The Industry (15 page)

Well, that settles it, thought Kirra. The pair of them had been brainwashed. They had to have been. They were both insane, talking about a life of crime as though it was something wonderful, something desirable. Thankfully
Desmond chose that moment to reappear, and Kirra felt relieved. She was fast running out of things to say to the two boys.

‘Finished?' he asked her. She nodded gladly and got to her feet.

‘Bye,' she said.

The boys waved her off merrily. Then they caught sight of Desmond and their mouths fell open simultaneously. As they walked away, Kirra heard Lev whisper, ‘Whoa.
Whoa
. Was that … was that Desmond Rall?'

 

Desmond escorted Kirra back into the bureau, where Mr Marquison sat at one of the desks in the open area.

‘Desmond tells me someone's after you,' he said kindly, pulling out a chair for her. She sat next to him. ‘Someone who ordered those men to seize you at the Ruiz bar.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘So … you know who I am then?'

He smiled kindly. ‘Secret's safe with me, Miss Hayward. I'm not a Contractor anymore. I merely make my money by educating them. Besides, Desmond wants it to stay hushed, and I'm hardly going to go against him of all people, am I?'

‘Er … no,' Kirra said, wondering why it would be such an unwise idea. It seemed everyone knew something about Desmond that she didn't. ‘I guess not.'

‘Now,' Mr Marquison continued. ‘You suspect the person pursuing you is Latham?'

‘Well, he is,' Kirra answered, ‘but Tavio said another person was behind the attack, meaning someone else is after me as well.'

‘Tavio?' Mr Marquison asked.

‘The Decoy,' Desmond told him, sitting on his other side. ‘All we know about Kirra's most aggressive pursuer is that he is relatively young and obviously a Contractor.'

‘I've had my most senior Intelligence student draw up a list,' Mr Marquison told them, before calling out in a voice that seemed to reverberate through the building, ‘Felicity!'

A girl with a pointed chin and an elongated neck materialised at the door and entered the room with military formality. A golden plait dangled down her back.

‘This is Felicity Klein,' Mr Marquison announced. ‘One of my best. I'm most proud of her because she's just secured an internship at the MIO. She starts in two weeks' time.'

Felicity looked a little embarrassed, though thoroughly pleased with what seemed to be a momentous achievement.

‘Mr Marquison. Sir,' Felicity declared, ‘I have two likely names to offer you from our database. Both of them young Contractors, both of them familiar with or native to the city of Madrid, both rumoured to be here at the present time.'

‘Excellent,' said Mr Marquison, leaning back in his chair. It seemed even he was a little taken aback by her intensity.

‘The first is Guillermo Valdez.' Felicity opened a white folder and took out an enlarged photograph of a thin, weedy-looking boy with red welts on his neck. His hair was a mess, his teeth were crooked and he made for an altogether unimpressive sight. ‘He is nineteen and only this year opened an Assassination agency in Madrid.'

Kirra, Desmond and Mr Marquison all leaned forward in their chairs to gaze at the photo. The boy moped back at them.

‘He doesn't really look …' began Kirra.

‘… like the man we're after, somehow,' finished Desmond.

Felicity turned the photo back and took a better look herself. ‘He matches the criteria,' she said with a small shrug, seeming to take Kirra's and Desmond's lacklustre reaction personally.

‘What are his rates like?' Desmond asked.

Felicity flipped to the first page of the folder. ‘He doesn't charge high,' she said. ‘He's cheap, in fact.'

‘Well, that settles it,' Desmond told the room, clasping his hands behind his head and leaning back.

‘It does?' asked Kirra.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘If Guillermo Valdez doesn't charge high, then he doesn't have the means to hire recruits. The men who ambushed us were hired recruits.'

‘I think it's safe to toss him back in the database,' Mr Marquison told Felicity. ‘Who's the second man?'

‘Hector Grant,' she said. ‘Twenty-three years of age. Owns the second most sought-after Assassination agency in the entire Industry. His prices are astronomical, but his services are first rate. He visits Madrid several times a year.'

