I had another memory today.’
‘What? When?’
‘At 0612 hours this morning.’
I pick up my notebook and proceed to tell him what happened. He listens. This is what he does, Balthus Ochoa—I talk and he listens. When he was the governor at Goldmouth prison in London where I was incarcerated; him listening led me to find an encrypted file that uncovered the Project and my subsequent involvement in it. He has always told me how he promised my papa that he would be there for me, tells me he cares for me, and I catch myself feeling what must be gratitude towards him, but I never know how to express it, do not understand how people say what they feel inside.
‘That’s odd,’ Balthus says now, his voice a layer of gravel, a boulder on a mountain.
‘What is odd?’
‘Well … Okay, so it may be nothing, but there’s something bugging me about the standalone computer the woman in your flash mentioned, but I can’t figure out why it bothers me. Maria—the memory with the woman, with Raven—do you remember which Project facility that was at?’
‘No. I only recall the facility with Black Eyes when I was younger. That was in Scotland. That is the facility Kurt brought me to. Do you not remember this?’
‘Jesus, how could I forget? I bloody well suggested you see that therapist after you were acquitted—and he turned out to be working for MI5.’
‘He was working for the Project.’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘No. You said MI5. Kurt—although his real name is Daniel, a Hebrew name meaning God is my judge—when he was meeting with me he was only working for the Project. By then—’
‘By then the NSA prism scandal had been exposed and MI5 wanted to ditch the whole Project because they were scared of a similar blow-up.’
My eyes rest on the wall, on my drawings and newspaper articles and lines of connections and notes.
Balthus sighs. ‘I don’t know, I just … What they did. I still can’t believe the Project framed you for the murder of that priest just to get you in prison and out of the way, so they could then get rid of you.’
‘So they could kill me to eradicate any connection to the Project.’
‘Yes.’ He pauses. ‘Yes.’
The window in the lounge is open, and in the breeze the muslin curtain drifts in and out, the white cotton veil of it brushing the tiled floor as it passes quietly through the room.
‘Anyway, look, Maria,’ Balthus says after a while, clearing his throat, ‘the other reason I wanted to call was just to let you know that there’s been no sighting or word from the MI5 officer who posed as our prison psychiatrist—Dr Andersson. You were asking about her.’
Dr Andersson. Her face instantly springs into my mind. Swedish blonde hair, ice-blue eyes, freckled pale skin. A vision of her making me take apart laptops, timing me to complete a Rubik’s cube—all the tasks she was doing to monitor me without my knowledge. I shiver. ‘She has not approached you or any of Harry’s family?’
‘No. No, I don’t think so. But Maria, listen—how are you about Harry now, since his death? It’s been six months since Dr Andersson shot him on the court steps when she was aiming to kill you. Harry wasn’t just your barrister or even simply your papa’s old friend—I know you had a soft spot for him.’ He pauses, three silent seconds passing. ‘I just worry about you. It’s a lot for any of us to process, never mind for you.’
I am momentarily stuck for words as a strange tightness presses against my chest. ‘The Kubler-Ross grief model says I should be at acceptance stage now.’
‘And are you at that stage, Maria? Do you accept Harry’s death? He cared for you a lot.’ I can hear him swallow. ‘We both did—do.’
I swallow and clench my jaw as conflicting feelings of anger and sadness wash through me. A tear escapes. I reach up, smear my cheek dry.
‘Dr Andersson killed Harry. MI5 killed Harry.’
‘Yes.’
Over on the window ledge, a small bird with golden-brown feathers lands on the white wood. It dips its head once, then going very still, it looks up, free, and flies away. For a few seconds, I watch the now empty, open space where the bird stood then, inhaling, I look back to the cell phone.
‘Did Patricia get parole?’
‘Yes,’ Balthus replies. There is a rustle of paper on the line. ‘I told her you were okay, in hiding from the Project, let her know what you did—sending the texts to MI5 and the Project on Kurt’s phone in London so they both thought you were dead. She understands you’re hiding, that you can’t contact her.’
‘And Dr Andersson has not been trailing her?’
‘No. I’m in touch with Patricia—all seems well. You two struck up a good friendship in Goldmouth. I’m glad, I’m …’ He stops. ‘You need friends, Maria. I hate the thought of you being on your own.’
My eyes catch the room. The solitary chair, the bare, whitewashed walls, the cell phone lying on the upturned crate with Balthus’s voice trapped inside.
‘Look, Maria,’ Balthus says after two seconds, ‘I don’t know why, but something about this Raven memory of yours … Well, I know I mentioned it just before, but it … well, there’s something about it that rings a bell, but I don’t know what.’
‘Is it a recent recollection?’
‘I don’t know. I …’ He trails off. ‘It’s just, well, something Ines told me when she called me when you were in prison. I don’t know if it even means anything, but it was weird.’
‘The word ‘weird’ means a suggestion of something supernatural.’
‘What? No, no, I didn’t …’
‘Weird can also mean connected to fate, to a person’s destiny.’
‘Okay. Well, anyway, she was specific, Ines, about talking to me, about calling me and telling me what she did.’
‘When exactly was this?’
‘It was before the retrial.’
‘What date?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why not?’
‘Maria, my memory’s not as accurate as yours. But, look, it was strange. We hadn’t spoken for years—since Alarico’s death, in fact—and then, after her visit to you in Goldmouth, she calls out of the blue talking about … God, what was it …? Something about secrets … Damn it. I can’t remember. I just know she was acting odd.’ He breathes out. ‘It’s probably irrelevant anyway.’
‘How did you know she was acting odd?’
‘What? Oh, I don’t know, her tone of voice, perhaps? It was like she was under pressure or something, as if there was someone there, maybe. In danger? I really couldn’t say for sure.’
