A MAN TO FEAR
It was a typical damp day at the beach.
I sat in the café, sipping my mocha, watched the occasional family of holiday makers passing by. Heads down, hoods up, tramping through the puddles with expressions of grim determination, on their way from café to amusement arcade, amusement arcade to bowling alley, bowling alley to café. Cold, wet and miserable, but determined to have their moneys worth out of the holiday. Even if it killed them.
The irony amused me, since it certainly would kill some of them.
The chocolate sponge was excellent. I savoured the taste and texture, whilst contemplating the pros and cons of the weather. The sparse number of people around meant less natural camouflage for me, but would also reduce the amount of collateral damage. Not that I have any objection to collateral damage. A reasonable amount is good for business. It shows customers that you’ll get the job done, no matter what. But too much looks messy and unprofessional. On the whole, I favoured the weather.
I finished the cake, checked my watch. Ten minutes. Give or take a minute. The target was very predictable, which also meant unsuspecting. Good. An alert target was a difficult one.
Putting down the empty cup, I nodded to the waitress, and stepped outside. The outside tables were deserted, of course, which also suited my plans. I took a deep breath of fresh salt-laden air and checked over the kill-zone once last time.
Below me, a wide expanse of green grass swept down towards the soggy beach and the sullen grey sea. It was bisected by the coast road. On a good day, the road was often jammed with slow-moving traffic, the roadside parking full from early in the morning, and the grass covered with picnickers.
Today, the road was quiet. Just three vehicles were parked at this end, and there were no picnickers.
I focused my attention on the white Astra van, parked nearest to the road junction just below me. Undisturbed, no one showing any interest in it. Looking further, the elderly couple walking a dog were well within the blast radius, and would be unlikely to survive. The few other people visible would most probably suffer various degrees of injury, some of which might prove to be fatal. All the windows round the green would go, of course, and anyone near them would sustain serious lacerations from the flying glass.
Even on such a slow day, the panic would be considerable, and would cover my exit effectively.
I moved to check my watch, but then saw the target approaching. A silver-grey Jaguar. Major-General Sir Antony Carlsford, retired, and his wife. Driving through town on their way to lunch at the golf club. As they did twice a week, without fail. Whatever the General had been whilst on active service, he had not been involved in intelligence or security operations. No one with that sort of background would allow themselves to become so predictable. I doubted if his army career had anything to do with the contract. Not that I cared, either way. I was just pleased that he was such an easy target.
The Jaguar slowed down for the junction. I pulled the transmitter out of my pocket, flicked the arming switch. As the car drew level with the Astra, I dropped behind the low wall and pressed the button.
The concussion was ear-shattering – literally, if I hadn’t taken the precaution of putting in ear plugs. I had already confirmed that the wall was sturdy enough to withstand the blast.
There was, of course, some element of risk in initiating from such close range. But with proper planning it was minimal. And it had the great advantage of covering my tracks. When the investigation started, they would be looking for some sort of observation point at a safe distance. I’d used the tactic on several previous occasions, with complete success.
I waited a moment for the debris to finish falling, then stood up, brushed myself off, and surveyed the scene.
The timing, I was pleased to see, was perfect, and the Semtex had done an excellent job. The detonation had smashed into the Jaguar’s off-side and ripped it open. Mangled wreckage was strewn across hundreds of yards, littering the grass and flower beds. The large sections were burning nicely.
One General, deleted. And his wife, of course.
I allowed myself a smile. It’s always nice to see a plan come together so well.
Looking around, I assessed the collateral damage. Where the Astra van had been was only a shallow smoking crater: the other parked vehicles were in similar condition to the Jaguar. No sign at all of the elderly couple, or their dog, whose component parts would now be scattered in the general direction of the beach. At the far end of the green, some figures were visible. One or two were moving, feebly, though the screaming had not yet begun. Indeed, there was very little sound at all. The breeze seemed to have died down and the seagulls were uncharacteristically silent. All I could hear was the distant crash of waves on the sand.
And a movement, behind me.
I turned sharply. In the café, just rising to her feet was the waitress. Remarkable, she appeared uninjured beyond some superficial cuts. She was staring at me, and at the transmitter I still held in my hand.
I swore under my breath. This was a complication I had not planned on.
“What – what happened?” I said to her. Doing my best to sound in shock. Holding eye contact, whilst unzipping my coat and moving my hand inside. “Was it a gas explosion?”
The waitress didn't answer. Her face was expressionless, and she was standing totally still. Only her eyes moved, watching my arm, as I dropped the transmitter in a pocket and reached for the silenced Glock.
I didn't really want to shoot her. A bullet would give away far too much information. Ideally, I would get her inside and out of sight, then use the knife. Plenty of cuts, to make it look like she was killed by flying glass.
But if she tried to run, it would have to be the pistol. I had no intention of leaving a witness.
She didn't run. Instead, as I began to pull the Glock free, she suddenly bent down. Snatched something up from the floor, and flung it at me.
I’m fast. I have hair-trigger reflexes, reaction times in the top few percent. But she was faster. Impossibly faster. I was still bringing the gun up to aim when her missile struck my forehead.
The impact was so powerful that my head was snapped backwards, and my body followed. Standing next to the wall as I was, I had no room to recover my balance. I flipped over backwards, and crashed down the four foot drop the other side.
I had sufficient control to manage to land on my shoulder, not my head. But the impact was painful, and I knew at once that I would have difficulty using that arm for a while. Even worse was the blood that was pouring down my face. The pain, I could deal with. But I needed my vision.
What had she hit me with? I went over the last few seconds in my mind as I groped for a handkerchief.
