Deadlock (30 page)

‘Aye,’ Laura said. ‘I’ve grown up a bit since then, Mum.’

‘Laura, I just wanted to say we’re sorry,’ her father said. ‘When that man came to the house three years ago and told us that you had to leave with him or be arrested . . . we didn’t want to do it, but he told us you could be facing twenty years in prison. He showed us the proof, he played us a recording of a conversation between the Americans and MI6. They turned up the next day. If we hadn’t let them take you . . .’

‘Dad, it’s OK,’ Laura said. ‘I’m fine. I understand what you did. I admit, it took me a while to understand it and this place took a bit of getting used to, but I’ve got friends here and I’m being trained to do amazing, unbelievable things. I just miss you, that’s all.’

‘We miss you too, darling,’ her mother said. ‘We just want the best for you, as long as you know that.’

‘Of course, I do, Mum,’ Laura said. ‘Now tell me all about wee Dougie.’

A few minutes later Laura walked out of the room and Raven walked up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

‘You OK?’ Raven asked.

‘I’m fine,’ Laura said with a sad smile. ‘Promise me one thing.’

‘What?’

‘You’ll keep them all safe, won’t you? Whatever happens.’

‘Of course, I will,’ Raven replied.

‘Then that’s all I need.’

Robert Flack walked back into his office followed by Agent Simons.

‘Well, that was unpleasant,’ Flack said with a sigh as he sat down behind his desk.

‘I take it the President wasn’t very happy,’ Simons said.

‘I think that might be something of an understatement,’ Flack said, removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. ‘Apparently he had to agree to attend one of the Italian Prime Minister’s parties to apologise for the mess we caused in Venice.’

‘Oh dear,’ Simons said, sitting down opposite Flack with a Manila folder in his lap.

‘Apparently the first lady’s even more unhappy about that than the President,’ Flack said, ‘and when she’s unhappy heads are known to start rolling. Tell me you’ve got something that’s going to brighten up my day.’

‘Maybe,’ Simons said. ‘What do you want first – the good news or the bad news?’

‘Bad news, Simons,’ Flack replied. ‘You always lead with the bad news.’

‘OK,’ Simons pulled an image of Darkdoom captured from the Italian CCTV footage from the folder. ‘We’ve drawn a blank on this guy. Our only lead was the MI6 link, but the Brits gave us nothing. Whatever they know about him, they’re not sharing. In fact, and this might sound a little weird, the guy I spoke to at Vauxhall Bridge, well, he sounded nervous when I pressed him.’

‘So much for the Special Relationship,’ Flack said with a frown. ‘Tell them we’ll remember how helpful they were next time they need a drone strike. OK, what else?’

‘OK, slightly better news,’ Simons pulled an image of Raven from the folder.

‘Aaah, our ghost,’ Flack said. ‘Tell me you have something on her.’

‘No name I’m afraid, but we ran her through the full archive – took a while obviously, and we found this.’ He handed Flack a memory stick, which he plugged into his laptop. On the screen there was security-camera footage of the woman in the photo talking to an older man. They were standing by a railing overlooking a city.

‘Is that Rio?’ Flack asked.

‘Yup,’ Simons replied. ‘Keep watching.’

Flack watched as the man and the woman exchanged a few words and then the woman threw something to the ground and the pair of them were obscured by a cloud of billowing smoke. When the smoke cleared the woman was gone and the man was standing on his own looking bewildered, with the bodies of six armed men lying on the ground around him.

‘I remember this,’ Flack said, ‘the terrorist attack on the statue of Christ the Redeemer.’

‘Yeah,’ Simons replied, ‘except it wasn’t a terrorist attack. That was just the story that was fed to the press. It was a failed hit and our ghost was the target. She took out the hitters and got clean away.’

‘So she’s a professional,’ Flack said.

‘Certainly looks that way,’ Simons replied.

‘Who’s the guy she’s meeting?’

‘That is one Esteban Guttierez,’ Simons replied. ‘He was taken in for questioning following the incident, but he claimed that he did not know the woman and that she was a complete stranger.’

Flack rewound the recording to the moment that the woman and the man first met and froze the frame on the man giving the woman an affectionate hug.

‘Sure look like friends to me,’ Flack said. ‘We have a lead on this Guttierez guy?’

‘He vanished shortly after the incident,’ Simons replied.

‘Someone take him out?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Simons said, shaking his head. ‘This guy was a freelance contractor. Specialised in resolving
difficult
situations.’

‘We ever use him?’ Flack asked.

‘Yeah, couple of times during the eighties and nineties,’ Simons said. ‘I think he might have arranged his own disappearance.’

‘OK, let’s find him and pull him in,’ Flack said. ‘At this point he’s the only lead on this woman and I think she’s a major player. Anything else on the girl they met in St Marks Square? The one they pulled out of the canal.’

‘No, nothing,’ Simons said. ‘It’s like she didn’t exist before she attended architectural college. Wherever she was before that, she was under the radar.’

