Frank Schätzing - Limit

He had to take her by surprise. It could be that Shaw still didn’t know about the hacking. It would be one thing to overpower Yoyo and get hold of the computer, but then there would be Jericho to deal with. Perhaps there would be a way to lure him upstairs. Assuming that the two of them hadn’t told Tu Tian what they were up to, it might be enough to get rid of them and then the computer as well, then it would be as if none of this had ever happened, nobody would ever suspect that—

Rubbish! This was wishful thinking from start to finish. How would he explain it once they were both dead? The surveillance system would show everything. Why grab Jericho’s computer, when it didn’t hold anything that wasn’t also stored in the Big O mainframes? Shaw could get at his data any time she liked, which is what she would do if he killed two people up here – not to mention the fact that he’d never manage that, since in stark contrast to people like Xin, Hanna, Lawrence and Gudmundsson, he wasn’t a killer. It wasn’t game over for Hydra yet, but for him it certainly was. Even making a break for it was as good as a confession of guilt, but if he stayed, he might just as well put the cuffs on himself. There wasn’t any point cleaning up his trail now. He had to get out of here, drop out of sight!

He had enough money for a new life, quite a comfortable one at that.

The open-plan office lay in twilight.

How much had she learned? Had Jericho’s computer been able to retrieve his deleted emails and reconstruct them?

Where was the girl?

He was torn between the urge to find out more and the need to get away. He looked across the room, then his feet carried him forward as though of their own accord. He stepped into the office. It looked empty. The overhead lights were dimmed. Two workstations away, monitor screens glowed, and he saw the modest little box that Yoyo had left there, the one they called Diane. He should search the office. The workstations offered various hiding-places. Indecisive, he walked a little way into the room, paced this way and that, looked at the clock. Xin must be here by now, he should get out, but the monitors glowed like the lights of some safe refuge.

He hurried across to the workstation, bent down and had his hands on the little computer when the room burst into life behind him.

Petite though she might have been, Yoyo was also muscular and in good shape, so she had no trouble in picking up a fairly heavy office chair and taking a swing. As Norrington spun round to face her, the back of the chair caught him full-on, slamming into his head and his chest and knocking him backwards onto the desk. He grunted, and scrabbled for a handhold. Yoyo swung at him again, from the side this time, and he fell to the floor. Even as he landed there on his back next to Diane, she flung the chair aside and drew from her belt the scissors she had found in the drawer. She landed hard on his chest with both knees.

There was an audible crack. Norrington made a choking, hacking sound. His eyes bulged. Yoyo clamped the fingers of her left hand around his throat, leaned down low and shoved the point of the scissors so hard against his balls that he could feel it poised there.

‘One false move,’ she hissed, ‘and the Westminster Abbey Boys’ Choir will be glad to make your acquaintance.’

Norrington stared at her. Suddenly, he swung at her. She saw his clenched fist flying at her, ducked aside and drove the scissors deeper into his crotch. He flinched with his whole body and then froze completely, simply staring at her again.

‘What do you want from me, you madwoman?’ he gasped.

‘I want a little talk.’

‘You’re crazy. I came up here to see whether everything’s okay, whether you need anything, and you—’

‘Andrew, hey, Andrew!’ she interrupted. ‘That’s crap. I don’t want to hear any crap.’

‘I just wanted—’

‘You wanted to swipe the computer. I saw that, thanks. I don’t need any more proof, so get talking. Who are you working with, and what do they want? Were we right about Peary? Who’s pulling the strings?’

‘With the best will in the world, I don’t know what you’re—’

‘Andrew, you’re being foolish.’

‘—talking about.’

Dark red swamped her vision, glowing and all-consuming. Utterly forgotten was any chance that the man beneath her might have had nothing to do with the deaths of her friends, with the agonies that Chen Hongbing had gone through while Xin had him trapped in front of the automatic rifle. Forgotten any idea that she might be wrong about him, that Norrington might have had nothing to do with any of this. Every cell of her body burned with hatred. She wanted, she needed a culprit, here, now, at last, anyone to blame before she lost her mind, a bad guy to stand in for the monsters who had tortured the people she loved, the people whose love she needed. Her loved ones, who had seen things that they couldn’t talk about, things that clamped a mask over their faces. She jerked back her arm and rammed the scissors into Norrington’s thigh, stabbing so hard that skin and flesh parted like butter before the blades, and the point scraped hard against the bone. Norrington screamed like a stuck pig. He raised both hands and tried to shove her away. Still wrapped in her red rage, she yanked the improvised weapon from the wound and set the point against Norrington’s genitals again.

‘It hurts, wherever I aim,’ she whispered. ‘But next time the consequences may be rather more permanent. Were we right about Peary?’

‘Yes,’ he screamed.

‘When? When’s the bomb due to go off?’

‘I don’t know.’ He twisted and turned, his eyes stark with pain. ‘Sometime. Now. Soon. We’re out of contact.’

‘You started the botnet.’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you stop it?’

‘Yes, let me go, you’re insane!’

‘Is your organisation called Hydra? Who’s behind it all?’

Without warning Norrington’s head jerked up, and Yoyo realised that it had been a mistake to crouch so low above him. There was a noise like two blocks of wood being slammed together as his forehead met hers. She was flung back. By reflex, she stabbed and heard him howl, then felt him grab hold of her and fling her aside. There were spots dancing in front of her eyes. Her head roared and her nose seemed to have swollen to several times its original size. She rolled swiftly out of Norrington’s reach, holding the scissors out in front of her, but instead of launching himself at her, he hobbled away.

‘You stay here,’ she gasped.

Norrington began to run, as much as his wounded leg would allow. Yoyo clambered to her feet, then fell down again straight away and felt at her face. Blood was pouring from her nose. She felt sickeningly dizzy, but finally managed to stand up, staggered from the office out to the gallery and saw Norrington climbing some stairs on the other side of the glass bridge between the Big O’s western and eastern wings.

The shithead was making for the flight deck.

A quiet voice inside her warned her not to give way to her hatred, to consider that it might be dangerous up there. She didn’t listen. Just as she could not doubt Norrington’s guilt, right at this moment she couldn’t think of anything but stopping him from getting away. She ran after him, glanced down at the dark glass canyon that yawned below the bridge and felt a wave of nausea climb her throat. She fought it down.

Norrington was fighting his way up the last steps.

He was lost to sight.

She shook herself. She resumed the chase, crossed the bridge at last, hurried up the steps two at a time, in constant danger of losing her balance. She made it to the top and saw one of the glass doors out to the roof gliding shut.