Rifter (The Survival Project Duology Book 1) (24 page)

She’d never really known him. All their time together had been a lie.

She wanted to sigh. She couldn’t even do that without choking.

Mayra grunted. It sounded as if she were trying to say something.

Mara looked straight at her and this time she didn’t shy away. She lunged her head toward the cabinet behind Mara as if she wanted her to retrieve something. Mara rolled over and studied it. It was a simple one drawer affair. She looked back at Mayra. She nodded again. Mara wriggled her body until she’d managed to sit up and slowly edged the drawer open with the tips of her fingers. The effort of trying to be silent was excruciating. Her whole body shook. She turned to look inside. She saw a small key. Surely not? She twisted back towards the other woman, she was sure the surprise on her face was apparent. Mayra nodded.

That wasn’t just stupid, that was incompetent. Leo used to be good at attention to detail. Had this world changed him so much? Or was he simply too preoccupied with the turn of events?

Mara managed to grab at the key in an awkward crouch. Picking it up was much more difficult than opening the drawer. It took her at least ten attempts to get it and she was sure she’d been too loud, but there was no movement from the corridor. Mayra nodded at her as if she wanted it. Her hands were bound in front and not with handcuffs, but a simple knotted rope. That was another mistake. She could unlock Mara’s handcuffs. Yes. Something was going right, at last.

Mara fumbled to give the key to Mayra and then sat back down with her back facing the other woman. She heard several moments of frustrated grunts, followed by a slight click. The strain on her wrists released, as did some of the tension in her body. She shucked the handcuffs off and for a moment she couldn’t move, frozen in fear of what she had to do next. She forced herself to concentrate.

Between them, they released all their other bonds.

Mara whispered, “Are you okay?”

Mayra nodded, but straightaway she began to sob.

“Shush. He’ll hear you.”

Mayra nodded and pushed her hand to her mouth to mask the sound of her outburst until she could quell her emotions.

Mara waited.

It was several minutes before Mayra asked, “Who are you? I know he only hooked up with me as a substitute for you, they told me that, but I still don’t know if we just look very alike, or we’re related in some way.”

They
had to mean The Department. It was odd that they’d told her that, but not who Mara was. They didn’t want Mayra to know about rifts. Well, she was going to know soon.

Mayra looked so frightened and not just of her situation, she guessed, but of her.

“I’m sorry,” said Mara. “I didn’t mean to hurt you the other day, it’s just ….” But there was no reasonable explanation. It was an act she’d performed without thinking, before she’d had time to consider the consequences. Mara felt a pang of guilt, but trying to explain would take far too long and would involve lots of questions she had no desire to answer.

“There’s no time,” she said, “But I’m not here to hurt you. I’m sorry I did that. I really am.” Her double nodded. “I need your help to stop him. Is there anything you can tell me that might be useful?”

That was a ridiculous question. How was the woman supposed to know what was useful?

“Leo’s got a gun,” she said. Or maybe not so ridiculous.

“I know.”

Mayra nodded at the discarded bonds. “He threatened to kill me. I didn’t have much choice. I was going to leave him. I didn’t trust him anymore.”

“No.”

At least they had something else in common, as well as their faces.

Mara tried to imagine how this was going to pan out. If she were Leo, she would use the hostage’s body to shield herself as she walked towards the disruption. Then she’d throw the hostage away at the last minute, when there wasn’t time to fight or shoot.

They had to stop that from happening, if they could, but if they couldn’t, she would be in the right place.

“Is he going to kill us?” Mayra asked.

“I don’t think so. Not yet. We’re too useful to him. We’re his ticket out of here.”

She looked down at her freed wrists and her unbound legs. How was being free going to help her? It was unlikely she could overpower Leo, but possibly the two of them could if they worked together. But any sound from the bedroom would be suspicious. He’d be on the alert for trouble. And there was no way they could make a run for it. He’d easily block them in the corridor leading to the lounge. They couldn’t even climb out a window without help. They were way too high up.

The only bargaining power she could possibly have was if she got the brac off him, and how likely was that to happen?

She heard steps out in the corridor. Any second now he was going to come into the room, see that they were free and go crazy, and she had no idea what she was going to do.

Thirty-one

“Don’t move.”

The booming voice filled the air around Leo and made him start. He’d been about to go into the bedroom. He’d heard a noise and needed to make sure that his hostages hadn’t got free. But this voice wasn’t Mara’s. It wasn’t Mayra’s either. And it wasn’t coming from the bedroom.

He knew whose voice it was. It seemed to surround him, as if speakers had been placed in every wall of the flat.

He stopped and let his eyes search. All the doors were sealed. All the windows closed. He’d not heard any sound of movement from outside and yet he could hear Debra’s voice commanding him to stay still. There was no way a megaphone would be that loud inside the flat. It had the most efficient type of double glazing you could buy and sound proofing in the walls. This was high luxury. No expense spared.

He looked up as if Debra were standing above him — he wasn’t sure why.

“Yes, you are being watched,” the disembodied voice continued. “You didn’t really think the flat came with no strings attached, did you?”

Leo felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

The flat. The one place where he’d hoped he was safe.

The mocking tone of her voice made him seethe. The thought that she’d been watching his every move, even in here, increased the level of his anger ten-fold. The realisation that he hadn’t thought it a possibility added another layer to that. Frustration at his own stupidity seeped through him. It was obvious. He should have known. How could he not have seen it coming?

