Lethal Profit (19 page)

Suddenly a door slammed in the distance, drilling a shot of adrenaline through Eva's system. Memories began flying faster through her brain. She remembered sprinting away from Leon and then arriving at Valerie's flat. Opening the memory stick that Sophie gave her at the Sacré Coeur was one of the last situations she could recall, so it must have been Valerie's computer she was looking at. Eva tried to feel for the shape of the memory stick in the pocket of her jeans, but she couldn't move her hands and she knew instinctively that the device was not there. She realised she no longer had any idea what was on it.

Again she felt a sense of overwhelming anxiety. She tried to ignore the chasm of possibilities opening up below her – where she was, why was she there, what would happen next? Instead she tried to focus on something inside her body – her breathing, her heartbeat – the only things she had control over.

Suddenly the room was filled with light. Eva sat completely still. Through the thin material of the hood she could make out two figures framed in the doorway, one short and stocky and the other tall and thin.

‘Pick her up.' The voice was male and accented, although Eva couldn't place it.

The stocky figure moved across the room towards her and grasped her by the back of her top, pulling her, stumbling, to her feet. Small waves of panic washed over Eva; she was completely at the mercy of these two men, whoever they may be. She tried to keep herself calm and focus on regulating her breathing, keeping all her strength for any opportunities she might get to escape. It wasn't easy – every surge of adrenaline brought a fresh urge to panic.

‘Bring her through.' That clipped voice again, accent indecipherable – French? Italian?

Suddenly Eva found herself facing the floor as the stocky man hoisted her over his left shoulder. By moving her head, she managed to loosen and then shake off the black hood as the man carried her, still bound at the hands and feet, out of the dark cell and into the light of a narrow stone corridor. Eva lifted her gaze and glanced back at the room he had taken her from. It looked very much like a prison cell and even had a small wrought-iron door with a tiny window in the centre at the top. As they walked down the corridor, Eva saw other similar doors on either side, all shut. By the time they reached the end of the corridor and turned left, she had counted six.

Eva was carried into a room and deposited roughly into a rickety chair. Her carrier then proceeded to fasten a rough rope around her shoulders so that, with her hands and feet bound together and her body fastened to the chair by the rope, she couldn't move at all. Eva looked around. The room was better lit than the corridor and now that she was free of the hood she could clearly see the two men in front of her. She felt the eyes of the taller man boring into her own. His skin was dark; he looked African. Eva remembered the man at her hotel, the same man that Leon had executed at the petrol station. Perhaps this was revenge. Or perhaps it was worse.

The tall man continued to stare at her and then suddenly he spoke, his voice wound tight like a spring. ‘Why are you here?'

He walked over to her, his dark eyes never once leaving hers. As he grew closer Eva could see a scar running down his left cheek along pockmarked, lumpy skin.

‘I said…' He leaned in towards her until she could smell the gum on his breath. She tried not to flinch and stared back at him, waiting for him to finish his sentence.

She blinked and then suddenly a block of hot pain flashed across her right cheek and she was momentarily in the air. She cried out as the chair she was tied to landed roughly on the uneven floor, leaving her stranded on her back. He had hit her so hard that the force of the punch had thrown her into the air. Eva's breathing was coming hard and fast now. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth and the right side of her face was throbbing painfully. She struggled to try and loosen the ties around her wrists, felt the rope fixing her to the chair loosen, and then suddenly she was upright again. The wiry man had retreated to the other side of the room and it was his stocky second-in-command who now stood behind her, his hands on the back of the chair, having brought her back to an upright position.

Eva was hyperventilating; she couldn't stop herself. The attack had come out of the blue – he hadn't even given her the chance to answer his question.

As the scarred man seemed to take time to compose himself, Eva desperately tried to calm herself down. She tried to think of anyone who might be in a position to help her but the only person who might know what had happened was Valerie and by now it was clear she had some involvement in all this.

She looked up suddenly to see the wiry man coming at her across the room again at an unexpected pace. Eva didn't notice the glass in his right hand until he threw the contents in her face. She screamed; it burned her skin like acid. Overcome by an unexpected burst of rage, Eva kicked out with her feet trying to get to him, uncontrollable anger suddenly coursing through her body. She bucked and kicked until suddenly she felt the rope around her chest give way and she was free from the chair. Standing precariously, ankles and hands still bound, she shook off the chair and launched herself at the man, trying to loop her bound wrists over his head so she could choke him with her bonds. As she hit his shoulder with her head, she could hear him laughing and even as she felt him fall underneath her weight and the force of gravity behind her, Eva knew that this was a small victory. Her arms and legs were still tied and these two men were unbound, stronger than her and probably armed. She had no chance.

‘You are angry,' he said as he pushed her aside, dusted himself off and got back to his feet. ‘Good.'

His sidekick pulled Eva upright by her hair and the pain made her scream as she struggled to keep her body close enough to her head to stop him pulling her hair out in clumps. He pushed her back into the chair by shoving it violently into the backs of her knees then re-tied the rope, making it so tight this time that it cut into the bare skin over her collarbone. She blinked through still-wet lashes. She was shaking violently. Whatever had been in the glass was not corrosive. He had succeeded in unsettling her and making her lose control, which had no doubt been his intention all along, but she wasn't in pain and, as far as she could tell, he hadn't injured her. The skin on her face had settled to a grim throb as she felt the liquid start to dry. She forced her breathing back to a regular rise and fall, but her nerve endings flared with alertness.

‘Why are you here?'

The man was opposite her again, closer this time.

‘I don't understand what you mean.'

Her mouth was thick with blood where he had punched her.

‘Don't play games with us, Eva.'

‘I'm not.'

‘Do you think we are playing games with you, Eva?' He laughed. ‘Do you think we are wasting your time? We have planned and executed everything to the letter.'