A piece of glass. It had caught the feeble light as she’d snatched it up. A section of broken glass from the café window, about six inches across, flung like a Frisbee. Straight into my face.
Who was this women? A waitress with speed and reflexes better than mine? Fast enough to evaluate a threat and respond with an improvised weapon whilst I was still drawing my pistol?
People with those skills did not work as waitresses. Unless, of course, they were undercover.
But if she were MI5 or Special Branch, I would have been taken down before I could set off the bomb. If they knew enough to stake out my observation post, then they would have known about the Astra as well…. Plus which, she would have been properly armed.
It made no sense.
It was now imperative that I get this so-called waitress and, hopefully, ask some questions before I killed her. I had to know what was going on.
Holding the handkerchief to my forehead, I got to my feet and peered cautiously over the wall.
The waitress was gone. At the back of the café, a door swung ajar.
I vaulted back over the wall, ran back into the café – through the shattered window, no point in bothering with the door – round the counter, and (being mindful of flung glass) more cautiously through the door.
The kitchen beyond was empty. The café didn’t run to a cook, just rows of microwaves where the waitresses could warm up the pre-packed sausage rolls and ciabattas. And on a slow day like today, just one waitress. Who, it seemed, had now left the building, probably via the fire escape door just ahead of me.
I kicked the door open, and peered out, gun extended. Beyond was a small yard – delivery area and staff car parking. A red hatchback was just disappearing out of the gate at the far end. Driving fast. But not so fast that I didn't get a glimpse of the registration - and a glimpse was all I needed.
My motorbike was just a short distance away. I made my way there through streets filling up with people in various states of shock, horror and panic. I blended in, staggering a little as I went. The blood covering my face helped – the biggest obstacle was people trying to help me. I pushed past them, mumbling incoherently. Behind me the screaming had begun.
On the way, I pulled out my mobile, and sent a text. Just a short one – the numbers and letters of the vehicle registration. Short but expensive: the person who received it would charge me five thousand pounds for the database search. But it would be thorough. DVLA, Police, insurance – anything known about that number would be located and made available.
In my business, it helps to know the right people. Or at least, to have their numbers.
The motorbike was parked, legally but unobtrusively, down a side alley. I took a moment to swap my coat for a leather jacket and to put a dressing over the wound on my scalp. Didn't want blood in my eyes once I got on the road. I put the helmet on with more care than usual, then got started.
First stop was the Police Station, out on the edge of town. After all, it was the logical place to go for someone who had just witnessed a bomb being set off. I drove carefully through the streets of a town suffering collective shock, with most people standing round gaping at the thinning column of smoke.
The Police Station, when I got there, wasn't much different, with officers and staff milling around in the car park. No doubt someone would eventually think of setting up cordons, but I’d be long gone by then.
Of more immediate interest to me was that the red hatchback wasn't there. Neither was the waitress. I hadn't expected her to be, but it needed to be checked.
My phone beeped. A short message, directing me to a website which could only be viewed once. After that, it would be deleted.
On the site was the complete history of an unremarkable Fiesta, purchased two years ago and registered in the name of ‘The Phren Foundation’. Taxed, insured, not involved in crime or reported stolen.
‘Phren’. Ancient Greek for mind or brain. As in schizophrenia. Some sort of study or research group, probably. But why would a waitress in a small seaside town be driving one of their cars?
A waitress with abnormally fast reflexes, I remembered. A research foundation might well be interested in someone with such unusual abilities. But if so, why was she working as a waitress at all?
This was getting both stranger and murkier. But also more dangerous to me. If she was connected to some sort of research project, then the chances of her report being investigated went up. My anonymity was an essential tool of my trade. In all the years I’d been in business, I had never once left a living eyewitness, and I had no intention of breaking the habit.
I did a little more surfing. ‘The Phren Foundation’ was a remarkably diffident organisation, with very little information about it in the public domain. But it did have an address, and that was just fifteen miles away.
I swung the bike out onto the road and opened up the throttle. The first ambulances were passing me as I left town.
*
The rain had finally eased off, allowing a little weak sunset light to wash over the landscape. I shifted position, moved along the tree line and, used the last of the daylight to survey my objective from another position.
The Phren Foundation was as shy and retiring in the real world as it was online. There was no sign outside to indicate the buildings function. However, the awkward clumping together of architectural styles screamed ‘Institution’ to the world. What had once been a pleasant if unremarkable country manor was now sadly defaced by the addition of various wings and outbuildings. Old brickwork rubbed shoulders with orange plastic panels and featureless concreted slabs.
Whatever the Foundation’s business was, it had nothing to do with aesthetics.
It did, however, have a lot of security. My new position confirmed what I’d seen previously. Double fences, CCTV coverage. No manned positions or patrols, though, which was good. No doubt there were alarms on the fences, but people tended to rely far too much on such things. There’s always a way in, if you want it badly enough.
I wanted it quite badly. I’d identified the car, parked at the front of the building with several others. Which meant that the waitress was probably inside, which meant that she’d probably talked to people there. I needed to know who, and how many, and the chances were I’d have to kill quite a lot of them.
The best thing, I decided, would be an accident. A gas explosion and a fire would be ideal. Of course, coming so soon after the bomb it would be treated with great suspicion, but fires are very good for removing forensic evidence. Besides, such an eyesore needed to be destroyed.
I waited till it was fully dark, then moved to the back of the building. I’d identified a potential gap in the CCTV coverage, directly below one camera (its mounting prevented it from looking straight down) and shielded from the others by undergrowth. Cutting a bottom strand in the outer fence gave me plenty of room to wriggle through.
