Peter May - The Runner

‘So you decided to get rid of the rest of your guinea-pigs before someone else started figuring it all out.’

‘The risks were too great.’ Fan Zhilong moved into the light, startling them both. They had all but forgotten that there were others there. He said, ‘We could not afford to have any of our athletes take fright and start to talk.’

Margaret looked at him with disgust, seeing only his expensive haircut and his designer suit, his manicured hands and his air of confident invulnerability. ‘And you funded all this?’ He inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘Why?’

‘Why?’ He seemed amused by what he clearly thought was a silly question, and dimples pitted his cheeks. ‘Because I am a gambler, Doctor Campbell. We are all gamblers here. And like all gamblers, we spend our lives in pursuit of the impossible. The sure thing.’ His supercilious smile did not reach his eyes. ‘And there can hardly be a safer bet than an athlete who is guaranteed to win. Our little experiment in human engineering here in China was going to be just the beginning. Had it been successful, there are athletes around the world who would not have taken much persuading to join our winners’ club. Membership a guarantee of success. The potential rewards could have run to millions. Tens, maybe even hundreds, of millions.’

‘Only there is no such thing as a sure thing, is there, Doctor Fleischer?’ Margaret turned her contempt on the German doctor and saw that he appeared suddenly to have aged. All Fan’s talk of ‘woulds’ and ‘coulds’ and ‘might have beens’ perhaps bringing home to him, finally, that it was all over. ‘You must be very proud of yourself. Tricking young athletes in Germany into taking drugs that left them dying or disabled. And then exploiting the greed and insecurity of young Chinese athletes to pursue your insane idea of a genetically modified world. Only to kill them in the process. There’s no such thing as a sure thing in science, either. Unless you think you’re God. Only, gods are supposed to be infallible, aren’t they?’

Fleischer gave her a long, sour look, and then he eased himself out of his chair and stood up. ‘I’ll get it right next time,’ he said.

‘I’m afraid there won’t be a next time,’ Fan said, and Fleischer turned towards him in surprise as Fan drew a small pistol from inside his jacket and fired point blank into the old man’s face.

Lili screamed as Fleischer momentarily staggered backwards, blood pouring from the place where his nose used to be. Then he dropped to his knees and fell face forward on to the floor. Margaret was very nearly more startled by the scream than the shot. She had forgotten that Lili was there. The young athlete had not uttered a sound during the entire exchange.

Fan stepped back fastidiously to avoid getting Fleischer’s blood on his shoes. He looked at Margaret. ‘The police are far too close to the truth,’ he said. ‘We have to remove all the evidence.’ And he raised his gun towards Margaret and fired again. Margaret screwed up her face, bracing herself against the impact of the bullet and felt nothing but the ear-splitting sound of the second shot ringing in her head in the confined space. There was a moment of silence and confusion, and then she opened her eyes in time to see Lili tipping forward, crashing to the floor, still tied to her chair. Most of the back of her head was missing.

Margaret felt herself start to lose control. Of her mind, of her body. She just wanted it all to be over. But Fan was in no particular hurry.

‘I suppose your boyfriend is going to wonder what happened to you,’ he said softly. ‘Maybe he’ll think you just changed your mind about getting married and took off back to America. Maybe he won’t even care. But one thing is certain, he’ll never find you. So he’ll never know.’ He turned and nodded to Sun who was still hovering just beyond the reach of the light. ‘You do it.’

Sun stepped forward. He looked pale and shocked. ‘Me?’

‘I’m not used to asking twice,’ Fan said.

Without meeting her eye, Sun slipped a gun from a holster strapped high under his leather jacket and raised it unsteadily towards Margaret. She looked straight at him, the tears running silently down her face. ‘At least have the guts to look me in the eye, Sun Xi,’ she said. And she saw the fear and confusion in his eyes as they flickered up to meet hers. ‘I hope your child, when he is born, will be proud of you.’ A series of sobs broke in her throat, robbing her momentarily of her power of speech. She gasped, struggling to control herself, determined to have her final say. ‘And I hope every time you look him in the eye you’ll see me. And remember my child.’

‘Get on with it!’ Fan snapped impatiently. And Sun turned and put a bullet straight through the centre of Fan’s forehead. There was barely time for Fan to register surprise. He was dead before he hit the floor.

Sun turned back to Margaret. He shook his head. And through her own tears, she saw that he was weeping, too. ‘I never knew it be like this,’ he said pathetically. ‘I sorry. I so sorry.’ He raised his gun again and Margaret wanted to close her eyes. But she couldn’t. And she saw him turn the barrel towards himself, sucking it into his mouth like a stick of candy. Now she closed her eyes, and the roar of the shot filled her head, and when she looked again he was lying on the floor. Four dead people lying all around her, an acrid smell that filled the cold air, and a pain that gripped her so powerfully that all she wanted to do was join them.

Through the window, she thought she could see the lights of the village twinkling in the distance. But she knew it was too far. They would never hear her shouts. She looked down and saw that the tops of her jeans were soaked with blood. And she knew that she would not have to wait much longer.

Li was exhausted by the time he and Tao got back to Section One. Physically and mentally. Somewhere, he had lost his stick, and found it hard to walk without it. He was closer to despair than he had ever been in his life. Closer to simply giving up. It all seemed so hopeless. It was perhaps two, maybe three hours, since Margaret had been taken from the Forbidden City. The chances of her still being alive were so remote he could not even contemplate them. If he could, he would have wept. For Margaret, for their child, for himself. But his eyes remained obstinately dry, full of the grit of failure.

His office felt bleak and empty, and lacking in any comfort under the harsh overhead fluorescent striplight. Tao said, ‘I’ll get some tea and check on developments.’ He left Li to slump into his chair and survey the detritus of his working life that covered every inch of it. A life that seemed far away now, a life that belonged to someone else.

On top of the ‘in’ tray was a faxed report from Doctor Pi at the Centre of Material Evidence Determination. In the two and a half centimeters of Jia Jing’s hair, he had found a record of regular concentrations of human growth hormone. But this was no synthetic substitute. It was the real thing, produced by his own body, in amounts that peaked way above normal concentrations, and then dipped again to normal, or below normal, levels. All at regular intervals over a two-month period.

Li let the report fall back into the tray. It hardly mattered now that he knew why the heads of the athletes had been shaved. That somehow they had been producing concentrations of endogenous hormone to enhance their performances. And that someone had cut off all their hair to hide that fact. Without Margaret, nothing in the world mattered to him any more.

Which was when he saw the envelope in the internal mail tray, its distinctive red, gold and blue public security emblem embossed on the flap, and he knew that it came from the office of the commissioner. He sat staring at it for a long time, unable, or unwilling, to make himself reach out and open it. Just one more thing that no longer mattered. Wearily he lifted it from the tray and tore it open. A cryptic acknowledgement of receipt of his letter of resignation. So it had reached the commissioner after all. And confirmation that he was relieved of all duties with immediate effect. Deputy Section Chief Tao was to assume interim control of the section until his replacement was appointed.