Felicity held up another enlarged photograph and Kirra shuddered in her seat. Staring back at her was a mean-faced man with blond hair, strong, broad features, a weathered tan and the most cunning and sinister-looking amber eyes she'd ever seen. Hector Grant was
tall and strapping and looked an awful lot like the muscular actors and models in the posters plastered all over the pink wallpaper in Olivia's room. Though he shared physical similarities with Olivia's poster boys, Kirra had to concede that this man looked incapable of grinning good-naturedly the way they all did for the camera. Instead, he stared out from his photograph with a self-assured sneer.

‘Business has been slow for him,' Felicity told them. ‘He's been suffering severely due to the decline.'

‘The decline?' Kirra asked.

Felicity frowned at her. ‘Yeah,' she said, losing her formal manner for an instant. ‘The decline …' She raised a contemptuous eyebrow, as though anyone who required an explanation of something so basic wasn't worthy of being in the Marquison Training Intensive, let alone Mr Marquison's own bureau.

‘The Industry has been in a recession ever since the Spencer System became popular,' Mr Marquison said. ‘We've all suffered a serious slump in business because of it. You can't take a job you know you can't complete. Thus, the decline.'

‘But there's hope,' Felicity said excitedly. ‘Rumour has it that there's a Translator. Someone who can break the code and get through the Spencer System. It's just a question of finding the person and —'

‘And what, Felicity?' Mr Marquison cut in.

Felicity stopped and stared hard at the ground, looking as though her entire reputation as Mr Marquison's finest student depended on a correct answer.

‘And getting them into a position where they
have
to
translate the code … for
everyone
,' she said, ‘otherwise we'll be in decline forever.'

Kirra was sitting straight-backed in her chair, feeling very tense. For some reason she'd assumed Felicity already knew she was a Translator; that Mr Marquison had told her so she could compile the list. Obviously he hadn't; and after what Felicity had just said, Kirra was immensely grateful Mr Marquison had seen fit to keep his best student, and everyone like her, out of the loop. People who thought Kirra ought to become public property needed to be kept as far out of the loop as humanly possible.

Mr Marquison seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

‘If that were to be the case, the Translator would be dragged all over the globe,' he said. ‘They would be scrutinised by those who wish to understand how, precisely, the translation works; and come under constant threat from those wanting to further their own careers by seizing the Translator and keeping them all to themselves. The Translator's entire existence would become a battle for privacy, normality and peace.'

Felicity looked as though she had plenty to say in reply, but chose to refrain out of respect for Mr Marquison. Instead she nodded. ‘Anyway, Hector Grant has been losing business for a while. His movements are probably more aggressive than ever.'

She turned back to Kirra. ‘Why is he after you anyway?'

‘We're not certain it's him, Felicity,' Mr Marquison said. ‘Was there anyone else?'

‘I only shortlisted those two. The search turned up fragments of another matching file, but it had been deleted. Probably the remains of a RedCon or something.'

‘Well, there's nothing we can do about that, I suppose. Alright, Felicity, you can leave the files with me and go off to breakfast.'

She placed the folder before him and gave a curt bow. ‘Thank you, Mr Marquison, sir,' she said, and marched off.

‘It's not Hector Grant,' Desmond said as soon as the door was firmly shut.

‘How do you know?' Kirra asked.

‘Because,' Desmond replied, ‘Hector Grant detests Decoys. He thinks they're money-scrounging scum, that they impede what otherwise would be an efficient, highly professionalised Industry. He would never hire one.'

‘Do you think it's the other one then? What's-his-name?' Kirra asked.

Desmond glared at the files on the desk.

‘No,' he said. ‘Guillermo Valdez just doesn't have the means to pursue you.'

‘Who then?' Kirra asked, feeling her temper rise.

‘We have no reason not to believe it's just Latham.'

‘Yes, we do!' Kirra said loudly. ‘Latham's not young! Tavio said the man who hired him was young.'

Desmond shrugged. ‘He could have sent any one of his recruits to do the negotiating with Tavio. Let's face it: Latham has the means and the drive. It's him. He's just waiting for the right moment to take you back.'

‘So what do we do?'

Desmond gave another shrug.

Mr Marquison drummed his fingers upon the folder, then tucked Felicity's files away.

