I catch my breath, try to think.
‘Maria? Talk to me.’
I gulp down saliva. ‘She is here,’ I whisper. ‘Dr Andersson.’
‘Oh shit. Oh shit. She’s with MI5 and MI5 want the Project gone. That can mean only one thing, right?’
‘She is here to kill me.’ The words hang in the air, a foul stench jarring against the fresh, fragrant green grass burst from the fields beyond. For a moment, I freeze, not wanting to acknowledge that my peaceful retreat, my quiet hideaway has been shattered.
‘MI5 want all connections to the Project to disappear,’ Balthus says. ‘Kurt—Daniel—he said that to you, right? That’s why he wanted you to stay with him. The Project did not want to disappear, they broke away and wanted you with them; MI5 wanted you gone. Maria, you’re right. Oh Jesus. She’ll kill you—she’s a trained officer.’
I scan the kitchen door—nothing. Yet. ‘I am trained also.’
‘Yes, but she, well, she’s not like you. She won’t hesitate to do what she’s been told.’
I open my mouth to respond to Balthus when I stop. The image of Raven floats to my mind. They will make you kill me. I have no recollection of what I actually did to her, no tangible evidence of whether I ever hurt the woman or not—no real idea of who I am, of what I am, in truth, capable of.
I glance to the window. It is open. Another bird sits there now on the wooden ledge, head jerking right and left. I can see its feathers soft and shining even from here, a brown and black sheen shimmering in the morning sun.
‘There is no sign of her,’ I say, turning to the phone. ‘She may have a map of the dwelling.’
‘How did they find you?’
‘What?’
‘MI5,’ Balthus whispers. ‘How the hell did they find you? You’ve been off radar.’
I think for a moment, uncomfortable. Have I made a mistake in my encrypted file tracking? In my proxy ISP emails? ‘It is possible they may have infiltrated some files if they have the right technical people to carry out the hack.’ My eyes glance to the laptop open on the crate. ‘I need to hide my notebook.’
‘What? Maria, get out of there!’
A clatter of crates rings from outside, followed by a shatter of glass. Every single part of me drops still.
‘What was that?’ Balthus whispers.
My eyes dart to the side, unable to answer Balthus as I focus, every part of me on fire, desperately pressing back the guttural fear that surges upwards. I need to move now, get to the laptop then leave, but if I go to the right, I’ll have to open the door to the bedroom where my bag is stored, yet if I turn to the left and head past the kitchen where Dr Andersson may be, then I have no chance of grabbing the laptop and notebook.
My instinct is to go into meltdown, to curl up into a ball and slam shut my eyes and plead for this all to go away, so hard is it for me to cope. Yet even as my brain shouts at me to run, gradually, like a rainbow appearing on a stormy day, something happens—a change, a simmering, butter-coloured difference: I become calm. A coolness crackles over me as, in my head, an instinctive knowledge takes control, and over and over in my mind one phrase shoots across the shadows of my thoughts: prepare, wait, engage.
Up ahead, the kitchen door, before closed, is now swinging open.
My hairs stand on end. ‘She’s here.’
‘What? Get … you …she …’ The phone crackles, Balthus’s voice dipping in and out of audio.
I grip the cell tight, telling myself that if I do so, maybe, somehow, I won’t be on my own.
Every muscle in me becomes rigid, ready, suddenly not caring about the illegal means in which I was trained by the Project, because, right now, I want to know it all, want desperately to remember every tiny detail of what I was taught, because it could save me. My eyes land on the lone toothbrush on the shelf by the wall.
The phone flickers again.
‘Maria? Maria, are you okay? Are you there?’
Balthus. The sound of his voice, the familiar curve of it floods me, for some reason, with relief.
‘I am here.’ I keep my volume low—there are sounds creaking from the kitchen.
Prepare.
I do a rapid assessment. I am wearing my running gear. I am fast, fit, but even when I calculate the time and trajectory at which I can sprint, I know that if Dr Andersson has a gun and surveillance of her own, I will never escape unless I can get to the bedroom.
‘Can you get out?’ Balthus says.
‘The bedroom door opens onto the shed where the truck is parked—it is my only safe route out.’
‘Good! Can you get to the door?’
I look to the kitchen, calculate the angles and trajectory. ‘I cannot determine if I can be seen.’
‘Well, is there another way?’
I think fast when my eyes, scanning the area for Dr Andersson’s face, see something, something long, thick, rusty—solid.
An iron bar by the cabinet, one I use for the fire pit outside, now sits discarded, tossed to one side after I got distracted from obsessing over tracking every tiny detail about the NSA scandal.
The kitchen door suddenly sways, a waltz, one, two, three, one, two, three, dancing in and out of the room. Is she here? I look to the iron bar then back to the door, and even though it screeches when it swings, too loud for my ears, for my senses, I slap the aggravation it causes aside because it offers me something, that unbearable noise: it offers me cover.
I drop like a stone. Flat to the floor, I scurry along the tiles so fast, so quick that by the time the second creak sounds, my fingers are handcuffed to the iron bar and, on the third creak, I am hauling it up and crawling back to where the window sits.
The cell phone crinkles and Balthus’s voice trickles in. ‘Where are you?’
‘Home.’
‘No, I mean … Oh, it doesn’t matter. Have you got the laptop and book?’
‘No.’
‘But you can get them?’
‘Yes.’ I glance to where they still sit. Right now, it is all a matter of timing.
Wait …
I rest my back for a moment against the cool wash of the wall and listen. My hands squeeze the iron bar as I assess where the danger source is, scanning my memory, determining what I should do next. For some reason, after two, three seconds pass, I find myself slowly coming to a stand. It surprises me, the move, makes my pulse rocket, but still I do it, slipping the cell phone into the band pocket of my shorts, watching as my feet, ghost-like, become taut, engaged, and before I can stop myself, before I can order my body to halt its course, I am holding the iron bar aloft and preparing to stride straight through the kitchen door.
Eliminate the threat.
‘Maria,’ Balthus says, ‘have you left yet?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘I can eliminate the threat.’
‘What? No. Just get the laptop and notebook and run.’
‘Negative. The best course of action is to—’