Amanda took her phone out of her pocket and placed it on the desk next to her laptop, saved the number Jack had called her on to speed dial. The blue LED on the front of the computer was flashing. Strange. She was certain she had shut it down before she left to go to the hospital. She opened it up, the screen flickered to life, sunset over a Bali beach the backdrop, snapped during the summer holidays. Are you sure you want to shut down? There are files still open in another application. The gently patronising tone of Windows’s operating system. Maybe she hadn’t closed it down properly. She was about to select ‘no’ when a pop-up appeared at the bottom of the screen. Temporary storage device ejected.
Amanda felt a cold shiver run down her spine. She got up and turned off the light, then headed to the window. No one outside. Something at the far end of the street. A fleeting shadow, so quick she wasn’t sure what she had seen. Was her imagination playing tricks on her? She drew the curtains and turned on the lights. Desk lamp, bedside lamp. Inspected the room carefully. If someone had been there surely she would be able to tell? She was about to knock on her housemate’s door but something distracted her. A tapping sound, cold air from downstairs.
She peered over the banister. The front door, not closed properly, banging against the wooden frame. She ran downstairs and closed it, then back to her bedroom as quick as she could, door locked behind her, on the phone to Jack.
Field Officer Michaels was scanning through the data downloaded from Amanda’s computer. A key word search on the name Jack Hartman had brought up about 100 e-mails. Some between Jack and Amanda, others between her and her friends where he was mentioned by name. He filtered them by date, still nothing from the last few days. Then suddenly there it was. The message signed off from Uganda. Casual, almost off-hand in its affectionate tone. It was all he needed, thank goodness the girl hadn’t deleted it.
“Sir Clive, hi, Officer Michaels here.” He said into his Bluetooth headpiece.
“Michaels. What have you got?” Sir Clive asked. He sensed he was going to have to make a difficult decision.
“She’s in the know. He e-mailed her two days ago.” Michaels replied. No response from Sir Clive. Just a sigh.
“Very well. You know what you have to do.” Sir Clive said reluctantly. The fallout from the op was worse than he had thought, but there was no point tying himself in knots about it. Regret was something he intended to save for his retirement, along with a nice little nest egg to salve his conscience.
75
Jack and his father were getting ready to leave when the call came through.
“For you,” Archie said, passing the phone to Jack. Amanda’s voice in his ear, she spoke quickly, short of breath, panicked.
“Jack, I don’t know if I’m imagining things or what, but just now the front door wasn’t closed properly and my laptop, I was sure I shut it down, but the light on the front was flashing,” she paused. “Now I’m saying it out loud it sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?”
After what he had been through in the previous few days nothing sounded ridiculous to Jack. His father looked at him sharply. “What’s up?” He asked.
“Sounds like someone has been through Amanda’s stuff,” Jack said, hand over the mouthpiece.
“Tell her to grab her passport, throw some things in a bag and get as far away from there as she can.”
“Who’s with you Jack? I can hear someone in the background.” Amanda said.
“My dad. Long story. I’ll explain later. Grab your passport and throw some clothes in a bag. Let your housemate know you need to borrow her car. I want you to drive as fast as you can in whatever direction you feel like.”
“Ok.” Amanda said weakly, rooting about in a drawer for her passport, finding it amongst a pile of old phone bills, not knowing what her housemate would say when she announced she was borrowing her car. Didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she drove as hard as she could away from there. She could hear the voice talking to Jack again in the background.
“Oh and Amanda, I don’t want you to worry, because you’re right and it probably is nothing, but just to be on the safe side leave through the kitchen window, head down the back alley onto King Street.”
“Right,” she said, already downstairs, pulling at the latch on the window. Don’t worry but climb out the window. Any other day of the week she’d have found it funny.
Field Officer Michaels drove as close as he could to Amanda’s house, parked the car half on the road and half on the curb. Had to be quick. Disable the target, dump her on the back seat, cut her bike from the railings and shove it in the boot. He’d find a quiet road on the outskirts of town, smash her skull against the curb then drive over the bike. Leave as convincing an impression of an accident as he could manage. If the police smelt a hit and run they’d be less likely to suspect a murder.
Amanda heard the key enter the lock, sensed the urgency in the tap of metal on wood as the chub refused to give way. She could see the door move backwards and forwards as she struggled to open the kitchen window. Damn thing was painted shut. She gave it a shove with her shoulder, half-expecting the pane of glass to fall out and shatter on the gravelled yard below. The hinges finally gave way, window swinging outwards. A rattle from the hallway, another key, this time turning the chub lock. She climbed onto the work surface as quickly as she could, pulled herself through the window and tumbled to the ground on the other side. The drop was further than she remembered, and her ankle twisted awkwardly as she landed. The sound of footsteps heading quickly upstairs inside the house. Amanda didn’t wait to find out what happened, just ran to the end of the garden, pulled herself over the wall and sprinted as fast as she could in the direction of her friend’s old Volkswagen Golf. Key in the lock, door open, ignition turned. The engine revved, it sounded loud in the deserted street. Still too early for the rush hour traffic that clogged the narrow Cambridge roads, the buses that veered unsettlingly close to the historic buildings.
Her hand shook as she released the handbrake, car lurching forwards, wheels spinning. Drive, just drive, any direction as long as it gets you away from here, she thought.
76
“We need to get going, Jack,” his father said, hitching the rucksack onto his back and checking the room one last time. “She’ll be ok. If they were searching her computer first it means she’s not a direct target. There’s breathing space.”
Jack nodded but didn’t reply. He wasn’t convinced, and his stomach was tying itself in knots. He had to know she was ok, had to know she’d got away.
They headed downstairs, no one in reception. His father peeled off a fifty-dollar bill from the wad in his pocket and shoved it into the ledger. Left the key on top. No point hanging around. Out into the street. the glare of the sun, colours bright, the bustle of the market. He flagged down a taxi. They climbed inside.
“The phone,” he said quickly. “We should dump it. There might be a trace on it.” Jack’s mouth dropped. The fear he wouldn’t be able to contact Amanda writ large on his face. His dad checked his watch, shoved a bundle of notes in his direction.
“There’s a stall across the street. Grab a new one. Quickly.” Jack opened the door, stepped out, and that’s when the bomb went off.
Nick Clarke was taken aback by the strength of the blast, a long time since he’d been this close to an explosion. He hadn’t remembered the Russian-made bombs being quite so powerful. The car lifted and spun, then burst outwards in a blue-red ball of flame. It landed with a bone-crunching thud on the other side of the street.