Zero Alternative (12 page)

The world seemed to shrink around him, and he forced himself to breathe. It felt as if he was falling into one of DM’s nightmares; maybe it was true that even a paranoid could have enemies. The woman next to him was proof that something extremely weird was happening. Or she could just be a lunatic playing out her own insane fantasies.

‘Is your name really Layla?’

She glanced at him, coming back from whatever thoughts were going through her head, and pulled off her sunglasses before stuffing them in a Gucci backpack. ‘Yes, strangely enough. I’m not sure why I told you, last night.’

‘I’m honoured.’

She ignored him, her eyes cloudy. ‘Not the name I was born with, but the one I chose for myself. I have others, if you prefer.’

Walker sighed, exasperated. It wasn’t exactly a reassuring answer: how many names did a sane
person need? He checked out of the window and recognised the neighbourhood: another couple of minutes and they’d be at DM’s place. He shrugged and tried to change the conversation. ‘Why do you need more money? You stole over ten grand from me.’

‘They owe me twenty-five.’

‘Shit. You’re not cheap.’

‘You have to pay for quality,’ Layla said. ‘And I
did
get you.’ She looked at him with a small smile to take the sting out of her words. ‘Why on earth did you keep so much cash at home, anyway?’

‘I don’t quite trust banks.’ Walker remembered the date perfectly, October 7th, 2008 – less than a month after Lehman Brothers went under. The day the financial world almost imploded.

‘Weird, for an investment banker.’

‘That’s exactly why. I was there, on the trading floor, when the system went to hell. The largest bank in the UK had enough money to last for about eight minutes, and the rest were not in much better shape. I took some cash out then, been keeping it at home ever since. You never know.’

Layla stared at him. ‘Are you kidding me? I do the same, but for other reasons…’

‘I’m sure.’ Walker tapped the cab’s glass partition. ‘Anywhere here is fine, mate. Thanks.’

DM’s door was locked, and the curtains at the bay window looking onto his scruffy little garden were drawn. The small detached house, on the corner of a quiet side street, had its usual rundown look that DM never seemed to worry about. Maybe the mathematician was on his way to the office, and he’d laugh –
after taking my head off for being so dumb
. Walker rang the bell, then shivered, fighting to keep his foreboding feelings at bay.

No answer.

He tried again a couple of times and the muffled sound echoed from the inside, without reply. ‘What now?’

Layla shrugged, pushed him out of the way and knelt next to the door, rummaging in her black backpack. She pulled out a small set of odd-looking keys and glanced up at Walker.

‘Keep an eye on the street,’ she muttered before she started messing with the door handle, sticking tiny instruments into and around the keyhole.

Seconds later he heard a sharp click and the door swung back a little. ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

Walker shook his head. He shouldn’t have been surprised, really. He followed her inside the dimly lit corridor, just a few steps behind her.

‘Fuck.’ Layla had already reached the living room when she froze.

Walker stepped into a sticky puddle and looked down at a red splash on the carpet. The blood was already half-congealed.

Please God, no
.

He rushed forward and saw DM’s naked body lying in the middle of the floor like a discarded rag, bruises and burns on his battered torso. His friend’s face was a mess, the nose broken and twisted out of joint, lips grotesquely swollen and blood spatterings everywhere.

Dropping to his knees, Walker took the mathematician’s hand and leant down to check for a heartbeat in the tortured chest. There was no point, and he forced himself to swallow a sob, tears burning in his eyes. How could something like this have happened, and why?

He glanced around the room, trying to find something, anything not to look at the broken face that lay unmoving below him. The place had been ransacked, files strewn everywhere. DM’s computer was gone, with only a few unhooked cables remaining.

Layla came up behind him and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry.’

Walker ignored her, struggling to control his grief and rage.
You wanted to save the world, my friend. If this is the result, maybe the fucking thing is not for saving
.

Decisions

Pienaar entered Walker’s apartment and shrugged out of the stolen postman’s jacket and cap. He opened his bag, pulling out a syringe full of dark liquid before heading to Walker’s bedroom. He spattered a couple of tiny droplets of the dead man’s blood on a pair of trousers and a dark shirt, then a few more in the cracks between the wooden floorboards, both in the bedroom and living room. After working Walker’s bathroom, he finally got dressed up again and left the flat for the underground carpark
.

