Out of Sight Out of Mind (5 page)

Madison pushed herself away from the table, heart beating fast. ‘We should be at the lab. There are procedures, protocols—’

He laughed. ‘If I’d been awake and sensible last night you’d have tried then.’

‘Well—’ How could she deny it?

‘Do it.’ He held his hand out to her, palm upwards. After a brief hesitation she laid her hand on top and shut her eyes, concentrating.

Remembering the discomfort she’d caused him the previous night, she moved cautiously, even though this time he was expecting her. She honed a narrow, tentative probe, meeting the initial resistance as unthreateningly as she knew how. His hand tightened on hers. She poised herself to pull away if he showed any sign of distress. She wanted to get this right.

‘Go on.’ His voice, low and harsh, startled her. The idea that he could feel her was so alien. ‘Push harder.’

She did, and felt his instant recoil. She wavered, momentarily uncertain. Then moved on, slowly.

Suddenly, like a door being opened, the resistance vanished. The change was so abrupt, she almost fell into him. There was a nauseous, vertiginous rush, whether from his mind or hers she couldn’t distinguish.

Then everything stilled.

The clarity of the connection astonished her.

The analytical part of her mind held back, detached. With infinite care, she put out exploratory feelers.

Sensations and emotions came rushing towards her.

Pain from the damaged shoulder and behind it a deep, complex anguish, like a pool of darkness, that had her struggling, momentarily, for breath.

Then they were swarming past her, almost too fast to distinguish. Anger, bone-deep exhaustion, only partially relieved by one night’s sleep, a thread of fear, tasting of broken glass. Desolation, kept under tight restraint. Frustration and confusion, chasing each other in an endless wheel.

He was stripping himself bare, giving her everything, without sparing himself. It was blotting out her control, blinding, just too much. Alarmed, sucked in headlong, she began to pull back.

Jay’s hand clutched hers tighter, holding on as if she were a lifeline. She could feel him breathing, trying to calm the chaos. She let herself follow, inhaling air, making everything slow. Gradually the maelstrom receded.

Gathering herself together, she started back in, easing softly past the whirlpools. It was quieter here. With relief she recognised strength and resilience and a beleaguered courage that made her want to weep. Garnering power, she moved on, pushing to the centre.

It was like banging her head against sheet metal.

The core, where the history of the man lay, was wrapped tighter than a guarded fortress.

‘You can feel it.’
Jay’s voice was inside her head.

Astonishment rocked through her for a second. Steadying herself and stepping up the pressure, she pushed harder. The reverberations shook them both. She felt the shock through her body and the grip on her hand.

Regrouping, she tried something more subtle. Again, nothing. It was like a barrier of steel, smooth and solid. A barrier she’d never met before. She feinted, tried to sidestep, to slide in or around. Without success. She could feel the agitation building in Jay, ruthlessly controlled. But he wasn’t strong enough yet. He couldn’t take much more.

She had to end it.

Reluctantly she moved back, drawing on her reserves to soothe the raw edges of emotions that brushed against her as she disengaged. Her head was spinning. The table seemed to be moving.

‘Are you okay?’ Jay’s eyes were on her, his hand still in hers. He looked dazed, as if he’d been punched. For a moment they clung together. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think. His eyes were the only thing stopping her from reeling into the walls. When finally she nodded, he let her go.

‘Thanks.’ His voice was jagged. ‘I felt what you did as you were coming out. It helped.’

‘Uh.’ She waved her hand, then put it to her forehead. Something throbbed briefly, then stopped. ‘I don’t get this. Normally subjects don’t feel anything. You spoke to me in there!’

‘I’m not normal.’ He gave a bitter bark of laughter. ‘You know what I mean now. The thing like a wall.’

‘It’s there.’ She nodded, mouth grim. ‘It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I shook you up, pushing like that. I’m sorry.’

‘If you can get through, I can put up with anything.’ He was studying the table, tracing a pattern with one finger. Madison sat motionless. She didn’t have to be in his head to know he was struggling with what he wanted to say. ‘I know we have a deal, and I have no right to ask this—’ He swallowed. ‘You’re the first chance I’ve had … the first possibility … Will you … Can you help me?’

Something twisted inside her. He was big and powerful and lost.

