S.O.S

  His laptop was not the only complex piece of equipment he was armed with. Quickly he uploaded the DNA samples that he had collected from the crime scene and watched as the files flicked past with lightning speed, trying to find a match among the criminal records. A short while later the computer blinked; it had found a match. The assassin scrolled down the file, instantly memorising the man’s details before clicking on the link to known associates. The files of two other men scrolled up on his screen and he memorised their details in turn.

  Please with the outcome, he left his PC and prepared to sleep for a while. On a job he rarely took more than four hours at a time. As he showered and changed, his phone bleeped, alerting him to updates on the databases on his PC. He crossed to the table which was now his work station and looked at the screen. NHS records were the easiest to access – too little investment in technology had left their databases ridiculously open to hacking. He noted an update from CAMHS, which was unusual only in that it had been uploaded so late at night. God, there were so many problems in a city like this.

  He was about to delete it when he caught the words ’light’ and ‘dark matter’. He stopped and brought the file up, enlarging it on the screen. Someone was having delusional fantasies about lights and dark matter and she apparently had been hearing voices. The assassin clicked through the file and brought up the name and address of the young person. He felt no sympathy, just an odd curiosity. He marked the file for update alerts and closed it again. Probably nothing at all, but he was a consummate professional and even ‘nothing’ deserved monitoring; you never knew what ‘nothing’ might just uncover....

  CHAPTER 13 - London

  It was early. The young man awoke and immediately sat up. He was used to waking fully alert. The PC bleeped with an update and he stood, going straight to the screen to check it. Someone else had been looking at the incident report for the gang fight on the estate. The assassin checked it – one person had accessed it, not too much of a problem. He printed out the file from the screen and then opened it. This was child’s play and he wondered why such an important police department hadn’t taken more care to secure their system. He added some notes to the file and then closed the incident. Unless they were over staffed and under worked, with time on their hands – impossible in a city police force – then anyone going to the file would see it as closed and dismiss it. No-one would have the time or the energy to investigate the sudden dismissal of a case.

  He stood and took the hard copy of the file over to the window. He leafed through it memorising the names and addresses of the people involved. There was only one sure way to find out the truth and that was to extract it, in whatever way was required.

  *

  North Korea

  Travelling in a state that was somewhere between half death and complete death was easy providing the transport was in place. Arriving at Sunan International Airport, via Bejing, had been relatively easy for Zack; board the plane, sit and wait. But on arriving in Korea, he knew that getting to where he wanted to be was going to be difficult. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was not an easy place to navigate for a living person, let alone a dead one, Zack thought. He didn’t even know if he was doing the right thing. During his searches that night in the British library he had stumbled across some film footage from You Tube: an interview with a Red Cross worker who had talked about poverty in rural Korea and mentioned one case of a snake bite and a narrow escape from death owing to lack of medicine and care. Apparently the ex-soldier had believed that he’d witnessed a miracle, a flash of white light and that was what had saved him. He had been pensioned off by the People’s army on account of it. On the strength of that one film, Zack had made his way from Berlin to Bejing and then to North Korea and now he was beginning to regret the decision.

  He wandered round the airport, trying to think of ways to get to where he wanted to be, although he wasn’t quite sure where that was. He had come across reports of secret weapons tests in a rural part of North Korea, but he didn’t read well and he couldn’t make sense of the map. So, he sat at the exit to the airport and watched a group of tourists as they collected their luggage. Their bus was waiting at the exit to the airport and not knowing what else to do; Zack followed them out and boarded the bus with them. Half an hour later he was on his way to a hotel with the party, stuck at the back of an old bus – the only seat available – staring at the wide open streets of Pyongyang – the DPR of Korea’s glittering, (and only) city.

  *

  London

  Molly and Dev were sitting in the British Library side by side looking through a book on astronomy. Ever since the kiss the night before Molly had been waiting for another one, but nothing had been forthcoming. Dev flicked through the pages, the small thought that had flashed into his mind the previous night still not anchored, still bobbing about in his vast ocean of a brain and he just wasn’t able to make sense of it. He was preoccupied, even when Molly put her head on his shoulder he simply patted the top of it, like she was a dog, and carried on looking. She stood up at that point to have a wander round and stretch her legs and she took her phone out to scroll down her messages. She’d heard nothing from Zack and she missed him. That was it, the simple truth, she missed a ghost. She really was losing it.

  Walking the aisles she couldn’t help thinking about him, about his surliness and his solitude; it seemed to bounce off him in waves. She hated the way he impersonated her voice, in a whiney way, that made her sound spoilt, but there was something about the way that he did it that was spot on. She smiled. They thought she was mad, creating imaginary friends, hearing voices. Suddenly Molly stopped dead in the centre of one of the aisles and chewed her finger nail. Maybe she was mad. She strode back to Dev and slumped down next to him. Maybe they were right and she was mad – maybe...

  “You OK?” Dev asked. He could sense her mood; it hung round her like a cloud.

  “Fine,” she snapped. She sat there, arms folded across her chest and her chin down. She sighed a few times and finally he looked up at her.

  “Molly, what is it?”