As anticipated, the inner fence was alarmed, and also electrified. A bit more of a challenge, but not much. A few moments work with crocodile clips and lengths of wire isolated a section, which could then be treated in the same way as the outer fence.
My real problem would be finding the waitress inside the confusing tangle of buildings. If it was a mess outside, it would be a warren inside.
The best way to develop intelligence on a target like this was to start with the lighted windows. Which sounds too obvious to be true, but it is. When the outside is dark, you can look into a lighted room with less chance of being seen, and get an idea of the layout. Whereas trying to see into a darkened room without specialist equipment is difficult, and entering one is dangerous.
Fortunately, there were plenty of lights on inside. Unfortunately, most were on the first or second floors, but that gave me enough to start on. Keeping to the shadows, I moved forward.
The first window looked into a deserted kitchen. Evening meal served, washing up done.
The second was a corridor. An open door at the end showed part of an office. I listened as well as looked. There was a faint sound of music, cut short as a door slammed. Distant footsteps on an uncarpeted floor.
That told me that the place was occupied, but not busy. The residential staff – and I doubted if a place as secretive as this had any other sort – would be settling down for the evening. Some might be working late, but offices would be mostly empty.
The third window I came too looked into a small lounge. Some comfortable armchairs, a TV, a few books and magazines, and one occupant. The waitress, sitting quietly on a settee near the fireplace.
The identification was positive. I had a clear view of her, three-quarters angle on the left side of her face. She sat perfectly still, staring expressionlessly into nothing. Not moving.
In shock? That wouldn't be surprising, considering the events of the day – but it didn’t fit with idea of a trained professional who could react instantly to a dangerous situation. There were just too many mysteries here.
I had already identified an access point. Several, in fact. The Phren Foundation relied on their CCTV and alarmed fences for security. As a result, they were careless about leaving windows open. I selected the nearest one, listened for a few moments, then eased it open and climbed inside. Found myself in the ladies. The door led out into a deserted corridor. Orienting myself, I moved in the direction of the lounge, with my Glock in hand.
More sounds in the distance, but nothing to concern me. A door, conveniently labelled ‘TV Lounge’, was just where I’d estimated it would be. I tried the handle carefully. It needed oiling – the squeak was quite loud enough to be heard from inside, so I wasted no more time. Opened the door, walked in, gun pointed.
The waitress was still sitting exactly as I’d seen her before.
“Don’t move.” I said, shutting the door behind me. “Don’t attempt to attract attention. If you do, I will kill you and anyone who comes to investigate.”
I wasn't sure what reaction I’d get. Remembering the blistering speed of her reflexes, I was quite prepared for an immediate assault with any weapon that came to her hand, so I kept the Glock aimed straight at her head. What I wasn’t expecting was to be ignored. But she neither spoke, nor moved.
I moved further round the room, went to the curtains and pulled them across. I didn’t want anyone else looking in as I had.
“Please raise your hands so that I can see them.” I told her.
There was still no reaction. I continued to circle the room until I could see that she had nothing in her hands. They rested loosely on her lap. Mindful of her capabilities, I stayed well clear, and considered the situation with increasing unease.
The woman appeared to be catatonic. If so, there was very little chance of getting any useful information out of her. I considered my choices. It might be best to simply kill her and initiate a fire to cover the traces, but that would leave an uncomfortable number of loose ends. I decided to have one more try.
I had no intention of getting close enough to touch her. Instead, I sighted carefully, and fire one round. The silencer was effective, and the small noise it made was all but drowned out by the solid thump as the bullet buried itself in the back of the settee. Having removed a small part of the waitresses left ear lobe on the way.
“If you do not obey my instructions,” I told her, “The next bullet will be eight centimetres up and to the right, and will kill you.”
There was no reply, and no movement apart from the bright red drips falling from her ear.
“Very well.” I said. Patience exhausted, I shifted my aim slightly.
“You’re wasting your time.” The voice, male, middle aged, was accompanied by a faint electrical overtone, and came from the TV. The screen flicked into life, and showed me a man to match the voice. Thin, finally chiselled features, thinning grey hair.
Being fully in control of myself, I didn’t react by shooting the TV. Instead, I stepped back, moved my Glock to cover the door, and scanned the walls for the hidden cameras.
“Why am I wasting my time?” I asked casually. “Mr… ?”
“Doctor Remard.” He answered. “You’re wasting your time because Danica is unable to respond. She is deactivated.”
“Deactivated?” I glanced back at the waitress. She certainly looked deactivated. “That sounds like she’s a robot. But she’s bleeding.”
Doctor Remard smiled from the TV screen. “An organic robot would be a good laymans description, I suppose. But please, put the gun down. Shooting Danica would be meaningless, and there’s no one else in that part of the building now. We cleared it as soon as we became aware of your presence, and our Security is alerted.”
I had no intention of putting the gun down. I doubted if the Security guards would be any threat to me, and I now had to find and kill this Doctor Remard. The body count on this operation looked like becoming enormous. And it had started out so promisingly.
“What’s an organic robot?” I asked.
“A human being with a cybernetic overlay.” Remard said. “The technicalities are, of course, quite complicated, but you can think of it as a human organism fully interfaced with a mainframe computer.”
“Really?” I was impressed. “I thought we were years away from that capability.” But it might be an explanation for the waitress’s unusual reflexes.
“Oh, we’re very advanced here.” He sounded quite proud. “But of course, that means that we can’t allow you to leave with this knowledge.”
