Seventh (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Dimitrova was accelerating along 25A. Her Hi-Fi was off. The sheer enjoyment she received from listening to the car was music enough.

  Second, third…back off, trail brake…exit…third, fourth: the car was a revelation, and she was absorbing every minute detail, every sound, every vibration and every contact with the road.

  Despite Cade’s warnings, she pushed the car a little harder, and checking her rear-view mirror she could see she was alone. The road ahead was clear and not a highway patrol officer in sight.

  If she was stopped, she had a number of methods of distraction that had never failed. Men were weak, the world over.

  Her right foot depressed the accelerator, and the Cayman dug its heels into the tarmac before aggressively catapulting her forward.

  She even started calling out the speed as it rapidly increased.

  “80 – 90 – 100 – 110 – 120 – come on Cayman, faster girl!”

  At the rate she was eating up the miles she would soon be through the gorge and out onto the Hauraki Plain and in an hour, with limited traffic, she should be sitting in the airline offices of Cathay Pacific.

  She further calculated that four hours after that she could be sipping pinot noir in Cade’s bedroom, wearing nothing but Chanel No. 5 and a smile.

  She deftly reduced her speed as she banked around the sweeping left hander. Again the road was clear. An open road with a car to match; every girl’s dream, at least it was one of Elena Dimitrova’s.

  She suddenly became aware of her cell phone vibrating. Looking down for a moment into the passenger seat, she could see it was a familiar caller. She smiled – she would tease him by making him wait.

  Cade sat in a layby dialling and redialling. As his phone tried to connect, he recalled the Galaxy that he had seized from Red Golf.

  He recovered it. His thumb quickly slid across the screen before heading to the voicemail section.

  “For messages, press one…”

  He pressed One and waited, apprehensive but fascinated about what he might learn about the man who had tried to kill him and more importantly, why.

  Was it even him they were after? Had he just been, ironically, in the wrong place at the wrong time?

  The message initiated.

  “Marko, it is me, salut. I trust all is well with your business? We are about to execute our delivery at this end. I have assured Jackdaw that you have closed the road and dealt with the obstruction. It has been a pleasure, my brother. See you at home.”

  Cade listened intently, running the words around in his head, like a recipe that was missing an ingredient.

  A growing sense of nausea filled his stomach, and then a chilling realisation.

  “Shit, they are going for both of us. The Wraith. The bloody Wraith. Christ, Elena, answer your fucking phone girl. Now!”

  Cade started to sweat. A fine bead appeared on his top lip and he could taste the familiar tang of adrenaline upon his tongue. Whatever had happened here today was clearly for a reason, whether it was targeting him, her or a combination was an unknown. He’d been away from all of ‘this’ for a long time, so he quickly formed the opinion that his newfound love was the target. And now she was alone, vulnerable and in need of urgent help.

  He checked the messages. One was innocuous, the other two far more sinister.

  ‘Marko – Monday morning – close the road as we talked about. Make it look real. Deal with the traffic problems and remove any evidence.’

  ‘Marko. Your wages are in the bank. Bine facut.’

  The second message was clear and ended with ‘well done’.

  He was rapidly putting two and two together and coming up with…four.

  He pocketed the phone and started the TT and without checking his mirrors spun it around in the road. With a full throttle and a skilled driver, the Audi planted itself firmly onto the carriageway and tore back towards the State Highway.

  With his left hand, Cade kept hitting redial. He cursed for not setting up his hands free.

  Dimitrova looked down at her phone again. “My dear Mr Cade, you really want me! I will taste all the better tonight.”

  She turned the Hi-Fi on. Happy by Pharrell Williams was playing.

  In her stilted Bulgarian she sang along, after all she was and hadn’t been this happy for a very long time.

  Cade got to the main junction and hammered the TT out onto 25A almost over-correcting. He didn’t count the speed increments; his concentration was total, absolute and focused. The six-speed sequential gearbox propelled the little black car along the road as if it were its very last journey. The V6 screamed in protest but did exactly as its German engineers had designed it to do.