  “Dev, maybe I am mad. Maybe the people from CAMHS are right, maybe I should go and see someone and get myself checked out. I mean, I walk around like some massive shipwreck most of the time, unable to...”

  “Shipwreck!” Dev suddenly said. He snapped his fingers. “SHIPWRECK! That’s it! Ships! It’s a ship!” He pulled her in to him and kissed her smack on the lips. “Molly,” he said, breaking away from her, “you are not mad, you are a genius!”

  Molly looked at him bewildered. “What...”

  Dev began rifling frantically back through the pages of the book. “The stars, they make the shape of the Argo Navis! It’s a ship. Here! Here!” The elusive thought was finally pinned down, nailed to his IQ. He found the page he needed and they both looked down at a complex, ancient drawing of constellations in the shape of a ship.

  “Pyxis, the one at the church, that’s the nautical box, or the Mariner’s compass. Puppis, the picture on your phone from Berlin, that makes up the stern of the boat. Vela, the constellation on the housing estate, that’s the keel. They’re all part of a bigger constellation called Argo Navis! There’s one more, Carina, that’s the sails of the boat. Look – here!” Dev took out his notebook and began drawing the shape of the boat – similar to the arc that he’d drawn a few days ago and abandoned.

  He stopped drawing and held the image out to her. “That’s it Molly, that’s how they’re linked – they are all stars that form the Argo Navis ...”

  “Except Carina – we haven’t got that one.”

  “No but...”

  Molly looked at him. “Isn’t this a bit far-fetched Dev?” she suggested. Now she knew why she missed Zack; she missed his cynicism, his down to earth attitude. He loved to throw cold water on the flames of Dev’s imagination. “I’m not sure that you’ve got it right. If Zack were here he’d say...”

  Dev pulled his shoulders back a little at the so
und of Zack’s name. “Zack?” he questioned. “Zack is a ghost Molly.”

  “Yes, but he is quite practical and I’m not sure...”

  “Hello? Zack is a ghost Molly – he’s dead. He’s not real!”

  Molly chewed her nail again. “He feels kind of real to me Dev.”

  Dev shook his head. “Well real or imaginary, I think that’s what these symbols are all about; I think that they make up the Argo Navis.”

  “OK...” Molly was still unconvinced. “And the Argo Navis is...?”

  “It’s a ship...” Dev frowned. “It’s got all sorts of connotations, but uhm, I’m not very good at history – maths and physics are my things.”

  “But if it’s missing the sails, the star... what did you say it was called...?”

  “Carina.”

  “Yes, Carina, the sails, then it’s not the boat is it?”

  Dev shook his head and smiled. “Molly,” he said, leaning in to kiss her again, “you like to challenge me and I like to meet that challenge. Come on...” He took his coat off the back of the chair. “Let’s go,”

  “Where?”

  “To the Ancient Mythology section...”

  He stood and waited for her to collect up her bag, coat, hat and scarf. “The mythology section?”

  Dev smiled. “Yes, and after that we’ll hit the newsprint section. We’re going to find out what this all means, because in some weird way I know it’s all linked.”

  “Weird way is right,” Molly muttered under her breath as they left, “really weird way...”

  *

  Jake sat at his desk at work and thought about his wife Jenny and how good she’d looked the day before when he’d seen her. She was almost like her old self – it was as if Chris had never been gone. He drew lots of doodles on the pad in front of him but he couldn’t focus on work today. He kept remembering the packet of Haribo and how it definitely hadn’t been in the car the previous week.

  And the more he thought about it, the more he remembered other little things that had happened in the past fortnight; the book that Sophie had left in the car – that she denied even bringing out with her, finding his hat and gloves on the dashboard when it was freezing and he couldn’t find them anywhere in the house. He certainly didn’t remember leaving them on the dash board. The cricket ball that had turned up in the boot of the car and that had made him feel so sad that he couldn’t drive for ages. Cricket had been Chris’s favourite sport. Odd things, things he couldn’t explain, except by way of him losing his mind.

  He put his head in his hands. Perhaps that was it; perhaps he was losing his mind. He had certainly found the past few months difficult enough and maybe this was his brain telling him that he couldn’t cope. He wondered what he should do, who he should tell about this. He didn’t want to mention it at work and he couldn’t tell Jenny, she had enough dealing with her own loss. He drew another doodle and thought about Father Tom at church. He didn’t really go to church, that had been Jenny’s thing, but perhaps talking to a priest might be the right thing to do. Perhaps someone who knew about death and grief would be able to advise him on how to go forward. He would go and see Father Tom and maybe he could explain the odd happenings.

  *

  North Korea

  Zack sat in the hotel lobby with his redundant phone in his hand. There was no internet in North Korea and there was no way of telling Molly anything should he find anything, which at the moment looked doubtful. He didn’t know where to begin. The tourists at the hotel had been allowed to go around the city on special organised tours, one of which he’d joined, but he had learned nothing except the virtues of the esteemed leader Kim Jong-ll. Everywhere there were giant pictures and posters of the leaders of North Korea and everywhere else just wide empty streets and dull buildings with busy people going about their daily lives disconnected to the rest of the world. No mobile phones, no shops and certainly no MacDonald’s. Zack knew what he was looking for, but he didn’t have any idea of how to find it so he had resigned himself to leaving on the next tourist bus back to the airport and then to Bejing and home.