“I can keep a secret.” I answered casually. “I’ll offer you a proposition. Turn off your internal TV cameras, destroy any recordings you have of me, and I’ll leave without killing anyone. Not even Danica. And if you don’t mention me to anyone, I won’t mention you. OK?” Not a deal I had any intention of keeping, of course, but if I could persuade them to drop the surveillance, it would be an advantage.
“An interesting idea.” The Doctor nodded, as if thinking it over. “But to clarify one point – we have no internal CCTV. “
“Then how did you know I was here?”
“Through Danica… though she is currently deactivated, she is still being monitored. Everything she sees or hears is passed over the digital link to our mainframe.”
“Indeed. Thank you for telling me.” I switched my aim back from the door, and shot her in the chest.
But Danica was no longer deactivated. She was up and moving with the same impossible speed that she had shown before, and even though I pumped three more bullets into her, she kept coming, knocked the gun aside, and slammed me back against the wall. My head struck something hard, and I was unable to defend myself as the waitress closed her hands round my neck, choking me even as her life blood pumped out.
*
When I came round, my life was flashing before my eyes.
Quite literally. Directly in front of me was a large flat screen TV, and the images fading and disappearing on it were familiar ones. Memories.
I saw the General’s Jaguar coming down the coast road. Saw the transmitter in my hands as I ducked behind the wall.
“Ah, yes. So that’s how you did it.” Doctor Remards voice, from somewhere behind me. “The images are much clearer now that you’re awake.”
I tried to move my arms, but they weren’t responding. With a tremendous effort, I managed to move my head slightly, and my eyes. Just enough to see that there was an operating table nearby, and on it was Danica. She was naked, with several holes in her chest, and looked dead.
“Don’t look away, please.” The Doctor sounded annoyed. “We need you to watch the screen. The feedback helps calibration.”
I tried to speak. My mouth was very dry and as unresponsive as the rest of me, but I managed to choke out a few words.
“is… she…d…”
“Dead? Danica? Yes, of course. You destroyed her heart and several other vital organs. No matter, though. She was of no more use to us.”
“Why….”
Doctor Remard came into my field of vision. “You really shouldn’t be talking, you know, let alone moving. Quite impressive. We may have to increase the dosage, but we don’t want you unconscious again….”
I concentrated on talking. “Why… no use?”
Remard gripped my head and moved it back to its original position, so that I was staring once more at the screen. It blurred for a moment, then showed Danica serving me with mocha and chocolate sponge.
“She was quite ruined, I’m afraid. The computer was operating her as a normal human being. Having her work as a waitress was an experiment - a very successful one, as it happens. With the link activated, she passed as a fully normal person, able to interact with staff and customers without arousing any suspicion at all.”
He went over to the TV, did something to a control panel just on the edge of my vision. The picture shifted, and once again I saw Danica’s incredible reaction speed as she flung the broken glass into my face.
“However, the computer is programmed to react to emergency situations. It was a risk, you see, having Danica out in the community. If she’d suffered an accident, for example, and been examined in hospital, it might have been awkward. Of course, we didn’t have an assassination in mind! All the same, the computer analysed the situation, recognised the threat, and initiated the emergency programming. Boosted her reaction times to several times normal, and got her back here as fast as possible.”
He turned back to me. “Unfortunately, the human component of her nervous system couldn’t cope with that. You might think of it as an overloaded electrical circuit. Burned out. She’s been left with just her basic functions. Not enough left for speech, or even to eat. Barely enough to keep her breathing. The Danica experiment is over, I’m afraid.”
He smiled down at me. It wasn't a pleasant smile.
“But not to worry – we've got you, now.”
“Me….” I croaked.
“Oh yes. I must admit, I was quite annoyed when I saw the state Danica had come back in. But when we replayed her memories, and saw you, it occurred to me that here was an ideal experimental subject”.
“No…”
Remard chuckled. “Yes, you are! Think about it. A very secretive man – no one knows who you are, so who will miss you? And obviously, highly intelligent. That’s one of the big problems we’ve been having. Finding suitable experimental subjects. Mostly, we have to use people like Danica. She came from an orphanage in Eastern Europe… no family, and a long way below the norm, mentally. Barely more than a vegetable! But with the cybernetic overlay, we were able to make her operate like a fully functional human being!”
He laid a finger gently on my cheek. “But we need to find out what can be done with a more capable subject. Someone with a much higher baseline intelligence….. I have to say, this is very exciting. As soon as I saw you in Danica’s memories, I knew that you would come looking for her. So we set things up for you to find her, and waited.” He shook his head. “Really, I can’t believe the luck! I couldn't have found a better subject if I’d had my pick of university graduates. And you came and found us!”
There was fear in me now. A panic that I had never known before was rising, flooding me. I made another futile effort to move.
“I’ll pay you. “ I gasped. “I’ll find .. subjects for you. Many as you like…”
“Pay us?” Renard chortled. “My dear fellow, money’s not a problem. You wouldn't believe the funding we’re getting. And we don’t need a lot of subjects, just the right sort. You’ll do nicely”. He turned away.
“I’ll kill you!” I gasped out. It didn't sound very threatening, even to me.
Renard looked back at me, with a raised eyebrow. “Oh, I’m sure you’d like to. But it won’t happen. Once the cybernetic overlay is completed, ‘you’ won’t exist. One of the side effects of the process is that it wipes all previous memories. Leaves us a clean slate, as it were, on which we can write whatever personality we want. And trust me, I won’t be re-creating you as a vengeful assassin!”
He smiled broadly, and indicated the screen. “Say goodbye to your memories!”
As he disappeared from view, I tried to scream. But now I had lost even that.
