The Codex File (2012) (2 page)

There were times when she would have a particularly bad nightmare and wake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Clinging to Michael for security she’d soon breathe a huge sigh of relief that she’d been dreaming. Colette knew this wasn’t one of those times.

Even through the semi-consciousness of waking she could feel the intense burning of her chest, although she felt slightly cold and restricted in her movement. Before she opened her eyes she knew she’d been bound to something.

Her eyes shot open as the rasping pain burned into her waking senses again. Through bleary eyes she could see a figure hovering above her. The flash of metal, the strangely white hands, the pain getting unbearable, as sleep was rapidly replaced with frightening consciousness.

Her eyes were fully open now and she could see everything. A stocky man in dark blue overalls.

Blood.

The blade of the flick-knife snapping shut.

It’s my blood.

The white surgical gloves were coated in her blood, and it was running everywhere.

She tried to scream but her mouth was unable to move.

Duct tape.

Her panic threatened to escalate out of control. Lifting her head she looked at herself. Her feet were taped tightly together around the ankles, and her hands were tied to the bedstead with white plastic restraints.

It wasn’t that which most concerned her. It was the pools of blood running from her chest, staining the white sheets of the bed. Her screams were only heard in her head as through wide, frightened eyes she looked at the bloody mess which had once been her chest. She felt sure she could make out a handful of individual wounds as her eyes rapidly switched between the blood and the man in the dark blue overalls as he circled menacingly above her.

John Kennedy looked down blankly at Colette’s bloody, restrained body as Vincent Trevellion watched impassively from a chair to the right of the bed. Kennedy was quite pleased with his handiwork, although the full effect wouldn’t be visible until the she was dead and the bleeding had stopped. It was good enough for his purpose. Trevellion’s suggested mutilations had been inspired and would send out a chilling message.

He studied the bloody mess and smiled wryly. It wasn’t bad at all considering it was the first time he’d carved a message in human flesh.

His eyes slowly moved across her exposed, blood-drenched breasts. Above them he read:
‘Fuck the Net’
in violently jagged letters. His gaze rose above her stained body to the message he’d smeared on the wall.
‘Reclaim the World’
was daubed in her blood.

Seeing his colleague had finished his task Trevellion stood up from his seat and approached the bed, peering at the message carved in flesh, admiring the application of his own macabre suggestion. Their work was nearly done. Whilst his accomplice had been securing Colette Robertson to the bed he’d copied all of SW Technologies state network tender project data, and wider semantic web development information from her tablet. The priceless flash drive sat snugly in his inside pocket.

Ransacking the house had also yielded a few more useful hardcopy files for him to study. The final satisfying act had been to format and infect her tablet device, removing all of SW Technologies data forever. It was too risky to steal the machine as it would doubtless be fitted with a tracking device given her line of work, and they didn’t have the time to locate and remove it. He smiled as he gently tapped a second flash drive in his jacket pocket that contained the virus that had forever wiped her computer clean of all its secrets.

All that remained was for the others to complete their jobs. Breaking into SW Technologies’ premises would be a formality. Once the information had been claimed the building would be torched. And the anti-net activists would soon be hunted for her death. After tonight’s events there would be nowhere for them to hide.

Trevellion turned to his right, checking the digital video camera erected on its tripod was still recording. He smiled as the red light continued to beam, the intrusive lens capturing the death of Colette Robertson.

Turning to face his colleague he nodded slowly before returning to his seat to watch the last rites. As he sat he saw the flash of the flick-knife blade snapping open, blood sticking from its earlier work.

Colette struggled violently as the bloody blade flicked into position. This couldn’t be happening. Surely she’d wake in a minute and wrap a comforting arm around Michael’s sleeping body. But she knew this was it. No waking up in a cold sweat. No relief at the vividness of her dreams. No escape.

She struggled more violently than ever as the man leant over her, careful to avoid the bloody sheets, the blade moving towards her face.

The tears streamed down her cheeks as for the first time she looked closely at his face and then to the man sitting nearby. She didn’t recognise the man in the overalls, but the other taller man was a different matter. The dark hair, well-defined features and high cheekbones probably made him about 40. It was difficult to be certain as his neatly trimmed black goatee beard made him seem older.

She couldn’t be sure where, but there was something strangely familiar about him. She’d seen him before. As sheer terror overtook her senses, her heart pounding in her ears, she couldn’t remember where or when.

The blade was at her lips.

She sank back into the mattress as far as humanly possible. It wasn’t enough. She closed her eyes and winced as the sharp blade flashed in front of her mouth. She waited for the intense burning pain, but instead all she felt was a slight trickle of blood seep into her mouth.

Opening her eyes again she saw that the stocky man in his overalls had moved away into one corner of the room. Her wide eyes scanned across, stopping in alarm as she saw her digital video camera propped up on its tripod.

All her muscles tightened involuntarily and she clenched her fists. Her eyes narrowed into tiny windows as her anger rose. As if what had been done to her already wasn’t enough. They were going to kill her. She was certain of that. But the sick bastards were filming their work for all time.

What sort of fucking animals are you? What are you going to do when you’ve left me butchered on the bed? Go home and get a hard-on watching this?

Her gaze once more fell on the taller man and her anger quickly faded as tears spilled down her cheeks. She was never going to see Michael or Clare again. That was the most painful thing. Not the wounds on her chest which would have healed in time. She was going to die alone, never having the chance to hold them again.

