The Killing Files

I look between the woman and Black Eyes. When I open my mouth, my voice trembles. ‘I am in a Project facility.’

‘And who are the Project?’

‘It is a covert group linked to MI5.’

‘And what do we do?’

Despite myself, despite my resistance, the words trip from my mouth, as if they are preset, robotic. ‘The Project is a covert programme formed in response to a global threat of terrorism and, specifically, cyber terrorism. It trains people with Asperger’s to use their unique, high IQ skills to combat security alerts. Only MI5 knows the organisation exists.’

‘And the UK government?’ he asks. ‘What of them—do they know who we are?’

‘Negative. They have no knowledge of the Project’s existence.’

‘Good.’ His chest puffs then deflates as his head bobs up and down, a smile snaking in to his face. ‘Good.’

The woman nods once to Black Eyes then leaves via a door that has no handles or hinges. Black Eyes waits for her to exit then turns to me, perching himself on the end of the bed. I grip the sheets tight. At first he does not speak, but then, after two seconds, he opens his mouth and a precise, metallic voice strides out.

‘You will not remember being here, Maria. You won’t recall this conversation, you won’t recollect the details of the tests we carry out on you. But know that we are always watching you, are always … here for you. We are everywhere.’ He leans to the side and, from a metal trolley, picks up a loaded syringe. My heart rate rockets.

‘You are at school now, yes?’

I swallow, confused. ‘No. I am not at school now. Now I am here.’

He pauses, one second, two, three, his teeth appearing to clench. ‘Your teacher next year,’ he says finally, exhaling, ‘he will be working for us, helping us to watch you. These people you see nearly every day—they are your handlers. Even your family priest. But of course, you won’t—’ a strange mewed laugh emits from his mouth—‘you won’t remember.’ He sighs. ‘I cannot believe I am telling you this now—you’ll only forget. But Father Reznick, your friendly Catholic priest—he’s one of us.’ My eyes go wide. The priest? But I saw him kissing Mama. ‘Oh, the big brown eyes! Maria, I am growing to know you well now. You do remind me of my own daughter …’ He drifts off, momentarily looking downwards, the needle resting in his fingers, and I glance to the door and wish I could run. ‘Anyway,’ he says after a moment, ‘do not worry. When you go on to university and work, we will have our people there, too, Project people like me and you, people who will watch over what you do, even though you won’t, at the time, know they are with us.’ He flicks the needle with a finger. Sweat beads pop out all over my face. ‘Oh, there’s no need to fret,’ he says now, leaning in, studying the sheen on my forehead. ‘We are friends, aren’t we?’

I recoil. ‘I do not have any friends.’

He halts, tilting his skull. ‘No. No I don’t suppose you do.’ He drifts off again for a second, then, checking the needle, he handcuffs my wrist with his fingers and pulls my arm towards him. ‘Your mother, Ines—lovely woman, isn’t she?’

I say nothing, instead watch his eyes narrow as they inspect the vial for air bubbles. Vomit wells in the base of my throat.

‘Shame she is on her own now after your father, Alarico, died. Loneliness is a terrible thing. Car crash, wasn’t it?’

Alarico, my papa. Hearing his name makes my head spin a little, my heart ache. The vomit rumbles.

‘Still,’ Black Eyes says now, his Scottish lilt dancing on the cold air, ‘she’s a strong woman, your mother, a lawyer like your father, but, well, more forthright. She’ll make a good politician when she hits the Spanish parliament after she’s got over her little … illness. Your brother, too—Ramon, isn’t it? Seems like he’s following in their legal footsteps what with his fondness for debate club. Quite the family. And family, Maria, it’s important, keeps us together …’

Black Eyes is leaning in to me so close now, I can see the faint shadow of stubble on his chin, feel the hot garlic and tobacco of his breath on my neck. I want to scream. I want to run a million miles away, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot bring myself to move, and even if I did run, where would I go? Where would I ever go?

‘You though, Maria—my … our test child,’ Black Eyes says now, ‘for you we have plans. We would like you to become … a doctor. Try and press that into your subconscious, hmmm? Even though this will make all of today fade away. A plastic surgeon, specifically. We need to test your dexterous skills, hone them so they can one day be of use to us. Study in Madrid at the University Hospital there—that’s where one of our handlers resides.’ He smiles, a flash of crooked, tombstone teeth. ‘Do you understand?’