‘I don’t like this, Simons,’ Flack said. ‘There are too many unanswered questions and I’m getting sick of telling the President “we don’t know”.’

‘There is one piece of good news,’ Simons said, handing him the final piece of paper from the folder. ‘The forensics boys have been working on some of the documents we managed to pull from the building that blew up in Venice just before the incident in the canals. We still have no idea who the building belonged to. We’ve got guys on it, but you know what the Italians are like. However, we managed to get a pretty clear image reconstruction from one of the burnt documents.’

He laid an image of a badly burnt schematic on the table. It looked like the cross-section of a building hidden inside a mountain, but most of it was too badly damaged to make out. What he could make out was a single word in the bottom left-hand corner that was just legible.

‘OK,’ Flack said, ‘what the hell is H.I.V.E.?’

Nero watched as the ground crew prepped the Leviathan for take-off, the engineers rushing around the giant aircraft, detaching fuel lines and checking diagnostic readouts on their tablet displays. The large double doors at the top of the stairs leading down to the pad rumbled apart and Darkdoom and Nathaniel walked into the giant cavern. One of the flight crew ran up to Darkdoom and offered him his tablet which he scanned as Nero’s father walked down the stairs towards him.

‘Well,’ the old man said with a smile, ‘time to be off. Thank you for your hospitality, Maximilian. I’m glad that your rescue mission was a success.’

‘We wouldn’t have been able to do it without you,’ Nero replied. ‘You’re sure I can’t persuade you to take a more active role in G.L.O.V.E. again?’

‘Oh yes, quite sure. This is a young man’s game, Maximilian,’ Nathaniel said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

‘What are we both doing still playing it then?’ Darkdoom said with a grin as he approached.

‘I often wonder that myself,’ Nero said. ‘You will keep him out of trouble, won’t you?’

‘Oh, I’m sure that Diabolus can look after himself,’ Nathaniel said.

‘I was talking to Diabolus,’ Nero said, raising an eyebrow.

‘Of course,’ Darkdoom said, ‘you know I’m committed to caring for the homeless.’

‘Oh, very funny,’ Nathaniel said, hitting Darkdoom in the leg with his stick. ‘Less of your cheek, young man, or I might just contact young Nigel’s mother and tell her exactly where he’s been for the past few months. I understand you kept it from her. I wonder how she’d react to the truth?’

‘Given the choice between the Disciples and my ex-wife,’ Darkdoom said with a sigh, ‘I’ll take the Disciples. Rather less dangerous.’

‘Do you have any plans to set up a new office?’ Nero asked Nathaniel as they made their way over to the Leviathan.

‘In time, yes,’ Nathaniel said with a nod, ‘but it will take a while to find or build the right place, so in the short term I’m taking Diabolus up on a rather intriguing offer.’

‘Really,’ Nero said, ‘and what might that be?’

‘A new Megalodon,’ Darkdoom said, ‘except bigger and better.’

‘This is what happens when someone doesn’t have enough toys as a child,’ Nero said, rolling his eyes.

‘It’s really quite an ambitious project,’ Nathaniel said. ‘Not quite my usual thing, but it should be fascinating to work on.’

‘Why do I get the feeling that you two working together is going to end up causing trouble?’ Nero sighed.

‘No sense of adventure this one, Diabolus,’ Nathaniel said, pointing his stick at Nero. ‘That’s always been his problem.’

‘I’d better get on board and make sure that all the pre-flight checks are complete,’ Darkdoom said, as they reached the bottom of the Leviathan’s landing ramp.

‘Thank you for your help, Diabolus,’ Nero said, offering his hand to his friend. ‘I won’t let anything like that happen to Nigel again.’

‘I know that, Max,’ Darkdoom said, shaking Nero’s hand. ‘Furan may be out of the picture, but the Disciples are still out there and they’re just as dangerous as ever. I can’t think of anywhere Nigel would be safer than right here.’ Darkdoom gestured at the rocky walls of the cavern. ‘See you soon, old friend.’

Nero and Nathaniel watched Darkdoom walk up into the belly of the Leviathan.

‘Goodbye, Maximilian,’ Nathaniel said, putting his hand on Nero’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry that we have not spoken more in recent years – we should rectify that in future.’

‘We should,’ Nero said with a nod.

‘Anyway, mustn’t keep Diabolus waiting,’ Nathaniel said, turning and heading up the loading ramp. He was halfway to the top when he stopped and turned around. ‘Your mother would have been very proud of what you’ve built here, Max. You should be too.’ Nathaniel turned and walked up into the cargo bay and the loading ramp whirred shut. Nero retreated to the entrance stairs as the Leviathan’s engines roared into life and the huge hangar doors that sealed off the crater above slowly began to rumble open. Nero watched the Leviathan slowly lift off the pad.

‘I hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for, Diabolus,’ Nero said to himself with a wry smile. ‘I really do.’