  “Come on, answer the fucking phone! Please. Dear God answer the bloody thing.”

  His request for celestial intervention was a rare one, but he meant it.

  Somehow he knew that even at maximum speed he would never catch her. She would be miles ahead now, but at least he could get close enough to talk on the phone and get her to pull over. What he would do then he hadn’t quite thought about – he’d do that when the time arose. If.

  Dimitrova stormed around the long, beautifully cambered road. At 120 she was going far too quickly, but the car and importantly the moment was just so right. She was even happier than a few moments before.

  She had just had a flashback – back onto the stainless steel worktops, the wooden decking, the thunderstorm and the incredible lovemaking in the rain with a man she had only just met and yet, honestly, and very much against all of her plans, a man she could easily spend the rest of her days with.

  A heat haze rose from the black carpet highway that stretched out in front of her. The jolly, almost nonsensical music filled her ears. Her phone’s unanswered vibrations continued, and she pushed on, her mind now divided between driving and the intense daydream pleasure being skilfully delivered to her by her older lover.

  As the bend started to straighten she was immediately blinded by the rising sun, which had now announced its presence over the top of the ranges. She instinctively flicked the sun visor down and slowed – just a touch.

  The Cayman backfired – to the uninitiated it was a fault – to the skilled driver a sign that she had released the accelerator momentarily and as she had done so, the engine ran rich causing fumes to explode in the exhaust system resulting in the familiar refrain of a rally car – an audible, clacking, staccato sound.

  It was enough to distract the Bulgarian redhead for two seconds, and that was all The Passenger needed. He’d planned this over and over again. It had to be delivered with the precision of a Swiss watch. To the second.

  “Now!”

  The Wraith exited Valley Road straight into the path of the German sports car and then it simply stopped. It was a calculated move, and not without huge risk to both sets of occupants. The way The Passenger saw it, had enthused about it, it was them, or her, and he knew who would win.

  His most calculated risks were never that in his eyes. Calculated, yes, but rewarding, always.

  Dimitrova looked up to see the Wraith. For her it wasn’t about familiarity, more a case of instant, gut-wrenching survival. Everything she had ever learned about the art of driving happened in the next eight seconds.

  One: she braked. Two: she began to decelerate. Three: she looked for an escape route. Four: she started to steer to the left. Five: she made contact with the gravel at the side of the road. Six: she over-corrected.

  Seven: she closed her eyes.

  Eight: she listened; listened to her life unravelling in hundredths of a second bursts.

  First, all sound stopped, then it started again, quicker this time and more aggressively. Her tyres scrabbled, fought and battled with the changing surface, in doing so letting out a cacophonous racket, like the Gates of Hell had just opened after ten thousand years.

  The engine, that beautiful, balanced incredible engine, roared disapproval as the gearbox changed down, bang, bang, bang: and then her own sounds; an
ger, fear and aggression, all at once, all in a terrifying split second.

  To the onlooker this was an accident, the Wraith merely entering onto the road, careless at best; the Cayman, travelling far too quickly. The poor driver of the Wraith didn’t stand a chance, the driver of the Porsche, even less. This was the plan. This was the brutally simple highway execution of the Bulgarian: Elena Dimitrova’s last defiant act.

  Inside the Porsche almost all sound had stopped. The car had over corrected, or rather Elena had over corrected, everything she had ever learned, practised and re-practised had gone. As the front nearside wheel had dug defiantly into the gravel the weight and sheer momentum had caused it to lurch, pitch forward and become airborne.

  It remained upside down for only moments, long enough for her beautiful auburn hair to allow gravity to play its part. Instinctively she hung onto the steering wheel, as if by chance it would make the slightest difference. Her knuckles whitened, her pure white teeth ground together, her jaw muscles locked. Her screams never came.

  The Cayman’s roof landed onto the carriageway. The noise was horrific, like nothing she had ever heard. The sheer roar of pristine metal on the road surface was beyond description – The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had visited.