I nod.

‘With words.’

‘I understand.’

‘Good. Because you are the one our conditioning is working on and we wouldn’t want all these trips your mother takes you on to be wasted now, would we?’

‘Mama believes she is taking me to an autism clinic,’ I say, an unexpected flash of defiance streaking through me. ‘She does not know what you really do. You are lying to her.’

He stares at me. He levels his black, bottomless eyes at me and delivers a look so chilling that, even with my emotionally challenged brain, I get a shiver of fright.

‘We have a bit of terrorism to fight out there,’ he continues now as if I had never spoken. ‘Pesky little terrorists trying to break into our computer networks, into our global infrastructures. But now—’ Black Eyes taps my arm, lowers the needle to my skin ‘—now, my dear, sweet Maria—now you will forget …’

Chapter 3

Salamancan Mountains, Spain.

34 hours and 53 minutes to confinement

I come to. I tumble into the present day, gasping in a sharp gulp of oxygen, falling against the kitchen table in my Salamancan villa, sweat pouring from my brow and arms and bare, wobbly legs. I go to haul myself up, blinking furiously, desperate for water, but almost instantly another subconscious recollection arrives, dragging me back into a deeper, stronger dream. More lucid and glaring.

This time I see myself sitting at a desk in a Project tech lab. The walls are regulation white, and around the bottom are long strips of brushed steel, all bases for junction boxes that contain red and green bulbs that flash on and off by a control panel to the left. Computers sit in pre-allocated slots, controlled acoustics used to minimise background sounds for the subjects, subjects like me who inhabit the zone. There is spatial sequencing and lights and levels that are all compartmentalised to define their use, everything routine, expected.

My fingers tap a keyboard and I notice they are older now, not fifteen this time, but tanned, longer, the fingers of my stronger twenty-year-old self. I am writing detailed notes from memory into an online file, classified Top Secret, scores of data and times and geolocations going directly from my brain to the computer. There is a photograph on the screen of a woman with caramel skin wearing a hijab draped under pink-rose cheeks. She has a prominent, aquiline nose and her eyes are so brown they look as if they are constructed of pure liquid. Her picture is superimposed on the file and as I type, I record details of her, of this woman who I have known for two years but who has now caused problems for the Project. My informant, my asset in the field, code named by me as Raven, a bird symbolising good omens, yet the keeper of deception, of tragedy.

A beep sounds and I stand, quick, lithe, the colt now a thoroughbred as, turning to the right, I march out of the door and to the main corridor warren of the covert Project facility. Scanning the area, I proceed straight to Room Six, where I enter through the thick metal door, shut it and turn.

Raven lies on the floor. She is splattered in blood and on her head, her black veil lies splayed out, torn down to her neck, exposing cut, charred skin and deep, gaunt eyes. Gone is the rose of her cheeks, replaced now by two worn-out hollows, and when I look at her I know she is the enemy, yet for some reason, a lump forms in the base of my throat and I have to swallow it away.

A Project officer, younger, files over to me. He wears a grey shirt made with soft cotton fabric and beneath the front of the right hand shoulder is the letter H followed by a three-digit number.

‘I was called here,’ I say. ‘What do you require?’

He turns to me but makes no eye contact. ‘You need to guard the detainee. I have been asked to go to the control centre. I will be back in three minutes and thirty seconds.’

He turns, exits, and I do not move. My eyes stay ahead, my body now defined, muscles strong, hands skilled and slim from the medical school training.

‘M-Maria?’

The woman lifts her head from her slump on the floor. Her gaze is raised to me but I do not look at her. The lump in my throat tightens.

‘Detainees are not permitted to talk,’ I say, eyes front.

‘It is you, isn’t it? Maria? You … you cut your hair.’ She coughs. Blood speckles the white tiles, and her eyes dart left and right then settle back on me. ‘I know you think I am the enemy, but I am not. That’s just what they made you believe.’ She heaves in oxygen. ‘They set me up, Maria—you have to believe me. They’ll do it to you, too, if they have to. I’m not a terrorist …’ She coughs again, wipes her mouth. ‘They’ll be back soon, so you must listen. There … there is a file. It’s encrypted.’ She licks her cracked lips. ‘It’s on a file within a computer that’s not … that’s not attached to anything, a standalone device. No server is linked to it, but it contains a file that you created, a hidden file, away from the Project. Do you understand? Do you understand what that means?’