  He stood to walk the long length of the lobby to see what was going on out of the long side window. The ground to the side of the hotel had a junior brigade on it marching endlessly up and down, but that bored him within minutes. As he walked back to where he had been sitting he saw a commotion up ahead. He hurried back to see what was going on.

  An army truck sat outside the main entrance waiting, it seemed, for two officials who were shaking hands with a number of people lined up by the reception desk. They were both in full military regalia, with medals and braid. Zack watched them for a short while and then he had a blinding flash of inspiration. If he wanted to get anywhere out of the city this was probably going to be the route. He glanced at the truck, waited until the automatic glass doors opened to let the two men out, he slipped past them and climbed into the back of the truck. It took less than five minutes to be on his way out of Pyonyang and en route to somewhere completely unknown.

  The journey lasted four hours and by the end of it Zack was amazed at what he’d seen. The further away from the city they got, the less modern the landscape was, with oxen pulling ploughs and people travelling on foot. He felt as if he had stepped back in time. The flat plains gave way to mountains and then to more arid lands and finally to a remote desert area, where the land had been flattened and vast concrete buildings covered the space. The truck pulled into a fenced and gated area and passed through security. Zack pressed his nose to the glass, but it was pitch black – there was no light pollution here; there was very little electricity.

  The truck pulled up outside what looked like living quarters and the two army officials climbed out. They spoke to the driver and then made their way inside. Zack too climbed out of the truck and darted inside the building. He followed the first man into the lift and up to a fifth story apartment; one room and a bedroom. Zack took the sofa and put his feet up; it was far too dark to look around tonight. He would wait until the morning.

  CHAPTER 14 - London

  The assassin stepped into the pub in west London and was assaulted by the heavy beat of some pounding techno anthem that blitzed his senses. The place did nothing to impress him. It was dingy, with the smell of stale sweat hanging in the air and a scattering of people dismally drinking in the mid-morning. This was a place that was sour and tired and rank. The clientele kept their heads down, trying to avoid eye contact with each other, to avoid being singled out by the menacing trio playing pool over in the corner.

  The assassin walked across to the bar and ordered a drink. He could feel the eyes that followed him across the grimy room. Instantly he knew the reason why – it was no real puzzle – he was the only smartly dressed person in the pub and he looked like he had a purpose; no-one else did. He paid no attention to the stares however; they made no difference to him. What mattered was the job at hand; getting his mark. He left his drink where it was and began to walk towards the three men at the pool table. They noticed his approach and stopped their game. They were posturing amateurs who relied on safety in numbers, he thought briefly. The leader – he looked the biggest of the three – raised his cue threateningly at the assassin and spoke;

  “You don’t belong here. Get!”

  In reply the assassin swiftly tore the cue out of his hands, spun it round and jammed the sharp end underneath the man’s chin, the point pressing painfully into the man’s thick neck. The movement was so incisive and sudden that the other two men were stunned by it. People moved back; the other two pool players stood motionless for a moment, ready to pounce but there was something about this man in the suit, something powerful and menacing. They stayed where they were. The assassin enjoyed the moment of power, letting the silence build before he chose to speak.

  “You will now do exactly what I say if you value your lives.” His voice had hardly a trace of accent – just the faint twang of North American on the ends of his words. “Is that clear?” he
said, pressing the point of the cue harder against the man’s throat. The leader seemed paralysed with fear, unable to move his head. The other two men nodded. The assassin gave nothing away.

  “Good, there are things that you are going to tell me, but not here.” With that he released the cue from the man’s fleshy neck, and his mark gasped in relief. He went for the gun in his pocket, pulled it out but it was struck out of his hands before he had registered the feel of it. He was too slow. All three of them watched as it skittered across the floor.

  “Don’t be stupid,” the assassin said. He put his hand over his jacket and pulled it back slightly. All three men looked then at the weapons strapped across his body under his suit.

  “We’re going out the back,” he said. “Lead the way.”

  *

  The knock on the front door interrupted Father Tom’s mid-morning coffee – a ritual that gave him at least half an hour of peace in his busy day. Not this morning. He left his coffee and biscuits where they were and went to the door.

  “Hello?”

  “Father Tom, you may not remember me but I’m...”

  “Jenny’s husband,” Tom said. He smiled. “I always remember faces, but not names.”

  “Jake, I’m Jake.”

  “Of course! Jake. Come in. What can I do for you?”

  Father Tom led the way into the kitchen where he’d been drinking his coffee. He turned.

  “Sorry, am I interrupting your break?”

  “Not at all. Sit down and I’ll make you a coffee.” Father Tom looked at Jake. Dishevelled and grey, he looked worse than Jenny – more lost, more confused. The death of a child, Father Tom thought, was as unnatural as life could get. He brought the coffee over to the table where Jake had pulled out a seat.

  “You look worried Jake,” Father Tom said, taking a seat opposite him. “What can I do to help?”