  War, famine, pestilence and death; they stood with her on that lonely highway and encouraged her to join them, slowly, deliberately beckoning her.

  Perversely when the journey appeared to be over, she found herself relaxing, almost accepting her fate. At that very instant the driver’s side struck a colossal rock, crushing the cockpit and its simply beautiful occupant. She heard no more, felt no more, cared, no more.

  The Cayman was now on its side, Dimitrova’s pristine head lay on the road surface, the driver’s window long destroyed. Blood started to ebb from an unseen wound as she began her unwilling journey into another life.

  Drops of scarlet trickled onto the tarmac and mixed with myriad cubes of the blue-green remnants of a previously pristine windscreen.

  All that could be detected of life was the smell of blood which mixed rapidly with an assorted cocktail of vehicle fluids to create a heady concoction of man and machine.

  A small, almost imperceptible shape appeared on the road. A fantail, a native bird, pretty, with subtle colours and a mesmerising flight, flitted here and there before landing next to her.

  The local Maori considered the bird a harbinger of death when it entered their home, but here on this impressive day it was just a curious passerby, dancing from tree to tree, fern to fern and closer than any bird would normally dare to go. It was bold, brave and delicate and as such it was familiar with the girl that lay before it.

  The nosy bird became alert and flew away as a whisper quiet vehicle pulled up next to the Cayman. It landed on a nearby tree branch and watched, inquisitive but quickly uninterested. It soon darted off into the darker canopy of the forest seeking shelter and food.

  A pair of black, highly polished and very expensive shoes exited the vehicle, carrying their owner along the road until he reached the shattered remains of the car.

  He squatted down onto the highway and looked into the cockpit. He placed a probing index finger into a developing pool of blood, rubbed it between his fingers and raised it to his nose. The metallic smell had always fascinated him. He massaged his fingers together until the fluid became a dry mixture; minute pieces of it dropping onto the road.

  He positioned his two fingers onto the wrist of the dying female, checked for a pulse and looking down at the scene, nodded gently, and then smiled. He looked up at the intense sun and for the first time removed his sunglasses. He was heterochromic. One of his irises was brown, the other hazel. It was a rare condition, but one that made him very distinctive.

  The male fumbled around inside the cockpit of the Porsche, careful not to damage the sleeve of his much-cherished suit and conscious of the pain that visited him, a legacy of a past injury. His hand settled on a small brown bag, not dissimilar to a laptop bag. He pulled at the strap and released it from the wreckage.

  Elena Dimitrova fought her greatest battle; to remain calm, quiet and for all intents and purposes, dead. However, she observed everything through the opaque veil of her auburn eyelashes.

  As the anonymous hand brushed by her face, she opened her right eye a fraction. The last thing she saw before she slipped into unconsciousness was an indigo blue tattoo. The tattoo was simple, beautiful and memorable.

  The tattoo’s owner stood, brushed down his suit, as he did so cutting the palm of his hand on a minute sliver of glass. He wrapped a handkerchief around it and walked briskly back to the Wraith. He turned, took one last look and got in. The door shut with a reassuring clunk. The Passenger looked at the driver and nodded.

  With cold-hearted, simple, cynical ease, the driver pulled up alongside the debris. He lowered the window and was about to flick his still-lit cigarette into the pool of fuel that had seeped onto the surrounding road and verge.

  “No! What are you, an idiot? We leave nothing behind, not even a cigarette butt. You call yourself trained? I should have you exterminated. Now do your job and drive, and don’t talk to me until we reach the motherland.”

  The driver was angry; he knew he could deal with this conceited fool but chose to leave that for another day. He accelerated until the Wraith disappeared from view, leaving her behind to take her last breath.

  In the illuminated ashtray, the Marlborough also faded and died.

  Inside the cockpit, The Passenger took a moment, staring in the tinted door mirror at the disarray behind him, and then made a call.