Her sorrow evaporated as she looked back to the familiar-looking man, aware of him moving to her right. He was placing something in a leather-bound briefcase, open on the dressing table.

Is that a flash drive?

Her confusion at the situation rose even further. She attempted to think rationally as waves of terror and nausea continued to rush over her.

The bastard must have copied something from my computer. But that’s all work-related, how that could possibly be of interest?

Her thoughts trailed off rapidly. The bell in her head was ringing more loudly. So this is what it was all about.

This is about my work. And the tender I’ve spent so many hours on.

She knew industrial espionage was a dirty game, but this was beyond anyone’s worst nightmare.

And now she realised why the man looked familiar. She had a vague recollection of meeting or seeing him at an industry event the year before. He’d been making a presentation on advancements in…

The answers and images in her mind faded instantly as the stocky man approached the bed again. This time the knife was replaced by a long length of rubber tubing and a large white plastic container. Her eyes flicked rapidly from the man to the plastic container, desperately trying to read the words on the label.

The rubber tubing was roughly forced through the slit in the tape across her mouth, in between her swollen lips, and she caught sight of the label.

White Spirit. He’s trying to pour White Spirit down my throat and burn out my fucking insides.

She clenched her mouth firmly shut, shaking her head from side-to-side. The rest of her body continued its losing battle to break free from its restraints.

Within seconds the fist which had first greeted her at the front door had smashed viciously into her face three times. She was barely aware of her nose being smashed, her septum splitting, or the teeth breaking as unconsciousness began to consume her. If she’d been able to think clearly she would have probably welcomed it rather than face what was coming.

As she finally succumbed to the black unconscious she never felt the rubber-tubing slide into her throat.

The lightbulb for the porch was missing. It was the first thing Michael Robertson noticed as he approached his front door. Frowning, he reached into his jacket pocket for his door key, groping about in the darkness, sure in the knowledge the bulb had been there the night before. Perhaps it had broken that evening and Colette just hadn’t got round to replacing it yet he wondered.

Another thought crossed his mind, one he hoped was too petty to be possibly true. Was Colette still sufficiently pissed off with him to have removed the bulb just to annoy him when he arrived home from his work’s annual dinner?

Dismissing the idea, Michael exhaled noisily, hoping the bunch of red roses and bottle of Lindemans Bin 65 Chardonnay, one of Colette’s favourites, would help smooth over their fight at breakfast. Even now he couldn’t help but feel Colette was being a little hypocritical at making a fuss about him attending. How many meetings, conferences and overnight stays had she been on in the last few manic months for her job?

Trips to London for emergency meetings at virtually no notice were almost as commonplace as her going into the office. There were some weeks he’d barely see her at all, and not once had he made a fuss, or made her feel guilty about it and the fact that their eight-year-old daughter Clare missed her dreadfully when she was away.

Although, as Colette had been keen to point out, none of those meetings had taken place on their wedding anniversary. And not only was it their anniversary, but she’d got a nasty cold, or maybe even the start of flu, and needed looking after. If she did have flu it wouldn’t be entirely surprising given how hard he knew she’d been working. Being a bit run down was all too likely the reason for her picking up something.

He knew the timing had been dire, but there was nothing he could do about it. The Managing Director had made it clear a dim view would be taken if all the senior insurance brokers didn’t attend the annual dinner. And he’d duly obliged, incurring Colette’s wrath in the process.

Sliding the key into the lock the front door opened up onto the dark hallway. Glancing at his watch, lit-up by the full moon, the time was a little after eleven. Normally Colette would still have been awake at this time, probably working at her laptop, but instead all the downstairs lights were off. The only illumination came from the upstairs landing.

Flicking the hall light on Michael’s gaze dropped to the assortment of letters strewn across the carpet, just beyond the doormat. Colette prided herself on her tidiness, and the letters and bills that needed responding to where always stacked neatly on the side of the hall table, not lying in a mess on the floor. Maybe Harry, their cat, had taken a walk across the narrow table he thought, closing the door gently behind him.

For a brief second he thought about calling out to Colette, but rejected the idea in case she’d gone to bed. Despite the recriminations at breakfast he hoped she was still awake and they could enjoy some of the remaining evening together with a pleasant glass of wine.

Placing his keys on the hall table Michael headed in the direction of the kitchen to retrieve two wine glasses. Before he reached there he stopped, his gaze honing in one of Colette’s slippers, discarded on the bottom step of the staircase. Several steps further up, one of her gold encrusted earrings, a present from their last wedding anniversary, lay unattended.

A quizzical look crossed Michael’s face as a slight frown formed before he turned and slowly began to climb the stairs. Even when she was ill, Colette wouldn’t just dump things on the stairs, especially not her favourite jewellery.

With the roses in one hand and the bottle of wine in the other, Michael gently walked up the stairs, careful to avoid the creaky step at the top.

The upstairs of the house was just as quiet as downstairs. Eerily quiet. There was no sound of life from the bedroom. No quiet mumblings from the television. Not even the quiet whistling of the wind coming in through the bathroom window which was always open, even in winter. And no sign of their cat Harry keeping guard at the top of the stairs which was his nightly ritual.

Reaching the landing one more thing wasn’t as it should have been. Their bedroom door was closed. They never closed it, just in case Clare ever needed something in the night.

Without further thought Michael turned the door handle to his bedroom. The room, like the rest of the upstairs of their house was in darkness. But there was something else he wasn’t prepared for. The smell. A metallic chemical cocktail hung in the air, invading his senses as he grappled to decipher what it might be.