It was a typical damp day at the beach.
I sat in the café, sipping my mocha, watched the occasional family of holiday makers passing by. Heads down, hoods up, tramping through the puddles with expressions of grim determination, on their way from café to amusement arcade, amusement arcade to bowling alley, bowling alley to café. Cold, wet and miserable, but determined to have their moneys worth out of the holiday. Even if it killed them.
The irony amused me, since it certainly would kill some of them.
The chocolate sponge was excellent. I savoured the taste and texture, whilst contemplating the pros and cons of the weather. The sparse number of people around meant less natural camouflage for me, but would also reduce the amount of collateral damage. Not that I have any objection to collateral damage. A reasonable amount is good for business. It shows customers that you’ll get the job done, no matter what. But too much looks messy and unprofessional. On the whole, I favoured the weather.
I finished the cake, checked my watch. Ten minutes. Give or take a minute. The target was very predictable, which also meant unsuspecting. Good. An alert target was a difficult one.
Putting down the empty cup, I nodded to the waitress, and stepped outside. The outside tables were deserted, of course, which also suited my plans. I took a deep breath of fresh salt-laden air and checked over the kill-zone once last time.
Below me, a wide expanse of green grass swept down towards the soggy beach and the sullen grey sea. It was bisected by the coast road. On a good day, the road was often jammed with slow-moving traffic, the roadside parking full from early in the morning, and the grass covered with picnickers.
Today, the road was quiet. Just three vehicles were parked at this end, and there were no picnickers.
I focused my attention on the white Astra van, parked nearest to the road junction just below me. Undisturbed, no one showing any interest in it. Looking further, the elderly couple walking a dog were well within the blast radius, and would be unlikely to survive. The few other people visible would most probably suffer various degrees of injury, some of which might prove to be fatal. All the windows round the green would go, of course, and anyone near them would sustain serious lacerations from the flying glass.
Even on such a slow day, the panic would be considerable, and would cover my exit effectively.
I moved to check my watch, but then saw the target approaching. A silver-grey Jaguar. Major-General Sir Antony Carlsford, retired, and his wife. Driving through town on their way to lunch at the golf club. As they did twice a week, without fail. Whatever the General had been whilst on active service, he had not been involved in intelligence or security operations. No one with that sort of background would allow themselves to become so predictable. I doubted if his army career had anything to do with the contract. Not that I cared, either way. I was just pleased that he was such an easy target.
The Jaguar slowed down for the junction. I pulled the transmitter out of my pocket, flicked the arming switch. As the car drew level with the Astra, I dropped behind the low wall and pressed the button.
The concussion was ear-shattering – literally, if I hadn’t taken the precaution of putting in ear plugs. I had already confirmed that the wall was sturdy enough to withstand the blast.
There was, of course, some element of risk in initiating from such close range. But with proper planning it was minimal. And it had the great advantage of covering my tracks. When the investigation started, they would be looking for some sort of observation point at a safe distance. I’d used the tactic on several previous occasions, with complete success.
I waited a moment for the debris to finish falling, then stood up, brushed myself off, and surveyed the scene.
The timing, I was pleased to see, was perfect, and the Semtex had done an excellent job. The detonation had smashed into the Jaguar’s off-side and ripped it open. Mangled wreckage was strewn across hundreds of yards, littering the grass and flower beds. The large sections were burning nicely.
One General, deleted. And his wife, of course.
I allowed myself a smile. It’s always nice to see a plan come together so well.
Looking around, I assessed the collateral damage. Where the Astra van had been was only a shallow smoking crater: the other parked vehicles were in similar condition to the Jaguar. No sign at all of the elderly couple, or their dog, whose component parts would now be scattered in the general direction of the beach. At the far end of the green, some figures were visible. One or two were moving, feebly, though the screaming had not yet begun. Indeed, there was very little sound at all. The breeze seemed to have died down and the seagulls were uncharacteristically silent. All I could hear was the distant crash of waves on the sand.
And a movement, behind me.
I turned sharply. In the café, just rising to her feet was the waitress. Remarkable, she appeared uninjured beyond some superficial cuts. She was staring at me, and at the transmitter I still held in my hand.
I swore under my breath. This was a complication I had not planned on.
“What – what happened?” I said to her. Doing my best to sound in shock. Holding eye contact, whilst unzipping my coat and moving my hand inside. “Was it a gas explosion?”
The waitress didn't answer. Her face was expressionless, and she was standing totally still. Only her eyes moved, watching my arm, as I dropped the transmitter in a pocket and reached for the silenced Glock.
I didn't really want to shoot her. A bullet would give away far too much information. Ideally, I would get her inside and out of sight, then use the knife. Plenty of cuts, to make it look like she was killed by flying glass.
But if she tried to run, it would have to be the pistol. I had no intention of leaving a witness.
She didn't run. Instead, as I began to pull the Glock free, she suddenly bent down. Snatched something up from the floor, and flung it at me.
I’m fast. I have hair-trigger reflexes, reaction times in the top few percent. But she was faster. Impossibly faster. I was still bringing the gun up to aim when her missile struck my forehead.
The impact was so powerful that my head was snapped backwards, and my body followed. Standing next to the wall as I was, I had no room to recover my balance. I flipped over backwards, and crashed down the four foot drop the other side.
I had sufficient control to manage to land on my shoulder, not my head. But the impact was painful, and I knew at once that I would have difficulty using that arm for a while. Even worse was the blood that was pouring down my face. The pain, I could deal with. But I needed my vision.
What had she hit me with? I went over the last few seconds in my mind as I groped for a handkerchief.
