Exit Alpha (23 page)

‘Hunt and Cain,’ Vanqua said. ‘Beauty and culture. Don’t sit down.’ He walked in front of his desk and perched on the edge, crossing his legs with self-absorbed care. ‘As Rhonda’s probably told you, I now command EXIT and your department is being dismantled. All D staff will be air-lifted down.’

You’ve got hopes, Cain thought. It was almost February. Soon flying in would be Russian roulette.

‘Not only staff are coming,’ Vanqua continued, ‘but originals as well. That includes your Kiwi family, Cain.’

‘And what does the CIA think of that?’

‘They don’t like it but have no option.’

‘Pretty dumb idea.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Importing a poltergeist to Antarctica is about the silliest thing I’ve heard of.’

Vanqua shrugged. ‘Even if such a thing exists, the solution to it will be swift.’

Hunt cut in. ‘How long do we have to stay here?’

‘Permanently.’

She looked at Cain as if willing him to protest.

He didn’t buy in. ‘And where are you going to put these hordes?’

‘That’s my concern. Department S remains operational but your staff is decommissioned, your grades and privileges revoked. It means you don’t exist and will do as instructed.’

Cain glanced at Rhonda. ‘You endorse this?’

‘I’m no longer your CO.’ A characteristic eye-roll.

‘I find this hard to take.’

‘Perfectly understandable. Right. Good egg. But how you see it is irrelevant. As our executive assassin’s just told you, we are
persona non grata
.’

Personae non gratae
, he mentally corrected, surprised she hadn’t used the plural. And why repeat the crass ‘egg’ line? She was crude but not crass and not prone to repeat herself. As her madness mostly cloaked method, he was instantly alert.

Vanqua was talking again. ‘You have a temporary space in the old accommodation block. You’ll only have one rack, so someone will be sleeping on the floor. You’re dismissed. Rhonda will remain.’

As they walked back down the corridor he could feel Hunt’s confusion like a force. She was still at the start of her career, purpose-trained for her single great assignment, young, fit. Now she’d been condemned to an ice-tomb for life. Worse, she believed that she’d wrecked EXIT single-handed.

She murmured, ‘What can we do?’

‘There’s no “we” any more.’

She leaned against the wall, hands over her face.

He waited for her to collect herself, working on the repeated sentences. ‘Perfectly understandable. Right. Good egg.’ Second letters? Last letters? Start with first:

P. U. R . . .

PURGE.

So obvious. Coincidence? No. The repetition said it wasn’t. With mikes, cameras, movement sensors everywhere and Vanqua receiving the surveillance, Ron had warned him directly in the simplest, most practical way.

D staff were no longer needed and Alpha wasn’t big enough to hold them. So as planeloads came in . . . ?

He could predict the rest.

They’d put the newcomers at ease because there were too many to lock up. With insurrection avoided, they’d isolate small groups for covert execution because new arrivals wouldn’t know how many had come before.

Then what? There’d be only enough acid for the originals.

Yes, originals would be dissolved.

The family?

And John?

What the hell did Ron expect him to do?

He was physically weakened and unarmed in a base crawling with surgeons. Their support staff would be useless. Even if he could arm them, they’d never pull the triggers. And even if they did, they couldn’t hit moving targets. He needed field staff — people trained to kill.

Christ, he thought, I’m back in massacre mode again. The self-defence reaction had cut in.

Were other D field staff here? He and Hunt could be it. He’d need her help. But how to tip her off?

She joined him again, face carefully expressionless. As they reached the annexe, he said, ‘You can bunk with me.’

She glanced at him, weighing the statement, knowing his motive wasn’t sex. Threats shrank the penis wonderfully. But would she realise that sex could serve them as a blind?

As they started to kit up, she gave him a look that seemed to ask, ‘Are they going to kill us? Is that why you want us together?’

It was a start.

They pulled on their outer gloves in silence.

T
he accommodation block was a relic but they were permitted to share the same cubicle. It was designed as a single berth — its hanging space and small desk/table separated by open shelves which doubled as a ladder to the single bunk above. Heat was blown through a duct below the desk. But like most buildings here, it was no warmer than mid-winter.

The curtain that screened them from traffic in the corridor had enough space behind it for someone to sleep on the floor. There were bedrolls on the floor in other cubicles, so the rest were doubling up as well. He asked a man in the next space, ‘How are the showers?’

‘Turned off. They’re short of water. Some problem about a . . . melt bell? It’s our first time here. We don’t know a thing.’

That made them support staff. ‘What’s your base?’

‘Gamma.’

Gamma was in Argentina.

After they’d unpacked some of their stuff, he and Hunt went downstairs to the tatty lounge. It was packed with bewildered people — many speaking Spanish.

He glanced at Hunt’s madonna face. ‘See anyone you know?’

She shook her head.

They walked into the mess. Harried staff served a line of people. He spotted the bald head and luxurious beard of Pohl, the Alpha base commander. Good old Pohl. Serving food? Had Vanqua demoted him to slushie?

When Cain drew level with him in the line he said, ‘Hello, Adam. Slumming?’

Pohl blinked at him over the counter, ‘Hello, Ray. Some event.’ He began to fill a plate with the one meal available.

‘Got any new jokes?’

‘I’m not feeling funny right now.’ He spooned peas onto the plate.

I bet you’re not, Cain thought and began verbal fishing. ‘Stuffy in this old can. Thought I might stretch the legs later. Want to join me? Or is that off-limits?’

‘Wouldn’t advise it.’ Pohl glanced nervously to the side.

‘Seen any other D field staff?’

‘No.’ Pohl, blinking fast, handed the plate across. Two men came out of the kitchen and stood behind him. They weren’t cooks.

