Interface: A Techno Thriller (17 page)

Someone else was here
. One of the police? Had she been seen, despite her precautions? Would she be able to talk her way out of this?

"I see you there," said a voice with a clipped accent. "The police have this building surrounded. But then you probably saw as much when you snuck in."

She held her breath.

"I
can
see you. You're in the remains of the kitchen. Now do you want to tell me who you are and what's going on, or shall I come and get you?"

Lentz sighed. She would have to respond. "Who are you?"

A man appeared in the doorway. "Officer Croft, CID. And you?"

"Daniella Lawrence, journalist."

"For which paper?"

"I'm freelance."

"Do you have some ID?"

"Do you?"

He smiled and held up a warrant card in one hand, shining a torch on it with the other.

"Very convincing. I have a similar one that I bought on Amazon."

He gave a snort. "Now yours, please."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a dog-eared plastic card, throwing it across to him.

He caught it and frowned. "So what are you really doing in here, Ms Lawrence? Because it looks like you're interfering with a crime scene."

"Actually I've been interfering with it for some time so I'm curious about why you only just came in. I think you were watching to see what I would do."
 

"You're not really a journalist."

Lentz smiled. "And you're not really a police officer because to see me in the dark you must have had some kind of thermal imaging camera. Why would you have one, and why would you be pointing it at a burned out house?"

"Fair point." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a gun. "Shall we start again?"

"Do you work for Marron?"

He frowned. "Peter Marron? Why would you think that?" He pulled out a badge and turned it towards her.

She squinted. "So your name
is
Croft. Security service. Huh."

"Your turn."

She sighed. "Look at my ID card again. It tells you all you need to know if you look closely."

He held up the small piece of white plastic in his left hand. "And what am I looking for?"

Lentz reached into her pocket and touched a button on a mini controller. Then she closed her eyes tight.

The surface of the card pulsed impossibly bright. Croft shrieked and, as Lentz re-opened her eyes, she saw him stagger backwards.
 

Then something unexpected happened. Croft dropped to the floor and fell silent.

In his place stood an older man with thin grey hair and an intense expression. Someone she'd hoped never to see again.
 

Peter Marron
.

In his right hand was a cosh. He glanced at Croft then stepped over him and smiled.

FORTY-EIGHT

LENTZ WATCHED AS MARRON PULLED a gun from his pocket. Had he come alone?
 

"I'm not sure what you're doing here," he said, "but I'm going to need you to explain." He raised the gun and pointed it at her chest. "Who are you?"

She cleared her throat. "I'm a journalist, please--"

He cut her off with a laugh. "Yes, and I'm an astronaut. You just disabled this man with some type of flash-bang grenade, so stop wasting my time. Why were you at CERUS Tower earlier?"

Lentz froze. It wasn't just coincidence that Marron was here then. "I'm researching a story."

Suddenly his eyes narrowed and his smile vanished. "Ah... Now I know who you are."
 

"I don't think--"

He shook his head. "Despite your attempts to hide it, you clearly know me. You know to be afraid of me."

"You do have a gun."

He shrugged. "You can change your face, your hair, but your voice is the same." He took a step forwards. "So tell me, Dominique, how are you still alive?"

Lentz glared at him for several seconds before replying: "Because whoever tried to have me killed sent a rather pliable hitman." She paused. "I always assumed it was Bern."

Marron blinked. "William has always been the one with the grand vision. He relies on me to take care of the details."

"
Did he know
?" she growled.

"How does the cliché go? I'll be the one asking the questions. What information did Armstrong give you to get you back here?"

"You don't want to hurt me," she said. "You'll just bring the police stationed outside down on you if I scream."

"Possible, but I have a heavily-armed team outside. If we have to, we'll take them all out. Do you want their deaths on your conscience?"

She sighed. "My conscience has always been somewhat complex."

"Mine too. But let's get over the notion that you have a choice in complying." He pulled a capped syringe from his pocket.

