Nikki Owen - The Girl Who Ran (The Project Trilogy)

His finger traces Patricia’s swan neck, her shaven head and blue saucer eyes, and as he does, I feel uncomfortable, concerned, but I don’t know why. ‘And this,’ he says now, ‘is Chris Johnson. We have a lot of data on him. Convicted American hackers tend to pique our interest. I believe it was Balthus that originally put you two in touch?’

‘Yes,’ I say, my throat oddly dry. ‘I met Chris at his villa in Montserrat, near Barcelona. I went there after MI5 found me at Salamanca villa. Chris was in prison for hacking a USA government database. Balthus was Chris’s prison governor before he was in charge of Goldmouth.’

Black Eyes moves the file nearer to me and my vision catches Chris’s familiar deep brown eyes, his uncut hair flopping to sharp cheeks and stubbled chin, and somewhere inside me, I feel an indefinable pull towards him, and towards the faces on the pages, an urge to scoop them to my chest and hold them tight.

‘Maria?’

I whip my head up in fright at his sudden voice. ‘Yes?’

‘The Project is your only friend.’

His eyes reduce to small slits, one second passing in the silence, two. He looks from the faces in the file to me, then back again in a seesaw pendulum of time. I shiver, not knowing what to do, worried, scared even at how strongly I felt just now when I saw the faces of my friends, yet shocked at how much I want to please Black Eyes, please the Project, do whatever I can for them, find a place where I belong, accept that this is where I am to live my life.

After ten seconds pass without a word, Black Eyes scrapes back his chair and, striding to the glass mirror on the far side, he turns and faces me.

‘Maria, I have something to show you.’

He steps back and presses a buzzer. I watch, a nervous swell inside me licking the shores of my brain as the mirror of the window begins to move and a grey blind behind starts to rise. It reaches the top, clicking to a halt but still I cannot see fully what is beyond, when another snap sounds and this time a light switches on from the other side. A brightness floods the room and I have to blink over and over as it assaults my eyes, my hand shielding them. I have to resist the strong compulsion to duck and curl as, slowly, I finally see what was causing the moaning earlier.

‘Doc! Doc!’ the familiar Irish lilt of a voice shouts out.

I manage to stand and step forward, as what emerges in front of me, limb by limb, bone by bone, is a beaten, bruised and tied-up body.

When I find my voice, only one word comes out. ‘Patricia.’

Madrid Barajas Airport, Spain .

Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 32 hours

Even the earbuds I wear can’t cancel out the chaos and noise. People march back and forth, left and right, criss crossing the glaring bright gloss of the polished airport walkways. Babies scream and toddlers yell, coffee cups clink and trolley wheels screech, tannoy systems above my head bark the next flight departure as, in the near distance, wine glasses tinkle at a champagne bar, and a group of people laugh at a joke I will never understand.

I stand and blink and watch it all as the airport scene crashes into my senses, body and mind temporarily paralysed by everything. The noise, the smells. Tinny music from open shops. Coffee, beer, oil, sickly sugar, stale cigarette smoke, burger fat, perfume, leather, sweat, the faint soak of breeze block urine. The slurp of a straw. The bite of a sandwich. Every single scent, I smell. Every tiny pinprick of noise, I hear. It all smashes into my brain, colliding into my white and grey matter until I don’t know which way to look.

‘Doc?’

I slip out an earbud and look to my friend.

‘They’re not going to spot us,’ Patricia says, her voice low, calm. ‘We’ve got through security and I know airports are a nightmare for you, but look at us.’ She points to herself. ‘We’re in business suits and wigs. Jesus’— she smiles,— ‘I’ve never looked so smart. So it’ll be alright. Okay?’

I nod and tap my finger.

Another smile. ‘Good. You’re doing great. I’m right with you.’

She looks down at herself now and I watch her angled arms, her swan neck and her shaven head disguised by a long, mouse-brown wig that settles on suited shoulders. A cream, silk blouse slipped under a black jacket sits against smart tailored trousers and neat, flat ballet pumps on the end of flamingo stalks for legs. My friend. My first true friend.

‘It is too loud here,’ I say.

She takes my palm and presses her five fingertips into mine as she has always done. ‘I know, Doc. I know it’s too much information flying into your head from the airport, but I’m here.’ A group of passengers shuffle nearby and Patricia forms a little bubble of space around us so no one brushes against me. I catch her familiar scent of talcum powder, fresh linen, bubble baths. It makes me breathe a little slower.

Chris wanders over. He fiddles with his suit and his newly dyed bottle-blonde hair, and shakes his bright red Converses. ‘The security guards are hanging around a bit back there. We need to get moving towards boarding.’

Patricia eyes his feet. ‘You couldn’t have worn a pair of smart shoes, could you? We’re supposed to be pretending to be professional business people.’

He fidgets, pulling at his yellow tie, at the sleeves of his smart navy suit, shoulders twitching. ‘I feel like an idiot.’

‘You look like one.’

Chris glares at Patricia. He scratches where a white shirt clings to a flat surfer stomach and pulls at his trouser band muttering, ‘It’s too fucking tight.’

I observe my friends without any understanding of what their exchange means, the glances between them, the words. Funny or serious? Heartfelt or fickle? Ahead, a large bang slices the air as a café tray clatters to the floor, cups and plates and cutlery smashing into cold cream tiles, the sound of it hammering my head. I wince. It’s exhausting. I need stability, something factually familiar for my mind to cling onto, a lifeboat of facts.

I turn to Chris. ‘The term “idiot” means a person of low intelligence. You hacked into a CIA website, that takes intelligence to achieve. Therefore, the term idiot in describing you is wrong. On this occasion.’

Chris pulls his tongue out at Patricia. ‘See.’ Then he turns to me. ‘Thanks, Google.’

‘I have informed you before – that is not my name.’

He smiles, big and wide. ‘I know.’ Then he starts humming a song I have come to recognise from a singer he seems to greatly admire called Taylor Swift.

‘That is the melody entitled…’ I listen… “Shake it Off.”

He grins. ‘In one.’

Patricia rolls her eyes. ‘We have to go. Doc?’

‘Yes?’

‘Stay by me.’

We find a semi-quiet patch in a coffee shop and sit. Immediately anxiety hits. The slurp of peoples’ lips and tongues as they sip their drinks. The clink of cups. The steam from the milk machine and the mechanical grind of coffee beans. Teeth biting down into crunchy lettuce. Someone’s lace undone, the thread hanging loose, dragging along the floor. It all collides inside me. I try to focus, count, look to Patricia who mouths to me, ‘How can I help?’ except I don’t know the answer, only know that here and now I need to keep any potential meltdown under control so no attention is drawn to me or to us. Three hours ago we were in Ines’s apartment and I killed her with an iron nail to the neck, and watched Ramon and Balthus die. The last thing we need is a scene.

‘Doc, deep breaths.’

I nod, watching Chris closely as he walks to the counter, orders our drinks, but immediately, this tips me into a panic.