‘Take care,' he said, rather unhelpfully. ‘Nothing more for you to do, Miss Hayward, than to take great care.'

Once their visit with Mr Marquison was over, Desmond drove through the streets of Madrid, taking detours and doubling back to ensure they weren't being followed. After what seemed like hours of weaving in neat little circles he headed for the outskirts of the city and it was there they found a suite in the quiet Jacinta de Santo Hotel.

That very evening Mai was escorted to their room by two girls from the Marquison Training Intensive. Kirra stared as one rattled off Mai's prescribed medications and the other changed her bandages at the table with perfect handiwork.

‘They're training to be Industry doctors,' Desmond muttered to Kirra as the girls packed up their equipment and marched out of the suite. ‘They jump at opportunities like these.'

Mai's condition had improved since Kirra had last seen her, but she was by no means recovered. Her face was pale, her fingers shaky and there were dark circles
surrounding her eyes. She couldn't move her arm at all, and looked constantly like she was on the verge of throwing up, but it didn't matter because she was alive. Wonderfully and incontestably alive.

Desmond engulfed Mai in a light embrace once the Intensive girls had left and ushered her to the leather couch by the television, then went about making her a cup of tea into which he heaped several teaspoons of sugar. After handing her the cup and a plate of the leftover takeaway noodles he'd shared with Kirra, he sat down and scrutinised her anxiously, beating his fingers against his knees.

Mai hunched in her seat, looking frail and much, much older than her years. ‘So, I hit the other two,' she began, ‘just after you made it out of the bar. Then the police and ambulances were there. I pretended I couldn't speak Spanish or English just to avoid questioning. Then they had me in the hospital, gave me a couple of shots of morphine and tried to sort out what to do with me. They had my surgery scheduled for first thing in the morning. Then you showed up, thank god, though you certainly took your time.' She swallowed, something that seemed a difficult undertaking. ‘Anyway,' she went on, ‘I got the transit details. Four o'clock on Thursday — they're moving Aguilar in an armoured truck to maximum security.'

‘Great,' said Desmond. ‘The thing is … we're going to have to be more careful from now on. Latham's on our trail. I'm sure he sent the recruits for Kirra at Ruiz, so he knows roughly where she is. We're going to have to keep moving as much as possible.'

Mai nodded and brushed sweat from her forehead, wincing slightly as she moved.

‘Are you alright?' Kirra asked.

Mai raised her perfectly arched eyebrow, looking at Kirra for the first time. ‘I will be,' she declared. ‘They did a good job at the Intensive. There was blood loss, but nothing too dire.'

The problem with that, Kirra thought, was that it did look dire. Very dire, in fact. She had never seen anyone look so ill in her life. She gave Desmond a pointed look.

Desmond rubbed his forehead. ‘Mai … you know I had to —'

‘Of course I do,' she said. ‘Don't apologise. I would have done the same thing.'

Kirra stared at her; she felt as if her guilt was radiating through her skin.

Mai gave her a humourless smile. ‘You are more important than you allow yourself to admit, Kirra. Your value is far, far greater than ours.'

Kirra shifted uncomfortably. She didn't want to be more valuable than anyone, or indeed more important; nor did she want near strangers to almost sacrifice their lives for her safety. Truth be told, being near-invisible in Freemont had suited her far, far better.

 

Due to the events following the meeting at the Ruiz bar, Desmond had temporarily forgotten his two colleagues waiting for codes. But the next morning he approached Kirra where she was curled up on the couch watching children's cartoons in Spanish.

‘Kirra,' he began, his tone a little too friendly, ‘I need your help now.'

She looked at him and then at the bright white papers in his hand. She let the television remote slip from her fingers.

‘Desmond … I don't want to do it,' she said honestly.

