Without warning, they changed direction and began marching towards a frosted-glass window. There, they paused in height order, from the tallest at the front to the real Flick at the back, like a row of Russian dolls. It was as if they were staring at something.
‘OS – turn off music and clear glass,’ Flick yelled. The room fell silent, enabling her to see outside. It was then that she spotted the building in the distance. There was a yellow cross illuminated on the steeple and a dim light coming from inside. It was the former church that Elijah used as his second studio. That’s where the killer was hiding him; that’s where Flick would find them both. And that’s where she, Elijah, their baby and the secrets that she held might die.
Chapter 84
EMILIA
Emilia splashed water against her face until her skin cooled. She gave a short, sharp sniff under each arm, aware of her sour body odour. There had been no time that day to change her clothing or to freshen up. She slipped off her top, washed her armpits with liquid soap and water, then warmed the damp patches of material under the hand drier.
She glanced upwards as she made her way from the vestry’s bathroom back into the echoing stone church nave. The ceiling was so high that in the dim lighting, she couldn’t make out the detail painted upon it. She took in parts of the stained-glass windows that she could see which depicted the firing of arrows into a saint. She too knew how it felt to suffer at the hands of others.
It won’t be long now, she thought. Once she got what she needed from Flick, she would find out who she was, be free of the Hacking Collective and reunited with her husband and daughters.
Her earpiece beeped and she took a deep breath. She had already rehearsed what was to come next.
‘Delta Team, an update, please,’ Bianca’s voice began. Emilia looked over to Gardiner and Lago. All three remained silent.
‘Gardiner, what’s your status update, please?’ she repeated.
She still didn’t get her answer. ‘Lago, your location?’ This time there was a pause before Bianca spoke again. ‘Where the hell is everyone?’
Emilia cleared her throat. ‘The agents you assigned to babysit me are otherwise engaged,’ she said calmly, looking to both men again, smiling. Their expressions remained unmoved.
‘What’s that supposed to mean? Where are they?’
‘They’re here with me.’
‘Then tell them to answer me.’
When Emilia failed to oblige, Bianca hesitated again, as if she was trying to read between the lines. She chose her words carefully. ‘What have you done, Emilia?’
Emilia moved her head back in the direction of Gardiner and Lago. She had swiped Gardiner’s weapon and used it on both of them. Gardiner was lifeless and slumped over a pew, blood no longer trickling from a bullet wound through his temple. Lago lay face down on the concrete flagstones and displayed an exit wound just above his ear.
‘They served their purpose and now I’m going to finish this alone,’ said Emilia.
‘Get their GPS locations …’ she heard Bianca ordering someone. ‘She’s out of control. I warned you this would happen …’
‘You’re wasting your time,’ Emilia continued, looking at the broken tracking devices next to the bodies.
‘Emilia, I need you to tell me where you are. We need to bring you in immediately. You cannot compromise this mission by going rogue, not when we’ve come so close to our goal.’
‘I need to see this through to the end and on my terms so that I can be with my family again. I only have one chance left and she’ll be here any minute.’
‘Emilia,’ Bianca continued and for the first time, Emilia sensed panic in her inflection. ‘We can help you. But first you must tell me where you are so that we can come and get you.’
Emilia removed her earpiece, let it fall to the floor and crushed it underfoot. Then she took Gardiner’s gun from where it rested on the ledge and put a bullet through her phone.
She turned to look at where she had convinced the operatives to leave Elijah after they’d beaten him and dragged him from his home and into the back of their van. His arms were outstretched horizontally and his wrists and legs bound to a wooden crucifix. Another rope had been used to tie his neck to it and he was gagged with a cloth.
‘It won’t be much longer now,’ she said. ‘Soon we’ll all know who we are really supposed to be.’
Chapter 85
FLICK, ALDBURGH, SUFFOLK
Flick leaned against a granite headstone and bent double, clutching her stomach and gasping for breath. Raindrops dripped from leaves on the oak tree standing tall above her, onto her cheeks and down her neck.
The sprint from Elijah’s house to the deconsecrated church of St Paul took less than ten minutes. Fear and adrenaline drove her onward alongside a desperate hope that Elijah wasn’t another victim caught in the crossfire between her and the woman who wanted her dead. But pregnancy and the stress of the last twenty-four hours were physically weakening her along with a gripping feeling in her side that was spreading from her back to her stomach.