‘Detainees are not permitted to talk.’ I strain not to look at her. She is the enemy, and yet her words, her injured presence—they bother me.

‘It has details, the file,’ she continues, ‘ones they cannot track. It will give you what you need—confidential data, who the Project has tested on, the files and names of who they’ve killed. What they’re doing is wrong, Maria. They can’t treat people like this, they can’t act like gods of the world, and yet that’s what they do. Give man power and I give you an eternity of pain.’ She spits out some blood and I fight the urge to wipe it away because, for some reason, I feel connected to this woman but I don’t know why.

‘Maria?’

‘Detainees are not permitted to …’ I trail off, confused, unsure which side she is really on.

‘You are struggling, I know,’ she says now, low, laboured, ‘struggling with who I am … but we were in the field together. Maria, I helped you and you helped me. They’ll mess with your memory after they’ve done with me, like they always do. The file will give you what you need, tell you what you’ve done—the truth! Find out who you really are, Maria! I know you, I do. We were … we were friends.’

My eyes briefly flicker to her then, snapping back into position, I look away. ‘I have no friends.’

The door bolts open and the officer with the H on his shirt returns accompanied by two other, higher ranking officers. They stride to Raven, haul her up, but as they pull her away, she digs in her feet. ‘The file,’ she whispers. ‘Find it!’

They yank her forwards and as they do she shouts, ‘They will make you complete it, Maria! Prepare, they told us. Wait. Engage! Eliminate the threat. They will make you kill me! You know this, Maria, I know you do. Fight it,’ she says, her feet leaving trails of blood in their wake, ‘fight the Project! Help!’

But I do nothing, instead watch her go and as she does, as she is dragged screaming away past the cold, pale doors of the Project walkways, what bothers me about her so much comes to me, slapping me hard on the face.

‘I never knew your name,’ I say aloud to the now empty room, the words echoing in a void that can never be filled. ‘I never knew your name.’

The image begins to swirl away, soft at first then faster downwards as a noise vibrates in my ears and I realise it’s the radio alarm clock clicking on, blasting a newscaster’s voice into the kitchen.

I intake a sharp breath and my eyes fly open taking in a woozy, hazy view of my warm, sun-drenched kitchen. I touch my head with a shaking hand then, falling forward, grab a glass, fill it from the tap and drain the water until it is sliding down my chin, fangs of liquid on my shocked skin. I slap the glass down, slam back into the wall, smear my lips with the back of my hand and try to steady my breath. The memory, the subconscious dream still fresh in my mind—these have happened before, but not this strong, not with her so vividly in them. I throw my hand to the side, feel my way forward, the image of the hijab throwing me off centre. What she said about the files—was that true? Did she store a data file at the Project? Did that actually happen? I spin round, brain firing left and right. My notebook. I need my notebook, need to write it all down, record it so I can track it and try to make sense of what is hidden in my head.

The news piece on the radio is talking about the American national security agency, how Edward Snowden has revealed more information and is in hiding now. I try to pay attention. I try to press it all to my mind so I can lose myself and record it all on my wall, but the words are too much, the noise all too loud and I can’t think straight, the dream of the woman and her screams still lingering in my mind even in the bright glare of the summer sun. A dull moan slips from my mouth and I slap my hand down on the radio, silencing it as I count the steps that I now stumble into the lounge.

My eyes automatically scan the solitary armchair, the old brown piano with its back against the wall, the towers of books that sky-scrape their way across the room, the thousands of newspaper articles plastered to the wall, covered in scrawled notes of black pen and pin tacks and sketches of blank faces of people I don’t remember. I look at it all, my sight hazy, struggling to focus until, finally, I spot my notebook on the cabinet island by the far wall.

I immediately go to it, flip past the pages of algorithms and codes and sketches of Project facility buildings, all vague memories of events and details, and scratch out what I have just seen. Done, I slam the book shut. I stare at the cracked brown leather cover that curls at the corners. My memories, my nightmares are in there, the ones I don’t know about, the details and facts I cannot even recall occurring and yet, somehow they are in my head. Somehow, despite the drugs, I recall them. But why?

