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

She gazed towards the sea. ‘Anatomy, actually. Kadinsky’s camp. With the guy we called the Butcher . Had us practise all the pressure points on captives, and made us shoot, knife and garrote cadavers.’

‘You ever killed, Nadia?’

No. Never. Can’t .

‘Never had to.’ She looked him straight in the eye, as she always did when the only way out was a lie. ‘But I will when I have to, Sammy.’

‘Good. Because I need to know you’ve got my back, Nad.’

She cleared her throat. ‘We’re good, Sammy.’

‘Okay. And keep an eye on Kilroy. I’ve seen the way that creep looks at you. Don’t know where the fuck Janssen recruits his men, or why Kadinsky lets him use his own team.’ His voice, and the way he looked at her, became normal again. ‘I’ll see you at the warehouse. I’m going early to set up the meet. Be there at seven.’

‘What?’ She felt a stab of panic. He was taking the Rose, her only leverage. ‘That wasn’t the plan!’

He shrugged. ‘We turn up the same time… Too dangerous. Too easy for Janssen. This way I arrive first, check out the Rose, and Janssen knows you’re coming, so he has to wait, and I can see the lie of the land.’ He hefted the bag as if to make the point. ‘Don’t worry, you’re my insurance, Nad. Just be there at seven. And bring your Beretta.’

He turned and walked off to find his Suzuki. Cold, she re-entered the beach hut and gathered her stuff. She checked the Beretta. Fully loaded. When she came back out, a few strands of luminous blue had split the dark cloud layer just above the horizon. Dawn was arriving. She walked along the seafront, fast at first, burning off the residual adrenaline until the sun peeked above the sea.

She wandered the slippery, cobbled streets of Penzance, their ‘B site’. It was low-key there, but with an airstrip nearby. Janssen had rented a plane and could fly them across to Dublin, and then Sammy’s contacts could get them to Helsinki. Then she’d get them across the border into Russia. A nice, neat little plan. But so far this one was going south fast, just like Sebastopol…

The guards she’d shot there. She’d checked afterwards. They’d survived, though one had retired early. Good for him. The eight other ops had been bloodless, more or less, a little roughing up here and there, but she’d stayed in the shadows. This should have been the final op, after which she could stop pretending to be a killer.

She found a Starbucks. It hadn’t opened yet, but the young guy setting up let her use the loo anyway. After splashing water on her face and wiping her armpits with damp paper towels, she ordered a soya cappuccino and a skinny blueberry muffin. She only ate half, watching the sunrise. Sebastopol. If only Sammy knew the truth…

Six months prior to that botched mission, Katya had told Nadia their mother was dying. Ovarian cancer. Stage Four. Metastasised. Dead woman walking. Katya had already been to pay her last respects. Amazingly – or more likely due to Katya – Kadinsky let Nadia go back to Uspekh for the weekend. None of her relatives there wanted to talk to her; they had an idea of her line of work, and after her father’s death all sorts of stories had come out. Some of them true. So, she was already judged and shunned. Like father, like daughter. She didn’t care. She had nothing to say to them.

Her mother didn’t look too bad – mainly bloated with dark rings around the eyes – but that was because she’d refused chemo, said it would only prolong the inevitable, that she’d had enough of this world, was anxious to try the next. As usual, her mother had something to say, and didn’t indulge in pleasantries before jumping straight to the point, after first clasping Nadia’s hand so she had to listen.

‘Your father is in hell, Nadia,’ she said, her voice strong, her eyes full of fire. ‘All those people he killed, they were waiting for him.’

Nadia felt the familiar knot tightening in her stomach, remembered why she’d left all those years ago. It was as if her umbilical cord had been shoved up inside her rather than cut, and her mother could pluck at it any time she wanted. Nadia still loved her father, even though she knew what he’d become, and didn’t want to think of him trapped in hell with only his victims for company.

Her mother tightened her grip. ‘I know I will pay for my sins first, but I’m going to heaven eventually, and I hope your sister, despite her slutty whoring –’

Nadia snatched her hand away. Her mother paused. Her eyes softened.

‘I know Katya will join me one day.’ She held out her hand. Nadia hesitated a moment, then took it.

‘Nadia. If you kill, you can never come to heaven. Never. I want you there with me. So I need you to promise.’

Nadia recoiled. She’d never wanted to kill, wasn’t even sure she could. But this…

‘I’m dying Nadia. You’re still my daughter.’ Her eyes grew hard. ‘You owe me.’ She looked away, to the window, perhaps realising she’d overplayed it. ‘And Katya.’

Nadia wanted to storm off, to tell her to go to hell, that it wasn’t reserved only for killers. But this was her mother’s deathbed, this was their last conversation. In a few weeks, she’d be standing over this woman’s grave.

Her mother looked at her then, the way she had before all their lives had turned to shit, and Nadia remembered the sweet mother who’d brushed Nadia’s hair when it had been wild and long, told her stories, taught her to bake cakes, and held her when she’d been frightened by thunderstorms. Something cracked inside Nadia. She tried to hold it back, but it was no use. A torrent of painful longing tore through her, heart-wrenching pangs for the mother she’d lost a long time before she’d lost her father. If there was a heaven, maybe this was the part of her mother they’d let in.

Her mother released Nadia’s hand. ‘Promise me, Nadia. Promise me you’ll never kill.’

Nadia knew she’d regret it, that in her line of business this was at worst a suicide pact, at best Russian roulette. Maybe her mother knew it, too, and that this way Nadia would end up in heaven faster, even if she’d rather be with her father. She wouldn’t have put it past her mother. But the bond was too strong, and images of those happier early years flashed across her mind, and child-like tears for the loss of a mother-daughter relationship that could have been so much more, tumbled down her cheeks. Her mother smiled, knowing she’d won. Right now it didn’t matter. And so the two words Nadia knew could seal her fate passed between her lips.

‘I promise.’

Nadia downed the last of the cappuccino, paid, left a ridiculous tip, and headed towards the disused docks where she was to meet with Sammy, Janssen, Toby and Kilroy. At least they were far from London, which would be locked down, airports and Eurostar heavily screened. Not that she could leave the country alone – Janssen had her passport. But they had some breathing space in this provincial tourist town, four hours by train or car from the capital. She suddenly remembered the helicopter pilot, wondered if he was okay, then ditched the thought. She’d done all she could.

She neared the older part of town and slowed. If one or more of the policemen had died last night, she was an accessory to murder. Approaching the iron door of the dilapidated warehouse, she paused, and had a final futile thought about doing a one-eighty. Then she heaved open the door. The hinges shrieked, setting her nerves on edge. She took a deep breath and stepped inside.

The warehouse reeked of mould. Fetid pools of water lay scattered across an uneven, cracked concrete floor. The large space was devoid of furniture save for a metal table and three rusted chains hanging from iron crossbars close to the roof. Sammy’s Suzuki stood near the door, the only remarkable item in the grim daylight filtering through a broken skylight. She heard faint slapping sounds as waves beat against the pillars underneath the floor.