It had felt like hours but must have been only a couple of minutes; Walker forced his hand open and let go of DM’s cold, rigid fingers. He stood up just as Layla came back into the living room, pulling off a pair of thin latex gloves.

‘There’s lots of drugs hidden around the house,’ she said, her voice low.

‘He liked his hashish.’ Walker could see the mathematician’s intense expression as he rolled the artistically large joints he could assemble like a Jamaican sculptor. Then he glanced at the DM’s battered body and almost gagged.

‘No, I mean hard stuff. Coke, pills…’

‘That’s impossible…’ DM hadn’t drunk, ever. Nothing that could kill his precious brain cells had been allowed to enter his body. ‘I’ve never seen him do anything worse than marijuana, and we’ve been friends for a long time. I’d have known if he was on heavier shit.’

‘As you say.’ Layla shrugged. ‘Then someone else must have put them there, maybe make it look like drug crime.’ She looked at him nastily. ‘Everyone knows the City is full of addicts.’

‘Really.’

Layla stuffed the gloves in her bag and pulled out the felt hat and sunglasses. ‘I’m going to get out of here. I wouldn’t touch anything if I were you.’

‘Why?’

‘When the body gets discovered, you’ll become a suspect. A major one. I guess you and this poor man –’ she pointed at DM’s body – ‘were working on something… let’s say unofficial. Big, secret, and worth a lot of money. Now you two have finished the job, the “something” works and
you were last seen staggering out of the Snake, very drunk. Perhaps you decided to pop here, had a fight…’

‘That’s ridiculous. Besides, I was with you.’

She smiled, explaining things slowly as she would with a small child. ‘True, but since your alibi is about to disappear into thin air, I’d think twice about using me as proof of your innocence.’

‘Disappear? I thought you wanted your money.’

‘It’s far too late for that. Someone is already dead, and I’m not going to see a cent. More likely a bullet to the back of my head, if I’m not careful,’ she grimaced. ‘I told you, these guys are serious pros, and I’m a loose strand. They don’t like to leave any traces behind – that’s why they tried to take me at the drop-off.’

‘What about me?’ Walker suddenly remembered the vacuous face of a narrow-faced woman staring at him in Broadgate.

Layla shrugged. ‘I don’t know – but if I were you I’d be worried. Very worried. I’m sure they didn’t want to kill your friend, just steal whatever you guys were working on. Then something went wrong; maybe he even died by accident. But whoever did this is now working off a Plan B, and I suspect you’ll be part of it, again. They’re going to need a fall guy.’

Walker grabbed a chair and sat down, overwhelmed.
This is insane
. But she could be right. Steph and others knew he’d been drunk and waiting for DM. And the people who had planned this – it must be fucking Frankel Schwartz – they’d try to pin it on him now that they had DM’s drivers. He didn’t know what to do; this was too far outside his universe. He should just go to the police, but there would be so many questions – he would have to talk about DeepOmega and he didn’t have a shred of proof, just two missing computers in a convoluted story. And powerful enemies working against him as he tried to defend himself in front of the law.
You might be truly screwed, Yours
.

‘What should I do?’ Walker asked, his voice shaken.

‘I know what I’ll do. Disappear somewhere, and keep my head low for a while. Maybe you should do the same. Besides…’ She was obviously thinking aloud, and Walker realised Layla knew a lot more about the murky world he had fallen into that he could ever hope to learn. ‘Wait, your computer was alarmed, right? They told me I had to use your fingerprints to turn it on before taking the hard drives, or they would be ruined.’

‘Yes, DM did it. He was obsessed by security.’

‘Then maybe he had something even better here. This thing you were working on…’

‘It’s called DeepShare.’

‘Fine, this DeepShare. Is there another copy?’

Walker nodded. She was right, they might have got nothing. DM was too careful for a thug to just walk off with his PC and access keys. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
Think
. He was reacting like a lost little lamb. And he’d end up like one when the wolves came, if he didn’t wake up fast.

‘Yes, the real thing is somewhere on the net, in super-secure servers. DM only kept some bits he was working on at home, and it’s far too big anyway to run outside the Cloud.’