I think of Raven. What if there is a file? What if I have just recalled something that happened a decade ago despite the drugs Black Eyes gave me? If the file the woman stowed away is at the Project, does that mean it is still there, now, after all these years? I hold out my hands, look at my fingers, long slim trained doctor hands, a plastic surgeon’s, helping to reconstruct faces and injuries and a mix of disgust and sadness hits me. The Project made me become a doctor. It was not my choice or conscious will, instead it was a foregone conclusion, a fait accompli. But what are we when we are not in control of our own choices and life? What does that eventually do to us? And what do we eventually do as a result?

I stare again at my fingers and skin and cut-to-the-quick nails. I am Dr Maria Martinez. Raven said they would make me kill her.

Did I?

They have made me believe I have killed before, they got me convicted of the murder of a priest because they—MI5—wanted me hidden and out of the way when the NSA prism scandal broke out, just so the Project would not be uncovered. They framed me, despite my innocence, to suit their own ends, but even then I doubted myself, because if who I am and what I do in life has been decided and directed by the Project, if they have drugged me all along, how will I know with any certainty what really happened?

And who it has happened to?

I reopen my notebook. Perhaps if I scan the pages again, if I link my thoughts here to the wall and the research and the faces and facts, I can make some connections between what I know and what I have just seen. I can lose myself in my thoughts and record everything that swims to the surface of my memory, linking it, if I can, to the NSA, to MI5 and the Project, find some comfort purely in the challenge and routine and order of it all, safe in the knowledge that I won’t take it any further, that I don’t ever want to leave here and the sanctuary it provides, and if they don’t find me, I can remain hidden in my villa forever.

I look up at my wall. I study the multiple news articles and anonymous faces and facts and arrowed figures, and just as I am about to reach forward and readjust a pinned article so that it sits neat and straight and in order next to the others, the emergency cell phone shrills into the calm morning silence.

And everything stops.

Chapter 4

Salamancan Mountains, Spain.

34 hours and 46 minutes to confinement

I pick up the cell, slamming down the button so the shrill will stop hammering into my head. ‘Who is this?’

‘Maria, it’s Balthus.’

‘You are speaking on the emergency cell,’ I say, fast. ‘Is there an urgent situation?’

‘What? No.’

‘Then why are you calling me?’

‘You haven’t contacted me for three days and I was worried.’

The ring of the cell still bangs in my head. I shake it. ‘Four days.’

‘What?’

‘I have not called you for four days.’ My eyes catch the sunshine dancing a waltz along the curves of the glass panes. I focus on it and, gradually, my head calms down. ‘You said three.’

There’s a pause. ‘Maria, we agreed when we spilt up in London—you’d stay in touch, contact me every day. I got worried when you didn’t call.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I care for you. Because I promised your father before he died I’d look out for you.’

‘Oh. Okay.’ The glass panes twinkle in the daylight. ‘I had another memory today.’

‘What? When?’

‘At 0612 hours this morning.’

I pick up my notebook and proceed to tell him what happened. He listens. This is what he does, Balthus Ochoa—I talk and he listens. When he was the governor at Goldmouth prison in London where I was incarcerated; him listening led me to find an encrypted file that uncovered the Project and my subsequent involvement in it. He has always told me how he promised my papa that he would be there for me, tells me he cares for me, and I catch myself feeling what must be gratitude towards him, but I never know how to express it, do not understand how people say what they feel inside.

‘That’s odd,’ Balthus says now, his voice a layer of gravel, a boulder on a mountain.

‘What is odd?’

‘Well … Okay, so it may be nothing, but there’s something bugging me about the standalone computer the woman in your flash mentioned, but I can’t figure out why it bothers me. Maria—the memory with the woman, with Raven—do you remember which Project facility that was at?’

‘No. I only recall the facility with Black Eyes when I was younger. That was in Scotland. That is the facility Kurt brought me to. Do you not remember this?’

‘Jesus, how could I forget? I bloody well suggested you see that therapist after you were acquitted—and he turned out to be working for MI5.’

