66 Metres: A chilling thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat!

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?’

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.

‘Close the fucking door!’

Nadia glared at Janssen, and tugged the door shut with a definitive clunk. Sammy wandered over and flipped the latch, locking them in. His crash helmet hung from his left hand. With his back to Janssen, Sammy caught Nadia’s eye and raised an eyebrow.

Katya had also warned Nadia about Janssen. Said his ideas were a lot bigger than his delivery. She’d had to be careful with him in the bedroom. But Katya had said something else – which Nadia had not quite understood at the time – that Janssen was most dangerous when he turned his back on you.

She and Sammy joined the others at the battered table, a cylindrical device in its centre, smooth silver metal except for a couple of red LED displays that pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat. It was about the same size as a large tin of vegetables. The Rose.

A siren wailed in the distance, made all five of them glance at one another. Janssen, his bone-white hair lashed back in a ponytail, spread his arms wide.

‘Stay cool. They have no idea where we are,’ he said. His pale blue eyes were relaxed, as if he didn’t care about anything.

Nobody spoke, least of all Janssen’s men, Toby and Kilroy. They stood to his right, Toby bald and paunchy, eyes darting here and there, mainly toward the door. Kilroy was a good two heads taller, unmoving. Tattoos on his fingers, like rings, marked him as hard-core Mafia. The type you never spoke to. Neither Kilroy nor Toby looked happy, but there was resignation there. Clearly this wasn’t the first time a job with Janssen had been screwed up.

Nadia knew she should stay quiet. She’d never spoken out when her dad had been around, no matter what he’d done. Once he’d gone, though, she’d developed what her mother called a trouble-mouth.

‘The policemen back in London… Are they dead? The news isn’t saying.’

Janssen leaned forward across the table. ‘Less you know, the better.’

She folded her arms. ‘Theft of this magnitude is five years’ hard time. Accessory to murder is fifteen. Especially a copper.’

Sammy moved away from her, cradling his helmet in his arms.

‘Then you’ll get thirty,’ Janssen said. ‘Girl like you’ll go down well in prison.’ He leered, and Toby and Kilroy half-snorted, half-laughed at the innuendo.

Nadia wasn’t laughing. Nine ops for Kadinsky. Two wounded, zero fatalities. She had a hunch Janssen had a different scorecard.

‘What now?’ she asked.

Janssen prodded the Rose with a forefinger. ‘Sammy-boy, you sure the homing beacon is deactivated?’

‘I know my job.’

Janssen nodded.

This was the point at which Janssen should pay them the first half, give her back her passport, and head to the airfield. But he didn’t move, and said no more. The silence hung in the humid air, and the mood around the table shifted. Nadia couldn’t put her finger on it, but Toby stopped glancing around, and Kilroy’s lips curled into an ugly smile. The back of Nadia’s neck prickled. She tried not to react. Her gut told her to sprint for the door.

Janssen turned his back on them all and walked a few steps from the table. Toby watched Sammy. Kilroy studied her. Nadia did a rapid risk analysis: Janssen was going to double-cross Kadinsky. She and Sammy were corpses-in-waiting. Three of them against her and Sammy. Bad odds. She stared at the Rose. It was the key. She’d told Sammy she had his back, but did she? Could she kill one of these men? Nadia imagined her father rising up out of wherever the hell they’d buried him, watching her, waiting, willing her to become like him. And her mother… Christ! It was like a custody battle that reached far beyond the grave. Forget it. Focus.

Janssen’s voice echoed around the desolate room. ‘Nadia, you ditch your pistol on the way down like we agreed?’

‘Sure,’ she lied. She kept her arms folded, and did the thumbs-inside-fist trick again.

It calmed her breathing. She unfolded her arms casually. She met Kilroy’s eyes. He looked at her like she was already a piece of dead meat on the floor, and screwable into the bargain.

She kept her voice level. ‘We take the package back to Kadinsky, Janssen, as agreed.’

She reached out and picked up the Rose. It was heavier than it looked. Kilroy’s eyes narrowed. The fingers of his right hand uncurled. She ignored him and studied Janssen. He still had his back to them. His head turned halfway, as if listening, but she noticed his right arm move slowly, as if searching for something inside his jacket.

‘Afraid not, Nadia,’ Janssen said.

She took a breath, knowing that when shit happened, it only took seconds.

One.

Toby went for his gun, but Sammy was quicker, and slam-dunked his crash helmet down onto Toby’s flabby face. Nadia tossed the Rose into the air. Kilroy had been going for his weapon but his mouth dropped open as his eyes followed the vertical arc of their prize, his large hands reaching to catch it.

Two.

Toby staggered backwards, blood streaming from a pulped nose, and drew his gun, but a sharp crack exploded in the room as Sammy shot him in the chest. Toby toppled backwards onto the floor, eyes wide open. Nadia slid the safety off her Beretta, but it got caught in the folds of her anorak, wouldn’t come out of its pocket. She pulled her empty hand out just as Janssen whirled around, gripping a silver Magnum. Kilroy caught the Rose, but was staring down the barrel of Sammy’s Glock.

Three.

Janssen levelled the Magnum first at her, saw she was unarmed, then tried to draw a bead on Sammy. But Kilroy was directly between Sammy and Janssen. Janssen took a step forward. Sammy mirrored the movement, keeping Kilroy in the line of fire.

‘Stay there, Janssen,’ Sammy said. ‘Nadia and I are leaving. Keep the Rose, and the money. We’ll give you a twelve-hour head-start before we call Kadinsky.’