A piece of glass. It had caught the feeble light as she’d snatched it up. A section of broken glass from the café window, about six inches across, flung like a Frisbee. Straight into my face.
Who was this women? A waitress with speed and reflexes better than mine? Fast enough to evaluate a threat and respond with an improvised weapon whilst I was still drawing my pistol?
People with those skills did not work as waitresses. Unless, of course, they were undercover.
But if she were MI5 or Special Branch, I would have been taken down before I could set off the bomb. If they knew enough to stake out my observation post, then they would have known about the Astra as well…. Plus which, she would have been properly armed.
It made no sense.
It was now imperative that I get this so-called waitress and, hopefully, ask some questions before I killed her. I had to know what was going on.
Holding the handkerchief to my forehead, I got to my feet and peered cautiously over the wall.
The waitress was gone. At the back of the café, a door swung ajar.
I vaulted back over the wall, ran back into the café – through the shattered window, no point in bothering with the door – round the counter, and (being mindful of flung glass) more cautiously through the door.
The kitchen beyond was empty. The café didn’t run to a cook, just rows of microwaves where the waitresses could warm up the pre-packed sausage rolls and ciabattas. And on a slow day like today, just one waitress. Who, it seemed, had now left the building, probably via the fire escape door just ahead of me.
I kicked the door open, and peered out, gun extended. Beyond was a small yard – delivery area and staff car parking. A red hatchback was just disappearing out of the gate at the far end. Driving fast. But not so fast that I didn't get a glimpse of the registration - and a glimpse was all I needed.
My motorbike was just a short distance away. I made my way there through streets filling up with people in various states of shock, horror and panic. I blended in, staggering a little as I went. The blood covering my face helped – the biggest obstacle was people trying to help me. I pushed past them, mumbling incoherently. Behind me the screaming had begun.
On the way, I pulled out my mobile, and sent a text. Just a short one – the numbers and letters of the vehicle registration. Short but expensive: the person who received it would charge me five thousand pounds for the database search. But it would be thorough. DVLA, Police, insurance – anything known about that number would be located and made available.
In my business, it helps to know the right people. Or at least, to have their numbers.
The motorbike was parked, legally but unobtrusively, down a side alley. I took a moment to swap my coat for a leather jacket and to put a dressing over the wound on my scalp. Didn't want blood in my eyes once I got on the road. I put the helmet on with more care than usual, then got started.
First stop was the Police Station, out on the edge of town. After all, it was the logical place to go for someone who had just witnessed a bomb being set off. I drove carefully through the streets of a town suffering collective shock, with most people standing round gaping at the thinning column of smoke.
The Police Station, when I got there, wasn't much different, with officers and staff milling around in the car park. No doubt someone would eventually think of setting up cordons, but I’d be long gone by then.
Of more immediate interest to me was that the red hatchback wasn't there. Neither was the waitress. I hadn't expected her to be, but it needed to be checked.
My phone beeped. A short message, directing me to a website which could only be viewed once. After that, it would be deleted.
On the site was the complete history of an unremarkable Fiesta, purchased two years ago and registered in the name of ‘The Phren Foundation’. Taxed, insured, not involved in crime or reported stolen.
‘Phren’. Ancient Greek for mind or brain. As in schizophrenia. Some sort of study or research group, probably. But why would a waitress in a small seaside town be driving one of their cars?
A waitress with abnormally fast reflexes, I remembered. A research foundation might well be interested in someone with such unusual abilities. But if so, why was she working as a waitress at all?
This was getting both stranger and murkier. But also more dangerous to me. If she was connected to some sort of research project, then the chances of her report being investigated went up. My anonymity was an essential tool of my trade. In all the years I’d been in business, I had never once left a living eyewitness, and I had no intention of breaking the habit.
I did a little more surfing. ‘The Phren Foundation’ was a remarkably diffident organisation, with very little information about it in the public domain. But it did have an address, and that was just fifteen miles away.
I swung the bike out onto the road and opened up the throttle. The first ambulances were passing me as I left town.
*
The rain had finally eased off, allowing a little weak sunset light to wash over the landscape. I shifted position, moved along the tree line and, used the last of the daylight to survey my objective from another position.
The Phren Foundation was as shy and retiring in the real world as it was online. There was no sign outside to indicate the buildings function. However, the awkward clumping together of architectural styles screamed ‘Institution’ to the world. What had once been a pleasant if unremarkable country manor was now sadly defaced by the addition of various wings and outbuildings. Old brickwork rubbed shoulders with orange plastic panels and featureless concreted slabs.
Whatever the Foundation’s business was, it had nothing to do with aesthetics.
It did, however, have a lot of security. My new position confirmed what I’d seen previously. Double fences, CCTV coverage. No manned positions or patrols, though, which was good. No doubt there were alarms on the fences, but people tended to rely far too much on such things. There’s always a way in, if you want it badly enough.
I wanted it quite badly. I’d identified the car, parked at the front of the building with several others. Which meant that the waitress was probably inside, which meant that she’d probably talked to people there. I needed to know who, and how many, and the chances were I’d have to kill quite a lot of them.
The best thing, I decided, would be an accident. A gas explosion and a fire would be ideal. Of course, coming so soon after the bomb it would be treated with great suspicion, but fires are very good for removing forensic evidence. Besides, such an eyesore needed to be destroyed.
I waited till it was fully dark, then moved to the back of the building. I’d identified a potential gap in the CCTV coverage, directly below one camera (its mounting prevented it from looking straight down) and shielded from the others by undergrowth. Cutting a bottom strand in the outer fence gave me plenty of room to wriggle through.