‘He was working for the Project.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘No. You said MI5. Kurt—although his real name is Daniel, a Hebrew name meaning God is my judge—when he was meeting with me he was only working for the Project. By then—’

‘By then the NSA prism scandal had been exposed and MI5 wanted to ditch the whole Project because they were scared of a similar blow-up.’

My eyes rest on the wall, on my drawings and newspaper articles and lines of connections and notes.

Balthus sighs. ‘I don’t know, I just … What they did. I still can’t believe the Project framed you for the murder of that priest just to get you in prison and out of the way, so they could then get rid of you.’

‘So they could kill me to eradicate any connection to the Project.’

‘Yes.’ He pauses. ‘Yes.’

The window in the lounge is open, and in the breeze the muslin curtain drifts in and out, the white cotton veil of it brushing the tiled floor as it passes quietly through the room.

‘Anyway, look, Maria,’ Balthus says after a while, clearing his throat, ‘the other reason I wanted to call was just to let you know that there’s been no sighting or word from the MI5 officer who posed as our prison psychiatrist—Dr Andersson. You were asking about her.’

Dr Andersson. Her face instantly springs into my mind. Swedish blonde hair, ice-blue eyes, freckled pale skin. A vision of her making me take apart laptops, timing me to complete a Rubik’s cube—all the tasks she was doing to monitor me without my knowledge. I shiver. ‘She has not approached you or any of Harry’s family?’

‘No. No, I don’t think so. But Maria, listen—how are you about Harry now, since his death? It’s been six months since Dr Andersson shot him on the court steps when she was aiming to kill you. Harry wasn’t just your barrister or even simply your papa’s old friend—I know you had a soft spot for him.’ He pauses, three silent seconds passing. ‘I just worry about you. It’s a lot for any of us to process, never mind for you.’

I am momentarily stuck for words as a strange tightness presses against my chest. ‘The Kubler-Ross grief model says I should be at acceptance stage now.’

‘And are you at that stage, Maria? Do you accept Harry’s death? He cared for you a lot.’ I can hear him swallow. ‘We both did—do.’

I swallow and clench my jaw as conflicting feelings of anger and sadness wash through me. A tear escapes. I reach up, smear my cheek dry.

‘Dr Andersson killed Harry. MI5 killed Harry.’

‘Yes.’

Over on the window ledge, a small bird with golden-brown feathers lands on the white wood. It dips its head once, then going very still, it looks up, free, and flies away. For a few seconds, I watch the now empty, open space where the bird stood then, inhaling, I look back to the cell phone.

‘Did Patricia get parole?’

‘Yes,’ Balthus replies. There is a rustle of paper on the line. ‘I told her you were okay, in hiding from the Project, let her know what you did—sending the texts to MI5 and the Project on Kurt’s phone in London so they both thought you were dead. She understands you’re hiding, that you can’t contact her.’

‘And Dr Andersson has not been trailing her?’

‘No. I’m in touch with Patricia—all seems well. You two struck up a good friendship in Goldmouth. I’m glad, I’m …’ He stops. ‘You need friends, Maria. I hate the thought of you being on your own.’

My eyes catch the room. The solitary chair, the bare, whitewashed walls, the cell phone lying on the upturned crate with Balthus’s voice trapped inside.

‘Look, Maria,’ Balthus says after two seconds, ‘I don’t know why, but something about this Raven memory of yours … Well, I know I mentioned it just before, but it … well, there’s something about it that rings a bell, but I don’t know what.’

‘Is it a recent recollection?’

‘I don’t know. I …’ He trails off. ‘It’s just, well, something Ines told me when she called me when you were in prison. I don’t know if it even means anything, but it was weird.’

‘The word ‘weird’ means a suggestion of something supernatural.’

‘What? No, no, I didn’t …’

‘Weird can also mean connected to fate, to a person’s destiny.’

‘Okay. Well, anyway, she was specific, Ines, about talking to me, about calling me and telling me what she did.’

‘When exactly was this?’

‘It was before the retrial.’

‘What date?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why not?’

‘Maria, my memory’s not as accurate as yours. But, look, it was strange. We hadn’t spoken for years—since Alarico’s death, in fact—and then, after her visit to you in Goldmouth, she calls out of the blue talking about … God, what was it …? Something about secrets … Damn it. I can’t remember. I just know she was acting odd.’ He breathes out. ‘It’s probably irrelevant anyway.’