‘Yes.’ She gave his hand, still on the table, a small shake. ‘Did you really think I’d say no? You,’ she pointed her finger, ‘are the most interesting thing I have come across in the whole of my professional career. You will
not
get away from me. I will help. Whether I
can
is another matter. We can only try.’

He was smiling. He had the kind of smile that could get a woman into deep, serious trouble. When he’d had the beard, she’d been safe. Madison dredged up every atom in her body that was scientist, not woman.

‘That’s good enough,’ he confirmed.

‘It’s going to be exhausting and uncomfortable.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ He brushed that aside. ‘You want to renegotiate our deal?’

‘Renegotiate? How?’

‘I let you take me apart, do whatever experiments you want on me – you try and get my memory back.’

‘Getting your memory back would be the biggest experiment I’d ever want to do.’ She grabbed his hands, still fidgeting on the table. ‘There are things we can try and if none of them work, we’ll think up more. I’ll go on the Internet this morning to see what I can find. I
want
to do this. You do not have to make bargains.’

‘Does that mean I still get my hundred pounds, then?’ The grin was evil, but she saw the relief and excitement under it. It lit something inside her. She chose to ignore the flicker of danger
. Professional enthusiasm, that’s all.

‘Huh! Memory or not, you are a devious, scheming opportunist. You ambushed me last night. You knew I didn’t have any option but to pay up if I wanted to keep you,’ she accused.

‘I simply worked with what was there. I think it’s called negotiation. I wasn’t asking to stay. You were the one who offered me money.’ He paused, frowning. ‘If your porter had put me back on the street—’

‘—I might never have seen you again.’ The desolation that swept over her made her tighten her grip on his hands. She saw his reaction of surprise. ‘Sorry.’ She let go.
Shouldn’t be doing that. Physical contact with the subject to be kept to
absolute minimum. Strictly a need-to-touch basi
s. She crunched down on a peculiar feeling, low in her belly.

He was frowning. ‘Actually, I’m not sure about that. It … it’s kind of hazy, like a lot of stuff …’ She saw exasperation flare in his eyes. ‘I don’t know if I would have gone far. For the last couple of days I’ve felt as if something was drawing me here, to this part of the city. That I knew I had to find … something. Does that sound as weird to you as it does to me?’

‘Not necessarily.’ She breathed. ‘Maybe you have connections here – or you might have heard the men from one of the homeless hostels talking about working for the lab.’

‘Maybe.’ He considered the idea. ‘Probably. Why else? I don’t remember it, but that’s not exactly a surprise. Yeah, else why now? Why not when I first woke up?’ His shoulders sagged.

Madison sat looking at him uncertainly, watching the way he went into himself, containing the misery. Unbelievable courage. Should she—

She got up abruptly and began clearing the table, not quite sure why she wasn’t going to tell him that she’d only arrived back home two days ago, after three months in Washington, DC.

The tower block was huge, dwarfing most of the surrounding buildings. Faceless glass and metal, it could have been part of the skyline anywhere in the world – New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong. The lower floors housed the kind of outfits that anyone would expect to find in the City of London – brokers, insurance houses, legal firms.

The top floor was different.

The directory of the building’s occupants, which covered one wall of the sleek, minimalist foyer, many floors below, contained no listing for these offices. The Organisation liked to preserve its anonymity – it owned the building, although its ownership was not acknowledged in any official documents. The Organisation, a collection of nominally autonomous local cells, without even an official name, existed for one purpose only – to make money. The people at the very top were shadows: men, and a few women, who walked the corridors of power on five continents, sustained by profit and vast influence, never acknowledging responsibility or blame, protected by violence as stealthy as it was ruthless. No one crossed the Organisation and lived. That was the legend. But if you worked for them that didn’t matter. The Organisation made money. Unbelievable amounts of money. In unbelievable ways.

Alec Calver strode along the wide, silent corridor. He stopped when he reached the door at the end, straightened his tie, looked up into the overhead camera and knocked.

The intercom panel beside the door crackled.

‘In.’

As the door closed behind him, Calver took a moment to adjust. After the subdued illumination of the corridor, this office was flooded with light. Only high-flying birds and the occasional plane ever overlooked it.