As anticipated, the inner fence was alarmed, and also electrified. A bit more of a challenge, but not much. A few moments work with crocodile clips and lengths of wire isolated a section, which could then be treated in the same way as the outer fence.
My real problem would be finding the waitress inside the confusing tangle of buildings. If it was a mess outside, it would be a warren inside.
The best way to develop intelligence on a target like this was to start with the lighted windows. Which sounds too obvious to be true, but it is. When the outside is dark, you can look into a lighted room with less chance of being seen, and get an idea of the layout. Whereas trying to see into a darkened room without specialist equipment is difficult, and entering one is dangerous.
Fortunately, there were plenty of lights on inside. Unfortunately, most were on the first or second floors, but that gave me enough to start on. Keeping to the shadows, I moved forward.
The first window looked into a deserted kitchen. Evening meal served, washing up done.
The second was a corridor. An open door at the end showed part of an office. I listened as well as looked. There was a faint sound of music, cut short as a door slammed. Distant footsteps on an uncarpeted floor.
That told me that the place was occupied, but not busy. The residential staff – and I doubted if a place as secretive as this had any other sort – would be settling down for the evening. Some might be working late, but offices would be mostly empty.
The third window I came too looked into a small lounge. Some comfortable armchairs, a TV, a few books and magazines, and one occupant. The waitress, sitting quietly on a settee near the fireplace.
The identification was positive. I had a clear view of her, three-quarters angle on the left side of her face. She sat perfectly still, staring expressionlessly into nothing. Not moving.
In shock? That wouldn't be surprising, considering the events of the day – but it didn’t fit with idea of a trained professional who could react instantly to a dangerous situation. There were just too many mysteries here.
I had already identified an access point. Several, in fact. The Phren Foundation relied on their CCTV and alarmed fences for security. As a result, they were careless about leaving windows open. I selected the nearest one, listened for a few moments, then eased it open and climbed inside. Found myself in the ladies. The door led out into a deserted corridor. Orienting myself, I moved in the direction of the lounge, with my Glock in hand.
More sounds in the distance, but nothing to concern me. A door, conveniently labelled ‘TV Lounge’, was just where I’d estimated it would be. I tried the handle carefully. It needed oiling – the squeak was quite loud enough to be heard from inside, so I wasted no more time. Opened the door, walked in, gun pointed.
The waitress was still sitting exactly as I’d seen her before.
“Don’t move.” I said, shutting the door behind me. “Don’t attempt to attract attention. If you do, I will kill you and anyone who comes to investigate.”
I wasn't sure what reaction I’d get. Remembering the blistering speed of her reflexes, I was quite prepared for an immediate assault with any weapon that came to her hand, so I kept the Glock aimed straight at her head. What I wasn’t expecting was to be ignored. But she neither spoke, nor moved.
I moved further round the room, went to the curtains and pulled them across. I didn’t want anyone else looking in as I had.
“Please raise your hands so that I can see them.” I told her.
There was still no reaction. I continued to circle the room until I could see that she had nothing in her hands. They rested loosely on her lap. Mindful of her capabilities, I stayed well clear, and considered the situation with increasing unease.
The woman appeared to be catatonic. If so, there was very little chance of getting any useful information out of her. I considered my choices. It might be best to simply kill her and initiate a fire to cover the traces, but that would leave an uncomfortable number of loose ends. I decided to have one more try.
I had no intention of getting close enough to touch her. Instead, I sighted carefully, and fire one round. The silencer was effective, and the small noise it made was all but drowned out by the solid thump as the bullet buried itself in the back of the settee. Having removed a small part of the waitresses left ear lobe on the way.
“If you do not obey my instructions,” I told her, “The next bullet will be eight centimetres up and to the right, and will kill you.”
There was no reply, and no movement apart from the bright red drips falling from her ear.
“Very well.” I said. Patience exhausted, I shifted my aim slightly.
“You’re wasting your time.” The voice, male, middle aged, was accompanied by a faint electrical overtone, and came from the TV. The screen flicked into life, and showed me a man to match the voice. Thin, finally chiselled features, thinning grey hair.
Being fully in control of myself, I didn’t react by shooting the TV. Instead, I stepped back, moved my Glock to cover the door, and scanned the walls for the hidden cameras.
“Why am I wasting my time?” I asked casually. “Mr… ?”
“Doctor Remard.” He answered. “You’re wasting your time because Danica is unable to respond. She is deactivated.”
“Deactivated?” I glanced back at the waitress. She certainly looked deactivated. “That sounds like she’s a robot. But she’s bleeding.”
Doctor Remard smiled from the TV screen. “An organic robot would be a good laymans description, I suppose. But please, put the gun down. Shooting Danica would be meaningless, and there’s no one else in that part of the building now. We cleared it as soon as we became aware of your presence, and our Security is alerted.”
I had no intention of putting the gun down. I doubted if the Security guards would be any threat to me, and I now had to find and kill this Doctor Remard. The body count on this operation looked like becoming enormous. And it had started out so promisingly.
“What’s an organic robot?” I asked.
“A human being with a cybernetic overlay.” Remard said. “The technicalities are, of course, quite complicated, but you can think of it as a human organism fully interfaced with a mainframe computer.”
“Really?” I was impressed. “I thought we were years away from that capability.” But it might be an explanation for the waitress’s unusual reflexes.
“Oh, we’re very advanced here.” He sounded quite proud. “But of course, that means that we can’t allow you to leave with this knowledge.”