Her eyes flickered.
 

He smiled. "This is one of the simpler programmes we've developed for our nanites, but one of the most useful. I can't think of anyone more appropriate to use it on. I like to think of it as truth nano."

Lentz smiled and lunged at him.

He fired without hesitation, the subsonic squeal of the silencer bouncing off the walls. The bullet struck her in the chest and she fell backwards.

Marron gave a grunt and walked forwards, poking her with his toe. As he did, she rolled and grabbed his leg, lifting it sharply upwards, throwing his balance. As his arms wheeled, she plucked the gun from his hand then shoved him back across the room. Before he could recover, she had the weapon aimed at his face.

"Body armour," she said, tapping her chest. "Ultra-light. And twenty-five years of martial arts training. I figured it would come in handy one day."

"I'll bear that in mind next time," he ground out.

She aimed the gun at his face. "I could just kill you now."

He blinked. "Go on then."

She glared at him, then punched him on the nose with a tightly curled fist. "If you follow me, I will shoot you."

Lentz kept low as she crept out of the door, moving to the cover of the trees next to Armstrong's garden pond. She had been sloppy and it had nearly cost her everything. She didn't even know how Marron had managed to track her down. She held her breath, watching the back door of the house. Marron would surely be calling his support team already, but the police meant they would have to act carefully.
 

Creeping forwards a few more steps, she nearly fell over two faded garden gnomes fishing in the pond. She rolled her eyes, moving around them. And then it struck her. Armstrong had always talked about spending time in his garden. For a techie, he loved to get his hands dirty, and part of that was the time he spent painting his prized gnome collection. He had said they were real collectors' pieces that most people ignored or laughed at.
 

Away from the house, hidden in plain sight. Could it be?

She picked up the nearest gnome and hefted it in her hand. It felt heavy and a tap suggested it was solid. She tried the other.

Also solid.

With a sigh she put it back, standing it carefully next to the first. They looked so sad, chipped and worn. Perhaps they got hit by the explosion. Her eyes roamed the pond. Something was sticking out of the water. She reached down and drew a third gnome out from under a clump of pondweed. It felt much heavier, water pouring out of it, the weight rapidly diminishing.

It was hollow.

She put down the gun and ran her fingers over the gnome's surface. No obvious hidden compartment. Was there a gap at the neck? She twisted the head gently and it lifted off. Inside was a small compartment containing a high-capacity solid-state drive.

From the house she heard footsteps. Marron's support team must have arrived.

Time to move.

◇
◇
◇

Marron waited in the kitchen, wiping blood from his nose and glaring at the back door. He was joined by one of his men, who entered through the front.

"You took your time," Marron said.

"Sir, there's been a development with Alex. She was captured at Faraday's apartment. The police are attending."

"We can't let them interrogate her." He raised his eyebrows. "You know what to do."

FORTY-NINE

IT TOOK LESS THAN TEN minutes for the armed response team to arrive at Tom's apartment block, just as the sun was starting to rise. Shortly after that there were dozens of plain-clothes and uniformed officers swarming through the building, putting up cordons, trailing police tape as they went.
 

But Tom didn't care. The inspector in charge quickly moved them downstairs and took initial statements. A growing crowd of onlookers watched from across the street. Two officers secured a groggy-looking Alex inside a prisoner-transport vehicle. She locked eyes with Tom and gave him an unreadable stare before the door was closed on her. Tom turned away, watching as two body bags were carried out of the building. One of those bags contained his friend.

A policewoman tapped him on the shoulder. "You're going to be at the station for a while. Is there anyone you want us to call for you? Your partner? A relative or friend?"

Tom stared at where they were loading the body bags into an ambulance. He shook his head.

"This way then, Sir."

Tom and Kate were guided to sit in the back of a police car. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"Charing Cross Police Station," the policewoman said, as she climbed in the front. "Say, how did you manage to overpower that woman if she had a gun?"

