Sam Bourne - The Chosen One

She pictured them here, in this car park, outside this school, on evenings like this one – Baker smiling to the girls as he slung his rucksack over his shoulder and headed home, tall and lean, his strides long and effortless. And, perhaps just over there by the side entrance, watching, would have stood the shorter, plainer Robert Jackson, denied even one of Baker’s conspicuous gifts. Maggie could see him in the dusk, the teenage rage simmering inside him.

‘OK! Let’s give this a go!’

Coming back to herself, Maggie turned the key, lightly pumped the gas pedal and heard the car spark into action. Without moving, she watched the grey-haired lady in her tweedy coat move to her own car and slip into the driver’s seat. A second or two later came the sound of her engine revving back to life.

A moment later both were out of their cars, standing in front of the humming engines now connected, like two hospital patients, by red and black cables.

‘We did it,’ Maggie said, a wide smile on her face.

‘Not bad for a couple of broads, eh?’ said the woman, squeezing Maggie’s arm for good measure.

‘Not bad at all.’

‘I’m so grateful to you. Now I can pick up my grandson from football practice.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Oh, mercy me. I should have been there ten minutes ago. I’m going to have to rush off. Is there any way I can thank you?’

Maggie realized the answer was no. She could give no real name or address even though, just this once, she would have quite liked to. All she could do was extend a hand and, with a twinge of regret, say: ‘I’m glad I could help. Now go pick up your grandson. And remember to keep the engine running!’

She watched the Saturn turn smoothly out of the lot and head into the night. Something about the sight of it made up Maggie’s mind: she would not make the long drive to Seattle. She would find a cheap and cheerful place to stay here in Aberdeen, shower, fall into bed and sleep. She was, she realized, completely drained.

She headed to the highway that had brought her here, looking for signs for the centre of town. She glided through a succession of green lights and was on her way. Traffic was thin, just a few lights brightening the dark. She wondered if this was going to be one of those American places that had no real centre – just a sprawl. Maybe she should just keep driving, waiting for the first motel that popped up.

There were some up ahead and on the left. In readiness for the exit, she eased down on the brake, but her speed didn’t alter. She pressed down harder and this time the car jerked when it should have slowed down. Bloody rentals.

When the exit came into view, she moved into the right lane, gently squeezing the brake.

The car did not slow down.

Instead it was continuing at full speed. Maggie pressed down again. Still nothing. The car kept rushing forward, utterly beyond her control. She slammed her foot on the brake. Nothing!

By now the exit lane was curving off the main highway. She looked in her wing mirror: a car in the next lane. There was no way she could pull away without crashing into it. She would have to take the exit.

The road curved round suddenly. She gripped the steering wheel as tightly as she could, swerving around a road meant to be taken at half this speed. She could feel the bumps under her wheels as she careened into the side strips. The reflector signs, each marked with an arrow, were coming too fast.

Finally the road straightened out but still she was going too fast. She could see that up ahead was a red light at a crossroads, bright and noisy with traffic. Already there were two other cars waiting at the light – and she was heading at full, motorway speed towards them. She stamped impotently once more on the pedal, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. In a matter of seconds, she would either slam into the stationary cars or be smashed from the side by oncoming traffic.

She knew she had only one option but the fear of it almost paralysed her. It was only the onrushing proximity of the car in front, its red brake lights looming and, finally, the sight of two heads low down on the back seat – children – that finally prompted action.

Gritting her teeth, she swerved off the road and into the indistinct blackness beyond. As she turned the wheel, she had no idea what lay there. Hedges, trees or a grass verge? A ditch? Or a sheer drop? She had no way of knowing and now no choice but to drive into it at close to seventy miles per hour.

The headlights picked it out perhaps a split second before she felt the hard crunch of metal: a steel barrier that crumpled under the force of the car. Now a thicket of trees and a tangle of branches came at her, the car bumping and thudding at what felt a thunderous speed. Her head hit the roof of the car, ramming through the thin vinyl veneer into the hard metal underneath.

Instinct took over as she reached for the clasp holding her safety belt and, with one hand still on the wheel, unpopped it. Then, seeing what loomed ahead, she opened the car door and hurled herself out, even as she could see the ground passing rapidly beneath her.

Perhaps a half-second before she hit the ground, while she was still in the air, her heart throbbing with a nauseous urgency, she saw two things, one clearer than the other.

Less clear was the thick tree that her car had just rammed into, crumpling the entire front end. Clearer, and in her mind’s eye, was the face of the woman who had persuaded her to open the hood of her car, a woman whose eyes had been kindly enough to remind Maggie Costello of her own mother.

And after that she saw nothing.

Virginia, Friday March 24, 18.25

He hadn’t expected to hear back so fast. Back in the old days, when it was just a few guys with notebooks and pencils, it took the best part of a week to piece together even a basic flight plan. But now there was email, and online forums and all the rest of it, things moved quickly.

The British guy, du Caines, hadn’t given him much but Daniel Judd had got the general idea. As soon as Nick had called, he knew it was going to be something big. Big enough to interest readers of a Brit newspaper; big enough for Nick to hike out to the middle of nowhere to see him.

He had read that right – once the CIA was involved, it automatically became huge – just as he had been right to say that du Caines was on a fishing expedition. The journalist had nothing but a hunch. But after the rendition stuff, Judd was prepared to believe that bunch of motherfuckers were capable of anything. More importantly, he had learned a lot in the last few years about how the CIA operated. They had a modus operandi in the air and – now – so did those, like Judd, who followed them on the ground.

He logged into his email account, typing an alias formed out of his own middle name, his wife’s maiden name and a bogus middle initial – Z – that he hoped would throw any snoopers off the scent. Of course, if the CIA really wanted to hack into his email they could, but there was no reason to make it easy.

He sent a message to his contact in Louisiana. Baton Rouge unfortunately; he’d come across no spotters in New Orleans. He worded it carefully. Even if he took precautions – encryption software, regularly changing his ISP, that middle Z-there were no guarantees that his fellow enthusiasts were as careful. On the contrary, in the era of federal wiretapping, he worked on the assumption that there was always someone looking over his shoulder. His wife and his brother-in-law had mocked him for years, reckoning he was some paranoid, libertarian nut who’d soon be hiding in the hills living off sachets of dried food. But once all that shit came out about FISA and government eavesdropping, it wasn’t him who came out looking the fool, now, was it?