J.F. Kirwan - 66 Metres - A chilling thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat!

‘You must always look your enemy in the eye. You must make sure. You must let them know, let yourself know that you mean it.’

So who was the corpse? She crouched and lifted the hood. Katya. Two shots. One in each eye. Nadia tried to scream, but she had no voice.

She jerked bolt upright, gasping for breath, her heart hammering in her chest, and opened her eyes in darkness. The same fucking nightmare. Sometimes Katya, sometimes her father, once her mother. Whoever she shot, her family got killed. She lay back down. Rain pelted the wooden roof, and the previous evening’s events slammed into her mind. She closed her eyes. Out of one nightmare…

Sammy stirred next to her. They were both fully clothed, lying on stale towels inside a beach hut he’d broken into no more than four hours ago, her backpack serving as a pillow. She could smell his scent. Six ops with Sammy, and he’d never made a move on her. Not even a flirtatious remark. She’d been happy with that. But right now she wouldn’t mind some comfort.

‘You awake, Nad?’ he asked.

‘Afraid so.’

He touched her brow. It was slick with cold sweat. ‘Nightmaring again?’

She didn’t answer. She’d never told him what they were about. Not a good idea.

Sammy sat up and switched on an interior light, a single harsh yellow bulb hanging from a twisted cord. She covered her eyes, rubbed them, then forced them open again.

‘Almost six,’ he said. ‘Time we found out exactly how much shit Janssen has dumped us in.’

He turned on a portable radio. The early morning shipping forecast was just ending. They listened to the first five BBC news items, then he switched off the radio. The rain eased.

‘What the fuck?’ he said, facing her.

She didn’t get it either. No mention of the downing of a helicopter in front of hundreds of tourists. No mention of gunshots in the centre of London either. None of it had made the news.

She propped herself up on an elbow, and nodded to the black leather bag concealing the package.

‘Tell me about the Rose, Sammy.’

He shook his head. ‘It’ll only distract you. You’re so close, Nad. Just get the job done. Then you and Katya are home free.’

He was about to get up. She touched his arm, stopped him.

‘What does the Rose do?’

He leaned close, his breath raw.

‘ If you can detect and localise a nuclear submarine, the Rose – Rosetta is its full name – will let you send it an encoded message the sub’s crew will trust.’

She stared at the bag. ‘What kind of message?’

‘You know, war has broken out, fire a nuclear missile, a target, that kind of stuff.’

It took a moment to sink in. ‘Jesus Christ!’

‘Exactly.’ He turned back to her. ‘But we didn’t make it. Those English bastards did. And now they’re shitting in their pants. Even blocked it from the news.’

‘But who’s Kadinsky going to sell it to? If Al Qaeda or IS –’

‘Not terrorists, Nad. Kadinsky’s greedy, not insane. Another government. The highest bidder. Look, these things never get used, they’re just leverage in global power games.’

He got up, peered through a crack in the door, then unlocked it and let in some fresh sea air. He glanced from the bag to Nadia, and walked outside.

Nadia had learned to trust Sammy, but knew this time his judgment was clouded by his hatred of the English. The Rose was Armageddon a la carte . If it got into the wrong hands… She didn’t want an exploding nuke on her conscience.

She stood up and walked outside, and stopped short when she saw Sammy taking a piss. She couldn’t help noticing he had quite a handful. His head swung towards her, and he continued urinating, as if she was just another guy. Suddenly she got it. She shook her head then smiled.

‘At least now I know it’s not personal,’ she said.

‘You’ve been a bit slow on the uptake, Nad.’ He grinned, shook himself, put it away and zipped up. ‘You don’t have what I want.’ He winked, then stood close to her, and put a hand on her shoulder. His grin vanished. ‘Besides, you’re not even in the game, are you?’

She flinched under his hand.

‘Look, most of us know what Slick and Pox did to you. I’m betting you’ve done almost nothing with a guy since.’

She reached for his hand, removed it from her shoulder.

‘Pox is dead, by the way,’ Sammy said.

‘I know.’ An op gone bad in Hong Kong. No one would talk about it, but someone had let slip to Katya.

One down …

She thought about the Rose again. Images of nuclear detonations – billowing mushroom clouds, thousands of lives snuffed out in an instant – crept unwanted into her mind. Knowing it was probably a bad idea, she had to ask. There wasn’t much time. ‘Sammy, the Rose, it’s too dangerous. Maybe we should –’

Sammy’s hand slapped over her mouth as he half-shoved, half-lifted her until her back smacked into the wooden beach hut. He leant into her, so there was no way she could even knee him in the balls. She smelled urine on his fingers. Her hands gripped his wrist, but he was too strong. He could snap her neck if he wanted to.

His black eyes blazed. ‘You trying to get me killed, Nad? Janssen and Kadinsky would hunt us down.’ He backed off a fraction. ‘Would you take your Beretta and shoot your pretty Katya in the face?’

She recoiled and tried to break free, but he gripped her mouth harder. She glared at him.

‘Because that would be a kindness compared to what will happen if you do something stupid, or even mention it, which is why my hand is over your mouth, stopping any more shit coming out of it.’

She broke their gaze.

‘The Rose goes to Kadinsky, Nad. What happens after that is above our pay grade. Are we clear?’

She nodded as far as she was able. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I like you Nadia. Just don’t go soft in the head on me.’ He released her.

She wiped her mouth, spat onto the wet concrete.

He re-entered the beach hut.

Nadia stared towards the dark sea. The tide was leaving, waves dragging stones noisily down the pebble beach. She hoped Sammy was still on her side. She had no allies in Kadinsky’s world. Everyone was too shit-scared of him, or else dead. She wanted to believe Kadinsky would let her and Katya go, keep his side of the bargain, but why would he? What was in it for him?

Sammy emerged with his crash helmet and the leather bag holding the Rose.

‘Are we good, Nad?’

Despite wanting to deck him, she had to stick to the only plan she had. Get it back to Kadinsky. Maybe Sammy was right. The Rose would never actually get used, especially by a sane government. Otherwise it would trigger instant retaliation, maybe global war. Even IS didn’t have much use for a radioactive planet. She knew she was trying to convince herself, but Kadinsky was going to get it with or without her. Focus on what you can control.

Save Katya .

She nodded. But Sammy looked at her sideways through hooded eyes.

‘Seriously, Nad, I need to know.’ he said. ‘Because right now Janssen is more lethal to us than this package.’

She stared at him. ‘Why?’

‘He’s one of those pricks who believes the world owes him everything. Ego big as a house. Hands soft as a girl’s because he always gets others to do his dirty work. Kadinsky only let him run this op because Janssen got the intel from a friend. But the guy’s ambitious, and he’s got two of his cronies with him. I know you can shoot, but I’ve never actually seen you put someone down. At first I thought they got lucky, those two guards in Sebastopol last year, the ones who would have killed me except you stopped them. But it was precision shooting, Nad, minimal damage, the soft fleshy zones between the major organs. Hard to hit, easy to miss. You study biology to do that?’