"The television turned itself on in the other room. Don't know why. It distracted her for long enough..." He took a long breath. "Where are you taking her?"

"Same place as you."

"I get the feeling the people she works for will try to get her back."

"I can assure you there's no chance of that."

His brows furrowed. "Well, officer, that's probably because you have no idea what you're talking about."

The woman blinked, then turned back to face front and the car eased away, following the prisoner transport.
 

Tom leaned back in his seat. Kate reached over and squeezed his hand, wincing as she did so.

"How's your arm?" he asked.

Kate looked down at the sling she was wearing. "They checked me over. It's not broken, just bruised. I said no to pain relief. I get hit worse in most karate classes."

"You saved both our lives."

"I'm just sorry that I couldn't..." She trailed off, her eyes glistening.

Tom closed his eyes and tried to shut out the world. In the space of a few days everything had changed. None of this should have happened. If he hadn't accepted the job, he wouldn't have been at the party, wouldn't have been in hospital. He would be just fine. And Jo would still be alive.

His eyes jerked open and he found he was breathing hard and fast.

"What's the matter?" Kate asked. "Are you sick?"

Tom looked around. They'd just pulled up near a set of traffic lights, behind the prisoner transport, which was blocked from proceeding by a van that had pulled out from a side road. "Something feels wrong." He narrowed his eyes. "Are these lights taking a long time to change?"

"Perhaps a little--" began Kate.

The doors of the van burst open and six men carrying automatic rifles emerged. Pedestrians nearby started screaming and running away.

"Assistance required!" the policewoman shouted into her radio. "Armed units respond."

The men moved to the prisoner transport. Two were carrying a heavy ram and they swung it at the back door. It dented but did not break. From the police car behind Tom's, two armed officers emerged and shouted a warning. They were answered by rifle fire and ducked for cover.

"Get down on the floor!" shouted the policewoman from the front of their car.

Kate obeyed but Tom ignored her, watching the two men throw down the ram. One of them swung a rucksack off his back and produced a round metal disc from it. He stuck it on the door and all the men stepped clear.

The disc exploded. Car alarms all around started ringing.

Tom pulled at the door handle, but it wouldn't open. "We have to stop them!"

"Sir, please stay in the vehicle," the policewoman shouted. "We need backup immediately," she said into her radio.
 

Through the clouds of smoke, Tom saw the men jump into the van, brutally clubbing the guards with their rifle butts, then grabbing Alex's slender form and carrying her out. They climbed back into their van then turned and pointed their rifles at the police cars. Tom threw his arm over Kate and ducked. Two gunshots hit the car. Then there was the sound of the van's tyres squealing as it sped away.

"I warned you, but you didn't listen," Tom shouted at the police woman, who was craning back to check on them.

"Stay in the vehicle," she repeated. Then she climbed out and locked the door, running over to the prisoner transport and climbing in the back.

Kate tugged at the door handle, but the door remained closed. She leaned close and whispered, "How did you know something was going to happen?"

"I can't explain it. Something just felt
wrong
. It doesn't matter now. We're not safe with these idiots. We have to go."

Kate shook her head. "If you hadn't noticed, she locked us in."

Tom reached for the door handle and pulled. It opened.
 

"How did you do that?"

"Maybe one of the bullets hit something. Look, you can stay here if you like but I'm going."

Kate sighed and nodded.

"We'll head for that street on the left." He pushed open the door then launched himself out, Kate scrambling to follow. He heard shouts from the direction of the prisoner transport, but they were already tearing off down the street.

FIFTY

IT WAS 7AM AND REEMS had already been in her bunker office for more than an hour, trying to digest the reports that had come in overnight. Croft had requested a meeting and now she was forcing calm into her voice as they argued.
 

He stood, eyes blazing, looking like he was not going to be assuaged. "Three incidents in one night. Three people dead, a prisoner liberated from police custody, and an MI5 officer –
me
– attacked in the line of duty."