Authors: Jim Eldridge
The Deadly Game (21 page)
‘They were going to kill me!’ said Jake. ‘If I hadn’t stopped them coming for me . . .’
‘They won’t be coming after you again,’ said Gareth.
Jake studied him, curious.
‘You’ve had them taken out?’ he asked.
‘What has happened to them is of no importance to you,’ said Gareth.
‘It is if they come looking for revenge,’ said Jake.
Gareth looked at Jake with the blankest expression Jake had thought he’d ever seen.
‘They will not be coming after you,’ said Gareth simply. ‘Or anyone else.’
So, they are dead, thought Jake.
‘And now,’ said Gareth, getting to his feet, ‘I thought you might like to use my office to make your call to Ms Graham. Much more private than your own.’
Jake looked at the clock.
‘It’s ten o’clock at night in New Zealand,’ he said.
‘And I believe Ms Graham is at home waiting for your call,’ said Gareth. He pointed to his computer on his desk. ‘I understand everything is set up and waiting.’
With that, Gareth left the office and closed the door.
Jake sat at Gareth’s desk and looked at Lauren on the screen. Lauren looked back at him, shocked.
‘My God, Jake!’ she said. ‘What’s been happening to you?’
‘I met some people who didn’t agree with me,’ said Jake, trying to appear flippant and make light of it, though inside he felt sick and hollow. So much danger, so many risks, Robert nearly dying, and all for nothing.
‘Mr Findlay-Weston says we can talk without getting cut off,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Jake. ‘He sees this as a parting gift.’
Lauren frowned.
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s sacking me, with immediate effect. He’s also warned me off looking for the books.’ Then he smiled at her, just to let her know that he wasn’t being put off. ‘But, that’s just a warning. He can’t stop me, and he knows it.’
‘He can hurt you,’ said Lauren.
‘He’s already hurt me by keeping you there and me here,’ said Jake. His tone grew sadder as he said, ‘Robert got hurt. Badly hurt. He’s in hospital with a fractured skull.’
Lauren gasped, shocked.
‘So that’s why he hasn’t been in touch,’ she said. ‘I tried emailing him, and phoning him . . .’
‘I know, and I should have told you before,’ apologised Jake, ‘but I was under a lot of pressure.’
‘From the people who did that to you?’
‘Among others,’ said Jake.
As briefly as he could, and aware that their conversation was being monitored, and concerned it could still be cut off, despite Gareth’s promises, Jake told Lauren what had happened since they had gone to Glastonbury.
‘But you found a book!’ said Lauren excitedly.
‘Yes,’ said Jake. ‘Number 557. They exist, Lauren.’ He sighed. ‘If only I’d kept hold of it.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Lauren. ‘What matters is you’re alive. We can find another.’ Then her excitement faded and she asked: ‘Robert . . . ?’
‘I’m going to see him as soon as I leave here,’ Jake assured her. ‘They say he’ll recover, but I want to see for myself. Talk to him, let him know what happened.’
‘Give him my love,’ said Lauren.
‘Of course,’ said Jake.
Suddenly, in one corner of the screen, appeared a box with the instruction:
This call will terminate in 60 seconds.
‘Looks like Gareth is going back on his promise,’ said Jake bitterly.
‘Don’t let’s waste the precious time we’ve got left taking about Gareth,’ said Lauren. ‘Or the books.’
‘I love you, Lauren!’ burst out Jake. ‘We will see each other again. Not like this, but together, holding one another . . .’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I love . . .’
And then the screen went blank.
Jake shouted out, ‘It hasn’t been sixty seconds!’ But there was no response from Janet outside in the outer office, or from Gareth, or from anyone else.
Jake sat, staring at the blank computer screen.
This isn’t over, he thought defiantly. Not by a long way. There’s a whole library hidden out there, and Lauren and I, we’re going to find that library and show it to the world. This isn’t the end; it’s the beginning.
Want to know what happens next?
Read on for a gripping taster of LETHAL TARGET . . .
The scream echoed through the tunnel and into the cellar room. A man, screaming in fear. Then suddenly the scream was cut off.
The two men in the cellar didn’t react; they were concentrating on the equipment on a small metal table: a hypodermic needle and a series of glass phials containing some sort of liquid. The cellar was old, the sandstone and brick walls almost black with age. A metal bed frame had been screwed to the floor. No mattress, just the frame, with thick wire acting as crude springs. Iron manacles dangled from the bars at its head and foot.
The door of the cellar opened and two uniformed men entered, their uniforms army khaki, black jackboots on their feet shining dully in the half-light. Between them they held a naked man. A strip of thick grey tape had been fixed across his mouth to stop him screaming any more. The man looked towards the metal bed frame in the centre of the cellar. He tried to pull back, his eyes bulging with fear, sweat pouring down his face, his bare feet kicking out; but the grip of the men who held him was too strong.
