Stuart MacBride - Halfhead

‘Good point.’ He started hammering commands into the keyboard. ‘You see who it is, I’ll copy the files and shut this thing down.’

Lights: too bright for her to bear, shining straight in her eyes. A short man in green, an older one dressed like a crow. Questions. More questions. She stumbles to the seats in the middle of the waiting area and collapses into one.

Hot noise races through her head; the interrogation chair; stabbing bursts of pain; questions. Peitai and his keeper-the man in the long black cloat with the delicate fingers that make her writhe in pain.

Someone says something, but she ignores it. Her head is burning from the inside out.

A hand touches her shoulder and she explodes out of the chair. No. No more. She won’t answer any more questions!

Something goes ‘crack’ and suddenly all the noise and light and pain vanish.

She’s in the waiting area, standing over the body of a woman. The woman isn’t moving, she’s just lying there on the floor, a Palm Zapper nestling in a shoulder holster, just visible through her open jacket.

Dr Westfield grabs it.

It’s all gone wrong. Unravelling…

She stares at the consulting room door with his name next to it.

This is too dangerous. Too big a risk. She has to get away from here. Now.

She grabs her trolley and makes for the exit. Walk, don’t run. If she runs they’ll know something’s wrong. If she runs they’ll catch her.

Will shut down the doctor’s computer with a satisfied click. There were only a couple of references to Peitai and his boss, Mr Kikan, but it was still a lot more than he’d had this morning. And now the files were all downloaded to his cracker where he could read through them at his leisure.

He put everything back the way he’d found it and stood, waiting for Jo to return. When she didn’t he crossed to the treatment room door and stuck his ear against it: silence.

‘Jo?’

He pulled the door open and saw her body lying sprawled across the floor. A bloody graze on her forehead.

‘Jo!’ Will dropped to one knee and felt for a pulse. She was still alive, but it looked as if she was in for one hell of a lump. ‘Jo, can you hear me? Who was it?’

No reply.

‘Damn!’ He stabbed his throat-mike. ‘Control, this is Hunter: Network treatment rooms, Glasgow Royal. I have an officer down.’

‘Roger that, Security is on its way…Wait a minute, “officer”? Don’t you mean Agent?’

‘No I don’t.’ He dragged his Palm Thrummer out of its holster and snapped the thing on. ‘Get a med team here on the double! You’ll find DS Cameron outside Doc Morrison’s room.’

‘Where will you-’

He killed the link.

There was no sign of which way the bastard had gone.

Left or right? Left. He sprinted back along the corridor, making for the exit and the lifts, barged through the first set of swing doors and almost fell over a halfhead. The damn thing was right in the middle of the passageway, but Will dodged it just in time and kept on running.

He was breathing hard when he battered through the next set of doors and into a ring of heavy weapons.

‘Hud it right there! Hauns far I can see ‘em!’

Will was looking down the business end of a Whomper on full power-telltales blinking away on the assault rifle. He did exactly what he was told.

‘Drop the weapon, pal, or I’m gonnae drop you!’

He let the Palm Thrummer fall to the floor. ‘ADS Hunter. I’ve got a Bluecoat DS in need of medical assistance back there and whoever did it is still running loose! Has anyone passed you?’

‘What?’ The assault rifle drifted away from his face as the spokesman frowned. ‘There’s been naebody down this end.’

‘Then they’re still on this level!’

Will pointed at the trooper with the Whomper and the sergeant’s stripes. ‘You come with me.’ He turned towards two others: ‘I want you and you to do a sweep of the floor, search the bloody bedpans if you have to.’ Then he grabbed the remaining trooper. ‘Get back there and guard the lift, no one in or out. Understand?’

‘Hud oan.’ The Whomper drifted back towards Will’s head. ‘Afore we go runnin’ about like good wee doggies, let’s see some ID.’

She can feel the sweat beading on her forehead. The corridor is full of armed guards, but they’re not interested in her; they’re interested in the man trying to order them about. The man she came here to kill. Their guns point at his head, not hers and she wants to keep it that way.

Her heart thumps faster and faster as she wheels the creaking buggy past.

Calm. Stay calm. They don’t even bother to look as she slouches by, even though she knows she must be shaking like a schoolboy in a brothel. And then the doors swing shut behind her and she is in the reception area, praying with every step.

God must love her, because no one says a thing as she walks into the lift.

The doors slide shut and a shudder runs through her body.

She’s going to get away with it.

Will ran back towards the consultation rooms, trailing his armed escort behind him. Jo’s body was still lying where he’d left it and he skidded to a halt. Thank God, she was still breathing.

‘Search the rooms!’

He knelt beside her, stroking her cheek as the sergeant with the Whomper started kicking in doors. Jo’s eyelids fluttered, then she murmured something. He had to lean in close to hear what it was.

‘Well,’ he said, sitting back on his haunches, ‘there’s obviously nothing wrong with your swearing gland.’

Jo grunted, opened her eyes, then closed them again, clutching her bleeding forehead. ‘Bastard…’

‘Are you OK?’

‘No.’ She struggled to sit up. ‘Did you get him?’

‘No sign of anyone. Did you see which way they went?’

She nodded her head, winced, then pointed off towards the main reception, where Will had just come from. ‘Heard the door slam.’

‘What? But there wasn’t anyone…’ He stood, watching the sergeant kicking in another consultation-room door. They’d said no one had passed them, and Will hadn’t seen anyone on the way back.

He clicked his throat-mike. ‘Has anyone tried to leave this floor?’

Jo almost fell over in the rush to pull her earpiece free. ‘Not so loud!’

He shrugged an apology as the voice of the trooper guarding the elevator crackled in his ear.

‘Negative. Just a halfhead with a refuse buggy.’

‘Stop the lift!’

‘What?’

‘Stop the damn lift!’

‘OK, OK! I’m stopping it!’

Jo sagged back against the row of seats, cradling her head in her hands and groaning.

‘Will you be OK?’

‘Go. Catch him.’

Will didn’t need telling twice; he charged back up the corridor and into the reception area. The trooper stood at the lift’s control panel, the open casing exposing neat braids of multicoloured wire and a small terminal.

‘I thought I told you no one in or out!’ Will said, storming across the floor.

‘It was just a halfhead! How could it have been the half-head? It’s got nae brain!’

‘Not the halfhead, you idiot: the buggy. You said it was pushing a refuse buggy.’

‘Aye.’

‘Big enough to hide a man?’

‘Shite.’ The trooper’s face fell.

‘Shite is right. Override the safeties on the lift. We don’t want him cranking the doors open and jumping out.’

‘Yes, sir!’ The private punched something into the elevator’s console. ‘Safeties are killed. He’s going nowhere.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Lift’s stopped between the lobby and the ground floor.’

‘Right.’ Will checked the charge on his Palm Thrummer. ‘Stay here and make sure no one else gets out this way. And this time when I say no one I mean no one! Got it?’