I go quiet, not understanding how a simple tone in a voice can lead to so many unconfirmed conclusions.
I pick up a book, one of many on computer coding and language, a routine, orderly subject, and place it on a tower of other research, and turn to my board. The faces containing different expressions, different photographs of people who I know, sketches of those I vaguely recall from hazy, drug-filled dreams. Ines, my mama, sits there, a photo taken from her Spanish parliament file, her face sculptured and clean, coiffured black hair, gold jewellery, shoulder pads and rouge. Next to her my brother, Ramon, thirty-five now, tanned, lean, a slick of tar-black hair on top of defined cheekbones, the black suit he wears to his legal firm tailored in place. And then my papa, an aged, more lined photograph, yet still I can see very visibly his eye creases, his lined skin, his crisp white linen shirt, and by his side is me, my hair long and dark, and Papa’s arm is over my shoulder, holding me, the only person, back then, I would allow to touch me without instantly jumping or yelling. I close my eyes. I can still smell him—the spice cologne, the ink from his quill where he used to write in his study. I open my eyes and look at an image pinned to the right—a fading picture of Balthus, Harry and me taken just after we won the retrial, after I was acquitted. My fingers trace Harry’s face. His skin is plump and black, and when he smiles, he too, like my papa, has eye creases that crinkle outwards, his tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles perched on the tip of his rounded, shiny nose. Next to him is Balthus. Balthazar Ochoa. Name meaning lone wolf. In his picture he is tall, athletic even for his fifty-plus years, his skin washed with the Mediterranean sun, his black hair silver at the tips, his face consumed by two brown pools of eyes. But while Harry and Balthus’s bodies are relaxed and smiling, mine, in contrast, is rigid and tight, flinching at close group contact, my olive skin pale from months of incarceration, hair dark and sawn into a jagged cut that grazes my temple and neck, eyes sunken into razor cheeks. I touch my neck. The Salamancan sun has drenched my skin now into a deep golden hue, my dark pixie cut is bleached blonde and my once-brown eyes are replaced by green contacts. A fake look for a fake world.
‘Maria? Are you still there? Look—I was thinking. The flashback you had, the one with that woman—I think you need to understand where that facility is and get to it—I can help you. If there is information there, it could mean we could put a stop to it all, to all this madness. Maria, it could end the Project.’
Heat rushes to my head accompanied by a clear, frosted image of Black Eyes and his tombstone smile. My eyes go to my villa, safe and hidden. ‘No.’
‘What?’
‘I said no. I do not want to understand where the facility is.’
‘But Maria, why track all the NSA stuff in connection to MI5, the explosion of it all, if not to get at the Project?’ He pauses. ‘Look, you’re not on your own. I know you think you are, but you’re not. You have me. You have Patricia. Jesus, you even have your mother and brother. Maybe they can even help? Ines knows a lot of people high up in the Spanish government—she’s Minister for Justice now.’
Black Eyes. Raven. My tortured, sweat-drenched nightmares that keep me awake in the middle of the night when there is no one to soothe me. I glance to their scratched sketches on the wall. ‘No.’
He sighs. ‘Please. Just consider it. Say if you could connect what I can hopefully remember from a conversation with Ines to what you have told me about this woman—Raven? It may help you know where the memory is coming from. If you know the facility, it will lead you to the file.’
I open my mouth to tell him no then hesitate, but I do not understand why.
‘This woman,’ Balthus says now, pressing on, ‘she said the file she loaded up will give you what you need to know, tells you what you’ve done, that it will help you know who you really are. Why note down all the dreams you recall, Maria, want to know how it’s all connected, if you don’t want to find out how to put an end to it all?’
I look down, confused. I thought the answer was obvious. ‘I have my notebook. I like to record information. That is why I require the details. I just record the data, all of it.’ I glance to my coding books, to the structure and the formality of them.
‘But this woman said the files could help you. Don’t you want to know who she is, find the file? Don’t—’ there is a pause and when he speaks again, his voice is oddly lower, more quiet ‘—don’t you want to know who you really are?’
I look at Balthus’s photo on the board, stare at all the unframed images and notes and encryptions and news articles, and, after a second, they all start to blur into one solid image of colour. I switch, glance to the turrets of books in neat, multiple piles, to the solitary seat, the makeshift wooden crates for tables, to the single toothbrush that lies on the shelf. I walk three steps to the worn piano by the wall, gently press my finger down on a key, the smooth ivory cold beneath my skin. E sharp tolls out.
‘I know who I am,’ I say after a moment. ‘I am Dr Maria Martinez, a plastic surgeon, born in Salamanca, Spain. I want to remain hidden. I do not want to go back to the Project or to their files or to anyone from there. It is too chaotic. I will record what memories appear, but no more. I do not want to endanger my family.’ I glance to the image of Harry. ‘I do not want to endanger you and Patricia.’
‘I understand that, I do. I really do,’ he says. ‘But they’ll find you, Maria. You know that, I know you do. I worry about you there on your own with no one. You need answers. I can help you. I have a contact. I sent you an email about him. He’s called Chris. He’s a hacker, used to be in Goldmouth. He can—’
An alarm sounds, high, war-siren sharp. My head jerks up.
‘Maria? Maria, what’s wrong?’
I sprint to the laptop, head dipped at the noise, but my feet are so sweaty, I slip on the tiles, toppling into the crate, knocking the computer clean off the upturned box.
‘Maria?’
I shake myself off, wincing at the scream of the siren, dragging the laptop over to me, scanning it fast.
‘Maria? Shit. Can you hear me? Maria? What’s happening?’
Leaning forward, keeping my fingers strong, steady, I click the icon flashing on the screen.
‘Someone is on my property.’
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