‘Good. Where is it then?’

‘I don’t have the faintest idea.’

Layla sighed. ‘Come on, I’m trying to help you here.’

Walker stood up from the chair and Layla stepped closer, wiping the area he had touched with his hand. She was careful, no doubt. ‘I wouldn’t trust you anyway, but I really don’t know.’
DM’s brother
, he thought. They had been close. ‘Though there might be someone who does.’

‘Good, than I suggest you find this DeepShare fast, since it could be the only thing that gets you out of trouble.’ She winked at him and left the living room, heading for the foyer.

Walker followed her, trying to avoid the spatters of blood on the carpet. ‘Where are you going?’ ‘I’m bailing out of this damn country. Do you want a ride?’

Walker stared at her, thinking. Should he listen to the bitch; could he afford not to? ‘Maybe you’re just trying to deliver me to these guys, to get your money.’

Layla half-smiled at him, gorgeous black eyes glinting with amusement. ‘Believe me, if I had wanted to take you to them, you wouldn’t have stood a chance.’ She opened the door and checked outside. ‘Are you coming?’

He couldn’t see any other option. But he needed more time to think, to understand. ‘I don’t have my passport.’

‘You won’t need it.’

‘So you say.’ He looked at his hands, speckled with DM’s blood. ‘No, I’ll go and get it. And I want a shower first.’

Layla shrugged, exasperated. ‘Whatever. I was only doing it to save your sorry ass.’

‘I know.’

‘Fine. If you change your mind, I’ll be on the eleven-twenty train from St Pancras to Dover. Have a good one, banker boy.’ She flashed him a smile and pushed him away. Walker tripped on something, stumbling as she pivoted and ran out of the house. He recovered and went after her, but by the time he emerged onto the street she had already vanished.

Walker rushed back to his flat, his mind still in turmoil. DM was dead. Someone had murdered him to steal DeepShare. His nausea returned with a vengeance and he staggered to the bathroom, empty stomach heaving up bile while his head pounded harshly. After a couple of minutes he had recovered enough and dried his tears, grabbing the sink. He opened the tap and glanced at his reflection in the mirror; a tiny speck of blood stared back at him, near the top of his forehead.

Walker tried to wipe it off before realising that the small droplet was actually
on
the glass itself. He looked at his hands, but the smudges of DM’s blood were dry. Weird, he hadn’t even shaved in the morning. He checked around the bathroom and found two more minute red stains on his towel and bathrobe.
What the hell?

He hurried into his bedroom, blood thumping in his temples. Everything lay as he had left it, including a pile of cleanish clothes on the floor where Layla must have dropped them as she went through his stuff. Walker kneeled down and soon found more droplets of blood on a dark shirt and jeans. What had the bitch said?
Whoever did this must be working off a Plan B, and I suspect you’ll be part of it, again. They are going to need a fall guy
. Walker swore loudly.

The buzzer rung and he jumped. The police. Now he was truly screwed. He ran to the intercom system and looked at the tiny screen: the camera showed a postwoman holding some envelopes. He didn’t answer, held his breath as she pressed a few more buttons before someone let her in.

He leaned against the doorframe, then slid to the floor. His heart was exploding through his chest, hands shaking with adrenaline and fear. Returning to the bedroom, he packed a few clothes in a small shoulder bag, grabbed his passport and left the flat in a hurry.

Dover

Walker arrived at King’s Cross Station a few minutes past eleven, wondering what on earth he was doing. He hurried through the crowds, scanning the platforms, checking random faces. The world felt like a hostile place, and a part of him was waiting for the tap on the shoulder that would mean the end. When he found the right spot the train was already waiting on the tracks, just six mostly empty carriages. He boarded the first one, looking through the seats as he searched for Layla, but she was nowhere to be found. He rushed through the following wagons, glancing left and right, but there was no sign of the woman. Another lie.
Why?

He retraced his steps, going faster through the train, checking in the toilets as well. Finally a whistle called and the carriage shook, ready to depart. Walker approached the door to disembark and was pushed back as Layla rushed up the stepladder. She had changed into an olive-coloured hunting jacket, with the hood up. As he regained his balance the doors closed and she pulled off the hood, greeting him with a half-scowl.