Cain changed the subject. ‘Seen Pat?’

‘She got one of our doctors to turn her off last week.’

His reaction would have been visible.

Pohl said, ‘Sorry, old mate.’

He took his meal and moved away, body flooded with emotion.

He joined Hunt beside the wall bench. He found it hard to swallow the food. He felt her watching him.

‘She must have meant a lot.’

‘Big sister. Lover. Friend.’

‘At least she’s out of this. Have you seen any of our field staff?’

‘No. And, according to Pohl, we’re it.’

* * *

When they’d eaten, they went back to the cubicle and drew the curtain across. Experience told him that the space was wired — that eyes and ears saw or heard everything they did.

They stripped off a couple of layers. She even looked superb in thermal underwear. He pointed up to the bunk. She frowned, then climbed up, displaying shapely flanks.

Strange, he thought, how affection transcended appearances. He would have given three of her for the scraggy breastless Pat.

He climbed after her and joined her in the bag. There was a duvet. He dragged it over them. The corridor light remained on. Pinhole cameras and pick-ups would be relaying their every sound and move.

She lay facing the wall. He turned behind her to face the same way, reached over until his hand was on her diaphragm, then used his finger to inscribe a ‘Y’. She shied a little when he touched her, then understood, lay still.

Y . . . O . . . U.

He moved his finger straight across her ribs to indicate the end of the word, started the next word. READ. Slash. ME? He drew the question mark, then crossed her ribs twice to signify ‘end of transmission’. If the watchers noticed any movement, they’d think he was feeling her up.

She reached down and back to his thigh, began her reply. He concentrated, trying to get it. It wasn’t as easy as he’d thought.

Y . . . E . . . S. Double slash.

Encouraged, he started again. THEY INTEND KILL ALL D STAFF HERE.

Her hand moved again on his thigh. AGREE. GAMEPLAN?

WE STAY CLOSE. STRIKE TOGETHER WHEN CAN.

OK.

THEY WILL DO NOTHING DIRECT AS TOO MANY PEOPLE. SUSPECT THEY ISOLATING BATCHES FOR COVERT KILLS.

GOT IT.

TOMORROW WE RECCE.

OK.

The effort to communicate was tedious. They both needed sleep, were too tired to think well now. But he decided to tell her that she hadn’t caused the fall of EXIT D. He needed her to believe in herself again. The emotional release would make her strong.

YOU WERE SABOTAGED WITH RAUL. INTERNAL. VANQUA.

Her body became a plank.

He went on. HE USED MURCHISON. HAS SPIKED D PROJECTS FOR YEARS. SO NOT YOUR FAULT. WAS SETUP TO DESTROY RON AND D.

Her every muscle tensed with rage. Her moving hand dug into his leg. WILL KILL HIM.

GOT ME TOO. STROMLO DEAD AND I WAS SHOT UP.

WHY DO IT?

HE HATES RON. ALL I CAN WORK OUT.

Then came a sentence that astonished him.

IS SHE RON?

WHAT?

NOT SURE SHE IS RON!

He was thunderstruck. A duplicate? Was it possible? If so, the double was amazingly good. Hunt was Ron’s lover. What had she noticed?

She drew a query on his leg again.

He signed. AM STUNNED. WHY A DOUBLE?

SAVE HER LIFE? BUY TIME? GIVE HER CHANCE FOR COUNTER ATTACK?

It was possible, he thought. Just. The peculiar eyes . . . The Latin slip . . . Pat’s last and greatest job?

A duplicate ready to die?

He signed. INCREDIBLE IF TRUE.

She murmured, ‘I’m tired.’

‘Goodnight.’

She said, ‘Thank you, brother. Meant a lot.’

He squeezed her arm in reply.

She, too, had begun as a parentless child, seconded to the cause. They were orphans, he thought. Waifs. Monstrous ones certainly. But still . . .

She took his hand and held it between her breasts.

He appreciated that.

V
anqua watched the big woman winched up. She hung suspended, feet just off the ground. The improvised rope harness cut into her bulbous thighs. She looked lewd trussed like this — stripped to inner field garments and bound.

This was the climactic act. The culmination of years. Obscene, but it had to be done.

Zuiden, the only other person in the gloomy space, stood holding the chain hoist’s control stalk. He wore the attendant’s protective clothing — overalls, helmet, acid-resistant boots.

Fitting, Vanqua thought. Just the two of them. The act, too intimate to be a spectacle, was like a sacrament in a crypt. He stared again at the gone-to-seed body that once had pressed against his sister . . . corrupted her flesh, provoked her death.

‘So, finally,’ he said, ‘you know why. Now you’ll feel how.’

Rhonda’s face remained a sneer, her voice a satirical lilt. ‘I could forgive you for being a one-dimensional bourgeois twit — except you’re so bloody boring.’

His whole body trembled. He suspected his hands were shaking. The effect of the moment was like wind chill blowing from his core. She hadn’t given an inch. He was reluctantly impressed.

He signalled Zuiden to begin. The chain hoist whirred and dragged her up. Zuiden ran it along the overhead rail until she dangled above the vat.

Interesting that both ‘department heads’ were here to witness the dissolving, one intimately.

Unfortunately the alloy lip of the vat obscured his view, but he knew her swollen feet were only inches above the acid.

He called, ‘You’re about to suffer terribly. How do you feel?’

‘Clad in the beauty of a thousand suns.’

‘I don’t take your meaning.’

‘You’re too dreary to understand.’

His shaking was embarrassing. He disliked Zuiden seeing him like this. It made him feel exposed. Disassociation, essential to killing technique, was part of Department S philosophy.

Zuiden said tonelessly, ‘Your call,’ his face death-mask sober.

This was the moment, the culmination of revenge.