There was something about the way he pronounced ‘executed' that made Eva stop breathing for several seconds. She tried to imagine how it would feel to be shot, stabbed or suffocated but she couldn't. Every time she tried to picture it her mind went blank.

‘I came to find out what happened to my brother.'

‘Ah yes, Jackson.'

Eva inhaled quickly. ‘You know him.'

‘It was a very short acquaintance.' He laughed.

‘You killed him.'

The man smiled. ‘Perhaps.'

Eva clenched her fists and dug her fingernails into the soft palms of her hands.

‘Do you want to know how we
may
have killed him?'

All the breath left Eva's body. She waited in silence. Was he just playing a game with her or was this real information?

‘We
may
have tortured him for a couple of days before he died. Or maybe we killed him straight away. Or maybe he is still alive and looking for you. How will you ever know?' He laughed and began to walk in the other direction. ‘If he was anything like you I would say if we killed him then he would have taken a while to die,' he said as he turned back towards Eva. ‘Stubborn and resourceful, both of you.'

The man went over to the table and picked up something heavy that made a metallic noise as he dragged it towards him. ‘But in the end, there are some forces that are unstoppable.'

He took several paces towards her. ‘No matter how strong you think you might be, how much you have suffered, or how hard you have fought for your life and how much you think you deserve for that effort, none of us gets what we are due in the end.'

He stopped in front of her. ‘Death is a great leveller, Eva.'

A slight incline of the head from the wiry man and suddenly strong hands came from behind and wrapped themselves around Eva's throat. Slowly they began to tighten their grip. The wiry man continued to talk as if nothing was happening. ‘You should know that I am merely a conduit. Under normal circumstances I would wish you no harm.'

Eva stared at him incredulously as she was choked on his orders. He stood motionless in front of her, a huge metal crowbar in his hands. Eva was gasping now, vainly sucking in tiny draughts of air through the vice-like grip slowly closing around her windpipe. If he didn't watch his henchman strangle her, he was going to beat her to death with the crowbar, she thought.
This is what it feels like.

‘Like everyone else, I'm just trying to make my way.' He looked thoughtfully at the crowbar as Eva started to suffocate. ‘We all just run parallel to each other, Eva, alongside all these millions of other people and yet completely separate – until our paths cross.'

His eyes drifted back to her reddening face. ‘Unfortunately, now our paths have crossed. Yours and mine; mine and your brother's; your friend Leon's and my brother's; your brother's and Sophie's.' He seemed almost philosophical.

Eva could hardly breathe and there was an excruciating pressure building up behind her eyes and around her ears. ‘Did… ' she spluttered.

The man made a sign and suddenly all the pressure was gone as the hands released her and her airways expanded. Eva opened her throat and took in great, hungry gasps of air. ‘Did… did… ' She struggled to pull enough breath into her lungs to be able to speak but she was determined now. ‘D-did you shoot Sophie?'

‘Of course!'

Eva shook her head and took some more deep breaths. It hadn't been Leon. She waited for those hands to close back around her throat but nothing happened.

‘We have been searching for her since your brother. For three months we had to stay in this godforsaken city looking for her. Then we found her and still we had to stay, watching to see if she had made contact with anyone else. And then there was you.'

‘I don't understand,' said Eva coughing as she spoke.

‘No. Why would you? As I said, all that has happened is that our paths have crossed. But only one of us gets to walk away.'

He looked at her and smiled.

‘That is such a load of
shit
,' she said still gasping for air.

Suddenly the philosophical expression on the man's face broke. He leaned in towards her and propped the crowbar under her chin. ‘And. What. The. Fuck. Would. You. Know.'

‘You're trying to make out like this is a situation over which you don't have any control. You could walk out of that door right now and leave me here unharmed.'

‘I couldn't.'

‘You could.'

‘There is no choice here.'

‘
Bullshit
.'

Eva watched his eyes flare at her and she thought he was about to lash out with the crowbar. Then the flame died.

‘I come from the Sudan, Eva. You come from England. You could have no idea how different life is outside of your
democracy
.'

The reference to the Sudan confused Eva. Did all this have something to do with Jackson's work there? It didn't make sense. ‘Jackson was trying to help you. Why did you kill him?'

Unexpectedly, the man hesitated, an expression of confusion spreading across his savaged face. ‘How could he have helped us? He didn't even know who we were or what we are trying to do.'

‘No, he was trying to help your country.'

She studied the man's obvious incomprehension. Apparently, he had no idea who Jackson really was or what he did for a living. Perhaps he had just murdered an anonymous man. Or maybe he had never even met him.

‘Jackson worked to raise awareness of the problems in the Sudan, that was his job. He was trying to raise money for your people,' she said. ‘He had information – he could have helped you.'

The man opposite continued to glare at her. Eva stared back at him. He was just a paid thug. He knew even less than her. He wouldn't be able to tell her anything about what really happened; maybe he hadn't even been there.

‘You're a liar.' As he spoke, Eva noticed the hesitation on the man's face had gone. Where before she had seen questions triggered by what she had said, now only seconds later, he seemed to have made up his mind. ‘Joseph Smith said you would tell lies.'

So there was someone next up the chain of command.

‘I'm not lying.'

‘You are,' he said, hefting the huge crowbar between his hands, ‘and now I don't want to listen to your lies any more.'

Eva looked around her; the wiry man was reaching the end of his capacity for talking.

The man opened his mouth to speak again but got no further. With an enormous crash, the door flew open and Eva recoiled as a series of high-pitched shots filled the room. She stared up at the wiry man as his face suddenly slackened and his body briefly danced before he fell to the floor, blood oozing from the bullet holes in his back. Several more shots were fired and Eva heard a small exhalation and a loud thump behind her.

Then she was alone in the room.

With Leon.