He had to assume the worst, that she was telling the truth and not bluffing.

His eyes flicked across his surroundings again.

What had she seen? Everything? Surely there weren’t cameras everywhere? He would’ve noticed them, heard them, something. His hand tightened onto his gun as he began to scan the ceiling and walls for nooks and crannies that could harbour anything foreign.

“I wouldn’t bother, McNaught. If you couldn’t see them when you moved in, you won’t see them now.”

He cast his mind back to the empty shell the flat had been the first time he’d entered it. There had been no training in surveillance before he came to this world, it hadn’t been deemed necessary, but she was right, he hadn’t noticed anything untoward. The landlord had seemed normal. The other residents, ordinary businessmen and women. Even the concierge in the ground floor flat was friendly.

The perfect cover.

Unless it was a bluff. It still could be.

He thought for a moment. He took a step forward.

“I said, don’t move.”

No. She was telling the truth. She could definitely see him.

“Or what?” he said, his gaze still flitting from one corner of the room to the other. Nothing, he could see nothing.

“What you’re doing won’t work,” she said. “You must know that.”

Well, if she could see what he’d done, she’d know he had two hostages bound and subdued. She’d assume he was going to use one or other of them to bargain, but he needed her to show more of her hand before he took a decision on what to do next.

“You don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not the first person to take hostages to try to get what they want. It won’t work.”

“And you’ve come to that conclusion how?”

“Because, McNaught, I don’t care about your life. If you want to die, which you inevitably will if you try to go back to your former existence, then I’m quite happy to help that along.”

So, she was trigger happy. No news there.

If one of them died, that wasn’t an issue for her, but if both did, her whole Department was scuppered. That, he knew.

“But you care about hers?” he said.

“Yes, McNaught, I do. If you die, or you leave, I need her. You know that. And from what I’ve observed, she’s a much nicer person than you are.”

Because she’d seen. She knew that he hadn’t gone to the hospital to visit Mayra. She’d seen Mara come to the flat two nights ago. Why hadn’t she made a move earlier? Had she been testing him? His breath hitched. She’d watched … no, he’d always been careful in his workshop.

She couldn’t possibly know.

He wondered if Mara could hear what was being said. Of course, she could. It was loud enough. He wondered what she thought, but she’d already given up her chance to return by contacting Debra in the first place. He huffed out a laugh. She hadn’t needed to do that. Debra knew what was going on all along. But she had, so she was committed. Perhaps, she would help them kill him. Could he risk it? Did he have any choice?

“Let’s look at the practicalities of what you’re about to do,” Debra continued, “The anomaly is out in the open, not shielded by any walls. If you hold her to your front, then your back is exposed. A good marksman will have no trouble at all wounding you enough to take you down. Or killing you. Whatever.”

He wondered if anyone had ever called her bluff, or whether she’d always had her own way. The real question was not whether she was prepared to kill him, or even Mara. Did she care about his girlfriend, an innocent bystander in this whole thing? He would find out.

“So, tell me, do you know Mara’s face so well that you can tell the difference?”

“The difference?”

“The difference between Mayra and Mara, of course. Do you?”

He pictured in his head Debra signalling to some minion to get her the recording of the interview earlier that day. Otherwise, she would have nothing to compare it with, it wouldn’t … the cameras.

A flash of panic shot through him. She wasn’t going to get a good shot of either woman’s face.

He thrust open the door to the bedroom without thinking and came face-to-face with a chair raised to smash him over the head. He ducked to the side just in time to save himself from a concussion. He rolled into the centre of the room and pointed the gun at Mayra, who was standing rigid like a headlight-stricken rabbit.

“You do anything, I’ll kill her,” he said. He saw Mara bite her lip. She would already have made up her mind that she wasn’t going to let Mayra get hurt. She was like that. “Both of you, get a t-shirt out of the drawer. White one. No logos. Now.”

Mayra did the honours and pulled out two t-shirts. Leo pushed the two women over to the wall so that they were facing it, so close that no camera could get a decent angle on their faces. He hoped it would no longer be relevant, but he was hedging his bets. “Now, get undressed. Both of you. Leave your clothes on the floor.” They did as he said, but both stopped at their underwear. No matter.

But Mara had something around her middle.

“What’s that?”

He prodded the gun on the device. She hesitated for a moment.

“It’s a monitor.”

“You’re lying.”

“It’s a back-up monitor.”

“Take it off.”

“I can’t. It’s locked.”

Roughly, he twisted her around. There was no obvious catch. There was no display.

He didn’t have time to find out. It would have to stay.

He held up a sheet behind them and made them change places so many times even he wasn’t one hundred per cent certain who was who. Then, he ordered them each to put on mixed up clothes from what they’d taken off .

“Now, the t-shirts, over your heads, hiding your faces.”

They placed one each over their heads.

He secured them again, handcuffs for each of them this time, their wrists behind their backs, and a length of rope around their ankles short enough to hobble them.

Let Debra work it out now, he thought.

He resisted the temptation to peak under the t-shirts himself. If he knew for certain which one was Mara, he might inadvertently signal that to those watching. From now on there would be no mistakes. If there were, his life would end.

And that wasn’t going to happen.

Thirty-two

They’d been standing facing the wall for what seemed like hours when Leo finally instructed them to move, using the butt of his gun as an incentive. Mara had no idea what time it was, but she suspected that it was dark outside, and after midnight when the park gates were usually closed, if the emptiness in her stomach was anything to go by.