Flames flickered gently, toiled, to touch at the boundaries of their prison. The aesthetic addition to the décor served no real purpose other than to make the place feel a little homelier than hilltop villas rarely were. He watched transfixed, mesmerised, by the darting figures of light behind the plastic canopy as the same issues travelled through his mind. Reflection had never been a strong point, too much thought served only to confuse the mind. He couldn’t stop. Life had turned upside down on a simple truth and the inner turmoil it created had intensified to such a level he could no longer see a clear path ahead. Where there was once certainty now lived only energy sapping doubt, an uncomfortable kaleidoscope of unfamiliar emotions he wasn’t used to dealing with. Should he re-approach Gratia? Would she be either interested or care? If he succeeded in this obsessive search for the truth then what would be its lasting impact? Would he have foiled an evil plan or cleared the path for the world to continue hurtling towards oblivion? Maybe Catherine is right to argue a human cull is necessary in order to preserve society and the future of mankind? She was certainly better placed than he. And where the hell was Rosa at the time he most needed a friend?
The gentle hum of the mobile alerted him to an incoming text. Are you in position and ready to go? Respond. The third time Will had sent the same message. Of course Matt was in position. He’d been sat here for hours. Answer the damn thing and tell him! No rush. There was too much to consider, too much at stake. It could wait a little longer.
Cold coffee slipped silently between his lips. Ghastly was too kind an adjective to describe the unpleasant sensation. He leaned back in the chair and stretched out his arms, trying to instil any kind of movement into his wearied limbs. Another stretch and his fingers came into unexpected contact with soft clothing. The barrel of a weapon pressed against the back of his head, and he froze.
The clothing edged from the tips of his fingers, moved out of reach. He heard movement and looked anxiously to the floor in the hope he could count the number of shadows thrown across the tiled surface. There were none so he tried to gently adjust position and the barrel pressed harder to confirm he was the proverbial sitting duck.
“You’re losing your touch,” said the woman’s voice.
“Two questions,” he said in relief. “How did you find me? And where the hell have you been?”
“Credit card,” she replied. “You used it to rent this place, despite all the training I’ve given you. Talk about a complete waste of effort.”
“There was nothing wrong with using the card. No-one is supposed to be trying to trace me.”
“I was.”
The pressure of the barrel eased from his head and she walked round to look down at his furrowed expression, eyes sparkling under the artificial light.
“And this is a waste of money. I thought you liked space, this place is tiny.”
“It’s a one bedroom villa.”
“Really?” she said.
“Cut it out.”
“You’re starting to get boring too.”
“I am not boring, I’m busy. Where the hell did you get to on the ship anyway?”
“Hid under the bed,” she said. “The moment you turned your back and answered the door,” she added.
“You’re not serious?”
“Yeah, I figured it was the one place no-one would bother to look. A trick I learned from you; hide in the most obvious of places.”
“I certainly didn’t think to look under the bed.”
“There you go then.”
“How did you get off the boat without being detected?”
“I didn’t. I took the return trip.”
“And none of the crew said anything?”
“They don’t get paid a lot.”
He knew the smug and triumphant smile was just her way of lightening his mood.
“How did you come by this place anyway?”
“Someone I know needs the extra income,” he said. “It’s one of a number of properties.”
“So you’ve got more friends than just me?”
“Surprisingly, yes,” he said.
She spotted the laptop on the table and grinned.
“How long has it been running?”
“Not started yet.”
“What’s the delay?”
He shrugged, causing her eyes to narrow.
“Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”
“Nothing’s happened,” he said. “There didn’t seem to be any need to rush into it.”
“Something is wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong. I was waiting for you.”
“Liar,” she said. “You had no idea I was coming.”
Her expression converted to one of mystified and quizzical doubt, as if trying to read his mind.
“Come on then, get on with it,” she said.
Being told what to do was like fluttering a red rag in front of his face, and Rosa knew it. But to refuse would prove to her she’d been right; something was wrong. He moved across the open plan space to the dining table, brought the laptop to life and then speed dialled the mobile from his pocket to send the messages. Go, it read.
“What happens now?”
“We wait six minutes,” he said, sitting on the cushioned chair by the table.
Three green arrows lit up at the bottom of the screen, in front of the brick wall covering most of the 3D screen. The first of them flashed intermittingly, shone brightly, and then slowly moved towards the digitally generated obstacle before picking up pace.
“That’s the start,” he said.
Precisely three minutes passed and the second illuminated, duplicating the movement of the first. Another three minutes and the third started operating.
“Now what?” she asked.
“We wait some more.”
“For how long?” she asked.
“As long as needed,” he said. “It might take a few minutes, most likely hours. Bit by bit the first two will chip away at the firewall and the other security measures until they find a way in. Once inside they’ll widen the breach for our drone, and the others will try and mask what it is doing.”
“And then what?”
“If Toby’s fitted the right amount of armour plating their systems won’t detect the assault until it’s too late and we’ve extracted all the information”
“And the extracted material comes directly to you.”
“That’s the plan,” he said. “In theory neither of the other two drones have the capacity to download, a security feature to prevent sabotage. So if there is a traitor in the team they’re well and truly screwed.”
“Unless it’s Toby,” she said.
“I had some extra measures built in.”
“You told me you were a technical dunderhead.”
“I am. Fortunately there are scores of university students who aren’t.”
“That’s very clever. You have come a long way.”
“Yeah, all the way to this villa in the hills of Portugal with only you to keep me company.”
She raised her eyes in mock offence and he smiled.
“What happens if their firewall picks up the drones?”