  “It is done.” It was the agreed term – cold, blunt and in no need of embellishment.

  He placed his phone back in his pocket, sank back into the glorious leather and fell asleep.

  Behind him the shaven-headed male leant across to the female and placed his hand underneath her dress exposing her breast. He felt it for a moment, marvelling at its shape and fine alabaster colour. She didn’t resist.

  “I wanted to see how excited you were. Your heart is there somewhere.” He smiled, considering himself further up the food chain than the female, and therefore able to have, or take, whatever he wanted to.

  “Well, now you have, remember where you fit in the greater scheme of things. Take your hand away before I call the Jackdaw. If he hears of your behaviour, he will cut it off and feed it to you, piece by piece.”

  Clearly the threat was something he considered her capable of carrying out, so he quickly retracted his hand. As he did so he revealed a mark on the inside of his wrist. He too had the tattoo.

  It was the same symbol that Elena Dimitrova saw before she tumbled into oblivion. She would remember it for what remained of the rest of her life.

  The Wraith was out of sight now, heading north, its occupants preparing to carry out their last act in the southern hemisphere.

  The curious Fantail landed once again, hopped across to the dying female and sat next to her, encouraging her into the next life. Its distinctive chirping failed to raise her from her darkest slumber, so once more the diminutive bird fled, back up into the relative safety of a Totara tree.

  Half a minute away a sleek black vehicle hurtled towards the scene, its six speed DSG gearbox changing down rapidly as it decelerated alarmingly, coming to a halt across the carriageway, its brakes ticking, screaming hot and glowing as red as the darkening scarlet pool only feet away.

  Cade opened the door of the Audi, clutching onto his phone. He ran the few short steps and dropped to his knees. He saw the worst possible image: the girl was lying motionless, her immaculate body now shattered, almost beyond recognition.

  Countless such experiences should have allowed him to go into overdrive – triage, action plans and decisions.

  Stop – Think – Plan.

  Casualty, Obstruction, Witness.

  Think, think, think! Do SOMETHING.

  He took a deep breath and lay down onto the road.

  He spoke qu
ietly at first, then raised his voice.

  “Elena, talk to me, please.”

  Nothing.

  “Elena, don’t move, I’ll get help, dear God, don’t die. Just…don’t.”

  It was possibly the most banal statement he’d ever made, but unusually he was lost for words.

  His phone rang.

  “Jack. It’s me. Sitrep. Now.”

  JD knew that he needed to kick start Cade’s muscle memory or he would never get the information he needed.

  “Erm, stand by John. Stand by. Just…stand by.”

  “Jack, focus my boy. What has happened? What do you need and where?”

  “John, she’s gone, dead. On State Highway…the car is beyond recognition. It’s hit a large rock, she’s bleeding heavily. It’s too late. It’s them John, I know it is. It’s them. They’ve got her, and I let them. I let those evil bastards kill this beautiful person…” he drifted off.

  “Jack, for Christ’s sake, stay focused. You could be in danger here too. Think back. You know you need to move. Is she alive?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t, she just looks dead. John I’ve seen enough…”

  JD cut him off, “Forget that, check her signs, Jack. Do it. Now.”

  Cade leant into the cockpit, brushing windscreen glass from her face; the whole interior stank of black powder – the result of multiple airbags firing in unison.

  He placed his index and second finger onto her throat. Nothing. He quickly found her wrist and repeated the action.

  “JD, I’ve got a pulse!”

  “Right, good, talk to her, tell her that we are sending help.”

  Cade put the phone on the tarmac road surface and lost the signal to his friend and former manager.

  “Elena, don’t leave me girl, I need you far too much. Think of the times we have had together, think how many more we are going to have. Breath slowly, help will be here. JD is sorting it out.”

  He was. He’d already started to dial on another cell phone. He knew the correct language and elevated things rapidly.

  An air ambulance was needed, yes there was plenty of room on the carriageway, yes the local police would be there to assist; yes, yes, yes.