After visiting both the MIO and Marquison's Training Intensive, countless frightening thoughts had churned through her head. Before, she'd understood that she was special, but now it seemed she couldn't escape the fact that she was urgently important, and in grave danger because of it. The fear in Marron Davies' eyes as he'd looked at her was something she couldn't push to the back of her head, and the things Felicity Klein had said lingered as well. The Industry was plagued with a downturn in business and Kirra, and Kirra alone, could pull them out of it. She was coveted by just about everyone, it seemed, and the speed with which Latham's recruits had found her at the Ruiz bar frightened her. Would she have to be on the move for the rest of her days to avoid them, and every other Contractor on her trail? What sort of life would that be? She didn't want to help Desmond with his code. She knew if she never laid eyes on one again it would be too soon.

Desmond sat next to her, his expression a mixture of determination and patience.

‘I know it's been difficult, but please …'

Kirra suddenly felt furious with him.

‘I don't want to do it!' she yelled, standing up just to get away from him. ‘I just want to go home!'

Mai, who was working at her laptop at the table, attempting to type with one hand, looked up, interested by the outburst.

‘You know I have a family,' Kirra continued angrily, pacing around. ‘I have a brother and a sister, and right now my mother and father think … Well, I don't know what they think, do I? If I help you now, when do I get out of this? When can I go home?'

Mai propped her chin in her hand and watched as Kirra collapsed into a chair beside her at the table.

‘What
is
this fascination with your family?' Desmond said coldly. ‘It'd be better for you, for me, for
everyone
, if you forgot about them.'

She stared at him. ‘What? How could —'

‘They can't help you here! They really can't help you anywhere, and the sooner you get a grip on that the easier everything will be.'

They glared at each other across the table.

‘Kirra, you know Latham's watching your house,' Mai intervened, attempting to sound kind but instead coming across a bit pained. ‘He's waiting for you to reach out to them. In fact, he's hoping for it. You'll be doing your family a favour by forgetting them … for now, at least.'

Kirra closed her eyes and dropped her head into her hands.

Desmond took a seat opposite her and sighed. ‘We will always endeavour to protect you, Kirra, but we need your help in return. Believe me, right now, you can do with friends like us.'

Glancing up, Kirra was met with two beseeching faces. She looked away, feeling lost. Then, she remembered
what was really at stake: Milo's rescue. That was the most important thing. Who cared if the code made her feel sick? Who cared that it made her skin crawl? Day after day, Milo was alone in the dark, with nothing but his thoughts for company. She shook her head in quiet surrender and reached for the two codes.

‘I need a pen,' she muttered.

In a flash, Mai laid a ballpoint by the paper. They were both watching her with unblinking eyes, unashamedly exhilarated at the prospect of seeing the unbreakable code broken.

Kirra concentrated on the first code and watched as the sequence formed immediately, no longer fascinated as to why and how it happened. She scribbled the string of numbers and letters along the bottom of the first page in her unsteady cursive, then moved on to the second page.

When she'd finished, Mai scooped the two pages up.

‘I couldn't believe it before,' she whispered, her eyes scanning the paper with wonder. ‘I didn't think it was possible.'

‘I wish it wasn't,' Kirra said irritably.

‘Des,' Mai continued, ignoring her, ‘did you see that?'

Desmond nodded, astonished. ‘I knew it was true … but to actually see it,' he said, taking the pages from Mai. ‘It's amazing. I'll ring Anton and Fadil.'

Grabbing his phone and rising from his seat, Desmond started pacing excitedly.

‘It's Des,' he said into the phone. ‘I've got the codes. Are you ready?'

Kirra listened as he relayed the sequence slowly and clearly, and then did it all over again with the other code.
He snapped the phone shut and turned back to Mai and Kirra.

‘They should have both jobs done by tomorrow,' he said. ‘Kirra, you've no idea what you've done for us!'

Failing to feel any measure of pride or satisfaction whatsoever, Kirra faked a smile and turned away. Returning to her position on the couch, she wrapped her arms around her knees and closed her eyes. The sooner Desmond's Extraction in Madrid was complete, the sooner she would be reunited with Milo.
But then what?
a little voice quizzed her nosily.
What will you do then?
They would run away, of course. Spend a few days in each place before moving on, constantly on the lookout for pursuers. Perhaps, one day, if they were careful and covered their tracks, they'd be able to slow down, find somewhere to call home, attempt to get on with their lives, albeit quietly and in total secret? She'd never go back to Freemont, never be able to explain it all to her family, but at least she'd protect them this way. And she'd have Milo. She wasn't sure she could ask for more than that.