Nadia glanced at the door ten metres behind them. They’d never make it. Janssen looked confident. She backed away to the side, in full view of Janssen.

‘Sammy, you go, you know I can’t,’ she said, continuing to back away, trying to gauge the angle. Both Janssen and Kilroy had the hungry eyes of men who thought they were in control, about to inflict mortal harm. Kilroy shifted the Rose to his left hand, leaving his gun-hand free, fingers flexed.

‘Nad, what are you doing? You are coming with me,’ Sammy said, his voice taut. ‘They’ll kill you for sure.’

She took one more step backwards. The angle was right. One-twenty degrees. If Janssen looked straight at Sammy, she’d be in Janssen’s blind spot. She watched his eyes.

‘Looks like you’re on your own, Sammy-boy.’ Janssen took a small step forward.

Nadia’s right hand slipped into her anorak pocket again, found the cool grip of her Beretta. She reckoned she could maim Janssen without killing him. Inserting her finger in front of the trigger, she took a breath, and pulled out the Beretta. Janssen’s head turned first, then his Magnum swung in her direction. Look into their eyes, her father had said. But she blinked as she fired, the recoil punching back into her shoulder, the gunshot like a smack across both ears. The pungent smell of the expended cartridge stung her nostrils.

Janssen went down.

Another crack from Sammy’s pistol made her glance left to see Kilroy wavering like a man on a tightrope, a pistol hanging from his right hand. The Rose slipped from the other hand and fell to the floor with a dull thud. Kilroy had a blackened hole in the centre of his neck. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, as if he had something to say, but all that came out was a gurgling noise as blood rushed forth. He collapsed onto the dusty floor.

‘Fucking… lying… BITCH!’ Janssen tried to get up, but his hand slid in the puddle of blood trickling from the wound in his chest. She’d aimed to wing him, but he’d moved the wrong way at the last second. Missed his heart, punctured his lung. Not fatal. Not yet.

‘Give it up, Janssen,’ she said. She imagined her father shaking his head.

Janssen coughed, the silver Magnum still in his right hand as he tried to prop himself up on the other arm so he could take aim.

Sammy picked up the Rose, inspected it for damage, and waved his Glock in Janssen’s direction. ‘Finish him.’

Janssen’s body shook. He muttered something she didn’t catch, then suddenly flung out his arm. He fired. The bullet ricocheted off the wall behind Nadia’s right shoulder. The sound clanged in her ears. She took another deep breath, let it out slowly, firmed her firing arm and rooted her feet on the floor. But her trigger finger wouldn’t move.

‘Finish him!’ Sammy shouted.

Janssen half-choked, half-coughed, as blood from his mouth drooled onto the concrete.

‘Doesn’t have it in her, Sammy-boy. Crack shot, can’t kill. Just another pussy.’

He took aim, steadier this time. Nadia’s heart pounded, and she lost control of her breathing. She felt as if all the blood had drained out of her body. Her gun hand shook. Fuck! She couldn’t do it. And now Janssen was going to kill her. Her mother was going to win. Her eyes welled. Sorry, Katya.

Janssen leered. ‘You’re going to be my bitch in hell, Nadia, for all eter–’

Sammy fired.

The bullet cleaved Janssen’s forehead in two. Bloodied flesh, brain matter and shattered bone blossomed, then Janssen slumped forwards, quivered a few times, and stilled.

Nadia felt cold, unable to tear her eyes from Janssen’s corpse in its spreading red pool. She imagined his soul slipping from his body through the floor, down into the sea beneath them, falling through the Earth to the place where it belonged, where her dad would be waiting for him, and would beat the crap out of him for all eternity.

Sammy appeared in front of her, seized her shoulders. ‘Nad, listen to me. We have to split up. I need to get out of the country, explain this fuck-up to Kadinsky personally, but I’ll never get that through customs.’ He stared at the Rose. ‘It’s emitting a very faint signal. I’m not sure but I reckon the authorities might have a way of detecting it if they get close enough. You take it.’ He shook her. ‘Nad, are you listening to me?’

She was, though his voice was muffled by the ringing in her ears. She gazed past him to Janssen, then to the other two corpses. Her personal fast-track ticket to hell. Would her father be able to protect her from these three when she arrived? But she hadn’t actually killed them herself…

She barely registered the slap, then stared into Sammy’s eyes.

‘Again,’ she said.

Sammy obliged, striking her face harder the second time. She swallowed, took a couple of jagged breaths.

‘Get a grip, Nad, for Katya’s sake.’

Sammy was right. Her sister. Focus on the living. She pocketed the Beretta.

‘Tell me what to do.’

Sammy hauled open the trapdoor. A couple of metres below, the sea splashed against concrete pillars. The tang of sea water and seaweed helped clear her head.

Sammy searched Janssen’s corpse. ‘Your passport,’ he said, tossing it to her.

She caught it, but her fingers were numb. She watched as Sammy methodically wrapped chains around the three men’s legs and shoved them one by one into the water below. He siphoned most of the petrol from his Suzuki’s tank and scattered it around the inside of the warehouse. Then he rigged a crude fuse to set the place on fire half an hour after they’d left. He let the iron trapdoor fall back down with a loud clank. Like a metal coffin lid snapping shut.

‘Give me your gun,’ he said.

She took a step back, shook her head. The Beretta was all she had left from her father.

‘Okay, just don’t get caught with it. At least one of the bullets in Janssen’s corpse will match. Lie low for a week,’ he advised. ‘You’ll never get that device through customs, X-ray machines everywhere. I’ll get word back to Kadinsky. He’ll extract you.’