“I can keep a secret.” I answered casually. “I’ll offer you a proposition. Turn off your internal TV cameras, destroy any recordings you have of me, and I’ll leave without killing anyone. Not even Danica. And if you don’t mention me to anyone, I won’t mention you. OK?” Not a deal I had any intention of keeping, of course, but if I could persuade them to drop the surveillance, it would be an advantage.
“An interesting idea.” The Doctor nodded, as if thinking it over. “But to clarify one point – we have no internal CCTV. “
“Then how did you know I was here?”
“Through Danica… though she is currently deactivated, she is still being monitored. Everything she sees or hears is passed over the digital link to our mainframe.”
“Indeed. Thank you for telling me.” I switched my aim back from the door, and shot her in the chest.
But Danica was no longer deactivated. She was up and moving with the same impossible speed that she had shown before, and even though I pumped three more bullets into her, she kept coming, knocked the gun aside, and slammed me back against the wall. My head struck something hard, and I was unable to defend myself as the waitress closed her hands round my neck, choking me even as her life blood pumped out.
*
When I came round, my life was flashing before my eyes.
Quite literally. Directly in front of me was a large flat screen TV, and the images fading and disappearing on it were familiar ones. Memories.
I saw the General’s Jaguar coming down the coast road. Saw the transmitter in my hands as I ducked behind the wall.
“Ah, yes. So that’s how you did it.” Doctor Remards voice, from somewhere behind me. “The images are much clearer now that you’re awake.”
I tried to move my arms, but they weren’t responding. With a tremendous effort, I managed to move my head slightly, and my eyes. Just enough to see that there was an operating table nearby, and on it was Danica. She was naked, with several holes in her chest, and looked dead.
“Don’t look away, please.” The Doctor sounded annoyed. “We need you to watch the screen. The feedback helps calibration.”
I tried to speak. My mouth was very dry and as unresponsive as the rest of me, but I managed to choke out a few words.
“is… she…d…”
“Dead? Danica? Yes, of course. You destroyed her heart and several other vital organs. No matter, though. She was of no more use to us.”
“Why….”
Doctor Remard came into my field of vision. “You really shouldn’t be talking, you know, let alone moving. Quite impressive. We may have to increase the dosage, but we don’t want you unconscious again….”
I concentrated on talking. “Why… no use?”
Remard gripped my head and moved it back to its original position, so that I was staring once more at the screen. It blurred for a moment, then showed Danica serving me with mocha and chocolate sponge.
“She was quite ruined, I’m afraid. The computer was operating her as a normal human being. Having her work as a waitress was an experiment - a very successful one, as it happens. With the link activated, she passed as a fully normal person, able to interact with staff and customers without arousing any suspicion at all.”
He went over to the TV, did something to a control panel just on the edge of my vision. The picture shifted, and once again I saw Danica’s incredible reaction speed as she flung the broken glass into my face.
“However, the computer is programmed to react to emergency situations. It was a risk, you see, having Danica out in the community. If she’d suffered an accident, for example, and been examined in hospital, it might have been awkward. Of course, we didn’t have an assassination in mind! All the same, the computer analysed the situation, recognised the threat, and initiated the emergency programming. Boosted her reaction times to several times normal, and got her back here as fast as possible.”
He turned back to me. “Unfortunately, the human component of her nervous system couldn’t cope with that. You might think of it as an overloaded electrical circuit. Burned out. She’s been left with just her basic functions. Not enough left for speech, or even to eat. Barely enough to keep her breathing. The Danica experiment is over, I’m afraid.”
He smiled down at me. It wasn't a pleasant smile.
“But not to worry – we've got you, now.”
“Me….” I croaked.
“Oh yes. I must admit, I was quite annoyed when I saw the state Danica had come back in. But when we replayed her memories, and saw you, it occurred to me that here was an ideal experimental subject”.
“No…”
Remard chuckled. “Yes, you are! Think about it. A very secretive man – no one knows who you are, so who will miss you? And obviously, highly intelligent. That’s one of the big problems we’ve been having. Finding suitable experimental subjects. Mostly, we have to use people like Danica. She came from an orphanage in Eastern Europe… no family, and a long way below the norm, mentally. Barely more than a vegetable! But with the cybernetic overlay, we were able to make her operate like a fully functional human being!”
He laid a finger gently on my cheek. “But we need to find out what can be done with a more capable subject. Someone with a much higher baseline intelligence….. I have to say, this is very exciting. As soon as I saw you in Danica’s memories, I knew that you would come looking for her. So we set things up for you to find her, and waited.” He shook his head. “Really, I can’t believe the luck! I couldn't have found a better subject if I’d had my pick of university graduates. And you came and found us!”
There was fear in me now. A panic that I had never known before was rising, flooding me. I made another futile effort to move.
“I’ll pay you. “ I gasped. “I’ll find .. subjects for you. Many as you like…”
“Pay us?” Renard chortled. “My dear fellow, money’s not a problem. You wouldn't believe the funding we’re getting. And we don’t need a lot of subjects, just the right sort. You’ll do nicely”. He turned away.
“I’ll kill you!” I gasped out. It didn't sound very threatening, even to me.
Renard looked back at me, with a raised eyebrow. “Oh, I’m sure you’d like to. But it won’t happen. Once the cybernetic overlay is completed, ‘you’ won’t exist. One of the side effects of the process is that it wipes all previous memories. Leaves us a clean slate, as it were, on which we can write whatever personality we want. And trust me, I won’t be re-creating you as a vengeful assassin!”
He smiled broadly, and indicated the screen. “Say goodbye to your memories!”
As he disappeared from view, I tried to scream. But now I had lost even that.