‘Alec.’ The man behind the desk gestured to a chair. ‘Sit.’

Calver didn’t let his impatience show. Let the guy have his power trip. He placed the file he held in the centre of an otherwise empty desk.

‘Madison Albi?’

‘Subject B,’ Calver corrected. He took the chair indicated, hitching the knees of his impeccably pressed trousers. In contrast, the man behind the desk looked like an unmade bed. The expensive suit was rumpled, tie askew. The top button of his shirt strained under the pressure of a neck the thickness of a young tree. A fuzz of coarse hair was visible over the button. The hair extended, too, at the cuffs of his shirt, down over the backs of the broad hands. The CEO resembled nothing so much as a large ape. The mind inside the ape was as sharp and unyielding as a steel trap.

‘Developments?’ He prodded the file.

Calver nodded, without speaking.

‘Good.’ The CEO moved restlessly. ‘I still think we should have bugged the woman’s apartment, and the laboratory.’

‘It’s still a possibility,’ Calver conceded. ‘But bugs need someone to monitor them – which means bringing in more operatives, simply to listen to her taking a shower, or feeding the cat.’

The ape behind the desk gave a strangled noise that passed for a laugh. ‘The shower sounds enticing. I will pass on the cat.’

‘Which is a good thing, as she doesn’t have one.’ Calver let a small smile through.

‘A beautiful woman.’ The CEO leaned back in his chair. ‘A superlative body, housing a gifted and inventive mind. Does she bring these talents to her sexual encounters, do you suppose?’

‘I wouldn’t care to speculate – sir.’ Calver kept his eyes down to hide the glint. ‘She is known to be fastidious in her choices. There’s been nothing of that nature since the death of her fiancé, nearly two years ago.’

‘No?’ The CEO breathed out the word, considering. ‘An excellent move on our part, then. She sees men socially?’

‘Yes, but mostly colleagues and no one in particular. Her most frequent escort is Jonathan Ellis.’

‘The faggot from the lab?’

Calver looked at the view. ‘They go to the theatre together.’

‘She’ll be ripe, then, to put someone new in her bed. So – is subject A going to get lucky?’

‘It’s to be hoped so.’

‘Anything we can do, to help it along?’

‘No.’ Calver shook his head, eyes hooded. ‘But there’s every chance. Propinquity is a great aphrodisiac.’

‘Hmm.’ The other man ran a finger over the file. ‘You have a tail on them?’

‘Not yet.’

‘No bugs and no tail? How the fuck d’you expect to know what’s going on?’

‘It only needs the lightest of surveillance at present, sir. Trust me on this one. Anything more might attract attention. Remember who we’re dealing with. This way we have capacity to increase, should it become necessary.’

‘Plenty, as you seem to be doing fuck all at the moment.’

‘Everything is going according to plan, sir.’

‘You’re not watching and you’re not listening, but everything is going according to plan. Just dandy.’

‘It’s all in there.’ Calver nodded to the file.

‘Précis for me. How do we know the contact has been made?’

‘We know.’ There was satisfaction in Calver’s voice. ‘This morning Madison Albi began to trawl the Internet for information on amnesia.’

When Calver had gone, the CEO rifled through the file, grunting in approval, before dropping it into the drawer of the desk and locking it. The information was presented in the most guarded terms. In the unlikely event of anyone but himself or Calver reading it, almost all they would get would be that subject A was male, subject B female. There was nothing on the page about the scope of the project, or the untold billions of pounds, dollars, euros and yen that it was expected to generate.

On the other side of the building Alec Calver entered an empty room. Passing through it, he shoved open a door, kicking it shut behind him. One hand loosened his tie; the other patted over his pockets.

‘Sod it!’

‘Here.’ The shaven-headed giant, lounging in front of a computer screen, tossed over a pack of cigarettes. Calver caught it and extracted one, pocketing the remainder with a swift glance upward to the smoke sensor above him. The complex wiring, designed to keep the building smoke-free, had been carefully dismantled and rerouted away from this room.

The man at the computer clicked his fingers. ‘Packet.’

‘What?’

‘I want the packet back, you thieving bastard.’

‘Oh.’ Alec dug it out and handed it over. ‘Sorry, Vic. Mind on other things.’