‘Put him on it,’ said one of the watching men in Russian.
The two uniformed men dragged the prisoner towards the bed frame and pushed him down on to the wire springs. One sat on him, stopping him from moving, while the other fixed the manacles to his wrists and ankles. Then they stepped back.
The man on the bed began to buck and twist, pulling desperately at the manacles, his actions tearing open the skin of his wrists and ankles as they rubbed against the iron.
The man in command picked up the hypodermic needle from the table. He inserted it into one of the glass phials through the opening at the top and drew some of the liquid into the syringe.
‘Hold him,’ he ordered the two uniformed men, again, in Russian. They moved to the bed frame and pressed their combined weight down on the struggling prisoner, holding him firmly in place. The man pushed the needle deep into the thigh of the hostage and slowly pushed the plunger down until the syringe was empty. Then he stepped back, and nodded to the two men, who instantly released their hold on the prisoner.
The two soldiers retreated to the cellar door, where they stood and waited. All four men kept their eyes on the hostage chained to the bed frame.
One minute passed, then two, then three. Suddenly wisps of smoke began to appear from the pores in the man’s skin, tiny at first, then getting denser. The man struggled, his eyes wide in a mixture of pain and fear, his body arching and thrashing. Then a gush of smoke escaped from his nostrils. Smoke was pouring out of the man, through his skin, his scalp, his feet, his arms . . .
There was a sudden silent explosion, intense white flames bursting out through the smoke, coming from inside the man, and the next second the figure on the bed was a heaving mass of fire, the heat and glare making the watching men recoil.
Almost as suddenly as the fire had begun, it stopped, and there was just a cloud of oily smoke, while ashes fell through the bed frame’s wire springs to the cellar floor. All that remained of the captive was the hands and feet, still enclosed in the iron manacles, the whites of the bones visible through the scorched flesh.
The other man by the table, who had been silent so far, shook his head.
‘The reaction was too slow,’ he said in English. ‘We need the book.’
‘Our people are looking for it as we speak,’ replied the other. He looked at the smouldering pile of ashes and burnt bone. ‘This one was too big. I believe the excess fat under his skin caused the slow reaction time.’ He nodded thoughtfully, then called an order to the men by the door. ‘Bring in the young woman!’ To the man next to him, he growled: ‘Her flesh should burn faster.’
Jake was worried; very worried. He walked around the supermarket, filling up his trolley with his week’s supplies, moving on automatic pilot. All he could think of was Lauren. It had been five days since he’d last spoken to her, and that had been by phone, not even Skype, so he hadn’t had the chance to see how she looked. She’d sounded odd. Nervous. He knew she couldn’t say why, their conversations were monitored by the intelligence services, but usually they found a way to drop a hint if something was worrying one of them, so they could read between the lines, put together the clues in texts and phone calls. But this last time, no hint, just an awareness in Jake that something was troubling Lauren. And since that last phone call, nothing. No texts, no emails, no phone calls, no letters.
It was at times like this he felt the distance between them: her in New Zealand and him in London.
The previous night, when it was daytime in New Zealand, he’d even phoned the place where she worked, the Antarctic Survey Research Centre in Wellington, in case something had happened to her, a serious accident, and she wasn’t able to make contact with him. But the woman he’d spoken to had said Samantha Adams (Lauren’s cover name in New Zealand) hadn’t been in to work for four days, and they hadn’t heard from her, which was very unusual.
They’d been in touch with Lauren’s flatmate, a young woman called Kristal, who said that Lauren had told her she was going away for a day or so, and not to worry. So she hadn’t. But since the Survey Research Centre had got in touch, Kristal had contacted the local police and hospitals to see if there had been any reports of unidentified young women having been in an accident; but there had been nothing.
‘We’re very worried about her,’ the woman told Jake. ‘This is so unlike her. If you hear from her, would you ask her to get in touch with us?’
Jake promised he would. Just as he was about to ring off, the woman asked him if Samantha had any Russian connections.
‘Russian connections?’ Jake frowned.
‘It’s just that on the last day she was in the office she had a call from someone, and the switchboard operator was fairly sure the person was Russian.’
‘A man or a woman?’
‘A man.’
A Russian? Jake was puzzled. Lauren had never mentioned knowing any Russians. But then, it had been five months since they’d last seen one another. Anything could have happened in that time. What was clear was that Lauren seemed to have vanished suddenly, and without trace . . .
The Invisible Assassin
First published in Great Britain in September 2012 by
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP
This electronic edition published in September 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Jim Eldridge 2012
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved
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make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
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may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781408826867
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