I shift, careful not to dislodge the cell phone. ‘Do you know where the file is, Maria?’
‘No.’
She stands. ‘Then I’m sorry, but …’ She administers one swift kick to my injured leg. I cry out in agony.
‘B … B …’ My speech slurs. I must be losing more blood than I thought.
‘Where’s the file, Maria? Please, just tell me.’ She sticks on a quick smile. ‘Let’s just get this done as fast as we can, okay? I really don’t want to hurt you any more than I have to before, well … Just help me out here.’
My eyes narrow as I muster every inch of energy that is left in me, every shard of anger and fear and pain and loss, straight at her. ‘Bitch.’
Her smile and shoulders drop. She reaches into her pocket and withdraws a knife, black handle, solid. My brain fires into red alert mode, desperate to move as she slides off a leather sheath to reveal one small, sharp blade, seven centimetres long, the sleek silver of it shining in the summer sun, a gentle light dancing warm and carefree on the glide of the metal.
‘I’m sorry I have to do this, but you were supposed to die months ago.’ She kicks a piece of computer casing away. ‘You evaded our officers then, even dodged my bullet for you outside the court, but not now. I’m afraid we can’t risk the service being exposed. You understand—it’s this NSA scandal. MI5 don’t want the Project blowing up like NSA’s prism programme did. The Project was good while it lasted, but it has to end. The file I need—we’ll find it. I hear there’s been a run of break-ins and knife crime in this remote area.’ She glances to the upturned room. ‘I’m afraid this will have to look like a burglary that’s ended in a murder.’
I look at my leg, panting in air now. The limb is damaged, but the blood loss is finally halting. I can move my toes, but I don’t know if I can mobilise my body at all, but my hands are still behind my back and, for now, I need to keep them there …
I start to count.
One.
Dr Andersson takes a step forward.
Two.
She grips the knife tight in her fist, her eyes downturned.
Three.
I glance to the iron bar near on the floor.
Four.
Dr Andersson lunges forward. ‘I’m so sorry …’
Five.
I unleash my hands, tethers gone, Balthus having talked me through how to untie them, and, despite the blood loss, despite the odds stacked against me, and the chaos and the fear and the sheer sensory onslaught of the entire situation, I charge forward at Dr Andersson with every single drop of effort I’ve got.
Salamancan Mountains, Spain.
34 hours and 7 minutes to confinement
I ram my body hard straight into Dr Andersson.
She yells out, her torso toppling to the left, the knife slipping from her grip, clattering to the tiles. ‘Maria, stop! Please, don’t …’
She steadies and I think she is going to recover, her hand reaching to a gun behind her jacket, and so fast, without thinking, I haul my whole body up and head butt her in the face.
She reels back, a sharp crack indicating her nose breaking, blood spurting, the fall dislodging her gun and causing it to slide under a table.
I move quick, drag my body up, the bullet wound in my leg throbbing.
‘Maria,’ Balthus calls from the cell. ‘What’s happening?’
I survey the damage fast, the slump of Dr Andersson’s slight body, her twisted limbs.
‘She is alive,’ I say. ‘Injured.’
‘I don’t give a damn about her—just get the hell out of there. Get your notebook and bag and run!’
But my eyes catch sight of my ordered articles and photographs and sketches ripped on the floor pressed under Dr Andersson’s mashed up body, blood seeping from her ear. For a moment there is a quiet, macabre eeriness to it all as the summer sun glows through the windows, warm and serene over the utter devastation in my villa. I slap a hand to the wall, steady myself, everything spinning a little as I will my brain not to melt down at the chaos. One, two, three. One, two, three. I play out a waltz of numbers in my head, draw in a long breath then, looking up, acknowledge where my notebook is and, glancing at Dr Andersson’s splayed limbs, stagger towards the fallen gun.
Balthus crackles on the line. ‘Are you on the move?’
‘Yes.’
I step over a broken laptop, and stop. There is a torn photograph of my papa lying discarded amidst the mess. It is the one of him with his arm around me, except the picture now only shows me with Papa’s arm on my shoulder, and does not show his face or the rest of him, his body ripped off and in two. The sight of the photograph instantly bothers me.
‘Papa.’ I scan the floor, frantic. ‘Where is the other half?’
‘What?’
‘The photograph of Papa,’ I say to Balthus, twisting left and right, crouching down despite the searing pain in my leg, and clawing through the tattered paper that litters the floor. ‘She tore it in two. Papa is missing.’
‘Maria, you’ve no time for this.’
But I keep looking, ignoring Balthus, ignoring the sting in my leg, led on instead by the urge to stay connected to my father in any way I can. I lift up a heap of shredded newspaper then drop it, confetti pieces floating in the sun. ‘He taught me not to flinch,’ I say to myself. ‘Papa.’
‘Maria? Maria, I know this is hard for you, but you don’t have time for this. If MI5 don’t hear from Dr Andersson, they’ll come to the villa. And if they know where you live, chances are the Project do too.’
Yet it’s as if his words have no meaning. All I can obsess on is Papa’s picture.
‘Maria!’
I lift up files. I throw torn shreds of NSA articles and images around until the air becomes thick with paper and no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I tell myself to leave, I can’t, not without Papa, not without seeing his arm around me, safe, secure, knowing I’m not on my own, because I don’t want to be on my own, not really, not like this for the rest of my life. And then, as I turn, there, among the broken pieces of laptop plastic, I see him, Papa, his eyes shining bright as if he were still alive, warm, breathing next to me.
‘Maria, have you got it?’
‘Yes!’
I
