The execution of the rest, however? Poor. One out of ten, two if I was feeling generous.
“The Sacker family’s mega-rich. I’m sending a picture,” Mack told us. I shielded the glow from my phone screen as a photo of two Barbie dolls popped up. “Artemis is eighteen years old, and Isolde’s fifteen. The girls’ father is the CEO of Bio-D Pharmaceuticals and, by all accounts, a bit of a slimeball. If Martin Shkreli is Pharma Bro, then David Sacker’s his daddy.”
When Mack said that, I realised I knew the man already.
“David Sacker? I’ve met him.”
Once upon a time, he’d hit up my husband to invest in one of his projects. But despite being an assassin, Black still had some morals. For him to invest in a biotech company, it had to adhere to a set of principles, which meant treating staff like shit and price-gouging were both big no-nos. Bio-D met absolutely none of his criteria. Plus Sacker referred to me as “your little lady,” so Black had told him to fuck off, albeit slightly more politely than that.
“Are the stories true?” Mack asked.
“Is it wrong to be rooting for the kidnappers?”
A faint glow from the tunnel ahead let me see the track properly for the first time. Emergency lighting from the platform? I suspected so, and that meant I was getting close.
“Almost there,” Ana whispered.
A few moments passed, and then Dan spoke, her words so quiet they were barely audible. “I got right up to the platform. Jeffrey’s getting agitated, I think because he can’t raise Kelbyn.”
“Any sign of contestant number three?” I asked.
“Not yet. The door of the booth is open a crack, and there’s dim light inside, but no movement.”
“I’m not far away. When I get there, let’s—”
“Uh-oh.”
What was the problem? I strained my ears and heard a man’s voice in the background. “…go and find him.”
“The good news is that Robinson’s left the booth,” Ana told me.
The bad news? He’d presumably gone down the passageway and was heading right for Dan. Fuck it. I abandoned my chimp-like traverse of the roller-coaster track and ran across the rungs instead. Either I’d get there faster or I’d break my ankle.
Wish me luck.
The sounds of a scuffle came over the radio as I burst onto the platform. Jeffrey Monteith was striding towards the passage, and I sprinted in his direction. Too late, he heard me coming, and as I rugby-tackled him, Ana grabbed the gun out of his hand, popped the magazine, and sent both parts skidding across onto the track. They dropped down the side of the train with a metallic clatter.
Jeffrey wriggled like a demented caterpillar, but with me sitting on his legs and Ana hanging onto his arms, he couldn’t do much more than yell. Then Ana stuffed a ball gag into his mouth—a fucking ball gag—and he shut up.
“Okay?” she asked.
“Yup.”
A moment later, she was gone, looking into the control booth in case Kelbyn had lied about the number of assholes.
“Clear.”
“Check the other corridor? The one that goes to the front entrance?”
“Da.”
I glanced briefly at the train and saw a few dropped jaws. “Everybody stay quiet, got it?”
Where was Dan? Back in the day, we’d gleefully waded into bar brawls every other weekend, so I knew she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, but she didn’t get into so many fights nowadays. Car crashes, sure, but not punch-ups.
Still, I needn’t have worried. Twenty seconds later, she marched Neil Robinson out of the tunnel with his hands cuffed behind his back, his own gun held to his head, and a vinyl sticker advertising Ethan’s latest album slapped over his mouth.
Three down. Perfect. I’d brought duct tape from the car, so all we had to do was secure the prisoners, collect Trick and Vine, and then go home. If I drove fast enough, I could fit in a session on the firing range before dinner. Happy days.
“Pink, give Lili a minute to check the rest of the building, then bring Kelbyn to the platform.”
Pink was one of Carmen’s designated nicknames, and Lili was one of Ana’s. We still had scarves over our faces, and I didn’t want to identify ourselves. Why? Because there were plenty of other witnesses to the crime, and I had far better things to do with my time than sit for a police interview. We’d done our part. The hostages were safe if a little tearful, even Artemis and Isolde. I recognised them from the picture Mack had sent me. I very much suspected their next make-up tutorial would be on waterproof mascara.
Vine was sitting at the back, as Race had said, and yes, Trick was next to Isolde. Did he seriously like her? Trick had cleaned up well under Ethan’s influence, but he still didn’t strike me as the type who’d hook up with a Barbie doll. Artemis was sitting next to a guy as well. A boyfriend? Judging by the way she gripped his hand, the answer was in the affirmative. He was the oldest of the hostages, in his early twenties at a guess. The rest were teenagers.
Our next challenge would be getting Trick and Vine off the train. Presumably there was a button or a lever in the control booth, but could we release two people without setting the rest free as well? I didn’t want seventeen former captives running around the sphere in the dark, and the police wouldn’t appreciate having to round them up in the park later either. The monkeys and the capybaras were causing quite enough problems as it was.
Ana reappeared, and