“It’ll order the operating system to an immediate shutdown and the sentinels will automatically send out digital tracers to try and pinpoint the origin of the drones. If they successfully get a lock on whoever is at the other end needs to get out fast, very fast.”
“Hence you’re up in the hills,” she said. “You’ll be able to see them coming.”
“Correct,” he said.
She settled into the next available chair, edging it close and leaning forward to look at the screen.
“What’s with the image of the wall?”
“Something to look at while we’re waiting,” he said. “A Toby thing,” he added.
“Floyd, I should have guessed.”
The next question arrived sooner than anticipated.
“Did you get the inventory back to Catherine?”
“Yup,” he said.
“What did she say?”
Thoughts of avoiding an answer were quickly dispensed by a finger prodding into his arm.
“Tell me, I want to know,” said Rosa.
“She waved her magic wand.”
“Sounds very intriguing,” she said.
“Not really. Catherine manipulated some of the pieces on her chessboard and found a way to get Gratia back into her old job.”
“She used to be Chief Operating Officer at Schafen?”
“One and the same,” he said.
“Schafen’s headquarters are in Europe.”
“Tell me about it.”
“And you’re okay with this?”
“It’s her decision. I couldn’t tell Gratia how to run her life any more than I could tell you how to run yours. It’s not like the good old days when men made all the decisions,” he said, with a barely visible smile.
Her eyes fixed on to the profile of his face, examining the taut muscles now on display.
“You’ve split up,” she said.
“Looks like it.”
“So that’s why you’ve been sitting here like a lemon these last few hours. You’re feeling sorry for yourself.”
“I guess so,” he confessed.
The knuckles of her left hand touched against the skin of his forearm and gently rubbed to and fro.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Crap happens,” he replied with a shrug.
Her hand unfolded and rested on his arm.
“Did you try talking to Gratia?”
“Briefly,” he said. “The conversation didn’t get very far. I lost my temper.”
The inquisitive eyes softened at the admission.
“I keep forgetting how normal you are.”
“Normal?” he said. “I’m stuck up in the hills of Portugal trying to uncover the deadliest conspiracy the world has ever seen after helping my enemies recover their own weapon. And to cap it all my partner has decided to leave me, not for another man but for a freaking job.”
He hadn’t meant for his diatribe to be humorous. Somehow it was, evidenced by Rosa’s bold and beautiful laughter. He felt better for her presence, for being here.
“The worst thing is Catherine’s right. Gratia’s way out of my league. Always was. I was kidding myself to think it could be any different.”
“That’s a little defeatist, coming from the Matt Durham I know and love so well.”
“I also discovered the other side of Catherine. What was it she said as I left? If you do anything which might lead Ilsa to endure a life of misery, anarchy and shortage, I swear to use every tool at my disposal to hunt you down like a dog.”
Her smile widened at his passable impersonation.
“Catherine isn’t so fierce,” said Rosa. “She worries about how the world will be when natural resources get tight. Once the shortages become an everyday occurrence the world will be a far more dangerous, violent place. She doesn’t want the same thing happen to Ilsa that happened to her first daughter, Eva-Maria.”
“I remember when she told me about the murder, in China. Up until then I thought nothing would ever shake her but she broke down completely.”
“Catherine?”
“Yeah, parental responsibility thing,” he said. “She takes it very seriously.”
Rosa kept her counsel and a brief, uncomfortable silence followed.
“She might be right about this, too. What if we do succeed in bringing the conspiracy down and all we achieve is to allow the world to continue its merry way towards self destruction, unfettered by the voices of caution. What would I have really achieved for Ilsa and the rest of humanity then, and at what personal cost?” he said.
He looked into the palms of his hands and sighed.
“For all I know I could be the one who is totally wrong and it is they who are right. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
The fingers of her left hand slipped between those of his right and held firm.
“You’re struggling with your conscience. It’s what all the good men do, all the best ones.”
He squeezed her hand, recognising how much of a friend she had been to him over these last few years, how close they had become.
“You’re a good friend, Rosa, the best,” he said. “I should have called on you sooner, after Brussels.”
“I called on you.”
“Call that a visit? No sooner had you landed you were looking for the next flight out. I’ve never seen anyone in such a hurry to leave.”
“I thought you were with Jenna, settled. Having me turning up on the door and hanging around might have been awkward for you.”
“I wasn’t with Jenna.”
“What was I supposed to think? She answered your door first thing in the morning dressed only in one of your shirts from what I could see.”
“She stayed overnight, as a guest.”
“I know that now.”
“Well if you’d stayed and bothered to ask …”
Rosa half chuckled, half smiled, a mixture of the two, and he reacted by squeezing her hand again.
“When I did eventually get to Europe you were with Stefan so I guessed everything was okay with you.”
The blink of her eyes happened so quick it was almost imperceptible to the eye. She looked down at their clasped hands, apparently consumed by thought.
“And now you have Gratia,” she said.
“Not any more it appears.”
“Are you going to talk to her again?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “When I think about it she’s tried to talk to me a number of times and I never properly listened. No surprise she eventually took off. I keep getting it wrong with women, don’t I?”
“Not with every woman,” she said.
The half smile, half chuckle returned.
“You are going to try again though, aren’t you?”
He relaxed his grip just as Rosa tightened hers, an action that drew his attention away from his melancholy and towards the blue eyes searching for a response.
“I made a promise,” he said. “A promise to …”
“And you’re supposed to keep promises,” she said, shaking their intertwined hands
The deeper he looked into her understanding eyes the more he felt drawn.
“Rosa …”
“Yes …”
“The screen,” he said. “The sentinels have sent out tracers and they’re closing in on the others.”
Chapter Twenty Six
Choice