 

The next day Desmond and Mai, ensuring their weapons were within easy reach, escorted Kirra out of the hotel. Desmond had explained that they couldn't spend more than two days in one location, which suited Kirra fine as she was beginning to find the yellowish decor of their suite stifling.

‘Fadil and Anton booked a new apartment. They'll be arriving there tonight,' Mai announced after reading a message on her phone.

Kirra glanced at her from the back seat of the car. She was still horribly pale and made all her movements with considerable care. Kirra had also noticed her taking copious amounts of painkillers and cautiously redressing her wound every few hours. She ignored a twinge of shame, reassuring herself that Mai had chosen to protect her at the bar. Kirra hadn't asked.

The new apartment building was much older and far more welcoming than the last hotel. The afternoon was warm and sunny, but their suite was cool and the furniture comfortable. Kirra took her place in front of the television as Mai set up her laptop at the table.

Three hours into a series of reality shows that Kirra couldn't understand, there was an abrupt knock at the door. Desmond glanced through the peephole and let out a breath of relief before letting two men into the room.

One was young and swaggered in with a twisted grin, assessing the apartment and looking impressed with what he found. His eyes were the colour of cork and glowed brightly, enhanced by a piercing in his eyebrow. His skin was a dark bronze colour and his clothes mismatched and baggy. He wore his chestnut hair in long dreadlocks, bunched together at the nape of his neck with a perishing elastic band.

‘Nice place,' he said appreciatively.

His eyes landed on Kirra with unabashed interest for a moment, but then he noticed Mai and her bandaged arm and Kirra was suddenly all but invisible.

‘Oh my,' he muttered. ‘This'll be interesting.'

The second man was tall and muscular and had thick, black hair, a hard, straight nose, and dark striking eyes.

‘Desmond,' he said quietly, his voice low and rich. ‘Why have you been moving around so much? Where is —'

He stopped abruptly when his eyes fell on Mai, who had carefully risen from her chair and was doing her utmost to keep her arm out of sight — an impossible task given the sling. The man examined her from a distance, his expression changing into something quite foreboding.

‘And it begins,' the younger man murmured happily to no one in particular, striding to the kitchen and yanking open the mini bar.

Kirra recognised his accent as Scottish. There had been a Scottish exchange student, Jason Nolan, in her class last year. He had gone out with Cassie Cheng's short and snooty friend Matilda Young a couple of times, their relationship a brief source of interest around the school for the three months he was there.

‘Fadil,' Desmond began, addressing the man by the door, whose eyes were still glued to Mai.

Kirra supposed the bronze-skinned man with dreadlocks was Anton. He lounged against the kitchen counter, picking carefully at a chocolate bar and observing the scene with cheerful interest.

‘What happened?' Fadil demanded, his voice dangerously quiet.

‘It's fine,' Mai said, taking a tentative step forward. ‘It's healing perfectly.'

‘
What happened
?' Fadil repeated.

‘We had a situation the other night. We were ambushed but we all got away. Mai was injured, obviously, but she's been treated and she's on the mend,' Desmond said.

Fadil tore his eyes from Mai and fixed Desmond with a glare. ‘She was shot,' he snarled, as though he hadn't heard a word Desmond had said. ‘Why?'

‘We weren't in control of the location,' Mai hurriedly explained. ‘We were tracked. They tried to take Kirra, and I was just caught in the middle. But it's over now. Everything is alright. I feel fine. Great, really.'

That was a blatant lie. Anyone could see that Mai, ashen-faced, slightly breathless and very feeble, was a long way from ‘great'.

‘Kirra Hayward?' Fadil asked, looking both interested and startlingly alert at the mention of the name. Mai nodded before turning to Kirra herself.

‘Kirra, this is Fadil, and this is Anton. They work with us.'

Fadil, looking anxious, said, ‘But have you increased security —'

He was interrupted by Anton choking on a bit of chocolate and coughing noisily in the kitchen. ‘Holy shit!' he yelped. ‘
That's
Kirra Hayward?'